Speaker for the dead ew-2

by Orson Scott Card

  Still, Miro responded as Libo had always responded. “We have nothing but honor and affection for Rooter, if you honor him.”

  “We must have metal.”

  Miro closed his eyes. So much for the Zenadors' longstanding policy of never using metal tools in front of the piggies. Obviously, the piggies had observers of their own, watching humans at work from some vantage point near the fence. “What do you need metal for?” he asked quietly.

  “When the shuttle came down with the Speaker for the Dead, it gave off a terrible heat, hotter than any fire we can make. And yet the shuttle didn't burn, and it didn't melt.”

  "That wasn't the metal, it was a heat-absorbent plastic shield. "

  "Perhaps that helps, but metal is in the heart of that machine. In all your machines, wherever you use fire and heat to make things move, there is metal. We will never be able to make fires like yours until we have metal of our own. "

  “I can't,” said Miro.

  “Do you tell us that we are condemned always to be varelse, and never ramen?”

  I wish, Ouanda, that you had not explained Demosthenes' Hierarchy of Exclusion to them. “You are not condemned to anything. What we have given you so far, we have made out of things that grow in your natural world, like cabras. Even that, if we were discovered, would cause us to be exiled from this world, forbidden ever to see you again.”

  “The metal you humans use also comes out of our natural world. We've seen your miners digging it out of the ground far to the south of here.”

  Miro stored that bit of information for future reference. There was no vantage point outside the fence where the mines would be visible. Therefore the piggies must be crossing the fence somehow and observing humans from within the enclave. “It comes out of the ground, but only in certain places, which I don't know how to find. And even when they dig it up, it's mixed with other kinds of rock. They have to purify it and transform it in very difficult processes. Every speck of metal dug out of the ground is accounted for. If we gave you so much as a single tool– a screwdriver or a masonry saw– it would be missed, it would be searched for. No one searches for cabra milk.”

  Arrow looked at him steadily for some time; Miro met his gaze. “We will think about this,” Arrow said. He reached out his hand toward Calendar, who put three arrows in his hand. “Look. Are these good?”

  They were as perfect as Arrow's fletchery usually was, well-feathered and true. The innovation was in the tip. It was not made of obsidian.

  “Cabra bone,” said Miro.

  “We use the cabra to kill the cabra.” He handed the arrows back to Calendar. Then he got up and walked away.

  Calendar held the slender wooden arrows out in front of him and sang something to them in Fathers' Language. Miro recognized the song, though he did not understand the words. Mandachuva had once explained to him that it was a prayer, asking the dead tree to forgive them for using tools that were not made of wood. Otherwise, he said, the trees would think the Little Ones hated them. Religion. Miro sighed.

  Calendar carried the arrows away. Then the young piggy named Human took his place, squatting on the ground in front of Miro. He was carrying a leaf-wrapped bundle, which he laid on the dirt and opened carefully.

  It was the printout of the Hive Queen and the Hegemon that Miro had given them four years ago. It had been part of a minor quarrel between Miro and Ouanda. Ouanda began it, in a conversation with the piggies about religion. It was not really her fault. It began with Mandachuva asking her, “How can you humans live without trees?”

  She understood the question, of course– he was not speaking of woody plants, but of gods.

  “We have a God, too– a man who died and yet still lived,” she explained. Just one? Then where does he live now? “No one knows.” Then what good is he? How can you talk to him? “He dwells in our hearts.”

  They were baffled by this; Libo would later laugh and say, “You see? To them our sophisticated theology sounds like superstition. Dwells in our hearts indeed! What kind of religion is that, compared to one with gods you can see and feel–”

  “And climb and pick macios from, not to mention the fact that they cut some of them down to make their log house,” said Ouanda.

  “Cut? Cut them down? Without stone or metal tools? No, Ouanda, they pray them down.” But Ouanda was not amused by jokes about religion.

  At the piggies' request Ouanda later brought them a printout of the Gospel of St. John from the simplified Stark paraphrase of the Douai Bible. But Miro had insisted on giving them, along with it, a printout of the Hive Queen and the Hegemon. “St. John says nothing about beings who live on other worlds,” Miro pointed out. “But the Speaker for the Dead explains buggers to humans– and humans to buggers.” Ouanda had been outraged at his blasphemy. But not a year later they found the piggies lighting fires using pages of St. John as kindling, while the Hive Queen and the Hegemon was tenderly wrapped in leaves. It caused Ouanda a great deal of grief for a while, and Miro learned that it was wiser not to goad her about it.

  Now Human opened the printout to the last page. Miro noticed that from the moment he opened the book, all the piggies quietly gathered around. The butter-churning dance ended. Human touched the last words of the printout. “The Speaker for the Dead,” he murmured.

  “Yes, I met him last night.”

  “He is the true Speaker. Rooter says so.” Miro had warned them that there were many Speakers, and the writer of the Hive Queen and the Hegemon was surely dead. Apparently they still couldn't get rid of the hope that the one who had come here was the real one, who had written the holy book.

  “I believe he's a good Speaker,” said Miro. “He was kind to my family, and I think he might be trusted.”

  “When will he come and Speak to us?”

  “I didn't ask him yet. It's not something that I can say right out. It will take time.”

  Human tipped his head back and howled.

  Is this my death? thought Miro.

  No. The others touched Human gently and then helped him wrap the printout again and carry it away. Miro stood up to leave. None of the piggies watched him go. Without being ostentatious about it, they were all busy doing something. He might as well have been invisible.

  Ouanda caught up with him just within the forest's edge, where the underbrush made them invisible to any possible observers from Milagre– though no one ever bothered to look toward the forest. “Miro,” she called softly. He turned just in time to take her in his arms; she had such momentum that he had to stagger backward to keep from falling down. “Are you trying to kill me?” he asked, or tried to– she kept kissing him, which made it difficult to speak in complete sentences. Finally he gave up on speech and kissed her back, once, long and deep. Then she abruptly pulled away.

  “You're getting libidinous,” she said.

  “It happens whenever women attack me and kiss me in the forest.”

  "Cool your shorts, Miro, it's still a long way off. " She took him by the belt, pulled him close, kissed him again. "Two more years until we can marry without your mother's consent."

  Miro did not even try to argue. He did not care much about the priestly proscription of fornication, but he did understand how vital it was in a fragile community like Milagre for marriage customs to be strictly adhered to. Large and stable communities could absorb a reasonable amount of unsanctioned coupling; Milagre was far too small. What Ouanda did from faith, Miro did from rational thought– despite a thousand opportunities, they were as celibate as monks. Though if Miro thought for one moment that they would ever have to live the same vows of chastity in marriage that were required in the Filhos' monastery, Ouanda's virginity would be in grave and immediate danger.

  “This Speaker,” said Ouanda. “You know how I feel about bringing him out here.”

  “That's your Catholicism speaking, not rational inquiry.” He tried to kiss her, but she lowered her face at the last moment and he got a mouthful of nose. He kissed it passionately
until she laughed and pushed him away.

  “You are messy and offensive, Miro.” She wiped her nose on her sleeve. “We already shot the scientific method all to hell when we started helping them raise their standard of living. We have ten or twenty years before the satellites start showing obvious results. By then maybe we'll have been able to make a permanent difference. But we've got no chance if we let a stranger in on the project. He'll tell somebody.”

  “Maybe he will and maybe he won't. I was a stranger once, you know.”

  “Strange, but never a stranger.”

  “You had to see him last night, Ouanda. With Grego first, and then when Quara woke up crying–”

  “Desperate, lonely children– what does that prove?”

  “And Ela. Laughing. And Olhado, actually taking part in the family.”

  “Quim?”

  “At least he stopped yelling for the infidel to go home.”

  “I'm glad for your family, Miro. I hope he can heal them permanently, I really do– I can see the difference in you, too, you're more hopeful than I've seen you in a long time. But don't bring him out here.”

  Miro chewed on the side of his cheek for a moment, then walked away. Ouanda ran after him, caught him by the arm. They were in the open, but Rooter's tree was between them and the gate. “Don't leave me like that!” she said fiercely. “Don't just walk away from me!”

  “I know you're right,” Miro said. “But I can't help how I feel. When he was in our house, it was like– it was as if Libo had come there.”

  “Father hated your mother, Miro, he would never have gone there.”

  “But if he had. In our house this Speaker was the way Libo always was in the Station. Do you see?”

  “Do you? He comes in and acts the way your father should have but never did, and every single one of you rolls over belly-up like a puppy dog.”

  The contempt on her face was infuriating. Miro wanted to hit her. Instead he walked over and slapped his hand against Rooter's tree. In only a quarter of a century it had grown to almost eighty centimeters in diameter, and the bark was rough and painful on his hand.

  She came up behind him. “I'm sorry, Miro, I didn't mean–”

  “You meant it, but it was stupid and selfish–”

  “Yes, it was, I–”

  “Just because my father was scum doesn't mean I go belly-up for the first nice man who pats my head–”

  Her hand stroked his hair, his shoulder, his waist. “I know, I know, I know–”

  «Because I know what a good man is– not just a father, a good man. I knew Libo, didn't I? And when I tell you that this Speaker, this Andrew Wiggin is like Libo, then you listen to me and don't dismiss it like the whimpering of a c o!»

  “I do listen. I want to meet him, Miro.”

  Miro surprised himself. He was crying. It was all part of what this Speaker could do, even when he wasn't present. He had loosened all the tight places in Miro's heart, and now Miro couldn't stop anything from coming out.

  “You're right, too,” said Miro softly, his voice distorted with emotion. “I saw him come in with his healing touch and I thought, If only he had been my father.” He turned to face Ouanda, not caring if she saw his eyes red and his face streaked with tears. “Just the way I used to say that every day when I went home from the Zenador's Station. If only Libo were my father, if only I were his son.”

  She smiled and held him; her hair took the tears from his face. “Ah, Miro, I'm glad he wasn't your father. Because then I'd be your sister, and I could never hope to have you for myself.”

  Chapter 10

  Children of the Mind

  Rule 1: All Children of the Mind of Christ must be married, or they may not be in the order; but they must be chaste.

  Question 1: Why is marriage necessary for anyone?

  Fools say, Why should we marry? Love is the only bond my lover and I need. To them I say, Marriage is not a covenant between a man and a woman; even the beasts cleave together and produce their young. Marriage is a covenant between a man and woman on the one side and their community on the other. To marry according to the law of the community is to become a full citizen; to refuse marriage is to be a stranger, a child, an outlaw, a slave, or a traitor. The one constant in every society of humankind is that only those who obey the laws, tabus, and customs of marriage are true adults.

  Question 2: Why then is celibacy ordained for priests and nuns?

  To separate them from the community. The priests and nuns are servants, not citizens. They minister to the Church, but they are not the Church. Mother Church is the bride, and Christ is the bridegroom; the priests and nuns are merely guests at the wedding, for they have rejected citizenship in the community of Christ in order to serve it.

  Question 3: Why then do the Children of the Mind of Christ marry? Do we not also serve the Church?

  We do not serve the Church, except as all women and men serve it through their marriages. The difference is that where they pass on their genes to the next generation, we pass on our knowledge; their legacy is found in the genetic molecules of generations to come, while we live on in their minds. Memories are the offspring of our marriages, and they are neither more or less worthy than the flesh-and-blood children conceived in sacramental love.

  – San Angelo, The Rule and Catechism of the Order of the Children of the Mind of Christ, 1511:11:11:1

  The Dean of the Cathedral carried the silence of dark chapels and massive, soaring walls wherever he went: When he entered the classroom, a heavy peace fell upon the students, and even their breathing was guarded as he noiselessly drifted to the front of the room.

  «Dom Crist o,» murmured the Dean. «The Bishop has need of consultation with you.»

  The students, most of them in their teens, were not so young that they didn't know of the strained relations between the hierarchy of the Church and the rather freewheeling monastics who ran most of the Catholic schools in the Hundred Worlds. Dom Crist o, besides being an excellent teacher of history, geology, archaeology, and anthropology, was also abbot of the monastery of the Filhos da Mente de Cristo– the Children of the Mind of Christ. His position made him the Bishop's primary rival for spiritual supremacy in Lusitania. In some ways he could even be considered the Bishop's superior; on most worlds there was only one abbot of the Filhos for each archbishop, while for each bishop there was a principal of a school system.

  But Dom Crist o, like all Filhos, made it a point to be completely deferent to the Church hierarchy. At the Bishop's summons he immediately switched off the lectern and dismissed the class without so much as completing the point under discussion. The students were not surprised; they knew he would do the same if any ordained priest had interrupted his class. It was, of course, immensely flattering to the priesthood to see how important they were in the eyes of the Filhos; but it also made it plain to them that any time they visited the school during teaching hours, classwork would be completely disrupted wherever they went. As a result, the priests rarely visited the school, and the Filhos, through extreme deference, maintained almost complete independence.

  Dom Crist o had a pretty good idea why the Bishop had summoned him. Dr. Navio was an indiscreet man, and rumors had been flying all morning about some dreadful threat by the Speaker for the Dead. It was hard for Dom Crist o to bear the groundless fears of the hierarchy whenever they were confronted with infidels and heretics. The Bishop would be in a fury, which meant that he would demand some action from somebody, even though the best course, as usual, was inaction, patience, cooperation. Besides, word had spread that this particular Speaker claimed to be the very one who Spoke the death of San Angelo. If that was the case, he was probably not an enemy at all, but a friend of the Church. Or at least a friend of the Filhos, which in Dom Crist o's mind amounted to the same thing.

  As he followed the silent Dean among the buildings of the faculdade and through the garden of the Cathedral, he cleared his heart of the anger and annoyance he felt. Over and over he
repeated his monastic name: Amai a Tudomundo Para Que Deus Vos Ame. Ye Must Love Everyone So That God Will Love You. He had chosen the name carefully when he and his fianc‚ joined the order, for he knew that his greatest weakness was anger and impatience with stupidity. Like all Filhos, he named himself with the invocation against his most potent sin. It was one of the ways they made themselves spiritually naked before the world. We will not clothe ourselves in hypocrisy, taught San Angelo. Christ will clothe us in virtue like the lilies of the field, but we will make no effort to appear virtuous ourselves. Dom Crist o felt his virtue wearing thin in places today; the cold wind of impatience might freeze him to the bone. So he silently chanted his name, thinking: Bishop Peregrino is a damned fool, but Amai a Tudomundo Para Que Deus Vos Ame.

  «Brother Amai,» said Bishop Peregrino. He never used the honorific Dom Crist o, even though cardinals had been known to give that much courtesy. «It was good of you to come.»

  Navio was already sitting in the softest chair, but Dom Crist o did not begrudge him that. Indolence had made Navio fat, and his fat now made him indolent; it was such a circular disease, feeding always on itself, and Dom Crist o was grateful not to be so afflicted. He chose for himself a tall stool with no back at all. It would keep his body from relaxing, and that would help his mind to stay alert.

  Navio almost at once launched into an account of his painful meeting with the Speaker for the Dead, complete with elaborate explanations of what the Speaker had threatened to do if noncooperation continued. “An inquisitor, if you can imagine that! An infidel daring to supplant the authority of Mother Church!” Oh, how the lay member gets the crusading spirit when Mother Church is threatened– but ask him to go to mass once a week, and the crusading spirit curls up and goes to sleep.

  Navio's words did have some effect: Bishop Peregrino grew more and more angry, his face getting a pinkish tinge under the deep brown of his skin. When Navio's recitation finally ended, Peregrino turned to Dom Crist o, his face a mask of fury, and said, «Now what do you say, Brother Amai!»