Xenocide ew-4

by Orson Scott Card

  Not “them.” Him. Ender. She was trying to stop needing him. And this silence, if she kept it up, would drive such a wedge between them that their marriage would never recover.

  If that happened, Ender didn't know what he would do. It had never occurred to him that his marriage might be threatened. He had not entered into it lightly; he intended to die married to Novinha, and all these years together had been filled with the joy that comes from utter confidence in another person. Now Novinha had lost that confidence in him. Only it wasn't right. He was still her husband, faithful to her as no other man, no other person in her life had ever been. He didn't deserve to lose her over a ridiculous misunderstanding. And if he let things go as Novinha seemed determined, however unconsciously, to make them happen, she would be utterly convinced that she could never depend on any other person. That would be tragic because it would be false.

  So Ender was already planning a confrontation of some kind with Novinha when Ela accidentally set it off.

  “Andrew.”

  Ela was standing in the doorway. If she had clapped hands outside, asking for admittance, Ender hadn't heard her. But then, she would hardly need to clap for entrance to her mother's house.

  “Novinha's in our room,” said Ender.

  “I came to talk to you,” said Ela.

  “I'm sorry, you can't have an advance on your allowance.”

  Ela laughed as she came to sit beside him, but the laughter died quickly. She was worried.

  “Quara,” she said.

  Ender sighed and smiled. Quara was born contrary, and nothing in her life had made her more compliant. Still, Ela had always been able to get along with her better than anyone.

  “It's not just the normal,” said Ela. “In fact, she's less trouble than usual. Not a quarrel.”

  “A dangerous sign?”

  “You know she's trying to communicate with the descolada.”

  “Molecular language.”

  “Well, what she's doing is dangerous, and it won't establish communication even if it succeeds. Especially if it succeeds, because then there's a good chance that we'll all be dead.”

  “What's she doing?”

  “She's been raiding my files– which isn't hard, because I didn't think I needed to block them off from a fellow xenobiologist. She's been constructing the inhibitors I've been trying to splice into plants– easy enough, because I've laid out exactly how it's done. Only instead of splicing it into anything, she's giving it directly to the descolada.”

  “What do you mean, giving it?”

  “Those are her messages. That's what she's sending them on their precious little message carriers. Now, whether those carriers are language or not isn't going to be settled by a non-experiment like that. But sentient or not, we know that the descolada is a hell of a good adapter– and she might well be helping them adapt to some of my best strategies for blocking them.”

  “Treason.”

  “Right. She's feeding our military secrets to the enemy.”

  “Have you talked to her about this?”

  “'Sta brincando. Claro que falei. Ela quase me matou.” You're joking– of course I talked to her. She nearly killed me.

  “Has she successfully trained any viruses?”

  “She's not even testing for that. It's like she's run to the window and hollered, 'They're coming to kill you!' She's not doing science, she's doing interspecies politics, only we don't know that the other side even has politics, we only know that with her help it might just kill us faster than we ever imagined.”

  “Nossa Senhora,” murmured Ender. “It's too dangerous. She can't play around with something like this.”

  “It may already be too late– I can't guess whether she's done damage or not.”

  “Then we've got to stop her.”

  “How, break her arms?”

  “I'll talk to her, but she's too old– or too young– to listen to reason. I'm afraid it'll end up with the Mayor, not with us.”

  Only when Novinha spoke did Ender realize that his wife had entered the room. “In other words, jail,” said Novinha. “You plan to have my daughter locked up. When were you going to inform me?”

  “Jail didn't occur to me,” said Ender. “I expected he'd shut off her access to–”

  “That isn't the Mayor's job,” said Novinha. “It's mine. I'm the head xenobiologist. Why didn't you come to me, Elanora? Why to him?”

  Ela sat there in silence, looking at her mother steadily. It was how she handled conflict with her mother, with passive resistance.

  “Quara's out of control, Novinha,” said Ender. “Telling secrets to the fathertrees was bad enough. Telling them to the descolada is insane.”

  “Es psicologista, agora?” Now you're a psychologist?

  “I'm not planning to lock her up.”

  “You're not planning anything,” said Novinha. “Not with my children.”

  “That's right,” said Ender. “I'm not planning to do anything with children. I do have a responsibility, however, to do something about an adult citizen of Milagre who is recklessly endangering the survival of every human being on this planet, and maybe every human being everywhere.”

  “And where did you get that noble responsibility, Andrew? Did God come down to the mountain and carve your license to rule people on tablets of stone?”

  “Fine,” said Ender. “What do you suggest?”

  “I suggest you stay out of business that doesn't concern you. And frankly, Andrew, that includes pretty much everything. You're not a xenobiologist. You're not a physicist. You're not a xenologer. In fact, you're not much of anything, are you, except a professional meddler in other people's lives.”

  Ela gasped. “Mother!”

  “The only thing that gives you any power anywhere is that damned jewel in your ear. She whispers secrets to you, she talks to you at night when you're in bed with your wife, and whenever she wants something, there you are in a meeting where you have no business, saying whatever it was she told you to say. You talk about Quara committing treason– as far as I can tell, you're the one who's betraying real people in favor of an overgrown piece of software!”

  “Novinha,” said Ender. It was supposed to be the beginning of an attempt to calm her.

  But she wasn't interested in dialogue. “Don't you dare to try to deal with me, Andrew. All these years I thought you loved me–”

  “I do.”

  “I thought you had really become one of us, part of our lives-”

  “I am.”

  “I thought it was real–”

  “It is.”

  “But you're just what Bishop Peregrino warned us you were from the start. A manipulator. A controller. Your brother once ruled all of humanity, isn't that the story? But you aren't so ambitious. You'll settle for a little planet.”

  “In the name of God, Mother, have you lost your mind? Don't you know this man?”

  “I thought I did!” Novinha was weeping now. “But no one who loved me would ever let my son go out and face those murderous little swine–”

  “He couldn't have stopped Quim, Mother! Nobody could!”

  “He didn't even try. He approved!”

  “Yes,” said Ender. “I thought your son was acting nobly and bravely, and I approved of that. He knew that while the danger wasn't great, it was real, and yet he still chose to go– and I approved of that. It's exactly what you would have done, and I hope that it's what I would do in the same place. Quim is a man, a good man, maybe a great one. He doesn't need your protection and he doesn't want it. He has decided what his life's work is and he's doing it. I honor him for that, and so should you. How dare you suggest that either of us should have stood in his way!”

  Novinha was silent at last, for the moment, anyway. Was she measuring Ender's words? Was she finally realizing how futile and, yes, cruel it was for her to send Quim away with her anger instead of her hope? During that silence, Ender still had some hope.

  Then the silence ended. “I
f you ever meddle in the lives of my children again, I'm done with you,” said Novinha. “And if anything happens to Quim– anything– I will hate you till you die, and I'll pray for that day to come soon. You don't know everything, you bastard, and it's about time you stopped acting as if you did.”

  She stalked to the door, but then thought better of the theatrical exit. She turned back to Ela and spoke with remarkable calm. “Elanora, I will take immediate steps to block Quara from access to records and equipment that she could use to help the descolada. And in the future, my dear, if I ever hear you discussing lab business with anyone, especially this man, I will bar you from the lab for life. Do you understand?”

  Again Ela answered her with silence.

  “Ah,” said Novinha. “I see that he has stolen more of my children from me than I thought.”

  Then she was gone.

  Ender and Ela sat in stunned silence. Finally Ela stood up, though she didn't take a single step.

  “I really ought to go do something,” said Ela, “but I can't for the life of me think what.”

  “Maybe you should go to your mother and show her that you're still on her side.”

  “But I'm not,” said Ela. “In fact, I was thinking maybe I should go to Mayor Zeljezo and propose that he remove Mother as head xenobiologist because she has clearly lost her mind.”

  “No she hasn't,” said Ender. “And if you did something like that, it would kill her.”

  “Mother? She's too tough to die.”

  “No,” said Ender. “She's so fragile right now that any blow might kill her. Not her body. Her– trust. Her hope. Don't give her any reason to think you're not with her, no matter what.”

  Ela looked at him with exasperation. “Is this something you decide, or does it just come naturally to you?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Mother just said things to you that should have made you furious or hurt or– something, anyway– and you just sit there trying to think of ways to help her. Don't you ever feel like lashing out at somebody? I mean, don't you ever lose your temper?”

  “Ela, after you've inadvertently killed a couple of people with your bare hands, either you learn to control your temper or you lose your humanity.”

  “You've done that?”

  “Yes,” he said. He thought for a moment that she was shocked.

  “Do you think you could still do it?”

  “Probably,” he said.

  “Good. It may be useful when all hell breaks loose.”

  Then she laughed. It was a joke. Ender was relieved. He even laughed, weakly, along with her.

  “I'll go to Mother,” said Ela, “but not because you told me to, or even for the reasons that you said.”

  “Fine, just so you go.”

  “Don't you want to know why I'm going to stick with her?”

  “I already know why.”

  “Of course. She was wrong, wasn't she. You do know everything, don't you.”

  “You're going to go to your mother because it's the most painful thing you could do to yourself at this moment.”

  “You make it sound sick.”

  “It's the most painful good thing you could do. It's the most unpleasant job around. It's the heaviest burden to bear.”

  “Ela the martyr, certo? Is that what you'll say when you speak my death?”

  "If I'm going to speak your death, I'll have to pre-record it. I intend to be dead long before you. "

  “So you're not leaving Lusitania?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Even if Mother boots you out?”

  “She can't. She has no grounds for divorce, and Bishop Peregrino knows us both well enough to laugh at any request for annulment based on a claim of nonconsummation.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “I'm here for the long haul,” said Ender. “No more phony immortality through time dilation. I'm through chasing around in space. I'll never leave the surface of Lusitania again.”

  “Even if it kills you? Even if the fleet comes?”

  “If everybody can leave, then I'll leave,” said Ender. “But I'll be the one who turns off all the lights and locks the door.”

  She ran to him and kissed him on the cheek and embraced him, just for a moment. Then she was out the door and he was, once again, alone.

  I was so wrong about Novinha, he thought. It wasn't Valentine she was jealous of. It was Jane. All these years, she's seen me speaking silently with Jane, all the time, saying things that she could never hear, hearing things that she could never say. I've lost her trust in me, and I never even realized I was losing it.

  Even now, he must have been subvocalizing. He must have been talking to Jane out of a habit so deep that he didn't even know he was doing it. Because she answered him.

  “I warned you,” she said.

  I suppose you did, Ender answered silently.

  “You never think I understand anything about human beings.”

  I guess you're learning.

  “She's right, you know. You are my puppet. I manipulate you all the time. You haven't had a thought of your own in years.”

  “Shut up,” he whispered. “I'm not in the mood.”

  “Ender,” she said, “if you think it would help you keep from losing Novinha, take the jewel out of your ear. I wouldn't mind.”

  “I would,” he said.

  “I was lying, so would I,” she said. “But if you have to do it, to keep her, then do it.”

  “Thank you,” he said. “But I'd be hard-pressed to keep someone that I've clearly lost already.”

  “When Quim comes back, everything will be fine.”

  Right, thought Ender. Right.

  Please, God, take good care of Father Estevao.

  * * *

  They knew Father Estevao was coming. Pequeninos always did. The fathertrees told each other everything. There were no secrets. Not that they wanted it that way. There might be one fathertree that wanted to keep a secret or tell a lie. But they couldn't exactly go off by themselves. They never had private experiences. So if one fathertree wanted to keep something to himself, there'd be another close by who didn't feel that way. Forests always acted in unity, but they were still made up of individuals, and so stories passed from one forest to another no matter what a few fathertrees might wish.

  That was Quim's protection, he knew. Because even though Warmaker was a bloodthirsty son of a bitch– though that was an epithet without meaning when it came to pequeninos– he couldn't do a thing to Father Estevao without first persuading the brothers of his forest to act as he wanted them to. And if he did that, one of the other fathertrees in his forest would know, and would tell. Would bear witness. If Warmaker broke the oath taken by all the fathertrees together, thirty years ago, when Andrew Wiggin sent Human into the third life, it could not be done secretly. The whole world would hear of it, and Warmaker would be known as an oathbreaker. It would be a shameful thing. What wife would allow the brothers to carry a mother to him then? What children would he ever have again as long as he lived?

  Quirn was safe. They might not heed him, but they wouldn't harm him.

  Yet when he arrived at Warmaker's forest, they wasted no time listening to him. The brothers seized him, threw him to the ground, and dragged him to Warmaker.

  “This wasn't necessary,” he said. “I was coming here anyway.”

  A brother was beating on the tree with sticks. Quim listened to the changing music as Warmaker altered the hollows within himself, shaping the sound into words.

  “You came because I commanded.”

  “You commanded. I came. If you want to think you caused my coming, so be it. But God's commands are the only ones I obey willingly.”

  “You're here to hear the will of God,” said Warmaker.

  “I'm hear to speak the will of God,” said Quim. “The descolada is a virus, created by God in order to make the pequeninos into worthy children. But the Holy Ghost has no incarnation. The Holy
Ghost is perpetually spirit, so he can dwell in our hearts.”

  “The descolada dwells in our hearts, and gives us life. When he dwells in your heart, what does he give you?”

  “One God. One faith. One baptism. God doesn't preach one thing to humans and another to pequeninos.”

  “We are not 'little ones.' You will see who is mighty and who is small.”

  They forced him to stand with his back pressed against Warmaker's trunk. He felt the bark shifting behind him. They pushed on him. Many small hands, many snouts breathing on him. In all these years, he had never thought of such hands, such faces as belonging to enemies. And even now, Quim realized with relief that he didn't think of them as his own enemies. They were the enemies of God, and he pitied them. It was a great discovery for him, that even when he was being pushed into the belly of a murderous fathertree, he had no shred of fear or hatred in him.

  I really don't fear death. I never knew that.

  The brothers still beat on the outside of the tree with sticks. Warmaker reshaped the sound into the words of Father Tongue, but now Quim was inside the sound, inside the words.

  “You think I'm going to break the oath,” said Warmaker.

  “It crossed my mind,” said Quim. He was now fully pinned inside the tree, even though it remained open in front of him from head to toe. He could see, he could breathe easily– his confinement wasn't even claustrophobic. But the wood had formed so smoothly around him that he couldn't move an arm or a leg, couldn't begin to turn sideways to slide out of the gap before him. Strait is the gate and narrow is the way that leads to salvation.

  “We'll test,” said Warmaker. It was harder to understand his words, now that Quim was hearing them from the inside. Harder to think. “Let God judge between you and me. We'll give you all you want to drink– the water from our stream. But of food you'll have none.”

  “Starving me is–”

  “Starving? We have your food. We'll feed you again in ten days. If the Holy Ghost allows you to live for ten days, we'll feed you and set you free. We'll be believers in your doctrine then. We'll confess that we were wrong.”

  “The virus will kill me before then.”

  “The Holy Ghost will judge you and decide if you're worthy.”