Xenocide ew-4

by Orson Scott Card

  “Haven't you?” said Planter. “Then why did you assume that we would only think of this possibility if some human told us?”

  Ender had no good answer. He had to confess to himself that he had been thinking of the pequeninos as if they were children in some ways, to be protected. Worries had to be kept as secrets from them. It hadn't occurred to him that they were perfectly capable of discovering all the worst horrors on their own.

  “And if our intelligence does come from the descolada, and you found a way to destroy it, what would we become then?” Planter looked at them, triumphant in his bitter victory. “Nothing but tree rats,” he said.

  “That's the second time you've used that term,” said Ender. “What are tree rats?”

  “That's what they were shouting,” said Planter, “some of the men who killed the mothertree.”

  “There's no such animal,” said Valentine.

  “I know,” said Planter. “Grego explained it to me. 'Tree rat' is a slang name for squirrels. He showed me a holo of one on his computer in jail.”

  “You went to visit Grego?” Ela was plainly horrified.

  “I had to ask him why he tried to kill us all, and then why he tried to save us,” said Planter.

  “There!” cried Valentine triumphantly. “You can't tell me that what Grego and Miro did that night, stopping the mob from burning Rooter and Human– you can't tell me that that was just the acting out of genetic forces!”

  “But I never said that human behavior was meaningless,” said Planter. “It's you that tried to comfort me with that idea. We know that you humans have your heroes. We pequeninos are the ones who are only tools of a gaialogical virus.”

  “No,” said Ender. “There are pequenino heroes, too. Rooter and Human, for instance.”

  “Heroes?” said Planter. “They acted as they did in order to win what they achieved– their status as fathertrees. It was the hunger to reproduce. They might have looked like heroes to you humans, who only die once, but the death they suffered was really birth. There was no sacrifice.”

  “Your whole forest was heroic, then,” said Ela. “You broke free from all the old channels and made a treaty with us that required you to change some of your most deeply-rooted customs.”

  “We wanted the knowledge and the machines and the power you humans had. What's heroic about a treaty in which all we have to do is stop killing you, and in return you give us a thousand-year boost in our technological development?”

  “You aren't going to listen to any positive conclusion, are you,” said Valentine.

  Planter went on, ignoring her. “The only heroes in that story were Pipo and Libo, the humans who acted so bravely, even though they knew they would die. They had won their freedom from their genetic heritage. What piggy has ever done that on purpose?”

  It stung Ender more than a little, to hear Planter use the term piggy for himself and his people. In recent years the term had stopped being quite as friendly and affectionate as it was when Ender first came; often it was used now as a demeaning word, and the people who worked with them usually used the term pequenino. What sort of self-hatred was Planter resorting to, in response to what he'd learned today?

  “The brothertrees give their lives,” said Ela, helpfully.

  But Planter answered in scorn. “The brothertrees are not alive the way fathertrees are. They can't talk. They only obey. We tell them what to do, and they have no choice. Tools, not heroes.”

  “You can twist anything with the right story,” said Valentine. “You can deny any sacrifice by claiming that it made the sufferer feel so good to do it that it really wasn't a sacrifice at all, but just another selfish act.”

  Suddenly Planter jumped from his chair. Ender was prepared for a replay of his earlier behavior, but he didn't circle the room. Instead he walked to Ela where she sat in her chair, and placed both his hands on her knees.

  “I know a way to be a true hero,” said Planter. “I know a way to act against the descolada. To reject it and fight it and hate it and help destroy it.”

  “So do I,” said Ela.

  “An experiment,” said Planter.

  She nodded. “To see if pequenino intelligence is really centered in the descolada, and not in the brain.”

  “I'll do it,” said Planter.

  “I would never ask you to.”

  “I know you wouldn't ask,” said Planter. “I demand it for myself.”

  Ender was surprised to realize that in their own way, Ela and Planter were as close as Ender and Valentine, able to know each other's thoughts without explaining. Ender hadn't imagined that this would be possible between two people of different species; and yet, why shouldn't it be? Particularly when they worked together so closely in the same endeavor.

  It had taken Ender a few moments to grasp what Planter and Ela were deciding between them; Valentine, who had not been working with them for years as Ender had, still didn't understand. “What's happening?” she asked. “What are they talking about?”

  It was Ela who answered. “Planter is proposing that we purge one pequenino of all copies of the descolada virus, put him in a clean space where he can't be contaminated, and then see if he still has a mind.”

  “That can't be good science,” said Valentine. “There are too many other variables. Aren't there? I thought the descolada was involved in every part of pequenino life.”

  “Lacking the descolada would mean that Planter would immediately get sick and then eventually die. What having the descolada did to Quim, lacking it will do to Planter.”

  “You can't mean to let him do it,” said Valentine. “It won't prove anything. He might lose his mind because of illness. Fever makes people delirious.”

  “What else can we do?” asked Planter. “Wait until Ela finds a way to tame the virus, and only then find out that without it in its intelligent, virulent form, we are not pequeninos at all, but merely piggies? That we were only given the power of speech by the virus within us, and that when it was controlled, we lost everything and became nothing more than brothertrees? Do we find that out when you loose the virus-killer?”

  “But it's not a serious experiment with a control–”

  “It's a serious experiment, all right,” said Ender. “The kind of experiment you perform when you don't give a damn about getting funding, you just need results and you need them now. The kind of experiment you perform when you have no idea what the results will be or even if you'll know how to interpret them, but there are a bunch of crazy pequeninos planning to get in starships and spread a planet-killing disease all over the galaxy so you've got to do something.”

  “It's the kind of experiment you perform,” said Planter, “when you need a hero.”

  “When we need a hero?” asked Ender. “Or when you need to be a hero?”

  “I wouldn't talk if I were you,” said Valentine dryly. “You've done a few stints as a hero yourself over the centuries.”

  “It may not be necessary anyway,” said Ela. “Quara knows a lot more about the descolada than she's telling. She may already know whether the intelligent adaptability of the descolada can be separated from its life-sustaining functions. If we could make a virus like that, we could test the effect of the descolada on pequenino intelligence without threatening the life of the subject.”

  “The trouble is,” said Valentine, “Quara isn't any more likely to believe our story that the descolada is an artifact created by another species than Qing-jao was able to believe that the voice of her gods was just a genetically-caused obsessive-compulsive disorder.”

  “I'll do it,” said Planter. “I will begin immediately because we have no time. Put me in a sterile environment tomorrow, and then kill all the descolada in my body using the chemicals you've got hidden away. The ones you mean to use on humans when the descolada adapts to the current suppressant you're using.”

  “You realize that it may be wasted,” said Ela.

  “Then it would truly be a sacrifice,” said Planter.r />
  “If you start to lose your mind in a way that clearly isn't related to your body's illness,” said Ela, “we'll stop the experiment because we'll have the answer.”

  “Maybe,” said Planter.

  “You might well recover at that point.”

  “I don't care whether I recover,” said Planter.

  “We'll also stop it,” said Ender, “if you start to lose your mind in a way that is related to your body's illness, because then we'll know that the experiment is useless and we wouldn't learn anything from it anyway.”

  “Then if I'm a coward, all I have to do is pretend to be mentally failing and my life will be saved,” said Planter. “No, I forbid you to stop the experiment, no matter what. And if I keep my mental functions, you must let me continue to the end, to the death, because only if I keep my mind to the end will we know that our soul is not just an artifact of the descolada. Promise me!”

  “Is this science or a suicide pact?” asked Ender. “Are you so despondent over discovering the probable role of the descolada in pequenino history that you simply want to die?”

  Planter rushed to Ender, climbed his body, and pressed his nose against Ender's. “You liar!” he shouted.

  “I just asked a question,” whispered Ender.

  “I want to be free!” shouted Planter. “I want the descolada out of my body and I never want it to come back! I want to use this to help free all the piggies so that we can be pequeninos in fact and not in name!”

  Gently Ender pried him back. His nose ached from the violence of Planter's pressing.

  “I want to make a sacrifice that proves that I'm free,” said Planter, “not just acting out my genes. Not just trying for the third life.”

  “Even the martyrs of Christianity and Islam were willing to accept rewards in heaven for their sacrifice,” said Valentine.

  “Then they were all selfish pigs,” said Planter. “That's what you say about pigs, isn't it? In Stark, in your common speech? Selfish pigs. Well, it's the right name for us piggies, isn't it! Our heroes were all trying to become fathertrees. Our brothertrees were failures from the start. The only thing we serve outside ourselves is the descolada. For all we know, the descolada might be ourselves. But I will be free. I will know what I am, without the descolada or my genes or anything except me.”

  “What you'll be is dead,” said Ender.

  “But free first,” said Planter. “And the first of my people to be free.”

  * * *

  After Wang-mu and Jane had told Master Han all that had transpired that day, after he had conversed with Jane about his own day's work, after the house had fallen silent in the darkness of the night, Wang-mu lay awake on her mat in the corner of Master Han's room, listening to his soft but insistent snoring as she thought over all that had been said that day.

  There were so many ideas, and most of them were so far above her that she despaired of truly understanding them. Especially what Wiggin said about purposes. They were giving her credit for having come up with the solution to the problem of the descolada virus, and yet she couldn't take the credit because she hadn't meant to do it; she had thought she was just repeating Qing-jao's questions. Could she take credit for something she did by accident?

  People should only be blamed or praised for what they meant to do. Wang-mu had always believed this instinctively; she didn't remember anyone ever telling it to her in so many words. The crimes that she was blaming Congress for were all deliberate– genetically altering the people of Path to create the godspoken, and sending the M.D. Device to destroy the haven of the only other sentient species that they knew existed in the universe.

  But was that what they meant to do, either? Maybe some of them, at least, thought that they were making the universe safe for humanity by destroying Lusitania– from what Wang-mu had heard about the descolada, it could mean the end of all Earthborn life if it ever started spreading world to world among human beings. Maybe some of Congress, too, had decided to create the godspoken of Path in order to benefit all of humanity, but then put the OCD in their brains so that they couldn't get out of control and enslave all the inferior, “normal” humans. Maybe they all had good purposes in mind for the terrible things they did.

  Certainly Qing-jao had a good purpose in mind, didn't she? So how could Wang-mu condemn her for her actions, when she thought she was obeying the gods?

  Didn't everybody have some noble purpose in mind for their own actions? Wasn't everybody, in their own eyes, good?

  Except me, thought Wang-mu. In my own eyes, I'm foolish and weak. But they spoke of me as if I were better than I ever thought. Master Han praised me, too. And those others spoke of Qing-jao with pity and scornand I've felt those feelings toward her, too. Yet isn't Qing-jao acting nobly, and me basely? I betrayed my mistress. She has been loyal to her government and to her gods, which are real to her, though I no longer believe in them. How can I tell the good people from the bad, if the bad people all have some way of convincing themselves that they're trying to do good even though they're doing something terrible? And the good people can believe that they're actually very bad even though they're doing something good?

  Maybe you can only do good if you think you're bad, and if you think you're good then you can only do bad.

  But that paradox was too much for her. There'd be no sense in the world if you had to judge people by the opposite of how they tried to seem. Wasn't it possible for a good person also to try to seem good? And just because somebody claimed to be scum didn't mean that he wasn't scum. Was there any way to judge people, if you can't judge even by their purpose?

  Was there any way for Wang-mu to judge even herself?

  Half the time I don't even know the purpose of what I do. I came to this house because I was ambitious and wanted to be a secret maid to a rich godspoken girl. It was pure selfishness on my part, and pure generosity that led Qing-jao to take me in. And now here I am helping Master Han commit treason– what is my purpose in that? I don't even know why I do what I do. How can I know what other people's true purposes are? There's no hope of ever knowing good from bad.

  She sat up in lotus position on her mat and pressed her face into her hands. It was as if she felt herself pressed against a wall, but it was a wall that she made herself, and if she could only find a way to move it aside– the way she could move her hands away from her face whenever she wanted– then she could easily push through to the truth.

  She moved her hands away. She opened her eyes. There was Master Han's terminal, across the room. There, today, she had seen the faces of Elanora Ribeira von Hesse and Andrew Wiggin. And Jane's face.

  She remembered Wiggin telling her what the gods would be like. Real gods would want to teach you how to be just like them. Why would he say such a thing? How could he know what a god would be?

  Somebody who wants to teach you how to know everything that they know and do everything that they do– what he was really describing was parents, not gods.

  Only there were plenty of parents who didn't do that. Plenty of parents who tried to keep their children down, to control them, to make slaves of them. Where she had grown up, Wang-mu had seen plenty of that.

  So what Wiggin was describing wasn't parents, really. He was describing good parents. He wasn't telling her what the gods were, he was telling her what goodness was. To want other people to grow. To want other people to have all the good things that you have. And to spare them the bad things if you can. That was goodness.

  What were the gods, then? They would want everyone else to know and have and be all good things. They would teach and share and train, but never force.

  Like my parents, thought Wang-mu. Clumsy and stupid sometimes, like all people, but they were good. They really did look out for me. Even sometimes when they made me do hard things because they knew it would be good for me. Even sometimes when they were wrong, they were good. I can judge them by their purpose after all. Everybody calls their purpose good, but my parents' purposes really were
good, because they meant all their acts toward me to help me grow wiser and stronger and better. Even when they made me do hard things because they knew I had to learn from them. Even when they caused me pain.

  That was it. That's what the gods would be, if there were gods. They would want everyone else to have all that was good in life, just like good parents. But unlike parents or any other people, the gods would actually know what was good and have the power to cause good things to happen, even when nobody else understood that they were good. As Wiggin said, real gods would be smarter and stronger than anybody else. They would have all the intelligence and power that it was possible to have.

  But a being like that– who was someone like Wang-mu to judge a god? She couldn't understand their purposes even if they told her, so how could she ever know that they were good? Yet the other approach, to trust in them and believe in them absolutely– wasn't that what Qing-jao was doing?

  No. If there were gods, they would never act as Qing-jao thought they acted– enslaving people, tormenting and humiliating them.

  Unless torment and humiliation were good for them…

  No! She almost cried aloud, and once again pressed her face into her hands, this time to keep silence.

  I can only judge by what I understand. If as far as I can see, the gods that Qing-jao believes in are only evil, then yes, perhaps I'm wrong, perhaps I can't comprehend the great purpose they accomplish by making the godspoken into helpless slaves, or destroying whole species. But in my heart I have no choice but to reject such gods, because I can't see any good in what they're doing. Perhaps I'm so stupid and foolish that I will always be the enemy of the gods, working against their high and incomprehensible purposes. But I have to live my life according to what I understand, and what I understand is that there are no such gods as the ones the godspoken teach us about. If they exist at all, they take pleasure in oppression and deception, humiliation and ignorance. They act to make other people smaller and themselves larger. Those would not be gods, then, even if they existed. They would be enemies. Devils.

  The same with the beings, whoever they are, who made the descolada virus. Yes, they would have to be very powerful to make a tool like that. But they would also have to be heartless, selfish, arrogant beings, to think that all life in the universe was theirs to manipulate as they saw fit. To send the descolada out into the universe, not caring who it killed or what beautiful creatures it destroyed– those could not be gods, either.