Speaker for the Dead

by Orson Scott Card

  Quara thought about this for a moment, then got up and ran out of the room.

  A moment later a tired-looking girl with tousled hair and sleepy eyes came into the front room. "Desculpe, por favor," she murmured, "o menino nao se restabeleceu desde a morte do pai--"

  Then she seemed suddenly to come awake.

  "O Senhor e o Falante pelos Mortos!" You're the Speaker for the Dead!

  "Sou," answered Ender. I am.

  "Nao aqui," she said. "Oh, no, I'm sorry, do you speak Portuguese? Of course you do, you just answered me--oh, please, not here, not now. Go away."

  "Fine," said Ender. "Should I keep the boy or the knife?"

  He glanced up at the ceiling; her gaze followed his. "Oh, no, I'm sorry, we looked for it all day yesterday, we knew he had it but we didn't know where."

  "It was taped to his leg."

  "It wasn't yesterday. We always look there. Please, let go of him."

  "Are you sure? I think he's been sharpening his teeth."

  "Grego," she said to the boy, "it's wrong to poke at people with the knife."

  Grego growled in his throat.

  "His father dying, you see."

  "They were that close?"

  A look of bitter amusement passed across her face. "Hardly. He's always been a thief, Grego has, ever since he was old enough to hold something and walk at the same time. But this thing for hurting people, that's new. Please let him down."

  "No," said Ender.

  Her eyes narrowed and she looked defiant. "Are you kidnapping him? To take him where? For what ransom?"

  "Perhaps you don't understand," said Ender. "He assaulted me. You've offered me no guarantee that he won't do it again. You've made no provision for disciplining him when I set him down."

  As he had hoped, fury came into her eyes. "Who do you think you are? This is his house, not yours!"

  "Actually," Ender said, "I've just had a rather long walk from the praca to your house, and Olhado set a brisk pace. I'd like to sit down."

  She nodded toward a chair. Grego wriggled and twisted against Ender's grip. Ender lifted him high enough that their faces weren't too far apart. "You know, Grego, if you actually break free, you will certainly fall on your head on a concrete floor. If there were carpet, I'd give you an even chance of staying conscious. But there isn't. And frankly, I wouldn't mind hearing the sound of your head smacking against cement."

  "He doesn't really understand Stark that well," said the girl.

  Ender knew that Grego understood just fine. He also saw motion at the edges of the room. Olhado had come back and stood in the doorway leading to the kitchen. Quara was beside him. Ender smiled cheerfully at them, then stepped to the chair the girl had indicated. In the process, he swung Grego up into the air, letting go of his hands and feet in such a way that he spun madly for a moment, shooting out his arms and legs in panic, squealing in fear at the pain that would certainly come when he hit the floor. Ender smoothly slid onto the chair and caught the boy on his lap, instantly pinioning his arms. Grego managed to smack his heels into Ender's shins, but since the boy wasn't wearing shoes, it was an ineffective maneuver. In a moment Ender had him completely helpless again.

  "It feels very good to be sitting down," Ender said. "Thank you for your hospitality. My name is Andrew Wiggin. I've met Olhado and Quara, and obviously Grego and I are good friends."

  The older girl wiped her hand on her apron as if she planned to offer it to him to shake, but she did not offer it. "My name is Ela Ribeira. Ela is short for Elanora."

  "A pleasure to meet you. I see you're busy preparing supper."

  "Yes, very busy. I think you should come back tomorrow."

  "Oh, go right ahead. I don't mind waiting."

  Another boy, older than Olhado but younger than Ela, shoved his way into the room. "Didn't you hear my sister? You aren't wanted here!"

  "You show me too much kindness," Ender said. "But I came to see your mother, and I'll wait here until she comes home from work."

  The mention of their mother silenced them.

  "I assume she's at work. If she were here, I would expect these exciting events would have flushed her out into the open."

  Olhado smiled a bit at that, but the older boy darkened, and Ela got a nasty, painful expression on her face. "Why do you want to see her?" asked Ela.

  "Actually, I want to see all of you." He smiled at the older boy. "You must be Estevao Rei Ribeira. Named for St. Stephen the Martyr, who saw Jesus sitting at the right hand of God."

  "What do you know of such things, atheist!"

  "As I recall, St. Paul stood by and held the coats of the men who were stoning him. Apparently he wasn't a believer at the time. In fact, I think he was regarded as the most terrible enemy of the Church. And yet he later repented, didn't he? So I suggest you think of me, not as the enemy of God, but as an apostle who has not yet been stopped on the road to Damascus." Ender smiled.

  The boy stared at him, tight-lipped. "You're no St. Paul."

  "On the contrary," said Ender. "I'm the apostle to the piggies."

  "You'll never see them. Miro will never let you."

  "Maybe I will," said a voice from the door. The others turned at once to watch him walk in. Miro was young--surely not yet twenty. But his face and bearing carried the weight of responsibility and suffering far beyond his years. Ender saw how all of them made space for him. It was not that they backed away from him the way they might retreat from someone they feared. Rather, they oriented themselves to him, walking in parabolas around him, as if he were the center of gravity in the room and everything else was moved by the force of his presence.

  Miro walked to the center of the room and faced Ender. He looked, however, at Ender's prisoner. "Let him go," said Miro. There was ice in his voice.

  Ela touched him softly on the arm. "Grego tried to stab him, Miro." But her voice also said, Be calm, it's all right, Grego's in no danger and this man is not our enemy. Ender heard all this; so, it seemed, did Miro.

  "Grego," said Miro. "I told you that someday you'd take on somebody who wasn't afraid of you."

  Grego, seeing an ally suddenly turn to an enemy, began to cry. "He's killing me, he's killing me."

  Miro looked coldly at Ender. Ela might trust the Speaker for the Dead, but Miro didn't, not yet.

  "I am hurting him," said Ender. He had found that the best way to earn trust was to tell the truth. "Every time he struggles to get free, it causes him quite a bit of discomfort. And he hasn't stopped struggling yet."

  Ender met Miro's gaze steadily, and Miro understood his unspoken request. He did not insist on Grego's release. "I can't get you out of this one, Greguinho."

  "You're going to let him do this?" asked Estevao.

  Miro gestured toward Estevao and spoke apologetically to Ender. "Everyone calls him Quim." The nickname was pronounced like the word king in Stark. "It began because his middle name is Rei. But now it's because he thinks he rules by divine right."

  "Bastard," said Quim. He stalked out of the room.

  At the same time, the others settled in for conversation. Miro had decided to accept the stranger, at least temporarily; therefore they could let down their guard a little. Olhado sat down on the floor; Quara returned to her previous perch on the bed. Ela leaned back against the wall. Miro pulled up another chair and sat facing Ender.

  "Why did you come to this house?" asked Miro. Ender saw from the way he asked that he, like Ela, had not told anyone that he had summoned a speaker. So neither of them knew that the other expected him. And, in fact, they almost undoubtedly had not expected him to come so soon.

  "To see your mother," Ender said.

  Miro's relief was almost palpable, though he made no obvious gesture. "She's at work," he said. "She works late. She's trying to develop a strain of potato that can compete with the grass here."

  "Like the amaranth?"

  He grinned. "You already heard about that? No, we don't want it to be as good a competitor as that. B
ut the diet here is limited, and potatoes would be a nice addition. Besides, amaranth doesn't ferment into a very good beverage. The miners and farmers have already created a mythology of vodka that makes it the queen of distilled intoxicants."

  Miro's smile came to this house like sunlight through a crevice in a cave. Ender could feel the loosening of tensions. Quara wiggled her leg back and forth like an ordinary little girl. Olhado had a stupidly happy expression on his face, his eyes half-closed so that the metallic sheen was not so monstrously obvious. Ela's smile was broader than Miro's good humor should have earned. Even Grego had relaxed, had stopped straining against Ender's grip.

  Then a sudden warmth on Ender's lap told him that Grego, at least, was far from surrender. Ender had trained himself not to respond reflexively to an enemy's actions until he had consciously decided to let his reflexes rule. So Grego's flood of urine did not cause him to so much as flinch. He knew what Grego had been expecting--a shout of anger, and Ender flinging him away, casting him from his lap in disgust. Then Grego would be free--it would be a triumph. Ender yielded him no victory.

  Ela, however, apparently knew the expressions of Grego's face. Her eyes went wide, and then she took an angry step toward the boy. "Grego, you impossible little--"

  But Ender winked at her and smiled, freezing her in place. "Grego has given me a little gift. It's the only thing he has to give me, and he made it himself, so it means all the more. I like him so much that I think I'll never let him go."

  Grego snarled and struggled again, madly, to break free.

  "Why are you doing this!" said Ela.

  "He's expecting Grego to act like a human being," said Miro. "It needs doing, and nobody else has bothered to try."

  "I've tried," said Ela.

  Olhado spoke up from his place on the floor. "Ela's the only one here who keeps us civilized."

  Quim shouted from the other room. "Don't you tell that bastard anything about our family!"

  Ender nodded gravely, as if Quim had offered a brilliant intellectual proposition. Miro chuckled and Ela rolled her eyes and sat down on the bed beside Quara.

  "We're not a very happy home," said Miro.

  "I understand," said Ender. "With your father so recently dead."

  Miro smiled sardonically. Olhado spoke up again. "With Father so recently alive, you mean."

  Ela and Miro were in obvious agreement with this sentiment. But Quim shouted again. "Don't tell him anything!"

  "Did he hurt you?" Ender asked quietly. He did not move, even though Grego's urine was getting cold and rank.

  Ela answered. "He didn't hit us, if that's what you mean."

  But for Miro, things had gone too far. "Quim's right," said Miro. "It's nobody's business but ours."

  "No," said Ela. "It's his business."

  "How is it his business?" asked Miro.

  "Because he's here to speak Father's death," said Ela.

  "Father's death!" said Olhado. "Chupa pedras! Father only died three weeks ago!"

  "I was already on my way to speak another death," said Ender. "But someone did call for a speaker for your father's death, and so I'll speak for him."

  "Against him," said Ela.

  "For him," said Ender.

  "I brought you here to tell the truth," she said bitterly, "and all the truth about Father is against him."

  Silence pressed to the corners of the room, holding them all still, until Quim walked slowly through the doorway. He looked only at Ela. "You called him," he said softly. "You."

  "To tell the truth!" she answered. His accusation obviously stung her; he did not have to say how she had betrayed her family and her church to bring this infidel to lay bare what had been so long concealed. "Everybody in Milagre is so kind and understanding," she said. "Our teachers overlook little things like Grego's thievery and Quara's silence. Never mind that she hasn't said a word in school, ever! Everybody pretends that we're just ordinary children--the grandchildren of Os Venerados, and so brilliant, aren't we, with a zenador and both biologistas in the family! Such prestige. They just look the other way when Father gets himself raging drunk and comes home and beats Mother until she can't walk!"

  "Shut up!" shouted Quim.

  "Ela," said Miro.

  "And you, Miro, Father shouting at you, saying terrible things until you run out of the house, you run, stumbling because you can hardly see--"

  "You have no right to tell him!" said Quim.

  Olhado leapt to his feet and stood in the middle of the room, turned around to look at them all with his unhuman eyes. "Why do you still want to hide it?" he asked softly.

  "What's it to you" asked Quim. "He never did anything to you. You just turned off your eyes and sat there with the headphones on, listening to batuque or Bach or something--"

  "Turn off my eyes?" said Olhado. "I never turned off my eyes."

  He whirled and walked to the terminal, which was in the corner of the room farthest from the front door. In a few quick movements he had the terminal on, then picked up an interface cable and jammed it in the socket in his right eye. It was only a simple computer linkup, but to Ender it brought back a hideous memory of the eye of a giant, torn open and oozing, as Ender bored deep, penetrated to the brain, and sent it toppling backward to its death. He froze up for a moment before he remembered that his memory was not real, it was of a computer game he had played in the Battle School. Three thousand years ago, but to him a mere twenty-five years, not such a great distance that the memory had lost its power. It was his memories and dreams of the giant's death that the buggers had taken out of his mind and turned into the signal they left for him; eventually it had led him to the hive queen's cocoon.

  It was Jane's voice that brought him back to the present moment. She whispered from the jewel, "If it's all the same to you, while he's got that eye linked up I'm going to get a dump of everything else he's got stored away in there."

  Then a scene began in the air over the terminal. It was not holographic. Instead the image was like bas-relief, as it would have appeared to a single observer. It was this very room, seen from the spot on the floor where a moment ago Olhado had been sitting--apparently it was his regular spot. In the middle of the floor stood a large man, strong and violent, flinging his arms about as he shouted abuse at Miro, who stood quietly, his head bent, regarding his father without any sign of anger. There was no sound--it was a visual image only. "Have you forgotten?" whispered Olhado. "Have you forgotten what it was like?"

  In the scene on the terminal Miro finally turned and left; Marcao following him to the door, shouting after him. Then he turned back into the room and stood there, panting like an animal exhausted from the chase. In the picture Grego ran to his father and clung to his leg, shouting out the door, his face making it plain that he was echoing his father's cruel words to Miro. Marcao pried the child from his leg and walked with determined purpose into the back room.

  "There's no sound," said Olhado. "But you can hear it, can't you?"

  Ender felt Grego's body trembling on his lap.

  "There it is, a blow, a crash--she's falling to the floor, can you feel it in your flesh, the way her body hits the concrete?"

  "Shut up, Olhado," said Miro.

  The computer-generated scene ended. "I can't believe you saved that," said Ela.

  Quim was weeping, making no effort to hide it. "I killed him," he said. "I killed him I killed him I killed him."

  "What are you talking about?" said Miro in exasperation. "He had a rotten disease, it was congenital!"

  "I prayed for him to die!" screamed Quim. His face was mottled with passion, tears and mucus and spittle mingling around his lips. "I prayed to the Virgin, I prayed to Jesus, I prayed to Grandpa and Grandma, I said I'd go to hell for it if only he'd die, and they did it, and now I'll go to hell and I'm not sorry for it! God forgive me but I'm glad!" Sobbing, he stumbled back out of the room. A door slammed in the distance.

  "Well, another certified miracle to the credit of Os Vene
rados," said Miro. "Sainthood is assured."

  "Shut up," said Olhado.

  "And he's the one who kept telling us that Christ wanted us to forgive the old fart," said Miro.

  On Ender's lap, Grego now trembled so violently that Ender grew concerned. He realized that Grego was whispering a word. Ela, too, saw Grego's distress and knelt in front of the boy.

  "He's crying, I've never seen him cry like this--"

  "Papa, papa, papa," whispered Grego. His trembling had given way to great shudders, almost convulsive in their violence.

  "Is he afraid of Father?" asked Olhado. His face showed deep concern for Grego. To Ender's relief, all their faces were full of worry. There was love in this family, and not just the solidarity of living under the rule of the same tyrant for all these years.

  "Papa's gone now," said Miro comfortingly. "You don't have to worry now."

  Ender shook his head. "Miro," he said, "didn't you watch Olhado's memory? Little boys don't judge their fathers, they love them. Grego was trying as hard as he could to be just like Marcos Ribeira. The rest of you might have been glad to see him gone, but for Grego it was the end of the world."

  It had not occurred to any of them. Even now it was a sickening idea; Ender could see them recoil from it. And yet they knew it was true. Now that Ender had pointed it out, it was obvious.

  "Deus nos perdoa," murmured Ela. God forgive us.

  "The things we've said," whispered Miro.

  Ela reached out for Grego. He refused to go to her. Instead he did exactly what Ender expected, what he had prepared for. Grego turned in Ender's relaxed grip, flung his arms around the neck of the speaker for the dead, and wept bitterly, hysterically.

  Ender spoke gently to the others, who watched helplessly. "How could he show his grief to you, when he thought you hated him?"

  "We never hated Grego," said Olhado.

  "I should have known," said Miro. "I knew he was suffering the worst pain of any of us, but it never occurred to me . . ."

  "Don't blame yourself," said Ender. "It's the kind of thing that only a stranger can see."

  He heard Jane whispering in his ear. "You never cease to amaze me, Andrew, the way you turn people into plasma."

  Ender couldn't answer her, and she wouldn't believe him anyway. He hadn't planned this, he had played it by ear. How could he have guessed that Olhado would have a recording of Marcao's viciousness to his family? His only real insight was with Grego, and even that was instinctive, a sense that Grego was desperately hungry for someone to have authority over him, for someone to act like a father to him. Since his own father had been cruel, Grego would believe only cruelty as a proof of love and strength. Now his tears washed Ender's neck as hotly as, a moment before, his urine had soaked Ender's thighs.