Speaker for the Dead (Ender's Saga 2)

Miro watched him go. Leaf-eater was always so difficult. Miro much preferred the company of the piggy called Human. Even though Human was smarter, and Miro had to watch himself more carefully with him, at least he didn't seem hostile the way Leaf-eater often did.

With the piggy out of sight, Miro turned back toward the city. Somebody was moving down the path along the face of the hill, toward his house. The one in front was very tall--no, it was Olhado with Quara on his shoulders. Quara was much too old for that. Miro worried about her. She seemed not to be coming out of the shock of Father's death. Miro felt a moment's bitterness. And to think he and Ela had expected Father's death would solve all their problems.

Then he stood up and tried to get a better view of the man behind Olhado and Quara. No one he'd seen before. The Speaker. Already! He couldn't have been in town for more than an hour, and he was already going to the house. That's great, all I need is for Mother to find out that I was the one who called him here. Somehow I thought that a speaker for the dead would be discreet about it, not just come straight home to the person who called. What a fool. Bad enough that he's coming years before I expected a speaker to get here. Quim's bound to report this to the Bishop, even if nobody else does. Now I'm going to have to deal with Mother and, probably, the whole city.

Miro moved back into the trees and jogged along a path that led, eventually, to the gate back into the city.

7

THE RIBEIRA HOUSE

Miro, this time you should have been there, because even though I have a better memory for dialogue than you, I sure don't know what this means. You saw the new piggy, the one they call Human--I thought I saw you talking to him for a minute before you took off for the Questionable Activity. Mandachuva told me they named him Human because he was very smart as a child. OK, it's very flattering that "smart" and "human" are linked in their minds, or perhaps patronizing that they think we'll be flattered by that, but that's not what matters.

Mandachuva then said: "He could already talk when he started walking around by himself." And he made a gesture with his hand about ten centimeters off the ground. To me it looked like he was telling how tall Human was when he learned how to talk and walk. Ten centimeters! But I could be completely wrong. You should have been there, to see for yourself.

If I'm right, and that's what Mandachuva meant, then for the first time we have an idea of piggy childhood. If they actually start walking at ten centimeters in height--and talking, no less!--then they must have less development time during gestation than humans, and do a lot more developing after they're born.

But now it gets absolutely crazy, even by your standards. He then leaned in close and told me--as if he weren't supposed to--who Human's father was: "Your grandfather Pipo knew Human's father. His tree is near your gate."

Is he kidding? Rooter died twenty-four years ago, didn't he? OK, maybe this is just a religious thing, sort of adopt-a-tree or something. But the way Mandachuva was so secretive about it, I keep thinking it's somehow true. Is it possible that they have a 24-year gestation period? Or maybe it took a couple of decades for Human to develop from a 10-centimeter toddler into the fine specimen of piggihood we now see. Or maybe Rooter's sperm was saved in a jar somewhere.

But this matters. This is the first time a piggy personally known to human observers has ever been named as a father. And Rooter, no less, the very one that got murdered. In other words, the male with the lowest prestige--an executed criminal, even--has been named as a father! That means that our males aren't cast-off bachelors at all, even though some of them are so old they knew Pipo. They are potential fathers.

What's more, if Human was so remarkably smart, then why was he dumped here if this is really a group of miserable bachelors? I think we've had it wrong for quite a while. This isn't a low-prestige group of bachelors, this is a high-prestige group of juveniles, and some of them are really going to amount to something.

So when you told me you felt sorry for me because you got to go out on the Questionable Activity and I had to stay home and work up some Official Fabrications for the ansible report, you were full of Unpleasant Excretions! (If you get home after I'm asleep, wake me up for a kiss, OK? I earned it today.)

--Memo from Ouanda Figueira Mucumbi to Miro Ribeira von Hesse, retrieved from Lusitanian files by Congressional order and introduced as evidence in the Trial In Absentia of the Xenologers of Lusitania on Charges of Treason and Malfeasance

There was no construction industry in Lusitania. When a couple got married, their friends and family built them a house. The Ribeira house expressed the history of the family. At the front, the old part of the house was made of plastic sheets rooted to a concrete foundation. Rooms had been built on as the family grew, each addition abutting the one before, so that five distinct one-story structures fronted the hillside. The later ones were all brick, decently plumbed, roofed with tile, but with no attempt whatever at aesthetic appeal. The family had built exactly what was needed and nothing more.

It was not poverty, Ender knew--there was no poverty in a community where the economy was completely controlled. The lack of decoration, of individuality, showed the family's contempt for their own house; to Ender this bespoke contempt for themselves as well. Certainly Olhado and Quara showed none of the relaxation, the letting-down that most people feel when they come home. If anything, they grew warier, less jaunty; the house might have been a subtle source of gravity, making them heavier the nearer they approached.

Olhado and Quara went right in. Ender waited at the door for someone to invite him to enter. Olhado left the door ajar, but walked on

out of the room without speaking to him. Ender could see Quara sitting on a bed in the front room, leaning against a bare wall. There was nothing whatsoever on any of the walls. They were stark white. Quara's face matched the blankness of the walls. Though her eyes regarded Ender unwaveringly, she showed no sign of recognizing that he was there; certainly she did nothing to indicate he might come in.

There was a disease in this house. Ender tried to understand what it was in Novinha's character that he had missed before, that would let her live in a place like this. Had Pipo's death so long before emptied Novinha's heart as thoroughly as this?

"Is your mother home?" Ender asked.

Quara said nothing.

"Oh," he said. "Excuse me. I thought you were a little girl, but I see now that you're a statue."

She showed no sign of hearing him. So much for trying to jolly her out of her somberness.

Shoes slapped rapidly against a concrete floor. A little boy ran into the room, stopped in the middle, and whirled to face the doorway where Ender stood. He couldn't be more than a year younger than Quara, six or seven years old, probably. Unlike Quara, his face showed plenty of understanding. Along with a feral hunger.

"Is your mother home?" asked Ender.

The boy bent over and carefully rolled up his pantleg. He had taped a long kitchen knife to his leg. Slowly he untaped it. Then, holding it in front of him with both hands, he aimed himself at Ender and launched himself full speed. Ender noted that the knife was well-aimed at his crotch. The boy was not subtle in his approach to strangers.

A moment later Ender had the boy tucked under his arm and the knife jammed into the ceiling. The boy was kicking and screaming. Ender had to use both hands to control his limbs; the boy ended up dangling in front of him by his hands and feet, for all the world like a calf roped for branding.

Ender looked steadily at Quara. "If you don't go right now and get whoever is in charge in this house, I'm going to take this animal home and serve it for supper."

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