Speaker for the Dead (Ender's Saga 2)

Bosquinha nodded. "That's true. He'll have everything that's vital to us, and he can keep it or return it as he wishes. But I believe, as Dom Cristao does, that he's a good man who'll help us in our time of need."

Dona Crista stood. "Excuse me," she said. "I'd like to begin crucial transfers immediately."

Bosquinha turned to the Bishop's terminal and logged into her own high priority mode. "Just enter the classes of files that you want to send into Speaker Andrew's message queue. I assume you already have them prioritized, since you were printing them out."

"How long do we have?" asked Dom Cristao. Dona Crista was already typing furiously.

"The time is here, at the top." Bosquinha put her hand into the holographic display and touched the countdown numbers with her finger.

"Don't bother transferring anything that we've already printed," said Dom Cristao. "We can always type that back in. There's precious little of it, anyway."

Bosquinha turned to the Bishop. "I knew this would be difficult."

The Bishop gave one derisive laugh. "Difficult."

"I hope you'll consider carefully before rejecting this--"

"Rejecting it!" said the Bishop. "Do you think I'm a fool? I may detest the pseudo-religion of these blasphemous speakers for the dead, but if this is the only way God has opened for us to preserve the vital records of the Church, then I'd be a poor servant of the Lord if I let pride stop me from using it. Our files aren't prioritized yet, and it will take a few minutes, but I trust that the Children of the Mind will leave us enough time for our data transfers."

"How much time will you need, do you think?" asked Dom Cristao.

"Not much. Ten minutes at the most, I'd think."

Bosquinha was surprised, and pleasantly so. She had been afraid the Bishop would insist on copying all his files before allowing the Children of the Mind to go ahead--just one more attempt to assert the precedence of the bishopric over the monastery.

"Thank you," Dom Cristao said, kissing the hand that Peregrino extended to him.

The Bishop looked at Bosquinha coldly. "You don't need to look surprised, Mayor Bosquinha. The Children of the Mind work with the knowledge of the world, so they depend far more on the world's machines. Mother Church works with things of the Spirit, so our use of public memory is merely clerical. As for the Bible--we are so old-fashioned and set in our ways that we still keep dozens of leatherbound paper copies in the Cathedral. Starways Congress can't steal from us our copies of the word of God." He smiled. Maliciously, of course. Bosquinha smiled back quite cheerfully.

"A small matter," said Dom Cristao. "After our files are destroyed, and we copy them back into memory from the Speaker's files, what is to stop Congress from doing it again? And again, and again?"

"That is the difficult decision," said Bosquinha. "What we do depends on what Congress is trying to accomplish. Maybe they won't actually destroy our files at all. Maybe they'll immediately restore our most vital files after this demonstration of their power. Since I have no idea why they're disciplining us, how can I guess how far this will go? If they leave us any way to remain loyal, then of course we must also remain vulnerable to further discipline."

"But if, for some reason, they are determined to treat us like rebels?"

"Well, if bad came to worst, we could copy everything back into local memory and then--cut off the ansible."

"God help us," said Dona Crista. "We would be utterly alone."

Bishop Peregrino looked annoyed. "What an absurd idea, Sister Detestai o Pecado. Or do you think that Christ depends upon the ansible? That Congress has the power to silence the Holy Ghost?"

Dona Crista blushed and returned to her work at the terminal.

The Bishop's secretary handed him a paper with a list of files on it. "You can leave my personal correspondence off the list," said the Bishop. "I've already sent my messages. We'll let the Church decide which of my letters is worth preserving. They have no value to me."

"The Bishop is ready," said Dom Cristao. Immediately his wife arose from the terminal and the secretary took her place.

"By the way," said Bosquinha, "I thought you'd want to know. The Speaker has announced that this evening, in the praca, he'll speak the death of Marcos Maria Ribeira." Bosquinha looked at her watch. "Very soon now, in fact."

"Why," said the Bishop acidly, "did you think that I would care?"

"I thought you might want to send a representative."

"Thank you for telling us," said Dom Cristao. "I think that I'll attend. I'd like to hear a speaking by the man who spoke the death of San Angelo." He turned to the Bishop. "I'll report to you on what he says, if you'd like."

The Bishop leaned back and smiled tightly. "Thank you, but one of my people will be in attendance."

Bosquinha left the Bishop's office and clattered down the stairs and out the Cathedral doors. She had to be back in her own rooms now, because whatever the Congress was planning, it would be Bosquinha who received their messages.