Xenocide (Ender's Saga 3)

"Until you say so," asked Grego impudently, "or until the Speaker for the Dead says so?"

"I'm the head xenobiologist," said Novinha. "The decision on when we know enough is mine alone. Is that understood?"

She waited for everyone there to assent. They all did.

Novinha stood up. The meeting was over. Quara and Grego left almost immediately; Novinha gave Ender a kiss on the cheek and then ushered him and Ela out of her office.

Ender lingered in the lab to talk to Ela. "Is there a way to spread your replacement virus throughout the entire population of every native species on Lusitania?"

"I don't know," said Ela. "That's less of a problem than how to get it to every cell of an individual organism fast enough that the descolada can't adapt or escape. I'll have to create some kind of carrier virus, and I'll probably have to model it partly on the descolada itself--the descolada is the only parasite I've seen that invades a host as quickly and thoroughly as I need the carrier virus to do it. Ironic--I'll learn how to replace the descolada by stealing techniques from the virus itself."

"It's not ironic," said Ender, "it's the way the world works. Someone once told me that the only teacher who's worth anything to you is your enemy."

"Then Quara and Grego must be giving each other advanced degrees," said Ela.

"Their argument is healthy," said Ender. "It forces us to weigh every aspect of what we're doing."

"It'll stop being healthy if one of them decid

es to bring it up outside the family," said Ela.

"This family doesn't tell its business to strangers," said Ender. "I of all people should know that."

"On the contrary, Ender. You of all people should know how eager we are to talk to a stranger--when we think our need is great enough to justify it."

Ender had to admit that she was right. Getting Quara and Grego, Miro and Quim and Olhado to trust him enough to speak to him, that had been hard when Ender first came to Lusitania. But Ela had spoken to him from the start, and so had all of Novinha's other children. So, in the end, had Novinha herself. The family was intensely loyal, but they were also strong-willed and opinionated and there wasn't a one of them who didn't trust his own judgment above anyone else's. Grego or Quara, either one of them, might well decide that telling somebody else was in the best interests of Lusitania or humanity or science, and there would go the rule of secrecy. Just the way the rule of noninterference with the piggies had been broken before Ender ever got here.

How nice, thought Ender. One more possible source of disaster that is completely out of my power to control.

Leaving the lab, Ender wished, as he had many times before, that Valentine were here. She was the one who was good at sorting out ethical dilemmas. She'd be here soon--but soon enough? Ender understood and mostly agreed with the viewpoints put forward by Quara and Grego both. What stung most was the need for such secrecy that Ender couldn't even speak to the pequeninos, not even Human himself, about a decision that would affect them as much as it would affect any colonist from Earth. And yet Novinha was right. To bring the matter out into the open now, before they even knew what was possible--that would lead to confusion at best, anarchy and bloodshed at worst. The pequeninos were peaceful now--but the species' history was bloody with war.

As Ender emerged from the gate, heading back toward the experimental fields, he saw Quara standing beside the fathertree Human, sticks in her hand, engaged in conversation. She hadn't actually beat on his trunk, or Ender would have heard it. So she must want privacy. That was all right. Ender would take a longer way around, so he wouldn't come close enough to overhear.

But when she saw Ender looking her way, Quara immediately ended her conversation with Human and took off at a brisk walk down the path toward the gate Of course this led her right by Ender.

"Telling secrets?" asked Ender. He had meant his remark as mere banter. Only when the words came out of his mouth and Quara got such a furtive look on her face did Ender realize exactly what secret it might have been that Quara had been telling. And her words confirmed his suspicion.

"Mother's idea of fairness isn't always mine," said Quara. "Neither is yours, for that matter."

He had known she might do this, but it never occurred to him she would do it so quickly after promising not to. "But is fairness always the most important consideration?" asked Ender.

"It is to me," said Quara.

She tried to turn away and go on through the gate, but Ender caught her arm.

"Let go of me."

"Telling Human is one thing," said Ender. "He's very wise. But don't tell anybody else. Some of the pequeninos, some of the males, they can be pretty aggressive if they think they have reason."

"They're not just males," said Quara. "They call themselves husbands. Maybe we should call them men." She smiled at Ender in triumph. "You're not half so open-minded as you like to think." Then she brushed past him and went on through the gate into Milagre.

Ender walked up to Human and stood before him. "What did she tell you, Human? Did she tell you that I'll die before I let anyone wipe out the descolada, if doing so would hurt you and your people?"

Of course Human had no immediate answer for him, for Ender had no intention of starting to beat on his trunk with the talking sticks used to produce Father Tongue; if he did, the pequenino males would hear and come running. There was no private speech between pequeninos and fathertrees. If a fathertree wanted privacy, he could always talk silently with the other fathertrees--they spoke to each other mind to mind, the way the hive queen spoke to the buggers that served as her eyes and ears and hands and feet. If only I were part of that communications network, thought Ender. Instantaneous speech consisting of pure thought, projected anywhere in the universe

Still, he had to say something to help counteract the sort of thing he knew Quara would have said. "Human, we're doing all we can to save human beings and pequeninos, both. We'll even try to save the descolada virus, if we can. Ela and Novinha are very good at what they do. So are Grego and Quara, for that matter. But for now, please trust us and say nothing to anyone else. Please. If humans and pequeninos come to understand the danger we're in before we're ready to take steps to contain it, the results would be violent and terrible."

There was nothing else to say. Ender went back to the experimental fields. Before nightfall, he and Planter completed the measurements, then burned and flashed the entire field. No large molecules survived inside the disruption barrier. They had done all they could to ensure that whatever the descolada might have learned from this field was forgotten.