Why had Mayor Kovano and Bishop Peregrino allowed this meeting to take place?

As if he had heard Quim's unspoken question, Mayor Kovano began to explain. “Andrew Wiggin has come to me with new information. My first thought was to keep all of it secret, send Father Estevao on his mission to the heretics, and then ask Bishop Peregrino to pray. But Andrew assured me that as our danger increases, it's all the more important that all of you act from the most complete possible information. Speakers for the dead apparently have an almost pathological reliance on the idea that people behave better when they know more. I've been a politician too long to share his confidence– but he's older than I am, he claims, and I deferred to his wisdom.”

Quim knew, of course, that Kovano deferred to no one's wisdom. Andrew Wiggin had simply persuaded him.

“As relations between pequeninos and humans are getting more, um, problematical, and as our unseeable cohabitant, the hive queen, apparently comes closer to launching her starships, it seems that matters offplanet are getting more urgent as well. The Speaker for the Dead informs me from his offplanet sources that someone on a world called Path is very close to discovering our allies who have managed to keep Congress from issuing orders to the fleet to destroy Lusitania.”

Quim noted with interest that Andrew had apparently not told Mayor Kovano about Jane. Bishop Peregrino didn't know, either; did Grego or Quara? Did Ela? Mother certainly did. Why did Andrew tell me, if he held it back from so many others?

“There is a very strong chance that within the next few weeks– or days– Congress will reestablish communications with the fleet. At that point, our last defense will be gone. Only a miracle will save us from annihilation.”

“Bullshit,” said Grego. “If that– thing– out on the prairie can build a starship for the piggies, it can build some for us, too. Get us off this planet before it gets blown to hell.”

“Perhaps,” said Kovano. “I suggested something like that, though in less colorful terms. Perhaps, Senhor Wiggin, you can tell us why Grego's eloquent little plan won't work.”

“The hive queen doesn't think the way we do. Despite her best efforts, she doesn't take individual lives as seriously. If Lusitania is destroyed, she and the pequeninos will be at greatest risk–”

“The M.D. Device blows up the whole planet,” Grego pointed out.

“At greatest risk of species annihilation,” said Wiggin, unperturbed by Grego's interruption. “She'll not waste a ship on getting humans off Lusitania, because there are trillions of humans on a couple of hundred other worlds. We're not in danger of xenocide.”

“We are if these heretic piggies get their way,” said Grego.

"And that's another point," said Wiggin. "If we haven't found a way to neutralize the descolada, we can't in good conscience take the human population of Lusitania to another world. We'd only be doing exactly what the heretics want– forcing other humans to deal with the descolada, and probably die. "

“Then there's no solution,” said Ela. “We might as well roll over and die.”

“Not quite,” said Mayor Kovano. “It's possible– perhaps likely– that our own village of Milagre is doomed. But we can at least try to make it so that the pequenino colony ships don't carry the descolada to human worlds. There seem to be two approaches– one biological, the other theological.”

“We are so close,” said Mother. “It's a matter of months or even weeks till Ela and I have designed a replacement species for the descolada.”

“So you say,” said Kovano. He turned to Ela. “What do you say?”

Quim almost groaned aloud. Ela will say that Mother's wrong, that there's no biological solution, and then Mother will say that she's trying to kill me by sending me out on my mission. This is all the family needs– Ela and Mother in open war. Thanks to Kovano Zeljezo, humanitarian.

But Ela's answer wasn't what Quirn feared. “It's almost designed right now. It's the only approach that we haven't already tried and failed with, but we're on the verge of having the design for a version of the descolada virus that does everything necessary to maintain the life cycles of the indigenous species, but that is incapable of adapting to and destroying any new species.”

“You're talking about a lobotomy for an entire species,” said Quara bitterly. “How would you like it if somebody found a way to keep all humans alive, while removing our cerebrums?”

Of course Grego took up her gauntlet. “When these viruses can write a poem or reason from a theorem, I'll buy all this sentimental horseshit about how we ought to keep them alive.”

“Just because we can't read them doesn't mean they don't have their epic poems!”

“Fechai as bocas!” growled Kovano.

Immediately they fell silent.

“Nossa Senhora,” he said. “Maybe God wants to destroy Lusitania because it's the only way he can think of to shut you two up.”

Bishop Peregrino cleared his throat.

“Or maybe not,” said Kovano. “Far be it from me to speculate on God's motives.”

The Bishop laughed, which allowed the others to laugh as well. The tension broke– like an ocean wave, gone for the moment, but sure to return.

“So the anti-virus is almost ready?” Kovano asked Ela.

"No– or yes, it is, the replacement virus is almost fully designed. But there are still two problems. The first one is delivery. We have to find a way to get the new virus to attack and replace the old one. That's still– a long way off. "

“Do you mean it's a long way off, or you don't have the faintest idea how to do it?” Kovano was no fool– he obviously had dealt with scientists before.

“Somewhere between those two,” said Ela.

Mother shifted on her seat, visibly drawing away from Ela. My poor sister Ela, thought Quim. You may not be spoken to for the next several years.

“And the other problem?” asked Kovano.

“It's one thing to design the replacement virus. It's something else again to produce it.”

“These are mere details,” said Mother.

“You're wrong, Mother, and you know it,” said Ela. “I can diagram what we want the new virus to be. But even working under ten degrees absolute, we can't cut up and recombine the descolada virus with enough precision. Either it dies, because we've left out too much, or it immediately repairs itself as soon as it returns to normal temperatures, because we didn't take out enough.”

“Technical problems.”

“Technical problems,” said Ela sharply. “Like building an ansible without a philotic link.”

“So we conclude–”

“We conclude nothing,” said Mother.

“We conclude,” continued Kovano, “that our xenobiologists are in sharp disagreement about the feasibility of taming the descolada virus itself. That brings us to the other approach– persuading the pequeninos to send their colonies only to uninhabited worlds, where they can establish their own peculiarly poisonous ecology without killing human beings.”

“Persuading them,” said Grego. “As if we could trust them to keep their promises.”

“They've kept more promises so far than you have,” said Kovano. “So I wouldn't take a morally superior tone if I were you.”

Finally things were at a point where Quim felt it would be beneficial for him to speak. “All of this discussion is interesting,” said Quim. “It would be a wonderful thing if my mission to the heretics could be the means of persuading the pequeninos to refrain from causing harm to humankind. But even if we all came to agree that my mission has no chance of succeeding in that goal, I would still go. Even if we decided that there was a serious risk that my mission might make things worse, I'd go.”

“Nice to know you plan to be cooperative,” said Kovano acidly.

“I plan to cooperate with God and the church,” said Quim. “My mission to the heretics is not to save humankind from the descolada or even to try to keep the peace between humans and pequeninos here on Lusitania. My mission to the heretics is in order to try to bring them back to faith in Christ and unity with the church. I am going to save their souls.”