“Never,” she whispered.
“I can understand your keeping it from Libo and Miro, but what am I to you? I'm nothing to you, so what does it matter if I know the secret and it kills me?”
“It doesn't matter at all if you live or die,” said Novinha, “but you'll never get access to those files.”
“You don't seem to understand that you don't have the right to put blinders on other people's eyes. Your son and his sister go out every day to meet with the piggies, and thanks to you, they don't know whether their next word or their next act will be their death sentence. Tomorrow I'm going with them, because I can't speak Pipo's death without talking to the piggies–”
“I don't want you to Speak Pipo's death.”
“I don't care what you want, I'm not doing it for you. But I am begging you to let me know what Pipo knew.”
“You'll never know what Pipo knew, because he was a good and kind and loving person who–”
“Who took a lonely, frightened little girl and healed the wounds in her heart.” As he said it, his hand rested on Quara's shoulder.
It was more than Novinha could bear. “Don't you dare to compare yourself to him! Quara isn't an orphan, do you hear me? She has a mother, me, and she doesn't need you, none of us need you, none of us!” And then, inexplicably, she was crying. She didn't want to cry in front of him. She didn't want to be here. He was confusing everything. She stumbled to the door and slammed it behind her. Quim was right. He was like the devil. He knew too much, demanded too much, gave too much, and already they all needed him too much. How could he have acquired so much power over them in so short a time?
Then she had a thought that at once dried up her unshed tears and filled her with terror. He had said that Miro and his sister went out to the piggies every day. He knew. He knew all the secrets.
All except the secret that she didn't even know herself, the one that Pipo had somehow discovered in her simulation. If he ever got that, he'd have everything that she had hidden for all these years. When she called for the Speaker for the Dead, she had wanted him to discover the truth about Pipo; instead, he had come and discovered the truth about her.
The door slammed. Ender leaned on the stool where she had sat and put his head down on his hands.
He heard Olhado stand up and walk slowly across the room toward him.
“You tried to access Mother's files,” he said quietly.
“Yes,” said Ender.
“You got me to teach you how to do searches so that you could spy on my own mother. You made a traitor out of me.”
There was no answer that would satisfy Olhado right now; Ender didn't try. He waited in silence as Olhado walked to the door and left.
The turmoil he felt was not silent, however, to the hive queen. He felt her stir in his mind, drawn by his anguish. No, he said to her silently. There's nothing you can do, nothing I can explain. Human things, that's all, strange and alien human problems that are beyond comprehension.
It had been only a moment; the sound of Olhado, closing the door still rang in the room. Beside him, Quara jumped to her feet and skipped across the floor to his bed. She jumped up and bounced on it a few times.
“You only lasted a couple of days,” she said cheerfully. “Everybody hates you now.”
Ender laughed wryly and turned around to look at her. “Do you?”
“Oh, yes,” she said. “I hated you first of all, except maybe Quim.” She slid off the bed and walked to the terminal. One key at a time, she carefully logged on. A group of double-column addition problems appeared in the air above the terminal. “You want to see me do arithmetic?”
Ender got up and joined her at the terminal. “Sure,” he said. “Those look hard, though.”
“Not for me,” she said boastfully. “I do them faster than anybody.”
Chapter 13
Ela
MIRO: The piggies call themselves males, but we're only taking their word for it.
OUANDA: Why would they lie?
MIRO: I know you're young and naive. but there's some missing equipment.
OUANDA: I passed physical anthropology. Who says they do it the way we do it?
MIRO: Obviously they don't. (For that matter, WE don't do it at all.) Maybe I've figured out where their genitals are. Those bumps on their bellies, where the hair is light and fine.
OUANDA: Vestigial nipples. Even you have them.
MIRO: I saw Leaf-eater and Pots yesterday, about ten meters off, so I didn't see them WELL, but Pots was stroking Leaf-eater's belly, and I think those belly-bumps might have tumesced.
OUANDA: Or they might not.
MIRO: One thing for sure. Leaf-eater's belly was wet– the sun was reflected off it– and he was enjoying it.
OUANDA: This is perverted.
MIRO: Why not? They're all bachelors, aren't they? They're adults, but their so-called wives haven't introduced any of them to the joys of fatherhood.
OUANDA: I think a sex-starved zenador is projecting his own frustrations onto his subjects.
– Marcos Vladimir “Miro” Ribeira von Hesse and Ouanda Quenhatta, Figueira Mucumbi, Working Notes, 1970: 1:430
The clearing was very still. Miro saw at once that something was wrong. The piggies weren't doing anything. Just standing or sitting here and there. And still; hardly a breath. Staring at the ground.
Except Human, who emerged from the forest behind them.
He walked slowly, stiffly around to the front. Miro felt Ouanda's elbow press against him, but he did not look at her. He knew she was thinking the same thing he thought. Is this the moment that they will kill us, as they killed Libo and Pipo?
Human regarded them steadily for several minutes. It was unnerving to have him wait so long. But Miro and Ouanda were disciplined. They said nothing, did not even let their faces change from the relaxed, meaningless expression they had practiced for so many years. The art of noncommunication was the first one they had to learn before Libo would let either of them come with him. Until their faces showed nothing, until they did not even perspire visibly under emotional stress, no piggy would see them. As if it did any good. Human was too adroit at turning evasions into answers, gleaning facts from empty statements. Even their absolute stillness no doubt communicated their fear, but out of that circle there could be no escape. Everything communicated something.
“You have lied to us,” said Human.
Don't answer, Miro said silently, and Ouanda was as wordless as if she had heard him. No doubt she was also thinking the same message to him.
“Rooter says that the Speaker for the Dead wants to come to us.”
It was the most maddening thing about the piggies. Whenever they had something outrageous to say, they always blamed it on some dead piggy who couldn't possibly have said it. No doubt there was some religious ritual involved: Go to their totem tree, ask a leading question, and lie there contemplating the leaves or the bark or something until you get exactly the answer you want.
“We never said otherwise,” said Miro.
Ouanda breathed a little more quickly.
“You said he wouldn't come.”
“That's right,” said Miro. “He wouldn't. He has to obey the law just like anyone else. If he tried to pass through the gate without permission–”
“That's a lie.”