Ender walked in silence for a few moments, trying to make sense of this. The piggies killed Libo immediately after he saved them from starvation? Unthinkable, and yet it happened. How could such a society evolve, killing those who contributed most to its survival? They should do the opposite– they should reward the valuable ones by enhancing their opportunity to reproduce. That's how communities improve their chances of surviving as a group. How could the piggies possibly survive, murdering those who contribute most to their survival?

And yet there were human precedents. These children, Miro and Ouanda, with the Questionable Activities– they were better and wiser, in the long run, than the Starways committee that made the rules. But if they were caught, they would be taken from their homes to another world– already a death sentence, in a way, since everyone they knew would be dead before they could ever return– and they would be tried and punished, probably imprisoned. Neither their ideas nor their genes would propagate, and society would be impoverished by it.

Still, just because humans did it, too, did not make it sensible. Besides, the arrest and imprisonment of Miro and Ouanda, if it ever happened, would make sense if you viewed humans as a single community, and the piggies as their enemies; if you thought that anything that helped the piggies survive was somehow a menace to humanity. Then the punishment of people who enhanced the piggies' culture would be designed, not to protect the piggies, but to keep the piggies from developing.

At that moment Ender saw clearly that the rules governing human contact with the piggies did not really function to protect the piggies at all. They functioned to guarantee human superiority and power. From that point of view, by performing their Questionable Activities, Miro and Ouanda were traitors to the self-interest of their own species.

“Renegades,” he said aloud.

“What?” said Miro. “What did you say?”

“Renegades. Those who have denied their own people, and claimed the enemy as their own.”

“Ah,” said Miro.

“We're not,” said Ouanda.

“Yes we are,” said Miro.

“I haven't denied my humanity!”

“The way Bishop Peregrino defines it, we denied our humanity long ago,” said Miro.

“But the way I define it–” she began.

“The way you define it,” said Ender, “the piggies are also human. That's why you're a renegade.”

“I thought you said we treated the piggies like animals!” Ouanda said.

“When you don't hold them accountable, when you don't ask them direct questions, when you try to deceive them, then you treat them like animals.”

“In other words,” said Miro, “when we do follow the committee rules.”

“Yes,” said Ouanda, “yes, that's right, we are renegades.”

“And you?” said Miro. “Why are you a renegade?”

“Oh, the human race kicked me out a long time ago. That's how I got to be a Speaker for the Dead.”

With that they arrived at the piggies' clearing.

Mother wasn't at dinner and neither was Miro. That was fine with Ela. When either one of them was there, Ela was stripped of her authority; she couldn't keep control over the younger children. And yet neither Miro nor Mother took Ela's place, either. Nobody obeyed Ela and nobody else tried to keep order. So it was quieter, easier when they stayed away.

Not that the little ones were particularly well-behaved even now. They just resisted her less. She only had to yell at Grego a couple of times to keep him from poking and kicking Quara under the table. And today both Quim and Olhado were keeping to themselves. None of the normal bickering.

Until the meal was over.

Quim leaned back in his chair and smiled maliciously at Olhado. “So you're the one who taught that spy how to get into Mother's files.”

Olhado turned to Ela. “You left Quim's face open again, Ela. You've got to learn to be tidier.” It was Olhado's way of appealing, through humor, for Ela's intervention.

Quim did not want Olhado to have any help. "Ela's not on your side this time, Olhado. Nobody's on your side. You helped that sneaking spy get into Mother's files, and that makes you as guilty as he is. He's the devil's servant, and so are you. "

Ela saw the fury in Olhado's body; she had a momentary image in her mind of Olhado flinging his plate at Quim. But the moment passed. Olhado calmed himself. “I'm sorry,” Olhado said. “I didn't mean to do it.”

He was giving in to Quim. He was admitting Quim was right.

“I hope,” said Ela, “that you mean that you're sorry that you didn't mean to do it. I hope you aren't apologizing for helping the Speaker for the Dead.”

“Of course he's apologizing for helping the spy,” said Quim.

“Because,” said Ela, “we should all help Speaker all we can.”

Quim jumped to his feet, leaned across the table to shout in her face. “How can you say that! He was violating Mother's privacy, he was finding out her secrets, he was–”

To her surprise Ela found herself also on her feet, shoving him back across the table, shouting back at him, and louder. “Mother's secrets are the cause of half the poison in this house! Mother's secrets are what's making us all sick, including her! So maybe the only way to make things right here is to steal all her secrets and get them out in the open where we can kill them!” She stopped shouting. Both Quim and Ohado stood before her, pressed against the far wall as if her words were bullets and they were being executed. Quietly, intensely, Ela went on. “As far as I'm concerned, the Speaker for the Dead is the only chance we have to become a family again. And Mother's secrets are the only barrier standing in his way. So today I told him everything I knew about what's in Mother's files, because I want to give him every shred of truth that I can find.”

“Then you're the worst traitor of all,” said Quim. His voice was trembling. He was about to cry.

“I say that helping the Speaker for the Dead is an act of loyalty,” Ela answered. “The only real treason is obeying Mother, because what she wants, what she has worked for all her life, is her own self-destruction and the destruction of this family.”

To Ela's surprise, it was not Quim but Olhado who wept. His tear glands did not function, of course, having been removed when his eyes were installed. So there was no moistening of his eyes to warn of the onset of crying. Instead he doubled over with a sob, then sank down along the wall until he sat on the floor, his head between his knees, sobbing and sobbing. Ela understood why. Because she had told him that his love for the Speaker was not disloyal, that he had not sinned, and he believed her when she told him that, he knew that it was true.

Then she looked up from Olhado to see Mother standing in the doorway. Ela felt herself go weak inside, trembling at the thought of what Mother must have overheard.

But Mother did not seem angry. Just a little sad, and very tired. She was looking at Olhado.

Quim's outrage found his voice. “Did you hear what Ela was saying?” he asked.

“Yes,” said Mother, never taking her eyes from Olhado. “And for all I know she might be right.”

Ela was no less unnerved than Quim.

“Go to your rooms, children,” Mother said quietly. “I need to talk to Olhado.”

Ela beckoned to Grego and Quara, who slid off their chairs and scurried to Ela's side, eyes wide with awe at the unusual goings-on. After all, even Father had never been able to make Olhado cry. She led them out of the kitchen, back to their bedroom. She heard Quim walk down the hall and go into his own room, slam the door, and hurl himself on his bed. And in the kitchen Olhado's sobs faded, calmed, ended as Mother, for the first time since he lost his eyes, held him in her arms and comforted him, shedding her own silent tears into his hair as she rocked him back and forth.