Human slowly got to his feet, holding the Speaker's hands. Miro realized that in all the years he had known the piggies, never once had a piggy taken him by the hand. He felt a deep regret. And the sharp pain of jealousy.

Now that Human was clearly not injured, the other piggies crowded close around the Speaker. They did not jostle, but they wanted to be near.

“Rooter says the hive queen knows how to build starships,” said Arrow.

“Rooter says the hive queen will teach us everything,” said Cups. “Metal, fire made from rocks, houses made from black water, everything.”

Speaker raised his hands, fended off their babbling. “If you were all very thirsty, and saw that I had water, you'd all ask me for a drink. But what if I knew that the water I had was poisoned?”

“There is no poison in the ships that fly to the stars,” said Human.

“There are many paths to starflight,” said the Speaker. “Some are better than others. I'll give you everything I can that won't destroy you.”

“The hive queen promises!” said Human.

“And so do I.”

Human lunged forward, grabbed the Speaker by the hair and ears, and pulled him face to face. Miro had never seen such an act of violence; it was what he had dreaded, the decision to murder. “If we are ramen,” shouted Human into the Speaker's face, “then it is ours to decide, not yours! And if we are varelse, then you might as well kill us all right now, the way you killed all the hive queen's sisters!”

Miro was stunned. It was one thing for the piggies to decide this was the Speaker who wrote the book. But how could they reach the unbelievable conclusion that he was somehow guilty of the Xenocide? Who did they think he was, the monster Ender?

And yet there sat the Speaker for the Dead, tears running down his cheeks, his eyes closed, as if Human's accusation had the force of truth.

Human turned his head to speak to Miro. “What is this water?” he whispered. Then he touched the Speaker's tears.

“It's how we show pain or grief or suffering,” Miro answered.

Mandachuva suddenly cried out, a hideous cry that Miro had never heard before, like an animal dying.

“That is how we show pain,” whispered Human.

“Ah! Ah!” cried Mandachuva. “I have seen that water before! In the eyes of Libo and Pipo I saw that water!”

One by one, and then all at once, all the other piggies took up the same cry. Miro was terrified, awed, excited all at once. He had no idea what it meant, but the piggies were showing emotions that they had concealed from the xenologers for forty-seven years.

“Are they grieving for Papa?” whispered Ouanda. Her eyes, too, glistened with excitement, and her hair was matted with the sweat of fear.

Miro said it the moment it occurred to him: “They didn't know until this moment that Pipo and Libo were crying when they died.”

Miro had no idea what thoughts then went through Ouanda's head; he only knew that she turned away, stumbled a few steps, fell to her hands and knees, and wept bitterly.

All in all, the coming of the Speaker had certainly stirred things up.

Miro knelt beside the Speaker, whose head was now bowed, his chin pressed against his chest. “Speaker,” Miro said. “Como pode ser? How can it be, that you are the first Speaker, and yet you are also Ender? Nao pode ser.”

“She told them more than I ever thought she would,” he whispered.

“But the Speaker for the Dead, the one who wrote this book, he's the wisest man who lived in the age of flight among the stars. While Ender was a murderer, he killed a whole people, a beautiful race of ramen that could have taught us everything–”

“Both human, though,” whispered the Speaker.

Human was near them now, and he spoke a couplet from the Hegemon: “Sickness and healing are in every heart. Death and deliverance are in every hand.”

“Human,” said the Speaker, “tell your people not to grieve for what they did in ignorance.”

“It was a terrible thing,” said Human. “It was our greatest gift.”

“Tell your people to be quiet, and listen to me.”

Human shouted a few words, not in the Males' Language, but in the Wives' Language, the language of authority. They fell silent, then sat to hear what Speaker would say.

“I'll do everything I can,” said the Speaker, “but first I have to know you, or how can I tell your story? I have to know you, or how can I know whether the drink is poisonous or not? And the hardest problem of all will still remain. The human race is free to love the buggers because they think the buggers all are dead. You are still alive, and so they're still afraid of you.”

Human stood among them and gestured toward his body, as if it were a weak and feeble thing. “Of us!”

“They're afraid of the same thing you fear, when you look up and see the stars fill up with humans. They're afraid that someday they'll come to a world and find that you have got there first.”

“We don't want to be there first,” said Human. “We want to be there too.”

“Then give me time,” said the Speaker. “Teach me who you are, so that I can teach them.”

“Anything,” said Human. He looked around at the others. “We'll teach you anything.”

Leaf-eater stood up. He spoke in the Males' Language, but Miro understood him. “Some things aren't yours to teach.”

Human answered him sharply, and in Stark. “What Pipo and Libo and Ouanda and Miro taught us wasn't theirs to teach, either. But they taught us.”

“Their foolishness doesn't have to be our foolishness.” Leaf-eater still spoke in Males' Language.

“Nor does their wisdom necessarily apply to us,” Human retorted.

Then Leaf-eater said something in Tree Language that Miro could not understand. Human made no answer, and Leafeater walked away.

As he left, Ouanda returned, her eyes red from crying.

Human turned back to the Speaker. "What do you want to know?" he asked. "We'll tell you, we'll show you, if we can. "

Speaker in turn looked at Miro and Ouanda. “What should I ask them? I know so little that I don't know what we need to know.”

Miro looked to Ouanda.

“You have no stone or metal tools,” she said. “But your house is made of wood, and so are your bows and arrows.”

Human stood, waiting. The silence lengthened. “But what is your question?” Human finally said.

How could he have missed the connection? Miro thought.

"We humans," said Speaker, "use tools of stone or metal to cut down trees, when we want to shape them into houses or arrows or clubs like the ones I see some of you carrying. "

It took a moment for the Speaker's words to sink in. Then, suddenly, all the piggies were on their feet. They began running around madly, purposelessly, sometimes bumping into each other or into trees or the log houses. Most of them were silent, but now and then one of them would wail, exactly as they had cried out a few minutes ago. It was eerie, the almost silent insanity of the piggies, as if they had suddenly lost control of their bodies. All the years of careful noncommunication, refraining from telling the piggies anything, and now Speaker breached that policy and the result was this madness.

Human emerged from the chaos and threw himself to the ground in front of Speaker. “O Speaker!” he cried loudly. “Promise that you'll never let them cut my father Rooter with their stone and metal tools! If you want to murder someone, there are ancient brothers who will give themselves, or I will gladly die, but don't let them kill my father!”

“Or my father!” cried the other piggies. “Or mine!”

“We would never have planted Rooter so close to the fence,” said Mandachuva, “if we had known you werewere varelse.”

Speaker raised his hands again. “Has any human cut a tree in Lusitania? Never. The law here forbids it. You have nothing to fear from us.”

There was a silence as the piggies became still. Finally Human picked himself up from the ground. “You've made us fear humans all the more,” he said to Speaker. “I wish you had never come to our forest.”