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Dom Crist o's questions were interrupted when the Mayor came back with
several of the men who had helped retrieve the corpse. They were soaked to the
skin despite their plastic raincoats, and spattered with mud; mercifully, any blood
must have been washed away by the rain. They all seemed vaguely apologetic and
even worshipful, nodding their heads to Libo, almost bowing. It occurred to
Novinha that their deference wasn't just the normal wariness people always show
toward those whom death had so closely touched.
One of the men said to Libo, "You're Zenador now, aren't you?" and there it was,
in words. The Zenador had no official authority in Milagre, but he had prestige--
his work was the whole reason for the colony's existence, wasn't it?
Libo was not a boy anymore; he had decisions to make, he had prestige, he had
moved from the fringe of the colony's life to its very center.
Novinha felt control of her life slip away. This is not how things are supposed to
be. I'm supposed to continue here for years ahead, learning from Pipo, with Libo
as my fellow student; that's the pattern of life. Since she was already the colony's
zenobiologista, she also had an honored adult niche to fill. She wasn't jealous of
Libo, she just wanted to remain a child with him for a while. Forever, in fact.
But Libo could not be her fellow student, could not be her fellow anything. She
saw with sudden clarity how everyone in the room focused on Libo, what he said,
how he felt, what he planned to do now. "We'll not harm the piggies," he said, "or
even call it murder. We don't know what Father did to provoke them, I'll try to
understand that later, what matters now is that whatever they did undoubtedly
seemed right to them. We're the strangers here, we must have violated some--
taboo, some law-- but Father was always prepared for this, he always knew it was
a possibility. Tell them that he died with the honor of a soldier in the field, a pilot
in his ship, he died doing his job."
Ah, Libo, you silent boy, you have found such eloquence now that you can't be a
mere boy anymore. Novinha felt a redoubling of her grief. She had to look away
from Libo, look anywhere. And where she looked was into the eyes of the only
other person in the room who was not watching Libo. The man was very tall, but
very young-- younger than she was, she realized, for she knew him: he had been a
student in the class below her. She had gone before Dona Crist once, to defend
him. Marcos Ribeira, that was his name, but they had always called him Marc o,
because he was so big. Big and dumb, they said, calling him also simply C o, the
crude word for dog. She had seen the sullen anger in his eyes, and once she had
seen him, goaded beyond endurance, lash out and strike down one of his
tormentors. His victim was in a shoulder cast for much of a year.
Of course they accused Marc o of having done it without provocation-- that's the
way of torturers of every age, to put the blame on the victim, especially when he
strikes back. But Novinha didn't belong to the group of children-- she was as
isolated as Marc o, though not as helpless-- and so she had no loyalty to stop her
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from telling the truth. It was part of her training to Speak for the piggies, she
thought. Marc o himself meant nothing to her. It never occurred to her that the
incident might have been important to him, that he might have remembered her
as the one person who ever stood up for him in his continuous war with the other
children. She hadn't seen or thought of him in the years since she became
xenobiologist.
Now here he was, stained with the mud of Pipo's death scene, his face looking
even more haunted and bestial than ever with his hair plastered by rain and
sweat over his face and ears. And what was he looking at? His eyes were only for
her, even as she frankly stared at him. Why are you watching me? she asked
silently. Because I'm hungry, said his animal eyes. But no, no, that was her fear,
that was her vision of the murderous piggies. Marc o is nothing to me, and no
matter what he might think, I am nothing to him.
Yet she had a flash of insight, just for a moment. Her action in defending Marc o
meant one thing to him and something quite different to her; it was so different
that it was not even the same event. Her mind connected this with the piggies'
murder of Pipo, and it seemed very important, it seemed to verge on explaining
what had happened, but then the thought slipped away in a flurry of conversation
and activity as the Bishop led the men off again, heading for the graveyard.
Coffins were not used for burial here, where for the piggies' sake it was forbidden
to cut trees. So Pipo's body was to be buried at once, though the graveside funeral
would be held no sooner than tomorrow, and probably later; many people would
want to gather for the Zenador's requiem mass. Marc o and the other men
trooped off into the storm, leaving Novinha and Libo to deal with all the people
who thought they had urgent business to attend to in the aftermath of Pipo's
death. Self-important strangers wandered in and out, making decisions that
Novinha did not understand and Libo did not seem to care about.
Until finally it was the Arbiter standing by Libo, his hand on the boy's shoulder.
"You will, of course, stay with us," said the Arbiter. "Tonight at least."
Why your house, Arbiter? thought Novinha. You're nobody to us, we've never
brought a case before you, who are you to decide this? Does Pipo's death mean
that we're suddenly little children who can't decide anything?
"I'll stay with my mother," said Libo.
The Arbiter looked at him in surprise-- the mere idea of a child resisting his will
seemed to be completely outside the realm of his experience. Novinha knew that
this was not so, of course. His daughter Cleopatra, several years younger than
Novinha, had worked hard to earn her nickname, Bruxinha-- little witch. So how
could he not know that children had minds of their own, and resisted taming?
But the surprise was not what Novinha had assumed. "I thought you realized
that your mother is also staying with my family for a time," said the Arbiter.
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"These events have upset her, of course, and she should not have to think about
household duties, or be in a house that reminds her of who is not there with her.
She is with us, and your brothers and sisters, and they need you there. Your older
brother Jodo is with them, of course, but he has a wife and child of his own now,
so you're the one who can stay and be depended on."
Libo nodded gravely. The Arbiter was not bringing him into his protection; he
was asking Libo to become a protector.
The Arbiter turned to Novinha. "And I think you should go home," he said.
Only then did she understand that his invitation had not included her. Why
should it? Pipo had not been her father. She was just a friend who happened to be
with Libo when the body was discovered. What grief could she experience?
Home! What was home, if not this place? Was she supposed to go now to the
Biologista's Station, where her bed had not been slept in for more than a year,
except for catnaps during lab work? Was that supposed to be her home? She had
left it because it was so painfully empty of her parents; now the Zenador's Station
was empty, too: Pipo dead and Libo changed into an adult with duties that would
take him away from her. This place wasn't home, but neither was any other place.
The Arbiter led Libo away. His mother, Conceicao, was waiting for him in the
Arbiter's house. Novinha barely knew the woman, except as the librarian who
maintained the Lusitanian archive. Novinha had never spent time with Pipo's
wife or other children, she had not cared that they existed; only the work here,
the life here had been real. As Libo went to the door he seemed to grow smaller,
as if he were a much greater distance away, as if he were being borne up and off
by the wind, shrinking into the sky like a kite; the door closed behind him.
Now she felt the magnitude of Pipo's loss. The mutilated corpse on the hillside
was not his death, it was merely his death's debris. Death itself was the empty
place in her life. Pipo had been a rock in a storm, so solid and strong that she and
Libo, sheltered together in his lee, had not even known the storm existed. Now he
was gone, and the storm had them, would carry them whatever way it would.
Pipo, she cried out silently. Don't go! Don't leave us! But of course he was gone,
as deaf to her prayers as ever her parents had been.
The Zenador's Station was still busy; the Mayor herself, Bosquinha, was using a
terminal to transmit all of Pipo's data by ansible to the Hundred Worlds, where
experts were desperately trying to make sense of Pipo's death.
But Novinha knew that the key to his death was not in Pipo's files. It was her
data that had killed him, somehow. It was still there in the air above her terminal,
the holographic images of genetic molecules in the nuclei of piggy cells. She had
not wanted Libo to study it, but now she looked and looked, trying to see what
Pipo had seen, trying to understand what there was in the images that had made
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him rush out to the piggies, to say or do something that had made them murder
him. She had inadvertently uncovered some secret that the piggies would kill to
keep, but what was it?
The more she studied the holos, the less she understood, and after a while she
didn't see them at all, except as a blur through her tears as she wept silently. She
had killed him, because without even meaning to she had found the pequeninos'
secret. If I had never come to this place, if I had not dreamed of being Speaker of
the piggies' story, you would still be alive, Pipo; Libo would have his father, and
be happy; this place would still be home. I carry the seeds of death within me and
plant them wherever I linger long enough to love. My parents died so others
could live; now I live, so others must die.
It was the Mayor who noticed her short, sharp breaths and realized, with
brusque compassion, that this girt was also shaken and grieving. Bosquinha left
others to continue the ansible reports and led Novinha out of the Zenador's
Station.
"I'm sorry, child," said the Mayor, "I knew you came here often, I should have
guessed that he was like a father to you, and here we treat you like a bystander,
not right or fair of me at all, come home with me--"
"No," said Novinha. Walking out into the cold, wet night air had shaken some of
the grief from her; she regained some clarity of thought. "No, I want to be alone,
please." Where? "In my own Station."
"You shouldn't be alone, on this of all nights," said Bosquinha.
But Novinha could not bear the prospect of company, of kindness, of people
trying to console her. I killed him, don't you see? I don't deserve consolation. I
want to suffer whatever pain might come. It's my penance, my restitution, and, if
possible, my absolution; how else will I clean the bloodstains from my hands?
But she hadn't the strength to resist, or even to argue. For ten minutes the
Mayor's car skimmed over the grassy roads.
"Here's my house," said the Mayor. "I don't have any children quite your age,
but you'll be comfortable enough, I think. Don't worry, no one will plague you,
but it isn't good to be alone."
"I'd rather." Novinha meant her voice to sound forceful, but it was weak and
faint.
"Please," said Bosquinha. "You're not yourself."
I wish I weren't.
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She had no appetite, though Bosquinha's husband had a cafezinho for them
both. It was late, only a few hours left till dawn, and she let them put her to bed.
Then, when the house was still, she got up, dressed, and went downstairs to the
Mayor's home terminal. There she instructed the computer to cancel the display
that was still above the terminal at the Zenador's Station. Even though she had
not been able to decipher the secret that Pipo found there, someone else might,
and she would have no other death on her conscience.
Then she left the house and walked through the Centro, around the bight of the
river, through the Vila das Aguas, to the Biologista's Station. Her house.
It was cold, unheated in the living quarters-- she hadn't slept there in so long
that there was thick dust on her sheets. But of course the lab was warm, well-
used-- her work had never suffered because of her attachment to Pipo and Libo.
If only it had.
She was very systematic about it. Every sample, every slide, every culture she
had used in the discoveries that led to Pipo's death-- she threw them out, washed
everything clean, left no hint of the work she had done. She not only wanted it
gone, she wanted no sign that it had been destroyed.
Then she turned to her terminal. She would also destroy all the records of her
work in this area, all the records of her parents' work that had led to her own
discoveries. They would be gone. Even though it had been the focus of her life,
even though it had been her identity for many years, she would destroy it as she
herself should be punished, destroyed, obliterated.
The computer stopped her. "Working notes on xenobiological research may not
be erased," it reported. She couldn't have done it anyway. She had learned from
her parents, from their files which she had studied like scripture, like a roadmap
into herself: Nothing was to be destroyed, nothing forgotten. The sacredness of
knowledge was deeper in her soul than any catechism. She was caught in a
paradox. Knowledge had killed Pipo; to erase that knowledge would kill her
parents again, kill what they had left for her. She could not preserve it, she could
not destroy it. There were walls on either side, too high to climb, pressing slowly
inward, crushing her.
Novinha did the only thing she could: put on the files every layer of protection
and every barrier to access she knew of. No one would ever see them but her, as
long as she lived. Only when she died would her successor as xenobiologist be
able to see what she had hidden there. With one exception-- when she married,
her husband would also have access if he could show need to know. Well, she'd
never marry. It was that easy.
She saw her future ahead of her, bleak and unbearable and unavoidable. She
dared not die, and yet she would hardly be alive, unable to marry, unable even to
think about the subject herself, lest she discover the deadly secret and
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