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Miro watched him go. Leaf-eater was always so difficult. Miro much preferred
the company of the piggy called Human. Even though Human was smarter, and
Miro had to watch himself more carefully with him, at least he didn't seem hostile
the way Leaf-eater often did.
With the piggy out of sight, Miro turned back toward the city. Somebody was
moving down the path along the face of the hill, toward his house. The one in
front was very tall-- no, it was Olhado with Quara on his shoulders. Quara was
much too old for that. Miro worried about her. She seemed not to be coming out
of the shock of Father's death. Miro felt a moment's bitterness. And to think he
and Ela had expected Father's death would solve all their problems.
Then he stood up and tried to get a better view of the man behind Olhado and
Quara. No one he'd seen before. The Speaker. Already! He couldn't have been in
town for more than an hour, and he was already going to the house. That's great,
all I need is for Mother to find out that I was the one who called him here.
Somehow I thought that a Speaker for the Dead would be discreet about it, not
just come straight home to the person who called. What a fool. Bad enough that
he's coming years before I expected a Speaker to get here. Quim's bound to report
this to the Bishop, even if nobody else does. Now I'm going to have to deal with
Mother and, probably, the whole city.
Miro moved back into the trees and jogged along a path that led, eventually, to
the gate back into the city.
Chapter 7 -- The Ribeira House
Miro, this time you should have been there, because even though I have a better
memory for dialogue than you, I sure don't know what this means. You saw the
new piggy, the one they call Human-- I thought I saw you talking to him for a
minute before you took off for the Questionable Activity. Mandachuva told me
they named him Human because he was very smart as a child. OK, it's very
flattering that "smart" and "human" are linked in their minds, or perhaps
offensive that they think we'll be flattered by that, but that's not what matters.
Mandachuva then said: "He could already talk when he started walking around
by himself." And he made a gesture with his hand about ten centimeters off the
ground. To me it looked like he was telling how tall Human was when he learned
how to talk and walk. Ten centimeters! But I could be completely wrong. You
should have been there, to see for yourself.
If I'm right, and that's what SYLVESTERMandachuva meant, then for the first
time we have an idea of piggy childhood. If they actually start walking at ten
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centimeters in height-- and talking, no less! --then they must have less
development time during gestation than humans, and do a lot more developing
after they're born.
But now it gets absolutely crazy, even by your standards. He then leaned in close
and told me-- as if he weren't supposed to-- who Human's father was: "Your
grandfather Pipo knew Human's father. His tree is near your gate."
Is he kidding? Rooter died twenty-four years ago, didn't he? OK, maybe this is
Just a religious thing, sort of adopt-a-tree or something. But the way
Mandachuva was so secretive about it, I keep thinking it's somehow true. Is it
possible that they have a 24-year gestation period? Or maybe it took a couple of
decades for Human to develop from a 10-centimeter toddler into the fine
specimen of piggihood we now see. Or maybe Rooter's sperm was saved in a Jar
somewhere.
But this matters. This is the first time a piggy personally known to human
observers has ever been named as a father. And Rooter, no less, the very one that
got murdered. In other words, the male with the lowest prestige-- an executed
criminal, even-- has been named as a father! That means that our males aren't
cast-off bachelors at all, even though some of them are so old they knew Pipo.
They are potential fathers.
What's more, if Human was so remarkably smart, then why was he dumped here
if this is really a group of miserable bachelors? I think we've had it wrong for
quite a while. This isn't a low-prestige group of bachelors, this is a high-prestige
group of juveniles, and some of them are really going to amount to something.
So when you told me you felt sorry for me because you got to go out on the
Questionable Activity and I had to stay home and work up some Official
Fabrications for the ansible report, you were full of Unpleasant Excretions! (If
you get home after I'm asleep, wake me up for a kiss, OK? I earned it today.)
-- Memo from Ouanda Figueira Mucumbi to Miro Ribeira von Hesse, retrieved
from Lusitanian files by Congressional order and introduced as evidence in the
Trial In Absentia of the Xenologers of Lusitania on Charges of Treason and
Malfeasance
There was no construction industry in Lusitania. When a couple got married,
their friends and family built them a house. The Ribeira house expressed the
history of the family. At the front, the old part of the house was made of plastic
sheets rooted to a concrete foundation. Rooms had been built on as the family
grew, each addition abutting the one before, so that five distinct one-story
structures fronted the hillside. The later ones were all brick, decently plumbed,
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roofed with tile, but with no attempt whatever at aesthetic appeal. The family had
built exactly what was needed and nothing more.
It was not poverty, Ender knew-- there was no poverty in a community where
the economy was completely controlled. The lack of decoration, of individuality,
showed the family's contempt for their own house; to Ender this bespoke
contempt for themselves as well. Certainly Olhado and Quara showed none of the
relaxation, the letting-down that most people feel when they come home. If
anything, they grew warier, less jaunty; the house might have been a subtle
source of gravity, making them heavier the nearer they approached.
Olhado and Quara went right in. Ender waited at the door for someone to invite
him to enter. Olhado left the door ajar, but walked on out of the room without
speaking to him. Ender could see Quara sitting on a bed in the front room,
leaning against a bare wall. There was nothing whatsoever on any of the walls.
They were stark white. Quara's face matched the blankness of the walls. Though
her eyes regarded Ender unwaveringly, she showed no sign of recognizing that he
was there; certainly she did nothing to indicate he might come in.
There was a disease in this house. Ender tried to understand what it was in
Novinha's character that he had missed before, that would let her live in a place
like this. Had Pipo's death so long before emptied Novinha's heart as thoroughly
as this?
"Is your mother home?" Ender asked.
Quara said nothing.
"Oh," he said. "Excuse me. I thought you were a little girl, but I see now that
you're a statue."
She showed no sign of hearing him. So much for trying to jolly her out of her
somberness.
Shoes slapped rapidly against a concrete floor. A little boy ran into the room,
stopped in the middle, and whirled to face the doorway where Ender stood. He
couldn't be more than a year younger than Quara, six or seven years old,
probably. Unlike Quara, his face showed plenty of understanding. Along with a
feral hunger.
"Is your mother home?" asked Ender.
The boy bent over and carefully rolled up his pantleg. He had taped a long
kitchen knife to his leg. Slowly he untaped it. Then, holding it in front of him with
both hands, he aimed himself at Ender and launched himself full speed. Ender
noted that the knife was well-aimed at his crotch. The boy was not subtle in his
approach to strangers.
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A moment later Ender had the boy tucked under his arm and the knife jammed
into the ceiling. The boy was kicking and screaming. Ender had to use both hands
to control his limbs; the boy ended up dangling in front of him by his hands and
feet, for all the world like a calf roped for branding.
Ender looked steadily at Quara. "If you don't go right now and get whoever is in
charge in this house, I'm going to take this animal home and serve it for supper."
Quara thought about this for a moment, then got up and ran out of the room.
A moment later a tired-looking girl with tousled hair and sleepy eyes came into
the front room. "Desculpe, por favor," she murmured, "o menino nao se
restabeleceu desde a morte do pai--"
Then she seemed suddenly to come awake.
"O Senhor ‚ o Falante pelos Mortos!" You're the Speaker for the Dead!
"Sou," answered Ender. I am.
"Nao aqui," she said. "Oh, no, I'm sorry, do you speak Portuguese? Of course you
do, you just answered me-- oh, please, not here, not now. Go away."
"Fine," said Ender. "Should I keep the boy or the knife?"
He glanced up at the ceiling, her gaze followed his. "Oh, no, I'm sorry, we looked
for it all day yesterday, we knew he had it but we didn't know where."
"It was taped to his leg."
"It wasn't yesterday. We always look there. Please, let go of him."
"Are you sure? I think he's been sharpening his teeth."
"Grego," she said to the boy, "it's wrong to poke at people with the knife."
Grego growled in his throat.
"His father dying, you see."
"They were that close?"
A look of bitter amusement passed across her face. "Hardly. He's always been a
thief, Grego has, ever since he was old enough to hold something and walk at the
same time. But this thing for hurting people, that's new. Please let him down."
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