"I have no one else's judgment to use." He walked away from her, out of the shade of the spreading limbs of the tree, heading for the woods that waited atop the hill. They followed him, running to catch up.
"I have to tell you," said Miro. "The piggies have been asking for you. They believe you're the very same Speaker who wrote the Hive Queen and the Hegemon."
"They've read it?"
"They've pretty well incorporated it into their religion, actually. They treat the printout we gave them like a holy book. And now they claim the hive queen herself is talking to them."
Ender glanced at him. "What does she say?" he asked.
"That you're the real Speaker. And that you've got the hive queen with you. And that you're going to bring her to live with them, and teach them all about metal and - it's really crazy stuff. That's the worst thing, they have such impossible expectations of you."
It might be simple wish fulfillment on their part, as Miro obviously believed, but Ender knew that from her cocoon the hive queen had been talking to someone. "How do they say the hive queen talks to them?"
Ouanda was on the other side of him now. "Not to them, just to Rooter. And Rooter talks to them. It's all part of their system of totems. We've always tried to play along with it, and act as if we believed it."
"How condescending of you," said Ender.
"It's standard anthropological practice," said Miro.
"You're so busy pretending to believe them, there isn't a chance in the world you could learn anything from them."
For a moment they lagged behind, so that he actually entered the forest alone. Then they ran to catch up with him. "We've devoted our lives to learning about them!" Miro said.
Ender stopped. "Not from them." They were just inside the trees; the spotty light through the leaves made their faces unreadable. But he knew what their faces would tell him. Annoyance, resentment, contempt - how dare this unqualified stranger question their professional attitude? This is how: "You're cultural supremacists to the core. You'll perform your Questionable Activities to help out the poor little piggies, but there isn't a chance in the world you'll notice when they have something to teach you."
"Like what!" demanded Ouanda. "Like how to murder their greatest benefactor, torture him to death after he saved the lives of dozens of their wives and children?"
"So why do you tolerate it? Why are you here helping them after what they did?"
Miro slipped in between Ouanda and Ender. Protecting her, thought Ender; or else keeping her from revealing her weaknesses. "We're professionals. We understand that cultural differences, which we can't explain - "
"You understand that the piggies are animals, and you no more condemn them for murdering Libo and Pipo than you would condemn a cabra for chewing up capim."
"That's right," said Miro.
Ender smiled. "And that's why you'll never learn anything from them. Because you think of them as animals."
"We think of them as ramen!" said Ouanda, pushing in front of Miro. Obviously she was not interested in being protected.
"You treat them as if they were not responsible for their own actions," said Ender. "Ramen are responsible for what they do."
"What are you going to do?" asked Ouanda sarcastically. "Come in and put them on trial?"
"I'll tell you this. The piggies have learned more about me from dead Rooter than you have learned from having me with you."
"What's that supposed to mean? That you really are the original Speaker?" Miro obviously regarded it as the most ridiculous proposition imaginable. "And I suppose you really do have a bunch of buggers up there in your starship circling Lusitania, so you can bring them down and - "
"What it means," interrupted Ouanda, "is that this amateur thinks he's better qualified to deal with the piggies than we are. And as far as I'm concerned that's proof that we should never have agreed to bring him to - "
At that moment Ouanda stopped talking, for a piggy had emerged from the underbrush. Smaller than Ender had expected. Its odor, while not wholly unpleasant, was certainly stronger than Jane's computer simulation could ever imply. "Too late," Ender murmured. "I think we're already meeting. "
The piggy's expression, if he had one, was completely unreadable to Ender. Miro and Ouanda, however, could understand something of his unspoken language. "He's astonished," Ouanda murmured. By telling Ender that she understood