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