for Libo, ignored the regulation and ran through the gate. Libo's head rocked backward and he dropped to his knees; he clutched his tight-curled hair and cried out in terrible remorse.
Rooter lay spread-eagled in the cleared dirt. He had been eviscerated, and not carelessly: Each organ had been cleanly separated, and the strands and filaments of his limbs had also been pulled out and spread in a symmetrical pattern on the drying soil. Everything still had some connection to the body - nothing had been completely severed.
Libo's agonized crying was almost hysterical. Novinha knelt by him and held him, rocked him, tried to soothe him. Pipo methodically took out his small camera and took pictures from every angle so the computer could analyze it in detail later.
"He was still alive when they did this," Libo said, when he had calmed enough to speak. Even so, he had to say the words slowly, carefully, as if he were a foreigner just learning to speak. "There's so much blood on the ground, spattered so far - his heart had to be beating when they opened him up."
"We'll discuss it later," said Pipo.
Now the thing Libo had forgotten yesterday came back to him with cruel clarity. "It's what Rooter said about the women. They decide when the men should die. He told me that, and I - " He stopped himself. Of course he did nothing. The law required him to do nothing. And at that moment he decided that he hated the law. If the law meant allowing this to be done to Rooter, then the law had no understanding. Rooter was a person. You don't stand by and let this happen to a person just because you're studying him.
"They didn't dishonor him," said Novinha. "If there's one thing that's certain, it's the love that they have for trees. See?" Out of the center of his chest cavity, which was otherwise empty now, a very small seedling sprouted. "They planted a tree to mark his burial spot."
"Now we know why they name all their trees," said Libo bitterly. "They planted them as grave markers for the piggies they tortured to death."
"This is a very large forest," Pipo said calmly. "Please confine your hypotheses to what is at least remotely possible." They were calmed by his quiet, reasoned tone, his insistence that even now they behave as scientists.
"What should we do?" asked Novinha.
"We should get you back inside the perimeter immediately, " said Pipo. "It's forbidden for you to come out here."
"But I meant - with the body - what should we do?"
"Nothing," said Pipo. "The piggies have done what piggies do, for whatever reason piggies do it." He helped Libo to his feet.
Libo had trouble standing for a moment; he leaned on both of them for his first few steps. "What did I say?" he whispered. "I don't even know what it is I said that killed him."
"It wasn't you," said Pipo. "It was me."
"What, do you think you own them?" demanded Novinha. "Do you think their world revolves around you? The piggies did it, for whatever reason they have. It's plain enough this isn't the first time - they were too deft at the vivisection for this to be the first time."
Pipo took it with black humor. "We're losing our wits, Libo. Novinha isn't supposed to know anything about xenology."
"You're right," said Libo. "Whatever may have triggered this, it's something they've done before. A custom." He was trying to sound calm.
"But that's even worse, isn't it?" said Novinha. "It's their custom to gut each other alive. " She looked at the other trees of the forest that began at the top of the hill and wondered how many of them were rooted in blood.
* * *
Pipo sent his report on the ansible, and the computer didn't give him any trouble about the priority level. He left it up to the oversight committee to decide whether contact with the piggies should be stopped. The committee could not identify any fatal error. "It is impossible to conceal the relationship between our sexes, since someday a woman may be xenologer," said the report, "and we can find no point at which you did not act reasonably and prudently. Our tentative conclusion is that you were unwitting participants in some sort of power struggle, which was decided against Rooter, and that you should continue your contact with all reasonable prudence."
It was complete vindication, but it still wasn't easy to take.