Marc o's - death. " She began weeping again. "Mother's secrets - I thought I knew what they were, I thought it was just her files - I thought she hated Libo. "
"All I did was open the windows and let in some air."
"Tell that to Miro and Ouanda."
"Think a moment, Ela. They would have found out eventually. The cruel thing was that they didn't know for so many years. Now that they have the truth, they can find their own way out."
"Like Mother did? Only this time even worse than adultery?"
Ender touched her hair, smoothed it. She accepted his touch, his consolation. He couldn't remember if his father or mother had ever touched him with such a gesture. They must have. How else would he have learned it?
"Ela, will you help me?"
"Help you what? You've done your work, haven't you?"
"This has nothing to do with Speaking for the dead. I have to know, within the hour, how the Descolada works."
"You'll have to ask Mother - she's the one who knows."
"I don't think she'd be glad to see me tonight."
"I'm supposed to ask her? Good evening, Mamae, you've just been revealed to all of Milagre as an adulteress who's been lying to your children all our lives. So if you wouldn't mind, I'd like to ask you a couple of science questions."
"Ela, it's a matter of survival for Lusitania. Not to mention your brother Miro." He reached over and turned to the terminal. "Log on," he said.
She was puzzled, but she did it. The computer wouldn't recognize her name. "I've been taken off." She looked at him in alarm. "Why?"
"It's not just you. It's everybody."
"It isn't a breakdown," she said. "Somebody stripped out the log-on file."
"Starways Congress stripped all the local computer memory. Everything's gone. We're regarded as being in a state of rebellion. Miro and Ouanda are going to be arrested and sent to Trondheim for trial. Unless I can persuade the Bishop and Bosquinha to launch a real rebellion. Do you understand? If your mother doesn't tell you what I need to know, Miro and Ouanda will both be sent twenty-two lightyears away. The penalty for treason is death. But even going to the trial is as bad as life imprisonment. We'll all be dead or very very old before they get back."
Ela looked blankly at the wall. "What do you need to know?"
"I need to know what the Committee will find when they open up her files. About how the Descolada works. "
"Yes," said Ela. "For Miro's sake she'll do it." She looked at him defiantly. "She does love us, you know. For one of her children, she'd talk to you herself."
"Good," said Ender. "It would be better if she came herself. To the Bishop's chambers, in an hour."
"Yes," said Ela. For a moment she sat still. Then a synapse connected somewhere, and she stood up and hurried toward the door.
She stopped. She came back, embraced him, kissed him on the cheek. "I'm glad you told it all," she said. "I'm glad to know it."
He kissed her forehead and sent her on her way. When the door closed behind her, he sat down on his bed, then lay down and stared at the ceiling. He thought of Novinha, tried to imagine what she was feeling now. No matter how terrible it is, Novinha, your daughter is hurrying home to you right now, sure that despite the pain and humiliation you're going through, you'll forget yourself completely and do whatever it takes to save your son. I would trade you all your suffering, Novinha, for one child who trusted me like that.
Chapter 16
The Fence
A great rabbi stands teaching in the marketplace. It happens that a husband finds proof that morning of his wife's adultery, and a mob carries her to the marketplace to stone her to death. (There is a familiar version of this story, but a friend of mine, a Speaker for the Dead, has told me of two other rabbis that faced the same situation. Those are the ones I'm going to tell you.)
The rabbi walks forward and stands beside the woman. Out of respect for him the mob forbears, and waits with the stones heavy in their hands, "Is there anyone here," he says to them, "who has not desired another man's wife, another woman's husband?"
They murmur and say, "We all know the desire. But, Rabbi, none of us has acted on it."