of the tribe. From the sky, but we made them brothers and tried to make them fathers. The tribe is whatever we believe it is. If we say the tribe is all the Little Ones in the forest, and all the trees, then that is what the tribe is. Even though some of the oldest trees here came from warriors of two different tribes, fallen in battle. We become one tribe because we say we're one tribe."
Ender marveled at his mind, this small raman. How few humans were able to grasp this idea, or let it extend beyond the narrow confines of their tribe, their family, their nation.
Human walked behind Ender, leaned against him, the weight of the young piggy pressed against his back. Ender felt Human's breath on his cheek, and then their cheeks were pressed together, both of them looking in the same direction. All at once Ender understood: "You see what I see," said Ender.
"You humans grow by making us part of you, humans and piggies and buggers, ramen together. Then we are one tribe, and our greatness is your greatness, and yours is ours." Ender could feel Human's body trembling with the strength of the idea. "You say to us, we must see all other tribes the same way. As one tribe, our tribe all together, so that we grow by making them grow."
"You could send teachers," said Ender. "Brothers to the other tribes, who could pass into their third life in the other forests and have children there."
"This is a strange and difficult thing to ask of the wives," said Human. "Maybe an impossible thing. Their minds don't work the way a brother's mind works. A brother can think of many different things. But a wife thinks of only one thing: what is good for the tribe, and at the root of that, what is good for the children and the little mothers."
"Can you make them understand this?" asked Ender.
"Better than you could," said Human. "But probably not. Probably I'll fail."
"I don't think you'll fail," said Ender.
"You came here tonight to make a covenant between us, the piggies of this tribe, and you, the humans who live on this world. The humans outside Lusitania won't care about our covenant, and the piggies outside ths forest won't care about it."
"We want to make the same covenant with all of them."
"And in this covenant, you humans promise to teach us everything."
"As quickly as you can understand it."
"Any question we ask."
"If we know the answer."
"When! If! These aren't words in a covenant! Give me straight answers now, Speaker for the Dead." Human stood up, pushed away from Ender, walked around in front of him, bent down a little to look at Ender from above. "Promise to teach us everything that you know!"
"We promise that."
"And you also promise to restore the hive queen to help us."
"I'll restore the hive queen. You'll have to make your own covenant with her. She doesn't obey human law."
"You promise to restore the hive queen, whether she helps us or not."
"Yes."
"You promise to obey our law when you come into our forest. And you agree that the prairie land that we need will also be under our law."
"Yes."
"And you will go to war against all the other humans in all the stars of the sky to protect us and let us also travel in the stars?"
"We already have."
Human relaxed, stepped back, squatted in his old position. He drew with his finger in the dirt. "Now, what you want from us," said Human. "We will obey human law in your city, and also in the prairie land that you need."
"Yes," said Ender.
"And you don't want us to go to war," said Human.
"That's right."
"And that's all?"
"One more thing," said Ender.
"What you ask is already impossible," said Human. "You might as well ask more."
"The third life," said Ender. "When does it begin? When you kill a piggy and he grows into a tree, is that right?"
"The first life is within the mothertree, where we never see the light, and where we eat blindly the meat of our mother's body and the sap of the mothertree. The second life is when we live in the shade of the forest, the half-light, running and walking and climbing, seeing and singing and talking, making with our hands. The third life is when we reach and drink from the sun, in the full light at last, never moving except in the wind; only to think, and on those certain days when