"The only thing I need to take the test before I'm sixteen is the authorization of my legal guardian. I don't have a legal guardian."
"On the contrary," said Pipo. "Mayor Bosquinha was your legal guardian from the day of your parents' death."
"And she agreed I could take the test."
"Provided you came to me."
Novinha saw the intense look in his eyes. She didn't know Pipo, so she thought it was the look she had seen in so many eyes, the desire to dominate, to rule her, the desire to cut through her determination and break her independence, the desire to make her submit.
From ice to fire in an instant. "What do you know about xenobiology! You only go out and talk to the piggies, you don't even begin to understand the workings of genes! Who are you to judge me! Lusitania needs a xenobiologist, and they've been without one for eight years. And you want to make them wait even longer, just so you can be in control!"
To her surprise, he didn't become flustered, didn't retreat. Nor did he get angry in return. It was as if she hadn't spoken.
"I see," he said quietly. "It's because of your great love of the people of Lusitania that you wish to become xenobiologist. Seeing the public need, you sacrificed and prepared yourself to enter early into a lifetime of altruistic service."
It sounded absurd, hearing him say it like that. And it wasn't at all what she felt. "Isn't that a good enough reason?"
"If it were true, it would be good enough."
"Are you calling me a liar?"
"Your own words called you a liar. You spoke of how much they, the people of Lusitania, need you. But you live among us. You've lived among us all your life. Ready to sacrifice for us, and yet you don't feel yourself to be part of this community."
So he wasn't like the adults who always believed lies as long as they made her seem to be the child they wanted her to be. "Why should I feet like part of the community? I'm not. "
He nodded gravely, as if considering her answer. "What community are you a part of?"
"The only other communities on Lusitania are the piggies, and you haven't seen me out there with the tree-worshippers. "
"There are many other communities on Lusitania. For instance, you're a student - there's a community of students.
"Not for me."
"I know. You have no friends, you have no intimate associates, you go to mass but you never go to confession, you are so completely detached that as far as possible you don't touch the life of this colony, you don't touch the life of the human race at any point. From all the evidence, you live in complete isolation."
Novinha wasn't prepared for this. He was naming the underlying pain of her life, and she didn't have a strategy devised to cope with it. "If I do, it isn't my fault."
"I know that. I know where it began, and I know whose fault it was that it continues to this day."
"Mine?"
"Mine. And everyone else's. But mine most of all, because I knew what was happening to you and I did nothing at all. Until today."
"And today you're going to keep me from the one thing that matters to me in my life! Thanks so much for your compassion!"
Again he nodded solemnly, as if he were accepting and acknowledging her ironic gratitude. "In one sense, Novinha, it doesn't matter that it isn't your fault. Because the town of Milagre is a community, and whether it has treated you badly or not, it must still act as all communities do, to provide the greatest possible happiness for all its members."
"Which means everybody on Lusitania except me - me and the piggies."
"The xenobiologist is very important to a colony, especially one like this, surrounded by a fence that forever limits our growth. Our xenobiologist must find ways to grow more protein and carbohydrate per hectare, which means genetically altering the Earthborn corn and potatoes to make - "
"To make maximum use of the nutrients available in the Lusitanian environment. Do you think I'm planning to take the examination without knowing what my life's work would be?"
"Your life's work, to devote yourself to improving the lives of people you despise."
Now Novinha saw the trap that he had laid for her. Too late; it had sprung. "So you think that a xenobiologist can't do her work unless she loves the people who use the