ever heard," she said. "The only one I care about. Is that what you wanted to hear? That I'm a heretic? And my whole life's work is going to be adding another book to the Index of truths that good Catholics are forbidden to read?"
"What I wanted to hear," said Pipo softly, "was the name of what you are instead of the name of all the things that you are not. What you are is the hive queen. What you are is the Speaker for the Dead. It's a very small community, small in numbers, but a great-hearted one. So you chose not to be part of the bands of children who group together for the sole purpose of excluding others, and people look at you and say, poor girl, she's so isolated, but you know a secret, you know who you really are. You are the one human being who is capable of understanding the alien mind, because you are the alien mind; you know what it is to be unhuman because there's never been any human group that gave you credentials as a bona fide homo sapiens."
"Now you say I'm not even human? You made me cry like a little girl because you wouldn't let me take the test, you made me humiliate myself, and now you say I'm unhuman?"
"You can take the test."
The words hung in the air.
"When?" she whispered.
"Tonight. Tomorrow. Begin when you like. I'll stop my work to take you through the tests as quickly as you like."
"Thank you! Thank you, I - "
"Become the Speaker for the Dead. I'll help you all I can. The law forbids me to take anyone but my apprentice, my son Libo, out to meet the pequeninos. But we'll open our notes to you. Everything we learn, we'll show you. All our guesses and speculation. In return, you also show us all your work, what you find out about the genetic patterns of this world that might help us understand the pequeninos. And when we've learned enough, together, you can write your book, you can become the Speaker. But this time not the Speaker for the Dead. The pequeninos aren't dead."
In spite of herself, she smiled. "The Speaker for the Living."
"I've read the Hive Queen and the Hegemon, too," he said. "I can't think of a better place for you to find your name."
But she did not trust him yet, did not believe what he seemed to be promising. "I'll want to come here often. All the time."
"We lock it up when we go home to bed."
"But all the rest of the time. You'll get tired of me. You'll tell me to go away. You'll keep secrets from me. You'll tell me to be quiet and not mention my ideas."
"We've only just become friends, and already you think I'm such a liar and cheat, such an impatient oaf."
"But you will, everyone does; they all wish I'd go away - "
Pipo shrugged. "So? Sometime or other everybody wishes everybody would go away. Sometimes I'll wish you would go away. What I'm telling you now is that even at those times, even if I tell you to go away, you don't have to go away."
It was the most bafflingly perfect thing that anyone had ever said to her. "That's crazy."
"Only one thing. Promise me you'll never try to go out to the pequeninos. Because I can never let you do that, and if somehow you do it anyway, Starways Congress would close down all our work here, forbid any contact with them. Do you promise me? Or everything - my work, your work - it will all be undone."
"I promise."
"When will you take the test?"
"Now! Can I begin it now?"
He laughed gently, then reached out a hand and without looking touched the terminal. It came to life, the first genetic models appearing in the air above the terminal.
"You had the examination ready," she said. "You were all set to go! You knew that you'd let me do it all along!"
He shook his head. "I hoped. I believed in you. I wanted to help you do what you dreamed of doing. As long as it was something good."
She would not have been Novinha if she hadn't found one more poisonous thing to say. "I see. You are the judge of dreams."
Perhaps he didn't know it was an insult. He only smiled and said, "Faith, hope, and love - these three. But the greatest of these is love."