Speaker for the Dead (Ender's Saga, #2) - Orson Scott Card Page 0,127
mean you and the Speaker, is that it? Do you think I haven't noticed that? All my children, one by one, he's seduced you all--"
"He hasn't seduced anybody!"
"He seduced you with his way of knowing just what you want to hear, of--"
"He's no flatterer," said Ela. "He doesn't tell us what we want. He tells us what we know is true. He didn't win our affection, Mother, he won our trust."
"Whatever he gets from you, you never gave it to me."
"We wanted to."
Ela did not bend this time before her mother's piercing, demanding glare. It was her mother, instead, who bent, who looked away and then looked back with tears in her eyes. "I wanted to tell you." Mother wasn't talking about her files. "When I saw how you hated him, I wanted to say, He's not your father, your father is a good, kind man--"
"Who didn't have the courage to tell us himself."
Rage came into Mother's eyes. "He wanted to. I wouldn't let him."
"I'll tell you something, Mother. I loved Libo, the way everybody in Milagre loved him. But he was willing to be a hypocrite, and so were you, and without anybody even guessing, the poison of your lies hurt us all. I don't blame you, Mother, or him. But I thank God for the Speaker. He was willing to tell us the truth, and it set us free."
"It's easy to tell the truth," said Mother softly, "when you don't love anybody."
"Is that what you think?" said Ela. "I think I know something, Mother. I think you can't possibly know the truth about somebody unless you love them. I think the Speaker loved Father. Marcão, I mean. I think he understood him and loved him before he Spoke."
Mother didn't answer, because she knew that it was true.
"And I know he loves Grego, and Quara, and Olhado. And Miro, and even Quim. And me. I know he loves me. And when he shows me that he loves me, I know it's true because he never lies to anybody."
Tears came out of Mother's eyes and drifted down her cheeks.
"I have lied to you and everybody else," Mother said. Her voice sounded weak and strained. "But you have to believe me anyway. When I tell you that I love you."
Ela embraced her mother, and for the first time in years she felt warmth in her mother's response. Because the lies between them now were gone. The Speaker had erased the barrier, and there was no reason to be tentative and cautious anymore.
"You're thinking about that damnable Speaker even now, aren't you?" whispered her mother.
"So are you," Ela answered.
Both their bodies shook with Mother's laugh. "Yes." Then she stopped laughing and pulled away, looked Ela in the eyes. "Will he always come between us?"
"Yes," said Ela. "Like a bridge he'll come between us, not a wall."
Miro saw the piggies when they were halfway down the hillside toward the fence. They were so silent in the forest, but the piggies had no great skill in moving through the capim-- it rustled loudly as they ran. Or perhaps in coming to answer Miro's call they felt no need to conceal themselves. As they came nearer, Miro recognized them. Arrow, Human, Mandachuva, Leaf-eater, Cups. He did not call out to them, nor did they speak when they arrived. Instead they stood behind the fence opposite him and regarded him silently. No Zenador had ever called the piggies to the fence before. By their stillness they showed their anxiety.
"I can't come to you anymore," said Miro.
They waited for his explanation.
"The framlings found out about us. Breaking the law. They sealed the gate."
Leaf-eater touched his chin. "Do you know what it was the framlings saw?"
Miro laughed bitterly. "What didn't they see? Only one framling ever came with us."
"No," said Human. "The hive queen says it wasn't the Speaker. The hive queen says they saw it from the sky. "
The satellites? "What could they see from the sky?"
"Maybe the hunt," said Arrow.
"Maybe the shearing of the cabra," said Leaf-eater.
"Maybe the fields of amaranth," said Cups.
"All of those," said Human. "And maybe they saw that the wives have let three hundred twenty children be born since the first amaranth harvest."
"Three hundred!"
"And twenty," said Mandachuva.
"They saw that food would be plenty," said Arrow. "Now we're sure to win the next war. Our enemies will be planted in huge new forests all over the plain, and the wives will put mother trees in every one of them."