Speaker for the Dead (Ender's Saga, #2) - Orson Scott Card Page 0,128
what all their work and sacrifice was for, to give some transient advantage to one tribe of piggies? Almost he said, Libo didn't die so you could conquer the world. But his training took over, and he asked a noncommittal question. "Where are all these new children?"
"None of the little brothers come to us," explained Human. "We have too much to do, learning from you and teaching all the other brother-houses. We can't be training little brothers." Then, proudly, he added, "Of the three hundred, fully half are children of my father, Rooter."
Mandachuva nodded gravely. "The wives have great respect for what you have taught us. And they have great hope in the Speaker for the Dead. But what you tell us now, this is very bad. If the framlings hate us, what will we do?"
"I don't know," said Miro. For the moment, his mind was racing to try to cope with all the information they had just told him. Three hundred twenty new babies. A population explosion. And Rooter somehow the father of half of them. Before today Miro would have dismissed the statement of Rooter's fatherhood as part of the piggies' totemic belief system. But having seen a tree uproot itself and fall apart in response to singing, he was prepared to question all his old assumptions.
Yet what good did it do to learn anything now? They'd never let him report again; he couldn't follow up; he'd be aboard a starship for the next quarter century while someone else did all his work. Or worse, no one else.
"Don't be unhappy," said Human. "You'll see-- the Speaker for the Dead will make it all work out well."
"The Speaker. Yes, he'll make everything work out fine." The way he did for me and Ouanda. My sister.
"The hive queen says he'll teach the framlings to love us."
"Teach the framlings," said Miro. "He'd better do it quickly then. It's too late for him to save me and Ouanda. They're arresting us and taking us off planet."
"To the stars?" asked Human hopefully.
"Yes, to the stars, to stand trial! To be punished for helping you. It'll take us twenty-two years to get there, and they'll never let us come back."
The piggies took a moment to absorb this information. Fine, thought Miro. Let them wonder how the Speaker is going to solve everything for them. I trusted in the Speaker, too, and it didn't do much for me. The piggies conferred together.
Human emerged from the group and came closer to the fence. "We'll hide you."
"They'll never find you in the forest," said Mandachuva.
"They have machines that can track me by my smell," said Miro.
"Ah. But doesn't the law forbid them to show us their machines?" asked Human.
Miro shook his head. "It doesn't matter. The gate is sealed to me. I can't cross the fence."
The piggies looked at each other.
"But you have capim right there," said Arrow.
Miro looked stupidly at the grass. "So what?" he asked.
"Chew it," said Human.
"Why?" asked Miro.
"We've seen humans chewing capim," said Leaf-eater. "The other night, on the hillside, we saw the Speaker and some of the robe-humans chewing capim."
"And many other times," said Mandachuva.
Their impatience with him was frustrating. "What does that have to do with the fence?"
Again the piggies looked at each other. Finally Mandachuva tore off a blade of capim near the ground, folded it carefully into a thick wad, and put it in his mouth to chew it. He sat down after a while. The others began teasing him, poking him with their fingers, pinching him. He showed no sign of noticing. Finally Human gave him a particularly vicious pinch, and when Mandachuva did not respond, they began saying, in males' language, Ready, Time to go, Now, Ready.
Mandachuva stood up, a bit shaky for a moment. Then he ran at the fence and scrambled to the top, flipped over, and landed on all fours on the same side as Miro.
Miro leaped to his feet and began to cry out just as Mandachuva reached the top; by the time he finished his cry, Mandachuva was standing up and dusting himself off.
"You can't do that," said Miro. "It stimulates all the pain nerves in the body. The fence can't be crossed."
"Oh," said Mandachuva.
From the other side of the fence, Human was rubbing his thighs together. "He didn't know," he said. "The humans don't know."
"It's an anesthetic," said Miro. "It stops you from feeling pain."
"No," said Mandachuva. "I feel the pain. Very bad pain. Worst pain in the world."