Speaker for the Dead (Ender's Saga, #2) - Orson Scott Card Page 0,166

answered with a question. "Don't you already know why?"

Miro spoke slowly and carefully, so that Ender could understand his slurred speech. "I know that the piggies thought they were doing them an honor. I know that Mandachuva and Leaf-eater could have died in their places. With Libo, I even know the occasion. It was when the first amaranth harvest came, and there was plenty of food. They were rewarding him for that. Except why not earlier? Why not when we taught them to use merdona root? Why not when we taught them to make pots, or shoot arrows?"

"The truth?" said Ender.

Miro knew from Ender's tone that the truth would not be easy. "Yes," he said.

"Neither Pipo nor Libo really deserved the honor. It wasn't the amaranth that the wives were rewarding. It was the fact that Leaf-eater had persuaded them to let a whole generation of infants be conceived and born even though there wasn't enough food for them to eat once they left the mothertree. It was a terrible risk to take, and if he had been wrong, that whole generation of young piggies would have died. Libo brought the harvest, but Leaf-eater was the one who had, in a sense, brought the population to a point where they needed the grain."

Miro nodded. "Pipo?"

"Pipo told the piggies about his discovery. That the Descolada, which killed humans, was part of their normal physiology. That their bodies could handle transformations that killed us. Mandachuva told the wives that this meant that humans were not godlike and all-powerful. That in some ways we were even weaker than the Little Ones. That what made humans stronger than piggies was not something inherent in us-- our size, our brains, our language-- but rather the mere accident that we were a few thousand years ahead of them in learning. If they could acquire our knowledge, then we humans would have no more power over them. Mandachuva's discovery that piggies were potentially equal to humans-- that was what they rewarded, not the information Pipo gave that led to that discovery."

"So both of them--"

"The piggies didn't want to kill either Pipo or Libo. In both cases, the crucial achievement belonged to a piggy. The only reason Pipo and Libo died was because they couldn't bring themselves to take a knife and kill a friend."

Miro must have seen the pain in Ender's face, despite his best effort to conceal it. Because it was Ender's bitterness that he answered. "You," said Miro, "you can kill anybody."

"It's a knack I was born with," said Ender.

"You killed Human because you knew it would make him live a new and better life," said Miro.

"Yes."

"And me," said Miro.

"Yes," said Ender. "Sending you away is very much like killing you."

"But will I live a new and better life?"

"I don't know. Already you get around better than a tree."

Miro laughed. "So I've got one thing on old Human, don't I-- at least I'm ambulatory. And nobody has to hit me with a stick so I can talk." Then Miro's expression grew sour again. "Of course, now he can have a thousand children."

"Don't count on being celibate all your life," said Ender. "You may be disappointed."

"I hope so," said Miro.

And then, after a silence: "Speaker?"

"Call me Ender."

"Ender, did Pipo and Libo die for nothing, then?" Ender understood the real question: Am I also enduring this for nothing?

"There are worse reasons to die," Ender answered, "than to die because you cannot bear to kill."

"What about someone," said Miro, "who can't kill, and can't die, and can't live, either?"

"Don't deceive yourself," said Ender. "You'll do all three someday."

Miro left the next morning. There were tearful good-byes. For weeks afterward, it was hard for Novinha to spend any time in her own house, because Miro's absence was so painful to her. Even though she had agreed wholeheartedly with Ender that it was right for Miro to go, it was still unbearable to lose her child. It made Ender wonder if his own parents felt such pain when he was taken away. He suspected they had not. Nor had they hoped for his return. He already loved another man's children more than his parents had loved their own child. Well, he'd get fit revenge for their neglect of him. He'd show them, three thousand years later, how a father should behave. Bishop Peregrino married them in his chambers. By Novinha's calculations, she was still young enough to have another six children, if they hurried. They set at the task with