Speaker for the Dead (Ender's Saga, #2) - Orson Scott Card Page 0,82

illegal to tie up the public systems with a slave program like that. Is that what that thing in your ear is for?"

"Yes, and it wasn't illegal for me."

"I got no eyes, Speaker, but at least that wasn't my own fault. You can't do anything." Only after he said it did Olhado realize that he was talking to the Speaker as brusquely as if he were another kid.

"I imagine courtesy is something they teach to thirteen-year-olds," the Speaker said. Olhado glanced at him. He was smiling. Father would have yelled at him, and then probably gone in and beaten up Mother because she didn't teach manners to her kids. But then, Olhado would never have said anything like that to Father.

"Sorry," Olhado said. "But I can't get into your finances for you without your password. You've got to have some idea what it is."

"Try using my name."

Olhado tried. It didn't work.

"Try typing 'Jane.'"

"Nothing."

The Speaker grimaced. "Try 'Ender.'"

"Ender? The Xenocide?"

"Just try it."

It worked. Olhado didn't get it. "Why would you have a password like that? It's like having a dirty word for your password, only the system won't accept any dirty words."

"I have an ugly sense of humor," the Speaker answered. "And my slave program, as you call it, has an even worse one."

Olhado laughed. "Right. A program with a sense of humor." The current balance in liquid funds appeared on the screen. Olhado had never seen so large a number in his life. "OK, so maybe the computer can tell a joke."

"That's how much money I have?"

"It's got to be an error."

"Well, I've done a lot of lightspeed travel. Some of my investments must have turned out well while I was en route."

The numbers were real. The Speaker for the Dead was older than Olhado had ever thought anybody could possibly be. "I'll tell you what," said Olhado, "instead of paying me a wage, why don't you just give me a percentage of the interest this gets during the time I work for you? Say, one thousandth of one percent. Then in a couple of weeks I can afford to buy Lusitania and ship the topsoil to another planet."

"It's not that much money."

"Speaker, the only way you could get that much money from investments is if you were a thousand years old."

"Hmm," said the Speaker.

And from the look on his face, Olhado realized that he had just said something funny. "Are you a thousand years old?" he asked.

"Time," said the Speaker, "time is such a fleeting, insubstantial thing. As Shakespeare said, 'I wasted time, and now doth time waste me.'"

"What does 'doth' mean?"

"It means 'does.'"

"Why do you quote a guy who doesn't even know how to speak Stark?"

"Transfer to your own account what you think a fair week's wage might be. And then start doing those comparisons of Pipo's and Libo's working files from the last few weeks before their deaths."

"They're probably shielded."

"Use my password. It ought to get us in."

Olhado did the search. The Speaker of the Dead watched him the whole time. Now and then he asked Olhado a question about what he was doing. From his questions Olhado could tell that the Speaker knew more about computers than Olhado himself did. What he didn't know was the particular commands; it was plain that just by watching, the Speaker was figuring out a lot. By the end of the day, when the searches hadn't found anything in particular, it took Olhado only a minute to figure out why the Speaker looked so contented with the day's work. You didn't want results at all, Olhado thought. You wanted to watch how I did the search. I know what you'll be doing tonight, Andrew Wiggin, Speaker for the Dead. You'll be running your own searches on some other files. I may have no eyes, but I can see more than you think.

What's dumb is that you're keeping it such a secret, Speaker. Don't you know I'm on your side? I won't tell anybody how your password gets you into private files. Even if you make a run at the Mayor's files, or the Bishop's. No need to keep a secret from me. You've only been here three days, but I know you well enough to like you, and I like you well enough that I'd do anything for you, as long as it didn't hurt my family. And you'd never do anything to hurt my family.

Novinha discovered the Speaker's attempts to intrude in her files almost immediately the next morning.