Orson Card - Speaker for the Dead

Mother did not turn to look at her, though she surely could hear Ela's approach through the noisy grass. Ela stopped a few steps away.

"Mother," she said.

"Not a herd of cabra, then," said Mother. "You're so noisy, Ela."

"The Speaker. Wants your help."

"Does he."

Ela explained what the Speaker had told her. Mother did not turn around. When Ela was finished, Mother waited a moment, and then turned to walk over the shoulder of the hill. Ela ran after her, caught up with her. "Mother," said Ela. "Mother, are you going to tell him about the Descolada?"

"Yes."

"Why now? After all these years? Why wouldn't you tell me ?"

"Because you did better work on your own, without my help."

"You know what I was doing?"

"You're my apprentice. I have complete access to your files without leaving any footprints. What kind of master would I be if I didn't watch your work?"

"But--"

"I also read the files you hid under Quara's name. You've never been a mother, so you didn't know that all the file activities of a child under twelve are reported to the parents every week. Quara was doing some remarkable research. I'm glad you're coming with me. When I tell the Speaker, I'll be telling you, too."

"You're going the wrong way," said Ela.

Mother stopped. "Isn't the Speaker's house near the praça?"

"The meeting is in the Bishop's chambers."

For the first time Mother faced Ela directly. "What are you and the Speaker trying to do to me?"

"We're trying to save Miro," said Ela. "And Lusitania Colony, if we can."

"Taking me to the spider's lair--"

"The Bishop has to be on our side or--"

" Our side! So when you say we , you 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."

Miro felt sick. Is this 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.