«Brother Amai,» said Bishop Peregrino. He never used the honorific Dom Crist o, even though cardinals had been known to give that much courtesy. «It was good of you to come.»
Navio was already sitting in the softest chair, but Dom Crist o did not begrudge him that. Indolence had made Navio fat, and his fat now made him indolent; it was such a circular disease, feeding always on itself, and Dom Crist o was grateful not to be so afflicted. He chose for himself a tall stool with no back at all. It would keep his body from relaxing, and that would help his mind to stay alert.
Navio almost at once launched into an account of his painful meeting with the Speaker for the Dead, complete with elaborate explanations of what the Speaker had threatened to do if noncooperation continued. “An inquisitor, if you can imagine that! An infidel daring to supplant the authority of Mother Church!” Oh, how the lay member gets the crusading spirit when Mother Church is threatened– but ask him to go to mass once a week, and the crusading spirit curls up and goes to sleep.
Navio's words did have some effect: Bishop Peregrino grew more and more angry, his face getting a pinkish tinge under the deep brown of his skin. When Navio's recitation finally ended, Peregrino turned to Dom Crist o, his face a mask of fury, and said, «Now what do you say, Brother Amai!»
I would say, if I were less discreet, that you were a fool to interfere with this Speaker when you knew the law was on his side and when he had done nothing to harm us. Now he is provoked, and is far more dangerous than he would ever have been if you had simply ignored his coming.
Dom Crist o smiled thinly and inclined his head. «I think that we should strike first to remove his power to harm us.»
Those militant words took Bishop Peregrino by surprise. “Exactly,” he said. “But I never expected you to understand that.”
«The Filhos are as ardent as any unordained Christian could hope to be,» said Dom Crist o. «But since we have no priesthood, we have to make do with reason and logic as poor substitutes for authority.»
Bishop Peregrino suspected irony from time to time, but was never quite able to pin it down. He grunted, and his eyes narrowed. “So, then, Brother Amai, how do you propose to strike him?”
“Well, Father Peregrino, the law is quite explicit. He has power over us only if we interfere with his performance of his ministerial duties. If we wish to strip him of the power to harm us, we have merely to cooperate with him.”
The Bishop roared and struck the table before him with his fist. “Just the sort of sophistry I should have expected from you, Amai!”
Dom Crist o smiled. «There's really no alternative– either we answer his questions, or he petitions with complete justice for inquisitorial status, and you board a starship for the Vatican to answer charges of religious persecution. We are all too fond of you, Bishop Peregrino, to do anything that would cause your removal from office.»
“Oh, yes, I know all about your fondness.”
“The Speakers for the Dead are really quite innocuous– they set up no rival organization, they perform no sacraments, they don't even claim that the Hive Queen and the Hegemon is a work of scripture. They only thing they do is try to discover the truth about the lives of the dead, and then tell everyone who will listen the story of a dead person's life as the dead one meant to live it.”
“And you pretend to find that harmless?”
“On the contrary. San Angelo founded our order precisely because the telling of truth is such a powerful act. But I think it is far less harmful then, say, the Protestant Reformation. And the revocation of our Catholic License on the grounds of religious persecution would guarantee the immediate authorization of enough non-Catholic immigration to make us represent no more than a third of the population.”
Bishop Peregrino fondled his ring. “But would the Starways Congress actually authorize that? They have a fixed limit on the size of this colony– bringing in that many infidels would far exceed that limit.”
“But you must know that they've already made provision for that. Why do you think two starships have been left in orbit around our planet? Since a Catholic License guarantees unrestricted population growth, they will simply carry off our excess population in forced emigration. They expect to do it in a generation or two– what's to stop them from beginning now?”
“They wouldn't.”
“Starways Congress was formed to stop the jihads and pogroms that were going on in half a dozen places all the time. An invocation of the religious persecution laws is a serious matter.”
“It is entirely out of proportion! One Speaker for the Dead is called for by some half-crazed heretic, and suddenly we're confronted with forced emigration!”
“My beloved father, this has always been the way of things between the secular authority and the religious. We must be patient, if for no other reason than this: They have all the guns.”
Navio chuckled at that.
“They may have the guns, but we hold the keys of heaven and hell,” said the Bishop.
“And I'm sure that half of Starways Congress already writhes in anticipation. In the meantime, though, perhaps I can help ease the pain of this awkward time. Instead of your having to publicly retract your earlier remarks–” (your stupid, destructive, bigoted remarks) “–let it be known that you have instructed the Filhos da Mente de Cristo to bear the onerous burden of answering the questions of this infidel.”
“You may not know all the answers that he wants,” said Navio.
“But we can find out the answers for him, can't we? Perhaps this way the people of Milagre will never have to answer to the Speaker directly; instead they will speak only to harmless brothers and sisters of our order.”
“In other words,” said Peregrino dryly, “the monks of your order will become servants of the infidel.”
Dom Crist o silently chanted his name three times.
Not since he was a child in the military had Ender felt so clearly that he was in enemy territory. The path up the hill from the praqa was worn from the steps of many worshippers' feet, and the cathedral dome was so tall that except for a few moments on the steepest slope, it was visible all the way up the hill. The primary school was on his left hand, built in terraces up the slope; to the right was the Vila dos Professores, named for the teachers but in fact inhabited mostly by the groundskeepers, janitors, clerks, counselors, and other menials. The teachers that Ender saw all wore the grey robes of the Filhos, and they eyed him curiously as he passed.
The enmity began when he reached the top of the hill, a wide, almost flat expanse of lawn and garden immaculately tended, with crushed ores from the smelter making neat paths. Here is the world of the Church, thought Ender, everything in its place and no weeds allowed. He was aware of the many watching him, but now the robes were black or orange, priests and deacons, their eyes malevolent with authority under threat. What do I steal from you by coming here? Ender asked them silently. But he knew that their hatred was not undeserved. He was a wild herb growing in the well-tended garden; wherever he stepped, disorder threatened, and many lovely flowers would die if he took root and sucked the life from their soil.
Jane chatted amiably with him, trying to provoke him into answering her, but Ender refused to be caught by her game. The priests would not see his lips move; there was a considerable faction in the Church that regarded implants like the jewel in his ear as a sacrilege, trying to improve on a body that God had created perfect.