“What will make you decide?” said Human. “We give gifts to the wives, to win their honor, but you are the wisest of all humans, and we have nothing that you need.”
“You have many things that I need,” said Speaker.
“What? Can't you make better pots than these? Truer arrows? The cape I wear is made from cabra wool– but your clothing is finer.”
“I don't need things like that,” said Speaker. “What I need are true stories.”
Human leaned closer, then let his body become rigid in excitement, in anticipation. “O Speaker!” he said, and his voice was powerful with the importance of his words. “Will you add our story to the Hive Queen and the Hegemon?”
“I don't know your story,” said the Speaker.
“Ask us! Ask us anything!”
“How can I tell your story? I only tell the stories of the dead.”
“We are dead!” shouted Human. Miro had never seen him so agitated. “We are being murdered every day. Humans are filling up all the worlds. The ships travel through the black of night from star to star to star, filling up every empty place. Here we are, on our one little world, watching the sky fill up with humans. The humans build their stupid fence to keep us out, but that is nothing. The sky is our fence!” Human leapt upward– startlingly high, for his legs were powerful. “Look how the fence throws me back down to the ground!”
He ran at the nearest tree, bounded up the trunk, higher than Miro had ever seen him climb; he shinnied out on a limb and threw himself upward into the air. He hung there for an agonizing moment at the apex of his leap; then gravity flung him downward onto the hard ground.
Miro could hear the breath thrust out of him by the force of the blow. The Speaker immediately rushed to Human; Miro was close behind. Human wasn't breathing.
“Is he dead?” asked Ouanda behind him.
“No!” cried a piggy in the Males' Language. “You can't die! No no no!” Miro looked; to his surprise, it was Leaf-eater. “You can't die!”
Then Human reached up a feeble hand and touched the Speaker's face. He inhaled, a deep gasp. And then spoke, “You see, Speaker? I would die to climb the wall that keeps us from the stars.”
In all the years that Miro had known the piggies, in all the years before, they had never once spoken of star travel, never once asked about it. Yet now Miro realized that all the questions they did ask were oriented toward discovering the secret of starflight. The xenologers had never realized that because they knew– knew without questioning– that the piggies were so remote from the level of culture that could build starships that it would be a thousand years before such a thing could possibly be in their reach. But their craving for knowledge about metal, about motors, about flying above the ground, it was all their way of trying to find the secret of starflight.
Human slowly got to his feet, holding the Speaker's hands. Miro realized that in all the years he had known the piggies, never once had a piggy taken him by the hand. He felt a deep regret. And the sharp pain of jealousy.
Now that Human was clearly not injured, the other piggies crowded close around the Speaker. They did not jostle, but they wanted to be near.
“Rooter says the hive queen knows how to build starships,” said Arrow.
“Rooter says the hive queen will teach us everything,” said Cups. “Metal, fire made from rocks, houses made from black water, everything.”
Speaker raised his hands, fended off their babbling. “If you were all very thirsty, and saw that I had water, you'd all ask me for a drink. But what if I knew that the water I had was poisoned?”
“There is no poison in the ships that fly to the stars,” said Human.
“There are many paths to starflight,” said the Speaker. “Some are better than others. I'll give you everything I can that won't destroy you.”
“The hive queen promises!” said Human.
“And so do I.”
Human lunged forward, grabbed the Speaker by the hair and ears, and pulled him face to face. Miro had never seen such an act of violence; it was what he had dreaded, the decision to murder. “If we are ramen,” shouted Human into the Speaker's face, “then it is ours to decide, not yours! And if we are varelse, then you might as well kill us all right now, the way you killed all the hive queen's sisters!”
Miro was stunned. It was one thing for the piggies to decide this was the Speaker who wrote the book. But how could they reach the unbelievable conclusion that he was somehow guilty of the Xenocide? Who did they think he was, the monster Ender?
And yet there sat the Speaker for the Dead, tears running down his cheeks, his eyes closed, as if Human's accusation had the force of truth.
Human turned his head to speak to Miro. “What is this water?” he whispered. Then he touched the Speaker's tears.
“It's how we show pain or grief or suffering,” Miro answered.
Mandachuva suddenly cried out, a hideous cry that Miro had never heard before, like an animal dying.
“That is how we show pain,” whispered Human.
“Ah! Ah!” cried Mandachuva. “I have seen that water before! In the eyes of Libo and Pipo I saw that water!”
One by one, and then all at once, all the other piggies took up the same cry. Miro was terrified, awed, excited all at once. He had no idea what it meant, but the piggies were showing emotions that they had concealed from the xenologers for forty-seven years.
“Are they grieving for Papa?” whispered Ouanda. Her eyes, too, glistened with excitement, and her hair was matted with the sweat of fear.
Miro said it the moment it occurred to him: “They didn't know until this moment that Pipo and Libo were crying when they died.”
Miro had no idea what thoughts then went through Ouanda's head; he only knew that she turned away, stumbled a few steps, fell to her hands and knees, and wept bitterly.
All in all, the coming of the Speaker had certainly stirred things up.
Miro knelt beside the Speaker, whose head was now bowed, his chin pressed against his chest. “Speaker,” Miro said. “Como pode ser? How can it be, that you are the first Speaker, and yet you are also Ender? Nao pode ser.”
“She told them more than I ever thought she would,” he whispered.
“But the Speaker for the Dead, the one who wrote this book, he's the wisest man who lived in the age of flight among the stars. While Ender was a murderer, he killed a whole people, a beautiful race of ramen that could have taught us everything–”
“Both human, though,” whispered the Speaker.
Human was near them now, and he spoke a couplet from the Hegemon: “Sickness and healing are in every heart. Death and deliverance are in every hand.”
“Human,” said the Speaker, “tell your people not to grieve for what they did in ignorance.”
“It was a terrible thing,” said Human. “It was our greatest gift.”
“Tell your people to be quiet, and listen to me.”
Human shouted a few words, not in the Males' Language, but in the Wives' Language, the language of authority. They fell silent, then sat to hear what Speaker would say.
“I'll do everything I can,” said the Speaker, “but first I have to know you, or how can I tell your story? I have to know you, or how can I know whether the drink is poisonous or not? And the hardest problem of all will still remain. The human race is free to love the buggers because they think the buggers all are dead. You are still alive, and so they're still afraid of you.”