Speaker for the dead

“I don't believe you,” said Human. “If that's true, why did Pipo and Libo make us plant them?”

Novinha knelt down beside Ender, touching him– no, leaning on him– so she could hear more clearly.

“How did they make you plant them?” said Ender.

“They made the great gift, won the great honor. The human and the piggy together. Pipo and Mandachuva. Libo and Leaf-eater. Mandachuva and Leaf-eater both thought that they would win the third life, but each time, Pipo and Libo would not. They insisted on keeping the gift for themselves. Why would they do that, if humans have no third life?”

Novinha's voice came then, husky and emotional. “What did they have to do, to give the third life to Mandachuva or Leaf-eater?”

“Plant them, of course,” said Human. “The same as today.”

“The same as what today?” asked Ender.

“You and me,” said Human. “Human and the Speaker for the Dead. If we make this covenant so that the wives and the humans agree together, then this is a great, a noble day. So either you will give me the third life, or I will give it to you.”

“With my own hand?”

“Of course,” said Human. “If you won't give me the honor, then I must give it to you.”

Ender remembered the picture he had first seen only two weeks ago, of Pipo dismembered and disemboweled, his body parts stretched and spread. Planted. “Human,” said Ender, “the worst crime that a human being can commit is murder. And one of the worst ways to do it is to take a living person and cut him and hurt him so badly that he dies.”

Again Human squatted for a while, trying to make sense of this. “Speaker,” he said at last, “my mind keeps seeing this two ways. If humans don't have a third life, then planting is killing, forever. In our eyes, Libo and Pipo were keeping the honor to themselves, and leaving Mandachuva and Leaf-eater as you see them, to die without honor for their accomplishments. In our eyes, you humans came out of the fence to the hillside and tore them from the ground before their roots could grow. In our eyes, it was you who committed murder, when you carried Pipo and Libo away. But now I see it another way. Pipo and Libo wouldn't take Mandachuva and Leaf-eater into the third life, because to them it would be murder. So they willingly allowed their own death, just so they wouldn't have to kill any of us.”

“Yes,” said Novinha.

“But if that's so, then when you humans saw them on the hillside, why didn't you come into the forest and kill us all? Why didn't you make a great fire and consume all our fathers, and the great mothertree herself?”

Leaf-eater cried out from the edge of the forest, a terrible keening cry, an unbearable grief.

“If you had cut one of our trees,” said Human. “If you had murdered a single tree, we would have come upon you in the night and killed you, every one of you. And even if some of you survived, our messengers would have told the story to every other tribe, and none of you would ever have left this land alive. Why didn't you kill us, for murdering Pipo and Libo?”

Mandachuva suddenly appeared behind Human, panting heavily. He flung himself to the ground, his hands outstretched toward Ender. “I cut him with these hands,” he cried. “I tried to honor him, and I killed his tree forever!”

“No,” said Ender. He took Mandachuva's hands, held them. “You both thought you were saving each other's life. He hurt you, and you– hurt him, yes, killed him, but you both believed you were doing good. That's enough, until now. Now you know the truth, and so do we. We know that you didn't mean murder. And you know that when you take a knife to a human being, we die forever. That's the last term in the covenant, Human. Never take another human being to the third life, because we don't know how to go.”

“When I tell this story to the wives,” said Human, “you'll hear grief so terrible that it will sound like the breaking of trees in a thunderstorm.”

He turned and stood before Shouter, and spoke to her for a few moments. Then he returned to Ender. “Go now,” he said.

“We have no covenant yet,” said Ender.

“I have to speak to all the wives. They'll never do that while you're here, in the shade of the mothertree, with no one to protect the little ones. Arrow will lead you back out of the forest. Wait for me on the hillside, where Rooter keeps watch over the gate. Sleep if you can. I'll present the covenant to the wives and try to make them understand that we must deal as kindly with the other tribes as you have dealt with us.”

Impulsively, Human reached out a hand and touched Ender firmly on the belly. “I make my own covenant,” he said to Ender. “I will honor you forever, but I will never kill you.”

Ender put out his hand and laid his palm against Human's warm abdomen. The protuberances under his hand were hot to the touch. “I will also honor you forever,” said Ender.

“And if we make this convenant between your tribe and ours,” said Human, “will you give me the honor of the third life? Will you let me rise up and drink the light?”

“Can we do it quickly? Not the slow and terrible way that–”

“And make me one of the silent trees? Never fathering? Without honor, except to feed my sap to the filthy macios and give my wood to the brothers when they sing to me?”

“Isn't there someone else who can do it?” asked Ender. “One of the brothers, who knows your way of life and death?”

“You don't understand,” said Human. “This is how the whole tribe knows that the truth has been spoken. Either you must take me into the third life, or I must take you, or there's no covenant. I won't kill you, Speaker, and we both want a treaty.”

“I'll do it,” said Ender.

Human nodded, withdrew his hand, and returned to Shouter.

“O Deus,” whispered Ouanda. “How will you have the heart?”

Ender had no answer. He merely followed silently behind Arrow as he led them to the woods. Novinha gave him her own nightstick to lead the way; Arrow played with it like a child, making the light small and large, making it hover and swoop like a suckfly among the trees and bushes. He was as happy and playful as Ender had ever seen a piggy be.

But behind them, they could hear the voices of the wives, singing a terrible and cacophonous song. Human had told them the truth about Pipo and Libo, that they died the final death, and in pain, all so that they would not have to do to Mandachuva and Leaf-eater what they thought was murder. Only when they had gone far enough that the sound of the wives' keening was softer than their own footfalls and the wind in the trees did any of the humans speak.

“That was the mass for my father's soul,” said Ouanda softly.

“And for mine,” answered Novinha; they all knew that she spoke of Pipo, not the long-dead Venerado, Gusto.

But Ender was not part of their conversation; he had not known Libo and Pipo, and did not belong to their memory of grief. All he could think of was the trees of the forest. They had once been living, breathing piggies, every one of them. The piggies could sing to them, talk to them, even, somehow, understand their speech. But Ender couldn't. To Ender the trees were not people, could never be people. If he took the knife to Human, it might not be murder in the piggies' eyes, but to Ender himself he would be taking away the only part of Human's life that Ender understood. As a piggy, Human was a true raman, a brother. As a tree he would be little more than a gravestone, as far as Ender could understand, as far as he could really believe.

Once again, he thought, I must kill, though I promised that I never would again.

He felt Novinha's hand take him by the crook of the arm. She leaned on him. “Help me,” she said. “I'm almost blind in the darkness.”

“I have good night vision,” Olhado offered cheerfully from behind her.

“Shut up, stupid,” Ela whispered fiercely. “Mother wants to walk with him.”