"So you think," said Quim.
"You know what's worse than an asshole, Quim?"
"Sure," said Quim. "A hostile, bitter, self-pitying, abusive, miserable, useless asshole who has far too high an opinion of the importance of his own suffering."
It was more than Miro could bear. He screamed in fury and threw himself at Quim, knocking him to the ground. Of course Miro lost his own balance and fell on top of his brother, then got tangled in Quim's robes. But that was all right; Miro wasn't trying to get up, he was trying to beat some pain into Quim, as if by doing that he would remove some from himself.
After only a few blows, though, Miro stopped hitting Quim and collapsed in tears, weeping on his brother's chest. After a moment he felt Quim's arms around him. Heard Quim's soft voice, intoning a prayer.
"Pai Nosso, que estas no ceu." From there, however, the incantation stopped and the words turned new and therefore real. "O teu filho esta com dor, o meu irmao precisa a resurreicao da alma, ele merece o refresco da esperanca."
Hearing Quim give voice to Miro's pain, to his outrageous demands, made Miro ashamed again. Why should Miro imagine that he deserved new hope? How could he dare to demand that Quim pray for a miracle for him, for his body to be made whole? It was unfair, Miro knew, to put Quim's faith on the line for a self-pitying unbeliever like him.
But the prayer went on. "Ele deu tudo aos pequeninos, e tu nos disseste, Salvador, que qualquer coisa que fazemos a estes pequeninos, fazemos a ti."
Miro wanted to interrupt. If I gave all to the pequeninos, I did it for them, not for myself. But Quim's words held him silent: You told us, Savior, that whatever we do to these little ones, we do to you. It was as if Quim were demanding that God hold up his end of a bargain. It was a strange sort of relationship that Quim must have with God, as if he had a right to call God to account.
"Ele nao e como Jo, perfeito na coracao."
No, I'm not as perfect as Job. But I've lost everything, just as Job did. Another man fathered my children on the woman who should have been my wife. Others have accomplished my accomplishments. And where Job had boils, I have this lurching half-paralysis--would Job trade with me?
"Restabelece ele como restabeleceste Jo. Em nome do Pai, e do Filho, e do Espirito Santo. Amem." Restore him as you restored Job.
Miro felt his brother's arms release him, and as if it were those arms, not gravity, that held him on his brother's chest, Miro rose up at once and stood looking down on his brother. A bruise was growing on Quim's cheek. His lip was bleeding.
"I hurt you," said Miro. "I'm sorry."
"Yes," said Quim. "You did hurt me. And I hurt you. It's a popular pastime here. Help me up."
For a moment, just one fleeting moment, Miro forgot that he was crippled, that he could barely maintain his balance himself. For just that moment he began to reach out a hand to his brother. But then he staggered as his balance slipped, and he remembered. "I can't," he said.
"Oh, shut up about being crippled and give me a hand."
So Miro positioned his legs far apart and bent down over his brother. His younger brother, who now was nearly three decades his senior, and older still in wisdom and compassion. Miro reached out his hand. Quim gripped it, and with Miro's help rose up from the ground. The effort was exhausting for Miro; he hadn't the strength for this, and Quim wasn't faking it, he was relying on Miro to lift him. They ended up facing each other, shoulder to shoulder, hands still together.
"You're a good priest," said Miro.
"Yeah," said Quim. "And if I ever need a sparring partner, you'll get a call."
"Will God answer your prayer?"
"Of course. God answers all prayers."
It took only a moment for Miro to realize what Quim meant. "I mean, will he say yes."
"Ah. That's the part I'm never sure about. Tell me later if he did."
Quim walked--rather stiffly, limping--to the tree. He bent over and picked up a couple of talking sticks from the ground.
"What are you talking to Rooter about?"
"He sent word that I need to talk to him. There's some kind of heresy in one of the forests a long way from here."
"You convert them and then they go crazy, huh?" said Miro.
"No, actually," said Quim. "This is a group that I never preached to. The fathertrees all talk to each other, so the ideas of Christianity are already everywhere in the world. As usual, heresy seems to spread faster than truth. And Rooter's feeling guilty because it's based on a speculation of his."
"I guess that's a serious business for you," said Miro.
Quim winced. "Not just for me."
"I'm sorry. I meant, for the church. For believers."
"Nothing so parochial as that, Miro. These pequeninos have come up with a really interesting heresy. Once, not long ago, Rooter speculated that, just as Christ came to human beings, the Holy Ghost might someday come to the pequeninos. It's a gross misinterpretation of the Holy Trinity, but this one forest took it quite seriously."
"Sounds pretty parochial to me."
"Me too. Till Rooter told me the specifics. You see, they're convinced that the descolada virus is the incarnation of the Holy Ghost. It makes a perverse kind of sense--since the Holy Ghost has always dwelt everywhere, in all God's creations, it's appropriate for its incarnation to be the descolada virus, which also penetrates into every part of every living thing."
"They worship the virus?"
"Oh, yes. After all, didn't you scientists discover that the pequeninos were created, as sentient beings, by the descolada virus? So the virus is imbued with the creative power, which means it has a divine nature."
"I guess there's as much literal evidence for that as for the incarnation of God in Christ."
"No, there's a lot more. But if that were all, Miro, I'd regard it as a church matter. Complicated, difficult, but--as you said--parochial."
"So what is it?"
"The descolada is the second baptism. By fire. Only the pequeninos can endure that baptism, and it carries them into the third life. They are clearly closer to God than humans, who have been denied the third life."
"The mythology of superiority. We could expect that, I guess," said Miro. "Most communities attempting to survive under irresistible pressure from a dominant culture develop a myth that allows them to believe they are somehow a special people. Chosen. Favored by the gods. Gypsies, Jews--plenty of historical precedents."
"Try this one, Senhor Zenador. Since the pequeninos are the ones chosen by the Holy Ghost, it's their mission to spread this second baptism to every tongue and every people."
"Spread the descolada?"
"To every world. Sort of a portable judgment day. They arrive, the descolada spreads, adapts, kills--and everybody goes to meet their Maker."
"God help us."
"So we hope."
Then Miro made a connection with something he had learned only the day before. "Quim, the buggers are building a ship for the pequeninos."
"So Ender told me. And when I confronted Father Daymaker about it--"
"He's a pequenino?"
"One of Human's children. He said, 'Of course,' as if everyone knew about it. Maybe that's what he thought--that if the pequeninos know it, then it's known. He also told me that this heretic group is angling to try to get command of the ship."
"Why?"
"So they can take it to an inhabited world, of course. Instead of finding an uninhabited planet to terraform and colonize."
"I think we'd have to call it lusiforming."
"Funny." Quim wasn't laughing, though. "They might get their way. This idea of pequeninos being a superior species is popular, especially among non-Christian pequeninos. Most of them aren't very sophisticated. They don't catch on to the fact that they're talking about xenocide. About wiping out the human race."
"How could they miss a little fact like that?"
"Because the heretics are stressing the fact that God loves the humans so much that he sent his only beloved son.
You remember the scripture."
"Whoever believes in him will not perish."
"Exactly. Those who believe will have eternal life. As they see it, the third life."
"So those who die must have been the unbelievers."
"Not all the pequeninos are lining up to volunteer for service as itinerant destroying angels. But enough of them are that it has to be stopped. Not just for the sake of Mother Church."
"Mother Earth."
"So you see, Miro, sometimes a missionary like me takes on a great deal of importance in the world. Somehow I have to persuade these poor heretics of the error of their ways and get them to accept the doctrine of the church."
"Why are you talking to Rooter now?"
"To get the one piece of information the pequeninos never give us."
"What's that?"
"Addresses. There are thousands of pequenino forests on Lusitania. Which one is the heretic community? Their starship will be long gone before I find it by random forest-hopping on my own."
"You're going alone?"
"I always do. I can't take any of the little brothers with me, Miro. Until a forest has been converted, they have a tendency to kill pequenino strangers. One case where it's better to be raman than utlanning."
"Does Mother know you're going?"
"Please be practical, Miro. I have no fear of Satan, but Mother . . ."
"Does Andrew know?"
"Of course. He insists on going with me. The Speaker for the Dead has enormous prestige, and he thinks he could help me."
"So you won't be alone."
"Of course I will. When has a man clothed in the whole armor of God ever needed the help of a humanist?"
"Andrew's a Catholic."
"He goes to mass, he takes communion, he confesses regularly, but he's still a speaker for the dead and I don't think he really believes in God. I'll go alone."
Miro looked at Quim with new admiration. "You're one tough son of a bitch, aren't you?"
"Welders and smiths are tough. Sons of bitches have problems of their own. I'm just a servant of God and of the church, with a job to do. I think recent evidence suggests that I'm in more danger from my brother than I am among the most heretical of pequeninos. Since the death of Human, the pequeninos have kept the worldwide oath--not one has ever raised a hand in violence against a human being. They may be heretics, but they're still pequeninos. They'll keep the oath."
"I'm sorry I hit you."
"I received it as if it were an embrace, my son."
"I wish it had been one, Father Estevao."
"Then it was."
Quim turned to the tree and began to beat out a tattoo. Almost at once, the sound began to shift, changing in pitch and tone as the hollow spaces within the tree changed shape. Miro waited a few moments, listening, even though he didn't understand the language of the fathertrees. Rooter was speaking with the only audible voice the fathertrees had. Once he had spoken with a voice, once had articulated with lips and tongue and teeth. There was more than one way to lose your body. Miro had passed through an experience that should have killed him. He had come out of it crippled. But he could still move, however clumsily, could still speak, however slowly. He thought he was suffering like Job. Rooter and Human, far more crippled than he, thought they had received eternal life.
"Pretty ugly situation," said Jane in his ear.
Yes, said Miro silently.
"Father Estevao shouldn't go alone," she said. "The pequeninos used to be devastatingly effective warriors. They haven't forgotten how."
So tell Ender, said Miro. I don't have any power here.
"Bravely spoken, my hero," said Jane. "I'll talk to Ender while you wait around here for your miracle."
Miro sighed and walked back down the hill and through the gate.
9
PINEHEAD
Qing-jao sat before her terminal, her eyes closed, thinking. Wang-mu was brushing Qing-jao's hair; the tugs, the strokes, the very breath of the girl was a comfort to her.
This was a time when Wang-mu could speak freely, without fear of interrupting her. And, because Wang-mu was Wang-mu, she used hair-brushing time for questions. She had so many questions.
The first few days her questions had all been about the speaking of the gods. Of course, Wang-mu had been greatly relieved to learn that almost always tracing a single woodgrain line was enough--she had been afraid after that first time that Qing-jao would have to trace the whole floor every day.
But she still had questions about everything to do with purification. Why don't you just get up and trace a line every morning and have done with it? Why don't you just have the floor covered in carpet? It was so hard to explain that the gods can't be fooled by silly stratagems like that.
What if there were no wood at all in the whole world? Would the gods burn you up like paper? Would a dragon come and carry you off?
Qing-jao couldn't answer Wang-mu's questions except to say that this is what the gods required of her. If there were no woodgrain, the gods wouldn't require her to trace it. To which Wang-mu replied that they should make a law against wooden floors, then, so that Qing-jao could be shut of the whole business.
Those who hadn't heard the voice of the gods simply couldn't understand.
Today, though, Wang-mu's question had nothing to do with the gods--or, at least, had nothing to do with them at first.
"What is it that finally stopped the Lusitania Fleet?" asked Wang-mu.
Almost, Qing-jao simply took the question in stride; almost she answered with a laugh: If I knew that, I could rest! But then she realized that Wang-mu probably shouldn't even know that the Lusitania Fleet had disappeared.
"How would you know anything about the Lusitania Fleet?"
"I can read, can't I?" said Wang-mu, perhaps a little too proudly.
But why shouldn't she be proud? Qing-jao had told her, truthfully, that Wang-mu learned very quickly indeed, and figured out many things for herself. She was very intelligent, and Qing-jao knew she shouldn't be surprised if Wang-mu understood more than was told to her directly.
"I can see what you have on your terminal," said Wang-mu, "and it always has to do with the Lusitania Fleet. Also you discussed it with your father the first day I was here. I didn't understand most of what you said, but I knew it had to do with the Lusitania Fleet." Wang-mu's voice was suddenly filled with loathing. "May the gods piss in the face of the man who launched that fleet."
Her vehemence was shocking enough; the fact that Wang-mu was speaking against Starways Congress was unbelievable.
"Do you know who it was that launched the fleet?" asked Qing-jao.
"Of course. It was the selfish politicians in Starways Congress, trying to destroy any hope that a colony world could win its independence."
So Wang-mu knew she was speaking tr
easonously. Qing-jao remembered her own similar words, long ago, with loathing; to have them said again in her presence--and by her own secret maid--was outrageous. "What do you know of these things? These are matters for Congress, and here you are speaking of independence and colonies and--"
Wang-mu was on her knees, head bowed to the floor. Qing-jao was at once ashamed for speaking so harshly.
"Oh, get up, Wang-mu."
"You're angry with me."
"I'm shocked to hear you talk like that, that's all. Where did you hear such nonsense?"
"Everybody says it," said Wang-mu.
"Not everybody," said Qing-jao. "Father never says it. On the other hand, Demosthenes says that sort of thing all the time." Qing-jao remembered how she had felt when she first read the words of Demosthenes--how logical and right and fair he had sounded. Only later, after Father had explained to her that Demosthenes was the enemy of the rulers and therefore the enemy of the gods, only then did she realize how oily and deceptive the traitor's words had been, which had almost seduced her into believing that the Lusitania Fleet was evil. If Demosthenes had been able to come so close to fooling an educated godspoken girl like Qing-jao, no wonder that she was hearing his words repeated like truth in the mouth of a common girl.
"Who is Demosthenes?" asked Wang-mu.
"A traitor who is apparently succeeding better than anyone thought." Did Starways Congress realize that Demosthenes' ideas were being repeated by people who had never heard of him? Did anyone understand what this meant? Demosthenes' ideas were now the common wisdom of the common people. Things had reached a more dangerous turn than Qing-jao had imagined. Father was wiser; he must know already. "Never mind," said Qing-jao. "Tell me about the Lusitania Fleet."
"How can I, when it will make you angry?"
Qing-jao waited patiently.
"All right then," said Wang-mu, but she still looked wary. "Father says--and so does Pan Ku-wei, his very wise friend who once took the examination for the civil service and came very very close to passing--"
"What do they say?"
"That it's a very bad thing for Congress to send a huge fleet--and so huge--all to attack the tiniest colony simply because they refused to send away two of their citizens for trial on another world. They say that justice is completely on the side of Lusitania, because to send people from one planet to another against their will is to take them away from family and friends forever. That's like sentencing them before the trial."