In the meantime, continue your evaluation of the files retrieved from Lusitania, It's completely irrational for them to rebel just because we want to arrest two errant xenologers. There was nothing in the Mayor's background to suggest this was possible. If there's a chance that there was a revolution, I want to find out who the leaders of that revolution might be.
Pyotr, I know you're doing your best. So am I. So is everybody. So are the people on Lusitania, probably. But my responsibility is the safety and integrity of the Hundred Worlds. I have a hundred times the responsibility of Peter the Hegemon and about a tenth of his power. Not to mention the fact that I'm far from being the genius he was. No doubt you and everybody else would be happier if Peter were still available. I'm just afraid that by the time this thing is over, we may need another Ender. Nobody wants Xenocide, but if it happens, I want to make sure it's the other guys that disappear. When it comes to war, human is human and alien is alien. All that raman business goes up in smoke when we're talking about survival.
Does that satisfy you? Do you believe me when I tell you that I'm not being soft? Now see to it you're not soft, either. See to it you get me results, fast. Now. Love and kisses, Bawa.
– Gobawa Ekimbo, Chmn Xen Ovst Comm, to Pyotr Martinov, Dir Cgrs Sec Agc, Memo 44:1970:5:4:2; cit. Demosthenes, The Second Xenocide, 87:1972:1:1:1
Human led the way through the forest. The piggies scrambled easily up and down slopes, across a stream, through thick underbrush. Human, though, seemed to make a dance of it, running partway up certain trees, touching and speaking to others. The other piggies were much more restrained, only occasionally joining him in his antics. Only Mandachuva hung back with the human beings.
“Why does he do that?” asked Ender quietly.
Mandachuva was baffled for a moment. Ouanda explained what Ender meant. “Why does Human climb the trees, or touch them and sing?”
“He sings to them about the third life,” said Mandachuva. “It's very bad manners for him to do that. He has always been selfish and stupid.”
Ouanda looked at Ender in surprise, then back at Mandachuva. “I thought everybody liked Human,” she said.
“Great honor,” said Mandachuva. “A wise one.” Then Mandachuva poked Ender in the hip. “But he's a fool in one thing. He thinks you'll do him honor. He thinks you'll take him to the third life.”
“What's the third life?” asked Ender.
“The gift that Pipo kept for himself,” said Mandachuva. Then he walked faster, caught up with the other piggies.
“Did any of that make sense to you?” Ender asked Ouanda.
“I still can't get used to the way you ask them direct questions.”
“I don't get much in the way of answers, do I?”
“Mandachuva is angry, that's something. And he's angry at Pipo, that's another. The third life– a gift that Pipo kept for himself. It will all make sense.”
“When?”
“In twenty years. Or twenty minutes. That's what makes xenology so fun.”
Ela was touching the trees, too, and looking from time to time at the bushes. “All the same species of tree. And the bushes, too, just alike. And that vine, climbing most of the trees. Have you ever seen any other plant species here in the forest, Ouanda?”
“Not that I noticed. I never looked for that. The vine is called merdona. The macios seem to feed on it, and the piggies eat the macios. The merdona root, we taught the piggies how to make it edible. Before the amaranth. So they're eating lower on the food chain now.”
“Look,” said Ender.
The piggies were all stopped, their backs to the humans, facing a clearing. In a moment Ender, Ouanda, and Ela caught up with them and looked over them into the moonlit glen. It was quite a large space, and the ground was beaten bare. Several log houses lined the edges of the clearing, but the middle was empty except for a single huge tree, the largest they had seen in the forest.
The trunk seemed to be moving. “It's crawling with macios,” said Ouanda.
“Not macios,” said Human.
“Three hundred twenty,” said Mandachuva.
“Little brothers,” said Arrow.
“And little mothers,” added Cups.
“And if you harm them,” said Leaf-eater, “we will kill you unplanted and knock down your tree.”
“We won't harm them,” said Ender.
The piggies did not take a single step into the clearing. They waited and waited, until finally there was some movement near the largest of the log houses, almost directly opposite them. It was a piggy. But larger than any of the piggies they had seen before.
“A wife,” murmured Mandachuva.
“What's her name?” asked Ender.
The piggies turned to him and stared. “They don't tell us their names,” said Leaf-eater.
“If they even have names,” added Cups.
Human reached up and drew Ender down to where he could whisper in his ear. “We always call her Shouter. But never where a wife can hear.”
The female looked at them, and then sang– there was no other way to describe the mellifluous flow of her voice– a sentence or two in Wives' Language.
“It's for you to go,” said Mandachuva. “Speaker. You.”
“Alone?” asked Ender. “I'd rather bring Ouanda and Ela with me.”
Mandachuva spoke loudly in Wives' Language; it sounded like gargling compared to the beauty of the female's voice. Shouter answered, again singing only briefly.
“She says of course they can come,” Mandachuva reported. “She says they're females, aren't they? She's not very sophisticated about the differences between humans and little ones.”
“One more thing,” said Ender. “At least one of you, as an interpreter. Or can she speak Stark?”
Mandachuva relayed Ender's request. The answer was brief, and Mandachuva didn't like it. He refused to translate it. It was Human who explained. “She says that you may have any interpreter you like, as long as it's me.”
“Then we'd like to have you as our interpreter,” said Ender.
“You must enter the birthing place first,” said Human. “You are the invited one.”
Ender stepped out into the open and strode into the moonlight. He could hear Ela and Ouanda following him, and Human padding along behind. Now he could see that Shouter was not the only female here. Several faces were in every doorway. “How many are there?” asked Ender.
Human didn't answer. Ender turned to face him. “How many wives are there?” Ender repeated.
Human still did not answer. Not until Shouter sang again, more loudly and commandingly. Only then did Human translate. “In the birthing place, Speaker, it is only to speak when a wife asks you a question.”
Ender nodded gravely, then walked back to where the other males waited at the edge of the clearing. Ouanda and Ela followed him. He could hear Shouter singing behind him, and now he understood why the males referred to her by that name– her voice was enough to make the trees shake. Human caught up with Ender and tugged at his clothing. “She says why are you going, you haven't been given permission to go. Speaker, this is a very bad thing, she's very angry–”
“Tell her that I did not come to give instructions or to receive instructions. If she won't treat me as an equal, I won't treat her as an equal.”
“I can't tell her that,” said Human.
“Then she'll always wonder why I left, won't she?”
“This is a great honor, to be called among the wives!”
“It is also a great honor for the Speaker of the Dead to come and visit them.”
Human stood still for a few moments, rigid with anxiety. Then he turned and spoke to Shouter.
She in turn fell silent. There was not a sound in the glen.
“I hope you know what you're doing, Speaker,” murmured Ouanda.
“I'm improvising,” said Ender. “How do you think it's going?”