Do we have a covenant? said Ender silently. That's all I care about. Did Human make the wives understand a new way of conceiving of the world?
Human was carrying something. Wrapped in leaves. The piggies wordlessly laid it before Ender; Human unwrapped it carefully. It was a computer printout.
“The Hive Queen and the Hegemon,” said Ouanda softly. “The copy Miro gave them.”
“The covenant,” said Human.
Only then did they realize that the printout was upside down, on the blank side of the paper. And there, in the light of a nightstick, they saw faint hand-printed letters. They were large and awkwardly formed. Ouanda was in awe. “We never taught them to make ink,” she said. “We never taught them to write.”
“Calendar learned to make the letters,” said Human. “Writing with sticks in the dirt. And Worm made the ink from cabra dung and dried macios. This is how you make treaties, isn't it?”
“Yes,” said Ender.
“If we didn't write it on paper, then we would remember it differently.”
“That's right,” said Ender. “You did well to write it down.”
“We made some changes. The wives wanted some changes, and I thought you would accept them.” Human pointed them out. “You humans can make this covenant with other piggies, but you can't make a different covenant. You can't teach any other piggies things you haven't taught us. Can you accept that?”
“Of course,” said Ender.
“That was the easy one. Now, what if we disagree about what the rules are? What if we disagree about where your prairie land ends and ours begins? So Shouter said, Let the hive queen judge between humans and Little Ones. Let the humans judge between the Little Ones and the hive queen. And let Little Ones judge between the hive queen and the humans.”
Ender wondered how easy that would be. He remembered, as no other living human did, how terrifying the buggers were three thousand years ago. Their insectlike bodies were the nightmares of humanity's childhood. How easily would the people of Milagre accept their judgment?
So it's hard. It's no harder than what we've asked the piggies to do. “Yes,” said Ender. “We can accept that, too. It's a good plan.”
“And another change,” said Human. He looked up at Ender and grinned. It looked ghastly, since piggy faces weren't designed for that human expression. “This is why it took so long. All these changes.”
Ender smiled back.
“If a tribe of piggies won't sign the covenant with humans, and if that tribe attacks one of the tribes that has signed the covenant, then we can go to war against them.”
“What do you mean by attack?” asked Ender. If they could take a mere insult as an attack, then this clause would reduce the prohibition of war to nothing.
“Attack,” said Human. “It begins when they come into our lands and kill the brothers or the wives. It is not attack when they present themselves for war, or offer an agreement to begin a war. It is attack when they start to fight without an agreement. Since we will never agree to a war, an attack by another tribe is the only way war could begin. I knew you'd ask.”
He pointed to the words of the covenant, and indeed the treaty carefully defined what constituted an attack.
“That is also acceptable,” said Ender. It meant that the possibility of war would not be removed for many generations, perhaps for centuries, since it would take a long time to bring this covenant to every tribe of piggies in the world. But long before the last tribe joined the covenant, Ender thought, the benefits of peaceful exogamy would be made plain, and few would want to be warriors anymore.
“Now the last change,” said Human. “The wives meant this to punish you for making this covenant so difficult. But I think you will believe it is no punishment. Since we are forbidden to take you into the third life, after this covenant is in effect humans are also forbidden to take brothers into the third life.”
For a moment Ender thought it meant his reprieve; he would not have to do the thing that Libo and Pipo had both refused.
“After the covenant,” said Human. “You will be the first and last human to give this gift.”
“I wish…” said Ender.
“I know what you wish, my friend Speaker,” said Human. “To you it feels like murder. But to me– when a brother is given the right to pass into the third life as a father, then he chooses his greatest rival or his truest friend to give him the passage. You. Speaker– ever since I first learned Stark and read the Hive Queen and the Hegemon, I waited for you. I said many times to my father, Rooter, of all humans he is the one who will understand us. Then Rooter told me when your starship came, that it was you and the hive queen aboard that ship, and I knew then that you had come to give me passage, if only I did well.”
“You did well, Human,” said Ender.
“Here,” he said. “See? We signed the covenant in the human way.”
At the bottom of the last page of the covenant two words were crudely, laboriously shaped. “Human,” Ender read aloud. The other word he could not read.
“It's Shouter's true name,” said Human. “Star-looker. She wasn't good with the writing stick– the wives don't use tools very often, since the brothers do that kind of work. So she wanted me to tell you what her name is. And to tell you that she got it because she was always looking in the sky. She says that she didn't know it then, but she was watching for you to come.”
So many people had so much hope in me, thought Ender. In the end, though, everything depended on them. On Novinha, Miro, Ela, who called for me; on Human and Star-looker. And on the ones who feared my coming, too.
Worm carried the cup of ink; Calendar carried the pen. It was a thin strip of wood with a slit in it and a narrow well that held a little ink when he dipped it in the cup. He had to dip it five times in order to sign his name. “Five,” said Arrow. Ender remembered then that the number five was portentous to the piggies. It had been an accident, but if they chose to see it as a good omen, so much the better.
“I'll take the covenant to our Governor and the Bishop,” said Ender.
“Of all the documents that were ever treasured in the history of mankind…” said Ouanda. No one needed her to finish the sentence. Human, Leaf-eater, and Mandachuva carefully wrapped the book again in leaves and handed it, not to Ender, but to Ouanda. Ender knew at once, with terrible certainty, what that meant. The piggies still had work for him to do, work that would require that his hands be free.
“Now the covenant is made the human way,” said Human. “You must make it true for the Little Ones as well.”
“Can't the signing be enough?” asked Ender.
“From now on the signing is enough,” said Human. “But only because the same hand that signed for the humans also took the covenant in our way, too.”
“Then I will,” said Ender, “as I promised you I would.”
Human reached out and stroked Ender from the throat to the belly. “The brother's word is not just in his mouth,” he said. “The brother's word is in his life.” He turned to the other piggies. “Let me speak to my father one last time before I stand beside him.”
Two of the strange brothers came forward with their small clubs in their hands. They walked with Human to Rooter's tree and began to beat on it and sing in the Fathers' Language. Almost at once the trunk split open. The tree was still fairly young, and not so very much thicker in the trunk than Human's own body; it was a struggle for him to get inside. But he fit, and the trunk closed up after him. The drumming changed rhythm, but did not let up for a moment.
Jane whispered in Ender's ear. “I can hear the resonance of the drumming change inside the tree,” she said. “The tree is slowly shaping the sound, to turn the drumming into language.”
The other piggies set to work clearing ground for Human's tree. Ender noticed that he would be planted so that, from the gate, Rooter would seem to stand on the left hand, and Human on the right. Pulling up the capim by the root was hard work for the piggies; soon Quim was helping them, and then Olhado, and then Ouanda and Ela.