Speaker for the Dead Page 5

  "Don't you know their language? I thought some of them spoke Stark, too." She made no effort to hide her disdain. "Can't you explain what the samples are for?"

  "You're right," he said quietly. "But if we explained what we'd use the tissue samples for, we might accidently teach them concepts of biological science a thousand years before they would naturally have reached that point. That's why the law forbids us to explain things like that."

  Finally, Novinha was abashed. "I didn't realize how tightly you were bound by the doctrine of minimal intervention."

  Pipo was glad to hear her retreat from her arrogance, but if anything, her humility was worse. The child was so isolated from human contact that she spoke like an excessively formal science book. Pipo wondered if it was already too late to teach her how to be a human being.

  It wasn't. Once she realized that they were excellent at their science, and that she knew almost nothing of it, she dropped her aggressive stance and went almost to the opposite extreme. For weeks she spoke to Pipo and Libo only rarely. Instead she studied their reports, trying to grasp the purpose behind what they were doing. Now and then she had a question, and asked; they answered politely and thoroughly.

  Politeness gradually gave way to familiarity. Pipo and Libo began to converse openly in front of her, airing their speculations about why the pequeninos had developed some of their strange behaviors, what meaning lay behind some of their odd statements, why they remained so maddeningly impenetrable. And since the study of pequeninos was a very new branch of science, it didn't take long for Novinha to be expert enough, even at second hand, to offer some hypotheses. "After all," said Pipo, encouraging her, "we're all blind together."

  Pipo had foreseen what happened next. Libo's carefully cultivated patience had made him seem cold and reserved to others of his age, when Pipo could prevail on him even to attempt to socialize; Novinha's isolation was more flamboyant but no more thorough. Now, however, their common interest in the pequeninos drew them close--who else could they talk to, when no one but Pipo could even understand their conversations?

  They relaxed together, laughed themselves to tears over jokes that could not possibly amuse any other Luso. Just as the piggies seemed to name every tree in the forest, Libo playfully named all the furniture in the Zenador's Station, and periodically announced that certain items were in a bad mood and shouldn't be disturbed. "Don't sit on Chair! It's her time of the month again." They had never seen a pequenino female, and the males always seemed to refer to them with almost religious reverence; Novinha wrote a series of mock reports on an imaginary pequenino woman called Reverend Mother, who was hilariously bitchy and demanding.

  It was not all laughter. There were problems, worries, and once a time of real fear that they might have done exactly what the Starways Congress had tried so hard to prevent--make radical changes in pequenino society. It began with Rooter of course. Rooter, who persisted in asking challenging, impossible questions, like, "If you have no other city of humans, how can you go to war? There's no honor for you in killing Little Ones." Pipo babbled something about how humans would never kill pequeninos, Little Ones; but he knew that this wasn't the question Rooter was really asking.

  Pipo had known for years that the pequeninos knew the concept of war, but for days after that Libo and Novinha argued heatedly about whether Rooter's question proved that the piggies regarded war as desirable or merely unavoidable. There were other bits of information from Rooter, some important, some not--and many whose importance was impossible to judge. In a way, Rooter himself was proof of the wisdom of the policy that forbade the xenologers to ask questions that would reveal human expectations, and therefore human practices. Rooter's questions often gave them more answers than they got from his answers to their own questions.

  The last information Rooter gave them, though, was not in a question. It was a guess, spoken to Libo privately, when Pipo was off with some of the others examining the way they built their log house. "I know I know," said Rooter, "I know why Pipo is still alive. Your women are too stupid to know that he is wise."

  Libo struggled to make sense of this seeming non sequitur. What did Rooter think, that if human women were smarter, they would kill Pipo? The talk of killing was disturbing--this was obviously an important matter, and Libo did not know how to handle it alone. Yet he couldn't call Pipo to help, since Rooter obviously wanted to discuss it where Pipo couldn't hear.

  When Libo didn't answer, Rooter persisted. "Your women, they are weak and stupid. I told the others this, and they said I could ask you. Your women don't see Pipo's wisdom. Is this true?"

  Rooter seemed very agitated; he was breathing heavily, and he kept pulling hairs from his arms, four and five at a time. Libo had to answer, somehow. "Most women don't know him," he said.

  "Then how will they know if he should die?" asked Rooter. Then, suddenly, he went very still and spoke very loudly. "You are cabras!"

  Only then did Pipo come into view, wondering what the shouting was about. He saw at once that Libo was desperately out of his depth. Yet Pipo had no notion what the conversation was even about--how could he help? All he knew was that Rooter was saying humans--or at least Pipo and Libo--were somehow like the large beasts that grazed in herds on the prairie. Pipo couldn't even tell if Rooter was angry or happy.

  "You are cabras! You decide!" He pointed at Libo and then at Pipo. "Your women don't choose your honor, you do! Just like in battle, but all the time!"

  Pipo had no idea what Rooter was talking about, but he could see that all the pequeninos were motionless as stumps, waiting for him--or Libo--to answer. It was plain Libo was too frightened by Rooter's strange behavior to dare any response at all. In this case, Pipo could see no point but to tell the truth; it was, after all, a relatively obvious and trivial bit of information about human society. It was against the rules that the Starways Congress had established for him, but failing to answer would be even more damaging, and so Pipo went ahead.

  "Women and men decide together, or they decide for themselves," said Pipo. "One doesn't decide for the other."

  It was apparently what all the piggies had been waiting for. "Cabras," they said, over and over; they ran to Rooter, hooting and whistling. They picked him up and rushed him off into the woods. Pipo tried to follow, but two of the piggies stopped him and shook their heads. It was a human gesture they had learned long before, but it held stronger meaning for the pequeninos. It was absolutely forbidden for Pipo to follow. They were going to the women, and that was the one place the pequeninos had told them they could never go.

  On the way home, Libo reported how the difficulty began. "Do you know what Rooter said? He said our women were weak and stupid."

  "That's because he's never met Mayor Bosquinha. Or your mother, for that matter."

  Libo laughed, because his mother, Conceicao, ruled the archives as if it were an ancient estacao in the wild mato--if you entered her domain, you were utterly subject to her law. As he laughed, he felt something slip away, some idea that was important--what were we talking about? The conversation went on; Libo had forgotten, and soon he even forgot that he had forgotten.

  That night they heard the drumming sound that Pipo and Libo believed was part of some sort of celebration. It didn't happen all that often, like beating on great drums with heavy sticks. Tonight, though, the celebration seemed to go on forever. Pipo and Libo speculated that perhaps the human example of sexual equality had somehow given the male pequeninos some hope of liberation. "I think this may qualify as a serious modification of pequenino behavior," Pipo said gravely. "If we find that we've caused real change, I'm going to have to report it, and Congress will probably direct that human contact with pequeninos be cut off for a while. Years, perhaps." It was a sobering thought--that doing their job faithfully might lead Starways Congress to forbid them to do their job at all.

  In the morning Novinha walked with them to the gate in the high fence that separated the human city from the slopes leading up to th
e forest hills where the piggies lived. Because Pipo and Libo were still trying to reassure each other that neither of them could have done any differently, Novinha walked on ahead and got to the gate first. When the others arrived, she pointed to a patch of freshly cleared red earth only thirty meters or so up the hill from the gate. "That's new," she said. "And there's something in it."

  Pipo opened the gate, and Libo, being younger, ran on ahead to investigate. He stopped at the edge of the cleared patch and went completely rigid, staring down at whatever lay there. Pipo, seeing him, also stopped, and Novinha, suddenly frightened for Libo, ignored the regulation and ran through the gate. Libo's head rocked backward and he dropped to his knees; he clutched his tight-curled hair and cried out in terrible remorse.

  Rooter lay spread-eagled in the cleared dirt. He had been eviscerated, and not carelessly: Each organ had been cleanly separated, and the strands and filaments of his limbs had also been pulled out and spread in a symmetrical pattern on the drying soil. Everything still had some connection to the body--nothing had been completely severed.

  Libo's agonized crying was almost hysterical. Novinha knelt by him and held him, rocked him, tried to soothe him. Pipo methodically took out his small camera and took pictures from every angle so the computer could analyze it in detail later.

  "He was still alive when they did this," Libo said, when he had calmed enough to speak. Even so, he had to say the words slowly, carefully, as if he were a foreigner just learning to speak. "There's so much blood on the ground, spattered so far--his heart had to be beating when they opened him up."

  "We'll discuss it later," said Pipo.

  Now the thing Libo had forgotten yesterday came back to him with cruel clarity. "It's what Rooter said about the women. They decide when the men should die. He told me that, and I--" He stopped himself. Of course he did nothing. The law required him to do nothing. And at that moment he decided that he hated the law. If the law meant allowing this to be done to Rooter, then the law had no understanding. Rooter was a person. You don't stand by and let this happen to a person just because you're studying him.

  "They didn't dishonor him," said Novinha. "If there's one thing that's certain, it's the love that they have for trees. See?" Out of the center of his chest cavity, which was otherwise empty now, a very small seedling sprouted. "They planted a tree to mark his burial spot."

  "Now we know why they name all their trees," said Libo bitterly. "They planted them as grave markers for the piggies they tortured to death."

  "This is a very large forest," Pipo said calmly. "Please confine your hypotheses to what is at least remotely possible." They were calmed by his quiet, reasoned tone, his insistence that even now they behave as scientists.

  "What should we do?" asked Novinha.

  "We should get you back inside the perimeter immediately," said Pipo. "It's forbidden for you to come out here."

  "But I meant--with the body--what should we do?"

  "Nothing," said Pipo. "The pequeninos have done what pequeninos do, for whatever reason pequeninos do it." He helped Libo to his feet.

  Libo had trouble standing for a moment; he leaned on both of them for his first few steps. "What did I say?" he whispered. "I don't even know what it is I said that killed him."

  "It wasn't you," said Pipo. "It was me."

  "What, do you think you own them?" demanded Novinha. "Do you think their world revolves around you? As you said, the piggies did it, for whatever reason they have. It's plain enough this isn't the first time--they were too deft at the vivisection for this to be the first time."

  Pipo took it with black humor. "We're losing our wits, Libo. Novinha isn't supposed to know anything about xenology."

  "You're right," said Libo. "Whatever may have triggered this, it's something they've done before. A custom." He was trying to sound calm.

  "But that's even worse, isn't it?" said Novinha. "It's their custom to gut each other alive." She looked at the other trees of the forest that began at the top of the hill and wondered how many of them were rooted in blood.

  Pipo sent his report on the ansible, and the computer didn't give him any trouble about the priority level. He left it up to the oversight committee to decide whether contact with the piggies should be stopped. The committee could not identify any fatal error. "It is impossible to conceal the relationship between our sexes, since someday a woman may be xenologer," said the report, "and we can find no point at which you did not act reasonably and prudently. Our tentative conclusion is that you were unwitting participants in some sort of power struggle, which was decided against Rooter, and that you should continue your contact with all reasonable prudence."

  It was complete vindication, but it still wasn't easy to take. Libo had grown up knowing the piggies, or at least hearing about them from his father. He knew Rooter better than he knew any human being besides his family and Novinha. It took days for Libo to come back to the Zenador's Station, weeks before he would go back out into the forest. The piggies gave no sign that anything had changed; if anything, they were more open and friendly than before. No one ever spoke of Rooter, least of all Pipo and Libo. There were changes on the human side, however. Pipo and Libo never got more than a few steps away from each other when they were among them.

  The pain and remorse of that day drew Libo and Novinha to rely on each other even more, as though darkness bound them closer than light. The piggies now seemed dangerous and uncertain, just as human company had always been, and between Pipo and Libo there now hung the question of who was at fault, no matter how often each tried to reassure the other. So the only good and reliable thing in Libo's life was Novinha, and in Novinha's life, Libo.

  Even though Libo had a mother and siblings, and Pipo and Libo always went home to them, Novinha and Libo behaved as if the Zenador's Station were an island, with Pipo a loving but ever remote Prospero. Pipo wondered: Are the pequeninos like Ariel, leading the young lovers to happiness, or are they little Calibans, scarcely under control and chafing to do murder?

  After a few months, Rooter's death faded into memory, and their laughter returned, though perhaps it was not as carefree as before. By the time they were seventeen, Libo and Novinha were so sure of each other that they routinely talked of what they would do together five, ten, twenty years later. Pipo never bothered to ask them about their marriage plans. After all, he thought, they studied biology from morning to night. Eventually it would occur to them to explore stable and socially acceptable reproductive strategies. In the meantime, it was enough that they puzzled endlessly over when and how the pequeninos mated, considering that the males had no discernable reproductive organ. Their speculations on how the pequeninos combined genetic material invariably ended in jokes so lewd that it took all of Pipo's self-control to pretend not to find them amusing.

  So the Zenador's Station for those few short years was a place of true companionship for two brilliant young people who otherwise would have been condemned to cold solitude. It did not occur to any of them that the idyll would end abruptly, and forever, and under circumstances that would send a tremor throughout the Hundred Worlds.

  It was all so simple, so commonplace. Novinha was analyzing the genetic structure of the fly-infested reeds along the river, and realized that the same subcellular body that had caused the Descolada was present in the cells of the reed. She brought several other cell structures into the air over the computer terminal and rotated them. They all contained the Descolada agent.

  She called to Pipo, who was running through transcriptions of yesterday's visit to the pequeninos. The computer ran comparisons of every cell she had samples of. Regardless of cell function, regardless of the species it was taken from, every alien cell contained the Descolada body, and the computer declared them absolutely identical in chemical proportions.

  Novinha expected Pipo to nod, tell her it looked interesting, maybe come up with a hypothesis. Instead he sat down and ran the same test over, asking her questions about how the computer co
mparison operated, and then what the Descolada body actually did.

  "Mother and Father never figured out what triggered it, but the Descolada body releases this little protein--well, pseudo-protein, I suppose--and it attacks the genetic molecules, starting at one end and unzipping the two strands of the molecule right down the middle. That's why they called it the descolador--it unglues the DNA in humans, too."

  "Show me what it does in alien cells."

  Novinha put the simulation in motion.

  "No, not just the genetic molecule--the whole environment of the cell."

  "It's just in the nucleus," she said. She widened the field to include more variables. The computer took it more slowly, since it was considering millions of random arrangements of nuclear material every second. In the reed cell, as a genetic molecule came unglued, several large ambient proteins affixed themselves to the open strands. "In humans, the DNA tries to re-combine, but random proteins insert themselves so that cell after cell goes crazy. Sometimes they go into mitosis, like cancer, and sometimes they die. What's most important is that in humans the Descolada bodies themselves reproduce like crazy, passing from cell to cell. Of course, every alien creature already has them."

  But Pipo wasn't interested in what she said. When the descolador had finished with the genetic molecules of the reed, he looked from one cell to another. "It's not just significant, it's the same," he said. "It's the same thing!"

  Novinha didn't see at once what he had noticed. What was the same as what? Nor did she have time to ask. Pipo was already out of the chair, grabbing his coat, heading for the door. It was drizzling outside. Pipo paused only to call out to her, "Tell Libo not to bother coming, just show him that simulation and see if he can figure it out before I get back. He'll know--it's the answer to the big one. The answer to everything."

  "Tell me!"