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"That's different," said Human. "All the other great trees are fathers of the tribe. And the lesser trees are still brothers." Yet Ender could see that Human was uncertain now. He was resisting Ender's ideas because they were strange, not because they were wrong or incomprehensible. He was beginning to understand.
"Look at the wives," said Ender. "They have no children. They can never be great the way that your father is great."
"Speaker, you know that they're the greatest of all. The whole tribe obeys them. When they rule us well, the tribe prospers; when the tribe becomes many, then the wives are also made strong--"
"Even though not a single one of you is their own child."
"How could we be?" asked Human.
"And yet you add to their greatness. Even though they aren't your mother or your father, they still grow when you grow."
"We're all the same tribe . . ."
"But why are you the same tribe? You have different fathers, different mothers."
"Because we are the tribe! We live here in the forest, we--"
"If another piggy came here from another tribe, and asked you to let him stay and be a brother--"
"We would never make him a fathertree!"
"But you tried to make Pipo and Libo fathertrees."
Human was breathing heavily. "I see," he said. "They were part of the tribe. From the sky, but we made them brothers and tried to make them fathers. The tribe is whatever we believe it is. If we say the tribe is all the Little Ones in the forest, and all the trees, then that is what the tribe is. Even though some of the oldest trees here came from warriors of two different tribes, fallen in battle. We become one tribe because we say we're one tribe."
Ender marveled at his mind, this small raman. How few humans were able to grasp this idea, or let it extend beyond the narrow confines of their tribe, their family, their nation.
Human walked behind Ender, leaned against him, the weight of the young piggy pressed against his back. Ender felt Human's breath on his cheek, and then their cheeks were pressed together, both of them looking in the same direction. All at once Ender understood: "You see what I see," said Ender.
"You humans grow by making us part of you, humans and piggies and buggers, ramen together. Then we are one tribe, and our greatness is your greatness, and yours is ours." Ender could feel Human's body trembling with the strength of the idea. "You say to us, we must see all other tribes the same way. As one tribe, our tribe all together, so that we grow by making them grow."
"You could send teachers," said Ender. "Brothers to the other tribes, who could pass into their third life in the other forests and have children there."
"This is a strange and difficult thing to ask of the wives," said Human. "Maybe an impossible thing. Their minds don't work the way a brother's mind works. A brother can think of many different things. But a wife thinks of only one thing: what is good for the tribe, and at the root of that, what is good for the children and the little mothers."
"Can you make them understand this?" asked Ender.
"Better than you could," said Human. "But probably not. Probably I'll fail."
"I don't think you'll fail," said Ender.
"You came here tonight to make a covenant between us, the piggies of this tribe, and you, the humans who live on this world. The humans outside Lusitania won't care about our covenant, and the piggies outside this forest won't care about it."
"We want to make the same covenant with all of them."
"And in this covenant, you humans promise to teach us everything."
"As quickly as you can understand it."
"Any question we ask."
"If we know the answer."
"When! If! These aren't words in a covenant! Give me straight answers now, Speaker for the Dead." Human stood up, pushed away from Ender, walked around in front of him, bent down a little to look at Ender from above. "Promise to teach us everything that you know!"
"We promise that."
"And you also promise to restore the hive queen to help us."
