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He felt Novinha's hand take him by the crook of the arm. She leaned on him. "Help me," she said. "I'm almost blind in the darkness."
"I have good night vision," Olhado offered cheerfully from behind her.
"Shut up, stupid," Ela whispered fiercely. "Mother wants to walk with him."
Both Novinha and Ender heard her clearly, and both could feel each other's silent laughter. Novinha drew closer to him as they walked. "I think you have the heart for what you have to do," she said softly, so that only he could hear.
"Cold and ruthless?" he asked. His voice hinted at wry humor, but the words tasted sour and truthful in his mouth.
"Compassionate enough," s
he said, "to put the hot iron into the wound when that's the only way to heal it."
As one who had felt his burning iron cauterize her deepest wounds, she had the right to speak; and he believed her, and it eased his heart for the bloody work ahead.
Ender hadn't thought it would be possible to sleep, knowing what was ahead of him. But now he woke up, Novinha's voice soft in his ear. He realized that he was outside, lying in the capim, his head resting on Novinha's lap. It was still dark.
"They're coming," said Novinha softly.
Ender sat up. Once, as a child, he would have come awake fully, instantly; but he was trained as a soldier then. Now it took a moment to orient himself. Ouanda, Ela, both awake and watching; Olhado asleep; Quim just stirring. The tall tree of Rooter's third life rising only a few meters away. And in the near distance, beyond the fence at the bottom of the little valley, the first houses of Milagre rising up the slopes; the Cathedral and the monastery atop the highest and nearest of the hills.
In the other direction, the forest, and coming down from the trees, Human, Mandachuva, Leaf-eater, Arrow, Cups, Calendar, Worm, Bark-dancer, several other brothers whose names Ouanda didn't know. "I've never seen them," she said. "They must come from other brother-houses."
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.
