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"Oh, I know the Children of the Mind of Christ, Mayor. I Spoke the death of San Angelo on Moctezuma, in the city of Cordoba."
Her eyes widened. "Then the story is true!"
"I've heard many versions of the story, Mayor Bosquinha. One tale has it that the devil possessed San Angelo on his deathbed, so he cried out for the unspeakable rites of the pagan Hablador de los Muertos."
Bosquinha smiled. "That is something like the tale that is whispered. Dom Cristao says it's nonsense, of course."
"It happens that San Angelo, back before he was sainted, attended my speaking for a woman that he knew. The fungus in his blood was already killing him. He came to me and said, 'Andrew, they're already telling the most terrible lies about me, saying that I've done miracles and should be sainted. You must help me. You must tell the truth at
my death.' "
"But the miracles have been certified, and he was canonized only ninety years after his death."
"Yes. Well, that's partly my fault. When I spoke his death, I attested several of the miracles myself."
Now she laughed aloud. "A speaker for the dead, believing in miracles?"
"Look at your cathedral hill. How many of those buildings are for the priests, and how many are for the school?"
Bosquinha understood at once, and glared at him. "The Filhos da Mente de Cristo are obedient to the Bishop."
"Except that they preserve and teach all knowledge, whether the Bishop approves of it or not."
"San Angelo may have allowed you to meddle in affairs of the Church. I assure you that Bishop Peregrino will not."
"I've come to speak a simple death, and I'll abide by the law. I think you'll find I do less harm than you expect, and perhaps more good."
"If you've come to speak Pipo's death, Speaker pelos Mortos, then you will do nothing but harm. Leave the piggies behind the wall. If I had my way, no human being would pass through that fence again."
"I hope there's a room I can rent."
"We're an unchanging town here, Speaker. Everyone has a house here and there's nowhere else to go--why would anyone maintain an inn? We can only offer you one of the small plastic dwellings the first colonists put up. It's small, but it has all the amenities."
"Since I don't need many amenities or much space, I'm sure it will be fine. And I look forward to meeting Dom Cristao. Where the followers of San Angelo are, the truth has friends."
Bosquinha sniffed and started the car again. As Ender intended, her preconceived notions of a speaker for the dead were now shattered. To think he had actually known San Angelo, and admired the Filhos. It was not what Bishop Peregrino had led them to expect.
The room was only thinly furnished, and if Ender had owned much he would have had trouble finding anywhere to put it. As always before, however, he was able to unpack from interstellar flight in only a few minutes. Only the bundled cocoon of the hive queen remained in his bag; he had long since given up feeling odd about the incongruity of stowing the future of a magnificent race in a duffel under his bed.
"Maybe this will be the place," he murmured. The cocoon felt cool, almost cold, even through the towels it was wrapped in.
It was unnerving to have her so certain of it. There was no hint of pleading or impatience or any of the other feelings she had given him in the past, desiring to emerge. Just absolute certainty.
"I wish we could decide just like that," he said. "It might be the place, but it all depends on whether the piggies can cope with having you here."
"It takes time. Give me a few months here."
"Who is it that you've found? I thought you told me that you couldn't communicate with anybody but me."
And then he lost the thread of her thought, felt it seep away like a dream that is forgotten upon waking, even as you try to remember it and keep it alive. Ender wasn't sure what the hive queen had found, but whatever it was, he would have to deal with the reality of Starways Code, the Catholic Church, young xenologers who might not even let him meet the piggies, a xenobiologist who had changed her mind about inviting him here, and something more, perhaps the most difficult thing of all: that if the hive queen stayed here, he would have to stay here. I've been disconnected from humanity for so many years, he thought, coming in to meddle and pry and hurt and heal, then going away again, myself untouched. How will I ever become a part of this place, if this is where I'll stay? The only things I've ever been a part of were an army of little boys in the Battle School, and Valentine, and both are gone now, both part of the past--
"What, wallowing in loneliness?" asked Jane. "I can hear your heartrate falling and your breathing getting heavy. In a moment you'll either be asleep, dead, or lachrymose."
"I'm much more complex than that," said Ender cheerfully. "Anticipated self-pity is what I'm feeling, about pains that haven't even arrived."
"Very good, Ender. Get an early start. That way you can wallow so much longer." The terminal came alive, showing Jane as a piggy in a chorus line of leggy women, high-kicking with exuberance. "Get a little exercise, you'll feel so much better. After all, you've unpacked. What are you waiting for?"
"I don't even know where I am, Jane."
