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They walked on the path around the bend of the river. The watersnakes were molting, so that snags and fragments of rotting skin made the ground slimy underfoot. That's my next project, thought Novinha. I need to figure out what makes these nasty little monsters tick, so that maybe I can find something useful to do with them. Or at least keep them from making the riverbank smelly and foul for six weeks out of the year. The only saving grace was that the snakeskin seemed to fertilize the soil; the soft rivergrass grew in thickest where the snakes molted. It was the only gentle, pleasant form of life native to Lusitania; all summer long people came to the riverbank to lie on the narrow strip of natural lawn that wound between the reeds and the harsh prairie grass. The snakeskin slime, unpleasant as it was, still promised good things for the future.
Quim was apparently thinking along the same lines. "Mother, can we plant some rivergrass near our house sometime?"
"It's one of the first things your grandparents tried, years ago. But they couldn't figure out how to do it. The rivergrass pollinates, but it doesn't bear seed, and when they tried to transplant it, it lived for a while and then died, and didn't grow back the next year. I suppose it just has to be near the water."
Quim grimaced and walked faster, obviously a little angry. Novinha sighed. Quim always seemed to take it so personally that the universe didn't always work the way he wanted it to.
They reached the Speaker's house not long after. Children were, of course, playing in the praca--they spoke loudly to hear each other over the noise.
"Here it is," said Quim. "I think you should get Olhado and Quara out of there."
"Thanks for showing me the house," she said.
"I'm not kidding. This is a serious confrontation between good and evil."
"Everything is," said Novinha. "It's figuring out which is which that takes so much work. No, no, Quim, I know you could tell me in detail, but--"
"Don't condescend to me, Mother."
"But Quim, it seems so natural, considering how you always condescend to me."
His face went tight with anger.
She reached out and touched him tentatively, gently; his shoulder tautened against her touch as if her hand were a poisonous spider. "Quim," she said, "don't ever try to teach me about good and evil. I've been there, and you've seen nothing but the map."
He shrugged her hand away and stalked off. My, but I miss the days when we never talked to each other for weeks at a time.
She clapped her hands loudly. In a moment the door opened. It was Quara. "Oi, Maezinha," she said, "tambem veio jogar?" Did you come to play, too?
Olhado and the Speaker were playing a game of starship warfare on the terminal. The Speaker had been given a machine with a far larger and more detailed holographic field than most, and the two of them were operating squadrons of more than a dozen ships at the same time. It was very complex, and neither of them looked up or even greeted her.
"Olhado told me to shut up or he'd rip my tongue out and make me eat it in a sandwich," said Quara. "So you better not say anything till the game's over."
"Please sit down," murmured the Speaker.
"You are butchered now, Speaker," crowed Olhado.
More than half of the Speaker's fleet disappeared in a series of simulated explosions. Novinha sat down on a stool.
Quara sat on the floor beside her. "I heard you and Quim talking outside," she said. "You were shouting, so we could hear everything."
Novinha felt herself blushing. It annoyed her that the Speaker had heard her quarreling with her son. It was none of his business. Nothing in her family was any of his business. And she certainly didn't approve of him playing games of warfare. It was so archaic and outmoded, anyway. There hadn't been any battles in space in hundreds of years, unless running fights with smugglers counted. Milagre was such a peaceful place that nobody even owned a weapon more dangerous than the Constable's jolt. Olhado would never see a battle in his life. And here he was caught up in a game of war. Maybe it was something evolution had bred into males of the species, the desire to blast rivals into little bits or mash them to the ground. Or maybe the violence that he saw in his home has made him seek it out in his play. My fault. Once again, my fault.
Suddenly Olhado screamed in frustration, as his fleet disappeared in a series of explosions. "I didn't see it! I can't believe you did that! I didn't even see it coming!"
"So, don't yell about it," said the Speaker. "Play it back and see how I did it, so you can counter it next time."
"I thought you speakers were supposed to be like priests or something. How did you get so good at tactics?"
The Speaker smiled pointedly at Novinha as he answered. "Sometimes it's a little like a battle just to get people to tell you the truth."
Olhado leaned back against the wall, his eyes closed, as he replayed what he saw of the game.
"You've been prying," said Novinha. "And you weren't very clever about it. Is that what passes for 'tactics' among speakers for the dead?"
"It got you here, didn't it?" The Speaker smiled.
"What were you looking for in my files?"
