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Then Miro made a connection with something he had learned only the day before. "Quim, the buggers are building a ship for the pequeninos."
"So Ender told me. And when I confronted Father Daymaker about it--"
"He's a pequenino?"
"One of Human's children. He said, 'Of course,' as if everyone knew about it. Maybe that's what he thought--that if the pequeninos know it, then it's known. He also told me that this heretic group is angling to try to get command of the ship."
"Why?"
"So they can take it to an inhabited world, of course. Instead of finding an uninhabited planet to terraform and colonize."
"I think we'd have to call it lusiforming."
"Funny." Quim wasn't laughing, though. "They might get their way. This idea of pequeninos being a superior species is popular, especially among non-Christian pequeninos. Most of them aren't very sophisticated. They don't catch on to the fact that they're talking about xenocide. About wiping out the human race."
"How could they miss a little fact like that?"
"Because the heretics are stressing the fact that God loves the humans so much that he sent his only beloved son.
You remember the scripture."
"Whoever believes in him will not perish."
"Exactly. Those who believe will have eternal life. As they see it, the third life."
"So those who die must have been the unbelievers."
"Not all the pequeninos are lining up to volunteer for service as itinerant destroying angels. But enough of them are that it has to be stopped. Not just for the sake of Mother Church."
"Mother Earth."
"So you see, Miro, sometimes a missionary like me takes on a great deal of importance in the world. Somehow I have to persuade these poor heretics of the error of their ways and get them to accept the doctrine of the church."
"Why are you talking to Rooter now?"
"To get the one piece of information the pequeninos never give us."
"What's that?"
"Addresses. There are thousands of pequenino forests on Lusitania. Which one is the heretic community? Their starship will be long gone before I find it by random forest-hopping on my own."
"You're going alone?"
"I always do. I can't take any of the little brothers with me, Miro. Until a forest has been converted, they have a tendency to kill pequenino strangers. One case where it's better to be raman than utlanning."
"Does Mother know you're going?"
"Please be practical, Miro. I have no fear of Satan, but Mother . . ."
"Does Andrew know?"
"Of course. He insists on going with me. The Speaker for the Dead has enormous prestige, and he thinks he could help me."
"So you won't be alone."
"Of course I will. When has a man clothed in the whole armor of God ever needed the help of a humanist?"
"Andrew's a Catholic."
