Speaker for the Dead
by Orson Scott Card

 

 

page 131
     Quim was born, the house was thick with anger, and he never
     learned how to laugh freely where his parents might notice.
     Hearing Miro and Ela laugh together was the the abrupt open-
     ing of a thick black curtain; suddenly it was daylight again,
     when Novinha had forgotten there was any season of the day
     but night.
How dared this stanger invade her house and tear open all
     the curtains she had closed!
"I won't have it," she said. "You have no right to pry into
     my husband's life.
He raised an eyebrow. She knew Starways Congress Code as well as
     anyone, and so she knew perfectly well that he not only had a
     right, the law protected him in the pursuit of the true story of
     the dead.
"Maracáo was a miserable man," she persisted, "and telling
     the truth about him will cause nothing but pain.
"You're quite right that the truth about him will cause noth-
     ing but pain, but not because he was a miserable man," said
     the Speaker. "If I told nothing but what everyone already
     knows--that he hated his children and beat his wife and raged
     drunkenly from bar to bar until the constables sent him home--
     the I would not cause pain, would I? I'd cause a gread deal of
     satisfaction, because then everyone would be reassured that
     their view of him was correct all along. He was scum, and so
     it was all right that they treated him like scun.
"And you think he wasn't?"
"No human being, when you understand his dreams, is
     worthless. No one's life is nothing. Even the most evil of men
     and women, if you understand their hearts, had some generous
     act that redeems them, at least a little, from their sins."

"If you believe that, then you're younger than you look,"
     said Novinha.
"Am I?" said the Speaker. "It was less than two weeks ago
     that I first heard you call. I studied you then, and even if you
     don't remember, Novinha, I remember that as a young girl you
     sweet and beautiful and good. You had been lonely be-
     fore, but Pipo and Libo both knew you and found you worthy
     of love."

 

 

page 141
     didn't marry Libo in the first place. It makes no sense at all for
     her to have married a man she obviously despised, whose
     disease she certainly knew about, and then go ahead and bear
     children to the man she must have loved from the beginning."
"Twisted and perverse are the ways of the humand mind,"
     Jane intoned. "Pinocchio was such a dolt to try to become a
     real boy. He was much better off with a wooden head."


                                     ___________

         Miro carefully picked his way though the forest. He recog-
     nized trees now and then, or he thought he did--no human could
     everhave the piggies' knack for naming every single tree in
     the woods. But then, humans didnt worship the trees and totems
     of thei ancestors, either.
Miro had deliberatley

 

 

page 236
     the philotic twinings of the ansibles, and in a body that had
     once been Ender's and which, in a way, had once been
     Valentine's, for she remembered looking into mirrors and
     seeing that face and calling it herself.
         And he was fother of this new man, Peter, this strong
     and whole man. For he was not the Peter who had first
     come out of the starship. He was not the cynical, nasty,
     barbed young boy who strutted with arrogance and seethed
     with rage. He had become whole. There was the cool of
     ancient wisdom in him, even as he burned with the hot
     sweet fire of youth. He had a woman who was his equal in
     wit and virtue and vigor by his side. He had a normal life-
     time of a man before him. Ender's truest son would make
     of this life, if not something as profoundly world-changing
     as Ender's life had been, then something happier. Ender
     would have wanted neither more nor less for him. Changing
     the world is good for those who want their names in books.
     But being happy, that is for those who write their names
     in the lives of others, and hold the hearts of others as the
     treasure most dear.

         Valentine and Jakt and their children gathered on the
     porch of their house. Wang-mu was waiting there along.
     "Will you take me with you?" asked the girl. Valentine
     offered her an arn. What is the name of her relationship to
     me? Nieve-in-law-to-be? Friend would be a better word.

                                     ___________

         Plikit's speaking of Ender's death was eloquent and peirc-
     ing. She had learned well from the master speaker. She
     wasted no time on inconsequentials. She spoke at once of
     his great crime, explaining what Ender thought he was do-
     ing at the time, and what he thought of it after he knew
     each layer of truth that was revealed to him. "That was
     Ender's life," said Plikit, "unpeeling the onion of truth.
     Only unlike most of us, he knew that there was no golden
     kernel inside. There were only the layers of illusions and

 

 

page 288
     the philotic twinings of the ansibles, and in a body that had
     once been Ender's and which, in a way, had once been
     Valentine's, for she remembered looking into mirrors and
     seeing that face and calling it herself.
         And he was fother of this new man, Peter, this strong
     and whole man. For he was not the Peter who had first
     come out of the starship. He was not the cynical, nasty,
     barbed young boy who strutted with arrogance and seethed
     with rage. He had become whole. There was the cool of
     ancient wisdom in him, even as he burned with the hot
     sweet fire of youth. He had a woman who was his equal in
     wit and virtue and vigor by his side. He had a normal life-
     time of a man before him. Ender's truest son would make
     of this life, if not something as profoundly world-changing
     as Ender's life had been, then something happier. Ender
     would have wanted neither more nor less for him. Changing
     the world is good for those who want their names in books.
     But being happy, that is for those who write their names
     in the lives of others, and hold the hearts of others as the
     treasure most dear.

         Valentine and Jakt and their children gathered on the
     porch of their house. Wang-mu was waiting there along.
     "Will you take me with you?" asked the girl. Valentine
     offered her an arn. What is the name of her relationship to
     me? Nieve-in-law-to-be? Friend would be a better word.

                                     ___________

         Plikit's speaking of Ender's death was eloquent and peirc-
     ing. She had learned well from the master speaker. She
     wasted no time on inconsequentials. She spoke at once of
     his great crime, explaining what Ender thought he was do-
     ing at the time, and what he thought of it after he knew
     each layer of truth that was revealed to him. "That was
     Ender's life," said Plikit, "unpeeling the onion of truth.
     Only unlike most of us, he knew that there was no golden
     kernel inside. There were only the layers of illusions and

 

 

page 370
     human spirit as well. Do not let this grave sin be on the
     heads of our people."         
        "Forgive me, master, but it seems to me that you are the
     one putting it there. No one noticed that we bore respon-
     sibility for this sin until you said it here today."
         "I do not put the sin there. I merely take off the hat that
     covers it. Yasujiro, you were one of my best students. I
     forgave you for using what I taught you in such compli-
     cated ways, because you did it for your family's sake."
         "And this that you ask of me now--this is perfectctly
     simple?"
         "I have taken the most direct action--I have spoken
     plainly to the most powerful representative of the richest
     of the Japanese trading families that I could reach on this
     day. And what I ask of you is the minimum action required
     to do what is necessary."
         "In this case the minimum puts my career at great risk,"
     said Yasujiro thoughtfully.
Aimania said nothing.

          "My greatest teacher once told me," said Yasujiro, "that
    a man who has risked his life knows that careers are worth-
    less, and a man who will not risk his career has a worthless
    life."
         "So you will do it?"
         "I will prepare my message to make your care to all
     the Tsutsumi family. When the ansibles are linked again, I
     will send them."
         "I know your would not disappoint me."
         "Better than that," said Yasujiro. "When I am thrown
     out of my job, I will come and live with you."
         Aimaine bowed. "I would be honored to have you dwell
     in my house."

                                     ___________

         The lives of all people flow through time, and, reguardless
     of how brutal one moment may be, how filled with grief

 

 

page 371
     the philotic twinings of the ansibles, and in a body that had
     once been Ender's and which, in a way, had once been
     Valentine's, for she remembered looking into mirrors and
     seeing that face and calling it herself.
         And he was fother of this new man, Peter, this strong
     and whole man. For he was not the Peter who had first
     come out of the starship. He was not the cynical, nasty,
     barbed young boy who strutted with arrogance and seethed
     with rage. He had become whole. There was the cool of
     ancient wisdom in him, even as he burned with the hot
     sweet fire of youth. He had a woman who was his equal in
     wit and virtue and vigor by his side. He had a normal life-
     time of a man before him. Ender's truest son would make
     of this life, if not something as profoundly world-changing
     as Ender's life had been, then something happier. Ender
     would have wanted neither more nor less for him. Changing
     the world is good for those who want their names in books.
     But being happy, that is for those who write their names
     in the lives of others, and hold the hearts of others as the
     treasure most dear.

         Valentine and Jakt and their children gathered on the
     porch of their house. Wang-mu was waiting there along.
     "Will you take me with you?" asked the girl. Valentine
     offered her an arn. What is the name of her relationship to
     me? Nieve-in-law-to-be? Friend would be a better word.

                                     ___________

         Plikit's speaking of Ender's death was eloquent and peirc-
     ing. She had learned well from the master speaker. She
     wasted no time on inconsequentials. She spoke at once of
     his great crime, explaining what Ender thought he was do-
     ing at the time, and what he thought of it after he knew
     each layer of truth that was revealed to him. "That was
     Ender's life," said Plikit, "unpeeling the onion of truth.
     Only unlike most of us, he knew that there was no golden
     kernel inside. There were only the layers of illusions and

 

 

page 378
     the philotic twinings of the ansibles, and in a body that had
     once been Ender's and which, in a way, had once been
     Valentine's, for she remembered looking into mirrors and
     seeing that face and calling it herself.
         And he was fother of this new man, Peter, this strong
     and whole man. For he was not the Peter who had first
     come out of the starship. He was not the cynical, nasty,
     barbed young boy who strutted with arrogance and seethed
     with rage. He had become whole. There was the cool of
     ancient wisdom in him, even as he burned with the hot
     sweet fire of youth. He had a woman who was his equal in
     wit and virtue and vigor by his side. He had a normal life-
     time of a man before him. Ender's truest son would make
     of this life, if not something as profoundly world-changing
     as Ender's life had been, then something happier. Ender
     would have wanted neither more nor less for him. Changing
     the world is good for those who want their names in books.
     But being happy, that is for those who write their names
     in the lives of others, and hold the hearts of others as the
     treasure most dear.

         Valentine and Jakt and their children gathered on the
     porch of their house. Wang-mu was waiting there along.
     "Will you take me with you?" asked the girl. Valentine
     offered her an arn. What is the name of her relationship to
     me? Nieve-in-law-to-be? Friend would be a better word.

                                     ___________

         Plikit's speaking of Ender's death was eloquent and peirc-
     ing. She had learned well from the master speaker. She
     wasted no time on inconsequentials. She spoke at once of
     his great crime, explaining what Ender thought he was do-
     ing at the time, and what he thought of it after he knew
     each layer of truth that was revealed to him. "That was
     Ender's life," said Plikit, "unpeeling the onion of truth.
     Only unlike most of us, he knew that there was no golden
     kernel inside. There were only the layers of illusions and