Speaker for the Dead

stood for a moment, looking at the Bishop. Not defiantly, but politely, with dignity; he responded the same way, quietly offering her a seat. Dom Cristão started to rise from his stool, but she shook her head, smiled, took another stool near the wall. Near Ender. Ela came and stood behind and beside her mother, so she was also partly behind Ender. Like a daughter standing between her parents, thought Ender; then he thrust the thought away from him and refused to think of it anymore. There were far more important matters at hand.
      "I see," said Bosquinha, "that you intend this meeting to be an interesting one."
      "I think Congress decided that already," said Dona Cristã .
      "Your son is accused," Bishop Peregrino began, "of crimes against--"
      "I know what he's accused of," said Novinha. "I didn't know until tonight, when Ela told me, but I'm not surprised. My daughter Elanora has also been defying some rules her master set for her. Both of them have a higher allegiance to their own conscience than to the rules others set down for them. It's a failing, if your object is to maintain order, but if your goal is to learn and adapt, it's a virtue."
      "Your son isn't on trial here," said Dom Cristão.
      "I asked you to meet together," said Ender, "because a decision must be made. Whether or not to comply with the orders given us by Starways Congress."
      "We don't have much choice," said Bishop Peregrino.
      "There are many choices," said Ender, "and many reasons for choosing. You already made one choice-- when you found your files being stripped, you decided to try to save them, and you decided to trust them with me, a stranger. Your trust was not misplaced-- I'll return your files to you whenever you ask, unread, unaltered."
      "Thank you," said Dona Cristã . "But we did that before we knew the gravity of the charge."
      "They're going to evacuate us," said Dom Cristão.
      "They control everything," said Bishop Peregrino.
      "I already told him that," said Bosquinha.
      "They don't control everything," said Ender. "They only control you through the ansible connection."
      "We can't cut off the ansible," said Bishop Peregrino. "That is our only connection with the Vatican."
      "I don't suggest cutting off the ansible. I only tell you what I can do. And when I tell you this, I am trusting you the way you trusted me. Because if you repeat this to anyone, the cost to me-- and to someone else, whom I love and depend on-- would be immeasurable."
      He looked at each of them, and each in turn nodded acquiescence.
      "I have a friend whose control over ansible communications among all the Hundred Worlds is complete-- and completely unsuspected. I'm the only one who knows what she can do. And she has told me that when I ask her to, she can make it seem to all the framlings that we here on Lusitania have cut off our ansible connection. And yet we will have the ability to send guarded messages if we want to-- to the Vatican, to the offices of your order. We can read distant records, intercept distant communications. In short, we will have eyes and they will be blind."
      "Cutting off the ansible, or even seeming to, would be an act of rebellion. Of war." Bosquinha was saying it as harshly as possible, but Ender could see that the idea appealed to her, though she was resisting it with all her might. "I will say, though, that if we were insane enough to decide on war, what the Speaker is offering us is a clear advantage. We'd need any advantage we could get-- if we were mad enough to rebel."
      "We have nothing to gain by rebellion," said the Bishop, "and everything to lose. I grieve for the tragedy it would be to send Miro and Ouanda to stand trial on another world, especially because they are so young. But the court will no doubt take that into account and treat them with mercy. And by complying with the orders of the committee, we will save this community much suffering."
      "Don't you think that having to evacuate this world will also cause them suffering?" asked Ender.
      "Yes. Yes, it will. But a law was broken, and the penalty must be paid."
      "What if the law was based on a misunderstanding, and the penalty is far out of proportion to the sin?"
      "We can't be the judges of that," said the Bishop.
      "We are the judges of that. If we go along with Congressional orders, then we're saying that the law is good and the punishment is just. And it may be that at the end of this meeting you'll