Speaker for the Dead

and destroyed them. That's what our fence means-- we're afraid the piggies will do the same to us. And they know that's what it means. They know it, and they hate it."
      "We aren't afraid of them," said the Bishop. "They're savages, for heaven's sake--"
      "That's how we looked to the buggers, too," said Ender. "But to Pipo and Libo and Ouanda and Miro, the piggies have never looked like savages. They're different from us, yes, far more different than framlings. But they're still people . Ramen, not varelse. So when Libo saw that the piggies were in danger of starving, that they were preparing to go to war in order to cut down the population, he didn't act like a scientist. He didn't observe their war and take notes on the death and suffering. He acted like a Christian. He got experimental amaranth that Novinha had rejected for human use because it was too closely akin to Lusitanian biochemistry, and he taught the piggies how to plant it and harvest it and prepare it as food. I have no doubt that the rise in piggy population and the fields of amaranth are what the Starways Congress saw. Not a willful violation of the law, but an act of compassion and love."
      "How can you call such disobedience a Christian act?" said the Bishop.
      "What man of you is there, when his son asks for bread, will give him a stone?"
      "The devil can quote scripture to suit his own purpose," said the Bishop.
      "I'm not the devil," said Ender, "and neither are the piggies. Their babies were dying of hunger, and Libo gave them food and saved their lives."
      "And look what they did to him !"
      "Yes, let's look what they did to him. They put him to death. Exactly the way they put to death their own most honored citizens. Shouldn't that have told us something?"
      "It told us that they're dangerous and have no conscience," said the Bishop.
      "It told us that death means something completely different to them. If you really believed that someone was perfect in heart, Bishop, so righteous that to live another day could only cause them to be less perfect, then wouldn't it be a good thing for them if they were killed and taken directly into heaven?"
      "You mock us. You don't believe in heaven."
      "But you do! What about the martyrs, Bishop Peregrino? Weren't they caught up joyfully into heaven?"
      "Of course they were. But the men who killed them were beasts. Murdering saints didn't sanctify them, it damned their souls to hell forever."
      "But what if the dead don't go to heaven? What if the dead are transformed into new life, right before your eyes? What if when a piggy dies, if they lay out his body just so, it takes root and turns into something else? What if it turns into a tree that lives fifty or a hundred or five hundred years more?"
      "What are you talking about?" demanded the Bishop.
      "Are you telling us that the piggies somehow metamorphose from animal to plant?" asked Dom Cristão. "Basic biology suggests that this isn't likely."
      "It's practically impossible," said Ender. "That's why there are only a handful of species on Lusitania that survived the Descolada. Because only a few of them were able to make the transformation. When the piggies kill one of their people, he is transformed into a tree. And the tree retains at least some of its intelligence. Because today I saw the piggies sing to a tree, and without a single tool touching it, the tree severed its own roots, fell over, and split itself into exactly the shapes and forms of wood and bark that the piggies needed. It wasn't a dream. Miro and Ouanda and I all saw it with our own eyes, and heard the song, and touched the wood, and prayed for the soul of the dead."
      "What does this have to do with our decision?" demanded Bosquinha. "So the forests are made up of dead piggies. That's a matter for scientists."
      "I'm telling you that when the piggies killed Pipo and Libo they thought they were helping them transform into the next stage of their existence. They weren't beasts, they were ramen, giving the highest honor to the men who had served them so well."
      "Another moral transformation, is that it?" asked the Bishop. "Just as you did today in your Speaking, making us see Marcos Ribeira again and again, each time in a new light, now you want us to think the piggies are noble? Very well, they're noble. But I won't rebel against Congress, with all the suffering such a thing would cause, just so our scientists can teach the piggies how to make