Speaker for the Dead

with metal eyes showed no expression, but raised a hand to silence them. "Mudou," he said with finality. He moved, Ender translated.
      "Sabia!" I knew it!
      "You liar, Olhado!"
      The boy with metal eyes looked at him with disdain. "I never lie. I'll send you a dump of the scene if you want. In fact, I think I'll post it on the net so everybody can watch you dodge and then lie about it."
      "Mentiroso! Filho de puta! Fode-bode!"
      Ender was pretty sure what the epithets meant, but the boy with metal eyes took it calmly.
      "D á ," said the girl. "D á -me." Give it here.
      The boy furiously took off his ring and threw it on the ground at her feet. "Viada!" he said in a hoarse whisper. Then he took off running.
      "Poltr ã o!" shouted the girl after him. Coward!
      "C á o!" shouted the boy, not even looking over his shoulder.
      It was not the girl he was shouting at this time. She turned at once to look at the boy with metal eyes, who stiffened at the name. Almost at once the girl looked at the ground. The little one, who had been doing the ball-fetching, walked to the boy with metal eyes and whispered something. He looked up, noticing Ender for the first time.
      The older girl was apologizing. "Desculpa, Olhado, n ã o queria que--"
      "N ã o h á problema, Michi." He did not look at her.
      The girl started to go on, but then she, too, noticed Ender and fell silent.
      "Porque est á olhando-nos?" asked the boy. Why are you looking at us?
      Ender answered with a question. "Voc ê é á rbitro?" You're the artiber here? The word could mean "umpire," but it could also mean "magistrate."
      "De vez em quando." Sometimes.
      Ender switched to Stark-- he wasn't sure he knew how to say anything complex in Portuguese. "Then tell me, arbiter, is it fair to leave a stranger to find his way around without help?"
      "Stranger? You mean utlanning, framling, or ramen?"
      "No, I think I mean infidel."
      "O Senhor é descrente?" You're an unbeliever?
      "S ó descredo no incr í vel." I only disbelieve the unbelievable.
      The boy grinned. "Where do you want to go, Speaker?"
      "The house of the Ribeira family."
      The little girl edged closer to the boy with metal eyes. "Which Ribeira family?"
      "The widow Ivanova."
      "I think I can find it," said the boy.
      "Everybody in town can find it," said Ender. "The point is, will you take me there?"
      "Why do you want to go there?"
      "I ask people questions and try to find out true stories."
      "Nobody at the Ribeira house knows any true stories."
      "I'd settle for lies."
      "Come on then." He started toward the low-mown grass of the main road. The little girl was whispering in his ear. He stopped and turned to Ender, who was following close behind.
      "Quara wants to know. What's your name?"
      "Andrew. Andrew Wiggin."
      "She's Quara."
      "And you?"
      "Everybody calls me Olhado. Because of my eyes." He picked up the little girl and put her on his shoulders. "But my real name's Lauro. Lauro Suleim ã o Ribeira." He grinned, then turned around and strode off.
      Ender followed. Ribeira. Of course.
      Jane had been listening, too, and spoke from the jewel in his ear. "Lauro Suleim ã o Ribeira is Novinha's fourth child. He lost his eyes in a laser accident. He's twelve years old. Oh, and I found one difference between the Ribeira family and the rest of the town. The Ribeiras are willing to defy the Bishop and lead you where you want to go."
      I noticed something, too, Jane, he answered silently. This boy enjoyed deceiving me, and then enjoyed even more letting me see how I'd been fooled. I just hope you don't take lessons from him.
     
     
     
      Miro sat on the hillside. The shade of the trees made him invisible to anyone who might be watching from Milagre, but he could see much of the town from here-- certainly the cathedral and the monastery on the highest hill, and then the observatory on the next hill to the north. And under the observatory, in a depression in the hillside, the house where he lived, not very far from the fence.
      "Miro," whispered Leaf-eater. "Are you a tree?"
      It was a translation from the pequeninos' idiom. Sometimes they meditated, holding themselves motionless for hours. They called this "being a tree."
      "More like a blade of grass," Miro answered.
      Leaf-eater giggled in the high, wheezy way he had. It never sounded natural-- the pequeninos had learned laughter by rote, as if it were simply