Xenocide (Ender Wiggins Saga)

hardly believe that -- a mammaloid species that turns into a tree when it dies? Beautiful as poetry. Ludicrous as science."
    "But can you know that , either, Father?"
    "I can't be sure, no. Nature has done many strange things, and there is a chance that The Life of Human is genuine and true. Thus I neither believe it nor disbelieve it. I hold it in abeyance. I wait. Yet while I'm waiting, I don't expect Congress to treat Lusitania as if it were populated by the fanciful creatures from The Life of Human . For all we know, the pequeninos may be deadly dangerous to us. They are aliens."
    "Ramen."
    "In the story. But raman or varelse, we do not know what they are. The fleet carries the Little Doctor because it might be necessary to save mankind from unspeakable peril. It is not up to us to decide whether or not it should be used-- Congress will decide. It is not up to us to decide whether it should have been sent-- Congress has sent it. And it is certainly not up to us to decide whether it should exist-- the gods have decreed that such a thing is possible and can exist."
    "So Demosthenes was right. The M.D. Device is with the fleet."
    "Yes."
    "And the government files that Demosthenes published-- they were genuine."
    "Yes.:
    "But Father-- you joined many others in claiming that they were forgeries."
    "Just as the gods speak only to a chosen few, so the secrets of the rulers must be known only to those who will use the knowledge properly. Demosthenes was giving powerful secrets to people who were not fit to use them wisely, and so for the good of the people those secrets had to be withdrawn. The only way to retrieve a secret, once it is known, is to replace it with a lie; then the knowledge of the truth is once again your secret."
    "You're telling me that Demosthenes is not a liar, and Congress is ."
    "I'm telling you that Demosthenes is the enemy of the gods. A wise ruler would never have sent the Lusitania Fleet without giving it the possibility of responding to any circumstance. But Demosthenes has used his knowledge that the Little Doctor is with the fleet in order to try to force Congress to withdraw the fleet. Thus he wishes to take power out of the hands of those whom the gods have ordained to rule humankind. What would happen to the people if they rejected the rulers given them by the gods?"
    "Chaos and suffering," said Qing-jao. History was full of times of chaos and suffering, until the gods sent strong rulers and institutions to keep order.
    "So Demosthenes told the truth about the Little Doctor. Did you think the enemies of the gods could never speak the truth? I wish it were so. It would make them much easier to identify."
    "If we can lie in the service of the gods, what other crimes can we commit?"
    "What is a crime?"
    "An act that's against the law."
    "What law?"
    "I see-- Congress makes the law, so the law is whatever Congress says. But Congress is composed of men and women, who may do good and evil."
    "Now you're nearer the truth. We can't do crimes in the service of Congress, because Congress makes the laws. But if Congress ever became evil, then in obeying them we might also be doing evil. That is a matter of conscience. However, if that happened, Congress would surely lose the mandate of heaven. And we , the godspoken, don't have to wait and wonder about the mandate of heaven, as others do. If Congress ever loses the mandate of the gods, we will know at once."
    "So you lied for Congress because Congress had the mandate of heaven."
    "And therefore I knew that to help them keep their secret was the will of the gods for the good of the people."
    Qing-jao had never thought of Congress in quite this way before. All the history books she had studied showed Congress as the great unifier of humanity, and according to the schoolbooks, all its acts were noble. Now, though, she understood that some of its actions might not seem good. Yet that didn't necessarily mean that they were not good. "I must learn from the gods, then, whether the will of Congress is also their will," she said.
    "Will you do that?" asked Han Fei-tzu. "Will you obey the will of Congress, even when it might seem wrong, as long as Congress has the mandate of heaven?"
    "Are you asking for my oath?"
    "I am."
    "Then yes, I will obey, as long as they have the mandate of heaven."
    "I had to have that oath from you to satisfy the security requirements of Congress," he said. "I couldn't have given you your task without it." He cleared his throat.