Xenocide (Ender Wiggins Saga)

of his."
    "I guess that's a serious business for you," said Miro.
    Quim winced. "Not just for me ."
    "I'm sorry. I meant, for the church. For believers."
    "Nothing so parochial as that, Miro. These pequeninos have come up with a really interesting heresy. Once, not long ago, Rooter speculated that, just as Christ came to human beings, the Holy Ghost might someday come to the pequeninos. It's a gross misinterpretation of the Holy Trinity, but this one forest took it quite seriously."
    "Sounds pretty parochial to me."
    "Me too. Till Rooter told me the specifics. You see, they're convinced that the descolada virus is the incarnation of the Holy Ghost. It makes a perverse kind of sense-- since the Holy Ghost has always dwelt everywhere, in all God's creations, it's appropriate for its incarnation to be the descolada virus, which also penetrates into every part of every living thing."
    "They worship the virus ?"
    "Oh, yes. After all, didn't you scientists discover that the pequeninos were created , as sentient beings, by the descolada virus? So the virus is endued with the creative power, which means it has a divine nature."
    "I guess there's as much literal evidence for that as for the incarnation of God in Christ."
    "No, there's a lot more . But if that were all, Miro, I'd regard it as a church matter. Complicated, difficult, but-- as you said-- parochial."
    "So what is it?"
    "The descolada is the second baptism. By fire. Only the pequeninos can endure that baptism, and it carries them into the third life. They are clearly closer to God than humans, who have been denied the third life."
    "The mythology of superiority. We could expect that, I guess," said Miro.
    "Most communities attempting to survive under irresistible pressure from a dominant culture develop a myth that allows them to believe they are somehow a special people. Chosen. Favored by the gods. Gypsies, Jews-- plenty of historical precedents.
    "Try this one, Senhor Zenador. Since the pequeninos are the ones chosen by the Holy Ghost, it's their mission to spread this second baptism to every tongue and every people."
    "Spread the descolada ?"
    "To every world. Sort of a portable judgment day. They arrive, the descolada spreads, adapts, kills-- and everybody goes to meet their Maker."
    "God help us."
    "So we hope."
    Then Miro made a connection with something he had learned only the day before. "Quim, the buggers are building a ship for the pequeninos."
    "So Ender told me. And when I confronted Father Daymaker about it--"
    "He's a pequenino?"
    "One of Human's children. He said, 'Of course,' as if everyone knew about it. Maybe that's what he thought-- that if the pequeninos know it, then it's known . He also told me that this heretic group is angling to try to get command of the ship."
    "Why?"
    "So they can take it to an inhabited world, of course. Instead of finding an uninhabited planet to terraform and colonize."
    "I think we'd have to call it lusiforming."
    "Funny." Quim wasn't laughing, though. "They might get their way. This idea of pequeninos being a superior species is popular, especially among non-Christian pequeninos. Most of them aren't very sophisticated. They don't catch on to the fact that they're talking about xenocide. About wiping out the human race."
    "How could they miss a little fact like that?"
    "Because the heretics are stressing the fact that God loves the humans so much that he sent his only beloved son. You remember the scripture."
    "Whoever believes in him will not perish."
    "Exactly. Those who believe will have eternal life. As they see it, the third life."
    "So those who die must have been the unbelievers."
    "Not all the pequeninos are lining up to volunteer for service as itinerant destroying angels. But enough of them are that it has to be stopped. Not just for the sake of Mother Church."
    "Mother Earth."
    "So you see, Miro, sometimes a missionary like me takes on a great deal of importance in the world. Somehow I have to persuade these poor heretics of the error of their ways and get them to accept the doctrine of the church."
    "Why are you talking to Rooter now?"
    "To get the one piece of information the pequeninos never give us."
    "What's that?"
    "Addresses. There are thousands of pequenino forests on Lusitania. Which one is the heretic community? Their starship will be long gone before I find it by random forest-hopping on my own."
    "You're going alone ?"
    "I always do. I can't take any of the little brothers with me, Miro. Until