Xenocide Part 17

"What a weasel you are, Quim."

Quim flushed. "You want to know why you don't get a miraculous healing? Because you don't have faith, Miro."

"What about the man who said, Yes Master, I believe-- forgive my unbelief?"

"Are you that man? Have you even asked for a healing?"

"I'm asking now," said Miro. And then, unbidden, tears came to his eyes. "O G.o.d," he whispered. "I'm so ashamed."

"Of what?" asked Quim. "Of having asked G.o.d for help? Of crying in front of your brother? Of your sins? Of your doubts?"

Miro shook his head. He didn't know. These questions were all too hard. Then he realized that he did know the answer. He held out his arms from his sides. "Of this body," he said.

Quirn reached out and took his arms near the shoulder, drew them toward him, his hands sliding down Miro's arms until he was clasping Miro's wrists. "This is my body which is given for you, he told us. The way you gave your body for the pequeninos. For the little ones."

"Yeah, Quim, but he got his body back, right?"

"He died, too."

"Is that that how I get healed? Find a way to die?" how I get healed? Find a way to die?"

"Don't be an a.s.s," said Quim. "Christ didn't kill himself. That was Judas's ploy."

Miro's anger exploded. "All those people who get their colds colds cured, who get their cured, who get their migraines migraines miraculously taken from them-- are you telling me they deserve more from G.o.d than I do?" miraculously taken from them-- are you telling me they deserve more from G.o.d than I do?"

"Maybe it isn't based on what you deserve. Maybe it's based on what you need."

Miro lunged forward, seizing the front of Quim's robe between his halfspastic fingers. "I need my body back!"

"Maybe," said Quim.

"What do you mean maybe maybe, you simpering smug a.s.shole!"

"I mean," said Quim mildly, "that while you certainly want want your body back, it may be that G.o.d, in his great wisdom, knows that for you to become the best man you can be, you your body back, it may be that G.o.d, in his great wisdom, knows that for you to become the best man you can be, you need need to spend a certain amount of time as a cripple." to spend a certain amount of time as a cripple."

"How much time?" Miro demanded.

"Certainly no longer than the rest of your life."

Miro grunted in disgust and released Quim's robe.

"Maybe less," said Quim. "I hope so."

"Hope," said Miro contemptuously.

"Along with faith and pure love, it's one of the great virtues. You should try it."

"I saw Ouanda."

"She's been trying to speak to you since you arrived."

"She's old and fat. She's had a bunch of babies and lived thirty years and some guy she married has plowed her up one side and down the other all that time. I'd rather have visited her grave!"

"How generous of you."

"You know what I mean! Leaving Lusitania was a good idea, but thirty years wasn't long enough."

"You'd rather come back to a world where no one knows you."

"No one knows me here, either."

"Maybe not. But we love you, Miro."

"You love what I used to be."

"You're the same man, Miro. You just have a different body."

Miro struggled to his feet, leaning against Rooter for support as he got up. "Talk to your tree friend, Quim. You've got nothing to say that I I want to hear." want to hear."

"So you think," said Quim.

"You know what's worse than an a.s.shole, Quim?"

"Sure," said Quim. "A hostile, bitter, self-pitying, abusive, miserable, useless a.s.shole who has far too high an opinion of the importance of his own suffering."

It was more than Miro could bear. He screamed in fury and threw himself at Quim, knocking him to the ground. Of course Miro lost his own balance and fell on top of his brother, then got tangled in Quim's robes. But that was all right; Miro wasn't trying to get up, he was trying to beat some pain into Quim, as if by doing that he would remove some from himself.

After only a few blows, though, Miro stopped hitting Quim and collapsed in tears, weeping on his brother's chest. After a moment he felt Quim's arms around him. Heard Quim's soft voice, intoning a prayer.

"Pai Nosso, que estas no ceu." From there, however, the incantation stopped and the words turned new and therefore real. "O teu filho esta com dor, o meu irmao precisa a resurreico da alma, ele merece o refresco da esperanca."

Hearing Quim give voice to Miro's pain, to his outrageous demands, made Miro ashamed again. Why should Miro imagine that he deserved deserved new hope? How could he dare to demand that Quim pray for a miracle for him, for his body to be made whole? It was unfair, Miro knew, to put Quim's faith on the line for a self-pitying unbeliever like him. new hope? How could he dare to demand that Quim pray for a miracle for him, for his body to be made whole? It was unfair, Miro knew, to put Quim's faith on the line for a self-pitying unbeliever like him.

But the prayer went on. "Ele deu tudo aos pequeninos, e tu nos disseste, Salvador, que qualquer coisa que fazemos a estes pequeninos, fazemos a ti."

Miro wanted to interrupt. If I gave all to the pequeninos, I did it for them, not for myself. But Quim's words held him silent: You told us, Savior, that whatever we do to these little ones, we do to you. It was as if Quim were demanding that G.o.d hold up his end of a bargain. It was a strange sort of relations.h.i.+p that Quim must have with G.o.d, as if he had a right to call G.o.d to account.

"Ele no e como Jo, perfeito na coraco."

No, I'm not as perfect as Job. But I've lost everything, just as Job did. Another man fathered my children on the woman who should have been my wife. Others have accomplished my accomplishments. And where Job had boils, I have this lurching half-paralysis-- would Job trade with me?

"Restabelece ele como restabeleceste Jo. Em nome do Pai, e do Filho, e do Espirito Santo. Amem." Restore him as you restored Job.

Miro felt his brother's arms release him, and as if it were those arms, not gravity, that held him on his brother's chest, Miro rose up at once and stood looking down on his brother. A bruise was growing on Quim's cheek. His lip was bleeding.

"I hurt you," said Miro. "I'm sorry."

"Yes," said Quim. "You did hurt me. And I hurt you. It's a popular pastime here. Help me up."

For a moment, just one fleeting moment, Miro forgot that he was crippled, that he could barely maintain his balance himself. For just that moment he began to reach out a hand to his brother. But then he staggered as his balance slipped, and he remembered. "I can't," he said.

"Oh, shut up about being crippled and give me a hand."

So Miro positioned his legs far apart and bent down over his brother. His younger brother, who now was nearly three decades his senior, and older still in wisdom and compa.s.sion. Miro reached out his hand. Quim gripped it, and with Miro's help rose up from the ground. The effort was exhausting for Miro; he hadn't the strength for this, and Quim wasn't faking it, he was relying on Miro to lift him. They ended up facing each other, shoulder to shoulder, hands still together.

"You're a good priest," said Miro.

"Yeah," said Quim. "And if I ever need a sparring partner, you'll get a call."

"Will G.o.d answer your prayer?"

"Of course. G.o.d answers all prayers."

It took only a moment for Miro to realize what Quim meant. "I mean, will he say yes yes."

"Ah. That's the part I'm never sure about. Tell me later if he did."

Quim walked-- rather stiffly, limping-- to the tree. He bent over and picked up a couple of talking sticks from the ground.

"What are you talking to Rooter about?"

"He sent word that I need to talk to him. There's some kind of heresy in one of the forests a long way from here."

"You convert them and then they go crazy, huh?" said Miro.

"No, actually," said Quim. "This is a group that I never preached to. The fathertrees all talk to each other, so the ideas of Christianity are already everywhere in the world. As usual, heresy seems to spread faster than truth. And Rooter's feeling guilty because it's based on a speculation of his."

"I guess that's a serious business for you," said Miro.

Quim winced. "Not just for me 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 G.o.d's creations, it's appropriate for its incarnation to be the descolada virus, which also penetrates into every part of every living thing."

"They wors.h.i.+p the virus virus?"

"Oh, yes. After all, didn't you scientists discover that the pequeninos were created 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 G.o.d in Christ."

"No, there's a lot more 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.ds. 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 descolada?"

"To every world. Sort of a portable judgment day. They arrive, the descolada spreads, adapts, kills-- and everybody goes to meet their Maker."

"G.o.d help us."

"So we hope."

Then Miro made a connection with something he had learned only the day before. "Quim, the b.u.g.g.e.rs are building a s.h.i.+p 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 known. He also told me that this heretic group is angling to try to get command of the s.h.i.+p."

"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 G.o.d 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?"