"All those females, all the little mothers," asked Ela. "Are they sentient?"
It was a word that Human didn't know.
"Are they awake?" asked Ender.
"Of course," said Human.
"What he means," explained Ouanda, "is can the little mothers think? Do they understand language?"
"Them?" asked Human. "No, they're no smarter than the cabras. And only a little smarter than the macios. They only do three things. Eat, crawl, and cling to the carry. The ones on the outside of the tree, now--they're beginning to learn. I can remember climbing on the face of the mothertree. So I had memory then. But I'm one of the very few that remember so far back."
Tears came unbidden to Ouanda's eyes. "All the mothers, they're born, they mate, they give birth and die, all in their infancy. They never even know they were alive."
"It's sexual dimorphism carried to a ridiculous extreme," said Ela. "The females reach sexual maturity early, but the males reach it late. It's ironic, isn't it, that the dominant female adults are all sterile. They govern the whole tribe, and yet their own genes can't be passed on--"
"Ela," said Ouanda, "what if we could develop a way to let the little mothers bear their children without being devoured. A caesarean section. With a protein-rich nutrient substitute for the little mother's corpse. Could the females survive to adulthood?"
Ela didn't have a chance to answer. Ender took them both by the arms and pulled them away. "How dare you!" he whispered. "What if they could find a way to let infant human girls conceive and bear children, which would feed on their mother's tiny corpse?"
"What are you talking about!" said Ouanda.
"That's sick," said Ela.
"We didn't come here to attack them at the root of their lives," said Ender. "We came here to find a way to share a world with them. In a hundred years or five hundred years, when they've learned enough to make changes for themselves, then they can decide whether to alter the way their children are conceived and born. But we can't begin to guess what it would do to them if suddenly as many females as males came to maturity. To do what? They can't bear more children, can they? They can't compete with the males to become fathers, can they? What are they for?"
"But they're dying wit
hout ever being alive--"
"They are what they are," said Ender. "They decide what changes they'll make, not you, not from your blindly human perspective, trying to make them have full and happy lives, just like us."
"You're right," said Ela. "Of course, you're right, I'm sorry."
To Ela, the piggies weren't people, they were strange alien fauna, and Ela was used to discovering that other animals had inhuman life patterns. But Ender could see that Ouanda was still upset. She had made the raman transition: She thought of piggies as us instead of them. She accepted the strange behavior that she knew about, even the murder of her father, as within an acceptable range of alienness. This meant she was actually more tolerant and accepting of the piggies than Ela could possibly be; yet it also made her more vulnerable to the discovery of cruel, bestial behaviors among her friends.
Ender noticed, too, that after years of association with the piggies, Ouanda had one of their habits: At a moment of extreme anxiety, her whole body became rigid. So he reminded her of her humanity by taking her shoulder in a fatherly gesture, drawing her close under his arm.
At his touch Ouanda melted a little, laughed nervously, her voice low. "Do you know what I keep thinking?" she said. "That the little mothers have all their children and die unbaptized."
"If Bishop Peregrino converts them," said Ender, "maybe they'll let us sprinkle the inside of the mothertree and say the words."
"Don't mock me," Ouanda whispered.
"I wasn't. For now, though, we'll ask them to change enough that we can live with them, and no more. We'll change ourselves only enough that they can bear to live with us. Agree to that, or the fence goes up again, because then we truly would be a threat to their survival."
Ela nodded her agreement, but Ouanda had gone rigid again. Ender's fingers suddenly dug harshly into Ouanda's shoulder. Frightened, she nodded her agreement. He relaxed his grip. "I'm sorry," he said. "But they are what they are. If you want, they are what God made them. So don't try to remake them in your own image."
He returned to the mothertree. Shouter and Human were waiting.
"Please excuse the interruption," said Ender.
"It's all right," said Human. "I told her what you were doing."
Ender felt himself sink inside. "What did you tell her we were doing?"
"I said that they wanted to do something to the little mothers that would make us all more like humans, but you said they never could do that or you'd put back the fence. I told her that you said we must remain Little Ones, and you must remain humans."
Ender smiled. His translation was strictly true, but he had the sense not to get into specifics. It was conceivable that the wives might actually want the little mothers to survive childbirth, without realizing how vast the consequences of such a simple-seeming, humanitarian change might be. Human was an excellent diplomat; he told the truth and yet avoided the whole issue.