Very neat solutions. Tidy little might-have-beens. And false as hell. If Libo had married Novinha, he wouldn't have married Bruxinha, Ouanda's mother, and thus Miro wouldn't have fallen unsuspectingly in love with his own half-sister because she would never had existed at all. That was far too much to say, however, with his halting speech. So he confined himself to saying "Ouanda wouldn't have been born," and hoped she would make the connections.
She considered for a moment, and the connection was made. "You have a point," she said. "And I'm sorry. I was only a child then."
"It's all past," said Miro.
"Nothing is past," said Quara. "We're still acting it out, over and over again. The same mistakes, again and again. Mother still thinks that you keep people safe by keeping secrets from them."
"And so do you," said Miro.
Quara thought about that for a moment. "Ela was trying to keep the pequeninos from knowing that she was working on destroying the descolada. That's a secret that could have destroyed the whole pequenino society, and they weren't even being consulted. They were preventing the pequeninos from protecting themselves. But what I'm keeping secret is--maybe--a way to intellectually castrate the descolada--to make it half-alive."
"To save humanity without destroying the pequeninos."
"Humans and pequeninos, getting together to compromise on how to wipe out a helpless third species!"
"Not exactly helpless."
She ignored him. "Just the way Spain and Portugal got the Pope to divide up the world between their Catholic Majesties back in the old days right after Columbus. A line on a map, and poof--there's Brazil, speaking Portuguese instead of Spanish. Never mind that nine out of ten Indians had to die, and the rest lose all their rights and power for centuries, even their very languages--"
It was Miro's turn to become impatient. "The descolada isn't the Indians."
"It's a sentient species."
"It isn't," said Miro.
"Oh?" asked Quara. "And how are you so sure? Where's your certificate in microbiology and xenogenetics? I thought your studies were all in xenology. And thirty years out of date."
Miro didn't answer. He knew that she was perfectly aware of how hard he had worked to bring himself up to speed since he got back here. It was an ad hominem attack and a stupid appeal to authority. It wasn't worth answering. So he sat there and studied her face. Waiting for her to get back into the realm of reasonable discussion.
"All right," she said. "That was a low blow. But so is sending you to try to crack open my files. Trying to play on my sympathies."
"Sympathies?" asked Miro.
"Because you're a--because you're--"
"Damaged," said Miro. He hadn't thought of the fact that pity complicated everything. But how could he help it? Whatever he did, it was a cripple doing it.
"Well, yes."
"Ela didn't send me," said Miro.
"Mother, then."
"Not Mother."
"Oh, you're a freelance meddler? Or are you going to tell me that all of humanity has sent you? Or are you a delegate of an abstract value? 'Decency sent me.'"
"If it did, it sent me to the wrong place."
She reeled back as if she had been slapped.
"Oh, am I the indecent one?"
"Andrew sent me," said Miro.
"Another manipulator."
"He would have come himself."