Speaker for the Dead

Members of Starways Congress search for Demosthenes, who has publicly revealed that Congress sent the Molecular Disruption Device, or the Little Doctor, with the fleet heading toward Lusitania.

Ender, Ouanda, and Ela follow the male pequeninos through the forest to a clearing with a large tree covered in larvae-like pequenino babies. A wife, or female pequenino in her second life, emerges; the males privately call her Shouter but don’t know her real name. Shouter calls the humans forward, agreeing to let Human translate for them, as Ender does not speak the Wives’ or Males’ Languages. They walk into the clearing, and Ender’s questions are ignored. Human explains that Ender can only speak when spoken to, prompting Ender to turn around. Ender asserts they must meet as equals. Given the limitation of the Wives’ Language, Shouter agrees to use the Males’ Language, and Human agrees to translate honestly.

Shouter invites Ender into the clearing, and Ender asks about the large mothertree. Shouter touches and sings to the mothertree, which opens. Ender turns his head so Jane can look inside the dark tree and see larval pequeninos. Human describes the pequeninos reproduction process: Larval little mothers are carried by males to fathertrees, where the little mothers are fertilized. When the babies come to term, they eat their way out of the little mothers. Ela and Ouanda discuss devising a way to help little mothers give birth without dying, and Ender is angry with them for attempting to change the pequeninos. Human overhears and translates the conversation. Shouter ceremonially threatens to kill every human if they do not comply with her demands. Human explains that this is how all meetings start, but Ender refuses to continue until she withdraws the threat. Frustrated, she complies.

Miro, who has brain damage from his climb over the fence, wakes up and tries to talk to his mother and brothers. They take him to a terminal so he can scan letters to spell out his message. They tell him Ender is making a treaty, and Miro asks them to take a message to Ender immediately.

Ender and Shouter agree that pequenino law will apply to the forest and that human law to the village. Grasslands will be divided between the two groups and the hive queen at a later date. Shouter demands that Ender refrains from making treaties with any other pequenino tribe, then Novinha, Olhado, and Quim arrive with Miro’s message—the pequeninos are planning a war. Ender asserts that all humans, pequeninos, and hive queens are one tribe and will not go to war. Killing for glory is evil, but pequeninos can find glory by working together.

Ender promises to teach the pequeninos, to restore the hive queen, to obey pequenino law in the forest, and to go to war with humans if needed. Human agrees that pequeninos will abide by human laws in Milagre and that the pequeninos will not go to war with other tribes. Ender adds that pequeninos cannot try to take humans into the third life because it kills them. Human is confused, claiming that Pipo and Libo refused to give Mandachuva and Leaf-eater the honor of the third life—as Ender is expected to do with Human—because they wanted it for themselves. If Ender doesn’t give Human the honor, Human must take Ender into the third life. Ender explains that Pipo and Libo did not want to kill Mandachuva and Leaf-eater, so they let themselves be killed instead. Human sends the humans away so he can make the final arrangements, and he warns them they will hear the wives’ extreme grief. Ender must take Human into the third life after the treaty is finalized, and Novinha offers Ender emotional support.

Hours later, the pequeninos meet the humans by Rooter. They have written the treaty on blank pages in The Hive Queen and the Hegemon. Shouter added several further stipulations: that Ender must use this treaty with the other tribes and must not teach different tribes anything he hasn’t taught their tribe, that conflicts will be settled by a third party, that the pequeninos can go to war with other tribes if the other tribe attacks first, and that humans cannot take pequeninos into the third life. Ender agrees and signs, noticing that Shouter signed her real name, Star-looker.

To finalize the agreement, Ender must plant Human. Two pequeninos hit Rooter’s truck with sticks, and the tree opens and accepts Human so he can talk to Rooter first. Novinha sees that Ender signed the treaty “Ender Wiggin,” and he explains that since he went by that name when he committed the xenocide, using the name to sign this treaty may help atone. Human emerges chews a little capim, but not enough to completely desensitize him. Ender is given wooden knives and is guided through the process of cutting open Human and planting his organs. Within minutes, roots and a trunk form in Human’s dead body. The pequeninos celebrate, and Ender crawls away and sleeps in the grass with Novinha.

The next morning, Bosquinha and Peregrino come to them. They are bothered by Human’s death at first but come to understand it, and Peregrino invites the humans and pequeninos to mass. Ender lags behind, and when he enters the cathedral, he sits with Novinha’s family.

An excerpt from The Life of Human describes Human’s birth and his first life living within the mothertree and eating the tree’s sap.

Miro partially recovers but is disabled and cannot return to his regular work. He is also troubled by Ouanda’s distance, as he still loves her. He reads others’ files and sees Ouanda and Quim are compiling a lexicon of the pequeninos’ languages, Ender’s team is laying water pipes and establishing electricity in the forest, Ela is working on Descolada-resistant crops, and Novinha is searching for a Descolada antidote for the hive queen. Somehow, Miro can access locked files and an echo mode that displays what is on other terminals. He emails Bosquinha to see if there is a new computer program, but Ender comes and tells him the message was intercepted. He introduces Miro to Jane, who has been manipulating the terminal. In a moment of self-pity, Miro thinks he will never have a real romantic partner. He asks Jane to take him away from Lusitania, and she jokingly flirts with him. He realizes she understands his labored speech.

Olhado and Ender search for a location for the hive queen. They find a spot along a river and by the sea, and the hive queen confirms the suitability of the location. Jane tells Ender the hive queen’s Colador is almost ready. On their way back they discuss Miro: As the smartest person on the planet, he should leave Lusitania enter relativistic (light-speed) space travel, skipping time so he can return when the fleet is closer. Olhado heard that Mazer Rackham, who first fought the hive queens, had done that, and Ender confirms the rumor. Olhado asks about the xenocide, and Ender explains that he thought he was playing a game and wanted to quit, so he used the Little Doctor thinking he would get kicked out of Battle School.

The next day, Valentine calls Ender to make sure he is staying on Lusitania before she leaves Trondheim to join him. She has resumed writing under the pseudonym Demosthenes in order to tell the truth about the pequeninos and the Lusitanian fleet. Starways Congress has been releasing anti-pequenino propaganda, and they are sending the Little Doctor to Lusitania. Congress is searching for Demosthenes to arrest her for treason. Valentine’s family has a starship and plans to leave that day, and Ender arranges for Miro to meet her in space. He tells Valentine to think of Miro as his son.

Ender talks to Miro and discovers that Jane showed Miro his conversation with Valentine. He is jealous of Miro and Jane’s closeness. Miro asks about Pipo and Libo’s deaths, and Ender explains that the xenologers were supposed to take Leaf-eater and Mandachuva into the third life. Pipo and Libo didn’t know about the third life, so they thought they’d be killing the pequeninos and allowed themselves to be killed instead. The third life is an honor awarded to those whose achievements benefit the group: Leaf-eater was supposed to be honored for convincing the pequeninos to try feeding amaranth to their young, and Mandachuva was supposed to be honored for discovering that humans are not god-like.

Miro leaves, and his family grieves his loss. Ender remembers that his parents did not miss him like that when he left for Battle School, and he decides that the best revenge he can take for their neglect is loving his new family. Ender marries Novinha, but first he stays with the pequeninos for a week so he can learn their ways and write The Life of Human, which he reads aloud to both humans and pequeninos next to Rooter and Human. Novinha says that the book is why she called Ender to speak in the first place, although she imagined writing the book herself. Copies of the book are sent through the ansible, but it is swiftly discredited, and many struggle to accept the pequeninos as raman. Some, however, do begin to view the pequeninos as raman after reading Demosthenes’s “The Second Xenocide.” Accompanied by Novinha, Ela, Quim, and Olhado, Ender restores the hive queen in the location they selected. On the drive home, Ender weeps from the joy that the hive queen shares with him.