Chapter 9 – Genetic Defects

Sida: Cyclosomes are not bacteria. It seems that it enters the cells of the body, where it creates a permanent home, like mitochondria, replicating at the same time as the cells are replicating. The fact that it has spread to a new species in just the few years since we arrived here suggests that it has a wide range of adaptations. It must have spread throughout the Lusitanian biosphere a long time ago, so much so that it is now endemic here, a permanent infection.

Gastro: If it's persistent and ubiquitous, it's not an infection, Sida, it's part of normal life.

Hida: But it's not born with it – it has the ability to spread. But it is true that if this is an endemic disease, then it is long past time for all native species to find a way to eradicate it.

Gastro: Or adapt to it and incorporate it into your normal life cycle. They may even need it.

Sida: They need something to take their genetic molecules apart and put them back together at random?

Gastro: Maybe that's why there are only so few different species in Lusitania — the emergence of cycloflexia is probably quite recent, only half a million years old — so the vast majority of species can't adapt.

Hida: I wish we weren't dying, Gasto. The next heterobiologist will most likely only work on standard genetic adaptation caste engineering, and will not continue this research. (Note: Refers to the fact that the successor may only treat cycloflexia as a disease that needs to be dealt with)

Gastro: Is that the only reason you can think of to regret our deaths? (Note: The bold text above is not a typographical error...... The whole word is capitalized, which is rare in the whole book, and it is marked in bold. ）

——

Vladimirtiagogussman and Ekaterinamariaaparecidadonortevonhesse-Gussman, unpublished conversation in their work notes, two days before their deaths, originally published in "The Lost Clue in the Surname", Journal of Science and Methodology, 2001:12:12:144-45

It was late when Ender came out of Ribera's house that night, and it took him another hour or so to find out the meaning of everything that had happened, especially the events that had happened when Nowanhua had returned. Still, Ender woke up early the next morning, his mind full of questions he had to answer. This is always the case whenever he is ready to speak of death, and he is almost without a break constantly trying to piece together the story of the dead man, from his own perspective, and to piece together the ideal life of the dead woman, no matter how bad it turns out in the end. This time, though, there was some extra anxiety. This time he was more focused on the living than ever before.

"Of course you're going to sink deeper," Jen said, after he tried to explain his confusion to her. "You've fallen in love with Nowanhua before you even left Trondheim. ”

"Maybe I love that young girl, but this woman is mean and selfish. Look at what she's letting happen to her children. ”

"Is this the deceased talking about people, judging people by their appearance?"

"Maybe I'm in love with Greg. ”

"Do you often fall in love with people who pee on you? ”

"And Koyula. All of them – even Miró, I liked that boy. ”

"And they love you, Ender. He laughed. "People always thought they loved me until I said it. Nowanhua was more prescient than most—she hated me before I told the truth. ”

"You're as blind to yourself as everyone else," Jane said. "Promise me that when you die, you will let me speak of your death. I have a lot to say. ”

"Keep those words to yourself," Ander said impatiently. "You're not as good as me in this. ”

He began to make a list of problems that he needed to solve.

1. Why did Nowanhua marry Ma Kao in the first place?

2. Why does Macau hate his children?

3. Why does Nowanhua hate herself?

4. Why did Miró call me to speak of Lipo's death?

5. Why did Ella call me to speak about her father's death?

6. Why did Nowanhua change her mind about asking me to talk about Pippo's death?

7. What is the direct cause of death in Macau?

He stopped at the seventh question. This is an easy answer: it's just a clinical (medical) question. So that's where he's going to start.

————————————————————————————－－－———

The doctor who tested the corpse of the horse was called Navitas, which means "ship".

"It's not because I'm big," he laughs, "and it's not because I'm a good swimmer." My full name is EnriqueonAvigadorcaronada. You can be sure that I'm glad they gave me the nickname 'Captain' and not 'Little Cannon'. If that's it, it's too obscene. ”

Ender was not deceived by his pleasant expression. Navitas was a good Catholic, and he obeyed his bishop to the same extent as any other man. He was ordered to prevent Ander from learning anything, but he wasn't unhappy about it.

"I have two ways to get the answer to my question," Ender said calmly. "I can ask you, and you tell me honestly. Or I can go and ask the Galaxy Council for permission to make all of your records available to me. The cost of communication is high, because the application is routine, and your boycott is against the law, and the cost will be deducted from your colony's already stretched finances, plus a double fine and a reprimand against you. ”

Listening to Ender's words, Navita's smile faded. He replied coldly. "Of course I'll answer your questions. He said.

"There's nothing 'of course,'" Ender said. "Your bishop advises the inhabitants of Miracle Town to carry out an unjust, unjustified boycott of a priesthood who has been lawfully called. If you would like to inform you that you would have done them a favor, if this happy non-cooperation campaign continues, I will apply for my status to be changed from a clergyman to an inquisitor ^_^. I assure you that I have a good reputation in the Galactic Council and that my application will be successful. ”

Navitas knew exactly what that meant. As an inquisitor, Ander was empowered by parliament to revoke the colony's Catholic charter on the grounds of religious persecution. This would cause a terrible upheaval among the Lusitanians, not least because the episcopal church was summarily dismissed from his position and sent to the Vatican for punishment.

"Why do you do such a thing when you know we don't want you here?" said Navitas.

"Somebody here wants me to come, or I wouldn't come," Ander said. "You may not like this law, it makes you unhappy, but it protects many Catholics who are alone in a world where some other religion has a charter. ”

Navitas' fingers tapped on the table. "What's your problem, talk about people. He said. "Let's hurry up. ”

"At least, at first, it was a very simple question. What was the most immediate cause of death of Marcos Maria Ribera?"

"Makaw!" Navita said. "You can't have been called to talk about his death, he's only been dead for a few weeks—"

"I was asked to speak of several deaths, Monsieur Navita, and I chose to start with this one in Macaw. ”

Navitas made a strange look. "What if I ask you to prove your authority?"

Jane whispered in Ender's ear. "Let's dazzle this lovely child. Immediately, Navitas' terminal began to output official documents, and Jane proclaimed, in one of her most authoritative tones, that "Andrew Vigkin, the speaker of the deceased, has accepted the call to interpret the life and death of Marcos Maria Ribera, a resident of the town of miracles in the colony of Lucitania." ”

However, it was not the official document that impressed Navitas the most. It's the fact that he hasn't actually made the request yet, and hasn't even logged into his terminal. Navitas immediately thought that the computer had just been activated by the earring in the speaker's ear, but that meant that a very high-level logic loop was secretly taking care of the speaker's request. No one in Lusitania, not even Bosquina herself, had ever had such power. Whoever the speaker was, Navitas was sure that he was a fish too big for Bishop Peregrino to count on.

"Okay," Navitas said, squeezing out a smile. Now, apparently, he remembered how happy he was to look again. "I was going to help you anyway - you know, the bishop's paranoia didn't infect everyone in Miracle Town. ”

Ander smiled back, ostensibly accepting his smirk. "Marcos Ribera died of a genetic defect. He crackled out a long imitation Latin name. "You've never heard of it because it's rare and it's only passed through genes. In most cases, the disease begins during adolescence and is associated with the continued replacement of exocrine and endocrine tissues with adipocytes. This means that, year after year, little by little, the adrenal glands, the pituitary gland, the liver, the testicles, the thyroid gland, and so on, all become large chunks of fat cells. ”

"Inevitable death, irreversible?"

"Oh yes. To be exact, Macau outlived the average patient by ten years. There are several aspects of his case that are noteworthy. In every other documented case — and I have to say there aren't many of them — the disease first attacks the testicles, causing the victim to be infertile and, in most cases, impotent. But Marcus Ribera had six healthy children, and it was clear that his testicles were the last of his glands to be infected. However, once the testicles are attacked, the disease must progress unusually fast – the testicles have been completely replaced by fat cells, although there are still many cells in his liver and thyroid gland working. ”

"What killed him in the end?"

"The pituitary gland and adrenal glands lose function. He became the walking dead. He stumbled down in a bar, while he was singing some nasty tunes, as I had heard. ”

As always, Ender's mind automatically finds what seems to be a contradiction. "How can a genetic disease be passed on when it makes the patient infertile?"

"It's usually passed on through collateral kinship. A child dies of the disease, and his siblings show no symptoms at all, but they pass on this tendency to their children. But, of course, we are afraid that Makao, a patient with children, will pass on the defective genes to all the children. ”

"You tested them?"

"None of them had any genetic defects. I assure you that Ms. Ivanova was watching behind my back the whole time. We directly located the problem gene location and excluded each child, and that's it. ”

"None of them got sick, they didn't even have a bit of incognito?"

"Graqasdeus," said the doctor. "Who would marry them if they had that terrible gene?" Speaking of which, I really don't understand how Makaw's own genetic defects could have gone undetected. ”

"Are genetic scans routine here?"

"Oh no, not at all. But about 30 years ago we had a great plague. Madame Ivanova's own parents, His Holiness Gasto and His Holiness Shida, did a detailed genetic scan of every man, woman and child in the colony. That's when they were able to find a cure. Their computer comparison must have found this particular flaw - that's how I discovered it after Mako's death. I've never heard of it, but I have it on my computer. ”

"And the Venerables didn't find this?"

"Apparently not, otherwise they would have told Marcos. And even if they hadn't told him, Ivanova herself would have found out about it. ”

"Maybe she did," Ender said.

Navitas laughed. "Impossible. No sane woman would deliberately have a child with a man with such a genetic defect. Markau must have been in excruciating pain for many years. You don't want your own children to be like that. No, Ivanova may be eccentric, but she's not crazy. ”

——————————————————————————————

Jane Cola is broken. When Ender got home, she had her image displayed above his terminal so she could laugh out loud.

"He couldn't help but think so," Ender said. In such a devout Catholic colony, the biologist, one of the most respected figures here, would not have thought to question his basic assumptions. ”

"Don't defend him," Jane said. "I didn't expect wet parts to work as logically as software. But you can't help but make me amused. ”

"He's so cute in a sense," Ender said. "He prefers to believe that Mako's illness is different from all the other documented cases. He prefers to believe that Ivanova's parents somehow didn't notice that Marcus had the disease, so much so that she married him without knowing it, even if Occam's razor law leads us to believe the simplest explanation: Marcau's illness begins with the testicles, like all other patients, and all of Novana's children are born with something else. No wonder Macao is so angry. Each of her six children reminded him that his wife was sleeping with another man. Maybe that's part of their deal in the first place, and she's not going to be faithful to him. But the six children are too much to plaster people's noses (note: idiom. It's roughly equivalent to deceiving people too much. ）。 ”

"Wonderful paradoxes in religious life," Jane said. "She consciously went for it — but it never occurred to her to use contraception. ”

"Have you scanned the children's genetic profiles to find the most likely father?"

"You mean you didn't guess?"

"I guessed, but I wanted to make sure that the medical evidence didn't negate the obvious answer. ”

"It's Lipo, of course. He planted six children in Nowanhua, and four more in his own wife. ”

"What I don't understand," said Ender, "is why Nowanhua didn't marry Lipo in the first place." It didn't make sense at all, she married someone she obviously looked down upon, she must have known about his condition, and went to have children with the man she must have loved in the first place. ”

"Distortion and abnormality are the natural names of the human mind," Jane groaned. "Pinocchio is stupid to want to be a real boy. He's much better off with his wooden head. ”

————————————————————————————————

Miró cautiously made his way through the forest. Every now and then he recognized some of the trees, or thought he did—no human had the ability of a pig to name every tree in the woods individually. But in this way, humans will no longer regard trees as their ancestral totems.

Miro deliberately chose a longer route to the log house of the pig people. From the very beginning of Lipo's acceptance of Miro as his second apprentice, and working with Lipo's daughter Oanda with him, he taught them never to make a way from Miracle Town to the Pig Clan's dwelling. Perhaps one day, Lipo warns them that there may be conflict between humans and pigs, and that we must never lead the slaughter to the victims. So today Miró walked across the river from the creek and along the top of the high embankment.

Not surprisingly, a pig soon appeared not far away, watching him. Years ago, Lipo had deduced from this that the female surname must have lived somewhere over there, and that they would always keep an eye on the strangers when they got too close. At Lipo's insistence, Miro did not make any further moves to get closer to the forbidden place. As soon as he remembered how Lipo's body had looked when he and Oanda had found it, his curiosity was suppressed. Lipo was not dead then, his eyes were still open and turning. He didn't breathe until Miro and Oanda knelt down on either side of him, each holding one of his bloody hands. Ah, Lipo, your heart is bare in your dissected chest while your blood is still gushing. If you can tell us, just say a word, why did they kill you?

The embankment has become lower again, and Miró (Note: The original text here is Lipo, which should be a clerical error. It's strange that it wasn't corrected when it was reprinted...... Briskly stepping over mossy stones across the stream. He arrived a few minutes later, entering the small clearing from the east.

Oanda was already there, teaching them how to stir the emulsion of the cabra milk to make a cream. She has been experimenting with the process for the past few weeks until she finds the right way. It would have been much easier if the mother, or even Ella, could have helped her, for they knew much more about the chemistry of the cabra, but it was impossible to work with a biologist. The glorious saints discovered thirty years ago that cabra milk had no nutritional value for humans. Therefore, any attempt to study a method of disposal that would aid storage can only be for the benefit of the pig family. Miro and Oanda don't dare to take any risk of letting people know that they are breaking the law and actively interfering in the pig-people's way of life.

The young pigs were happy to do the cream-churning work, and they made up a dance that mimicked the movements of milking the cabla, and now sang a nonsensical song with lyrics in the two languages of the stars, the Portuguese, and the pigs' own, crumpled into an inexplicable but jubilant mess. Miró tried to distinguish between languages. Naturally, he could make out a few fragments of the male surname, as well as a few fragments of the father's language, which the pigs used to speak to their totem tree, which Miro could only tell by pronunciation, and even Lipo could not even translate a word about it back then. It sounded like it was all baba, porphyr, goo and stuff, and there was no difference between the vowels.

The pig-clan who had been watching Miro in the woods now appeared, shouting to greet the other pigs. The dance continued, but the singing immediately stopped. The big man pulled out of the herd of pigs around Oanda and met Miro at the edge of the clearing.

"Welcome, I-look-you-take-yu look. "That's, of course, an exaggerated astonishing translation of Miro's full name. The big man likes to translate back and forth between Star and Portuguese, and even if Miró and Oanda have explained that their names are not meant at all, and if they sound like words, it is just a coincidence. But the big man enjoyed his language game, as did many other pigs, and in the end Miró accepted to be called I-Look-You-Take-Yu Wang, just as Oanda endured being called Vaga, the Portuguese word for "wandering", a star word that sounds a lot like "Oanda". (Note: Originally written wander.) I beg my pardon for not being able to do anything about translating this sound out at the same time...... ）

The situation of the big guys is confusing. He was the oldest of the pigs. Pippo knew him and wrote him as one of the most prestigious of the pig clan. Lipo, too, seems to think he's a leader. Isn't his name a Portuguese slang word for "boss"? But to Miró and Oanda, it seems that the big man is the least powerful and status-free of the pigs. No one seemed to ask him any questions, and he was a pig who always had time to talk to the Aliens, as he almost never took on any important work.

However, he is a pig who gives most information to the aliens. Miró couldn't help but wonder if his information-sharing behavior had caused him to lose his popularity, or if his information-sharing with humans had helped increase his low reputation among the pigs. But that's okay. In fact, Miró likes big shots. He took this old pig as his friend.

"Did the woman force you to eat that stinking mush?"

"It's total rubbish, she said too. Even the little cabra cries when he has to suck*. The big man laughed.

"If you give this as a gift to the ladies, they will never talk to you again. ”

"But we still have to take it, we have to do it," the big man said as he sighed. "They have to see everything, these inquisitive Macio bugs!"

Ah, yes, the confusion of female surnames. Sometimes the pigs speak of them with sincere, painstaking respect, almost awe, as if they were gods. Then one of the pigs would be rude enough to say that they were "Macioans", worms lying on tree trunks. The xenologist couldn't even ask about them—the pigs never answered questions about female surnames. For a while—for a long time—the pigs didn't even mention the existence of a female surname at all. Lipo often gloomily suggests that this change has something to do with Pippo's death. Before his death, it was taboo to mention a woman's surname, except respectfully on some rare and unusually sacred occasions, after which the pigs began to show this gloomy way of making fun of "wives". But the heterologist still gets no answer to any question about the female surname. The pigs make this very clear: the female surname has nothing to do with you.

A whistle was heard from the herd of pigs around Oanda. The big man immediately moved to pull Miro to that side. "Arrows want to talk to you. ”

Miro used to sit next to Ouanda. She didn't even look at him - they had long known that it would be very uncomfortable for the pigs to see the male and female surnames talking directly or even just looking at each other face to face. They would also speak to Oanda alone, but they wouldn't talk to her as long as Miró was there, and they couldn't stand her talking to him. Sometimes it just drove Miró crazy: she couldn't even wink at him in front of the pigs. He could feel her body, like she was radiating heat like a tiny star.

"My friend," said the arrow. "I want to ask you for an amazing gift. ”

Miro could hear that Oanda beside him was slightly tense. Pigs rarely ask for anything, but once they do, it always brings a lot of trouble.

"Will you listen to me?"

Miro nodded slowly. "But remember, I'm nothing in the human race, I don't have much power. ”

Lipo found that the pigs did not offend them at all by believing that the representatives sent by the humans had no power, and that this picture of powerlessness helped them explain the draconian restrictions on what the aliens could do.

"It's not a request we made, it's not something we made in a stupid conversation around a campfire. ”

"I wish I could hear what you call foolishness," said Miró, who always replied.

"It is the Root, whom he speaks from his tree, and it is he who speaks. ”

Miro sighed silently. He didn't like to deal with the religion of the pigs at all, just as he didn't like the Catholicism of his own people. On both occasions he had to pretend to take seriously the most absurd beliefs. Every time a particularly reckless or outrageous request was made, the pigs always attributed it to this or that ancestor, whose soul dwelt in one of the trees that were everywhere. It's only in the last few years, shortly before Lipo's death, that they've begun to single out the root ones as the source of most troublesome thoughts. It's funny that a pig tribe they executed as traitors is now treated with such reverence in their ancestor worship.

Still, Miro responded in the same way that Lipo usually responded. "We have nothing to think of for the Root One but respect and love, if you respect Him. ”

"We've got to get the metal. ”

Miro closed his eyes. This is the end of the practice that the alien has insisted on for so long and never uses metal tools in front of the pigs. Apparently, the pigs had their own observers who saw humans at work from somewhere near the wall.

"What do you want metal for?" he asked calmly.

"When the shuttle came down with the Speakers of the Dead, it emitted terrible heat, hotter than any fire we could make. But the shuttle did not burn and did not melt. ”

"It's not metal, it's a heat-absorbing plastic shield. ”

"Maybe that helps, but there's still metal at the heart of that machine. In all your machines, everywhere you use fire and heat to make things move, there is metal. We will never be able to make your kind of flame, unless we can have our own metal. ”

"I can't," Miró said.

"You're telling us that we're condemned to be aliens forever, never to be aliens?"

I wish you, Oanda, had never explained to them the rules of Demosthenes' classification of outsiders.

"You weren't convicted of anything. What we have given you so far, we have made from things that are naturally produced in your world, such as kabra. Even so, if we are discovered, it will also expel us from this world and never see you again. ”

"The metals you humans use are also natural products from our world. We've seen your miners dig them out of the ground far south from here. ”

Miró jotted down this information for future reference. There is no vantage point outside the fence to see the mine. So the pigs must have somehow crossed the wall and observed humans inside.

"It was dug out of the ground, but only in a few specific places, and I didn't know how to find them. Also, when it is dug up, it is always mixed with other kinds of rocks. They have to purify it, and then there's a series of very difficult transformation processes. Every bit of metal dug up in the ground counts towards the total. If we give you even a tool – a screwdriver or a masonry saw – it won't slip through, it will be searched for over and over again. No one is going to search for cabra. ”

The arrow looked at him for a moment, and Miró met his gaze. "We'll think about it again," Arrow said. He stretched out his hand to the calendar, and the other party placed three arrows in his hand.

"Look. Are these well done?"

They are just as good as the arrows they usually make, decorated with feathers and have a straight body. The improvement lies in the arrow part. The arrows are not obsidian.

"Cabra bones," Miro said.

"We kill Kabra with Kabra. He handed the arrow back to the calendar. Then he got up and walked away.

He took the slender wooden arrow in front of him and sang to them in his father's language. Miro remembered the song, even though he couldn't understand a word. At one point, the big man explained to him that it was a prayer and that he was asking the Tree of the Dead to forgive them for using non-wooden tools. If not, he said, the trees would think the little ones hated them. Religion. Miro sighed.

He took the arrows and walked away. Then the young pig-clan, known as the human, took the place he had left and crouched on the ground in front of Miro. He took a packet of things wrapped in leaves and carefully placed them on the dirt floor to open them.

Inside is the queen and overlord that Miro printed out for them four years ago. This has a place in a small dispute between Miró and Oanda. It was Ouanda who started in a conversation with the pigs about religion. Actually, that's not her fault. At first, the big man asked her, "How can you humans survive without trees?"

She understood the meaning of the question—of course, he wasn't talking about the woody plants, he was talking about the gods.

"We also have one, God—a man who is dead and alive," she explained. And where does he live now?" "So what's in it for him? How are you going to talk to him?" ”

They were stunned by this, and Lipo laughed and said, "You see? To them our subtle theology sounds like blind superstition." What kind of religion is this, compared to a god you can see and touch—"

"They can climb up and catch Macio bugs, not to mention that they've cut down a lot of logs to build their houses," Oanda said.

"Chop? cut down trees, no stone and no metal tools? No, Oanda, they are praying (note: I didn't make a typo...... Those trees. "But Oanda doesn't like to joke about religion.

At the request of the pigs, Oanda later printed a condensed paraphrase of the Douai Bible in the star-language (note: the English translation of the Bible approved by the Roman Catholic Church, published in 1582 and 1609-1610 by Roman Catholic scholars from Latin to English respectively) of the Gospel of John to them. But Miro insisted that while sending this, he also printed a copy of the worm queen and sent it with the overlord. "St. John doesn't say a word about life on other planets," Miró noted. "But the deceased said that people explain the Zerg to humans - and what humans are to the Zerg. Oanda was furious at his blasphemous words. Less than a year later, however, they discovered that the pigs had taken the pages of John's (^_^) Gospel to make a fire, while the Queen and the Overlord had been carefully wrapped in leaves. This made Oanda sad for a while, and Miro knew it was best not to stab her about it.

Now humanity has turned this printed edition to the last page. Miro noticed that from the moment he opened the book, all the pigs had quietly gathered together. The cream dance also stopped. The human caresses the last words on the printout. "The dead speak of people," he murmured.

"Yes, I saw him last night. ”

"He's a real talker. So says the Rooter. ”

Miró had reminded them that there were many speakers, and that the author of the Queen of Worms and Overlords must be a dead man. Obviously, they still couldn't abandon that illusion, thinking that the person who came here would be the deity, the one who wrote the holy book.

"I believe he's a good talker," Miro said. "He's very kind to my family and I think he can be trusted. ”

"When will he come and speak to us?"

"I haven't asked him yet. It's not something I can say with my mouth open. It takes time. ”

The human threw his head back and howled.

Am I going to die?," Miro thought.

No. The other pigs gently stroked the human, then helped him rewrap the printbook and helped him walk away. Miro got up and left. None of the pigs looked at him when he left. They make no secret of it, they are busy doing something. He wished he had been seen as invisible all along.

Oanda only joined him at the edge of the forest, where the grass at the edge of the forest made them invisible to any would-be observer from Miracle Town, though no one had ever bothered to look at this side of the forest. "Miro," she called softly. He turned around just in time to catch her with his arms outstretched, and her momentum was so strong that he had to take a few steps backwards to avoid falling to the ground. "Are you trying to kill me?" he asked, or rather wanted to ask—she kept kissing him, making it difficult for him to finish the sentence. Finally he gave up his speech and kissed back, a deep kiss.

Then she suddenly pulled away. "You're getting lustful," she said.

"Whenever a woman attacks me in the woods and kisses me. ”

"Pour some cold water on your shorts, Miro, they're still long. She grabbed him by the belt, pulled him over, and kissed him again. "In two years, we won't need your mother's consent to get married. ”

Miró didn't even think to fight for it. He didn't care about clerical ascetic rules, but he did understand how important it was to strictly adhere to custom practices in marriage in a fragile community as fragile as Miracle Town. Large, stable communities can accommodate a certain number of non-conforming castes, but Miracle Town is too small and too small. Oanda did so out of faith, while Miró thought through his surname—they remained as chaste as monks despite a thousand chances. But if it occurred to Miro that they might all have a chaste marriage like the one required in the Order of the Spirits, Oanda's virginity would immediately face a serious threat to his true character.

"This speaker," Ouanda said. "You know what I think about bringing him here. ”

"That's your statement of faith in Catholicism, not your questioning of your name. He wanted to kiss her, but she lowered her face at the last minute, and he kissed her nose all over his mouth. He kissed it passionately until she pushed him away with a smile.

"You're filthy and rude, Miro. She wiped her nose down her sleeve. "When we started to help them improve their standard of living, we bombarded all those scientific research systems to hell. We have ten to twenty years before satellites start to show noticeable differences. By then, we may have succeeded in making some kind of permanent change. But if we let a stranger participate in this program, we won't stand a chance. He'll tell someone. ”

"Maybe he will, maybe he won't. I used to be a stranger, you know. ”

"You're a weirdo, but you've never been a stranger. ”

"If only you had seen him last night, Oanda. At first it was Gregor, and then when Koyura woke up crying—"

"Desperate, lonely children - what does that prove?"

"And Ella. Laughed. And Orhado, who really integrated into the family. ”

"Where's Kim?"

At least he didn't stop yelling for the unbelievers to go home. ”

"I'm happy for your family, Miro. I hope he will heal them forever, and I really hope that I can see a difference in you, for I have never seen you so hopeful for the future in a long time. But don't bring him out of here. ”

Miró bit his cheek for a while, then started to leave. Oanda caught up with him and grabbed him by the arm. They had reached the open field, but the tree of the root was still between them and the door. "Don't leave me like that!" she said angrily. "Don't just walk away from me!"

"I know you're right," Miro said. "But I can't control my feelings. When he was in our house, it was like—it was like Lipo was there. ”

"Father hates your mother, Miro, he will never go there. ”

"But if he went. In our house, the speaker behaves like Lipo in his workstation. Can you understand?"

"Do you understand? He walked in the door, acting in the way your father should have done but never before, and each of you was as happy as a little puppy rolling belly up. ”

The look of contempt on her face was very irritating. Miro almost wanted to punch her. But he just stepped aside and slammed his hand on the tree of the rooter. In less than a quarter of a century, it had grown to nearly eighty centimeters in diameter, and the trunk was rough enough to make his hands ache.

She followed him. "I'm sorry, Miro, I didn't mean that-".

"That's what you mean, but that's stupid and selfish—"

"Yes, that's right, I-"

"Just because my dad is a scumbag doesn't mean I'm going to be belly up in front of the first good guy who gently pats me on the head-"

Her hands ran across his hair, his shoulders, his waist. "I know, I know, I know—"

"Because I know what a good man looks like – not just a father, but a good man. I know Lipo, don't I, and when I tell you that this speaker, this Andrew Wiggin is like Lipo, you should listen to me, and not turn a deaf ear to a dog's whimper!"

"I listened. I want to meet him, Miró. ”

Miro himself was taken aback by himself. He was crying. This is also part of the consequences of the speaker's ability, even if he is not present now. He loosened all the seals in Miro's heart, so now Miro couldn't stop anything from forming.

"You're not wrong," Miro whispered, his voice a little distorted from excitement. "I saw him come in and perform his healing touch, so I thought it would be nice if he were my father. ”

He turned to face Oanda, not caring if she would see his eyes reddened and cry into a big face. "Like I used to say every day when I came home from the Alien Workstation. If only Lipo were his father, if only I were his son. ”

She smiled and hugged him, her hair wiping tears from his face. "Ah, Miro, I'm glad he's not your father. Because if then I would be your sister, then I would never have expected to have you. ”

(Gossip: Jesus has clouds, and I did not come to bring peace to the earth.) I am going to make the world a sword war. When the time comes, the son will deny his father, and the wife will deny her husband. As soon as Ande came, the two of them made a big fight......)