Chapter 3: Lipo

Observed recipes: mainly macio worms, shiny worms in the murdona vine on the trunk. Sometimes they are seen munching on the leaves of kapim grass. Sometimes, by chance, they ate the leaves of the Murdona vine with the Macio.

We've never seen them eat anything else. Nowanhua analysed all three of these foods - the Macio, the Kapim and the Murdona - and the results were astonishing. Either Pickniños don't need many different proteins, or they're constantly hungry. Their recipes lack a variety of trace elements. And calcium intake is so low that we wonder if their bones use calcium in the same way we do.

The following is pure speculation: since we cannot take tissue samples, the only knowledge we have of the anatomy and physiology of pigs is what we can deduce from the photographs we took of the corpse of the pig-dwelled pig called the 'Rooter' that we had taken alive. However, there are some obvious anomalies. The pigs' tongues are so amazingly dexterous that they can make any sound we make, as well as many sounds we can't, and it must have evolved for a specific purpose. Perhaps, it is to detect insects in tree trunks or nests on the ground. Whether or not one of the ancient ancestors of the pig people did this, they certainly don't do it now. There are also pads on their feet that allow them to climb trees and on the inside of their knees using only their legs. Why did this evolve -- to escape predators? There were no predators on Lusitania that were big enough to hurt them. They cling to trees in order to find insects in their trunks, which is consistent with the characteristics of their tongues, but where are the insects? The only insects are sucking flies and lice, but they don't burrow into tree trunks, and pigs don't eat them at all. The Macio worms are not small, they live on the surface of tree trunks, and can be collected by pulling down the Murdona vine, and they really don't have to climb trees at all.

Lipo's hypothesis that tongue and tree-climbing behavior evolved in a different environment that corresponds to a rich multitude of recipes, including insects. But something -- an ice age, a migration, a disease -- caused a change in the environment. The bugs on the trunk are gone, and so on. Perhaps all the big marauders were wiped out at this moment. This explains why there are so few species on Lusitania, despite the fact that the environment is very suitable for life. The cataclysm could have happened not so long ago - 500,000 years ago - that evolution had not yet had a chance to diverge into a large number of new species.

This is a tempting hypothesis, as the current environment is completely devoid of the obvious factors in which pigs have been able to evolve. They have no competitors. The place they occupy ecologically can be filled by gophers. Why intelligence is an adapttraitor (note: an evolutionary strategy that favors the survival of species. According to the theory of biological evolution, major biological evolution should conform to one such strategy. But creating a cataclysm to explain why pigs have such an annoying diet that lacks nutrients is probably going too far. Occam's razor (Note: Do not add entities unless necessary.) That is, when two or more doctrines are in line with reality, the simpler one is adopted. One of the principles generally followed by modern scientific theories. It is named after the theologian and philosopher Occam. will shave this doctrine.

――

Jo?ofigueiraalvarez, Work Notes, Aph. 14, 1948, posthumously published in Lusitania on the Philosophical Roots of Separation, 2010-33-4-1090:40

After Mayor Bosquina arrived at the Alien Workstation, things were out of Lipo's and Nowanwa's control. Bosquina was accustomed to giving orders, and her attitude did not give much room for protest or even for reflection. "You wait here," she said to Lipo as soon as she got hold of the situation, "and I will send the judge to inform your mother as soon as I receive your call." ”

"We've got to get his body in," Lipo said.

"I also called some men who live nearby to help," she said, "and Bishop Peregrino is preparing a place for him in the church cemetery." ”

"I hope to be on the spot," Lipo insisted.

"You know, Lipo, we have to take pictures, in detail. ”

"I told you that we had to do that in order to report to the Galaxy Council. ”

"But you shouldn't be there, Lipo. Bosquina's tone was imperative, "Besides, we need to have your report." We must inform Galaxy as quickly as possible. Are you ready to write now, while it still lingers in your mind?"

She was right, of course. Only Lipo and Nowanhua can write first-hand reports, and the faster they can write them, the better. "I can," Lipo replied.

"And you, Nuo Wanhua, write yours. Write your reports separately and don't negotiate. The world is waiting. ”

The computers were on standby, and their reports were sent out through Ansebo at the same time as they were written, with errors and corrections, all the contents. All the people in the entire world who were closely associated with interracial studies read every word of the report as Lipo and Nowanhua typed. In addition, many received computer-written instant summaries of events. Twenty-two light-years away, Andrew Wiggin learns that the alien scientist Jo?ofigueiraalvarez, "Pippo", has been murdered by the Pigs, and he informs his students of this even before the men take Pippo's body through the gate and get him back to Miracle Town.

After finishing his report, Lipo was immediately surrounded by the leading figures. Nowanhua watched with growing anger as Lusitania's leaders put on an incompetent performance, they were only adding to Lipo's pain. Bishop Peregrino was the worst, and his words of comfort were mainly to tell Lipo that the pigs were actually animals and had no souls, so his father was torn apart by wild beasts, not murdered. Nouvanhua almost screamed at him, did that mean that Pippo's life's work was only to study some brute, and that he did not die of murder, but an act of God? that she held herself back only for Lipo's sake, and that he sat before the bishop, and was able to get rid of him at last, much faster than Nowanhua could have done with arguments.

Lady Christie of the Order was more helpful, asking clever questions about the events of the day, leaving Lipo and Nowanhua in a state of unemotional analysis in their answers. However, Nowanhua quickly stopped answering questions. Most of the people were asking why the pigs had done such a thing, and Ms. Christie was asking what Pippo had done recently that might have caused him to be killed. Nowanhua knows exactly what Pippo has done - he tells the pigs the secret he discovered from Nowanhua's simulation. But she doesn't mention it, and Lipo seems to have forgotten what she had told him in a hurry a few hours ago before they set off to find Pippo. He didn't even glance at the simulation. Nowanhua was satisfied, and her biggest fear was that he would remember it.

Ms. Christie's cross-examination was interrupted when the mayor returned with several men who had helped collect the body. Despite wearing plastic raincoats, they were soaked and splattered with mud, and God forbid, the blood must have been washed away by the rain. They nodded to Lipo and bowed, all looking apologetic and even reverent. In Nowanhua's view, their respect is not just the usual caution that people tend to show when death touches them.

A man said to Lipo, "You're a xenologist now, aren't you?" and that's the answer, in this sentence. The Xenologist has no official authority in Miracle Town, but he has a reputation - his work is the whole point of the colony's existence, isn't it?

Lipo was no longer a boy, he had decisions to make, he had prestige, he had moved from the periphery of colonial life to the very center of it.

Nowanhua felt that her life was derailed. That's not how it shouldn't be. I should stay here for a few more years, learn from Pippo and have Lipo as my classmate, that's how life should be. Ever since she was a colony xenobiologist, she had been given the status of a respected adult. She wasn't jealous of Lipo, she just wanted to be a kid with him for a while. Actually, it's want forever.

But Lepo will no longer be her classmate, nor can he be her companion in any sense. It was suddenly clear to her that everyone in the room was paying attention to Lipo, what he was saying, how he was feeling, what he was planning to do now. "We're not going to hurt the pigs," he said, "and don't even call them murderers." We don't know what my father did to provoke them, and I will try to understand that later; We are outsiders here, we must have violated certain - taboos, certain laws - but my father was always ready, he always thought it was a possibility. Tell them that he died a glorious death, just as a soldier died on the battlefield, a sailor died with a ship, and he died in his work. ”

Ah, Lipo, you silent boy, you are so eloquent when you can no longer be just a boy. Nuo Wanhua felt her grief doubly doubled. She had to look away from Lipo and look anywhere else—

Then her gaze fell on the eyes of the only person in the room who wasn't looking at Lipo. The man was tall, but young—younger than her, and she knew him, because she knew him: he had been a student in a class one level below her. She had gone to Ms. Christie once to defend him. Marcus Ribera, that's his name, but they always call him "Marcau" because he's big. Big and stupid, they say, sometimes they call him "Kao", which is a vulgar name for a dog. She had seen a gloomy anger in his eyes, and once she saw him screaming uncontrollably, rushing out and knocking a man who had tormented him to the ground. He hit the man with a cast on his shoulder for more than a year.

Of course, they accuse Marcau of doing that without being provoked – a common practice of perpetrators of every age, putting the blame on the victim, especially when he strikes back. But Nowanhua did not belong to that group of children—she was just as isolated, though not so helpless—as Macao was, and therefore she was under no obligation not to tell the truth. It's part of her training to become the speaker of the pig people, she thought. Makau himself meant nothing to her. She never thought it might be important to him, or that he might remember her as someone who had been on his side in the long battle with the other children. She hadn't seen or thought of him since she became a xenobiologist.

Here he is now, covered in the mud from Pippo's death scene, his hair stuck together in the rain, his cheeks and ears covered in sweat, and his face looks more anxious than usual, more like a beast. And what was he looking at? His eyes were only on her, even when she was staring straight at him. Why are you looking at me?" she asked silently. 'Cause I'm hungry, said his animal-like eyes. But, no, no, that's her fear, her opinion of the ferocious pigs. Macao is nothing to me, and no matter what he thinks, I am nothing to him.

Then a flash of inspiration flashed through her mind, just for a moment. The events of her defence of Macau meant to him and were to her, so different as they were, so to speak, not the same event. Her mind connected this to the pig-tribe's killing of Pippo, which seemed important and seemed to explain what had happened right away, but then, as the Bishop led the men out of the cemetery, the thought slipped away in the midst of a hectic conversation and activity. Funerals here do not require coffins, and logging is forbidden here because of the pig people. So Pippo's body was to be buried immediately, even though the funeral at the tomb would be tomorrow at the earliest, perhaps later, and many people would be attending the Requiem Mass for the Heretician. Marcau and the other men went out into the storm, leaving Nowanhua and Lipo behind to deal with all those who thought Pippo had urgent business to do after his death. Strangers who thought they were important were swaying around, making decisions that Nowanhua didn't understand and that Lipo seemed indifferent to.

Finally, the judge stood next to Lipo and put his hand on the boy's shoulder. "Of course, you're going to spend the night at our house," the judge said. "At least tonight. ”

Why in your room, Judge?" thought Nowanhua. You're nothing to us, we've never had any lawsuits before you, so why did you make that decision? Does Pippo's death mean that we're suddenly children who can't decide anything?

"I'm going to stay with my mother," Lipo said. The judge looked at him in amazement—the fact that the child would rebel against his will seemed to be completely outside of his experience. Of course, Nowanhua knew that this was not the case. His daughter, Cleopati, who was several years younger than Nothua, earned her the nickname Bruhin - The Little Witch by working too hard. How could he not know that children had their own minds and were disgusted by being called?

But his surprise was not because of what Nuo Wanhua thought. "I thought you knew that your mother was going to stay in my house for a while," said the judge, "and these things, of course, made her depressed, and she should no longer be forced to think about housework, or to stay in a house that would remind her of the man who was gone." She is with us, and with your brothers and sisters, and they need you. Of course, your eldest brother Joe is with them now, but he now has a wife and children of his own, so you are the one who can stay and be relied on. ”

Lipo nodded heavily. The judge was not trying to bring him under his own protection;

The judge turned to Noh Wanhua. "I think it's time for you to go home. He said.

That's when she realized that his invitation didn't include her. Why should it be included? Pippo wasn't her father. She's just a friend who happened to be with Lipo when she found her body. What kind of sorrow can she feel?

If not, where else is home? Does that mean she should go back to the Biologist's Workstation, where her bed hasn't been used for more than a year except for a nap in between lab work? Has it ever been her home? She left it because it was empty, without her parents, it was so painful, and now the Alien Workstation was empty: Pippo was dead and Lipo had become Seihito, and the responsibility would keep him away from her. This place is not home, but neither is any other place.

The judge led Lipo away. His mother, Conseco, was waiting for him at the judge's house. Nowanhua knew almost nothing about the woman, except that she was the archivist of Lusitania. Nowanhua never spent time with Pippo's wife or other children, she didn't even care if they existed; He looked as if he was getting smaller as he walked towards the door, blown up by the wind and flying high into the distance like a kite disappearing into the sky, and the door closed behind him.

Now she feels the weight of losing Pippo. The shredded body on that hillside was not his death, but only a fragment of his death. Real death is a hollow in her life. Pippo had been a rock in the middle of the storm, so strong and powerful that she and Lipo, hiding in his shadow, didn't even know it existed. Now he is gone, and the storm has seized them and is about to sweep them away as he pleases. Pippo, she screamed silently. Don't go! Don't leave us! But, of course, he left, deaf to her prayers as deaf to her parents were.

The Alien Workstation is still busy, and Mayor Bosquina herself is using a terminal to send all of Pippo's data to the world with Ansebo, where experts are desperately trying to explain Pippo's death.

But Nowanhua knew that the key to his death was not in Pippo's papers. It was her data, somehow, that killed him. It was still in the air above her terminal, a hologram of the gene molecule in the nucleus of the pig. She didn't want Lipo to study it, but now she looked and looked, trying to figure out what Pippo had seen, trying to understand what was in the image that made him rush to the pigs and say or do something that caused them to kill him. She inadvertently discovers some secrets that the pigs would rather kill than keep, but what is that?

The more she studied the holograms, the less she understood, and after a moment she couldn't see them at all, except for some blurry images that could be seen through the teardrops she shed as she cried silently. She kills him because, without even realizing it, she finds the secret of the Picniños. If I hadn't been here, if I hadn't dreamed of being the teller of the pigs' story, you'd still be alive, Pippo, and Lipo would have had a father and live happily, and this place would still be home. I carry the seeds of death with me, and they are planted where I have lingered for love for too long. My parents are dead so others can live, and now I am alive, so others will die.

Only the mayor noticed her short, rapid breathing, and, realizing that the maiden had also been stricken and was in a state of grief, suddenly sympathized with her. Bosquina told the others to continue the Ansebo report, and led Nowanhua out of the Xenologist's workstation.

"I'm sorry, boy," said the mayor, "and I know you've been here all the time, and I should have guessed that he treated you like a father, and I shouldn't have done it too unfairly for us to treat you like a bystander." Come home with me—"

"No," Ms. Nuo said. Walking outside into the cold, damp night air eased her sorrow, and her mind regained a little clarity. "No, I want to be alone, please. "Where?" "At my own workstation." ”

"You shouldn't be alone on a night like this. Bosquina said.

But Nowanhua couldn't stand being tolerant, kind, and couldn't stand people trying to soothe her. I killed him, don't you understand? I don't deserve to be soothed. I want to suffer, no matter how painful it may be. That is my repentance, my reparation, and, if possible, my atonement, otherwise how am I going to wash the blood off my hands?

But she was powerless to resist, and she couldn't even argue. The mayor's car sped down the grassy green road for about ten minutes.

"This is my home," the mayor said. "I don't have children your age, but you'll be comfortable, I think. Don't fret, no one will bother you, but it's not good to be alone. ”

"I'd rather be alone. Nowanhua tried to make her voice sound powerful, but it was weak.

"Please come in," Bosquina said. "You don't look well. ”

That's all I want. She had no appetite, even though Bosquina's husband prepared a Yinuo coffee for each of them. It was late at night, a few hours before dawn broke, and she let them get her to bed. Then, when the room was quiet, she got up, put on her clothes, and walked downstairs to the mayor's household terminal. There, she instructed the computer to cancel the display above the terminal that was still in the Xenologist's workstation. Although she couldn't decipher the secrets Pippo had discovered in it, others could, and her conscience couldn't stand it anymore.

Then she left the house, walked through the central area, around the bend, through the shore area, to the biology workstation. her home.

A quarter of the living area was unheated and cold - she hadn't slept there for so long, so long that there was a thick layer of dust on her sheets. But of course, the lab was warm and used regularly - her relationship with Pippo and Lipo never harmed her work. If only there were.

She did a good job. Every sample, every slide, every culture, all the items she had used in making the discovery that led to Pippo's death—she threw them out and washed everything clean, leaving no trace of her work. She didn't just want it to disappear, she wanted the traces of its destruction to disappear as well.

She then turned to her terminal. She would also destroy all of her work records in this field, all of her parents' records of work that led her to make her own discoveries. They're going to disappear. Even if it had been the focus of her life, even if it had been her for years, she would have caused it to be destroyed, as she deserved, punished, destroyed, and erased.

The computer stopped her. "Work notes on xenobiology research are not to be erased," it reported. She couldn't have done it in the first place. She learned this from her parents, from the documents she had studied like sacred scriptures, from their documents that served as her own signposts: nothing should be erased, and nothing should be forgotten. The divine surname of knowledge was engraved in her soul more deeply than any catechism. She falls into a paradox: knowledge kills Pippo, and eliminating that knowledge kills her parents once again, erasing what they left her. You can't keep it, you can't destroy it. On both sides were high walls, insurmountably high, slowly squeezing inward, crushing her to pieces.

Nowanhua did the only thing she could: put all the protections and barriers she knew on those documents. As long as she lives, no one but her will see them. Only when she dies can a successor xenobiologist see what she is hiding there. There is one exception - after she is married, her husband will also have permission to watch if he proves that he has the necessary knowledge to know. Well, she's not going to get married. It's simple. She saw the future in front of her, unbearable and inevitable. She did not dare to die, but she was struggling to get married, not even to think about the subject of her own work, lest she should not reveal the deadly secret unwillingly, forever alone, forever guilty, forever guilty, longing for rest but forbidden to get it. Still, she had this to comfort herself: no one else would die because of her. She wouldn't have to endure more guilt than she had now.

In this cold, desperate moment, she remembered the queen and the overlord, and remembered the words of the dead. Although the original author, the original speaker, must have been in the grave for thousands of years, there are other speakers in many worlds, ministers who serve people who do not believe in any god but still believe in the value of human life. The task of speaking people is to discover the true causes and motivations of people's actions, and to proclaim the truth of their lives behind them. In this Brazilian colony, there were priests instead of speakers, but the priests did not give her any comfort;

She hadn't thought of it before, but she had always planned to do it, ever since she first read about the Queen of Bugs and the Overlord's fascination. She'd even studied it, so she knew the law. It was a Catholic charter colony, but the Galactic Code allowed any citizen to request a priest of any faith to come, and the speaker of the deceased was also considered a priest. She could call, and if a speaker chose to come, the colony could not deny him entry.

Maybe there is no word that people will be happy to come. Perhaps none were close enough to come in her lifetime. But there's a chance, maybe one close enough, maybe sometime — twenty, thirty, forty years from now — he'll come from the spaceport and begin to uncover the truth about Pippo's life and death. Then, perhaps when he discovers the truth and speaks it in the clear voice she loves in the Queen and the Overlord, it may free her from the self-reproach that burned her heart.

Her call goes into the computer, and it informs the speakers of the last few worlds through the ansebo. Come, she said silently to the unknown one who hears the call. Even if you have to reveal the truth of my crimes to everyone. Be that as it may, come on.

When she woke up, she felt a dull pain under her back and a heaviness in her cheeks. Her face is pressed against the flat roof of the terminal, which automatically shuts down to prevent her from being harmed by the laser. But it wasn't the pain that woke her up. It was the warm touch on her shoulders. For a moment she thought it was the touch of the deceased who had come at her call.

"Nuo Wanhua," he whispered. Not falantepelosmuertos, but someone else. Someone she thought she had lost in last night's storm.

"Lipo. She muttered. Then she began to get up. The movement was too fast - her back was spasming and her head was dizzy. She screamed softly, and his hand put his hand on her shoulder to prevent her from falling.

"Are you alright?"

She felt his breath, like a breeze in a lovely garden, and then she felt safe and felt home. "You look for me. ”

"Nuo Wanhua, I'm here as soon as I can. The mother finally fell asleep. Pippingo, my brother, is with her now, and the judge is in control. I-"

"You should know I can take care of myself," she said.

There was a moment of silence, and then his voice sounded again, this time irritated, irritated, helpless and tired, exhausted as the stars of aging, silence, and death. "God bears witness, Ivanova, I am not here to take care of you. ”

Something was closed in her, and she didn't notice what she was expecting until she lost it.

"You told my father what he found in one of your simulations. He wanted me to figure it out on my own. I thought you left the analog on the terminal, but when I got back to the station, it was turned off. ”

"Really?"

"You know, Nova Nobody, no one but you can close the program. I'll have to take a look at it. ”

"Why?"

He looked at her in disbelief. "I know you're sleepy, Nowanhua, but you must understand that whatever your father found in your simulation, that's why the pigs killed him. ”

She looked at him steadily, not saying a word. He had seen her look of cold determination before.

"Why don't you show me? Now that I'm a heterologist, I have the right to know. ”

"You have the right to see all your father's documents and records. You have the right to see anything I publish. ”

"Then publish it. ”

Again, she was silent.

"If we don't know what our father found out about the pigs, how can we know about the pigs?" she didn't answer. "You owe it to the Great Hundred Worlds so that we can understand the only alien race that still lives. How can you sit there -- why, do you want to find it yourself? Do you want to be the first? Very well, be the first, I'm going to put your name first, Ivanova Santa Catalina Van Hessai—"

"I don't care about my byline. ”

"I can play this trick too. You don't know what I know, and you can't understand it - and I'm going to keep my documents secret from you!"

"I don't care about your files. ”

It was too much for him. "So what do you care about, what are you trying to do to me?" he grabbed her by the shoulders and lifted her out of his chair, shaking her back and forth, screaming at her face. "They killed my father out there, and you have the answer to why they killed him, you know what that simulation looks like! Now tell me, show me!"

"Never. She whispered.

His face was distorted by great pain. "Why not!" he shouted.

"Because I don't want you to die. ”

She saw a look of realization in his eyes. Yes, exactly, Lipo, it's because I love you, because if you know the secret, the pigs will kill you too. I don't care about science, I don't care about the worlds or the relationship between humans and aliens, I don't care about anything as long as you live.

Tears finally welled up in his eyes and rolled down his cheeks. "I want to die," he said.

"You comfort everyone else," she whispered, "who will comfort you?"

"You have to tell me so I can die. ”

Suddenly, his hand was no longer lifting her, and now he was lying on top of her, and she was supporting him.

"You're tired," she whispered, "but you can rest." ”

"I don't want a break," he muttered. But he let her hug him and let her drag him away from the terminal.

She led him to her bedroom, flipping over the sheets, ignoring the flying dust. "Come here, you're tired, come here, rest. That's why you're here with me, Lipo. For peace, for comfort. He covered his face with his hands and shook his head back and forth, and a boy was crying for his father, crying for the end of everything, just as she used to cry. She took off his boots, pulled down his trousers, put her hand under his shirt and pulled it over his arm, off his head. He took a deep breath, stopped his sobbing and raised his arms for her to take his shirt.

She placed his clothes on a chair, then leaned over him and pulled the sheets over his. But he grabbed her wrist and looked at her pleadingly, tears in his eyes. "Don't leave me here alone," he whispered. His voice was full of helplessness. "Stay with me. ”

So he pulled her to the bed, where she clung to her until a few minutes later sleep had let his arms go. However, she did not fall asleep. Her cold hand slid gently over his skin—his shoulders, his chest, his waist. "Oh, Lipo, when they took you, I thought I had lost you, I thought I had lost you like I had lost Pippo. He didn't hear her murmur. "But you'll still come back to me like this. She may have been expelled from Paradise for her unintentional original sin like Eve. However, she can also tolerate it just as much as Eve, because she also has Lipo, her Adam.

Own him, own him, her hand trembled on his ** skin. She could never have him. Marriage was the only way she and Lipo could stay together for a long time - the laws were strict in any colonial world, and even completely dull in the Catholic District. Tonight she could be sure that he would want to marry her, when the time came. But Lipo was the one she could never marry.

Because then he would, automatically, have access to any of her files on the computer that he could prove he had necessary to see—that must include all her work records, no matter how well she hid them. The Galactic Code asserts that married people are almost the same person from a legal point of view.

She must never let him study the papers, or he will find out what his father knows, and then she will find his body on the hillside, and his pain under the torture of the pigs will become a nightmare for the rest of her life. Isn't the guilt of Pippo's death beyond the limits she can endure? Without marrying him, he would be like killing herself, and without Lipo, she didn't know what she would become.

How smart I am. I found such a hellish path that I could never turn back on.

She buried her face in Lipo's shoulder, tears streaming down his chest.