How It All Goes Down
Renegades
- The epigraph is from Miro's notes: a brief conversation with Leaf-eater where he's upset because human dead don't do them any good. Cryptic, but we're getting towards the end, so presumably everything'll get explained soon.
- And once more to the plot. Ender goes out with Miro and Ouanda to the piggies, and they stop at Rooter's tree along the way.
- They talk about how the piggies seem to get bits of wood from the trees without metal tools, and Ender thinks about Ela's theories and reproductive anomalies.
- Can you figure out the trick? Can ya? Can ya? Huh?
- Miro explains to Ender that they've been giving the piggies technology in contravention of Starways.
- It started when the piggies were running low on the bark worms they eat; Libo helped them and was killed shortly thereafter.
- There's much arguing, but they all end up agreeing that you have to help other humans in need, though Ouanda still doesn't trust Ender.
- They tell Ender that the piggies think he's the original Speaker.
- Rooter, the tree, has supposedly told the piggies about the original Speaker and the Hive Queen.
- Miro and Ouanda don't believe it, and Ender sneers at them for being condescending and refusing to learn from the piggies. (Sort of funny for Ender to tell other people they're being condescending….)
- They don't believe that Ender is the original Speaker or that he has the Hive Queen. Apparently they don't realize they're in Ender's book and that he is all things to all people. They should have read Ender's Game.
- Ender says they treat the piggies like they're not responsible for their actions since they don't blame them for Pipo and Libo's murder. Shmoop is skeptical, but unfortunately no one is allowed to argue effectively with Ender in this book.
- More details about how they gave food to the piggies right before they killed Libo.
- Ender wonders how the piggies can survive when they kill off those who contribute most to their survival, but then he thinks that humans do it too—they sometimes kill their most forward looking members.
- He realizes that Starways wants to isolate the piggies to keep its own power, and that it is afraid of the piggies.
- So Miro and Ouanda are rebels and traitors from Starways's perspective.
- Good grief, this is a long chapter.
- We're back in the Ribeira house, where they're fighting. Quim accuses Olhada of disloyalty for helping the Speaker, but Ela says that helping the Speaker is true loyalty—betrayal is a higher loyalty, just like with Miro an Ouanda and helping the piggies.
- Novinha comes in and isn't mad at Ela. Instead she comforts Olhado.
- And back out to the piggies, where Miro muses about how awesome Ender is. Doesn't Card ever get tired of talking about how awesome Ender is?
- No. The answer is no, he doesn't.
- Anyway, they meet the piggies. Human says Ender wrote the Hive Queen and the Hegemon, and Ender agrees. Ouanda and Miro think he's lying, but then Ender half convinces them.
- Human says Ender is the wisest of all humans. We knew that already.
- He wants the Speaker to speak the piggies, but Ender says the piggies aren't dead; Human says they are because they're trapped on the planet and can't go to the stars.
- The piggies want the Hive Queen to give them star flight, but Ender says he is worried that starlight will hurt them. They say it is up to them to decide one way or the other. (Human basically wins the argument with Ender here, believe it or not.)
- Human reveals that Ender is Ender the Xenocide, though Miro doesn't quite believe it.
- Ender cries. Human and the other piggies realize that crying is a sign of pain and that Pipo and Libo were in pain when they died.
- Much crying and forgiveness ensues.
- Ender says he needs to learn from the piggies, and then some argument breaks out between Human and Leaf-eater about whether they can tell Ender everything or not.
- Miro and Ouanda ask how they get tools from trees without metal, and the piggies freak out when they hear about using tools to cut trees.
- But eventually they calm down, and Leaf-eater already got permission from the wives earlier, so they ask an ancient tree to give itself: It makes weapons out of itself and then falls over.
- They ask Miro to sing over the tree, so he does, thinking about his father Libo.