How It All Goes Down
Libo
- The epigraph is from Pipo's working notes about the piggies. He says that their diet isn't very nutritious and they don't have any competition, so there's no reason for them to have evolved intelligence. He thinks they evolved in a different environment, and guesses that some catastrophe occurred to change everything on Lusitania. Is he right? We'll find out eventually (this is not the kind of book that leaves questions dangling).
- We pick up right after Pipo dies. Mayor Bosquinha shows up and tells Libo and Novinha to write reports; meanwhile she's dealing with getting Pipo's body and preparing a burial.
- Novinha is not going to tell anyone that her discovery led Pipo to get killed.
- Libo is now Zenador and is taking on authority; Novinha is doubly grieved because she feels she's losing him as well as Pipo.
- She sees Marcos Ribeira watching her and remembers defending him when he was falsely accused. It hadn't meant much to her, but it had been very important to him.
- The Arbiter takes Libo to his house where Libo's mother and siblings are. Novinha has to go home to the biologist's station, where she has spent no time.
- She feels she should be alone and suffer because her findings killed Pipo, but the mayor convinces her to go home with her instead.
- She goes back to the biologist station and destroys all her physical records. She can't wipe the computer, but she does lock down her files.
- However, her husband will still be able to see locked files because otherwise the plot wouldn't work, so she decides she'll never marry and always be isolated and alone. Harsh.
- She calls for a Speaker for the Dead to come and speak Pipo's death in hopes that the Speaker can give her comfort and absolution.
- She falls asleep and is woken up by Libo, who wants to see the files that Pipo saw.
- Novinha says he can't have them because she won't let him die; he says he wants to die.
- She comforts him and they go to bed together, and Novinha realizes he's the one person she can never marry because then he'll see her files. Which is a major melodramatic tragic conundrum.