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wood and he said the words of extreme unction, the same words he had whispered over Libo's corpse on the hillside five years ago.
Chapter 15 -- Speaking
HUMAN: Why don't any of the other humans ever come see us? MIRO: We're the only ones allowed to come through the gate. HUMAN: Why don't they just climb over the fence?
MIRO: Haven't any of you ever touched the fence? (Human does not answer.) It's very painful to touch the fence. To pass over the fence would be like every part of your body hurting as bad as possible, all at once.
HUMAN: That's stupid. Isn't there grass on both sides?
-- Ouanda Quenhatta Figueira Mucumbi, Dialogue Transcripts, 103:0:1970:1:1:5
The sun was only an hour from the horizon when Mayor Bosquinha climbed the stairs to Bishop Peregrino's private office in the Cathedral. Dom and Dona Cristaes were already there, looking grave. Bishop Peregrino, however, looked pleased with himself. He always enjoyed it when all the political and religious leadership of Milagre was gathered under his roof. Never mind that Bosquinha was the one who called the meeting, and then she offered to have it at the Cathedral because she was the one with the skimmer. Peregrino liked the feeling that he was somehow the master of Lusitania Colony. Well, by the end of this meeting it would be plain to them all that no one in this room was the master of anything. Bosquinha greeted them all. She did not sit down in the offered chair, however. Instead she sat before the Bishop's own terminal, logged in, and ran the program she had prepared. In the air above the terminal there appeared several layers of tiny cubes. The highest layer had only a few cubes; most of the layers had many, many more. More than half the layers, starting with the highest, were colored red; the rest were blue.
"Very pretty," said Bishop Peregrino.
Bosquinha looked over at Dom Cristao. "Do you recognize the model?" He shook his head. "But I think I know what this meeting is about."
Dona Crist leaned forward on her chair. "Is there any safe place where we can hide the things we want to keep?"