Page 440 - Enders_Game_Full_Book

"Why?" said Bishop Peregrino. "To destroy all our files-- this is what you do to a nation or a world that is-- in rebellion, that you wish to destroy, that you--"
"I see," said Bosquinha to the Children of the Mind, "that you also were chauvinistic and suspicious."
"Much more narrowly than you, I'm afraid," said Dom Crist o. "But we also detected the intrusions. We of course copied all our records-- at great expense-- to the monasteries of the Children of the Mind on other worlds, and they will try to restore our files after they are stripped. However, if we are being treated as a rebellious colony, I doubt that such a restoration will be permitted. So we are also making paper copies of the most vital information. There is no hope of printing everything, but we think we may be able to print out enough to get by. So that our work isn't utterly destroyed."
"You knew this?" said the Bishop. "And you didn't tell me?"
"Forgive me, Bishop Peregrino, but it did not occur to us that you would not have detected this yourselves."
"And you also don't believe we do any work that is important enough to be worth printing out to save!"
"Enough!" said Mayor Bosquinha. "Printouts can't save more than a tiny percentage-- there aren't enough printers in Lusitania to make a dent in the problem. We couldn't even maintain basic services. I don't think we have more than an hour left before the copying is complete and they are able to wipe out our memory. But even if we began this morning, when the intrusion started, we could not have printed out more than a hundredth of one percent of the files that we access every day. Our fragility, our vulnerability is complete."
"So we're helpless," said the Bishop.
"No. But I wanted to make clear to you the extremity of our situation, so that you would accept the only alternative. It will be very distasteful to you."
"I have no doubt of that," said Bishop Peregrino.
"An hour ago, as I was wrestling with this problem, trying to see if there was any class of files that might be immune to this treatment, I discovered that in fact there was one person whose files were being completely overlooked. At first I thought it was because he was a framling, but the reason is much more subtle than that. The Speaker for the Dead has no files in Lusitanian memory."
"None? Impossible," said Dona Crist .
"All his files are maintained by ansible. Offworld. All his records, all his finances, everything. Every message sent to him. Do you understand?"