Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card

Hegemon. She had even researched it, so that she knew the law. This was a Catholic License colony, but the Starways Code allowed any citizen to call for a priest of any faith, and the Speakers for the Dead were regarded as priests. She could call, and if a Speaker chose to come, the colony could not refuse to let him in.
      Perhaps no Speaker would be willing to come. Perhaps none was close enough to come before her life was over. But there was a chance that one was near enough that sometime-- twenty, thirty, forty years from now-- he would come in from the starport and begin to uncover the truth of Pipo's life and death. And perhaps when he found the truth, and spoke in the clear voice that she had loved in The Hive Queen and the Hegemon, perhaps that would free her from the blame that burned her to the heart.
      Her call went into the computer; it would notify by ansible the Speakers on the nearest worlds. Choose to come, she said in silence to the unknown hearer of the call. Even if you must reveal to everyone the truth of my guilt. Even so, come.
     
     
     
      She awoke with a dull pain low in her back and a feeling of heaviness in her face. Her cheek was pressed against the clear top of the terminal, which had turned itself off to protect her from the lasers. But it was not the pain that had awakened her. It was a gentle touch on her shoulder. For a moment she thought it was the touch of the Speaker for the Dead, come already in answer to her call.
      "Novinha," he whispered. Not the Falante pelos Muertos, but someone else. Someone that she had thought was lost in the storm last night.
      "Libo," she murmured. Then she started to get up. Too quickly-- her back cramped and her head spun. She cried out softly; his hands held her shoulders so she wouldn't fall.
      "Are you all right?"
      She felt his breath like the breeze of a beloved garden and felt safe, felt at home. "You looked for me."
      "Novinha, I came as soon as I could. Mother's finally asleep. Pipinho, my older brother, he's with her now, and the Arbiter has things under control, and I--"
      "You should have known I could take care of myself," she said.
      A moment's silence, and then his voice again, angry this time, angry and desperate and weary, weary as age and entropy and the death of the stars. "As God sees me, Ivanova, I didn't come to take care of you ."
      Something closed inside her; she had not noticed the hope she felt until she lost it.
      "You told me that Father discovered something in a simulation of yours. That he expected me to be able to figure it out myself. I thought you had left the simulation on the terminal, but when I went back to the station it was off."
      "Was it?"
      "You know it was, Nova, nobody but you could cancel the program. I have to see it."
      "Why?"
      He looked at her in disbelief. "I know you're sleepy, Novinha, but surely you've realized that whatever Father discovered in your simulation, that was what the piggies killed him for."
      She looked at him steadily, saying nothing. He had seen her look of cold resolve before.
      "Why aren't you going to show me? I'm the Zenador now, I have a right to know."
      "You have a right to see all of your father's files and records. You have a right to see anything I've made public."
      "Then make this public."
      Again she said nothing.
      "How can we ever understand the piggies if we don't know what it was that Father discovered about them?" She did not answer. "You have a responsibility to the Hundred Worlds, to our ability to comprehend the only alien race still alive. How can you sit there and-- what is it, do you want to figure it out yourself? Do you want to be first? Fine, be first, I'll put your name on it, Ivanova Santa Catarina von Hesse--"
      "I don't care about my name. "
      "I can play this game, too. You can't figure it out without what I know, either-- I'll withhold my files from you , too!"
      "I don't care about your files."
      It was too