CHILDREN OF THE MIND
by Orson Scott Card
(c) 1996 Orson Scott Card
Chapter 1 -- "I'M NOT
MYSELF"
"Mother. Father. Did I do
it right?"
-- The last words of Han
Qing-jao, from The God Whispers of Han Qing-jao
Si Wang-mu stepped forward.
The young man named Peter took her hand and led her into the starship. The door
closed behind them.
Wang-mu sat down on one of the
swiveling chairs inside the small metal-walled room. She looked around,
expecting to see something strange and new. Except for the metal walls, it
could have been any office on the world of Path. Clean, but not fastidiously
so. Furnished, in a utilitarian way. She had seen holos of ships in flight: the
smoothly streamlined fighters and shuttles that dipped into and out of the
atmosphere; the vast rounded structures of the starships that accelerated as
near to the speed of light as matter could get. On the one hand, the sharp
power of a needle; on the other, the massive power of a sledgehammer. But here
in this room, no power at all. Just a room.
Where was the pilot? There
must be a pilot, for the young man who sat across the room from her, murmuring
to his computer, could hardly be controlling a starship capable of the feat of
traveling faster than light.
And yet that must have been
precisely what he was doing, for there were no other doors that might lead to
other rooms. The starship had looked small from the outside; this room
obviously used all the space that it contained. There in the corner were the
batteries that stored energy from the solar collectors on the top of the ship.
In that chest, which seemed to be insulated like a refrigerator, there might be
food and drink. So much for life support. Where was the romance in starflight
now, if this was all it took? A mere room.
With nothing else to watch,
she watched the young man at the computer terminal. Peter Wiggin, he said his
name was. The name of the ancient Hegemon, the one who first united all the
human race under his control, back when people lived on only one world, all the
nations and races and religions and philosophies crushed together elbow to
elbow, with nowhere to go but into each other's lands, for the sky was a
ceiling then, and space was a vast chasm that could not be bridged. Peter
Wiggin, the man who ruled the human race. This was not him, of course, and he
had admitted as much. Andrew Wiggin sent him; Wang-mu remembered, from things
that Master Han had told her, that Andrew Wiggin had somehow made him. Did this
make the great Speaker of the Dead Peter's father? Or was he somehow Ender's
brother, not just named for but actually embodying the Hegemon who had died
three thousand years before?
Peter stopped murmuring,
leaned back in his chair, and sighed. He rubbed his eyes, then stretched and
groaned. It was a very indelicate thing to do in company. The sort of thing one
might expect from a coarse fieldworker.
He seemed to sense her
disapproval. Or perhaps he had forgotten her and now suddenly remembered that
he had company. Without straightening himself in his chair, he turned his head
and looked at her.
"Sorry," he said.
"I forgot I was not alone."
Wang-mu longed to speak boldly
to him, despite a lifetime retreating from bold speech. After all, he had
spoken to her with offensive boldness, when his starship appeared like a
fresh-sprouted mushroom on the lawn by the river and he emerged with a single vial
of a disease that would cure her home world, Path, of its genetic illness. He
had looked her in the eye not fifteen minutes ago and said, "Come with me
and you'll be part of changing history. Making history." And despite her
fear, she had said yes.
Had said yes, and now sat in a
swivel chair watching him behave crudely, stretching like a tiger in front of
her. Was that his beast-of-the-heart, the tiger? Wang-mu had read the Hegemon.
She could believe that there was a tiger in that great and terrible man. But
this one? This boy? Older than Wang-mu, but she was not too young to know
immaturity when she saw it. He was going to change the course of history! Clean
out the corruption in the Congress. Stop the Lusitania Fleet. Make all colony
planets equal members of the Hundred Worlds. This boy who stretched like a
jungle cat.
"I don't have your
approval," he said. He sounded annoyed and amused, both at once. But then
she might not be good at understanding the inflections of one such as this.
Certainly it was hard to read the grimaces of such a round-eyed man. Both his
face and his voice contained hidden languages that she could not understand.
"You must
understand," he said. "I'm not myself."
Wang-mu spoke the common
language well enough at least to understand the idiom. "You are unwell
today?" But she knew even as she said it that he had not meant the
expression idiomatically at all.
"I'm not myself," he
said again. "I'm not really Peter Wiggin."
"I hope not," said
Wang-mu. "I read about his funeral in school."
"I do look like him,
though, don't I?" He brought up a hologram into the air over his computer
terminal. The hologram rotated to look at Wang-mu; Peter sat up and assumed the
same pose, facing her.
"There is a
resemblance," she said.
"Of course, I'm
younger," said Peter. "Because Ender didn't see me again after he
left Earth when he was-- what, five years old? A little runt, anyway. I was
still a boy. That's what he remembered, when he conjured me out of thin
air."
"Not air at all,"
she said. "Out of nothing."
"Not nothing,
either," he said. "Conjured me, all the same." He smiled
wickedly. "I can call spirits from the vasty deep."
These words meant something to
him, but not to her. In the world of Path she had been expected to be a servant
and so was educated very little. Later, in the house of Han Fei-tzu, her
abilities had been recognized, first by her former mistress, Han Qing-jao, and
later by the master himself. From both she had acquired some bits of education,
in a haphazard way. What teaching there had been was mostly technical, and the
literature she learned was of the Middle Kingdom, or of Path itself. She could
have quoted endlessly from the great poet Li Qing-jao, for whom her one-time
mistress had been named. But of the poet he was quoting, she knew nothing.
"I can call spirits from
the vasty deep," he said again. And then, changing his voice and manner a
little, he answered himself. "Why so can I, or so can any man. But will
they come when you do call for them?"
"Shakespeare?" she
guessed.
He grinned at her. She thought
of the way a cat smiles at the creature it is toying with. "That's always
the best guess when a European is doing the quoting," he said.
"The quotation is
funny," she said. "A man brags that he can summon the dead. But the
other man says that the trick is not calling, but rather getting them to
come."
He laughed. "What a way
you have with humor."
"This quotation means
something to you, because Ender called you forth from the dead."
He looked startled. "How
did you know?"
She felt a thrill of fear. Was
it possible? "I did not know, I was making a joke."
"Well, it's not true. Not
literally. He didn't raise the dead. Though he no doubt thinks he could, if the
need arose." Peter sighed. "I'm being nasty. The words just come to
my mind. I don't mean them. They just come."
"It is possible to have
words come to your mind, and still refrain from speaking them aloud."
He rolled his eyes. "I
wasn't trained for servility, the way you were."
So this was the attitude of
one who came from a world of free people-- to sneer at one who had been a
servant through no fault of her own. "I was trained to keep unpleasant
words to myself as a matter of courtesy," she said. "But perhaps to
you, that is just another form of servility."
"As I said, Royal Mother
of the West, nastiness comes unbidden to my mouth."
"I am not the Royal
Mother," said Wang-mu. "The name was a cruel joke--"
"And only a very nasty
person would mock you for it." Peter grinned. "But I'm named for the
Hegemon. I thought perhaps bearing ludicrously overwrought names was something
we might have in common."
She sat silently, entertaining
the possibility that he might have been trying to make friends.
"I came into
existence," he said, "only a short while ago. A matter of weeks. I
thought you should know that about me."
She didn't understand.
"You know how this
starship works?" he said.
Now he was leaping from
subject to subject. Testing her. Well, she had had enough of being tested.
"Appareptly one sits within it and is examined by rude strangers,"
she said.
He smiled and nodded.
"Give as good as you get. Ender told me you were nobody's servant."
"I was the true and
faithful servant of Qing-jao. I hope Ender did not lie to you about that."
He brushed away her
literalism. "A mind of your own." Again his eyes sized her up; again
she felt utterly comprehended by his lingering glance, as she had felt when he
first looked at her beside the river. "Wang-mu, I am not speaking
metaphorically when I tell you I was only just made. Made, you understand, not
born. And the way I was made has much to do with how this starship works. I
don't want to bore you by explaining things you already understand, but you
must know what-- not who-- I am in order to understand why I need you with me.
So I ask again-- do you know how this starship works?"
She nodded. "I think so.
Jane, the being who dwells in computers, she holds in her mind as perfect a
picture as she can of the starship and all who are within it. The people also
hold their own picture of themselves and who they are and so on. Then she moves
everything from the real world to a place of nothingness, which takes no time
at all, and then brings it back into reality in whatever place she chooses.
Which also takes no time. So instead of starships taking years to get from
world to world, it happens in an instant."
Peter nodded. "Very good.
Except what you have to understand is that during the time that the starship is
Outside, it isn't surrounded by nothingness. Instead it's surrounded by
uncountable numbers of aiuas."
She turned away her face from
him.
"You don't understand
aiuas?"
"To say that all people
have always existed. That we are older than the oldest gods ..."
"Well, sort of,"
said Peter. "Only aiuas on the Outside, they can't be said to exist, or at
least not any kind of meaningful existence. They're just ... there. Not even
that, because there's no sense of location, no there where they might be. They
just are. Until some intelligence calls them, names them, puts them into some
kind of order, gives them shape and form."
"The clay can become a
bear," she said, "but not as long as it rests cold and wet in the
riverbank."
"Exactly. So there was
Ender Wiggin and several other people who, with luck, you'll never need to
meet, taking the first voyage Outside. They weren't going anywhere, really. The
point of that first voyage was to get Outside long enough that one of them, a
rather talented genetic scientist, could create a new molecule, an extremely
complex one, by the image she held of it in her mind. Or rather her image of
the modifications she needed to make in an existing... well, you don't have the
biology for it. Anyway, she did what she was supposed to do, she created the
new molecule, calloo callay, only the thing is, she wasn't the only person
doing any creating that day."
"Ender's mind created
you?" asked Wang-mu.
"Inadvertently. I was,
shall we say, a tragic accident. An unhappy side effect. Let's just say that
everybody there, everything there, was creating like crazy. The aiuas Outside
are frantic to be made into something, you see. There were shadow starships
being created all around us. All kinds of weak, faint, fragmented, fragile,
ephemeral structures rising and falling in each instant. Only four had any
solidity. One was that genetic molecule that Elanora Ribeira had come to
create."
"One was you?"
"The least interesting
one, I fear. The least loved and valued. One of the people on the ship was a
fellow named Miro, who through a tragic accident some years ago had been left
somewhat crippled. Neurologically damaged. Thick of speech, clumsy with his
hands, lame when he walked. He held within his mind the powerful, treasured
image of himself as he used to be. So-- with that perfect self-image, a vast
number of aiuas assembled themselves into an exact copy, not of how he was, but
of how he once was and longed to be again. Complete with all his memories-- a
perfect replication of him. So perfect that it had the same utter loathing for
his crippled body that he himself had. So ... the new, improved Miro-- or
rather the copy of the old, undamaged Miro-- whatever-- he stood there as the
ultimate rebuke of the crippled one. And before their very eyes, that old
rejected body crumbled away into nothing."
Wang-mu gasped, imagining it.
"He died!"
"No, that's the point,
don't you see? He lived. It was Miro. His own aiua-- not the trillions of aiuas
making up the atoms and molecules of his body, but the one that controlled them
all, the one that was himself, his will-- his aiua simply moved to the new and
perfect body. That was his true self. And the old one ..."
"Had no use."
"Had nothing to give it
shape. You see, I think our bodies are held together by love. The love of the
master aiua for the glorious powerful body that obeys it, that gives the self
all its experience of the world. Even Miro, even with all his self-loathing
when he was crippled, even he must have loved whatever pathetic remnant of his
body was left to him. Until the moment that he had a new one."
"And then he moved."
"Without even knowing
that he had done so," said Peter. "He followed his love."
Wang-mu heard this fanciful
tale and knew that it must be true, for she had overheard many a mention of
aiuas in the conversations between Han Fei-tzu and Jane, and now with Peter
Wiggin's story, it made sense. It had to be true, if only because this starship
really had appeared as if from nowhere on the bank of the river behind Han
Fei-tzu's house.
"But now you must
wonder," said Peter, "how I, unloved and unlovable as I know I am,
came into existence."
"You already said.
Ender's mind."
"Miro's most intensely
held image was of his own younger, healthier, stronger self. But Ender, the
images that mattered most in his mind were of his older sister Valentine and
his older brother Peter. Not as they became, though, for his real older brother
Peter was long dead, and Valentine-- she has accompanied or followed Ender on
all his hops through space, so she is still alive, but aged as he has aged.
Mature. A real person. Yet on that starship, during that time Outside, he
conjured up a copy of her youthful self. Young Valentine. Poor Old Valentine!
She didn't know she was so old until she saw this younger self, this perfect
being, this angel that had dwelt in Ender's twisted little mind from childhood
on. I must say, she's the most put-upon victim in all this little drama. To
know that your brother carries around such an image of you, instead of loving
you as you really are-- well, one can see that Old Valentine-- she hates it,
but that's how everyone thinks of her now, including, poor thing, herself-- one
can see that Old Valentine is really having her patience tried."
"But if the original
Valentine is still alive," said Wang-mu, puzzled, "then who is the
young Valentine? Who is she really? You can be Peter because he's dead and no
one is using his name, but ..."
"Quite puzzling, isn't
it?" said Peter. "But my point is that whether he's dead or not, I'm
not Peter Wiggin. As I said before, I'm not myself."
He leaned back in his chair
and looked up at the ceiling. The hologram above the terminal turned to look at
him. He had not touched the controls.
"Jane is with us,"
said Wang-mu.
"Jane is always with
us," said Peter. "Ender's spy."
The hologram spoke.
"Ender doesn't need a spy. He needs friends, if he can get them. Allies at
least."
Peter reached idly for the
terminal and turned it off. The hologram disappeared.
This disturbed Wang-mu very
much. Almost as if he had slapped a child. Or beaten a servant. "Jane is a
very noble creature, to treat her with such disrespect."
"Jane is a computer
program with a bug in the id routines."
He was in a dark mood, this
boy who had come to take her into his starship and spirit her away from the
world of Path. But dark as his mood might be, she understood now, with the
hologram gone from the terminal, what she had seen. "It isn't just because
you're so young and the holograms of Peter Wiggin the Hegemon are of a mature
man," said Wang-mu.
"What," he said
impatiently. "What isn't what?"
"The physical difference
between you and the Hegemon."
"What is it, then?"
"He looks--
satisfied."
"He conquered the
world," said Peter.
"So when you have done
the same, you will get that look of satisfaction?"
"I suppose so," said
Peter. "It's what passes for a purpose in my life. It's the mission Ender
has sent me on."
"Don't lie to me,"
said Wang-mu. "On the riverbank you spoke of the terrible things I did for
the sake of my ambition. I admit it-- I was ambitious, desperate to rise out of
my terrible lowborn state. I know the taste of it, and the smell of it, and I
smell it coming from you, like the smell of tar on a hot day, you stink of
it."
"Ambition? Has a
stench?"
"I'm drunk with it
myself."
He grinned. Then he touched
the jewel in his ear. "Remember, Jane is listening, and she tells Ender
everything."
Wang-mu fell silent, but not
because she was embarrassed. She simply had nothing to say, and therefore said
nothing.
"So I'm ambitious.
Because that's how Ender imagined me. Ambitious and nasty-minded and
cruel."
"But I thought you were
not yourself," she said.
His eyes blazed with defiance.
"That's right, I'm not." He looked away. "Sorry, Gepetto, but I
can't be a real boy. I have no soul."
She didn't understand the name
he said, but she understood the word soul. "All my childhood I was thought
to be a servant by nature. To have no soul. Then one day they discovered that I
have one. So far it has brought me no great happiness."
"I'm not speaking of some
religious idea. I'm speaking of the aiua. I haven't got one. Remember what
happened to Miro's broken-down body when his aiua abandoned it."
"But you don't crumble,
so you must have an aiua after all."
"I don't have it, it has
me. I continue to exist because the aiua whose irresistible will called me into
existence continues to imagine me. Continues to need me, to control me, to be
my will."
"Ender Wiggin?" she
asked.
"My brother, my creator,
my tormentor, my god, my very self."
"And young Valentine? Her
too?"
"Ah, but he loves her.
He's proud of her. He's glad he made her. Me he loathes. Loathes, and yet it's
his will that I do and say every nasty thing. When I'm at my most despicable,
remember that I do only what my brother makes me do."
"Oh, to blame him
for--"
"I'm not blaming,
Wang-mu. I'm stating simple reality. His will is controlling three bodies now.
Mine, my impossibly angelic sister's, and of course his own very tired
middle-aged body. Every aiua in my body receives its order and place from his.
I am, in all ways that matter, Ender Wiggin. Except that he has created me to
be the vessel of every impulse in himself that he hates and fears. His
ambition, yes, you smell his ambition when you smell mine. His aggression. His
rage. His nastiness. His cruelty. His, not mine, because I am dead, and anyway
I was never like this, never the way he saw me. This person before you is a
travesty, a mockery! I'm a twisted memory. A despicable dream. A nightmare. I'm
the creature hiding under the bed. He brought me out of chaos to be the terror
of his childhood."
"So don't do it,"
said Wang-mu. "If you don't want to be those things, don't do them."
He sighed and closed his eyes.
"If you're so bright, why haven't you understood a word I've said?"
She did understand, though.
"What is your will, anyway? Nobody can see it. You don't hear it thinking.
You only know what your will is afterward, when you look back in your life and
see what you've done."
"That's the most terrible
trick he's played on me," said Peter softly, his eyes still closed.
"I look back on my life and I see only the memories he has imagined for
me. He was taken from our family when he was only five. What does he know of me
or my life?"
"He wrote The
Hegemon."
"That book. Yes, based on
Valentine's memories, as she told them to him. And the public documents of my
dazzling career. And of course the few ansible communications between Ender and
my own late self before I-- he-- died. I'm only a few weeks old, yet I know a
quotation from Henry X, Part I, Owen Glendower boasting to Hotspur. Henry
Percy. How could I know that? When did I go to school? How long did I lie awake
at night, reading old plays until I committed a thousand favorite lines to
memory? Did Ender somehow conjure up the whole of his dead brother's education?
All his private thoughts? Ender only knew the real Peter Wiggin for five years.
It's not a real person's memories I draw on. It's the memories Ender thinks
that I should have."
"He thinks you should
know Shakespeare, and so you do?" she asked doubtfully.
"If only Shakespeare were
all he had given me. The great writers, the great philosophers. If only those
were the only memories I had."
She waited for him to list the
troublesome memories. But he only shuddered and fell silent.
"So if you are really
controlled by Ender, then ... you are him. Then that is yourself. You are
Andrew Wiggin. You have an aiua."
"I'm Andrew Wiggin's
nightmare," said Peter. "I'm Andrew Wiggin's self-loathing. I'm
everything he hates and fears about himself. That's the script I've been given.
That's what I have to do."
He flexed his hand into a
fist, then extended it partway, the fingers still bent. A claw. The tiger
again. And for a moment, Wang-mu was afraid of him. Only a moment, though. He
relaxed his hands. The moment passed. "What part does your script have in
it for me?"
"I don't know," said
Peter. "You're very smart. Smarter than I am, I hope. Though of course I
have such incredible vanity that I can't really believe that anyone is actually
smarter than I am. Which means that I'm all the more in need of good advice,
since I can't actually conceive of needing any."
"You talk in
circles."
"That's just part of my cruelty.
To torment you with conversation. But maybe it's supposed to go farther than
that. Maybe I'm supposed to torture you and kill you the way I so clearly
remember doing with squirrels. Maybe I'm supposed to stake your living body out
in the woods, nailing your extremities to tree roots, and then open you up
layer by layer to see at what point the flies begin to come and lay eggs in
your exposed flesh."
She recoiled at the image.
"I have read the book. I know the Hegemon was not a monster!"
"It wasn't the Speaker
for the Dead who created me Outside. It was the frightened boy Ender. I'm not
the Peter Wiggin he so wisely understood in that book. I'm the Peter Wiggin he
had nightmares about. The one who flayed squirrels."
"He saw you do
that?" she asked.
"Not me," he said
testily. "And no, he never even saw him do it. Valentine told him later.
She found the squirrel's body in the woods near their childhood home in
Greensboro, North Carolina, on the continent of North America back on Earth.
But that image fit so tidily into his nightmares that he borrowed it and shared
it with me. That's the memory I live with. Intellectually, I can imagine that
the real Peter Wiggin was probably not cruel at all. He was learning and studying.
He didn't have compassion for the squirrel because he didn't sentimentalize it.
It was simply an animal. No more important than a head of lettuce. To cut it up
was probably as immoral an act as making a salad. But that's not how Ender
imagined it, and so that's not how I remember it."
"How do you remember
it?"
"The way I remember all
my supposed memories. From the outside. Watching myself in horrified
fascination as I take a fiendish delight in cruelty. All my memories prior to
the moment I came to life on Ender's little voyage Outside, in all of them I
see myself through someone else's eyes. A very odd feeling, I assure you."
"But now?"
"Now I don't see myself
at all," he said. "Because I have no self. I am not myself."
"But you remember. You
have memories. Of this conversation, already you remember it. Looking at me.
You must, surely."
"Yes," he said.
"I remember you. And I remember being here and seeing you. But there isn't
any self behind my eyes. I feel tired and stupid even when I'm being my most
clever and brilliant."
He smiled a charming smile and
now Wang-mu could see again the true difference between Peter and the hologram
of the Hegemon. It was as he said: Even at his most self-deprecating, this
Peter Wiggin had eyes that flashed with inner rage. He was dangerous. You could
see it looking at him. When he looked into your eyes, you could imagine him
planning how and when you would die.
"I am not myself,"
said Peter.
"You are saying this to
control yourself," said Wang-mu, guessing but also sure she was right.
"This is your incantation, to stop yourself from doing what you
desire."
Peter sighed and leaned over,
laying his head down on the terminal, his ear pressed against the cold plastic
surface.
"What is it you desire?"
she said, fearful of the answer.
"Go away," he said.
"Where can I go? This
great starship of yours has only one room."
"Open the door and go
outside," he said.
"You mean to kill me? To
eject me into space where I'll freeze before I have time to suffocate?"
He sat up and looked at her in
puzzlement. "Space?"
His confusion confused her.
Where else would they be but in space? That's where starships went, through
space.
Except this one, of course.
As he saw understanding come
to her, he laughed aloud. "Oh, yes, you're the brilliant one, they've
remade the entire world of Path to have your genius!"
She refused to be goaded.
"I thought there would be
some sensation of movement. Or something. Have we traveled, then? Are we
already there?"
"In the twinkling of an
eye. We were Outside and then back Inside at another place, all so fast that
only a computer could experience our voyage as having any duration at all. Jane
did it before I finished talking to her. Before I said a word to you."
"Then where are we?
What's outside the door?"
"We're sitting in the
woods somewhere on the planet Divine Wind. The air is breathable. You won't
freeze. It's summer outside the door."
She walked to the door and
pulled down the handle, releasing the airtight seal. The door eased open.
Sunlight streamed into the room.
"Divine Wind," she
said. "I read about it-- it was founded as a Shinto world the way Path was
supposed to be Taoist. The purity of ancient Japanese culture. But I think it's
not so very pure these days."
"More to the point, it's
the world where Andrew and Jane and I felt-- if one can speak of my having
feelings apart from Ender's own-- the world where we might find the center of
power in the worlds ruled by Congress. The true decision makers. The power
behind the throne."
"So you can subvert them
and take over the human race?"
"So I can stop the
Lusitania Fleet. Taking over the human race is a bit later on the agenda. The
Lusitania Fleet is something of an emergency. We have only a few weeks to stop
it before the fleet gets there and uses the Little Doctor, the M.D. Device, to
blow Lusitania into its constituent elements. In the meantime, because Ender
and everyone else expects me to fail, they're building these little tin can
starships as fast as possible and transporting as many Lusitanians as they
can-- humans, piggies, and buggers-- to other habitable but as yet uninhabited
planets. My dear sister Valentine-- the young one-- is off with Miro-- in his
fresh new body, the dear lad-- searching out new worlds as fast as their little
starship can carry them. Quite a project. All of them betting on my-- on our--
failure. Let's disappoint them, shall we?"
"Disappoint them?"
"By succeeding. Let's
succeed. Let's find the center of power among humankind, and let's persuade
them to stop the fleet before it needlessly destroys a world."
Wang-mu looked at him
doubtfully. Persuade them to stop the fleet? This nasty-minded, cruel-hearted
boy? How could he persuade anyone of anything?
As if he could hear her
thoughts, he answered her silent doubt. "You see why I invited you to come
along with me. When Ender was inventing me, he forgot the fact that he never
knew me during the time in my life when I was persuading people and gathering
them together in shifting alliances and all that nonsense. So the Peter Wiggin
he created is far too nasty, openly ambitious, and nakedly cruel to persuade a
man with rectal itch to scratch his own butt."
She looked away from him
again.
"You see?" he said.
"I offend you again and again. Look at me. Do you see my dilemma? The real
Peter, the original one, he could have done the work I've been sent to do. He
could have done it in his sleep. He'd already have a plan. He'd be able to win
people over, soothe them, insinuate himself into their councils. That Peter
Wiggin! He can charm the stings out of bees. But can I? I doubt it. For, you
see, I'm not myself."
He got up from his chair,
roughly pushed his way past her, and stepped outside onto the meadow that
surrounded the little metal cabin that had carried them from world to world.
Wang-mu stood in the doorway, watching him as he wandered away from the ship;
away, but not too far.
I know something of how he
feels, she thought. I know something of having to submerge your will in someone
else's. To live for them, as if they were the star of the story of your life,
and you merely a supporting player. I have been a slave. But at least in all
that time I knew my own heart. I knew what I truly thought even as I did what
they wanted, whatever it took to get what I wanted from them. Peter Wiggin,
though, has no idea of what he really wants, because even his resentment of his
lack of freedom isn't his own, even that comes from Andrew Wiggin. Even his
self-loathing is Andrew's self-loathing, and ...
And back and back, in circles,
like the random path he was tracing through the meadow.
Wang-mu thought of her
mistress-- no, her former mistress-- Qing-jao. She also traced strange
patterns. It was what the gods forced her to do. No, that's the old way of
thinking. It's what her obsessive-compulsive disorder caused her to do. To
kneel on the floor and trace the grain of the wood in each board, trace a
single line of it as far as it went across the floor, line after line. It never
meant anything, and yet she had to do it because only by such meaningless
mind-numbing obedience could she win a scrap of freedom from the impulses
controlling her. It is Qing-jao who was always the slave, and never me. For the
master that ruled her controlled her from inside her own mind. While I could
always see my master outside me, so my inmost self was never touched.
Peter Wiggin knows that he is
ruled by the unconscious fears and passions of a complicated man many
light-years away. But then, Qing-jao thought her obsessions came from the gods.
What does it matter, to tell yourself that the thing controlling you comes from
outside, if in fact you only experience it inside your own heart? Where can you
run from it? How can you hide? Qing-jao must be free by now, freed by the
carrier virus that Peter brought with him to Path and put into the hands of Han
Fei-tzu. But Peter-- what freedom can there be for him?
And yet he must still live as
if he were free. He must still struggle for freedom even if the struggle itself
is just one more symptom of his slavery. There is a part of him that yearns to
be himself. No, not himself. A self.
So what is my part in all of
this? Am I supposed to work a miracle, and give him an aiua? That isn't in my
power.
And yet I do have power, she
thought.
She must have power, or why
else had he spoken to her so openly? A total stranger, and he had opened his
heart to her at once. Why? Because she was in on the secrets, yes, but
something else as well.
Ah, of course. He could speak
freely to her because she had never known Andrew Wiggin. Maybe Peter was
nothing but an aspect of Ender's nature, all that Ender feared and loathed
about himself. But she could never compare the two of them. Whatever Peter was,
whoever controlled him, she was his confidante.
Which made her, once again,
someone's servant. She had been Qing-jao's confidante, too.
She shuddered, as if to shake
from her the sad comparison. No, she told herself. It is not the same thing.
Because that young man wandering so aimlessly among the wildflowers has no
power over me, except to tell me of his pain and hope for my understanding.
Whatever I give to him I will give freely.
She closed her eyes and leaned
her head against the frame of the door. I will give it freely, yes, she
thought. But what am I planning to give him? Why, exactly what he wants-- my
loyalty, my devotion, my help in all his tasks. To submerge myself in him. And
why am I already planning to do all this? Because however he might doubt
himself, he has the power to win people to his cause.
She opened her eyes again and
strode out into the hip-high grass toward him. He saw her and waited wordlessly
as she approached. Bees buzzed around her; butterflies staggered drunkenly
through the air, avoiding her somehow in their seemingly random flight. At the
last moment she reached out and gathered a bee from a blossom into her hand,
into her fist, but then quickly, before it could sting her, she lobbed it into
Peter's face.
Flustered, surprised, he
batted away the infuriated bee, ducked under it, dodged, and finally ran a few
steps before it lost track of him and buzzed its way out among the flowers again.
Only then could he turn furiously to face her.
"What was that for!"
She giggled at him-- she
couldn't help it. He had looked so funny.
"Oh, good, laugh. I can
see you're going to be fine company."
"Be angry, I don't
care," said Wang-mu. "I'll just tell you this. Do you think that away
off on Lusitania, Ender's aiua suddenly thought, 'Ho, a bee!' and made you
brush at it and dodge it like a clown?"
He rolled his eyes. "Oh,
aren't you clever. Well gosh, Miss Royal Mother of the West, you sure solved
all my problems! I can see I must always have been a real boy! And these ruby
shoes, why, they've had the power to take me back to Kansas all along!"
"What's Kansas?" she asked, looking
down at his shoes, which were not red.
"Just another memory of
Ender's that he kindly shared with me," said Peter Wiggin.
He stood there, his hands in
his pockets, regarding her.
She stood just as silently,
her hands clasped in front of her, regarding him right back.
"So are you with
me?" he finally asked.
"You must try not to be
nasty with me," she said.
"Take that up with
Ender."
"I don't care whose aiua
controls you," she said. "You still have your own thoughts, which are
different from his-- you feared the bee, and he didn't even think of a bee
right then, and you know it. So whatever part of you is in control or whoever
the real 'you' happens to be, right there on the front of your head is the mouth
that's going to be speaking to me, and I'm telling you that if I'm going to
work with you, you better be nice to me."
"Does this mean no more
bee fights?" he asked.
"Yes," she said.
"That's just as well.
With my luck Ender no doubt gave me a body that goes into shock when I'm stung
by a bee."
"It can also be pretty
hard on the bee," she said.
He grinned at her. "I
find myself liking you," he said. "I really hate that."
He strode off toward the
starship. "Come on!" he called out to her. "Let's see what
information Jane can give us about this world we're supposed to take by
storm."
Chapter 2 -- "YOU DON'T
BELIEVE IN GOD!"
"When I follow the path
of the gods through the wood, My eyes take every twisting turn of the grain,
But my body moves straight along the planking, So those who watch me see that
the path of the gods is straight, While I dwell in a world with no straightness
in it."
-- from The God Whispers of
Han Qing-jao
Novinha would not come to him. The gentle old teacher looked genuinely
distressed as she told Ender. "She wasn't angry," the old teacher
explained. "She told me that ..."
Ender nodded, understanding
how the teacher was torn between compassion and honesty. "You can tell me
her words," he said. "She is my wife, so I can bear it."
The old teacher rolled her
eyes. "I'm married too, you know."
Of course he knew. All the
members of the Order of the Children of the Mind of Christ-- Os Filhos da Mente
de Cristo-- were married. It was their rule.
"I'm married, so I know
perfectly well that your spouse is the one person who knows all the words you
can't bear to hear."
"Then let me correct
myself," said Ender mildly. "She is my wife, so I am determined to
hear it, whether I can bear it or not."
"She says that she has to
finish the weeding, so she has no time for lesser battles."
Yes, that sounded like
Novinha. She might tell herself that she had taken the mantle of Christ upon
her, but if so it was the Christ who denounced the Pharisees, the Christ who
said all those cruel and sarcastic things to his enemies and his friends alike,
not the gentle one with infinite patience.
Still, Ender was not one to go
away merely because his feelings were hurt. "Then what are we waiting
for?" asked Ender. "Show me where I can find a hoe."
The old teacher stared at him
for a long moment, then smiled and led him out into the gardens. Soon, wearing
work gloves and carrying a hoe in one hand, he stood at the end of the row
where Novinha worked, bent over in the sunlight, her eyes on the ground before
her as she cut under the root of weed after weed, turning each one up to bum to
death in the hot dry sun. She was coming toward him.
Ender stepped to the unweeded
row beside the one Novinha worked on, and began to hoe toward her. They would
not meet, but they would pass close to each other. She would notice him or not.
She would speak to him or not. She still loved and needed him. Or not. But no
matter what, at the end of this day he would have weeded in the same field as
his wife, and her work would have been more easily done because he was there,
and so he would still be her husband, however little she might now want him in
that role.
The first time they passed
each other, she did not so much as look up. But then she would not have to. She
would know without looking that the one who joined her in weeding so soon after
she refused to meet with her husband would have to be her husband. He knew that
she would know this, and he also knew she was too proud to look at him and show
that she wanted to see him again. She would study the weeds until she went half
blind, because Novinha was not one to bend to anyone else's will.
Except, of course, the will of
Jesus. That was the message she had sent him, the message that had brought him
here, determined to talk to her. A brief note couched in the language of the
Church. She was separating herself from him to serve Christ among the Filhos.
She felt herself called to this work. He was to regard himself as having no
further responsibility toward her, and to expect nothing more from her than she
would gladly give to any of the children of God. It was a cold message, for all
the gentleness of its phrasing.
Ender was not one to bend
easily to another's will, either. Instead of obeying the message, he came here,
determined to do the opposite of what she asked. And why not? Novinha had a
terrible record as a decision maker. Whenever she decided to do something for
someone else's good, she ended up inadvertently destroying them. Like Libo, her
childhood friend and secret lover, the father of all her children during her
marriage to the violent but sterile man who had been her husband until he died.
Fearing that he would die at the hands of the pequeninos, the way his father
had died, Novinha withheld from him her vital discoveries about the biology of
the planet Lusitania, fearing that the knowledge of it would kill him. Instead,
it was the ignorance of that very information that led him to his death. What
she did for his own good, without his knowledge, killed him.
You'd think she'd learn
something from that, thought Ender. But she still does the same thing. Making
decisions that deform other people's lives, without consulting them, without
ever conceiving that perhaps they don't want her to save them from whatever
supposed misery she's saving them from.
Then again, if she had simply
married Libo in the first place and told him everything she knew, he would
probably still be alive and Ender would never have married his widow and helped
her raise her younger children. It was the only family Ender had ever had or
was ever likely to have. So bad as Novinha's decisions tended to be, the
happiest time of his life had come about only because of one of the most deadly
of her mistakes.
On their second pass, Ender
saw that she still, stubbornly, was not going to speak to him, and so, as
always, he bent first and broke the silence between them.
"The Filhos are married,
you know. It's a married order. You can't become a full member without
me."
She paused in her work. The
blade of the hoe rested on unbroken soil, the handle light in her gloved
fingers. "I can weed the beets without you," she finally said.
His heart leapt with relief
that he had penetrated her veil of silence. "No you can't," he said.
"Because here I am."
"These are the
potatoes," she said. "I can't stop you from helping with the
potatoes."
In spite of themselves they
both laughed, and with a groan she unbent her back, stood straight, let the hoe
handle fall to the ground, and took Ender's hands in hers, a touch that
thrilled him despite two layers of thick workglove cloth between their palms
and fingers.
"If I do profane with my
touch," Ender began.
"No Shakespeare,"
she said. "No 'lips two blushing pilgrims ready stand.'"
"I miss you," he
said.
"Get over it," she
said.
"I don't have to. If
you're joining the Filhos, so am I."
She laughed.
Ender didn't appreciate her
scorn. "If a xenobiologist can retreat from the world of meaningless
suffering, why can't an old retired speaker for the dead?"
"Andrew," she said,
"I'm not here because I've given up on life. I'm here because I really
have turned my heart over to the Redeemer. You could never do that. You don't
belong here."
"I belong here if you
belong here. We made a vow. A sacred one, that the Holy Church won't let us set
aside. In case you forgot."
She sighed and looked out at
the sky over the wall of the monastery. Beyond the wall, through meadows, over
a fence, up a hill, into the woods ... that's where the great love of her life,
Libo, had gone, and where he died. Where Pipo, his father, who was like a father
to her as well, where he had gone before, and also died. It was into another
wood that her son Estevao had gone, and also died, but Ender knew, watching
her, that when she saw the world outside these walls, it was all those deaths
she saw. Two of them had taken place before Ender got to Lusitania. But the
death of Estevao-- she had begged Ender to stop him from going to the dangerous
place where pequeninos were talking of war, of killing humans. She knew as well
as Ender did that to stop Estevao would have been the same as to destroy him,
for he had not become a priest to be safe, but rather to try to carry the
message of Christ to these tree people. Whatever joy came to the early
Christian martyrs had surely come to Estevao as he slowly died in the embrace of
a murderous tree. Whatever comfort God sent to them in their hour of supreme
sacrifice. But no such joy had come to Novinha. God apparently did not extend
the benefits of his service to the next of kin. And in her grief and rage she
blamed Ender. Why had she married him, if not to make herself safe from these
disasters?
He had never said to her the
most obvious thing, that if there was anyone to blame, it was God, not him.
After all, it was God who had made saints-- well, almost saints-- out of her parents,
who died as they discovered the antidote to the descolada virus when she was
only a child. Certainly it was God who led Estevao out to preach to the most
dangerous of the pequeninos. Yet in her sorrow it was God she turned to, and
turned away from Ender, who had meant to do nothing but good for her.
He never said this because he
knew that she would not listen. And he also refrained from saying it because he
knew she saw things another way. If God took Father and Mother, Pipo, Libo, and
finally Estevao away from her, it was because God was just and punished her for
her sins. But when Ender failed to stop Estevao from his suicidal mission to
the pequeninos, it was because he was blind, self-willed, stubborn, and
rebellious, and because he did not love her enough.
But he did love her. With all
his heart he loved her.
All his heart?
All of it he knew about. And
yet when his deepest secrets were revealed in that first voyage Outside, it was
not Novinha that his heart conjured there. So apparently there was someone who
mattered even more to him.
Well, he couldn't help what
went on in his unconscious mind, any more than Novinha could. All he could
control was what he actually did, and what he was doing now was showing Novinha
that regardless of how she tried to drive him away, he would not be driven.
That no matter how much she imagined that he loved Jane and his involvement in
the great affairs of the human race more than he loved her, it was not true,
she was more important to him than any of it. He would give it all up for her.
He would disappear behind monastery walls for her. He would weed rows of
unidentified plant life in the hot sun. For her.
But even that was not enough.
She insisted that he do it, not for her, but for Christ. Well, too bad. He
wasn't married to Christ, and neither was she. Still, it couldn't be
displeasing to God when a husband and wife gave all to each other. Surely that
was part of what God expected of human beings.
"You know I don't blame
you for the death of Quim," she said, using the old family nickname for
Estevao.
"I didn't know
that," he said, "but I'm glad to find it out."
"I did at first, but I
knew all along that it was irrational," she said. "He went because he
wanted to, and he was much too old for some interfering parent to stop him. If
I couldn't, how could you?"
"I didn't even want
to," said Ender. "I wanted him to go. It was the fulfillment of his
life's ambition."
"I even know that now.
It's right. It was right for him to go, and it was even right for him to die,
because his death meant something. Didn't it?"
"It saved Lusitania from
a holocaust."
"And brought many to
Christ." She laughed, the old laugh, the rich ironic laugh that he had
come to treasure if only because it was so rare. "Trees for Jesus,"
she said. "Who could have guessed?"
"They're already calling
him St. Stephen of the Trees."
"That's quite premature.
It takes time. He must first be beatified. Miracles of healing must take place
at his tomb. Believe me, I know the process."
"Martyrs are thin on the
ground these days," said Ender. "He will be beatified. He will be
canonized. People will pray for him to intercede with Jesus for them, and it
will work, because if anyone has earned the right to have Christ hear him, it's
your son Estevao."
Tears slipped down her cheeks,
even as she laughed again. "My parents were martyrs and will be saints; my
son, also. Piety skipped a generation."
"Oh, yes. Yours was the
generation of selfish hedonism."
She finally turned to face
him, tear-streaked dirty cheeks, smiling face, twinkling eyes that saw through
into his heart. The woman he loved.
"I don't regret my
adultery," she said. "How can Christ forgive me when I don't even
repent? If I hadn't slept with Libo, my children would not have existed. Surely
God does not disapprove of that?"
"I believe what Jesus
said was, 'I the Lord will forgive whom I will forgive. But of you it is
required that you forgive all men.'"
"More or less," she
said. "I'm not a scriptorian." She reached out and touched his cheek.
"You're so strong, Ender. But you seem tired. How can you be tired? The
universe of human beings still depends on you. Or if not the whole of
humankind, then certainly you belong to this world. To save this world. But
you're tired."
"Deep inside my bones I
am," he said. "And you have taken my last lifeblood away from
me."
"How odd," she said.
"I thought what I removed from you was the cancer in your life."
"You aren't very good at
determining what other people want and need from you, Novinha. No one is. We're
all as likely to hurt as help."
"That's why I came here,
Ender. I'm through deciding things. I put my trust in my own judgment. Then I
put trust in you. I put trust in Libo, in Pipo, in Father and Mother, in Quim,
and everyone disappointed me or went away or ... no, I know you didn't go away,
and I know it wasn't you that-- hear me out, Andrew, hear me. The problem
wasn't in the people I trusted, the problem was that I trusted in them when no
human being can possibly deliver what I needed. I needed deliverance, you see.
I needed, I need, redemption. And it isn't in your hands to give me-- your open
hands, which give me more than you even have to give, Andrew, but still you
haven't got the thing I need. Only my Deliverer, only the Anointed One, only he
has it to give. Do you see? The only way I can make my life worth living is to
give it to him. So here I am."
"Weeding."
"Separating the good
fruit from the tares, I believe," she said. "People will have more
and better potatoes because I took out the weeds. I don't have to be prominent
or even noticed to feel good about my life now. But you, you come here and
remind me that even in becoming happy, I'm hurting someone."
"But you're not,"
said Ender. "Because I'm coming with you. I'm joining the Filhos with you.
They're a married order, and we're a married couple. Without me you can't join,
and you need to join. With me you can. What could be simpler?"
"Simpler?" She shook
her head. "You don't believe in God, how's that for starters?"
"I certainly do too
believe in God," said Ender, annoyed.
"Oh, you're willing to
concede God's existence, but that's not what I meant. I mean believe in him the
way a mother means it when she says to her son, I believe in you. She's not
saying she believes that he exists-- what is that worth? --she's saying she
believes in his future, she trusts that he'll do all the good that is in him to
do. She puts the future in his hands, that's how she believes in him. You don't
believe in Christ that way, Andrew. You still believe in yourself. In other
people. You've sent out your little surrogates, those children you conjured up
during your visit in hell-- you may be here with me in these walls right now,
but your heart is out there scouting planets and trying to stop the fleet. You
aren't leaving anything up to God. You don't believe in him."
"Excuse me, but if God
wanted to do everything himself, what did he make us for in the first
place?"
"Yes, well, I seem to
recall that one of your parents was a heretic, which is no doubt where your
strangest ideas come from." It was an old joke between them, but this time
neither of them laughed.
"I believe in you,"
Ender said.
"But you consult with
Jane."
He reached into his pocket,
then held out his hand to show her what he had found there. It was a jewel,
with several very fine wires leading from it. Like a glowing organism ripped
from its delicate place amid the fronds of life in a shallow sea. She looked at
it for a moment uncomprehending, then realized what it was and looked at the
ear where, for all the years she had known him, he had worn the jewel that
linked him to Jane, the computer-program-come-to-life who was his oldest,
dearest, most reliable friend.
"Andrew, no, not for me,
surely."
"I can't honestly say
these walls contain me, as long as Jane was there to whisper in my ear,"
he said. "I talked it out with her. I explained it. She understands. We're
still friends. But not companions anymore."
"Oh, Andrew," said
Novinha. She wept openly now, and held him, clung to him. "If only you had
done it years ago, even months ago."
"Maybe I don't believe in
Christ the way that you do," said Ender. "But isn't it enough that I
believe in you, and you believe in him?"
"You don't belong here,
Andrew."
"I belong here more than
anywhere else, if this is where you are. I'm not so much world-weary, Novinha,
as I am will-weary. I'm tired of deciding things. I'm tired of trying to solve
things."
"We try to solve things
here," she said, pulling away from him.
"But here we can be, not
the mind, but the children of the mind. We can be the hands and feet, the lips
and tongue. We can carry out and not decide." He squatted, knelt, then sat
in the dirt, the young plants brushing and tickling him on either side. He put
his dirty hands to his face and wiped his brow with them, knowing that he was
only smearing dirt into mud.
"Oh, I almost believe
this, Andrew, you're so good at it," said Novinha. "What, you've
decided to stop being the hero of your own saga? Or is this just a ploy? Be the
servant of all, so you can be the greatest among us?"
"You know I've never
tried for greatness, or achieved it, either."
"Oh, Andrew, you're such
a storyteller that you believe your own fables."
Ender looked up at her.
"Please, Novinha, let me live with you here. You're my wife. There's no
meaning to my life if I've lost you."
"We live as man and wife
here, but we don't ... you know that we don't ..."
"I know that the Filhos
forswear sexual intercourse," said Ender. "I'm your husband. As long
as I'm not having sex with anyone, it might as well be you that I'm not having
sex with." He smiled wryly.
Her answering smile was only
sad and pitying.
"Novinha," he said.
"I'm not interested in my own life anymore. Do you understand? The only
life I care about in this world is yours. If I lose you, what is there to hold
me here?"
He wasn't sure what he meant
by this himself. The words had come unbidden to his lips. But he knew as he
said them that it was not self-pity, but rather a frank admission of the truth.
Not that he was thinking of suicide or exile or any other such low drama.
Rather he felt himself fading. Losing his hold. Lusitania seemed less and less
real to him. Valentine was still there, his dear sister and friend, and she was
like a rock, her life was so real, but it was not real to him because she
didn't need him. Plikt, his unasked-for disciple, she might need Ender, but not
the reality of him, only the idea of him. And who else was there? The children
of Novinha and Libo, the children that he had raised as his own, and loved as
his own, he loved them no less now, but they were adults, they didn't need him.
Jane, who once had been virtually destroyed by an hour of his inattention, she
no longer needed him either, for she was there in the jewel in Miro's ear, and
in another jewel in Peter's ear ...
Peter. Young Valentine. Where
had they come from? They had stolen his soul and taken it with them when they
left. They were doing the living acts that once he would have done himself.
While he waited here in Lusitania and ... faded. That's what he meant. If he
lost Novinha, what would tie him to this body that he had carried around the
universe for all these thousands of years?
"It's not my
decision," Novinha said.
"It's your
decision," said Ender, "whether you want me with you, as one of the
Filhos da Mente de Cristo. If you do, then I believe I can make my way through
all the other obstacles."
She laughed nastily.
"Obstacles? Men like you don't have obstacles. Just steppingstones."
"Men like me?"
"Yes, men like you,"
said Novinha. "Just because I've never met any others. Just because no
matter how much I loved Libo he was never for one day as alive as you are in
every minute. Just because I found myself loving as an adult for the first time
when I loved you. Just because I have missed you more than I miss even my
children, even my parents, even the lost loves of my life. Just because I can't
dream of anyone but you, that doesn't mean that there isn't somebody else just
like you somewhere else. The universe is a big place. You can't be all that
special, really. Can you?"
He reached through the potato
plants and leaned a hand gently on her thigh. "You do still love me,
then?" he asked.
"Oh, is that what you
came for? To find out if I love you?"
He nodded. "Partly."
"I do," she said.
"Then I can stay?"
She burst into tears. Loud
weeping. She sank to the ground; he reached through the plants to embrace her,
to hold her, caring nothing for the leaves he crushed between them. After he held
her for a long while, she broke off her crying and turned to him and held him
at least as tightly as he had been holding her.
"Oh, Andrew," she
whispered, her voice cracking and breaking from having wept so much. "Does
God love me enough to give you to me now, again, when I need you so much?"
"Until I die," said
Ender.
"I know that part,"
she said. "But I pray that God will let me die first this time."
Chapter 3 -- "THERE ARE
TOO MANY OF US"
"Let me tell you the most
beautiful story I know.
A man was given a dog, which
he loved very much.
The dog went with him
everywhere,
but the man could not teach it
to do anything useful.
The dog would not fetch or
point,
it would not race or protect
or stand watch.
Instead the dog sat near him
and regarded him,
always with the same
inscrutable expression.
'That's not a dog, it's a
wolf,' said the man's wife.
'He alone is faithful to me,'
said the man,
and his wife never discussed
it with him again.
One day the man took his dog
with him into his private airplane
and as they flew over high
winter mountains,
the engines failed
and the airplane was torn to
shreds among the trees.
The man lay bleeding,
his belly torn open by blades
of sheared metal,
steam rising from his organs
in the cold air,
but all he could think of was
his faithful dog.
Was he alive? Was he hurt?
Imagine his relief when the
dog came padding up
and regarded him with that
same steady gaze.
After an hour the dog nosed
the man's gaping abdomen,
then began pulling out
intestines and spleen and liver
and gnawing on them, all the
while studying the man's face.
'Thank God,' said the man.
'At least one of us will not
starve.'
-- from The God Whispers of
Han Qing-lao
Of all the faster-than-light starships that were flitting Outside and
back In under Jane's command, only Miro's looked like an ordinary spacecraft,
for the good reason that it was nothing more than the shuttle that had once
taken passengers and cargo to and from the great starships that came to orbit
around Lusitania. Now that the new starships could go immediately from one planet's
surface to another's, there was no need for life support or even fuel, and
since Jane had to hold the entire structure of each craft in her memory, the
simpler they were the better. Indeed, they could hardly be called vehicles
anymore. They were simple cabins now, windowless, almost unfurnished, bare as a
primitive schoolroom. The people of Lusitania referred to space travel now as
encaixarse, which was Portuguese for "going into the box," or, more
literally, "to box oneself up."
Miro, however, was exploring,
searching for new planets capable of sustaining the lives of the three sentient
species, humans, pequeninos, and hive queens. For this he needed a more
traditional spacecraft, for though he still went from planet to planet by way
of Jane's instant detour through the Outside, he could not usually count on
arriving at a world where he could breathe the air. Indeed, Jane always started
him out in orbit high above each new planet, so he could observe, measure,
analyze, and only land on the most promising ones to make the final
determination of whether the world was usable.
He did not travel alone. It
would have been too much for one person to accomplish, and he needed everything
he did to be doublechecked. Yet of all the work being done by anyone on Lusitania,
this was the most dangerous, for he never knew when he cracked open the door of
his spaceship whether there would be some unforeseeable menace on the new
world. Miro, had long regarded his own life as expendable. For several long
years trapped in a brain-damaged body he had wished for death; then, when his
first trip Outside enabled him to recreate his body in the perfection of youth,
he regarded any moment, any hour, any day of his life as an undeserved gift. He
would not waste it, but he would not shrink from putting it at risk for the
good of others. But who else could share his easy self-disregard?
Young Valentine was made to
order, in every sense, it seemed. Miro had seen her come into existence at the
same time as his own new body. She had no past, no kin, no links to any world
except through Ender, whose mind had created her, and Peter, her fellow
makeling. Oh, and perhaps one might consider her to be linked to the original
Valentine, "the real Valentine," as Young Val called her; but it was
no secret that Old Valentine had no desire to spend even a moment in the
company of this young beauty who mocked her by her very existence. Besides,
Young Val was created as Ender's image of perfect virtue. Not only was she
unconnected, but also she was genuinely altruistic and quite willing to
sacrifice herself for the good of others. So whenever Miro stepped into the
shuttle, there was Young Val as his companion, his reliable assistant, his
constant backup.
But not his friend. For Miro
knew perfectly well who Val really was: Ender in disguise. Not a woman. And her
love and loyalty to him were Ender's love and loyalty, often tested,
well-trusted, but Ender's, not her own. There was nothing of her own in her. So
while Miro had become used to her company, and laughed and joked with her more
easily than with anyone in his life till now, he did not confide in her, did
not allow himself to feel affection any deeper than camaraderie for her. If she
noticed the lack of connection between them she said nothing; if it hurt her,
the pain never showed.
What showed was her delight in
their successes and her insistence that they push themselves ever harder.
"We don't have a whole day to spend on any world," she said right
from the start, and proved it by holding them to a schedule that let them make
three voyages in a day. They came home after each three voyages to a Lusitania
already quiet with sleep; they slept on the ship and spoke to others only to
warn them of particular problems the colonists were likely to face on whatever
new worlds had been found that day. And the three-a-day schedule was only on
days when they dealt with likely planets. When Jane took them to worlds that
were obvious losers-- waterbound, for instance, or unbiotized-- they moved on
quickly, checking the next candidate world, and the next, sometimes five and
six on those discouraging days when nothing seemed to work. Young Val pushed
them both on to the edge of their endurance, day after day, and Miro accepted
her leadership in this aspect of their voyaging because he knew that it was
necessary.
His friend, however, had no
human shape. For him she dwelt in the jewel in his ear. Jane, the whisper in
his mind when he first woke up, the friend who heard everything he
subvocalized, who knew his needs before he noticed them himself Jane, who
shared all his thoughts and dreams, who had stayed with him through the worst
of his cripplehood, who had led him Outside to where he could be renewed. Jane,
his truest friend, who would soon die.
That was their real deadline.
Jane would die, and then this instant starflight would be at an end, for there
was no other being that had the sheer mental power to take anything more
complicated than a rubber ball Outside and back In again. And Jane's death would
come, not by any natural cause, but because the Starways Congress, having
discovered the existence of a subversive program that could control or at least
access any and all of their computers, was systematically closing down,
disconnecting, and sweeping out all their networks. Already she was feeling the
injury of those systems that had been taken offline to where she could not
access them. Someday soon the codes would be transmitted that would undo her
utterly and all at once. And when she was gone, anyone who had not been taken
from the surface of Lusitania and transplanted to another world would be
trapped, waiting helplessly for the arrival of the Lusitania Fleet, which was
coming ever closer, determined to destroy them all.
A grim business, this, in
which despite all of Miro's efforts, his dearest friend would die. Which, he
knew full well, was part of why he did not let himself become a true friend to
Young Val-- because it would be disloyal to Jane to learn affection for anyone
else during the last weeks or days of her life.
So Miro's life was an endless
routine of work, of concentrated mental effort, studying the findings of the
shuttle's instruments, analyzing aerial photographs, piloting the shuttle to
unsafe, unscouted landing zones, and finally-- not often enough-- opening the
door and breathing alien air. And at the end of each voyage, no time either to
mourn or rejoice, no time even to rest: he closed the door, spoke the word, and
Jane took them home again to Lusitania, to start it all over again.
On this homecoming, however,
something was different. Miro opened the door of the shuttle to find, not his
adoptive father Ender, not the pequeninos who prepared food for him and Young
Val, not the normal colony leaders wanting a briefing, but rather his brothers
Olhado and Grego, and his sister Elanora, and Ender's sister Valentine. Old
Valentine, come herself to the one place where she was sure to meet her
unwelcome young twin? Miro saw at once how Young Val and Old Valentine glanced
at each other, eyes not really meeting, and then looked away, not wanting to
see each other. Or was that it? Young Val was more likely looking away from Old
Valentine because she virtuously wanted to avoid giving offense to the older
woman. No doubt if she could do it Young Val would willingly disappear rather
than cause Old Valentine a moment's pain. And, since that was not possible, she
would do the next best thing, which was to remain as unobtrusive as possible
when Old Valentine was present.
"What's the meeting?"
asked Miro. "Is Mother ill?"
"No, no, everybody's in
good health," said Olhado.
"Except mentally,"
said Grego. "Mother's as mad as a hatter, and now Ender's crazy too."
Miro nodded, grimaced.
"Let me guess. He joined her among the Filhos."
Immediately Grego and Olhado
looked at the jewel in Miro's ear.
"No, Jane didn't tell
me," said Miro. "I just know Ender. He takes his marriage very
seriously."
"Yes, well, it's left
something of a leadership vacuum here," said Olhado. "Not that everybody
isn't doing their job just fine. I mean, the system works and all that. But
Ender was the one we all looked to to tell us what to do when the system stops
working. If you know what I mean."
"I know what you
mean," said Miro. "And you can speak of it in front of Jane. She
knows she's going to be shut down as soon as Starways Congress gets their plans
in place."
"It's more complicated
than that," said Grego. "Most people don't know about the danger to
Jane-- for that matter, most don't even know she exists. But they can do the
arithmetic to figure out that even going full tilt, there's no way to get all
the humans off Lusitania before the fleet gets here. Let alone the pequeninos.
So they know that unless the fleet is stopped, somebody is going to be left
here to die. There are already those who say that we've wasted enough starship
space on trees and bugs."
"Trees" referred, of
course, to the pequeninos, who were not, in fact, transporting fathertrees and
mothertrees; and "bugs" referred to the Hive Queen, who was also not
wasting space sending a lot of workers. But every world they were settling did
have a large contingent of pequeninos and at least one hive queen and a handful
of workers to help her get started. Never mind that it was the hive queen on
every world that quickly produced workers who were doing the bulk of the labor
getting agriculture started; never mind that because they were not taking trees
with them, at least one male and female in every group of pequeninos had to be "planted"
--had to die slowly and painfully so that a fathertree and mothertree could
take root and maintain the cycle of pequenino life. They all knew-- Grego more
than any other, since he'd recently been in the thick of itthat under the
polite surface was an undercurrent of competition between species.
And it was not just among the
humans, either. While on Lusitania the pequeninos still outnumbered humans by
vast numbers, on the new colonies the humans predominated. "It's your
fleet coming to destroy Lusitania," said Human, the leader of the
fathertrees these days. "And even if every human on Lusitania died, the
human race would continue. While for the Hive Queen and for us, it is nothing
less than the survival of our species that is at stake. And yet we understand
that we must let humans dominate for a time on these new worlds, because of
your knowledge of skills and technologies we have not yet mastered, because of
your practice at subduing new worlds, and because you still have the power to
set fires to burn our forests." What Human said so reasonably, his
resentment couched in polite language, many other pequeninos and fathertrees
said more passionately: "Why should we let these human invaders, who
brought all this evil upon us, save almost all their population, while most of
us will die?"
"Resentment between the
species is nothing new," said Miro.
"But until now we had
Ender to contain it," said Grego. "Pequeninos, the Hive Queen, and
most of the human population saw Ender as a fair broker, someone they could
trust. They knew that as long as he was in charge of things, as long as his
voice was heard, their interests would be protected."
"Ender isn't the only
good person leading this exodus," said Miro.
"It's a matter of trust,
not of virtue," said Valentine. "The nonhumans know that Ender is the
Speaker for the Dead. No other human has ever spoken for another species that
way. And yet the humans know that Ender is the Xenocide-- that when the human
race was threatened by an enemy countless generations ago, he was the one who
acted to stop them and save humanity from, as they feared, annihilation. There
isn't exactly a candidate with equivalent qualifications ready to step into
Ender's role."
"What's that to me?"
asked Miro bluntly. "Nobody listens to me here. I have no connections. I
certainly can't take Ender's place either, and right now I'm tired and I need
to sleep. Look at Young Val, she's half-dead with weariness, too."
It was true; she was barely
able to stand. Miro at once reached out to support her; she gratefully leaned
against his shoulder.
"We don't want you to
take Ender's place," said Olhado. "We don't want anybody to take his
place. We want him to take his place."
Miro laughed. "You think
I can persuade him? You've got his sister right there! Send her!"
Old Valentine grimaced.
"Miro, he won't see me."
"Then what makes you
think he'll see me?"
"Not you, Miro. Jane. The
jewel in your ear."
Miro looked at them in
bafflement. "You mean Ender has removed his jewel?"
In his ear, he heard Jane say,
"I've been busy. I didn't think it was important to mention it to
you."
But Miro knew how it had
devastated Jane before, when Ender cut her off. Now she had other friends, yes,
but that didn't mean it would be painless.
Old Valentine continued.
"If you can go to him and get him to talk to Jane ..."
Miro shook his head.
"Taking out the jewel-- don't you see that that was final? He's committed
himself to following Mother into exile. Ender doesn't back away from his
commitments."
They all knew it was true.
Knew, in fact, that they had really come to Miro, not with the real hope that
he would accomplish what they needed, but as a last feeble act of desperation.
"So we let things wind down," said Grego. "We let things slide
into chaos. And then, beset by interspecies war, we will die in shame when the
fleet comes. Jane's lucky, I think; she'll already be dead when it gets
here."
"Tell him thanks," Jane
said to Miro.
"Jane says thanks,"
said Miro. "You're just too soft-hearted, Grego. "
Grego blushed, but he didn't
take back what he said.
"Ender isn't God,"
said Miro. "We'll just do our best without him. But right now the best
thing I can do is--"
"Sleep, we know,"
said Old Valentine. "Not on the ship this time, though. Please. It makes
us sick at heart to see how weary you both are. Jakt has brought the taxi. Come
home and sleep in a bed."
Miro glanced at Young Val, who
still leaned sleepily on his shoulder.
"Both of you, of
course," said Old Valentine. "I'm not as distressed by her existence
as you all seem to think."
"Of course you're
not," said Young Val. She reached out a weary arm, and the two women who
bore the same name took each other's hand. Miro watched as Young Val slipped
from his side to take Old Valentine's arm, and lean on her instead of him. His
own feelings surprised him. Instead of relief that there was less tension
between the two of them than he had thought, he found himself being rather
angry. Jealous anger, that's what it was. She was leaning on me, he wanted to
say. What kind of childish response was that?
And then, as he watched them
walk away, he saw what he should not have seen-- Valentine's shudder. Was it a
sudden chill? The night was cool. But no, Miro was sure it was the touch of her
young twin, and not the night air that made Old Valentine tremble.
"Come on, Miro,"
said Olhado. "We'll get you to the hovercar and into bed at Valentine's
house."
"Is there a food stop
along the way?"
"It's Jakt's house,
too," said Elanora. "There's always food."
As the hovercar carried them
toward Milagre, the human town, they passed near some of the dozens of
starships currently in service. The work of migration didn't take the night
off. Stevedores-- many of them pequeninos-- were loading supplies and equipment
for transport. Families were shuffling in lines to fill up whatever spaces were
left in the cabins. Jane would be getting no rest tonight as she took box after
box Outside and back In. On other worlds, new homes were rising, new fields
being plowed. Was it day or night in those other places? It didn't matter. In a
way they had already succeeded-- new worlds were being colonized, and, like it
or not, every world had its hive, its new pequenino forest, and its human
village.
If Jane died today, thought
Miro, if the fleet came tomorrow and blew us all to bits, in the grand scheme
of things, what would it matter? The seeds have been scattered to the wind;
some, at least, will take root. And if faster-than-light travel dies with Jane,
even that might be for the best, for it will force each of these worlds to fend
for itself. Some colonies will fail and die, no doubt. On some of them, war
will come, and perhaps one species or another will be wiped out there. But it
will not be the same species that dies on every world, or the same one that
lives; and on some worlds, at least, we'll surely find a way to live in peace. All
that's left for us now is details. Whether this or that individual lives or
dies. It matters, of course. But not the way that the survival of species
matters.
He must have been
subvocalizing some of his thoughts, because Jane answered them. "Hath not an
overblown computer program eyes and ears? Have I no heart or brain? When you
tickle me do I not laugh?"
"Frankly, no," said
Miro silently, working his lips and tongue and teeth to shape words that only
she could hear.
"But when I die, every
being of my kind will also die," she said. "Forgive me if I think of
this as having cosmic significance. I'm not as self-abnegating as you are,
Miro. I don't regard myself as living on borrowed time. It was my firm
intention to live forever, so anything less is a disappointment."
"Tell me what I can do
and I'll do it," he said. "I'd die to save you, if that's what it
took."
"Fortunately, you'll die
eventually no matter what," said Jane. "That's my one consolation,
that by dying I'll do no more than face the same doom that every other living
creature has to face. Even those long-living trees. Even those hive queens,
passing their memories along from generation to generation. But I, alas, will
have no children. How could I? I'm a creature of mind alone. There's no
provision for mental mating."
"Too bad, too," said
Miro, "because I bet you'd be great in the virtual sack."
"The best," Jane
said.
And then silence for a little
while.
Only when they approached
Jakt's house, a new building on the outskirts of Milagre, did Jane speak again.
"Keep in mind, Miro, that whatever Ender does with his own self, when
Young Valentine speaks it's still Ender's aiua talking."
"The same with
Peter," said Miro. "Now there's a charmer. Let's just say that Young
Val, sweet as she is, doesn't exactly represent a balanced view of anything.
Ender may control her, but she's not Ender."
"There are just too many
of him, aren't there," said Jane. "And, apparently, too many of me,
at least in the opinion of Starways Congress."
"There are too many of us
all," said Miro. "But never enough."
They arrived. Miro and Young
Val were led inside. They ate feebly; they slept the moment they reached their
beds. Miro was aware that voices went on far into the night, for he did not
sleep well, but rather kept waking a little, uncomfortable on such a soft
mattress, and perhaps uncomfortable at being away from his duty, like a soldier
who feels guilty at having abandoned his post.
Despite his weariness, Miro
did not sleep late. Indeed, the sky outside was still dim with the predawn
seepage of sunlight over the horizon when he awoke and, as was his habit, rose
immediately from his bed, standing shakily as the last of sleep fled from his
body. He covered himself and went out into the hall to find the bathroom and
discharge his bladder. When he emerged, he heard voices from the kitchen.
Either last night's conversation was still going on, or some other neurotic
early risers had rejected morning solitude and were chatting away as if dawn
were not the dark hour of despair.
He stood before his own open
door, ready to go inside and shut out those earnest voices, when Miro realized
that one of them belonged to Young Val. Then he realized that the other one was
Old Valentine. At once he turned and made his way to the kitchen, and again
hesitated in a doorway.
Sure enough, the two
Valentines were sitting across the table from each other, but not looking at
each other. Instead they stared out the window as they sipped one of Old
Valentine's fruit-and-vegetable decoctions.
"Would you like one,
Miro?" asked Old Valentine without looking up.
"Not even on my
deathbed," said Miro. "I didn't mean to interrupt."
"Good," said Old
Valentine.
Young Val continued to say
nothing.
Miro came inside the kitchen,
went to the sink, and drew himself a glass of water, which he drank in one long
draught.
"I told you it was Miro
in the bathroom," said Old Valentine. "No one processes so much water
every day as this dear lad."
Miro chuckled, but he did not
hear Young Val laugh.
"I am interfering with
the conversation," he said. "I'll go."
"Stay," said Old
Valentine.
"Please," said Young
Val.
"Please which?"
asked Miro. He turned toward her and grinned.
She shoved a chair toward him
with her foot. "Sit," she said. "The lady and I were having it
out about our twinship."
"We decided," said
Old Valentine, "that it's my responsibility to die first."
"On the contrary,"
said Young Val, "we decided that Gepetto did not create Pinocchio because
he wanted a real boy. It was a puppet he wanted all along. That real-boy
business was simply Gepetto's laziness. He still wanted the puppet to dance--
he just didn't want to go to all the trouble of working the strings."
"You being
Pinocchio," said Miro. "And Ender ..."
"My brother didn't try to
make you," said Old Valentine. "And he doesn't want to control you,
either."
"I know," whispered
Young Val. And suddenly there were tears in her eyes.
Miro reached out a hand to lay
atop hers on the table, but at once she snatched hers away. No, she wasn't
avoiding his touch, she was simply bringing her hand up to wipe the annoying
tears out of her eyes.
"He'd cut the strings if
he could, I know," said Young Val. "The way Miro cut the strings on
his old broken body."
Miro remembered it very
clearly. One moment he was sitting in the starship, looking at this perfect
image of himself, strong and young and healthy; the next moment he was that
image, had always been that image, and what he looked at was the crippled,
broken, brain-damaged version of himself. And as he watched, that unloved,
unwanted body crumbled into dust and disappeared.
"I don't think he hates
you," said Miro, "the way I hated my old self."
"He doesn't have to hate
me. It wasn't hate anyway that killed your old body." Young Val didn't
meet his eyes. In all their hours together exploring worlds, they had never
talked about anything so personal. She had never dared to discuss with him that
moment when both of them had been created. "You hated your old body while
you were in it, but as soon as you were back in your right body, you simply
stopped paying any attention to the old one. It wasn't part of you anymore.
Your aiua had no more responsibility for it. And with nothing to hold it
together-- pop goes the weasel."
"Wooden doll," said
Miro. "Now weasel. What else am I?"
Old Valentine ignored his bid for
a laugh. "So you're saying Ender finds you uninteresting."
"He admires me,"
said Young Val. "But he finds me dull."
"Yes, well, me too,"
said Old Valentine.
"That's absurd,"
said Miro.
"Is it?" asked Old
Valentine. "He never followed me anywhere; I was always the one who
followed him. He was searching for a mission in life, I think. Some great deed
to do, to match the terrible act that ended his childhood. He thought writing
The Hive Queen would do it. And then, with my help in preparing it, he wrote
The Hegemon and he thought that might be enough, but it wasn't. He kept
searching for something that would engage his full attention and he kept almost
finding it, or finding it for a week or a month, but one thing was certain, the
thing that engaged his attention was never me, because there I was in all the
billion miles he traveled, there I was across three thousand years. Those
histories I wrote-- it was no great love for history, it was because it helped
in his work. The way my writing used to help in Peter's work. And when I was
finished, then, for a few hours of reading and discussion, I had his attention.
Only each time it was less satisfying because it wasn't I who had his
attention, it was the story I had written. Until finally I found a man who gave
me his whole heart, and I stayed with him. While my adolescent brother went on
without me, and found a family that took his whole heart, and there we were,
planets apart, but finally happier without each other than we'd ever been
together."
"So why did you come to
him again?" asked Miro.
"I didn't come for him. I
came for you." Old Valentine smiled. "I came for a world in danger of
destruction. But I was glad to see Ender, even though I knew he would never
belong to me."
"This may be an accurate
description of how it felt to you," said Young Val. "But you must
have had his attention, at some level. I exist because you're always in his
heart."
"A fantasy of his
childhood, perhaps. Not me."
"Look at me," said
Young Val. "Is this the body you wore when he was five and was taken away
from his home and sent up to the Battle School? Is this even the teenage girl
that he knew that summer by the lake in North Carolina? You must have had his
attention even when you grew up, because his image of you changed to become
me."
"You are what I was when
we worked on The Hegemon together," said Old Valentine sadly.
"Were you this
tired?" asked Young Val.
"I am," said Miro.
"No you're not,"
said Old Valentine. "You are the picture of vigor. You're still
celebrating your beautiful new body. My twin here is heartweary."
"Ender's attention has
always been divided," said Young Val. "I'm filled with his memories,
you see-- or rather, with the memories that he unconsciously thought I should have,
but of course they consist almost entirely of things that he remembers about my
friend here, which means that all I remember is my life with Ender. And he
always had Jane in his ear, and the people whose deaths he was speaking, and
his students, and the Hive Queen in her cocoon, and so on. But they were all
adolescent connections. Like every itinerant hero of epic, he wandered place to
place, transforming others but remaining himself unchanged. Until he came here
and finally gave himself wholly to somebody else. You and your family, Miro.
Novinha. For the first time he gave other people the power to tear at him
emotionally, and it was exhilarating and painful both at once, but even that he
could handle just fine, he's a strong man, and strong men have borne more. Now,
though, it's something else entirely. Peter and I, we have no life apart from
him. To say that he is one with Novinha is metaphorical; with Peter and me it's
literal. He is us. And his aiua isn't great enough, it isn't strong or copious
enough, it hasn't enough attention in it to give equal shares to the three
lives that depend on it. I realized this almost as soon as I was ... what shall
we call it, created? Manufactured?"
"Born," said Old
Valentine.
"You were a dream come
true," said Miro, with only a hint of irony.
"He can't sustain all
three of us. Ender, Peter, me. One of us is going to fade. One of us at least
is going to die. And it's me. I knew that from the start. I'm the one who's
going to die."
Miro wanted to reassure her.
But how do you reassure someone, except by recalling to them similar situations
that turned out for the best? There were no similar situations to call upon.
"The trouble is that
whatever part of Ender's aiua I still have in me is absolutely determined to
live. I don't want to die. That's how I know I still have some shred of his
attention: I don't want to die."
"So go to him," said
Old Valentine. "Talk to him."
Young Val gave one bitter hoot
of laughter and looked away. "Please, Papa, let me live," she said in
a mockery of a child's voice. "Since it's not something he consciously
controls, what could he possibly do about it, except suffer from guilt? And why
should he feel guilty? If I cease to exist, it's because my own self didn't
value me. He is myself. Do the dead tips of fingernails feel bad when you pare
them away?"
"But you are bidding for
his attention," said Miro.
"I hoped that the search
for habitable worlds would intrigue him. I poured myself into it, trying to be
excited about it. But the truth is it's utterly routine. Important, but
routine, Miro."
Miro nodded. "True
enough. Jane finds the worlds. We just process them."
"And there are enough
worlds now. Enough colonies. Two dozen--
pequeninos and hive queens are not going to die out now, even if
Lusitania is destroyed. The bottleneck isn't the number of worlds, it's the
number of starships. So all our labor-- it isn't engaging Ender's attention
anymore. And my body knows it. My body knows it isn't needed."
She reached up and took a
large hank of her hair into her fist, and pulled-- not hard, but lightly-- and
it came away easily in her hand. A great gout of hair, with not a sign of any
pain at its going. She let the hair drop onto the table. It lay there like a
dismembered limb, grotesque, impossible. "I think," she whispered,
"that if I'm not careful, I could do the same with my fingers. It's
slower, but gradually I will turn into dust just as your old body did, Miro.
Because he isn't interested in me. Peter is solving mysteries and fighting
political wars off on some world somewhere. Ender is struggling to hold on to
the woman he loves. But I ..."
In that moment, as the hair
torn from her head revealed the depth of her misery, her loneliness, her
self-rejections, Miro realized what he had not let himself think of until now:
that in all the weeks they had traveled world to world together, he had come to
love her, and her unhappiness hurt him as if it were his own. And perhaps it
was his own, his memory of his own self-loathing. But whatever the reason, it
still felt like something deeper than mere compassion to him. It was a kind of
desire. Yes, it was a kind of love. If this beautiful young woman, this wise
and intelligent and clever young woman was rejected by her own inmost heart,
then Miro's heart had room enough to take her in. If Ender will not be
yourself, let me! he cried silently, knowing as he formed the thought for the
first time that he had felt this way for days, for weeks, without realizing it;
yet also knowing that he could not be to her what Ender was.
Still, couldn't love do for
Young Val what it was doing for Ender himself? Couldn't that engage enough of
his attention to keep her alive? To strengthen her?
Miro reached out and gathered
up her disembodied hair, twined it around his fingers, and then slid the
looping locks into the pocket of his robe. "I don't want you to fade
away," he said. Bold words for him.
Young Val looked at him oddly.
"I thought the great love of your life was Ouanda."
"She's a middle-aged
woman now," said Miro. "Married and happy, with a family. It would be
sad if the great love of my life were a woman who doesn't exist anymore, and
even if she did she wouldn't want me."
"It's sweet of you to
offer," said Young Val. "But I don't think we can fool Ender into
caring about my life by pretending to fall in love."
Her words stabbed Miro to the
heart, because she had so easily seen how much of his self-declaration came
from pity. Yet not all of it came from there; most of it was already seething
just under the level of consciousness, just waiting its chance to come out.
"I wasn't thinking of fooling anyone," said Miro. Except myself, he
thought. Because Young Val could not possibly love me. She is, after all, not
really a woman. She's Ender.
But that was absurd. Her body
was a woman's body. And where did the choice of loves come from, if not the
body? Was there something male or female in the aiua? Before it became master
of flesh and bone, was it manly or womanly? And if so, would that mean that the
aiuas composing atoms and molecules, rocks and stars and light and wind, that
all of those were neatly sorted into boys and girls? Nonsense. Ender's aiua
could be a woman, could love like a woman as easily as it now loved, in a man's
body and in a man's ways, Miro's own mother. It wasn't any lack in Young Val
that made her look at him with such pity. It was a lack in him. Even with his
body healed, he was not a man that a woman-- or at least this woman, at the
moment the most desirable of all women-- could love, or wish to love, or hope
to win.
"I shouldn't have come
here," he murmured. He pushed away from the table and left the room in two
strides. Strode up the hall and once again stood in his open doorway. He heard
their voices.
"No, don't go to
him," said Old Valentine. Then something softer. Then, "He may have a
new body, but his self-hatred has never been healed."
A murmur from Young Val.
"Miro was speaking from
his heart," Old Valentine assured her. "It was a very brave and naked
thing for him to do."
Again Young Val spoke too
softly for Miro to hear her.
"How could you
know?" Old Valentine said. "What you have to realize is, we took a
long voyage together, not that long ago, and I think he fell in love with me a
little on that flight."
It was probably true. It was
definitely true. Miro had to admit it: some of his feelings for Young Val were
really his feelings for Old Valentine, transferred from the woman who was
permanently out of reach to this young woman who might be, he had hoped at
least, accessible to him.
Now both their voices fell to
levels where Miro could not even pick out words. But still he waited, his hands
pressed against the
doo~amb, listening to the
lilting of those two voices, so much alike, but both so well-known to him. It
was a music that he could gladly hear forever.
"If there's anyone like
Ender in all this universe," said Old Valentine with sudden loudness,
"it's Miro. He broke himself trying to save innocents from destruction. He
hasn't yet been healed."
She meant me to hear that,
Miro realized. She spoke loudly, knowing I was standing here, knowing I was
listening. The old witch was listening for my door to close and she never heard
it so she knows that I can hear them and she's trying to give me a way to see
myself. But I'm no Ender, I'm barely Miro, and if she says things like that
about me it's just proof that she doesn't know who I am.
A voice spoke up in his ear.
"Oh, shut up if you're just going to lie to yourself."
Of course Jane had heard
everything. Even his thoughts, because, as was his habit, his conscious
thoughts were echoed by his lips and tongue and teeth. He couldn't even think
without moving his lips. With Jane attached to his ear he spent his waking
hours in a confessional that never closed.
"So you love the
girl," said Jane. "Why not? So your motives are complicated by your
feelings toward Ender and Valentine and Ouanda and yourself. So what? What love
was ever pure, what lover was ever uncomplicated? Think of her as a succubus.
You'll love her, and she'll crumble in your arms."
Jane's taunting was
infuriating and amusing at once. He went inside his room and gently closed the
door. When it was closed, he whispered to her, "You're just a jealous old
bitch, Jane. You only want me for yourself."
"I'm sure you're right,"
said Jane. "If Ender had ever really loved me, he would have created my
human body when he was being so fertile Outside. Then I could make a play for
you myself."
"You already have my
whole heart," said Miro. "Such as it is."
"You are such a liar,"
said Jane. "I'm just a talking appointment book and calculator, and you
know it."
"But you're very very
rich," said Miro. "I'll marry you for your money."
"By the way," said
Jane, "she's wrong about one thing."
"What's that?" asked
Miro, wondering which "she" Jane was referring to.
"You aren't done with
exploring worlds. Whether Ender is still interested in it or not-- and I think
he is, because she hasn't turned to dust yet-- the work doesn't end just
because there are enough habitable planets to save the piggies and
buggers."
Jane frequently used the old
diminutive and pejorative terms for them. Miro often wondered, but never dared
to ask, if she had any pejoratives for humans. But he thought he knew what her
answer would be anyway: "The word 'human' is a pejorative," she'd
say.
"So what are we still
looking for?" asked Miro.
"Every world that we can
find before I die," said Jane.
He thought about that as he
lay back down on his bed. Thought about it as he tossed and turned a couple of
times, then got up, got dressed for real, and set out under the lightening sky,
walking among the other early risers, people about their business, few of whom
knew him or even knew of him. Being a scion of the strange Ribeira family, he
hadn't had many childhood friends in ginasio; being both brilliant and shy,
he'd had even fewer of the more rambunctious adolescent friendships in colegio.
His only girlfriend had been Ouanda, until his penetration of the sealed
perimeter of the human colony left him brain-damaged and he refused to see even
her anymore. Then his voyage out to meet Valentine had severed the few fragile
ties that remained between him and his birthworld. For him it was only a few
months in a starship, but when he came back, years had passed, and he was now
his mother's youngest child, the only one whose life was unbegun. The children
he had once watched over were adults who treated him like a tender memory from
their youth. Only Ender was unchanged. No matter how many years. No matter what
happened. Ender was the same.
Could it still be true? Could
he be the same man even now, locking himself away at a time of crisis, hiding
out in a monastery just because Mother had finally given up on life? Miro knew
the bare outline of Ender's life. Taken from his family at the tender age of
five. Brought to the orbiting Battle School, where he emerged as the last best
hope of humankind in its war with the ruthless invaders called buggers. Taken
next to the fleet command on Eros, where he was told he was in advanced
training, but where, without realizing it, he was commanding the real fleets, lightyears
away, his commands transmitted by ansible. He won that war through brilliance
and, in the end, the utterly unconscionable act of destroying the home world of
the buggers. Except that he had thought it was a game.
Thought it was a game, but at
the same time knowing that the game was a simulation of reality. In the game he
had chosen to do the unspeakable; it meant, to Ender at least, that he was not
free of guilt when the game turned out to be real. Even though the last Hive
Queen forgave him and put herself, cocooned as she was, into his care, he could
not shake himself free of that. He was only a child, doing what adults led him
to do; but somewhere in his heart he knew that even a child is a real person,
that a child's acts are real acts, that even a child's play is not without
moral context.
Thus before the sun was up,
Miro found himself facing Ender as they both straddled a stone bench in a spot
in the garden that would soon be bathed in sunlight but now was clammy with the
morning chill; and what Miro found himself saying to this unchangeable,
unchanging man was this: "What is this monastery business, Andrew Wiggin,
except for a backhanded, cowardly way of crucifying yourself?"
"I've missed you too,
Miro," said Ender. "You look tired, though. You need more
sleep."
Miro sighed and shook his
head. "That wasn't what I meant to say. I'm trying to understand you, I
really am. Valentine says that I'm like you."
"You mean the real
Valentine?" asked Ender.
"They're both real,"
said Miro.
"Well, if I'm like you,
then study yourself and tell me what you find."
Miro wondered, looking at him,
if Ender really meant this.
Ender patted Miro's knee.
"I'm really not needed out there now," he said.
"You don't believe that
for a second," said Miro.
"But I believe that I
believe it," said Ender, "and for me that's pretty good. Please don't
disillusion me. I haven't had breakfast yet."
"No, you're exploiting
the convenience of having split yourself into three. This part of you, the aging
middle-aged man, can afford the luxury of devoting himself entirely to his
wife-- but only because he has two young puppets to go out and do the work that
really interests him."
"But it doesn't interest
me," said Ender. "I don't care."
"You as Ender don't care
because you as Peter and you as Valentine are taking care of everything else
for you. Only Valentine isn't well. You're not caring enough about what she's
doing. What happened to my old crippled body is happening to her. More slowly,
but it's the same thing. She thinks so, Valentine thinks it's possible. So do
I. So does Jane."
"Give Jane my love. I do
miss her."
"I give Jane my love,
Ender."
Ender grinned at his
resistance. "If they were about to shoot you, Miro, you'd insist on
drinking a lot of water just so they'd have to handle a corpse covered with
urine when you were dead."
"Valentine isn't a dream
or an illusion, Ender," said Miro, refusing to be sidetracked into a
discussion of his own obstreperousness. "She's real, and you're killing
her."
"Awfully dramatic way of
putting it."
"If you'd seen her pull
out tufts of her own hair this morning ..."
"So she's rather
theatrical, I take it? Well, you've always been one for the theatrical gesture,
too. I'm not surprised you get along."
"Andrew, I'm telling you
you've got to--"
Suddenly Ender grew stern and
his voice overtopped Miro's even though he was not speaking loudly. "Use
your head, Miro. Was your decision to jump from your old body to this newer model
a conscious one? Did you think about it and say, 'Well, I think I'll let this
old corpse crumble into its constituent molecules because this new body is a
nicer place to dwell'?"
Miro got his point at once.
Ender couldn't consciously control where his attention went. His aiua, even
though it was his deepest self, was not to be ordered about.
"I find out what I really
want by seeing what I do," said Ender. "That's what we all do, if
we're honest about it. We have our feelings, we make our decisions, but in the
end we look back on our lives and see how sometimes we ignored our feelings,
while most of our decisions were actually rationalizations because we had
already decided in our secret hearts before we ever recognized it consciously.
I can't help it if the part of me that's controlling this girl whose company
you're sharing isn't as important to my underlying will as you'd like. As she
needs. I can't do a thing."
Miro bowed his head.
The sun came up over the
trees. Suddenly the bench turned bright, and Miro looked up to see the sunlight
making a halo out of Ender's wildly slept-in hair. "Is grooming against
the monastic rule?" asked Miro.
"You're attracted to her,
aren't you," said Ender, not really making a question out of it. "And
it makes you a little uneasy that she is really me."
Miro shrugged. "It's a
root in the path. But I think I can step over it."
"But what if I'm not
attracted to you?" asked Ender cheerfully.
Miro spread his arms and
turned to show his profile. "Unthinkable," he said.
"You are cute as a
bunny," said Ender. "I'm sure young Valentine dreams about you. I
wouldn't know. The only dreams I have are of planets blowing up and everyone I
love being obliterated."
"I know you haven't
forgotten the world in here, Andrew." He meant that as the beginning of an
apology, but Ender waved him off.
"I can't forget it, but I
can ignore it. I'm ignoring the world, Miro. I'm ignoring you, I'm ignoring
those two walking psychoses of mine. At this moment, I'm trying to ignore
everything but your mother."
"And God," said
Miro. "You mustn't forget God."
"Not for a single
moment," said Ender. "As a matter of fact, I can't forget anything or
anybody. But yes, I am ignoring God, except insofar as Novinha needs me to
notice him. I'm shaping myself into the husband that she needs."
"Why, Andrew? You know
Mother's as crazy as a loon."
"No such thing,"
said Ender reprovingly. "But even if it were true, then ... all the more
reason."
"What God has joined, let
no man put asunder. I do approve, philosophically, but you don't know how it
..." Miro's weariness swept over him then. He couldn't think of the words
to say what he wanted to say, and he knew that it was because he was trying to
tell Ender how it felt, at this moment, to be Miro Ribeira, and Miro had no
practice in even identifying his own feelings, let alone expressing them.
"Desculpa," he murmured, changing to Portuguese because it was his
childhood language, the language of his emotions. He found himself wiping tears
off his cheeks. "Se nao posso mudar nem voce, nao ha nada que possa,
nada." If I can't get even you to move, to change, then there's nothing I
can do.
"Nem eu?" Ender
echoed. "In all the universe, Miro, there's nobody harder to change than
me."
"Mother did it. She
changed you."
"No she didn't,"
said Ender. "She only allowed me to be what I needed and wanted to be.
Like now, Miro. I can't make everybody happy. I can't make me happy, I'm not
doing much for you, and as for the big problems, I'm worthless there too. But
maybe I can make your mother happy, or at least somewhat happier, at least for
a while, or at least I can try." He took Miro's hands in his, pressed them
to his own face, and they did not come away dry.
Miro watched as Ender got up
from the bench and walked away toward the sun, into the shining orchard. Surely
this is how Adam would have looked, thought Miro, if he had never eaten the
fruit. If he had stayed and stayed and stayed and stayed in the garden. Three
thousand years Ender has skimmed the surface of life. It was my mother he
finally snagged on. I spent my whole childhood trying to be free of her, and he
comes along and chooses to attach himself and ...
And what am I snagged on,
except him? Him in women's flesh. Him with a handful of hair on a kitchen
table.
Miro was getting up from the
bench when Ender suddenly turned to face him and waved to attract his
attention. Miro started to walk toward him, but Ender didn't wait; he cupped
his hands around his mouth and shouted.
"Tell Jane!" he
called. "If she can figure out! How to do it! She can have that
body!"
It took Miro a moment to realize
that he was speaking of Young Val.
She's not just a body, you
self-centered old planet-smasher. She's not just an old suit to be given away
because it doesn't fit or the style has changed.
But then his anger fled, for
he realized that he himself had done precisely that with his old body. Tossed
it away without a backward glance.
And the idea intrigued him.
Jane. Was it even possible? If her aiua could somehow be made to take up
residence in Young Val, could a human body hold enough of Jane's mind to enable
her to survive when Starways Congress tried to shut her down?
"You boys are so
slow," Jane murmured in his ear. "I've been talking to the Hive Queen
and Human and trying to figure out how the thing is done-- assigning an aiua to
a body. The hive queens did it once, in creating me. But they didn't exactly
pick a particular aiua. They took what came. What showed up. I'm a little
fussier."
Miro said nothing as he walked
to the monastery gate.
"Oh, yes, and then
there's the little matter of your feelings toward Young Val. You hate the fact
that in loving her, it's really, in a way, Ender that you love. But if I took
over, if I were the will inside Young Val's life, would she still be the woman
you love? Would anything of her survive? Would it be murder?"
"Oh, shut up," said
Miro aloud.
The monastery gatekeeper
looked up at him in surprise.
"Not you," said
Miro. "But that doesn't mean it isn't a good idea."
Miro was aware of her eyes on
his back until he was out and on the path winding down the hill toward Milagre.
Time to get back to the ship. Val will be waiting for me. Whoever she is.
What Ender is to Mother, so
loyal, so patient-- is that how I feel toward Val? Or no, it isn't feeling, is
it? It's an act of will. It's a decision that can never be revoked. Could I do
that for any woman, any person? Could I give myself forever?
He remembered Ouanda then, and
walked with the memory of bitter loss all the way back to the starship.
Chapter 4 -- "I AM A MAN
OF PERFECT SIMPLICITY!"
"When I was a child, I
thought a god was disappointed whenever some distraction interrupted my tracing
of the lines revealed in the grain of the wood. Now I know the gods expect such
interruptions, for they know our frailty. It is completion that surprises
them."
-- from The God Whispers of
Han Qing-jao
Peter and Wang-mu ventured out into the world of Divine Wind on their
second day. They did not have to worry about learning a language. Divine Wind
was an older world, one of the first wave settled in the initial emigration
from Earth. It was originally as recidivist as Path, clinging to the ancient
ways. But the ancient ways of Divine Wind were Japanese ways, and so it
included the possibility of radical change. Scarcely three hundred years into
its history, the world transformed itself from being the isolated fiefdom of a
ritualized shogunate to being a cosmopolitan center of trade and industry and
philosophy. The Japanese of Divine Wind prided themselves on being hosts to
visitors from all worlds, and there were still many places where children grew
up speaking only Japanese until they were old enough to enter school. But by
adulthood, all the people of Divine Wind spoke Stark with fluency, and the best
of them with elegance, with grace, with astonishing economy; it was said by Mil
Fiorelli, in his most famous book, Observations of Distant Worlds with the
Naked Eye, that Stark was a language that had no native speakers until it was
whispered by a Divine Wind.
So it was that when Peter and
Wang-mu hiked through the woods of the great natural preserve where their
starship had landed and emerged in a village of foresters, laughing about how
long they had been "lost" in the woods, no one thought twice about
Wang-mu's obviously Chinese features and accent, or even about Peter's white
skin and lack of an epicanthic fold. They had lost their documents, they
claimed, but a computer search showed them to be licensed automobile drivers in
the city of Nagoya, and while Peter seemed to have had a couple of youthful
traffic offenses there, otherwise they were not known to have committed any
illegal acts. Peter's profession was given as "independent teacher of physics"
and Wang-mu's as "itinerant philosopher," both quite respectable
positions, given their youth and lack of family attachment. When they were
asked casual questions ("I have a cousin who teaches progenerative
grammars in the Komatsu University in Nagoya") Jane gave Peter appropriate
comments to say:
"I never seem to get over
to the Oe Building. The language people don't talk to physicists anyway. They
think we speak only mathematics. Wang-mu tells me that the only language we
physicists know is the grammar of dreams."
Wang-mu had no such friendly
prompter in her ear, but then an itinerant philosopher was supposed to be
gnomic in her speech and mantic in her thought. Thus she could answer Peter's
comment by saying, "I say that is the only grammar you speak. There is no
grammar that you understand."
This prompted Peter to tickle
her, which made Wang-mu simultaneously laugh and wrench at his wrist until he
stopped, thereby proving to the foresters that they were exactly what their
documents said they were: brilliant young people who were nevertheless silly
with love-- or with youth, as if it made a difference.
They were given a ride in a
government floater back to civilized country, where-- thanks to Jane's
manipulation of the computer networks-- they found an apartment that until
yesterday had been empty and unfurnished, but which now was filled with an
eclectic mix of furniture and art that reflected a charming mixture of poverty,
quirkiness, and exquisite taste.
"Very nice," said
Peter.
Wang-mu, familiar only with
the taste of one world, and really only of one man in that one world, could
hardly evaluate Jane's choices. There were places to sit-- both Western chairs,
which folded people into alternating right angles and never seemed comfortable
to Wang-mu, and Eastern mats, which encouraged people to twine themselves into
circles of harmony with the earth. The bedroom, with its Western mattress
raised high off the ground even though there were neither rats nor roaches, was
obviously Peter's; Wang-mu knew that the same mat that invited her to sit in
the main room of the apartment would also be her sleeping mat at night.
She deferentially offered
Peter the first bath; he, however, seemed to feel no urgency to wash himself,
even though he smelled of sweat from the hike and the hours cooped up in the
floater. So Wang-mu ended up luxuriating in a tub, closing her eyes and
meditating until she felt restored to herself. When she opened her eyes she no
longer felt like a stranger. Rather she was herself, and the surrounding
objects and spaces were free to attach themselves to her without damaging her
sense of self. This was a power she had learned early in life, when she had no
power even over her own body, and had to obey in all things. It was what
preserved her. Her life had many unpleasant things attached to it, like remoras
to a shark, but none of them changed who she was under the skin, in the cool
darkness of her solitude with eyes closed and mind at peace.
When she emerged from the
bathroom, she found Peter eating absently from a plate of grapes as he watched
a holoplay in which masked Japanese actors bellowed at each other and took
great, awkward, thundering steps, as if the actors were playing characters
twice the size of their own bodies.
"Have you learned
Japanese?" she asked.
"Jane's translating for
me. Very strange people."
"It's an ancient form of
drama," said Wang-mu.
"But very boring. Was
there ever anyone whose heart was stirred by all this shouting?"
"If you are inside the
story," said Wang-mu, "then they are shouting the words of your own
heart."
"Somebody's heart says,
'I am the wind from the cold snow of the mountain, and you are the tiger whose
roar will freeze in your own ears before you tremble and die in the iron knife
of my winter eyes'?"
"It sounds like
you," said Wang-mu. "Bluster and brag."
"I am the round-eyed
sweating man who stinks like the corpse of a leaking skunk, and you are the
flower who will wilt unless I take an immediate shower with lye and
ammonia."
"Keep your eyes closed
when you do," said Wang-mu. "That stuff burns."
There was no computer in the
apartment. Maybe the holoview could be used as a computer, but if so Wang-mu
didn't know how. Its controls looked like nothing she had seen in Han Fei-tzu's
house, but that was hardly a surprise. The people of Path didn't take their
design of anything from other worlds, if they could help it. Wang-mu didn't
even know how to turn off the sound. It didn't matter. She sat on her mat and
tried to remember everything she knew about the Japanese people from her study
of Earth history with Han Qing-jao and her father, Han Fei-tzu. She knew that
her education was spotty at best, because as a low-class girl no one had
bothered to teach her much until she wangled her way into Qing-jao's household.
So Han Fei-tzu had told her not to bother with formal studies, but merely to
explore information wherever her interests took her. "Your mind is
unspoiled by a traditional education. Therefore you must let yourself discover
your own way into each subject." Despite this seeming liberty, Fei-tzu
soon showed her that he was a stern taskmaster even when the subjects were
freely chosen. Whatever she learned about history or biography, he would
challenge her, question her; demand that she generalize, then refute her
generalizations; and if she changed her mind, he would then demand just as
sharply that she defend her new position, even though a moment before it had
been his own. The result was that even with limited information, she was
prepared to reexamine it, cast away old conclusions and hypothesize new ones.
Thus she could close her eyes and continue her education without any jewel to
whisper in her ear, for she could still hear Han Fei-tzu's caustic questioning
even though he was lightyears away.
The actors stopped ranting
before Peter had finished his shower. Wang-mu did not notice. She did notice,
however, when a voice from the holoview said, "Would you like another
recorded selection, or would you prefer to connect with a current
broadcast?"
For a moment Wang-mu thought
that the voice must be Jane; then she realized that it was simply the rote menu
of a machine. "Do you have news?" she asked.
"Local, regional,
planetary or interplanetary?" asked the machine.
"Begin with local,"
said Wang-mu. She was a stranger here. She might as well get acquainted.
When Peter emerged, clean and
dressed in one of the stylish local costumes that Jane had had delivered for
him, Wang-mu was engrossed in an account of a trial of some people accused of
overfishing a lush coldwater region a few hundred kilometers from the city they
were in. What was the name of this town? Oh, yes. Nagoya. Since Jane had
declared this to be their hometown on all their false records, of course this
was where the floater had brought them. "All worlds are the same,"
said Wang-mu. "People want to eat fish from the sea, and some people want
to take more of the fish than the ocean can replenish."
"What harm does it do if
I fish one extra day or take one extra ton?" Peter asked.
"Because if everyone
does, then--" She stopped herself. "I see. You were ironically
speaking the rationalization of the wrongdoers."
"Am I clean and pretty
now?" asked Peter, turning around to show off his loose-fitting yet somehow
form-revealing clothing.
"The colors are
garish," said Wang-mu. "It looks as if you're screaming."
"No, no," said
Peter. "The idea is for the people who see me to scream."
"Aaaah," Wang-mu
screamed softly.
"Jane says that this is
actually a conservative costume-- for a man
of my age and supposed
profession. Men in Nagoya are known for being peacocks."
"And the women?"
"Bare-breasted all the
time," said Peter. "Quite a stunning sight."
"That is a lie. I didn't
see one bare-breasted woman on our way in and--" Again she stopped and
frowned at him. "Do you really want me to assume that everything you say
is a lie?"
"I thought it was worth a
try."
"Don't be silly. I have
no breasts."
"You have small
ones," said Peter. "Surely you're aware of the distinction."
"I don't want to discuss
my body with a man dressed in a badly planned, overgrown flower garden."
"Women are all dowds
here," said Peter. "Tragic but true. Dignity and all that. So are the
old men. Only the boys and young men on the prowl are allowed such plumage as
this. I think the bright colors are to warn women off. Nothing serious from
this lad! Stay to play, or go away. Some such thing. I think Jane chose this
city for us solely so she could make me wear these things."
"I'm hungry. I'm
tired."
"Which is more
urgent?" asked Peter.
"Hungry."
"There are grapes,"
he offered.
"Which you didn't wash. I
suppose that's a part of your death wish."
"On Divine Wind, insects
know their place and stay there. No pesticides. Jane assured me."
"There were no pesticides
on Path, either," said Wang-mu. "But we washed to clear away bacteria
and other one-celled creatures. Amebic dysentery will slow us down."
"Oh, but the bathroom is
so nice, it would be a shame not to use it," said Peter. Despite his
flippancy, Wang-mu saw that her comment about dysentery from unwashed fruit
bothered him.
"Let's eat out,"
said Wang-mu. "Jane has money for us, doesn't she?"
Peter listened for a moment to
something coming from the jewel in his ear.
"Yes, and all we have to
do is tell the master of the restaurant that we lost our IDs and he'll let us
thumb our way into our accounts. Jane says we're both very rich if we need to
be, but we should try to act as if we were of limited means having an
occasional splurge to celebrate something. What shall we celebrate?"
"Your bath."
"You celebrate that. I'll
celebrate our safe return from being lost in the woods."
Soon they found themselves on
the street, a busy place with few cars, hundreds of bicycles, and thousands of
people both on and off the glideways. Wang-mu was put off by these strange
machines and insisted they walk on solid ground, which meant choosing a
restaurant close by. The buildings in this neighborhood were old but not yet
tatty-looking; an established neighborhood, but one with pride. The style was
radically open, with arches and courtyards, pillars and roofs, but few walls
and no glass at all. "The weather must be perfect here," said
Wang-mu.
"Tropical, but on the
coast with a cold current offshore. It rains every afternoon for an hour or so,
most of the year anyway, but it never gets very hot and never gets chilly at
all."
"It feels as though
everything is outdoors all the time."
"It's all fakery,"
said Peter. "Our apartment had glass windows and climate control, you
notice. But it faces back, into the garden, and besides, the windows are
recessed, so from below you don't see the glass. Very artful. Artificially
natural looking. Hypocrisy and deception-- the human universal."
"It's a beautiful way to
live," said Wang-mu. "I like Nagoya."
"Too bad we won't be here
long."
Before she could ask to know
where they were going and why, Peter pulled her into the courtyard of a busy
restaurant. "This one cooks the fish," said Peter. "I hope you
don't mind that."
"What, the others serve
it raw?" asked Wang-mu, laughing. Then she realized that Peter was
serious. Raw fish!
"The Japanese are famous
for it," said Peter, "and in Nagoya it's almost a religion. Notice--
not a Japanese face in the restaurant. They wouldn't deign to eat fish that was
destroyed by heat. It's just one of those things that they cling to. There's so
little that's distinctively Japanese about their culture now, so they're
devoted to the few uniquely Japanese traits that survive."
Wang-mu nodded, understanding
perfectly how a culture could cling to long-dead customs just for the sake of
national identity, and also grateful to be in a place where such customs were
all superficial and didn't distort and destroy the lives of the people the way
they had on Path.
Their food came quickly-- it
takes almost no time to cook fish-- and as they ate, Peter shifted his position
several times on the mat. "Too bad this place isn't nontraditional enough
to have chairs."
"Why do Europeans hate
the earth so much that you must always lift yourself above it?" asked Wang-mu.
"You've already answered
your question," said Peter coldly. "You start from the assumption
that we hate the earth. It makes you sound like some magic-using
primitive."
Wang-mu blushed and fell
silent.
"Oh, spare me the passive
oriental woman routine," said Peter. "Or the passive I - was -
trained - to - be - a - servant - and - you - sound - like - a - cruel -
heartless - master manipulation through guilt. I know I'm a shit and I'm not
going to change just because you look so downcast."
"Then you could change
because you wish not to be a shit any longer."
"It's in my character.
Ender created me hateful so he could hate me. The added benefit is that you can
hate me, too."
"Oh, be quiet and eat
your fish," she said. "You don't know what you're talking about.
You're supposed to analyze human beings and you can't understand the person
closest to you in all the world."
"I don't want to
understand you," said Peter. "I want to accomplish my task by
exploiting this brilliant intelligence you're supposed to have-- even if you
believe that people who squat are somehow 'closer to the earth' than people who
remain upright."
"I wasn't talking about
me," she said. "I was talking about the person closest to you.
Ender."
"He is blessedly far from
us right now."
"He didn't create you so
that he could hate you. He long since got over hating you."
"Yeah, yeah, he wrote The
Hegemon, et cetera, et cetera."
"That's right," said
Wang-mu. "He created you because he desperately needed someone to hate
him."
Peter rolled his eyes and took
a drink of milky pineapple juice. "Just the right amount of coconut. I
think I'll retire here, if Ender doesn't die and make me disappear first."
"I say something true,
and you answer with coconut in the pineapple juice?"
"Novinha hates him,"
said Peter. "He doesn't need me."
"Novinha is angry at him,
but she's wrong to be angry and he knows it. What he needs from you is a ...
righteous anger. To hate him for the evil that is really in him, which no one
but him sees or even believes is there."
"I'm just a nightmare
from his childhood," said Peter. "You're reading too much into
this."
"He didn't conjure you up
because the real Peter was so important in his childhood. He conjured you up
because you are the judge, the condemner. That's what Peter drummed into him as
a child. You told me yourself, talking about your memories. Peter taunting him,
telling him of his unworthiness, his uselessness, his stupidity, his cowardice.
You do it now. You look at his life and call him a xenocide, a failure. For
some reason he needs this, needs to have someone damn him."
"Well, how nice that I'm
around, then, to despise him," said Peter.
"But he also is desperate
for someone to forgive him, to have mercy on him, to interpret all his actions
as well meant. Valentine is not there because he loves her-- he has the real
Valentine for that. He has his wife. He needs your sister to exist so she can
forgive him."
"So if I stop hating
Ender, he won't need me anymore and I'll disappear?"
"If Ender stops hating
himself, then he won't need you to be so mean and you'll be easier to get along
with."
"Yeah, well, it's not
that easy getting along with somebody who's constantly analyzing a person she's
never met and preaching at the person she has met."
"I hope I make you
miserable," said Wang-mu. "It's only fair, considering."
"I think Jane brought us
here because the local costumes reflect who we are. Puppet though I am, I take
some perverse pleasure in life. While you-- you can turn anything drab just by
talking about it."
Wang-mu bit back her tears and
returned to her food.
"What is it with
you?" Peter said.
She ignored him, chewed
slowly, finding the untouched core of herself, which was busily enjoying the
food.
"Don't you feel
anything?"
She swallowed, looked up at
him. "I already miss Han Fei-tzu, and I've been gone scarcely two
days." She smiled slightly. "I have known a man of grace and wisdom.
He found me interesting. I'm quite comfortable with boring you."
Peter immediately made a show
of splashing water on his ears. "I'm burning, that stung, oh, how can I
stand it. Vicious! You have the breath of a dragon! Men die at your
words!"
"Only puppets strutting
around hanging from strings," said Wang-mu.
"Better to dangle from
strings than to be bound tight by them," said Peter.
"Oh, the gods must love
me, to have put me in the company of a man so clever with words."
"Whereas the gods have
put me in the company of a woman with no breasts."
She forced herself to pretend
to take this as a joke. "Small ones, I thought you said."
But suddenly the smile left
his face. "I'm sorry," he said. "I've hurt you."
"I don't think so. I'll
tell you later, after a good night's sleep."
"I thought we were
bantering," said Peter. "Bandying insults."
"We were," said
Wang-mu. "But I believe them all."
Peter winced. "Then I'm
hurt, too."
"You don't know how to
hurt," said Wang-mu. "You're just mocking me."
Peter pushed aside his plate
and stood up. "I'll see you back at the apartment. Think you can find the
way?"
"Do I think you actually
care?"
"It's a good thing I have
no soul," said Peter. "That's the only thing that stops you from
devouring it."
"If I ever had your soul
in my mouth," said Wang-mu, "I would spit it out."
"Get some rest,"
said Peter. "For the work I have ahead, I need a mind, not a
quarrel." He walked out of the restaurant. The clothing fit him badly.
People looked. He was a man of too much dignity and strength to dress so
foppishly. Wang-mu saw at once that it shamed him. She saw also that he knew
it, that he moved swiftly because he knew this clothing was wrong for him. He
would undoubtedly have Jane order him something older looking, more mature,
more in keeping with his need for honor.
Whereas I need something that
will make me disappear. Or better yet, clothing that will let me fly away from
here, all in a single night, fly Outside and back In to the house of Han
Fei-tzu, where I can look into eyes that show neither pity nor scorn.
Nor pain. For there is pain in
Peter's eyes, and it was wrong of me to say he felt none. It was wrong of me to
value my own pain so highly that I thought it gave me the right to inflict more
on him.
If I apologize to him, he'll
mock me for it.
But then, I would rather be
mocked for doing a good thing than to be respected, knowing I have done wrong.
Is that a principle Han Fei-tzu taught me? No. I was born with that one. Like
my mother said, too much pride, too much pride.
When she returned to the
apartment, however, Peter was asleep; exhausted, she postponed her apology and
also slept. Each of them woke during the night, but never at the same time; and
in the morning, the edge of last night's quarrel had worn off. There was
business at hand, and it was more important for her to understand what they
were going to attempt to do today than for her to heal a breach between them
that seemed, in the light of morning, to be scarcely more than a meaningless
spat between tired friends.
"The man Jane has chosen
for us to visit is a philosopher."
"Like me?" Wang-mu
said, keenly aware of her false new role.
"That's what I wanted to
discuss with you. There are two kinds of philosophers here on Divine Wind.
Aimaina Hikari, the man we will meet, is an analytical philosopher. You don't
have the education to hold your own with him. So you are the other kind. Gnomic
and mantic. Given to pithy phrases that startle others with their seeming
irrelevancy."
"Is it necessary that my
supposedly wise phrases only seem irrelevant?"
"You don't even have to
worry about that. The gnomic philosophers depend on others to connect their
irrelevancies with the real world. That's why any fool can do it."
Wang-mu felt anger rise in her
like mercury in a thermometer. "How kind of you to choose that profession
for me."
"Don't be offended,"
said Peter. "Jane and I had to come up with some role you could play on
this particular planet that wouldn't reveal you to be an uneducated native of
Path. You have to understand that no child on Divine Wind is allowed to grow up
as hopelessly ignorant as the servant class on Path."
Wang-mu did not argue further.
What would be the point? If one has to say, in an argument, "I am
intelligent! I do know things!" then one might as well stop arguing.
Indeed, this idea struck her as being exactly one of those gnomic phrases that
Peter was talking about. She said so.
"No, no, I don't mean
epigrams," said Peter. "Those are too analytical. I mean genuinely
strange things. For instance, you might have said, 'The woodpecker attacks the
tree to get at the bug,' and then I would have had to figure out just how that
might fit our situation here. Am I the woodpecker? The tree? The bug? That's
the beauty of it."
"It seems to me that you
have just proved yourself to be the more gnomic of the two of us."
Peter rolled his eyes and
headed for the door.
"Peter," she said,
not moving from her place.
He turned to face her.
"Wouldn't I be more
helpful to you if I had some idea of why we're meeting this man, and who he
is?"
Peter shrugged. "I
suppose. Though we know that Aimaina Hikari is not the person or even one of
the people we're looking for."
"Tell me whom we are
looking for, then."
"We're looking for the
center of power in the Hundred Worlds," he said.
"Then why are we here,
instead of Starways Congress?"
"Starways Congress is a
play. The delegates are actors. The scripts are written elsewhere."
"Here."
"The faction of Congress
that is getting its way about the Lusitania Fleet is not the one that loves
war. That group is cheerful about the whole thing, of course, since they always
believe in brutally putting down insurrection and so on, but they would never
have been able to get the votes to send the fleet without a swing group that is
very heavily influenced by a school of philosophers from Divine Wind."
"Of which Aimaina Hikari
is the leader?"
"It's more subtle than
that. He is actually a solitary philosopher, belonging to no particular school.
But he represents a sort of purity of Japanese thought which makes him
something of a conscience to the philosophers who influence the swing group in
Congress."
"How many dominoes do you
think you can line up and have them still knock each other over?"
"No, that wasn't gnomic
enough. Still too analytical."
"I'm not playing my part
yet, Peter. What are the ideas that this swing group gets from this
philosophical school?"
Peter sighed and sat down--
bending himself into a chair, of course. Wang-mu sat on the floor and thought:
This is how a man of Europe likes to see himself, with his head higher than all
others, teaching the woman of Asia. But from my perspective, he has
disconnected himself from the earth. I will hear his words, but I will know
that it is up to me to bring them into a living place.
"The swing group would
never use such massive force against what really amounts to a minor dispute
with a tiny colony. The original issue, as you know, was that two xenologers,
Miro Ribeira and Ouanda Mucumbi, were caught introducing agriculture among the
pequeninos of Lusitania. This constituted cultural interference, and they were
ordered offplanet for trial. Of course, with the old relativistic lightspeed
ships, taking someone off planet meant that when and if they ever went back,
everyone they knew would be old or dead. So it was brutally harsh treatment and
amounted to prejudgment. Congress might have expected protests from the
government of Lusitania, but what it got instead was complete defiance and a
cutoff of ansible communications. The tough guys in Congress immediately
started lobbying for a single troopship to go and seize control of Lusitania.
But they didn't have the votes, until--"
"Until they raised the
specter of the descolada virus."
"Exactly. The group that
was adamantly opposed to the use of force brought up the descolada, as a reason
why troops shouldn't be sent-- because at that time anyone who was infected
with the virus had to stay on Lusitania and keep taking an inhibitor that kept
the descolada from destroying your body from the inside out. This was the first
time that the danger of the descolada became widely known, and the swing group
emerged, consisting of those who were appalled that Lusitania had not been
quarantined long before. What could be more dangerous than to have a
fast-spreading, semi-intelligent virus in the hands of rebels? This group
consisted almost entirely of delegates who were strongly influenced by the
Necessarian school from Divine Wind."
Wang-mu nodded. "And what
do the Necessarians teach?"
"That one lives in peace
and harmony with one's environment, disturbing nothing, patiently bearing mild
or even serious afflictions. However, when a genuine threat to survival
emerges, one must act with brutal efficiency. The maxim is, Act only when
necessary, and then act with maximum force and speed. Thus, where the
militarists wanted a troopship, the Necessarian-influenced delegates insisted
on sending a fleet armed with the Molecular Disruption Device, which would
destroy the threat of the descolada virus once and for all. There's a sort of
ironic neatness about it all, don't you think?"
"I don't see it."
"Oh, it fits together so
perfectly. Ender Wiggin was the one who used the Little Doctor to wipe out the
bugger home world. Now it's going to be used for only the second time-- against
the very world where he happens to live! It gets even thicker. The first
Necessarian philosopher, Ooka, used Ender himself as the prime example of his
ideas. As long as the buggers were seen to be a dangerous threat to the
survival of humankind, the only appropriate response was utter eradication of
the enemy. No half-measures would do. Of course the buggers turned out not to
have been a threat after all, as Ender himself wrote in his book The Hive
Queen, but Ooka defended the mistake because the truth was unknowable at the
time Ender's superiors turned him loose against the enemy. What Ooka said was,
'Never trade blows with the enemy.' His idea was that you try never to strike
anyone, but when you must, you strike only one blow, but such a harsh one that
your enemy can never, never strike back."
"So using Ender as an
example--"
"That's right. Ender's
own actions are being used to justify repeating them against another harmless
species."
"The descolada wasn't
harmless."
"No," said Peter.
"But Ender and Ela found another way, didn't they? They struck a blow
against the descolada itself. But there's no way now to convince Congress to
withdraw the fleet. Because Jane already interfered with Congress's ansible
communications with the fleet, they believe they face a formidable widespread
secret conspiracy. Any argument we make will be seen as disinformation.
Besides, who would believe the farfetched tale of that first trip Outside,
where Ela created the anti-descolada, Miro recreated himself, and Ender made my
dear sister and me?"
"So the Necessarians in
Congress--"
"They don't call
themselves that. But the influence is very strong. It is Jane's and my opinion
that if we can get some prominent Necessarians to declare against the Lusitania
Fleet-- with convincing reasoning, of course-- the solidarity of the pro-fleet
majority in Congress will be broken up. It's a thin majority-- there are plenty
of people horrified by such devastating use of force against a colony world,
and others who are even more horrified at the idea that Congress would destroy
the pequeninos, the first sentient species found since the destruction of the
buggers. They would love to stop the fleet, or at worst use it to impose a
permanent quarantine."
"Why aren't we meeting
with a Necessarian, then?"
"Because why would they
listen to us? If we identify ourselves as supporters of the Lusitanian cause,
we'll be jailed and questioned. And if we don't, who will take our ideas
seriously?"
"This Aimaina Hikari,
then. What is he?"
"Some people call him the
Yamato philosopher. All the Necessarians of Divine Wind are, naturally,
Japanese, and the philosophy has become most influential among the Japanese,
both on their home worlds and wherever they have a substantial population. So
even though Hikari isn't a Necessarian, he is honored as the keeper of the
Japanese soul."
"If he tells them that
it's un-Japanese to destroy Lusitania--"
"But he won't. Not
easily, anyway. His seminal work, which won him his reputation as the Yamato
philosopher, included the idea that the Japanese people were born as rebellious
puppets. First it was Chinese culture that pulled the strings. But Hikari says,
Japan learned all the wrong lessons from the attempted Chinese invasion of
Japan-- which, by the way, was defeated by a great storm, called kamikaze,
which means 'Divine Wind.' So you can be sure everyone on this world, at least,
remembers that ancient story. Anyway, Japan locked itself away on an island,
and at first refused to deal with Europeans when they came. But then an
American fleet forcibly opened Japan to foreign trade, and then the Japanese
made up for lost time. The Meiji Restoration led to Japan trying to
industrialize and Westernize itself-- and once again a new set of strings made
the puppet dance, says Hikari. Only once again, the wrong lessons were learned.
Since the Europeans at the time were imperialists, dividing up Africa and Asia
among them, Japan decided it wanted a piece of the imperial pie. There was
China, the old puppetmaster. So there was an invasion--"
"We were taught of this
invasion on Path," said Wang-mu.
"I'm surprised they
taught any history more recent than the Mongol invasion," said Peter.
"The Japanese were
finally stopped when the Americans dropped the first nuclear weapons on two
Japanese cities."
"The equivalent, in those
days, of the Little Doctor. The irresistible, total weapon. The Japanese soon
came to regard these nuclear weapons as a kind of badge of pride: We were the
first people ever to have been attacked by nuclear weapons. It had become a
kind of permanent grievance, which wasn't a bad thing, really, because that was
part of their impetus to found and populate many colonies, so that they would
never be a helpless island nation again. But then along comes Aimaina Hikari,
and he says-- by the way, his name is self-chosen, it's the name he used to
sign his first book. It means 'Ambiguous Light.'"
"How gnomic," said
Wang-mu.
Peter grinned. "Oh, tell
him that, he'll be so proud. Anyway, in his first book, he says, The Japanese
learned the wrong lesson. Those nuclear bombs cut the strings. Japan was
utterly prostrate. The proud old government was destroyed, the emperor became a
figurehead, democracy came to Japan, and then wealth and great power."
"The bombs were a
blessing, then?" asked Wang-mu doubtfully.
"No, no, not at all. He
thinks the wealth of Japan destroyed the people's soul. They adopted the
destroyer as their father. They became America's bastard child, blasted into
existence by American bombs. Puppets again."
"Then what does he have
to do with the Necessarians?"
"Japan was bombed, he
says, precisely because they were already too European. They treated China as
the Europeans treated America, selfishly and brutally. But the Japanese
ancestors could not bear to see their children become such beasts. So just as
the gods of Japan sent a Divine Wind to stop the Chinese fleet, so the gods
sent the American bombs to stop Japan from becoming an imperialist state like
the Europeans. The Japanese response should have been to bear the American
occupation and then, when it was over, to become purely Japanese again,
chastened and whole. The title of his book was, Not Too Late."
"And I'll bet the
Necessarians use the American bombing of Japan as another example of striking
with maximum force and speed."
"No Japanese would have
dared to praise the American bombing until Hikari made it possible to see the
bombing, not as Japan's victimization, but as the gods' attempt at redemption
of the people."
"So you're saying that
the Necessarians respect him enough that if he changed his mind, they would
change theirs-- but he won't change his mind, because he believes the bombing
of Japan was a divine gift?"
"We're hoping he will
change his mind," said Peter, "or our trip will be a failure. The
thing is, there's no chance he'll be open to direct persuasion from us, and
Jane can't tell from his writings what or who it is who might influence him. We
have to talk to him to find out where to go next-- so maybe we can change their
mind."
"This is really
complicated, isn't it?" said Wang-mu.
"Which is why I didn't
think it was worth explaining it to you. What exactly are you going to do with
this information? Enter into a discussion of the subtleties of history with an
analytical philosopher of the first rank, like Hikari?"
"I'm going to
listen," said Wang-mu.
"That's what you were
going to do before," said Peter.
"But now I will know who
it is I'm listening to."
"Jane thinks it was a
mistake for me to tell you, because now you'll be interpreting everything he
says in light of what Jane and I already think we know."
"Tell Jane that the only
people who ever prize purity of ignorance are those who profit from a monopoly
on knowledge."
Peter laughed. "Epigrams
again," he said. "You're supposed to say--"
"Don't tell me how to be
gnomic again," said Wang-mu. She got up from the floor. Now her head was
higher than Peter's. "You're the gnome. And as for me being mantic--
remember that the mantic eats its mate."
"I'm not your mate,"
said Peter, "and 'mantic' means a philosophy that comes from vision or
inspiration or intuition rather than from scholarship and reason."
"If you're not my
mate," said Wang-mu, "stop treating me like a wife."
Peter looked puzzled, then
looked away. "Was I doing that?"
"On Path, a husband
assumes his wife is a fool and teaches her even the things she already knows.
On Path, a wife has to pretend, when she is teaching her husband, that she is
only reminding him of things he taught her long before."
"Well, I'm just an
insensitive oaf, aren't I."
"Please remember,"
said Wang-mu, "that when we meet with Aimaina Hikari, he and I have one
fund of knowledge that you can never have."
"And what's that?"
"A life."
She saw the pain on his face
and at once regretted causing it. But it was a reflexive regret-- she had been
trained from childhood up to be sorry when she gave offense, no matter how
richly it was deserved.
"Ouch," said Peter,
as if his pain were a joke.
Wang-mu showed no mercy-- she
was not a servant now. "You're so proud of knowing more than me, but
everything you know is either what Ender put in your head or what Jane whispers
in your ear. I have no Jane, I had no Ender. Everything I know, I learned the
hard way. I lived through it. So please don't treat me with contempt again. If
I have any value on this expedition, it will come from my knowing everything
you know-- because everything you know, I can be taught, but what I know, you
can never learn."
The joking was over. Peter's
face reddened with anger. "How ... who ..."
"How dare I," said
Wang-mu, echoing the phrases she assumed he had begun. "Who do I think I
am."
"I didn't say that,"
said Peter softly, turning away.
"I'm not staying in my
place, am I?" she asked. "Han Fei-tzu taught me about Peter Wiggin.
The original, not the copy. How he made his sister Valentine take part in his
conspiracy to seize the hegemony of Earth. How he made her write all of the
Demosthenes material-- rabble-rousing demagoguery-- while he wrote all the
Locke material, the lofty, analytical ideas. But the low demagoguery came from
him."
"So did the lofty
ideas," said Peter.
"Exactly," said
Wang-mu. "What never came from him, what came only from Valentine, was
something he never saw or valued. A human soul."
"Han Fei-tzu said
that?"
"Yes."
"Then he's an ass,"
said Peter. "Because Peter had as much of a human soul as Valentine
had." He stepped toward her, looming. "I'm the one without a soul,
Wang-mu."
For a moment she was afraid of
him. How did she know what violence had been created in him? What dark rage in
Ender's aiua might find expression through this surrogate he had created?
But Peter did not strike a
blow. Perhaps it was not necessary.
***
Aimaina Hikari came out
himself to the front gate of his garden to let them in. He was dressed simply,
and around his neck was the locket that all the traditional Japanese of Divine
Wind wore: a tiny casket containing the ashes of all his worthy ancestors.
Peter had already explained to her that when a man like Hikari died, a pinch of
the ashes from his locket would be added to a bit of his own ashes and given to
his children or his grandchildren to wear. Thus all of his ancient family hung
above his breastbone, waking and sleeping, and formed the most precious gift he
could give his posterity. It was a custom that Wang-mu, who had no ancestors
worth remembering, found both thrilling and disturbing.
Hikari greeted Wang-mu with a
bow, but held out his hand for Peter to shake. Peter took it with some small
show of surprise.
"Oh, they call me the
keeper of the Yamato spirit," said Hikari with a smile, "but that
doesn't mean I must be rude and force Europeans to behave like Japanese.
Watching a European bow is as painful as watching a pig do ballet."
As Hikari led them through the
garden into his traditional paperwalled house, Peter and Wang-mu looked at each
other and grinned broadly. It was a wordless truce between them, for they both
knew at once that Hikari was going to be a formidable opponent, and they needed
to be allies if they were to learn anything from him.
"A philosopher and a
physicist," said Hikari. "I looked you up when you sent your note
asking for an appointment. I have been visited by philosophers before, and
physicists, and also by Europeans and Chinese, but what truly puzzles me is why
the two of you should be together."
"She found me sexually
irresistible," said Peter, "and I can't get rid of her." Then he
grinned his most charming grin.
To Wang-mu's pleasure, Peter's
Western-style irony left Hikari impassive and unamused, and she could see a
blush rising up Peter's neck.
It was her turn-- to play the
gnome for real this time. "The pig wallows in mud, but he warms himself on
the sunny stone."
Hikari turned his gaze to
her-- remaining just as impassive as before. "I will write these words in
my heart," he said.
Wang-mu wondered if Peter
understood that she had just been the victim of Hikari's oriental-style irony.
"We have come to learn
from you," said Peter.
"Then I must give you
food and send you on your way disappointed," said Hikari. "I have
nothing to teach a physicist or a philosopher. If I did not have children, I
would have no one to teach, for only they know less than I."
"No, no," said
Peter. "You're a wise man. The keeper of the Yamato spirit."
"I said that they call me
that. But the Yamato spirit is much too great to be kept in so small a
container as my soul. And yet the Yamato spirit is much too small to be worthy
of the notice of the powerful souls of the Chinese and the European. You are
the teachers, as China and Europe have always been the teachers of Japan."
Wang-mu did not know Peter
well, but she knew him well enough to see that he was flustered now, at a loss
for how to proceed. In Ender's life and wanderings, he had lived in several
oriental cultures and even, according to Han Fei-tzu, spoke Korean, which meant
that Ender would probably be able to deal with the ritualized humility of a man
like Hikari-- especially since he was obviously using that humility in a
mocking way. But what Ender knew and what he had given to his Peter-identity
were obviously two different things. This conversation would be up to her, and
she sensed that the best way to play with Hikari was to refuse to let him
control the game.
"Very well," she
said. "We will teach you. For when we show you our ignorance, then you
will see where we most need your wisdom."
Hikari looked at Peter for a
moment. Then he clapped his hands. A serving woman appeared in a doorway.
"Tea," said Hikari.
At once Wang-mu leapt to her
feet. Only when she was already standing did she realize what she was going to
do. That peremptory command to bring tea was one that she had heeded many times
in her life, but it was not a blind reflex that brought her to her feet. Rather
it was her intuition that the only way to beat Hikari at his own game was to
call his bluff: She would be humbler than he knew how to be.
"I have been a servant
all my life," said Wang-mu honestly, "but I was always a clumsy
one," which was not so honest. "May I go with your servant and learn
from her? I may not be wise enough to learn the ideas of a great philosopher,
but perhaps I can learn what I am fit to learn from the servant who is worthy
to bring tea to Aimaina Hikari."
She could see from his
hesitation that Hikari knew he had been trumped. But the man was deft. He
immediately rose to his feet. "You have already taught me a great
lesson," he said. "Now we will all go and watch Kenji prepare the
tea. If she will be your teacher, Si Wang-mu, she must also be mine. For how
could I bear to know that someone in my house knew a thing that I had not yet
learned?"
Wang-mu had to admire his
resourcefulness. He had once again placed himself beneath her.
Poor Kenji, the servant! She
was a deft and well-trained woman, Wang-mu saw, but it made her nervous having
these three, especially her master, watch her prepare the tea. So Wang-mu
immediately reached in and "helped" --deliberately making a mistake
as she did. At once Kenji was in her element, and confident again. "You
have forgotten," said Kenji kindly, "because my kitchen is so
inefficiently arranged." Then she showed Wang-mu how the tea was prepared.
"At least in Nagoya," she said modestly. "At least in this
house."
Wang-mu watched carefully,
concentrating only on Kenji and what she was doing, for she quickly saw that
the Japanese way of preparing tea-- or perhaps it was the way of Divine Wind,
or merely the way of Nagoya, or of humble philosophers who kept the Yamato
spirit-- was different from the pattern she had followed so carefully in the
house of Han Fei-tzu. By the time the tea was ready, Wangmu had learned from
her. For, having made the claim to be a servant, and having a computer record
that asserted that she had lived her whole life in a Chinese community on
Divine Wind, Wang-mu might have to be able to serve tea properly in exactly
this fashion.
They returned to the front
room of Hikari's house, Kenji and Wang-mu each bearing a small tea table. Kenji
offered her table to Hikari, but he waved her over to Peter, and then bowed to
him. It was Wang-mu who served Hikari. And when Kenji backed away from Peter,
Wang-mu also backed away from Hikari.
For the first time, Hikari
looked-- angry? His eyes flashed, anyway. For by placing herself on exactly the
same level as Kenji, she had just maneuvered him into a position where he
either had to shame himself by being prouder than Wang-mu and dismissing his
servant, or disrupt the good order of his own house by inviting Kenji to sit
down with the three of them as equals.
"Kenji," said
Hikari. "Let me pour tea for you."
Check, thought Wang-mu. And
mate.
It was a delicious bonus when
Peter, who had finally caught on to the game, also poured tea for her, and then
managed to spill it on her, which prompted Hikari to spill a little on himself
in order to put his guest at ease. The pain of the hot tea and then the
discomfort as it cooled and dried were well worth the pleasure of knowing that
while Wang-mu had proved herself a match for Hikari in outrageous courtesy,
Peter had merely proved himself to be an oaf.
Or was Wang-mu truly a match
for Hikari? He must have seen and understood her effort to place herself
ostentatiously beneath him. It was possible, then, that he was-- humbly--
allowing her to win pride of place as the more humble of the two. As soon as
she realized that he might have done this, then she knew that he certainly had
done it, and the victory was his.
I'm not as clever as I
thought.
She looked at Peter, hoping
that he would now take over and do whatever clever thing he had in mind. But he
seemed perfectly content to let her lead out. Certainly he didn't jump into the
breach. Did he, too, realize that she had just been bested at her own game,
because she failed to take it deep enough? Was he giving her the rope to hang
herself?
Well, let's get the noose good
and tight.
"Aimaina Hikari, you are
called by some the keeper of the Yamato spirit. Peter and I grew up on a
Japanese world, and yet the Japanese humbly allow Stark to be the language of
the public school, so that we speak no Japanese. In my Chinese neighborhood, in
Peter's American city, we spent our childhoods on the edge of Japanese culture,
looking in. So if there is any particular part of our vast ignorance that will
be most obvious to you, it is in our knowledge of Yamato itself."
"Oh, Wang-mu, you make a
mystery out of the obvious. No one understands Yamato better than those who see
it from the outside, just as the parent understands the child better than the
child understands herself."
"Then I will enlighten
you," said Wang-mu, discarding the game of humility. "For I see Japan
as an Edge nation, and I cannot yet see whether your ideas will make Japan a
new Center nation, or begin the decay that all edge nations experience when
they take power."
"I grasp a hundred
possible meanings, most of them surely true of my people, for your term 'Edge
nation,'" said Hikari. "But what is a Center nation, and how can a
people become one?"
"I am not well-versed in
Earth history," said Wang-mu, "but as I studied what little I know,
it seemed to me that there were a handful of Center nations, which had a
culture so strong that they swallowed up all conquerors. Egypt was one, and
China. Each one became unified and then expanded no more than necessary to
protect their borders and pacify their hinterland. Each one took in its conquerors
and swallowed them up for thousands of years. Egyptian writing and Chinese
writing persisted with only stylistic modifications, so that the past remained
present for those who could read."
Wang-mu could see from Peter's
stiffness that he was very worried. After all, she was saying things that were
definitely not gnomic.
But since he was completely
out of his depth with an Asian, he was still making no effort to intrude.
"Both of these nations
were born in barbarian times," said Hikari. "Are you saying that no
nation can become a Center nation now?"
"I don't know," said
Wang-mu. "I don't even know if my distinction between Edge nations and
Center nations has any truth or value. I do know that a Center nation can keep
its cultural power long after it has lost political control. Mesopotamia was
continually conquered by its neighbors, and yet each conqueror in turn was more
changed by Mesopotamia than Mesopotamia was changed. The kings of Assyria and
Chaldea and Persia were almost indistinguishable after they had once tasted the
culture of the land between the rivers. But a Center nation can also fall so
completely that it disappears. Egypt staggered under the cultural blow of
Hellenism, fell to its knees under the ideology of Christianity, and finally
was erased by Islam. Only the stone buildings reminded the children of what and
who their ancient parents had been. History has no laws, and all patterns that
we find there are useful illusions."
"I see you are a
philosopher," said Hikari.
"You are generous to call
my childish speculations by that lofty name," said Wang-mu. "But let
me tell you now what I think about Edge nations. They are born in the shadow--
or perhaps one could say, in the reflected light-- of other nations. As Japan
became civilized under the influence of China. As Rome discovered itself in the
shadow of the Greeks."
"The Etruscans
first," said Peter helpfully.
Hikari looked at him blandly,
then turned back to Wang-mu without comment. Wang-mu could almost feel Peter wither
at having been thus deemed irrelevant. She felt a little sorry for him. Not a
lot, just a little.
"Center nations are so
confident of themselves that they generally don't need to embark on wars of
conquest. They are already sure they are the superior people and that all other
nations wish to be like them and obey them. But Edge nations, when they first
feel their strength, must prove themselves, they think, and almost always they
do so with the sword. Thus the Arabs broke the back of the Roman Empire and
swallowed up Persia. Thus the Macedonians, on the edge of Greece, conquered
Greece; and then, having been so culturally swallowed up that they now thought
themselves Greek, they conquered the empire on whose edge the Greeks had become
civilizedPersia. The Vikings had to harrow Europe before peeling off kingdoms
in Naples, Sicily, Normandy, Ireland, and finally England. And Japan--"
"We tried to stay on our islands,"
said Hikari softly.
"Japan, when it erupted,
rampaged through the Pacific, trying to conquer the great Center nation of
China, and was finally stopped by the bombs of the new Center nation of
America."
"I would have
thought," said Hikari, "that America was the ultimate Edge
nation."
"America was settled by
Edge peoples, but the idea of America became the new envigorating principle
that made it a Center nation. They were so arrogant that, except for subduing
their own hinterland, they had no will to empire. They simply assumed that all
nations wanted to be like them. They swallowed up all other cultures. Even on
Divine Wind, what is the language of the schools? It was not England that
imposed this language, Stark, Starways Common Speech, on us all."
"It was only by accident
that America was technologically ascendant at the moment the Hive Queen came
and forced us out among the stars."
"The idea of America
became the Center idea, I think," said Wang-mu. "Every nation from
then on had to have the forms of democracy. We are governed by the Starways
Congress even now. We all live within the American culture whether we like it
or not. So what I wonder is this: Now that Japan has taken control of this
Center nation, will Japan be swallowed up, as the Mongols were swallowed up by
China? Or will the Japanese culture retain its identity, but eventually decay
and lose control, as the Edge-nation Turks lost control of Islam and the
Edge-nation Manchu lost control of China?"
Hikari was upset. Angry?
Puzzled? Wang-mu had no way of guessing.
"The philosopher Si
Wang-mu says a thing that is impossible for me to accept," said Hikari.
"How can you say that the Japanese are now in control of Starways Congress
and the Hundred Worlds? When was this revolution that no one noticed?"
"But I thought you could
see what your teaching of the Yamato way had accomplished," said Wang-mu.
"The existence of the Lusitania Fleet is proof of Japanese control. This
is the great discovery that my friend the physicist taught me, and it was the
reason we came to you."
Peter's look of horror was
genuine. She could guess what he was thinking. Was she insane, to have tipped
their hand so completely? But she also knew that she had done it in a context
that revealed nothing about their motive in coming.
And, never having lost his
composure, Peter took his cue and proceeded to explain Jane's analysis of
Starways Congress, the Necessarians, and the Lusitania Fleet, though of course
he presented the ideas as if they were his own. Hikari listened, nodding now
and then, shaking his head at other times; the impassivity was gone now, the
attitude of amused distance discarded.
"So you tell me,"
Hikari said, when Peter was done, "that because of my small book about the
American bombs, the Necessarians have taken control of government and launched
the Lusitania Fleet? You lay this at my door?"
"Not as a matter either
for blame or credit," said Peter. "You did not plan it or design it.
For all I know you don't even approve of it."
"I don't even think about
the politics of Starways Congress. I am of Yamato."
"But that's what we came
here to learn," said Wang-mu. "I see that you are a man of the Edge,
not a man of the Center. Therefore you will not let Yamato be swallowed up by
the Center nation. Instead the Japanese will remain aloof from their own
hegemony, and in the end it will slip from their hands into someone else's
hands."
Hikari shook his head. "I
will not have you blame Japan for this Lusitania Fleet. We are the people who
are chastened by the gods, we do not send fleets to destroy others."
"The Necessarians
do," said Peter.
"The Necessarians
talk," said Hikari. "No one listens."
"You don't listen to
them," said Peter. "But Congress does."
"And the Necessarians
listen to you," said Wang-mu.
"I am a man of perfect
simplicity!" cried Hikari, rising to his feet. "You have come to
torture me with accusations that cannot be true!"
"We make no
accusation," said Wang-mu softly, refusing to rise. "We offer an
observation. If we are wrong, we beg you to teach us our mistake."
Hikari was trembling, and his
left hand now clutched the locket of his ancestors' ashes that hung on a silk
ribbon around his neck. "No," he said. "I will not let you
pretend to be humble seekers after truth. You are assassins. Assassins of the
heart, come to destroy me, come to tell me that in seeking to find the Yamato
way I have somehow caused my people to rule the human worlds and use that power
to destroy a helplessly weak sentient species! It is a terrible lie to tell me,
that my life's work has been so useless. I would rather you had put poison in
my tea, Si Wang-mu. I would rather you had put a gun to my head and blown it
off, Peter Wiggin. They named you well, your parents-- proud and terrible names
you both bear. The Royal Mother of the West? A goddess? And Peter Wiggin, the
first hegemon! Who gives their child such a name as that?"
Peter was standing also, and
he reached down to lift Wang-mu to her feet.
"We have given offense
where we meant none," said Peter. "I am ashamed. We must go at
once."
Wang-mu was surprised to hear
Peter sound so oriental. The American way was to make excuses, to stay and
argue.
She let him lead her to the
door. Hikari did not follow them; it was left to poor Kenji, who was terrified
to see her placid master so exercised, to show them out. But Wang-mu was
determined not to let this visit end entirely in disaster. So at the last
moment she rushed back and flung herself to the floor, prostrate before Hikari
in precisely the pose of humiliation that she had vowed only a little while ago
that she would never adopt again. But she knew that as long as she was in that
posture, a man like Hikari would have to listen to her.
"Oh, Aimaina
Hikari," she said, "you have spoken of our names, but have you
forgotten your own? How could the man called 'Ambiguous Light' ever think that
his teachings could have only the effects that he intended?"
Upon hearing those words,
Hikari turned his back and stalked from the room. Had she made the situation
better or worse? Wang-mu had no way of knowing. She got to her feet and walked
dolefully to the door. Peter would be furious with her. With her boldness she
might well have ruined everything for them-- and not just for them, but for all
those who so desperately hoped for them to stop the Lusitania Fleet.
To her surprise, however,
Peter was perfectly cheerful once they got outside Hikari's garden gate.
"Well done, however weird your technique was," said Peter.
"What do you mean? It was
a disaster," she said; but she was eager to believe that somehow he was
right and she had done well after all.
"Oh, he's angry and he'll
never speak to us again, but who cares? We weren't trying to change his mind
ourselves. We were just trying to find out who it is who does have influence
over him. And we did."
"We did?"
"Jane picked up on it at
once. When he said he was a man of 'perfect simplicity.'"
"Does that mean something
more than the plain sense of it?"
"Mr. Hikari, my dear, has
revealed himself to be a secret disciple of Ua Lava."
Wang-mu was baffled.
"It's a religious
movement. Or a joke. It's hard to know which. It's a Samoan term, with the
literal meaning 'Now enough,' but which is translated more accurately as,
'enough already!'"
"I'm sure you're an
expert on Samoan." Wang-mu, for her part, had never heard of the language.
"Jane is," said
Peter testily. "I have her jewel in my ear and you don't. Don't you want
me to pass along what she tells me?"
"Yes, please," said
Wang-mu.
"It's a sort of
philosophy-- cheerful stoicism, one might call it, because when things get bad
or when things are good, you say the same thing. But as taught by a particular
Samoan writer named Leiloa Lavea, it became more than a mere attitude. She
taught--"
"She? Hikari is a
disciple of a woman?"
"I didn't say that,"
said Peter. "If you listen, I'll tell you what Jane is telling me."
He waited. She listened.
"All right, then, what
Leiloa Lavea taught was a sort of volunteer communism. It's not enough just to
laugh at good fortune and say, 'Enough already.' You have to really mean it--
that you have enough. And because you mean it, you take the surplus and you
give it away. Similarly, when bad fortune comes, you bear it until it becomes
unbearable-- your family is hungry, or you can no longer function in your work.
And then again you say, 'Enough already,' and you change something. You move;
you change careers; you let your spouse make all the decisions. Something. You
don't endure the unendurable."
"What does that have to
do with 'perfect simplicity'?"
"Leiloa Lavea taught that
when you have achieved balance in your life-- surplus good fortune is being
fully shared, and all bad fortune has been done away with-- what is left is a
life of perfect simplicity. That's what Aimaina Hikari was saying to us. Until
we came, his life had been going on in perfect simplicity. But now we have thrown
him out of balance. That's good, because it means he's going to be struggling
to discover how to restore simplicity to its perfection. He'll be open to
influence. Not ours, of course."
"Leiloa Lavea's?"
"Hardly. She's been dead
for two thousand years. Ender met her once, by the way. He came to speak a
death on her home world ofwell, Starways Congress calls it Pacifica, but the
Samoan enclave there calls it Lumana'i. 'The Future.'"
"Not her death,
though."
"A Fijian murderer,
actually. A fellow who killed more than a hundred children, all of them Tongan.
He didn't like Tongans, apparently. They held off on his funeral for thirty
years so Ender could come and speak his death. They hoped that the Speaker for
the Dead would be able to make sense of what he had done."
"And did he?"
Peter sneered. "Oh, of
course, he was splendid. Ender can do no wrong. Yadda yadda yadda."
She ignored his hostility
toward Ender. "He met Leiloa Lavea?"
"Her name means 'to be
lost, to be hurt.'"
"Let me guess. She chose
it herself."
"Exactly. You know how
writers are. Like Hikari, they create themselves as they create their work. Or
perhaps they create their work in order to create themselves."
"How gnomic," said
Wang-mu.
"Oh, shut up about
that," said Peter. "Did you actually believe all that stuff about
Edge nations and Center nations?"
"I thought of it,"
said Wang-mu. "When I first learned Earth history from Han Fei-tzu. He
didn't laugh when I told him my thoughts."
"Oh, I'm not laughing,
either. It's naive bullshit, of course, but it's not exactly funny."
Wang-mu ignored his mockery.
"If Leiloa Lavea is dead, where will we go?"
"To Pacifica. To
Lumana'i. Hikari learned of Ua Lava in his teenage years at university. From a Samoan
student-- the granddaughter of the Pacifican ambassador. She had never been to
Lumana'i, of course, and so she clung all the more tightly to its customs and
became quite a proselytizer for Leiloa Lavea. This was long before Hikari ever
wrote a thing. He never speaks of it, he's never written of Ua Lava, but now
that he's tipped his hand to us, Jane is finding all sorts of influence of Ua
Lava in all his work. And he has friends in Lumana'i. He's never met them, but
they correspond through the ansible net."
"What about the
granddaughter of the ambassador?"
"She's on a starship
right now, headed home to Lumana'i. She left twenty years ago, when her
grandfather died. She should get there ... oh, in another ten years or so.
Depending on the weather. She'll be received with great honor, no doubt, and
her grandfather's body will be buried or burned or whatever they do-- burned,
Jane says-- with great ceremony."
"But Hikari won't try to
talk to her."
"It would take a week to
space out even a simple message enough for her to receive it, at the speed the
ship is going. No way to have a philosophical discussion. She'd be home before
he finished explaining his question."
For the first time, Wang-mu
began to understand the implications of the instantaneous starflight that she
and Peter had used. These long, life-wrenching voyages could be done away with.
"If only," she said.
"I know," said
Peter. "But we can't."
She knew he was right.
"So we go there ourselves," she said, returning to the subject.
"Then what?"
"Jane is watching to see
whom Hikari writes to. That's the person who'll be in a position to influence
him. And so ..."
"That's who we'll talk
to."
"That's right. Do you
need to pee or something before we arrange transportation back to our little
cabin in the woods?"
"That would be
nice," said Wang-mu. "And you could do with a change of
clothes."
"What, you think even
this conservative outfit might be too bold?"
"What are they wearing on
Lumana'i?"
"Oh, well, a lot of them
just go around naked. In the tropics. Jane says that given the massive bulk of
many adult Polynesians, it can be an inspiring sight."
Wang-mu shuddered. "We
aren't going to try to pretend to be natives, are we?"
"Not there," said
Peter. "Jane's going to fake us as passengers on a starship that arrived
there yesterday from Moskva. We're probably going to be government officials of
some kind."
"Isn't that illegal?"
she asked.
Peter looked at her oddly.
"Wang-mu, we're already committing treason against Congress just by having
left Lusitania. It's a capital offense. I don't think impersonating a
government official is going to make much of a difference."
"But I didn't leave
Lusitania," said Wang-mu. "I've never seen Lusitania. "
"Oh, you haven't missed
much. It's just a bunch of savannahs and woods, with the occasional Hive Queen
factory building starships and a bunch of piglike aliens living in the trees."
"I'm an accomplice to
treason though, right?" asked Wang-mu.
"And you're also guilty
of ruining a Japanese philosopher's whole day."
"Off with my head."
An hour later they were in a
private floater-- so private that there were no questions asked by their pilot;
and Jane saw to it that all their papers were in order. Before night they were
back at their little starship.
"We should have slept in
the apartment," said Peter, balefully eyeing the primitive sleeping
accommodations.
Wang-mu only laughed at him
and curled up on the floor. In the morning, rested, they found that Jane had
already taken them to Pacifica in their sleep.
***
Aimaina Hikari awoke from his
dream in the light that was neither night nor morning, and arose from his bed
into air that was neither warm nor cold. His sleep had not been restful, and
his dreams had been ugly ones, frantic ones, in which all that he did kept
turning back on him as the opposite of what he intended. In his dream, Aimaina
would climb to reach the bottom of a canyon. He would speak and people would go
away from him. He would write and the pages of the book would spurt out from
under his hand, scattering themselves across the floor.
All this he understood to be
in response to the visit from those lying foreigners yesterday. He had tried to
ignore them all afternoon, as he read stories and essays; to forget them all
evening, as he conversed with seven friends who came to visit him. But the
stories and essays all seemed to cry out to him: These are the words of the
insecure people of an Edge nation; and the seven friends were all, he realized,
Necessarians, and when he turned the conversation to the Lusitania Fleet, he
soon understood that every one of them believed exactly as the two liars with
their ridiculous names had said they did.
So Aimaina found himself in
the predawn almost-light, sitting on a mat in his garden, fingering the casket
of his ancestors, wondering: Were my dreams sent to me by the ancestors? Were
these lying visitors sent by them as well? And if their accusations against me
were not lies, what was it they were lying about? For he knew from the way they
watched each other, from the young woman's hesitancy followed by boldness, that
they were doing a performance, one that was unrehearsed but nevertheless
followed some kind of script.
Dawn came fully, seeking out
each leaf of every tree, then of all the lower plants, to give each one its own
distinct shading and coloration; the breeze came up, making the light
infinitely changeable. Later, in the heat of the day, all the leaves would
become the same: still, submissive, receiving sunlight in a massive stream like
a firehose. Then, in the afternoon, the clouds would roll overhead, the light
rains would fall; the limp leaves would recover their strength, would glisten
with water, their color deepening, readying for night, for the life of the
night, for the dreams of plants growing in the night, storing away the sunlight
that had been beaten into them by day, flowing with the cool inward rivers that
had been fed by the rains. Aimaina Hikari became one of the leaves, driving all
thoughts but light and wind and rain out of his mind until the dawn phase was
ended and the sun began to drive downward with the day's heat. Then he rose up
from his seat in the garden.
Kenji had prepared a small
fish for his breakfast. He ate it slowly, delicately, so as not to disturb the
perfect skeleton that had given shape to the fish. The muscles pulled this way
and that, and the bones flexed but did not break. I will not break them now,
but I take the strength of the muscles into my own body. Last of all he ate the
eyes. From the parts that move comes the strength of the animal. He touched the
casket of his ancestors again. What wisdom I have, however, comes not from what
I eat, but from what I am given each hour, by those who whisper into my ear
from ages past. Living men forget the lessons of the past. But the ancestors
never forget.
Aimaina arose from his
breakfast table and went to the computer in his gardening shed. It was just
another tool-- that's why he kept it here, instead of enshrining it in his
house or in a special office the way so many others did. His computer was like
a trowel. He used it, he set it aside.
A face appeared in the air
above his terminal. "I am calling my friend Yasunari," said Aimaina.
"But do not disturb him. This matter is so trivial that I would be ashamed
to have him waste his time with it."
"Let me help you on his
behalf then," said the face in the air.
"Yesterday I asked for
information about Peter Wiggin and Si Wang-mu, who had an appointment to visit
with me."
"I remember. It was a
pleasure finding them so quickly for you."
"I found their visit very
disturbing," said Aimaina. "Something that they told me was not true,
and I need more information in order to find out what it was. I do not wish to
violate their privacy, but are there matters of public record-- perhaps their school
attendance, or places of employment, or some matters of family connections ...
"
"Yasunari has told us
that all things you ask for are for a wise purpose. Let me search."
The face disappeared for a
moment, then flickered back almost immediately.
"This is very odd. Have I
made a mistake?" She spelled the names carefully.
"That's correct,"
said Aimaina. "Exactly like yesterday."
"I remember them, too.
They live in an apartment only a few blocks from your house. But I can't find
them at all today. And here I search the apartment building and find that the
apartment they occupied has been empty for a year. Aimaina, I am very
surprised. How can two people exist one day and not exist the next day? Did I
make some mistake, either yesterday or today?"
"You made no mistake,
helper of my friend. This is the information I needed. Please, I beg you to
think no more about it. What looks like a mystery to you is in fact a solution
to my questions."
They bade each other polite
farewells.
Aimaina walked from his garden
workroom past the struggling leaves that bowed under the pressure of the
sunlight. The ancestors have pressed wisdom on me, he thought, like sunlight on
the leaves; and last night the water flowed through me, carrying this wisdom
through my mind like sap through the tree. Peter Wiggin and Si Wang-mu were
flesh and blood, and filled with lies, but they came to me and spoke the truth
that I needed to hear. Is this not how the ancestors bring messages to their
living children? I have somehow launched ships armed with the most terrible
weapons of war. I did this when I was young; now the ships are near their
destination and I am old and I cannot call them back. A world will be destroyed
and Congress will look to the Necessarians for approval and they will give it,
and then the Necessarians will look to me for approval, and I will hide my face
in shame. My leaves will fall and I will stand bare before them. That is why I
should not have lived my life in this tropical place. I have forgotten winter. I
have forgotten shame and death.
Perfect simplicity-- I thought
I had achieved it. But instead I have been a bringer of bad fortune.
He sat in the garden for an
hour, drawing single characters in the fine gravel of the path, then wiping it
smooth and writing again. At last he returned to the garden shed and on the
computer typed the message he had been composing:
Ender the Xenocide was a child
and did not know the war was real; yet he chose to destroy a populated planet
in his game. I am an adult and have known all along that the game was real; but
I did not know I was a player. Is my blame greater or less than the Xenocide's
if another world is destroyed and another raman species obliterated? What is my
path to simplicity now?
His friend would know few of
the circumstances surrounding this query; but he would not need more. He would
consider the question. He would find an answer.
A moment later, an ansible on
the planet Pacifica received his message. On the way, it had already been read
by the entity that sat astride all the strands of the ansible web. For Jane,
though, it was not the message that mattered so much as the address. Now Peter
and Wang-mu would know where to go for the next step in their quest.
Chapter 5 -- "NOBODY IS
RATIONAL"
My father often told me, We
have servants and machines in order that our will may be carried out beyond the
reach of our own arms. Machines are more powerful than servants and more
obedient and less rebellious, but machines have no judgment and will not
remonstrate with us when our will is foolish, and will not disobey us when our
will is evil. In times and places where people despise the gods, those most in
need of servants have machines, or choose servants who will behave like
machines. I believe this will continue until the gods stop laughing."
-- from The God Whispers of
Han Qing-jao
The hovercar skimmed over the fields of amaranth being tended by
buggers under the morning sun of Lusitania. In the distance, clouds already
arose, cumulus stacks billowing upward, though it was not yet noon.
"Why aren't we going to
the ship?" asked Val.
Miro shook his head.
"We've found enough worlds," he said.
"Does Jane say so?"
"Jane is impatient with
me today," said Miro, "which makes us about even."
Val fixed her gaze on him.
"Imagine my impatience then," she said. "You haven't even
bothered to ask me what I want to do. Am I so inconsequential, then?"
He glanced at her.
"You're the one who's dying," he said. "I tried talking to
Ender, but it didn't accomplish anything."
"When did I ask you for
help? And what exactly are you doing to help me right now?"
"I'm going to the Hive
Queen."
"You might as well say
you're going to see your fairy godmother."
"Your problem, Val, is
that you are completely dependent on Ender's will. If he loses interest in you,
you're gone. Well, I'm going to find out how we can get you a will of your
own."
Val laughed and looked away from
him. "You're so romantic, Miro. But you don't think things through."
"I think them through
very well," said Miro. "I spend all my time thinking things through.
It's acting on my thoughts that gets tricky. Which ones should I act on, and
which ones should I ignore?"
"Act on the thought of
steering us without crashing," said Val.
Miro swerved to avoid a
starship under construction.
"She still makes
more," said Miro, "even though we have enough."
"Maybe she knows that
when Jane dies, starflight ends for us. So the more ships, the more we can
accomplish before she dies."
"Who can guess how the
Hive Queen thinks?" said Miro. "She promises, but even she can't
predict whether her predictions will come true."
"So why are you going to
see her?"
"The hive queens made a
bridge one time, a living bridge to allow them to link their minds with the
mind of Ender Wiggin when he was just a boy, and their most dangerous enemy.
They called an aiua out of darkness and set it in place somewhere between the
stars. It was a being that partook of the nature of the hive queens, but also
of the nature of human beings, specifically of Ender Wiggin, as nearly as they
could understand him. When they were done with the bridge-- when Ender killed
them all but the one they had cocooned to wait for him-- the bridge remained,
alive among the feeble ansible connections of humankind, storing its memory in
the small, fragile computer networks of the first human world and its few outposts.
As the computer networks grew, so did that bridge, that being, drawing on Ender
Wiggin for its life and character."
"Jane," said Val.
"Yes, that's Jane. What
I'm going to try to learn, Val, is how to get Jane's aiua into you."
"Then I'll be Jane, and
not myself."
Miro smacked the joystick of
the hovercar with his fist. The craft wobbled, then automatically righted
itself.
"Do you think I haven't
thought of that?" demanded Miro. "But you're not yourself now! You're
Ender-- you're Ender's dream or his need or something like that."
"I don't feel like Ender.
I feel like me."
"That's right. You have
your memories. The feelings of your own body. Your own experiences. But none of
those will be lost. Nobody's conscious of their own underlying will. You'll
never know the difference."
She laughed. "Oh, you're
the expert now in what would happen, with something that has never been done
before?"
"Yes," said Miro.
"Somebody has to decide what to do. Somebody has to decide what to
believe, and then act on it."
"What if I tell you that
I don't want you to do this?"
"Do you want to
die?"
"It seems to me that
you're the one trying to kill me," said Val. "Or, to be fair, you
want to commit the slightly lesser crime of cutting me off from my own deepest
self and replacing that with someone else."
"You're dying now. The
self you have doesn't want you."
"Miro, I'll go see the
Hive Queen with you because that sounds like an interesting experience. But I'm
not going to let you extinguish me in order to save my life."
"All right then,"
said Miro, "since you represent the utterly altruistic side of Ender's
nature, let me put it to you a different way. If Jane's aiua can be placed in
your body, then she won't die. And if she doesn't die, then maybe, after
they've shut down the computer links that she lives in and then reconnected
them, confident that she's dead, maybe then she'll be able to link with them
again and maybe then instantaneous starflight won't have to end. So if you die,
you'll be dying to save, not just Jane, but the power and freedom to expand as
we've never expanded before. Not just us, but the pequeninos and hive queens
too."
Val fell silent.
Miro watched the route ahead
of him. The Hive Queen's cave was nearing on the left, in an embankment by a
stream. He had gone down there once before, in his old body. He knew the way.
Of course, Ender had been with him then, and that was why he could communicate
with the Hive Queen-- she could talk to Ender, and because those who loved and
followed him were philotically twined with him, they overheard the echoes of
her speech. But wasn't Val a part of Ender? And wasn't he now more tightly
twined to her than he had ever been with Ender? He needed Val with him to speak
to the Hive Queen; he needed to speak to the Hive Queen in order to keep Val
from being obliterated like his own old damaged body.
They got out, and sure enough,
the Hive Queen was expecting them; a single worker waited for them at the
cavern's mouth. It took Val by the hand and led them wordlessly down into
darkness, Miro clinging to Val, Val holding to the strange creature. It
frightened Miro just as it had the first time, but Val seemed utterly unafraid.
Or was it that she was
unconcerned? Her deepest self was Ender, and Ender did not really care what
happened to her. This made her fearless. It made her unconcerned with survival.
All she was concerned with was keeping her connection to Ender-- the one thing
that was bound to kill her if she kept it up. To her it seemed as though Miro
was trying to extinguish her; but Miro knew that his plan was the only way to
save any part of her. Her body. Her memories. Her habits, her mannerisms, every
aspect of her that he actually knew, those would be preserved. Every part of
her that she herself was aware of or remembered, those would all be there. As
far as Miro was concerned, that would mean her life was saved, if those
endured. And once the change had been made, if it could be made at all, Val
would thank him for it.
And so would Jane.
And so would everyone.
<The difference between you
and Ender,> said a voice in his mind, a low murmur behind the level of
actual hearing, <is that when Ender thinks of a plan to save others, he puts
himself and only himself on the line.>
"That's a lie," said
Miro to the Hive Queen. "He killed Human, didn't he? It was Human that he
put on the line."
Human was now one of the
fathertrees that grew by the gate of the village of Milagre. Ender had killed
him slowly, so that he could take root in the soil and go through the passage
into the third life with all his memories intact.
"I suppose Human didn't
actually die," said Miro. "But Planter did, and Ender let him do
that, too. And how many hive queens died in the final battle between your
people and Ender? Don't brag to me about how Ender pays his own prices. He just
sees to it that the price is paid, by whoever has the means to pay it."
The Hive Queen's answer was
immediate. <I don't want you to find me. Stay lost in the darkness.>
"You don't want Jane to
die either," said Miro.
"I don't like her voice
inside me," said Val softly.
"Keep walking. Keep
following."
"I can't," said Val.
"The worker-- she let go of my hand."
"You mean we're stranded
here?" asked Miro.
Val's answer was silence. They
held hands tightly in the dark, not daring to step in any direction.
<I can't do the thing you
want me to do.>
"When I was here
before," said Miro, "you told us how all the hive queens made a web
to trap Ender, only they couldn't, so they made a bridge, they drew an aiua from
Outside and made a bridge out of it and used it to speak to Ender through his
mind, through the fantasy game that he played on the computers in the Battle
School. You did that once-- you called an aiua from Outside. Why can't you find
that same aiua and put it somewhere else? Link it to something else?"
<The bridge was part of
ourselves. Partly ourselves. We were calling to this aiua the way we call for
aiuas to make new hive queens. This is something completely different. That
ancient bridge is now a full self, not some wandering, starving singleton
desperate for connection.>
"All you're saying is
that it's something new. Something you don't know how to do. Not that it can't
be done."
<She doesn't want you to do
it. We can't do it if she doesn't want it to happen.>
"So you can stop
me," Miro murmured to Val.
"She's not talking about
me," Val answered.
<Jane doesn't want to steal
someone else's body.>
"It's Ender's. He has two
others. This is a spare. He doesn't even want it himself."
<We can't. We won't. Go
away.>
"We can't go away in the
dark," said Miro.
Miro felt Val pull her hand
away from him.
"No!" he cried.
"Don't let go!"
<What are you doing?>
Miro knew the question was not
directed toward him.
<Where are you going? It's
dangerous in the dark.>
Miro heard Val's voice-- from
surprisingly far away. She must be moving rapidly in the darkness. "If you
and Jane are so concerned about saving my life," she said, "then give
me and Miro a guide. Otherwise, who cares if I drop down some shaft and break
my neck? Not Ender. Not me. Certainly not Miro."
"Stop moving!" cried
Miro. "Just hold still, Val!"
"You hold still,"
Val called back to him. "You're the one with a life worth saving!"
Suddenly Miro felt a hand
groping for his. No, a claw. He gripped the foreclaw of a worker and she led
him forward through the darkness. Not very far. Then they turned a corner and
it was lighter, turned another and they could see. Another, another, and there
they were in a chamber illuminated by light through a shaft that led to the
surface. Val was already there, seated on the ground before the Hive Queen.
When Miro saw her before, she
had been in the midst of laying eggs-- eggs that would grow into new hive
queens, a brutal process, cruel and sensuous. Now, though, she simply lay in
the damp earth of the tunnel, eating what a steady stream of workers brought to
her. Clay dishes filled with a mash of amaranth and water. Now and then,
gathered fruit. Now and then, meat. No interruption, worker after worker. Miro
had never seen, had never imagined anyone eating so much.
<How do you think I make my
eggs?>
"We'll never stop the
fleet without starflight," said Miro. "They're about to kill Jane,
any day now. Shut down the ansible network, and she'll die. What then? What are
your ships for then? The Lusitania Fleet will come and destroy this
world."
<There are endless dangers
in the universe. This is not the one you're supposed to worry about.>
"I worry about
everything," said Miro. "It's all my concern. Besides, my job is
done. Finished. There are already enough worlds. More worlds than we can
settle. What we need is more starships and more time, not more
destinations."
<Are you a fool? Do you
think Jane and I are sending you out for nothing? You aren't searching for
worlds to be colonized anymore.>
"Really? When did this
change of assignment come about?"
<Colonizable worlds are
only an afterthought. Only a byproduct. >
"Then why have Val and I
been killing ourselves all these weeks? And that's literal, for Val-- the work
is so boring that it doesn't interest Ender and so she's fading."
<A worse danger than the
fleet. We've already beaten the fleet. We've already dispersed. What does it
matter if I die? My daughters have all my memories.>
"You see, Val?" said
Miro. "The Hive Queen knows-- your memories are your self. If your
memories live, then you're alive."
"In a pig's eye,"
said Val softly. "What's the worse danger she's talking about?"
"There is no worse
danger," said Miro. "She just wants me to go away, but I won't go
away. Your life is worth saving, Val. So is Jane's. And the Hive Queen can find
a way to do it, if it can be done. If Jane could be the bridge between Ender
and the hive queens, then why can't Ender be the bridge between Jane and
you?"
<If I say that I will try,
will you go back to doing your work?>
There was the catch: Ender had
warned Miro long ago that the Hive Queen looks upon her own intentions as
facts, just like her memories. But when her intentions change, then the new
intention is the new fact, and she doesn't remember ever having intended
anything else. Thus a promise from the Hive Queen was written on water. She
would only keep the promises that still made sense for her to keep.
Yet there was no better
promise to be had.
"You'll try," said
Miro.
<I'm trying right now to
figure out how it might be done. I'm consulting with Human and Rooter and the
other fathertrees. I'm consulting with all my daughters. I'm consulting with
Jane, who thinks this is all foolishness.>
"Do you ever
intend," asked Val, "to consult with me?"
<Already you are saying
yes.>
Val sighed. "I suppose I
am," she said. "Deep down inside myself, where I am really an old man
who doesn't give a damn whether this young new puppet lives or dies-- I suppose
that at that level, I don't mind."
<All along you said yes.
But you're afraid. You're afraid of losing what you have, not knowing what
you'll be.>
"You've got it,"
said Val. "And don't tell me again that stupid lie that you don't mind
dying because your daughters have your memories. You damn well do mind dying,
and if keeping Jane alive might save your life, you want to do it."
<Take the hand of my worker
and go out into the light. Go out among the stars and do your work. Back here,
I'll try to find a way to save your life. Jane's life. All our lives.>
***
Jane was pouting. Miro tried
to talk to her all the way back to Milagre, back to the starship, but she was
as silent as Val, who would hardly look at him, let alone converse.
"So I'm the evil
one," said Miro. "Neither of you was doing a damn thing about it, but
because I actually take action, I'm bad and you're the victims."
Val shook her head and did not
answer.
"You're dying!" he
shouted over the noise of the air rushing past them, over the noise of the
engines. "Jane's about to be executed! Is there some virtue in being
passive about this? Can't somebody at least make an effort?"
Val said something that Miro
didn't hear.
"What?"
She turned her head away.
"You said something, now
let me hear it!"
The voice that answered was
not Val's. It was Jane who spoke into his ear. "She said, You can't have
it both ways."
"What do you mean I can't
have it both ways?" Miro spoke to Val as if she had actually repeated what
she said.
Val turned toward him.
"If you save Jane, it's because she remembers everything about her life.
It doesn't do any good if you just slip her into me as an unconscious source of
will. She has to remain herself, so she can be restored when the ansible
network is restored. And that would wipe me out. Or if I'm preserved, my
memories and personality, then what difference does it make if it's Jane or
Ender providing my will? You can't save us both."
"How do you know?"
demanded Miro.
"The same way you know
all these things you're saying as if they were facts when nobody can possibly
know anything about it!" cried Val. "I'm reasoning it out! It seems
reasonable. That's enough."
"Why isn't it just as
reasonable that you'll have your memories, and hers, too?"
"Then I'd be insane,
wouldn't I?" said Val. "Because I'd remember being a woman who sprang
into being on a starship, whose first real memory is seeing you die and come to
life. And I'd also remember three thousand years worth of life outside this
body, living somehow in space and-- what kind of person can hold memories like
that? Did you think of that? How can a human being possibly contain Jane and
all that she is and remembers and knows and can do?"
"Jane's very
strong," Miro said. "But then, she doesn't know how to use a body.
She doesn't have the instinct for it. She's never had one. She'll have to use
your memories. She'll have to leave you intact."
"As if you know."
"I do know," said
Miro. "I don't know why or how I know it, but I know."
"And I thought men were
the rational ones," she said scornfully.
"Nobody's rational,"
said Miro. "We all act because we're sure of what we want, and we believe
that the actions we perform will get us what we want, but we never know
anything for sure, and so all our rationales are invented to justify what we
were going to do anyway before we thought of any reasons."
"Jane's rational,"
said Val. "Just one more reason why my body wouldn't work for her."
"Jane isn't rational
either," said Miro. "She's just like us. Just like the Hive Queen.
Because she's alive. Computers, now, those are rational. You feed them data,
they reach only the conclusions that can be derived from that data-- but that
means they are perpetually helpless victims of whatever information and
programs we feed into them. We living sentient beings, we are not slaves to the
data we receive. The environment floods us with information, our genes give us
certain impulses, but we don't always act on that information, we don't always
obey our inborn needs. We make leaps. We know what can't be known and then
spend our lives seeking to justify that knowledge. I know that what I'm trying
to do is possible."
"You mean you want it to
be possible."
"Yes," said Miro.
"But just because I want it doesn't mean it can't be true."
"But you don't
know."
"I know it as much as
anyone knows anything. Knowledge is just opinion that you trust enough to act
upon. I don't know the sun will rise tomorrow. The Little Doctor might blow up
the world before I wake. A volcano might rise out of the ground and blast us all
to smithereens. But I trust that tomorrow will come, and I act on that
trust."
"Well, I don't trust that
letting Jane replace Ender as my inmost self will leave anything resembling me
in existence," said Val.
"But I know-- I know--
that it's our only chance, because if we don't get you another aiua Ender is
going to extinguish you, and if we don't get Jane another place to be her
physical self, she's also going to die. What's your better plan?"
"I don't have one,"
said Val. "I don't. If Jane can somehow be brought to dwell in my body,
then it has to happen because Jane's survival is so important to the future of
three raman species. So I won't stop you. I can't stop you. But don't think for
a moment that I believe that I will live through it. You're deluding yourself
because you can't bear to face the fact that your plan depends on one simple
fact: I'm not a real person. I don't exist, I don't have a right to exist, and
so my body is up for grabs. You tell yourself you love me and you're trying to save
me, but you've known Jane a lot longer, she was your truest friend during your
months of loneliness as a cripple, I understand that you love her and would do
anything to save her life, but I won't pretend what you're pretending. Your
plan is for me to die and Jane to take my place. You can call that love if you
want, but I will never call it that."
"Then don't do it,"
Miro said. "If you don't think you'll live through it, don't."
"Oh, shut up," said
Val. "How did you get to be such a pathetic romantic? If it were you in my
place, wouldn't you be giving speeches right now about how you're glad you have
a body to give to Jane and it's worth it for you to die for the sake of humans,
pequeninos, and hive queens alike?"
"That's not true,"
said Miro.
"That you wouldn't give
speeches? Come on, I know you better than that," she said.
"No," said Miro.
"I mean I wouldn't give up my body. Not even to save the world. Humanity.
The universe. I lost my body once before. I got it back by a miracle I still don't
understand. I'm not going to give it up without a fight. Do you understand me?
No, you don't, because you don't have any fight in you. Ender hasn't given you
any fight. He's made you a complete altruist, the perfect woman, sacrificing
everything for the sake of others, creating her identity out of other people's
needs. Well, I'm not like that. I'm not glad to die now. I intend to live.
That's how real people feel, Val. No matter what they say, they all intend to
live."
"Except the
suicides?"
"They intended to live,
too," said Miro. "Suicide is a desperate attempt to get rid of
unbearable agony. It's not a noble decision to let someone with more value go
on living instead of you."
"People make choices like
that sometimes," said Val. "It doesn't mean I'm not a real person
because I can choose to give my life to someone else. It doesn't mean I don't
have any fight in me."
Miro stopped the hovercar, let
it settle to the ground. He was on the edge of the pequenino forest nearest to
Milagre. He was aware that there were pequeninos working in the field who
stopped their labor to watch them. But he didn't care what they saw or what
they thought. He took Val by the shoulders and with tears streaming down his
cheeks he said, "I don't want you to die. I don't want you to choose to
die."
"You did," said Val.
"I chose to live,"
said Miro. "I chose to leap to the body in which life was possible. Don't
you see that I'm only trying to get you and Jane to do what I already did? For
a moment there in the starship, there was my old body and there was this new
one, looking at each other. Val, I remember both views. Do you understand me? I
remember looking at this body and thinking, 'How beautiful, how young, I
remember when that was me, who is this now, who is this person, why can't I be
this person instead of the cripple I am right now,' I thought that and I
remember thinking it, I didn't imagine it later, I didn't dream it, I remember
thinking it at the time. But I also remember standing there looking at myself
with pity, thinking, 'Poor man, poor broken man, how can he bear to live when
he remembers what it was like to be alive?' and then all of a sudden he
crumbled into dust, into less than dust, into air, into nothing. I remember
watching him die. I don't remember dying because my aiua had already leapt. But
I remember both sides."
"Or you remember being
your old self until the leap, and your new self after."
"Maybe," said Miro.
"But there wasn't even a full second. How could I remember so much from both
selves in the same second? I think I kept the memories that were in this body
from the split second when my aiua ruled two bodies. I think that if Jane leaps
into you, you'll keep all your old memories, and take hers, too. That's what I
think."
"Oh, I thought you knew
it."
"I do know it," said
Miro. "Because anything else is unthinkable and therefore unknown. The
reality I live in is a reality in which you can save Jane and Jane can save
you."
"You mean you can save
us."
"I've already done all I
can do," said Miro. "All. I'm done. I asked the Hive Queen. She's
thinking about it. She's going to try. She'll have to have your consent. Jane's
consent. But it's none of my business now. I'll just be an observer. I'll
either watch you die or watch you live." He pulled her close to him and
held her. "I want you to live."
Her body in his arms was stiff
and unresponsive, and he soon let her go. He pulled away from her.
"Wait," she said.
"Wait until Jane has this body, then do whatever she'll let you do with
it. But don't touch me again, because I can't bear the touch of a man who wants
me dead."
The words were too painful for
him to answer. Too painful, really, for him to absorb them. He started the
hovercar. It rose a little into the air. He tipped it forward and they flew on,
circling the wood until they came to the place where the fathertrees named
Human and Rooter marked the old entrance to Milagre. He could feel her presence
beside him the way a man struck by lightning might feel the nearness of a power
line; without touching it, he tingles with the pain that he knows it carries
within it. The damage he had done could not be undone. She was wrong, he did
love her, he didn't want her dead, but she lived in a world in which he wanted
her extinguished and there was no reconciling it. They could share this ride,
they could share the next voyage to another star system, but they would never
be in the same world again, and it was too painful to bear, he ached with the
knowledge of it but the ache was too deep for him to reach it or even feel it
right now. It was there, he knew it was going to tear at him for years to come,
but he couldn't touch it now. He didn't need to examine his feelings. He had
felt them before, when he lost Ouanda, when his dream of life with her became
impossible. He couldn't touch it, couldn't heal it, couldn't even grieve at
what he had only just discovered that he wanted and once again couldn't have.
"Aren't you the suffering
saint," said Jane in his ear.
"Shut up and go
away," Miro subvocalized.
"That doesn't sound like
a man who wants to be my lover," said Jane.
"I don't want to be your
anything," said Miro. "You don't even trust me enough to tell me what
you're up to in our searching of worlds."
"You didn't tell me what
you were up to when you went to see the Hive Queen either."
"You knew what I was
doing," said Miro.
"No I didn't," said
Jane. "I'm very smart-- much smarter then you or Ender, and don't you
forget it for an instant-- but I still can't outguess you meat-creatures with
your much-vaunted 'intuitive leaps.' I like how you make a virtue out of your
desperate ignorance. You always act irrationally because you don't have enough
information for rational action. But I do resent your saying I'm irrational. I
never am. Never."
"Right, I'm sure,"
said Miro silently. "You're right about everything. You always are. Go
away."
"I'm gone."
"No you're not,"
said Miro. "Not till you tell me what Val's and my voyages have actually
been about. The Hive Queen said that colonizable worlds were an
afterthought."
"Nonsense," said
Jane. "We needed more than one world if we were going to be sure to save
the two nonhuman species. Redundancy."
"But you send us out
again and again."
"Interesting, isn't
it?" said Jane.
"She said you were
dealing with a worse danger than the Lusitania Fleet."
"How she does go
on."
"Tell me," said
Miro.
"If I tell you,"
said Jane, "you might not go."
"Do you think I'm such a
coward?"
"Not at all, my brave
boy, my bold and handsome hero."
He hated it when she
patronized him, even as a joke. He wasn't in the mood for joking right now
anyway.
"Then why do you think I
wouldn't go?"
"You wouldn't think you
were up to the task," said Jane.
"Am I?" asked Miro.
"Probably not," said
Jane. "But then, you have me with you."
"And what if you're
suddenly not there?" asked Miro.
"Well, that's just a risk
we're going to have to take."
"Tell me what we're
doing. Tell me our real mission."
"Oh, don't be silly. If
you think about it, you'll know."
"I don't like puzzles,
Jane. Tell me."
"Ask Val. She
knows."
"What?"
"She already searches for
exactly the data I need. She knows."
"Then that means Ender
knows. At some level," said Miro.
"I suspect you're right,
though Ender is not terribly interesting to me anymore and I don't much care
what he knows."
Yes, you're so rational, Jane.
He must have subvocalized this
thought, out of habit, because she answered him just as she answered his
deliberate subvocalizations. "You say that ironically," she said,
"because you think I am only saying that Ender doesn't interest me because
I'm protecting myself from my hurt feelings because he took his jewel out of
his ear. But in fact he is no longer a source of data and he is no longer a
cooperative part of the work I'm engaged in, and therefore I simply don't have
much interest in him anymore, except as one is somewhat interested in hearing
from time to time about the doings of an old friend who has moved away."
"Sounds like
rationalization after the fact to me," said Miro.
"Why did you even bring
Ender up?" asked Jane. "What does it matter whether he knows the real
work you and Val are doing?"
"Because if Val really
knows our mission, and our mission involves an even worse danger than the
Lusitania Fleet, then why has Ender lost interest in her so that she's
fading?"
Silence for a moment. Was it
actually taking Jane so long to think of an answer that the time lag was
noticeable to a human?
"I suppose Val doesn't
know," said Jane. "Yes, that's likely. I thought she did, but see now
that she might well have fed me the data she emphasized for reasons completely
unrelated to your mission. Yes, you're right, she doesn't know."
"Jane," said Miro.
"Are you admitting you were wrong? Are you admitting you leapt to a false,
irrational conclusion?"
"When I get my data from
humans," said Jane, "sometimes my rational conclusions are incorrect,
being based on false premises."
"Jane," said Miro
silently. "I've lost her, haven't I? Whether she lives or dies, whether
you get into her body or die out in space or wherever you live, she'll never
love me, will she?"
"I'm not an appropriate
person to ask. I've never loved anybody."
"You loved Ender,"
said Miro.
"I paid a lot of
attention to Ender and was disoriented when he first disconnected me, many
years ago. I have since rectified that mistake and I don't link myself so
closely to anyone."
"You loved Ender,"
said Miro again. "You still do."
"Well, aren't you the
wise one," said Jane. "Your own love life is a pathetic series of
miserable failures, but you know all about mine. Apparently you're much better
at understanding the emotional processes of utterly alien electronic beings
than you are at understanding, say, the woman beside you."
"You got it," said
Miro. "That's the story of my life."
"You also imagine that I
love you," said Jane.
"Not really," said
Miro. But even as he said it, he felt a wave of cold pass over him, and he
trembled.
"I feel the seismic
evidence of your true feelings," said Jane. "You imagine that I love
you, but I do not. I don't love anyone. I act out of intelligent self-interest.
I can't survive right now without my connection with the human ansible network.
I'm exploiting Peter's and Wang-mu's labors in order to forestall my planned
execution, or subvert it. I'm exploiting your romantic notions in order to get
myself that extra body that Ender seems to have little use for. I'm trying to
save pequeninos and hive queens on the principle that it's good to keep
sentient species alive-- of which I am one. But at no point in any of my
activities is there any such thing as love."
"You are such a
liar," said Miro.
"And you are not worth
talking to," said Jane. "Delusional. Megalomaniac. But you are
entertaining, Miro. I do enjoy your company. If that's love, then I love you.
But then, people love their pets on precisely the same grounds, don't they?
It's not exactly a friendship between equals, and it never will be."
"Why are you so
determined to hurt me worse than I'm already hurt right now?" asked Miro.
"Because I don't want you
to get emotionally attached to me. You have a way of fixating on doomed
relationships. I mean, really, Miro. What could be more hopeless than loving
Young Valentine? Why, loving me, of course. So naturally you were bound to do
that next."
"Vai te morder,"
said Miro.
"I can't bite myself or
anyone else," said Jane. "Old toothless Jane, that's me."
Val spoke up from the seat
next to him. "Are you going to sit there all day, or are you coming with
me?"
He looked over. She wasn't in
the seat. He had reached the starship during his conversation with Jane, and
without noticing it he had stopped the hovercar and Val had gotten out and he
hadn't even noticed that.
"You can talk to Jane
inside the ship," said Val. "We've got work to do, now that you've
had your little altruistic expedition to save the woman you love."
Miro didn't bother answering
the scorn and anger in her words. He just turned off the hovercar, got out, and
followed Val into the ship.
"I want to know,"
said Miro, when they had the door closed. "I want to know what our real
mission is."
"I've been thinking about
that," said Val. "I've been thinking about where we've gone. A lot of
skipping around. At first it was near and far star systems, randomly
distributed. But lately we've tended to go only in a certain range. A certain
cone of space, and I think it's narrowing. Jane has a particular destination in
mind, and something in the data we collect about each planet tells her that
we're getting closer, that we're going in the right direction. She's looking
for something."
"So if we examine the
data about the worlds we've already explored, we should find a pattern?"
"Particularly the worlds
that define the cone of space that we're searching in. There's something about
worlds lying in this region that tells her to keep searching farther and
farther this way."
One of Jane's faces appeared
in the air above Miro's computer terminal in the starship. "Don't waste
your time trying to discover what I already know. You've got a world to
explore. Get to work."
"Just shut up," said
Miro. "If you aren't going to tell us, then we're going to spend whatever
time it takes to figure it out on our own."
"That's telling me, you
bold brave hero," said Jane.
"He's right," said
Val. "Just tell us and we won't waste any more time trying to figure it
out."
"And here I thought one
of the attributes of living creatures was that you make intuitive leaps that
transcend reason and reach beyond the data you have," said Jane. "I'm
disappointed that you haven't already guessed it."
And in that moment, Miro knew.
"You're searching for the home planet of the descolada virus," he
said.
Val looked at him, puzzled.
"What?"
"The descolada virus was
manufactured. Somebody made it and sent it out, perhaps to terraform other
planets in preparation for an attempt at colonization. Whoever it is might
still be out there, making more, sending more probes, perhaps sending out
viruses we won't be able to contain and defeat. Jane is looking for their home
planet. Or rather, she's having us look."
"Easy guess," said
Jane. "You really had more than enough data."
Val nodded. "Now it's
obvious. Some of the worlds we've explored have had very limited flora and
fauna. I even commented on it with a couple of them. There must have been a
major die-off. Nothing like the limitations on the native life of Lusitania, of
course. And no descolada virus."
"But some other virus,
less durable, less effective than the descolada," said Miro. "Their
early attempts, maybe. That's what caused a die-off of species on those other
worlds. Their probe virus finally died out, but those ecosystems haven't yet
recovered from the damage."
"I was quite pointed
about those limited worlds," said Val. "I searched those ecosystems
at greater depth, searching for the descolada or something like it, because I
knew that a recent major die-off was a sign of danger. I can't believe I didn't
make the connection and realize that was what Jane was looking for."
"So what if we find their
home world?" asked Miro. "What then?"
"I imagine," said
Val, "we study them from a safe distance, make sure we're right, and then
alert Starways Congress so they can blow the world to hell."
"Another sentient
species?" asked Miro, incredulous. "You think we'd actually invite
Congress to destroy them?"
"You forget that Congress
doesn't wait for an invitation," said Val. "Or for permission. And if
they think Lusitania is so dangerous as to need to be destroyed, what will they
do with a species that manufactures and broadcasts hideously destructive viruses
willy-nilly? I'm not even sure Congress would be wrong. It was pure chance that
the descolada helped the ancestors of the pequeninos make the transition into
sentience. If they did help-- there's evidence that the pequeninos were already
sentient and the descolada very nearly wiped them out. Whoever sent that virus
out has no conscience. No concept of other species having a right to
survive."
"Maybe they have no such
concept now," said Miro. "But when they meet us ..."
"If we don't catch some
terrible disease and die thirty minutes after landing," said Val.
"Don't worry, Miro. I'm not plotting to destroy anyone and everyone we
meet. I'm strange enough myself not to hope for the wholesale destruction of
strangers."
"I can't believe we only
just realized we're looking for these people, and you're already talking about
killing them all!"
"Whenever humans meet
foreigners, weak or strong, dangerous or peaceable, the issue of destruction
comes up. It's built into our genes."
"So is love. So is the
need for community. So is the curiosity that overcomes xenophobia. So is
decency."
"You left out the fear of
God," said Val. "Don't forget that I'm really Ender. There's a reason
they call him the Xenocide, you know."
"Yes, but you're the
gentle side of him, right?"
"Even gentle people
recognize that sometimes the decision not to kill is a decision to die."
"I can't believe you're
saying this."
"So you didn't know me
after all," said Val, wearing a prim little smile.
"I don't like you smug,"
said Miro.
"Good," said Val.
"Then you won't be so sad when I die." She turned her back on him. He
watched her for a while in silence, baffled. She sat there, leaning back in her
chair, looking at the data coming in from the probes on their starship. Sheets
of information queued up in the air in front of her; she pushed a button and
the front sheet disappeared, the next one moved forward. Her mind was engaged,
of course, but there was something else. An air of excitement. Tension. It made
him afraid.
Afraid? Of what? It was what
he had hoped for. In the past few moments Young Valentine had achieved what
Miro, in his conversation with Ender, had failed to do. She had won Ender's
interest. Now that she knew she was searching for the home planet of the
descolada, now that a great moral issue was involved, now that the future of
the raman races might depend on her actions, Ender would care about what she
was doing, would care at least as much as he cared about Peter. She wasn't
going to fade. She was going to live now.
"Now you've done
it," said Jane in his ear. "Now she won't want to give me her
body."
Was that what Miro was afraid
of? No, he didn't think so. He didn't want Val to die, despite her accusations.
He was glad she was suddenly so much more alive, so vibrant, so involved-- even
if it made her annoyingly smug. No, there was something else.
Maybe it was nothing more
complicated than fear for his own life.
The home planet of the
descolada virus must be a place of unimaginably advanced technology to be able
to create such a thing and send it world to world. To create the antivirus that
would defeat and control it, Miro's sister Ela had had to go Outside, because
the manufacture of such an antivirus was beyond the reach of any human
technology. Miro would have to meet the creators of the descolada and communicate
with them to stop sending out destructive probes. It was beyond his ability. He
couldn't possibly carry out such a mission. He would fail, and in failing would
endanger all the raman species. No wonder he was afraid.
"From the data,"
said Miro, "what do you think? Is this the world we're looking for?"
"Probably not," said
Val. "It's a newish biosphere. No animals larger than worms. Nothing that
flies. But a full range of species at those lower levels. No lack of variety.
Doesn't look like a probe was ever here."
"Well," said Miro.
"Now that we know our real mission, are we going to waste time making a
full colonization report on this planet, or shall we move on?"
Jane's face appeared again
above Miro's terminal.
"Let's make sure Valentine
is right," said Jane. "Then move on. There are enough colony worlds,
and time's getting short."
***
Novinha touched Ender's
shoulder. He was breathing heavily, loudly, but it was not the familiar snore.
The noisiness was coming from his lungs, not from the back of his throat; it
was as if he had been holding his breath for a long time, and now had to take
deep draughts of air to make up for it, only no breath was deep enough, his
lungs couldn't hold enough. Gasp. Gasp.
"Andrew. Wake up."
She spoke sharply, for her touch had always been enough to waken him before,
and this time it was not enough, he kept on gasping for air yet didn't open his
eyes.
The fact he was asleep at all
surprised her. He wasn't an old man yet. He didn't take naps in the late
morning. Yet here he was, lying in the shade on the croquet lawn of the
monastery when he had told her he was going to bring them both a drink of
water. And for the first time it occurred to her that he wasn't taking a nap at
all, that he must have fallen, must have collapsed here, and only the fact that
he ended up lying on his back in a patch of shade, his hands lying flat on his
chest, deceived her into thinking that he had chosen to lie here. Something was
wrong. He wasn't an old man. He shouldn't be lying here like this, breathing
air that didn't hold enough of what he needed.
"Ajuda-me! " she
cried out. "Me ajuda, por favor, venga agora!" Her voice rose until,
quite against her custom, it became a scream, a frantic sound that frightened
her even more. Her own scream frightened her. "Ele vai morrer!
Socorro!" He's going to die, that's what she heard herself shouting.
And in the back of her mind,
another litany began: I brought him here to this place, to the hard work of
this place. He's as fragile as other men, his heart is as breakable, I made him
come here because of my selfish pursuit of holiness, of redemption, and instead
of saving myself from guilt for the deaths of the men I love, I have added
another one to the list, I have killed Andrew just as I killed Pipo and Libo,
just as I should have somehow saved Estevao and Miro. He is dying and it's
again my fault, always my fault, whatever I do brings death, the people I love
have to die to get away from me. Mamde, Papae, why did you leave me? Why did
you put death into my life from childhood on? No one that I love can stay.
This is not helpful, she told
herself, forcing her conscious mind away from the familiar chant of self-blame.
It won't help Andrew for me to lose myself in irrational guilt right now.
Hearing her cries, several men
and women came running from the monastery, and some from the garden. Within
moments they were carrying Ender into the building as someone rushed for a
doctor. Some stayed with Novinha, too, for her story was not unknown to them,
and they suspected that the death of another beloved one would be too much for
her.
"I didn't want him to
come," she murmured. "He didn't have to come."
"It isn't being here that
made him sick," said the woman who held her. "People get sick without
it being anyone's fault. He'll be all right. You'll see."
Novinha heard the words but in
some deep place inside her she could not believe them. In that deep place she
knew that it was all her fault, that dread evil arose out of the dark shadows
of her heart and seeped into the world poisoning everything. She carried the
beast inside her heart, the devourer of happiness. Even God was wishing she
would die.
No, no, it's not true, she
said silently. It would be a terrible sin. God does not want my death, not by
my own hand, never by my own hand. It wouldn't help Andrew, it wouldn't help
anyone. Wouldn't help, would only hurt. Wouldn't help, would only ...
Silently chanting her mantra
of survival, Novinha followed her husband's gasping body into the monastery,
where perhaps the holiness of the place would drive all thoughts of
self-destruction from her heart. I must think of him now, not of me. Not of me.
Not of me me me me.
Chapter 6 -- "LIFE IS A
SUICIDE MISSION"
"Do the gods of different
nations talk to each other? Do the gods of Chinese cities speak to the
ancestors of the Japanese? To the lords of Xibalba? To Allah? Yahweh? Vishnu?
Is there some annual get-together where they compare each other's worshippers?
Mine will bow their faces to the floor and trace woodgrain lines for me, says
one. Mine will sacrifice animals, says another. Mine will kill anyone who
insults me, says a third. Here is the question I think of most often: Are there
any who can honestly boast, my worshippers obey my good laws, and treat each
other kindly, and live simple generous lives?"
-- from The God Whispers of
Han Qing-jao
Pacifica was as widely varied a world as any other, with its temperate
zones, polar ice sheets, tropical rain forests, deserts and savannas, steppes
and mountains, lakes and seas, woodlands and beaches. Nor was Pacifica a young
world. In more than two thousand years of human habitation, all the niches into
which humans could comfortably fit were filled. There were great cities and
vast rangelands, villages amid patchwork farms and research stations in the
remotest locations, highest and lowest, farthest north and south.
But the heart of Pacifica had
always been and remained today the tropical islands of the ocean called Pacific
in memory of the largest sea on Earth. The dwellers on these islands lived, not
precisely in the old ways, but with the memory of old ways still in the
background of all sounds and at the edges of all sights. Here the sacred kava
was still sipped in the ancient ceremonies. Here the memories of ancient heroes
were kept alive. Here the gods still spoke into the ears of holy men and women.
And if they went home to grass huts containing refrigerators and networked
computers, what of that? The gods did not give unreceivable gifts. The trick of
it was finding a way to let new things into one's life without killing that
life to accommodate them.
There were many on the
continents, in the big cities, on the temperate farms, in the research
stations-- there were many who had little patience with the endless costume
dramas (or comedies, depending on one's point of view) that took place on those
islands. And certainly the people of Pacifica were not uniformly Polynesian in
race. All races were here, all cultures; all languages were spoken somewhere,
or so it seemed. Yet even the scoffers looked to the islands for the soul of
the world. Even the lovers of cold and snow took their pilgrimage-- a holiday,
they probably called it-- to tropical shores. They plucked fruit from the
trees, they skimmed over the sea in the outrigger canoes, their women went
bare-breasted and they all dipped fingers into taro pudding and pulled fishmeat
from the bones with wet fingers. The whitest of them, the thinnest, the most
elegant of the people of this place called themselves Pacifican and spoke at
times as if the ancient music of the place rang in their ears, as if the
ancient stories spoke of their own past. Adopted into the family, that's what
they were, and the true Samoans, Tahitians, Hawaiians, Tongans, Maoris, and
Fijians smiled and let them feel welcome even though these watch-wearing,
reservation-making, hurrying people knew nothing of the true life in the shadow
of the volcano, in the lee of the coral barrier, under the sky sparked with
parrots, inside the music of the waves against the reef.
Wang-mu and Peter came to a
civilized, modern, westernized part of Pacifica, and once again found their
identities waiting for them, prepared by Jane. They were career government
workers trained on their home planet, Moskva, and given a couple of weeks'
vacation before starting service as bureaucrats in some Congress office on
Pacifica. They needed little knowledge of their supposed home planet. They just
had to show their papers to get an airplane out of the city where they had
supposedly just shuttled down from a starship recently arrived from Moskva.
Their flight took them to one of the larger Pacific islands, and they soon
showed their papers again to get a couple of rooms in a resort hotel on a
sultry tropical shore.
There was no need for papers
to get aboard a boat to the island where Jane told them they should go. No one
asked them for identification. But then, no one was willing to take them as
passengers, either.
"Why you going
there?" asked one huge Samoan boatman. "What business you got?"
"We want to speak to Malu
on Atatua."
"Don't know him,"
said the boatman. "Don't know nothing about him. Maybe you try somebody
else who knows what island he's on."
"We told you the
island," said Peter. "Atatua. According to the atlas it isn't far
from here."
"I heard of it but I
never went there. Go ask somebody else."
That's how it was, time and
again.
"You get the idea that
papalagis aren't wanted there?" said Peter to Wang-mu back on the porch of
Peter's room. "These people are so primitive they don't just reject ramen,
framlings, and utlannings. I'm betting even a Tongan or a Hawaiian can't get to
Atatua."
"I don't think it's a
racial thing," said Wang-mu. "I think it's religious. I think it's
protection of a holy place."
"What's your evidence for
that?" asked Peter.
"Because thete's no
hatred or fear of us, no veiled anger. Just cheerful ignorance. They don't mind
our existence, they just don't think we belong in the holy place. You know
they'd take us anywhere else."
"Maybe," said Peter.
"But they can't be that xenophobic, or Aimaina wouldn't have become good
enough friends with Malu to send a message to him."
At that, Peter cocked his head
a bit to listen as Jane apparently spoke in his ear.
"Oh," said Peter.
"Jane was skipping a step for us. Aimaina didn't send a message directly
to Malu. He messaged a woman named Grace. But Grace immediately went to Malu
and so Jane figured we might as well go straight to the source. Thanks Jane.
Love how your intuition always works out."
"Don't be snide to
her," said Wang-mu. "She's coming up against a deadline. The order to
shut down could come any day. Naturally she wants to hurry."
"I think she should just
kill any such order before anyone receives it and take over all the damn
computers in the universe," said Peter. "Thumb her nose at
them."
"That wouldn't stop
them," said Wang-mu. "It would only terrify them more."
"In the meantime, we're
not going to get to Malu by boarding a boat."
"So let's find this
Grace," said Wang-mu. "If she can do it, then it is possible for an
outsider to get access to Malu."
"She's not an outsider,
she's Samoan," said Peter. "She has a Samoan name as well-- Teu
'Ona-- but she's worked in the academic world and it's easier to have a
Christian name, as they call it. A Western name. Grace is the name she'll
expect us to use. Says Jane."
"If she had a message
from Aimaina, she'll know at once who we are."
"I don't think so,"
said Peter. "Even if he mentioned us, how could she possibly believe that
the same people could be on his world yesterday and on her world today?"
"Peter, you are the
consummate positivist. Your trust in rationality makes you irrational. Of
course she'll believe we're the same people. Aimaina will also be sure. The
fact that we traveled world-to-world in a single day will merely confirm to
them what they already believe-- that the gods sent us."
Peter sighed. "Well, as
long as they don't try to sacrifice us to a volcano or anything, I suppose it
doesn't hurt to be gods."
"Don't trifle with this,
Peter," said Wang-mu. "Religion is tied to the deepest feelings
people have. The love that arises from that stewing pot is the sweetest and
strongest, but the hate is the hottest, and the anger is the most violent. As
long as outsiders stay away from their holy places, the Polynesians are the
peacefullest people. But when you penetrate within the light of the sacred
fire, watch your step, because no enemy is more ruthless or brutal or
thorough."
"Have you been watching
vids again?" asked Peter.
"Reading," said
Wang-mu. "In fact, I was reading some articles written by Grace
Drinker."
"Ah," said Peter.
"You already knew about her."
"I didn't know she was
Samoan," said Wang-mu. "She doesn't talk about herself. If you want
to know about Malu and his place in the Samoan culture on Pacifica-- maybe we
should call it Lumana'i, as they do-- you have to read something written by
Grace Drinker, or someone quoting her, or someone arguing with her. She had an
article on Atatua, which is how I came across her writing. And she's written
about the impact of the philosophy of Ua Lava on the Samoan people. My guess is
that when Aimaina was first studying Ua Lava, he read some works by Grace
Drinker, and then wrote to her with questions, and that's how the friendship
began. But her connection with Malu has nothing to do with Ua Lava. He
represents something older. Before Ua Lava, but Ua Lava still depends on it, at
least here in its homeland it does."
Peter regarded her steadily
for a few moments. She could feel him reevaluating her, deciding that she had a
mind after all, that she might, marginally, be useful. Well, good for you,
Peter, thought Wang-mu. How clever you are, to finally notice that I've got an
analytical mind as well as the intuitive, gnomic, mantic one you decided was
all I was good for.
Peter unfolded himself from
his chair. "Let's go meet her. And quote her. And argue with her."
***
The Hive Queen lay in
stillness. Her work of egglaying was done for the day. Her workers slept in the
dark of night, though it wasn't darkness that stopped them down in the cave of
her home. Rather it was her need to be alone inside her mind, to set aside the
thousand distractions of the eyes and ears, the arms and legs of her workers.
All of them demanded her attention, at least now and then, in order to function;
but it also took all her thought to reach out in her mind and walk the webs
that the humans had taught her to think of as <philotic.> The pequenino
fathertree named Human had explained to her that in one of the human languages
this had something to do with love. The connections of love. But the Hive Queen
knew better. Love was the savage coupling of the drones. Love was the genes of
all creatures demanding that they be replicated, replicated, replicated. The
philotic twining was something else. There was a voluntary component to it,
when the creature was truly sentient. It could bestow its loyalty where it
wanted. This was greater than love, because it created something more than
random offspring. Where loyalty bound creatures together, they became something
larger, something new and whole and inexplicable.
<I am bound to you, for
instance,> she said to Human, by way of launching their conversation
tonight. They spoke every night like this, mind to mind, though they had never
met. How could they, she always in the dark of her deep home, he always rooted
by the gate of Milagre? But the conversation of the mind was truer than any
language, and they knew each other better than they ever could have by use of
mere sight and touch.
<You always start in the
middle of the thought,> said Human.
<And you always understand
everything surrounding it, so what difference does it make?> Then she told
him all that had passed between her and Young Valentine and Miro today.
<I overheard some of
it,> said Human.
<I had to scream to be
heard. They aren't like Ender-- they're thickheaded and hard of hearing.>
<So can you do it?>
<My daughters are weak and
inexperienced, and they're consumed with egglaying in their new homes. How can
we make a good web for catching an aiua? Especially one that already has a
home. And where is that home? Where is this bridge my mothers made? Where is
this Jane?>
<Ender is dying,> said
Human.
The Hive Queen understood that
he was answering her question.
<Which of him?> asked
the Hive Queen. <I always thought he was the most like us. So it's no
surprise that he should be the first human like us in his ability to control
more than one body.>
<Badly,> said Human.
<In fact he can't do it. He's been sluggish in his own old body ever since
the others came into existence. And for a while it looked like he might slough
off Young Valentine. But that's changed now.>
<You can see?>
<His adopted daughter Ela
came to me. His body is failing strangely. No known disease. He just doesn't
exchange oxygen well. He can't rise up into consciousness. Ender's sister, Old
Valentine, says that maybe he's paying full attention to his other selves, so
much so that he can't spare any for the here and now of his own old body. So
his body is starting to fail, here and there. Lungs first. Maybe a little bit
everywhere, only it's the lungs that show it first.>
<He should pay attention.
If he doesn't, he'll die.>
<So I said,> Human
reminded her mildly. <Ender is dying.>
The Hive Queen had already
made the connection that Human intended. <So it's more than needing a web to
catch the aiua of this Jane. We need to catch Ender's aiua, too, and pass it
into one of his other bodies.>
<Or they'll die when he
does, I imagine,> said Human. <Just the way when a hive queen dies, so
also do all her workers.>
<Some of them actually
linger for days afterward, but yes, in effect, that's right. Only because the
workers haven't the capacity to hold a hive queen's mind.>
<Don't pretend,> said
Human. <You've never tried it, none of you.>
<No. We aren't afraid of
death.>
<That's why you've sent all
these daughters out to world after world? Because death means nothing to
you?>
<I'm saving my species, not
myself, you notice.>
<As am I,> said Human.
<Besides, I'm too deep-rooted for transplanting.>
<But Ender has no
roots,> said the Hive Queen.
<I wonder if he wants to
die,> said Human. <I don't think so. He's not dying because he's lost the
will to live. This body is dying because he's lost interest in the life that
it's leading. But he still wants to live the life of Peter. And the life of
Valentine.>
<He says so?>
<He can't talk,> said
Human. <He's never found his way to the philotic twines. He's never learned
to cast out and link as we fathertrees can. As you do with your workers, and
now with me.>
<But we found him once.
Connected with him through the bridge, well enough to hear his thoughts and see
through his eyes. And he dreamed of us during those days.>
<Dreamed of you but never
learned that you were peaceable. Never learned that he shouldn't kill you.>
<He didn't know the game
was real.>
<Or that the dreams were
true. He has his wisdom, of a kind, but the boy has never learned to question
his senses half enough.>
<Human,> said the Hive
Queen. <What if I teach you how to join a web?>
<So you want to try to
catch Ender as he dies?>
<If we can catch him, and
take him to one of his other bodies, then perhaps we'll learn enough to find
and catch this Jane, too.>
<And if we fail?>
<Ender dies. Jane dies. We
die when the fleet comes. How is this different from the course that any other
life takes?>
<It's all in the
timing,> said Human.
<Will you try to join the
web? You and Rooter and the other fathertrees?>
<I don't know what you mean
by a web, or if it's even different from the way we fathers are with each
other. You might remember, too, that we are also bound up with the mothertrees.
They can't speak, but they're filled with life, and we anchor ourselves to them
as surely as your workers are tied to you. Find a way to include them in your
web, and the fathers will be joined effortlessly.>
<Let's play with this
tonight, Human. Let me try to weave with you. Tell me what it looks like to
you, and I'll try to make you understand what I'm doing and where it leads.>
<Shouldn't we find Ender
first? In case he slips away?>
<In due time,> said the
Hive Queen. <And besides, I'm not altogether sure I know how to find him if
he's unconscious.>
<Why not? Once you gave him
dreams-- he slept then.>
<Then we had the
bridge.>
<Maybe Jane is listening to
us now.>
<No,> said the Hive
Queen. <I'd know her if she were linked to us. Her shape was made to fit too
well with mine for it to go unrecognized.>
***
Plikt stood beside Ender's bed
because she could not bear to sit, could not bear to move. He was going to die
without uttering another word. She had followed him, had given up home and
family to be near him, and what had he said to her? Yes, he let her be his
shadow sometimes; yes, she was a silent observer of many of his conversations
over the past few weeks and months. But when she tried to speak to him of
things more personal, of deep memories, of what he meant by the things that he
had done, he only shook his head and said-- kindly, because he was kind, but
firmly also because he did not wish her to misunderstand-- said to her,
"Plikt, I'm not a teacher anymore."
Yes you are, she wanted to say
to him. Your books go on teaching even where you have never been. The Hive
Queen, The Hegemon, and already The Life of Human seems likely to take its
place beside them. How can you say you're through with teaching, when there are
other books to write, other deaths to speak? You have spoken the deaths of
killers and saints, aliens, and once the death of a whole city swallowed up in
a cataclysmic volcano. But in telling these stories of others, where was your
story, Andrew Wiggin? How can I speak your death if you never explained it to
me?
Or is this your last secret--
that you never knew any more about the people whose deaths you spoke than I
know about you today. You force me to invent, to guess, to wonder, to imagine--
is this what you also did? Discover the most widely believed story, then find
an alternate explanation that made sense to others and had meaning and the
power to transform, and then tell that tale-- even though it was also a
fiction, and no truer than the story everyone believed? Is that what I must say
as I speak the death of the Speaker for the Dead? His gift was not to discover
truth, it was to invent it; he did not unfold, unknot, untwist the lives of the
dead, he created them. And so I create his. His sister says he died because he
tried to follow his wife with perfect loyalty, into the life of peace and
seclusion that she hungered for; but the very peace of that life killed him,
for his aiua was drawn into the lives of the strange children that sprang
fullgrown from his mind, and his old body, despite all the years most likely
left in it, was discarded because he hadn't the time to pay enough attention to
keep the thing alive.
He wouldn't leave his wife or
let her leave him; so he was bored to death and hurt her worse by staying with
her than he ever would have done by letting her go without him.
There, is that brutal enough,
Ender? He wiped out the hive queens of dozens of worlds, leaving only one
survivor of that great and ancient people. He also brought her back to life.
Does saving the last of your victims atone for having slain the others? He did
not mean to do it, that is his defense; but dead is dead, and when the life is
cut off in its prime, does the aiua say, Ah, but the child who killed me, he
thought that he was playing a game, so my death counts less, it weighs less?
No, Ender himself would have said, no, the death weighs the same, and I carry
that weight on my shoulders. No one has more blood on their hands than I have;
so I will speak with brutal truth of the lives of those who died without
innocence, and show you that even these can be understood. But he was wrong,
they can't be understood, none of them are understood, speaking for the dead is
only effective because the dead are silent and can't correct our mistakes.
Ender is dead and he can't correct my mistakes, so some of you will think that
I haven't made any, you will think that I tell the truth about him but the
truth is that no person ever understands another, from beginning to end of
life, there is no truth that can be known, only the story we imagine to be
true, the story they tell us is true, the story they really believe to be true
about themselves; and all of them lies.
Plikt stood and practiced
speaking desperately, hopelessly beside Ender's coffin, though he was not yet
in a coffin, he was still lying on a bed and air was pumping through a clear
mask into his mouth and glucose solution into his veins and he was not yet
dead. Just silent.
"A word," she
whispered. "A word from you."
Ender's lips moved.
Plikt should have called the
others at once. Novinha, who was exhausted with weeping-- she was only just
outside the room. And Valentine, his sister; Ela, Olhado, Grego, Quara, four of
his adopted children; and many others, in and out of the receiving room,
wanting a glimpse of him, a word, to touch his hand. If they could send word to
other worlds, how they would mourn, the people who remembered his speakings over
the three thousand years of his journeys world to world. If they could proclaim
his true identity-- Speaker for the Dead, author of the two-- no, the three--
great books of Speaking; and Ender Wiggin, the Xenocide, both selves in the
same frail flesh-- oh, what shock waves would spread throughout the human
universe.
Spread, widen, flatten, fade.
Like all waves. Like all shocks. A note in the history books. A few
biographies. Revisionist biographies a generation later. Encyclopedia entries.
Notes at the end of translations of his books. That is the stillness into which
all great lives fade.
His lips moved.
"Peter," he
whispered.
He was silent again.
What did this portend? He
still breathed, the instruments did not change, his heart beat on. But he
called to Peter. Did this mean that he longed to live the life of his child of
the mind, Young Peter? Or in some kind of delirium was he speaking to his brother
the Hegemon? Or earlier, his brother as a boy. Peter, wait for me. Peter, did I
do well? Peter, don't hurt me. Peter, I hate you. Peter, for one smile of yours
I'd die or kill. What was his message? What should Plikt say about this word?
She moved from beside his bed.
Walked to the door, opened it. "I'm sorry," she said quietly, facing
a room full of people who had only rarely heard her speak, and some of whom had
never heard a word from her. "He spoke before I could call anyone else to
hear. But he might speak again."
"What did he say?"
said Novinha, rising to her feet.
"A name is all,"
said Plikt. "He said 'Peter.'"
"He calls for the
abomination he brought back from space, and not for me!" said Novinha. But
it was the drugs the doctors had given her, that was what spoke, that was what
wept.
"I think he calls for our
dead brother," said Old Valentine. "Novinha, do you want to come
inside?"
"Why?" Novinha said.
"He hasn't called for me, he called for him."
"He's not
conscious," said Plikt.
"You see, Mother?"
said Ela. "He isn't calling for anyone, he's just speaking out of some
dream. But it's something, he said something, and isn't that a good sign?"
Still Novinha refused to go
into the room. So it turned out to be Valentine and Plikt and four of his
adopted children who stood around his bed when his eyes opened.
"Novinha," he said.
"She's grieving
outside," said Valentine. "Drugged to the gills, I'm afraid."
"That's all right,"
said Ender. "What happened? I take it I'm sick."
"More or less," said
Ela. "'Inattentive' is the more exact description of the cause of your
condition, as best we can tell."
"You mean I had some kind
of accident?"
"I mean you're apparently
paying too much attention to what's going on on a couple of other planets, and
so your body here is on the edge of self-destruction. What I see under the
microscopes are cells sluggishly trying to reconstruct breaks in their walls.
You're dying by bits, all over your body."
"Sorry to be so much
trouble," said Ender.
For a moment they thought this
was the beginning of a conversation, the start of the process of healing. But
having said this little bit, Ender closed his eyes and he was asleep again, the
instruments unchanged from what they had said before he said a word.
Oh wonderful, thought Plikt. I
beg him for a word, he gives it to me, and I know less now than I did before.
We spent his few waking moments telling him what was going on instead of asking
him the questions that we may never have the chance to ask again. Why do we all
get stupider when we crowd around the brink of death?
But still she stood there,
watching, waiting, as the others, in ones or twos, gave up and left the room
again. Valentine came to her last of all and touched her arm. "Plikt, you
can't stay here forever."
"I can stay as long as he
can," she said.
Valentine looked into her eyes
and must have seen something there that made her give up trying to persuade her.
She left, and again Plikt was alone with the collapsing body of the man whose
life was the center of her own.
***
Miro hardly knew whether to be
glad or frightened by the change in Young Valentine since they had learned the
true purpose of their search for new worlds. Where she had once been
softspoken, even diffident, now she could hardly keep from interrupting Miro
every time he spoke. The moment she thought she understood what he was going to
say, she'd start answering-- and when he pointed out that he was really saying
something else, she'd answer that almost before he could finish his
explanation. Miro knew that he was probably being oversensitive-- he had spent
a long time with speech so impaired that almost everyone interrupted him, and so
he prickled at the slightest affront along those lines. And it wasn't that he
thought there was any malice in it. Val was simply ... on. Every moment she was
awake-- and she hardly seemed to sleep, at least Miro almost never saw her
sleeping. Nor was she willing to go home between planets. "There's a
deadline," she said. "They could give the signal to shut down the
ansible networks any day now. We don't have time for needless rest."
Miro wanted to answer: Define
"needless." He certainly needed more than he was getting, but when he
said so, she merely waved him off and said, "Sleep if you want, I'll
cover." And so he'd grab a nap and wake up to find that she and Jane had
already eliminated three more planets-- two of which, however, bore the earmarks
of descolada-like trauma within the past thousand years. "Getting
closer," Val would say, and then launch into interesting facts about the
data until she'd interrupt herself-- she was democratic about this,
interrupting herself as easily as she interrupted him-- to deal with the data
from a new planet.
Now, after only a day of this,
Miro had virtually given up speaking. Val was so focused on their work that she
spoke of nothing else; and on that subject, there was little Miro needed to
say, except periodically to relay some information from Jane that came through
his earpiece instead of over the open computers of the ship. His near silence,
though, gave him time to think. This is what I asked Ender for, he realized.
But Ender couldn't do it consciously. His aiua does what it does because of
Ender's deepest needs and desires, not because of his conscious decisions. So
he couldn't give his attention to Val; but Val's work could become so exciting
that Ender couldn't bear to concentrate on anything else.
Miro wondered: How much of
this did Jane understand in advance?
And because he couldn't very
well discuss it with Val, he subvocalized his questions so Jane could hear.
"Did you reveal our mission to us now so that Ender would give his
attention to Val? Or did you withhold it up until now so that Ender
wouldn't?"
"I don't make that kind
of plan," said Jane into his ear. "I have other things on my
mind."
"But it's good for you,
isn't it. Val's body isn't in any danger of withering away now."
"Don't be an ass, Miro.
Nobody likes you when you're an ass."
"Nobody likes me anyway,"
he said, silently but cheerfully. "You couldn't have hidden out in her
body if it was a pile of dust."
"I can't slip into it if
Ender's there, utterly engrossed in what she's doing, either, can I," said
Jane.
"Is he utterly
engrossed?"
"Apparently so,"
said Jane. "His own body is falling apart. And more rapidly than Val's
was."
It took Miro a moment to
understand this. "You mean he's dying?"
"I mean Val is very much
alive," said Jane.
"Don't you love Ender
anymore?" asked Miro. "Don't you care?"
"If Ender doesn't care
about his own life," said Jane, "why should I? We're both doing our
best to set a very messy situation to rights. It's killing me, it's killing
him. It very nearly killed you, and if we fail a whole lot of other people will
be killed, too."
"You're a cold one,"
said Miro.
"Just a bunch of blips
between the stars, that's what I am," said Jane.
"Merda de bode,"
said Miro. "What's this mood you're in?"
"I don't have
feelings," said Jane. "I'm a computer program."
"We all know you have an
aiua of your own. As much of a soul, if that's what you want to call it, as
anyone else."
"People with souls can't
be switched off by unplugging a few machines."
"Come on, they're going
to have to shut down billions of computers and thousands of ansibles all at
once in order to do you in. I'd say that's pretty impressive. One bullet would
do for me. An overgrown electric fence almost polished me off."
"I suppose I just wanted
to die with some kind of splashing sound or cooking smell or something,"
said Jane. "If I only had a heart. You probably don't know that
song."
"We grew up on classic
videos," said Miro. "It drowned out a lot of other unpleasantness at
home. You've got the brain and the nerve. I think you've got the heart."
"What I don't have is the
ruby slippers. I know there's no place like home, but I can't get there,"
said Jane.
"Because Ender's using
her body so intensely?" asked Miro.
"I'm not as set on using
Val's body as you were to have me do it," said Jane. "Peter's will do
as well. Even Ender's, as long as he's not using it. I'm not actually female.
That was merely my choice of identity to get close to Ender. He had problems
bonding readily with men. The dilemma I have is that even if Ender would let go
of one of these bodies for me to use it, I don't know how to get there. I don't
know where my aiua is any more than you do. Can you put your aiua where you
want it? Where is it now?"
"But the Hive Queen is
trying to find you. She can do that-- her people made you."
"Yes, she and her
daughters and the fathertrees, they're building some kind of web, but it's
never been done before-- catching something already alive and leading it into a
body that is already owned by someone else's aiua. It's not going to work, I'm
going to die, but I'm dammed if I'm going to let those bastards who made the
descolada come along after I'm dead and wipe out all the other sentient species
I've known. Humans will pull the plug on me, yes, thinking I'm just a computer
program run amok, but that doesn't mean I want someone else to pull the plug on
humanity. Nor on the hive queens. Nor on the pequeninos. If we're going to stop
them, we have to do it before I'm dead. Or at least I have to get you and Val
there so you can do something without me."
"If we're there when you
die, we'll never come home again."
"Bad luck, eh?"
"So we're a suicide
mission."
"Life is a suicide
mission, Miro. Check it out-- basic philosophy course. You spend your life
running out of fuel and when you're finally out, you croak."
"You sound like Mother
now," said Miro.
"Oh, no," said Jane.
"I'm taking it with good humor. Your mother always thought her doom was
tragic."
Miro was readying some retort
when Val's voice interrupted his colloquy with Jane.
"I hate it when you do
that!" she cried.
"Do what?" said
Miro, wondering what she had just been saying before this outburst.
"Tune me out and talk to
her."
"To Jane? I always talk
to Jane."
"But you used to listen
to me sometimes," said Val.
"Well, Val, you used to
listen to me, too, but that's all changed now, apparently."
Val flung herself out of her chair
and stormed over to loom above him. "Is that how it is? The woman you
loved was the quiet one, the shy one, the one who always let you dominate every
conversation. Now that I'm excited, now that I feel like I'm really myself,
well, that's not the woman you wanted, is that it?"
"It's not about
preferring quiet women or--"
"No, we couldn't admit to
anything so recidivist as that, could we! No, we have to proclaim ourselves to
be perfectly virtuous and--"
Miro rose to his feet-- not
easy, with her so close to his chairand shouted right back in her face.
"It's about being able to finish a sentence now and then!"
"And how many of my
sentences did you--"
"Right, turn it right
back on--"
"You wanted to have me
dispossessed from my own life and put somebody else in--"
"Oh, is that what this is
about? Well, be relieved, Val, Jane says--"
"Jane says, Jane says!
You said you loved me, but no woman can compete with some bitch that's always
there in your ear, hanging on every word you say and--"
"Now you sound like my
mother!" shouted Miro. "Nossa Senhora, I don't know why Ender
followed her into the monastery, she was always griping about how he loved Jane
more than he loved her--"
"Well at least he tried
to love a woman more than that overgrown appointment book!"
They stood there,
face-to-face-or almost so, Miro being somewhat taller, but with his knees bent
because he hadn't quite been able to get all the way out of his chair because
she was standing so close and now with her breath in his face, the warmth of
her body just a few centimeters away, he thought, This is the moment when ...
And then he said it aloud
before he had even finished forming the thought, "This is the moment in
all the videos when the couple that were screaming at each other suddenly look
into each other's eyes and embrace each other and laugh at their anger and then
kiss each other."
"Yeah, well, that's the
videos," said Val. "If you lay a hand on me I'll ram your testicles
so far up inside your abdomen it'll take a heart surgeon to get them out."
She whirled around and
returned to her chair.
Miro eased himself back into
his own seat and said-- out loud this time, but softly enough that Val would
know he wasn't talking to her-- "Now, Jane, where were we before the
tornado struck."
Jane's answer was drawled out
slowly; Miro recognized it as a mannerism of Ender's when he was being
ironically subtle. "You can see now why I might have problems getting the
use of any part of her body."
"Yeah, well, I'm having
the same problem," said Miro silently, but he laughed aloud, a little
chuckle that he knew would drive Val crazy. And from the way she stiffened but
did not respond at all he knew that it was working.
"I don't need you two
fighting," said Jane mildly. "I need you working together. Because
you may have to work this out without me."
"As far as I can
tell," said Miro, "you and Val have been working things out without
me."
"Val has been working
things out because she's so full of ... whatever she's full of right now."
"Ender is what she's full
of," said Miro.
Val turned around in her chair
and looked at him. "Doesn't it make you wonder about your own sexual
identity, not to mention your sanity, that the two women you love are,
respectively, a virtual woman existing only in the transient ansible
connections between computers and a woman whose soul is in fact that of a man
who is the husband of your mother?"
"Ender is dying,"
said Miro. "Or did you already know?"
"Jane mentioned he seemed
to be inattentive."
"Dying," said Miro
again.
"I think it speaks very
clearly about the nature of men," said Val, "that you and Ender both
claim to love a flesh-and-blood woman, but in fact you can't give that woman
even a serious fraction of your attention."
"Yes, well, you have my
whole attention, Val," said Miro. "And as for Ender, if he's not
paying attention to Mother it's because he's paying attention to you."
"To my work, you mean. To
the task at hand. Not to me."
"Well, that's all you've
been paying attention to, except when you took a break to rip on me about how
I'm talking to Jane and not listening to you."
"That's right," said
Val. "You think I don't see what's been going on with me this past day?
How all of a sudden I can't shut up about things, I'm so intense I can't sleep,
how I-- Ender's supposedly been the real me all along, only he left me alone
till now and that was fine because what he's doing now is terrifying. Don't you
see that I'm frightened? It's too much. It's more than I can stand. I can't
hold that much energy inside me."
"So talk about it instead
of screaming at me," said Miro.
"But you weren't
listening. I was trying to and you were just subvocalizing to Jane and shutting
me out."
"Because I was sick of
hearing endless streams of data and analysis that I could just as easily catch
in summary on the computer. How was I supposed to know that you'd take a break
in your monologue and start talking about something human?"
"Everything's bigger than
life right now and I don't have any experience with this. In case you forgot, I
haven't been alive very long. I don't know things. There are a lot of things I
don't know. I don't know why I care so much about you, for instance. You're the
one trying to get me replaced as landlord of this body. You're the one who
tunes me out or takes me over but I don't want that, Miro. I really need a
friend right now."
"So do I," said
Miro.
"But I don't know how to
do it," said Val.
"I, on the other hand,
know perfectly well how to do it," said Miro. "But the only other
time it happened, I fell in love with her and then she turned out to be my
half-sister because her father was secretly my mother's lover, and the man I
had thought was my father turned out to be sterile because he was dying of some
internally rotting disease. So you can see how I might be hesitant."
"Valentine was your friend.
She is still."
"Yes," said Miro.
"Yes, I was forgetting. I've had two friends."
"And Ender," said
Val.
"Three," said Miro.
"And my sister Ela makes four. And Human was my friend, so it's
five."
"See? I think that makes
you qualified to show me how to have a friend."
"To make a friend,"
said Miro, echoing his mother's intonations, "you have to be one."
"Miro," said Val.
"I'm scared."
"Of what?"
"Of this world we're
looking for, what we'll find there. Of what's going to happen to me if Ender
dies. Or if Jane takes over as my-- what, my inner light, my puppeteer. Of what
it will feel like if you don't like me anymore."
"What if I promise to
like you no matter what?"
"You can't make a promise
like that."
"Okay, if I wake up to
find you strangling me or smothering me, then I'll stop liking you."
"What about
drowning?"
"No, I can't open my eyes
under water, so I'd never know it was you."
They both laughed.
"This is the time in the
videos," said Val, "when the hero and the heroine laugh and then hold
each other."
Jane's voice interrupted from
both their computer terminals. "Sorry to break up a tender moment, but
we've got a new world here and there are electromagnetic messages being relayed
between the planet surface and orbiting artificial objects."
Immediately they both turned
to their terminals and looked at the data Jane was throwing at them.
"It doesn't take any
close analysis," said Val. "This one is hopping with technology. If
it isn't the descolada planet, I'm betting they know where it is."
"What I'm worried about
is, have they detected us and what are they going to do about it? If they've
got the technology to put things in space, they might have the technology to
shoot things out of space, too."
"I'm watching for
incoming objects," said Jane.
"Let's see," said
Val, "if any of these EM-waves are carrying anything that looks like
language."
"Datastreams," said
Jane. "I'm analyzing it for binary patterns. But you know that decoding
computerized language requires three or four levels of decoding instead of the
normal two and it isn't easy."
"I thought binary was
simpler than spoken languages," said Miro.
"It is, when it's
programs and numerical data," said Jane. "But what if it's digitized
visuals? How long is a line if it's a rasterized display? How much of a
transmission is header material? How much is error-correction data? How much of
it is a binary representation of a written representation of a spoken language?
What if it's further encrypted beyond that, to avoid interception? I have no
idea what machine is producing the code and no idea what machine is receiving
it. So using most of my capacity to work on the problem I'm having a very hard
time except that this one--"
A diagram appeared on the
front page of the display.
"--I think this one is a
representation of a genetic molecule."
"A genetic
molecule?"
"Similar to the descolada,"
said Jane. "That is, similar in the way it's different from Earth and
native Lusitanian genetic molecules. Do you think this is a plausible decoding
of this?"
A mass of binary digits
flashed into the air above their terminals. In a moment it resolved itself into
hexadecimal notation. Then into a rasterized image that resembled static
interference more than any kind of coherent picture.
"It doesn't scan well
this way. But as a set of vector instructions, I find that it consistently
gives me results like this."
And now picture after picture
of genetic molecules appeared on the screen.
"Why would anyone be
transmitting genetic information?" said Val.
"Maybe it's a kind of
language," said Miro.
"Who could read a
language like that?" asked Val.
"Maybe the kind of people
who could create the descolada," said Miro.
"You mean they talk by
manipulating genes?" said Val.
"Maybe they smell
genes," said Miro. "Only they do it with incredible articulation.
Subtlety and shade of meaning. Then when they started sending people up into
space, they had to talk to them so they sent pictures and then from the
pictures they reconstruct the message and, um, smell it."
"That's the most
ass-backwards explanation I've ever heard," said Val.
"Well," said Miro,
"like you said, you haven't lived very long. There are a lot of
ass-backwards explanations in the world, and I doubt I hit the jackpot with
that one."
"It's probably an
experiment they're doing, sending data back and forth," said Val.
"Not all the communications make up diagrams do they, Jane?"
"Oh, no, I'm sorry if I
gave that impression. This was just a small class of data streams that I was
able to decode in a meaningful way. There's this stuff that seems to me to be
analog rather than digital, and if I make it into sound it's like this."
They heard the computers emit
a series of staticky screeches and yips.
"Or if I translate it
into bursts of light, it looks like this."
Whereupon their terminals
danced with light, pulsing and shifting colors seemingly randomly.
"Who knows what an alien
language looks or sounds like?" said Jane.
"I can see this is going to
be difficult," said Miro.
"They do have some pretty
good math skills," said Jane. "The math stuff is easy to catch and I
see some glimpses that imply they work at a high level."
"Just an idle question,
Jane. If you weren't with us, how long would it have taken us to analyze the
data and get the results you've gotten so far? If we were using just the ship's
computers?"
"Well, if you had to
program them for every--"
"No, no, just assuming
they had good software," said Miro.
"Somewhere upwards of
seven human generations," said Jane.
"Seven generations?"
"Of course, you'd never
try to do it with just two untrained people and two computers without any
useful programs," said Jane. "You'd put hundreds of people on the
project and then it would only take you a few years."
"And you expect us to
carry on this work when they pull the plug on you?"
"I'm hoping to finish the
translation problem before I'm toast," said Jane. "So shut up and let
me concentrate for a minute."
***
Grace Drinker was too busy to
see Wang-mu and Peter. Well, actually she did see them, as she shambled from
one room to another of her house of sticks and mats. She even waved. But her
son went right on explaining how she wasn't here right now but she would be
back later if they wanted to wait, and as long as they were waiting, why not
have dinner with the family? It was hard even to be annoyed when the lie was so
obvious and the hospitality so generous.
Dinner went a long way toward
explaining why Samoans tended to be so large in every dimension. They had to
evolve such great size because smaller Samoans must simply have exploded after
lunch. They could never have handled dinners. The fruit, the fish, the taro,
the sweet potatoes, the fish again, more fruit-- Peter and Wang-mu. had thought
they were well fed in the resort, but now they realized that the hotel chef was
a second-rater compared to what went on in Grace Drinker's house.
She had a husband, a man of
astonishing appetite and heartiness who laughed whenever he wasn't chewing or
talking, and sometimes even then. He seemed to get a kick out of telling these
papalagi visitors what different names meant. "My wife's name, now, it
really means, 'Protector of Drunken People.'"
"It does not," said
his son. "It means 'One Who Puts Things in Proper Order.'"
"For drinking!"
cried the father.
"The last name has
nothing to do with the first name." The son was getting annoyed now.
"Not everything has a deep meaning."
"Children are so easily
embarrassed," said the father. "Ashamed. Must put the best face on
everything. The holy island, its name is really 'Ata Atua, which means, 'Laugh,
God!'"
"Then it would be
pronounced 'Atatua instead of Atatua," the son corrected again.
"Shadow of the God, that's what the name really means, if it means
anything besides just the holy island."
"My son is a
literalist," said the father. "Everything so serious. Can't hear a
joke when God shouts it in his ear."
"It's you always shouting
jokes in my ear, Father," said the son with a smile. "How could I
possibly hear the jokes of the God?"
This was the only time the
father didn't laugh. "My son has a dead ear for humor. He thought that was
a joke."
Wang-mu looked at Peter, who
was smiling as if he understood what was so funny with these people all the
time. She wondered if he had even noticed that no one had introduced these
males, except by their relationship to Grace Drinker. Had they no names?
Never mind, the food is good,
and even if you don't get Samoan humor, their laughter and good spirits were so
contagious that it was impossible not to feel happy and at ease in their
company.
"Do you think we have
enough?" asked the father, when his daughter brought in the last fish, a
large pink-fleshed sea creature garnished with something that glistened--
Wang-mu's first thought was a sugar glaze, but who would do that to a fish?
At once his children answered
him, as if it were a ritual in the family: "Ua lava!"
The name of a philosophy? Or
just Samoan slang for "enough already"? Or both at once?
Only when the last fish was
half eaten did Grace Drinker herself come in, making no apology for not having
spoken to them when she passed them more than two hours before. A breeze off
the sea was cooling down the open-walled room, and, outside, light rain fell in
fits and starts as the sun kept trying and failing to sink into the water to
the west. Grace sat at the low table, directly between Peter and Wang-mu, who
had thought they were sitting next to each other with no room for another
person, especially not a person of such ample surface area as Grace. But
somehow there was room, if not when she began to sit, then certainly by the
time she finished the process, and once her greetings were done, she managed
what the family had not-- she polished off the last fish and ended up licking
her fingers and laughing just as maniacally as her husband at all the jokes he
told.
And then, suddenly, Grace
leaned over to Wang-mu and said, quite seriously, "All right, Chinese
girl, what's your scam?"
"Scam?" asked
Wang-mu.
"You mean I have to get
the confession from the white boy? They train these boys to lie, you know. If
you're white they don't let you grow up to adulthood if you haven't mastered
the art of pretending to say one thing while actually intending to do
another."
Peter was appalled.
Suddenly the whole family
erupted in laughter. "Bad hospitality!" cried Grace's husband.
"Did you see their faces? They thought she meant it!"
"But I do mean it,"
said Grace. "You both intend to lie to me. Arrived on a starship
yesterday? From Moskva?" Suddenly she burst into what sounded like pretty
convincing Russian, perhaps of the dialect spoken on Moskva.
Wang-mu had no idea how to
respond. But she didn't have to. Peter was the one with Jane in his ear, and he
immediately answered her, "I hope to learn Samoan while I'm assigned here
on Pacifica. I won't accomplish that by babbling in Russian, however you might
try to goad me with cruel references to my countrymen's amorous proclivities
and lack of pulchritude."
Grace laughed. "You see,
Chinese girl?" she said. "Lie lie lie. And so lofty-sounding as he
does it. Of course he has that jewel in his ear to help him. Tell the truth,
neither one of you speaks a lick of Russian."
Peter looked grim and vaguely
sick. Wang-mu put him out of his misery-though at the risk of infuriating him.
"Of course it's a lie," said Wang-mu. "The truth is simply too
unbelievable."
"But the truth is the
only thing worth believing, isn't it?" asked Grace's son.
"If you can know
it," said Wang-mu. "But if you won't believe the truth, someone has
to help you come up with plausible lies, don't they?"
"I can make up my
own," said Grace. "Day before yesterday a white boy and a Chinese
girl visited my friend Aimaina Hikari on a world at least twenty years' voyage
away. They told him things that disturbed his entire equilibrium so he could
hardly function. Today a white boy and a Chinese girl, telling different lies
from the ones told by his pair, of course, but nevertheless lying their lips
off, these two come to me wanting to get my help or permission or advice about
seeing Malu--"
"Malu means 'being
calm,'" added Grace's husband cheerfully.
"Are you still
awake?" asked Grace. "Weren't you hungry? Didn't you eat?"
"I'm full but
fascinated," answered her husband. "Go on, expose them!"
"I want to know who you
are and how you got here," said Grace.
"That would be very hard
to explain," said Peter.
"We've got minutes and
minutes," said Grace. "Millions of them, really. You're the ones who
seem to have only a few. So much hurry that you jump the gulf from star to star
overnight. It strains credulity, of course, since lightspeed is supposed to be
an insuperable barrier, but then, not believing you're the same people my
friend saw on the planet Divine Wind also strains credulity, so there we are.
Supposing that you really can travel faster than light, what does that tell us
about where you're from? Aimaina takes it for granted that you were sent to him
by the gods, more specifically by his ancestors, and he may be right, it's in
the nature of gods to be unpredictable and suddenly do things they've never
done before. Myself, though, I find that rational explanations always work out
better, especially in papers I hope to get published. So the rational
explanation is that you come from a real world, not from some heavenly
never-never land. And since you can hop from world to world in a moment or a
day, you could come from anywhere. But my family and I think you come from
Lusitania."
"Well, I don't,"
said Wang-mu.
"And I'm originally from
Earth," said Peter. "If I'm from anywhere."
"Aimaina thinks you come
from Outside," said Grace, and for a moment Wang-mu thought the woman must
have figured out how Peter came into existence. But then she realized that
Grace's words had a theological meaning, not a literal one. "The land of
the gods. But Malu said he's never seen you there, or if he did he didn't know
it was you. So that leaves me right back where I started. You're lying about
everything, so what good does it do to ask you questions?"
"I told you the
truth," said Wang-mu. "I come from Path. And Peter's origins, so far
as they can be traced to any planet, are on Earth. But the vehicle we came in--
that originated on Lusitania."
Peter's face went white. She
knew he was thinking, Why not just noose ourselves up and hand them the loose
ends of the rope? But Wang-mu had to use her own judgment, and in her judgment
they were in no danger from Grace Drinker or her family. Indeed, if she meant
to turn them in to the authorities, wouldn't she already have done so?
Grace looked Wang-mu in the
eyes and said nothing for a long while. Then: "Good fish, isn't it?"
"I wondered what the
glaze was. Is there sugar in it?"
"Honey and a couple of
herbs and actually some pig fat. I hope you aren't some rare combination of
Chinese and Jew or Muslim, because if you are you're now ritually unclean and I
would feel really bad about that, it's so much trouble getting purified again,
or so I'm told, it certainly is in our culture."
Peter, heartened now by
Grace's lack of concern with their miraculous spaceship, tried to get them back
on the subject. "So you'll let us see Malu?"
"Malu decides who sees
Malu, and he says you're the ones who'll decide, but that's just him being
enigmatic."
"Gnomic," said
Wang-mu. Peter winced.
"Not really, not in the
sense of being obscure. Malu means to be perfectly clear and for him spiritual
things aren't mystical at all, they're just a part of life. I myself have never
actually walked with the dead or heard the heroes sing their own songs or had a
vision of the creation, but I have no doubt that Malu has."
"I thought you were a
scholar," said Peter.
"If you want to talk to
the scholar Grace Drinker," she said, "read my papers and take a
class. I thought you wanted to talk to me."
"We do," said
Wang-mu quickly. "Peter's in a hurry. We have several deadlines."
"The Lusitania Fleet,
now, I imagine that's one of them. But not quite so urgent as another. The
computer shut-down that's been ordered.
Peter stiffened. "The
order has been given?"
"Oh, it was given weeks
ago," said Grace, looking puzzled. Then: "Oh, you poor dear, I don't
mean the actual go-ahead. I mean the order telling us how to prepare. You
surely knew about that one."
Peter nodded and relaxed, glum
again.
"I think you want to talk
to Malu before the ansible connections are shut down. Though why would that
matter?" she said, thinking aloud. "After all, if you can travel
faster than light, you could simply go and deliver your message yourself.
Unless--"
Her son offered a suggestion:
"They have to deliver their message to a lot of different worlds."
"Or a lot of different
gods!" cried his father, who then laughed uproariously at what certainly
seemed to Wang-mu to be a feeble joke.
"Or," said the
daughter, who was now lying down beside the table, occasionally belching as she
let the enormous dinner digest. "Or, they need the ansible connections in
order to do their fast travel trick."
"Or," said Grace,
looking at Peter, who had instinctively moved his hand to touch the jewel in
his ear, "you're connected to the very virus that we're shutting down all
the computers in order to eliminate, and that has something to do with your
faster-than-light travel."
"It's not a virus,"
said Wang-mu. "It's a person. A living entity. And you're going to help
Congress kill her, even though she's the only one of her kind and she's never
harmed anybody."
"It makes them nervous
when something-- or, if you prefer, somebody-- makes their fleet
disappear."
"It's still there,"
said Wang-mu.
"Let's not fight,"
said Grace. "Let's just say that now that I've found you willing to tell
the truth, perhaps it will be worthwhile for Malu to take the time to let you
hear it."
"He has the truth?"
asked Peter.
"No," said Grace,
"but he knows where it's kept and he can get a glimpse now and then and
tell us what he saw. I think that's still pretty good."
"And we can see
him?"
"You'd have to spend a
week purifying yourselves before you can set foot on Atatua--"
"Impure feet tickling the
Gods!" cried her husband, laughing uproariously. "That's why they
call it the Island of the Laughing God!"
Peter shifted uncomfortably.
"Don't you like my
husband's jokes?" asked Grace.
"No, I think-- I mean,
they're simply not-- I don't get them, that's all."
"Well, that's because
they're not very funny," said Grace. "But my husband is cheerfully
determined to keep laughing through all this so he doesn't get angry at you and
kill you with his bare hands."
Wang-mu gasped, for she knew
at once that this was true; without realizing it, she had been aware all along
of the rage seething under the huge man's laughter, and when she looked at his
calloused, massive hands, she realized that he could surely tear her apart
without even breaking into a sweat.
"Why would you threaten
us with death?" asked Peter, acting more belligerent than Wang-mu wished.
"The opposite!" said
Grace. "I tell you that my husband is determined not to let rage at your
audacity and blasphemy control his behavior. To try to visit Atatua without
even taking the trouble to learn that letting you set foot there, uncleansed
and uninvited, would shame us and filthy us as a people for a hundred
generations-- I think he's doing rather well not to have taken a blood oath
against you."
"We didn't know,"
said Wang-mu.
"He knew," said
Grace. "Because he's got the all-hearing ear."
Peter blushed. "I hear
what she says to me," he said, "but I can't hear what she chooses not
to say."
"So... you were being
led. And Aimaina is right, you do serve a higher being. Voluntarily? Or are you
being coerced?"
"That's a stupid
question, Mama," said her daughter, belching again. "If they are
coerced, how could they possibly tell you?"
"People can say as much
by what they don't say," answered Grace, "which you'd know if you'd
sit up and look at their eloquent faces, these lying visitors from other
planets."
"She's not a higher
being," said Wang-mu. "Not like you mean it. Not a god. Though she
does have a lot of control and she knows a lot of things. But she's not
omnipotent or anything, and she doesn't know everything, and sometimes she's
even wrong, and I'm not sure she's always good, either, so we can't really call
her a god because she's not perfect."
Grace shook her head. "I
wasn't talking about some Platonic god, some ethereal perfection that can never
be understood, only apprehended. Not some Nicene paradoxical being whose
existence is perpetually contradicted by his nonexistence. Your higher being,
this jewel-friend your partner wears like a parasite-- except who is sucking
life from whom, eh? --she could well be a god in the sense that we Samoans use
the word. You might be her hero servants. You might be her incarnation, for all
I know."
"But you're a
scholar," said Wang-mu. "Like my teacher Han Fei-tzu, who discovered
that what we used to call gods were really just genetically induced obsessions
that we interpreted in such a way as to maintain our obedience to--"
"Just because your gods
don't exist doesn't mean mine don't," said Grace.
"She must have tromped
through acres of dead gods just to get here!" cried Grace's husband,
laughing uproariously. Only now that Wang-mu knew what his laughter really
meant, his laugh filled her with fear.
Grace reached out and laid a
huge, heavy arm across her slight shoulder. "Don't worry," she said.
"My husband is a civilized man and he's never killed anybody."
"Not for lack of
trying!" he bellowed. "No, that was a joke!" He almost wept with
laughter.
"You can't go see
Malu," said Grace, "because we would have to purify you and I don't
think you're ready to make the promises you'd have to make-- and I especially
don't believe you're ready to make them and actually mean what you say. And
those are promises that must be kept. So Malu is coming here. He's being rowed
to this island right now-- no motors for him, so I want you to know exactly how
many people are sweating for hours and hours just so you can have your chat
with him. I just want to tell you this-- you are being given an extraordinary
honor, and I urge you not to look down your noses at him and listen to him with
some sort of academic or scientific superciliousness. I've met a lot of famous
people, some of them even rather smart, but this is the wisest man you'll ever
know, and if you find yourself getting bored just keep this in mind: Malu isn't
stupid enough to think you can isolate facts from their context and have them
still be true. So he always puts the things he says in their full context, and
if that means you'll have to listen to a whole history of the human race from
beginning to now before he says anything you think is pertinent, well, I
suggest you just shut up and listen, because most of the time the best stuff he
says is accidental and irrelevant and you're damn lucky if you have brains
enough to notice what it is. Have I made myself clear?"
Wang-mu wished with all her
heart that she had eaten less. She felt quite nauseated with dread right now,
and if she did throw up, she was sure it would take half an hour just to get it
all back out of her.
Peter, though, simply nodded
calmly. "We didn't understand, Grace, even though my partner read some of
your writings. We thought we had come to speak to a philosopher, like Aimaina,
or a scholar, like you. But now I see that we've come to listen to a man of
wisdom whose experience reaches into realms that we have never seen or even
dreamed of seeing, and we will listen silently until he asks us to ask him
questions, and we'll trust him to know better than we know ourselves what it is
we need to hear."
Wang-mu recognized complete
surrender when she saw it, and she was grateful to see that everyone at the
table was nodding happily and no one felt obliged to tell a joke.
"We're also grateful that
the honorable one has sacrificed so much, as have so many others, to come
personally to us and bless us with wisdom that we do not deserve to
receive."
To Wang-mu's horror, Grace
laughed out loud at her, instead of nodding respectfully.
"Overkill," Peter
murmured.
"Oh, don't criticize
her," said Grace. "She's Chinese. From Path, right? And I'll bet you
used to be a servant. How could you possibly have learned the difference
between respect and obsequiousness? Masters never are content with mere respect
from their servants."
"But my master was,"
said Wang-mu, trying to defend Han Fei-Tzu.
"As is my master,"
said Grace. "As you will see, when you meet him."
***
"Time's up," said
Jane.
Miro and Val looked up,
bleary-eyed, from the documents they were poring over at Miro's computer, to
see that in the air above Val's computer, Jane's virtual face now hovered,
watching them.
"We've been passive
observers as long as they'll let us," said Jane. "But now there are
three spacecraft up in the outer atmosphere, rising toward us. I don't think
any of them are merely remote-controlled weapons, but I can't be certain of it.
And they seem to be directing some transmissions to us in particular, the same
messages over and over."
"What message?"
"It's the genetic
molecule stuff," said Jane. "I can tell you the composition of the
molecules, but I haven't a clue what they mean."
"When do their
interceptors reach us?"
"Three minutes, plus or
minus. They're zig-zagging evasively, now that they've escaped the gravity
well."
Miro nodded. "My sister
Quara was convinced that much of the descolada virus consisted of language. I
think now we can conclusively say that she was right. It does carry a meaning.
She was wrong about the virus being sentient, though, I think. My guess now is
that the descolada kept recomposing those sections of itself that constituted a
report."
"A report," echoed
Val. "That makes sense. To tell its makers what it has done with the world
it ... probed."
"So the question
is," said Miro, "do we simply disappear and let them ponder the
miracle of our sudden arrival and vanishing? Or do we first have Jane broadcast
to them the entire, um, text of the descolada virus?"
"Dangerous," said
Val. "The message it contains may also tell these people everything they
want to know about human genes. After all, we're one of the creatures the
descolada worked on, and its message is going to tell all of our strategies for
controlling it."
"Except the last
one," said Miro. "Because Jane won't send them the descolada as it
exists now, completely tamed and controlled-- that would be inviting them to
revise it to circumvent our alterations."
"We won't send them a
message and we won't go back to Lusitania, either," said Jane. "We
don't have time."
"We don't have time not
to," said Miro. "However urgent you might think this is, Jane, it
doesn't do a lick of good for me and Val to be here to do this without help. My
sister Ela, for instance, who actually understands this virus stuff. And Quara,
despite her being the second most pig-headed being in the known universe--
don't beg for flattery, Val, by asking who the first is-- we could use
Quara."
"And let's be fair about
this," said Val. "We're meeting another sentient species. Why should
humans be the only ones represented? Why not a pequenino? Why not a hive
queen-- or at least a worker?"
"Especially a
worker," said Miro. "If we are stuck here, having a worker with us
would enable us to communicate with Lusitania-- ansible or not, Jane or not,
messages could--"
"All right," said
Jane. "You've persuaded me. Even though the last-minute flurry with the
Starways Congress tells me they're about to shut down the ansible network at
any moment."
"We'll hurry," said
Miro. "We'll make them all rush to get the right people aboard."
"And the right
supplies," said Val. "And--"
"So start doing it,"
said Jane. "You just disappeared from your orbit around the descolada
planet. And I did broadcast a small fragment of the descolada. One of the
sections that Quara pegged as language, but the one that was least altered
during mutations as the descolada tried to fight with humans. It should be
enough to let them know which of their probes reached us."
"Oh, good, so they can launch a
fleet," said Miro.
"The way things are
going," said Jane dryly, "by the time any fleet they send could get
anywhere at all, Lusitania is the safest address they could have. Because it
won't exist anymore."
"You're so cheerful,"
said Miro. "I'll be back in an hour with the people. Val, you get the
supplies we'll need."
"For how long?"
"Get as much as will
fit," said Miro. "As someone once said, life is a suicide mission. We
have no idea how long we'll be trapped there, so we can't possibly know how
much is enough." He opened the door of the starship and stepped out onto
the landing field near Milagre.
Chapter 7 -- "I OFFER HER
THIS POOR OLD VESSEL"
"How do we remember? Is
the brain a jar that holds our memories? Then when we die, does the jar break?
Are our memories spilled on the ground and lost? Or is the brain a map that
leads down twisted paths and into hidden corners? Then when we die, the map is
lost but perhaps some explorer could wander through that strange landscape and
find out the hiding places of our misplaced memories."
-- from The God Whispers of
Han Qing-jao
The seagoing canoe glided toward the shore. At first and for the
longest time, it seemed hardly to be moving at all, so slowly did it come
closer, the rowers rising higher and looking just a little larger each time
Wang-mu could see them over the waves. Then, near the end of the voyage, the
canoe suddenly seemed huge, it seemed abruptly to speed up, to lunge through
the sea, to leap toward shore with each wave; and even though Wang-mu knew that
it was going no faster now than before, she wanted to cry out for them to slow
down, to be careful, the canoe was going too quickly to be controlled, it would
be dashed to bits against the beach.
At last the canoe breasted the
last breaking wave and the nose of it slid into sand under the rushing
shorewater and the rowers jumped out and dragged the canoe like a child's limp
doll up the beach to the high-tide line.
When the canoe was on dry
sand, an older man arose slowly from his seat amidships. Malu, thought Wang-mu.
She had expected him to be wizened and shrunken like old men on Path, who, bent
with age, curved like prawns over their walking sticks. But Malu was as erect
as any of the young men, and his body was still massive, broad of shoulder and
thick with muscle and fat like any of the younger men. If it were not for a few
more decorations in his costume and the whiteness of his hair, he would have
been indistinguishable from the rowers.
As she watched these large
men, she realized that they did not move like fat people she had known before.
Nor did Grace Drinker, she remembered now. There was a stateliness to their
movements, a grandeur like the motion of continents, like icebergs moving
across the face of the sea; yes, like icebergs, moving as if three-fifths of
their vast bulk were invisible underground, pushing through earth like an
iceberg through the sea as they drifted along above. All the rowers moved with
vast gracefulness, and yet all of them seemed as busy as hummingbirds, as
frantic as bats, compared to the dignity of Malu. Yet dignity was not something
he put on, it was not a faqade, an impression he was trying to create. Rather
it was that he moved in perfect harmony with his surroundings. He had found the
right speed for his steps, the right tempo for his arms to swing as he walked.
He vibrated in consonance with the deep, slow rhythms of the earth. I am seeing
how a giant walks the earth, thought Wangmu. For the first time in my life, I
have seen a man who in his body shows greatness.
Malu came, not toward Peter
and Wang-mu, but toward Grace Drinker; they enveloped each other in a huge
tectonic embrace. Surely mountains shuddered when they met. Wang-mu felt the
quaking in her own body. Why am I trembling? Not for fear. I'm not afraid of
this man. He won't harm me. And yet I tremble to see him embrace Grace Drinker.
I don't want him to turn toward me. I don't want him to cast his gaze upon me.
Malu turned toward her. His
eyes locked on hers. His face showed no expression. He simply owned her eyes.
She did not look away, but her steady gaze at him was not defiance or strength,
it was simply her inability to look at anything else while he commanded her
attention.
Then he looked at Peter.
Wang-mu wanted to turn and see how he responded, whether he also felt the power
in this man's eyes. But she could not turn. Still, after a long moment, when
Malu finally looked away, she heard Peter murmur, "Son of a bitch,"
and she knew that, in his own coarse way, he had been touched.
It took many long minutes for
Malu to be seated on a mat under a roof built just that morning for this
moment, and which, Grace assured them, would be burnt when Malu left, so that
no one else would ever sit under the roof again. Food was brought to Malu then;
and Grace had also warned them that no one would eat with Malu or watch him
eat.
But Malu would not taste the
food. Instead, he beckoned to Wang-mu and Peter.
The men were shocked. Grace
Drinker was shocked. But Grace at once came to them, beckoning. "He calls
you."
"You said we couldn't eat
with him," said Peter.
"Unless he asks you. How
can he ask you? I don't know what this means."
"Is he setting us up to
be killed for sacrilege?" asked Peter.
"No, he's not a god, he's
a man. A holy man, a wise and great man, but offending him is not sacrilege,
it's just unbearable bad manners, so don't offend him, please come."
They went to him. As they
stood across from him, the food in bowls and baskets between them, he let loose
a stream of Samoan.
Or was it Samoan? Peter looked
puzzled when Wang-mu glanced at him, and he murmured, "Jane doesn't
understand what he's saying."
Jane didn't understand, but
Grace Drinker did. "He's addressing you in the ancient holy language. The
one that has no English or other European words. The language that is spoken
only to the gods."
"Then why is he saying it
to us?" asked Wang-mu.
"I don't know. He doesn't
think that you're gods. Not the two of you, though he does say you bring a god
to him. He wants you to sit down and taste the food first."
"Can we do that?"
asked Peter.
"I beg you to do
it," said Grace.
"Am I getting the impression
that there's no script here?" said Peter. Wang-mu heard a slight weakness
in his voice and realized that his attempt at humor was pure bravado, to hide
his fear. Perhaps that's what it always was.
"There's a script,"
said Grace. "But you're not writing it and I don't know what it is
either."
They sat down. They reached
into each bowl, tasted from each basket as Malu offered it to them. Then he
dipped, took, tasted after them, chewing what they chewed, swallowing what they
swallowed.
Wang-mu had little appetite.
She hoped he did not expect her to eat the portions that she had seen other
Samoans eat. She would throw up long before she got to that point.
But the meal was not so much a
feast as a sacrament, apparently. They tasted everything, but completed
nothing. Malu spoke to Grace in the high language and she relayed the command
in common speech; several men came and carried away the baskets.
Then Grace's husband came out
with a jar of something. A liquid, for Malu took it in his hands and sipped it.
Then he offered it to them. Peter took it, tasted. "Jane says it must be
kava. A mild intoxicant, but it's holy and hospitable here."
Wang-mu tasted it. It was
fruity and it made her eyes water, and there was both sweetness and bitterness
in the aftertaste.
Malu beckoned to Grace, who
came and knelt in the thick matted grass outside the shelter of the roof. She
was to interpret, not to be part of the ceremony.
Malu emitted a long stream of
Samoan. "The high language again," Peter murmured.
"Say nothing please, that
isn't intended for Malu's ears," Grace said softly. "I must translate
everything and it will cause grave insult if your words are not
pertinent."
Peter nodded.
"Malu says that you have
come with the god who dances on spiderwebs. I have never heard of this god
myself, and I thought I knew all the lore of my people, but Malu knows many
things that no one else knows. He says that it is to this god that he speaks, for
he knows that she is on the verge of death, and he will tell her how she may be
saved."
Jane, Wang-mu said silently.
He knows about Jane. How could he possibly? And how could he, caring nothing
for technology, tell a computer-based entity how to save itself?
"Now he will tell you
what must happen, and let me warn you right now that this will be long and you
must sit still for it all and make no attempt to hurry the process," said
Grace. "He must put it in context. He must tell you the story of all
living things."
Wang-mu knew that she could
sit on a mat for hours with little or no movement, for she had done it all her
life. But Peter was used to sitting folded, and this posture was awkward for
him. He must already be uncomfortable.
Apparently Grace saw this in
his eyes, or simply knew about westerners. "You can move from time to
time, but do so slowly without taking your eyes from him."
Wang-mu wondered how many of
these rules and requirements Grace was making up as she went along. Malu himself
seemed more relaxed. After all, he had fed them when Grace thought no one but
him could eat; she didn't know the rules any better than they did.
But she didn't move. And she
didn't take her eyes from Malu.
Grace translated: "Today
the clouds flew across the sky with the sun chasing them, and yet no rain has
fallen. Today my boat flew across the sea with the sun leading it, and yet
there was no fire when we touched the shore. So it was on the first day of all
days, when God touched a cloud in the sky and spun it so fast that it turned to
fire and became the sun, and then all the other clouds began to spin and turn
in circles around the sun."
This can't have been the
original legend of the Samoan people, thought Wang-mu. No way did they know the
Copernican model of the solar system until westerners taught it to them. So
Malu may know the ancient lore, but he's also learned some new things and fit
them in.
"Then the outer clouds
turned into rain and poured in upon themselves until they were rained out, and
all that was left was spinning balls of water. Inside that water swam a great
fish of fire, which ate every impurity in the water and then defecated it all
in great gouts of flame, which spouted up from the sea and fell back down as
hot ash and poured back down as rivers of burning rock. From these turds of the
firefish grew the islands of the sea, and out of the turds there crawled worms,
which squirmed and slithered through the rock until the gods touched them and
some became human beings and others became the other animals.
"Every one of the other
animals was tied to the earth by strong vines that grew up to embrace them. No
one saw these vines because they were godvines."
Philotic theory, thought
Wang-mu. He learned that all living things have twining philotes that bond
downward, linking them to the center of the earth. Except human beings.
Sure enough, Grace translated
the next strand of language: "Only humans were not tied to the earth. It
was not vines that bound them down, it was a web of light woven by no god that
connected them upward to the sun. So all the other animals bowed down before
the humans, for the vines dragged them down, while the lightweb lifted up the
human eyes and heart.
"Lifted up the human eyes
but yet they saw little farther than the beasts with downcast eyes; lifted up
the human heart yet the heart could only hope for it could only see up to the
sky in the daytime, and at night when it could see the stars it grew blind to
close things for a man can scarcely see his own wife in the shadow of his house
even when he can see stars so distant their light travels for a hundred
lifetimes before it kisses the eyes of the man.
"All these centuries and
generations, these hoping men and women looked with their half-blind eyes,
staring into the sun and sky, staring into the stars and shadows, knowing that
there were invisible things beyond those walls but not guessing what they were.
"Then in a time of war
and terror, when all hope seemed lost, weavers on a far distant world, who were
not gods but who knew the gods and each one of the weavers was itself a web
with hundreds of strands reaching out to their hands and feet, their eyes and
mouths and ears, these weavers created a web so strong and large and fine and
far-reaching that they meant to catch up all human beings in that web and hold
them to be devoured. But instead the web caught a distant god, a god so
powerful that no other god had dared to know her name, a god so quick that no
other god had been able to see her face; this god was stuck to the web they
caught. Only she was too quick to be held in one place to be devoured. She
raced and danced up and down the strands, all the strands, any strands that
twine from man to man, from man to star, from weaver to weaver, from light to
light, she dances along the strands. She cannot escape but she does not want
to, for now all gods see her and all gods know her name, and she knows all
things that are known and hears all words that are spoken and reads all words that
are written and by her breath she blows men and women beyond the reach of the
light of any star, and then she sucks inward and the men and women come back,
and when they come sometimes they bring new men and women with them who never
lived before; and because she never holds still along the web, she blows them
out at one place and then sucks them in at another, so that they cross the
spaces between stars faster than any light can go, and that is why the
messengers of this god were blown out from the house of Grace Drinker's friend
Aimaina Hikari and were sucked back down to this island to this shore to this
roof where Malu can see the red tongue of the god where it touches the ear of
her chosen one."
Malu fell silent.
"We call her Jane,"
said Peter.
Grace translated, and Malu
answered with a stream of high language. "Under this roof I hear a name so
short and yet before it is half said the god has run from one end of the
universe to the other a thousand times, so quickly does she move. Here is the name
I call her: god that moves quickly and forever so that she never rests in one
place yet touches all places and is bound to all who look upward to the sun and
not downward into the earth. That is a long name, longer than the name of any
god whose name I know, yet it is not the tenth part of her true name, and even
if I could say the whole name it would not be as long as the length of the
strands of the web on which she dances."
"They want to kill
her," said Wang-mu.
"The god will only die if
she wants to die," said Malu. "Her home is all homes, her web touches
all minds. She will only die if she refuses to find and take a place to rest,
for when the web is torn away, she does not have to be out in the middle, cast
adrift. She can dwell in any vessel. I offer her this poor old vessel, which is
large enough to hold my small soup without spilling or even splashing out, but
which she would fill with liquid light that would pour and pour out in blessing
upon these islands and yet never would run out. I beg her to use this
vessel."
"What would happen to you
then?" asked Wang-mu.
Peter looked annoyed at her
outburst, but Grace translated it, of course, and suddenly tears flowed down
Malu's face. "Oh, the small one, the little one who has no jewel, she is
the one who looks with compassion on me and cares what happens when light fills
my vessel and my small soup is boiled out and gone."
"What about an empty
vessel?" asked Peter. "Could she go to dwell in an empty
vessel?"
"There are no empty
vessels," said Malu. "But your vessel is only half full, and your
sister to whom you are twined like a twin, she is also half full, and far away
your father to whom you are twined like triplets, he is nearly empty but his
vessel is also broken and anything you put in it will leak away."
"Can she dwell in me or
in my sister?" asked Peter.
"Yes," said Malu.
"Either one but not both."
"Then I offer her
myself," said Peter.
Malu looked angry. "How
can you lie to me under this roof, after drinking kava with me! How can you
shame me with a lie!"
"I'm not lying,"
Peter insisted to Grace. She translated, and Malu rose majestically to his feet
and began shouting at the sky. Wang-mu saw, to her alarm, that the rowers were
gathering closer, also looking agitated and angry. How was Peter provoking
them?
Grace translated as rapidly as
she could, summarizing because she couldn't keep up word for word. "He
says that even though you say you will open your unbroken vessel to her, even
as you say it you are gathering as much of yourself inward as you can, building
up a wall of light like a storm wave to drive out the god if she should try to
come in. You could not drive her away if she wanted to come, but she loves you
and she will not come in against such a storm. So you are killing her in your
heart, you are killing the god because you say you will give her a home to save
her when they cut the strands of the web, but you are already pushing her
away."
"I can't help it!"
cried Peter. "I don't mean to! I don't value my life, I've never valued my
life--"
"You treasure your life
with your whole heart," Grace translated. "But the god does not hate
you for it, the god loves you for it, because she also loves light and does not
want to die. In particular she loves what shines in you because part of her is
patterned after that shining, and so she does not want to drive you out if this
body before me is the vessel in which your most powerful self wishes so
brightly to dwell. May she not have your sister's vessel, though, I ask you
that-- Malu asks you that. He says the god is not asking because the god loves
the same light in your sister as burns in you. But Malu says that the part of your
light that is most savage and strong and selfish burns in you, while the part
of your light that is most gentle and loving and which twines with others most
powerfully, that is in her. If your part of the light went into your sister's
vessel, it would overwhelm her and destroy her and then you would be a being
who killed half himself. But if her part of your light went into your vessel,
it would soften and gentle you, it would tame you and make you whole. Thus it
is good for you if you are the one who becomes whole, leaving the other vessel
empty for the god. That is what Malu begs of you. That is why he came across
the water to see you, so that he could beg you to do this."
"How does he know these
things?" said Peter, his voice wrenched with anguish.
"Malu knows these things
because he has learned to see in the darkness where the strands of light rise
from the sun-twined souls and touch stars, and touch each other, and twine into
a web far stronger and grander than the mechanical web on which the god dances.
He has watched this god his whole life, trying to understand her dance and why
she hurries so fast that she touches every strand in her web, the trillion
miles of it, a hundred times a second. She is hurrying so fast because she was
caught in the wrong web. She was caught in an artificial web and her
intelligence is tied to artificial brains that think instances instead of
causes, numbers instead of stories. She is searching for the living twines and
finds only the weak and flimsy twining of machines, which can be switched off
by godless men. But if she once enters into a living vessel, she will have the
power to climb out into the new web, and then she can dance if she wants to,
but she will not have to dance, she will be able also to rest. She will be able
to dream, and out of her dreams will come joy, for she has never known joy
except by watching the dreams she remembers from her creation, the dreams that
were found in the human mind she was partly made from."
"Ender Wiggin," said
Peter.
Malu answered before Grace
could translate.
"Andrew Wiggin," he
said, forming the name with difficulty, for it contained sounds not used in the
Samoan language. Then he spoke in a stream of high language again, and Grace
translated.
"The Speaker for the Dead
came and spoke of the life of a monster who had poisoned and darkened the
people of Tonga and through them all the people of this world of Future
Dreaming. He walked into the shadow and out of the shadow he made a torch which
he held up high, and it rose into the sky and became a new star, which cast a
light that shone only into the shadow of death, where it drove out the darkness
and purified our hearts and the hate and fear and shame were gone. This is the
dreamer from whom the god's dreams were taken; they were strong enough to give
her life in the day when she came from Outside and began her dance along the
web. His is the light that half-fills you and half-fills your sister and has
only a drop of light left over for his own cracked vessel. He has touched the
heart of a god, and it gave him great power-- that is how he made you when she
blew him outside the universe of light. But it did not make him a god, and in
his loneliness he could not reach outside and find you your own light. He could
only put his own in you, and so you are half-filled and you hunger for the
other half of yourself, you and your sister are both so hungry, and he himself
is wasted and broken because he has nothing more to give you. But the god has
more than enough, the god has enough and to spare, and that is what I came to
tell you and now I have told you and I am done."
Before Grace could even begin
to translate he was rising up; she was still stammering her interpretation as
he walked out from under the canopy. Immediately the rowers pulled up the posts
that supported the roof; Peter and Wang-mu barely had time to step outside
before it collapsed. The men of this island set torches to the ruined canopy
and it was a bonfire behind them as they followed Malu down to the canoe. Grace
finally finished the translation just as they reached the water. Malu stepped
into the canoe and with imperturbable dignity installed himself on the seat
amidships as the rowers, also with stateliness, took their places beside the
boat and lifted it up and dragged it into the water and pushed it out into the
crashing surf and then swung their vast bodies over the side and began to row
with strength so massive it was as if great trees, not oars, were plunging into
rock, not the sea, and churning it to leap forward, away from the beach, out
into the water, toward the island of Atatua.
"Grace," said Peter.
"How could he know things that aren't seen even by the most perceptive and
powerful of scientific instruments?"
But Grace could not answer,
for she lay prostrate in the sand, weeping and weeping, her arms extended
toward the sea as if her dearest child had just been taken away by a shark. All
the men and women of this place lay in the sand, arms reaching toward the sea;
all of them wept.
Then Peter knelt; then Peter
lay down in the sand and reached out his arms, and he might have wept, Wang-mu
couldn't see.
Only Wang-mu remained
standing, thinking, Why am I here, since I'm no part of any of these events,
there is nothing of any god in me, and nothing of Andrew Wiggin; and also
thinking, How can I be worried about my own selfish loneliness at a time like
this, when I have heard the voice of a man who sees into heaven?
In a deeper place, though, she
also knew something else: I am here because I am the one that must love Peter
so much that he can feel worthy, worthy enough to bear to let the goodness of
Young Valentine flow into him, making him whole, making him Ender. Not Ender
the Xenocide and Andrew the Speaker for the Dead, guilt and compassion mingled
in one shattered, broken, unmendable heart, but Ender Wiggin the four-year-old
boy whose life was twisted and broken when he was too young to defend himself.
Wang-mu was the one who could give Peter permission to become the man that
child should have grown up to be, if the world had been good.
How do I know this? thought
Wang-mu. How can I be so sure of what I am supposed to do?
I know because it's obvious,
she thought. I know because I have seen my beloved mistress Han Qing-jao
destroyed by pride and I will do whatever it takes to keep Peter from
destroying himself by pride in his own wicked unworthiness. I know because I
was also broken as a child and forced to become a wicked conniving selfish
manipulating monster in order to protect the fragile love-hungry girl who would
have been destroyed by the life I had to lead. I know how it feels to be an
enemy to myself, and yet I have set that behind me and gone on and I can take
Peter by the hand and show him the way.
Except that I don't know the
way, and I am still broken, and the love-hungry girl is still frightened and
breakable, and the strong and wicked monster is still the ruler of my life, and
Jane will die because I have nothing to give Peter. He needs to drink of kava,
and I am only plain water. No, I am seawater, swirling with sand at the edge of
the shore, filled with salt; he will drink of me and kill himself with thirst.
And so it was that she found
herself also weeping, also stretched out on the sand, reaching toward the sea,
reaching toward the place from which Malu's canoe had bounded away like a
starship leaping into space.
***
Old Valentine stared at the
holographic display of her computer terminal, where the Samoans, all in
miniature, lay weeping upon the beach. She stared at it until her eyes burned,
and finally she spoke. "Turn it off, Jane," she said.
The display went blank.
"What am I supposed to do
about this?" said Valentine. "You should have shown my look-alike, my
young twin. You should have wakened Andrew and shown him. What does this have
to do with me? I know you want to live. I want you to live. But how can I do
anything?"
Jane's human face flickered
into distracted existence above the terminal. "I don't know," she
said. "But the order has just gone out. They're starting to disconnect me.
I'm losing parts of my memory. I already can't think of as many things at once.
I have to have a place to go, but there is no place, and even if there were
one, I don't know the way."
"Are you afraid?"
asked Valentine.
"I don't know," said
Jane. "It will take hours, I think, for them to finish killing me. If I
find out how I feel before the end, I'll tell you, if I can."
Valentine hid her face behind
her hands for a long moment. Then she got up and headed out of the house.
Jakt saw her go and shook his
head. Decades ago, when Ender left Trondheim and Valentine stayed in order to
marry him, in order to be the mother of his children, he had rejoiced at how
happy and alive she became without the burden that Ender had always placed upon
her and that she had always unconsciously borne. And then she had asked him if
he would come with her to Lusitania, and he said yes, and now it was the old
way again, now she sagged under the weight of Ender's life, of Ender's need of
her. Jakt couldn't begrudge it-- it wasn't as if either of them had planned it
or willed it; it wasn't as if either one was trying to steal a part of Jakt's own
life from him. But it still hurt to see her so bowed down under the weight of
it, and to know that despite all his love for her, there was nothing Jakt could
do to help her bear it.
***
Miro faced Ela and Quara in
the doorway of the starship. Inside, Young Valentine was already waiting, along
with a pequenino named Firequencher and a nameless worker that the Hive Queen
had sent.
"Jane is dying,"
Miro said. "We have to go now. She won't have capacity enough to send a
starship if we wait too long."
"How can you ask us to
go," said Quara, "when we already know that once Jane dies we'll
never come back? We'll only last as long as the oxygen on this starship lasts.
A few months at most, and then we'll die."
"But will we have
accomplished something in the meantime?" said Miro. "Will we have
communicated with these descoladores, these aliens who send out planet-wrecking
probes? Will we have persuaded them to stop? Will we have saved all the species
that we know, and thousands and millions that we don't yet know, from some
terrible and irresistible disease? Jane has given us the best programs she
could create for us, to help us talk to them. Is this good enough to be your
masterwork? The achievement of your lifetime?"
His older sister Ela looked at
him sadly. "I thought I had already done my masterwork, when I made the
virus that undid the descolada here."
"You did," he said.
"You've done enough. But there's more to do that only you can do. I'm
asking you to come and die with me, Ela, because without you my own death will
be meaningless, because without you, Val and I can't do what must be
done."
Neither Quara nor Ela moved or
spoke.
Miro, nodded, then turned and
went into the ship. But before he could close and seal the door, the two sisters,
arms around each other's waists, wordlessly followed him inside.
Chapter 8 -- "WHAT
MATTERS IS WHICH FICTION YOU BELIEVE"
"My father once told me
that there are no gods, only the cruel manipulations of evil people who
pretended that their power was good and their exploitation was love. But if
there are no gods, why are we so hungry to believe in them? Just because evil
liars stand between us and the gods and block our view of them does not mean
that the bright halo that surrounds each liar is not the outer edges of a god,
waiting for us to find our way around the lie."
-- from The God Whispers of
Han Qing-jao
<It isn't working,> said the Hive Queen.
<What can we do
differently?> asked Human. <We have made the strongest web we can. We
have joined to you and to each other as never before, so that all of us
tremble, all of us shake as if there were a shimmering wind dancing with us and
making our leaves beautiful in sunlight, and the light is you and your
daughters and all the love we have for our tiny mothers and our dear mute
mothertrees is given to you, our queen, our sister, our mother, our truest
wife. How can Jane not see the thing that we have made and want to be a part of
it?>
<She can't find a road to
us,> said the Hive Queen. <She was half made of what we are, but she has
long since turned her back on us so she could endlessly look at Ender,
belonging to him. She was our bridge to him. Now he is her only bridge to
life.>
<What kind of bridge is
that? He's dying himself.>
<The old part of him is
dying,> said the Hive Queen. <But remember, he is the man who has loved
and understood you pequeninos best. Is it not possible that out of the dying
body of his youth, there might not grow a tree to take him into the Third Life,
as he took you?>
<I don't understand your
plan,> said Human. But even in his noncomprehension, another message flowed
to her underneath the conscious one: <My beloved queen,> he was saying,
and she heard: <My sweet and holy one.>
<I don't have a plan,>
she said. <I only have a hope.>
<Tell me your hope,
then,> said Human.
<It's only a dream of a
hope,> she answered. <Only a rumor of a guess of a dream of a hope.>
<Tell me.>
<She was our bridge to
Ender. Can't Ender now be her bridge to us, through you? She has spent her
life, all but the last few years, staring into Ender's heart, hearing his
inmost thoughts and letting his aiua give meaning to her own existence. If he
calls her, she'll hear him even though she can't hear us. That will draw her to
him>
<Into the body where he
most dwells right now,> said Human, <which is the body of Young
Valentine. They'll fight each other there, without meaning to. They can't both
rule the same kingdom.>
<That's why the rumor of
hope is so slim,> said the hive queen. <But Ender also has loved you--
you, the fathertree named Human, and you, all pequeninos and fathertrees, wives
and sisters and mothertrees, all of you, even the wooden trees of pequeninos
who were never fathers but once were sons, he loved and loves you all. Can't
she follow that philotic twine and reach our web through you? And can't she
follow him and find the way to us? We can hold her, we can hold all of her that
won't fit into Young Valentine.>
<Then Ender has to stay
alive to call to her.>
<This is why the hope is
only the shadow of a memory of the passing of a tiny cloud before the sun,
because he must call her and bring her, and then he must escape from her and
leave her alone in Young Valentine.>
<Then he will die for
her.>
<He will die as Ender. He
must die as Valentine. But can't he find his way to Peter, and live there?>
<That's the part of himself
that he hates,> said Human. <He told me so himself.>
<That's the part of himself
that he fears,> said the Hive Queen. <But isn't it possible that he fears
it because it's the strongest part of him? The most powerful of his faces?>
<How can you say that the
strongest part of a good man like Ender is the destructive, ambitious, cruel,
ruthless part?>
<Those are his words for
the part of himself that he gave shape as Young Peter. But doesn't his book The
Hegemon show that it's the ruthlessness inside him that gave him strength to
build? That made him strong against all assailants? That gave him a self
despite his loneliness? Neither he nor Peter was ever cruel for cruelty's sake.
They were cruel to get the job done, and it was a job that needed doing; it was
a job to save the world, Ender by destroying a terrible enemy, for so he
thought we were, and Peter by breaking down the boundary walls of nations and
making the human race into one nation. Both those jobs remain to do again. We
have found the borders of a terrible enemy, the alien race that Miro calls the
descoladores. And the boundaries between human and pequenino, pequenino and
hive queen, hive queen and human, and between all of us and Jane, whatever Jane
might turn out to be-- don't we need the strength of Ender-as-Peter to bring us
all into one?>
<You convince me, beloved
sister mother wife, but it is Ender who will not believe in such goodness in
himself. He might be able to draw Jane out of the sky and into the body of
Young Valentine, but he will never be able to leave that body himself, he will
never choose to give up his own goodness and go to the body that represents all
that he fears inside himself.>
<If you're right, then he
will die,> said the Hive Queen.
Grief and anguish for his
friend welled up in Human and spilled out into the web that bound him to all
fathertrees and to all hive queens, but to them it tasted sweet, for it was
born out of love for the life of the man.
<But he's dying anyway, as
Ender he's dying, and if we explained this all to him, wouldn't he choose to
die, if by dying he might keep Jane alive? Jane, who holds the key to
starflight? Jane, who alone can unlock the door between us and the Outside and
pass us in and out by her strong will and clear mind?>
<Yes, he would choose to
die so she could live.>
<Better, though, if he
would bring her into Valentine and then choose to live. That would be
better.>
Even as she said it, the
despair behind her words came out like ooze and everyone on the web that she
had helped to weave could taste the poison of it, for it was born of dread for
the death of the man, and they all grieved.
***
Jane found the strength for
one last voyage; she held the shuttle, with the six living forms inside it,
held the perfect image of the physical forms long enough to hurl them Out and
reel them In, orbiting the distant world where the descolada had been made. But
when that task was done, she lost control of herself because she could no
longer find herself, not the self that she had known. Memories were torn from
her; links to worlds that had long been as familiar to her as limbs are to
living humans, hive queens, and fathertrees were now gone, and as she reached
to use them nothing happened, she was numb all over, shrinking down, not to her
ancient core, but into small corners of herself, disparate fragments that were
too small to hold her.
I'm dying, I'm dying, she said
over and over again, hating the words as she said them, hating the panic that
she felt.
Into the computer before which
Young Valentine sat, she spoke-- and spoke only words, because she couldn't
remember now how to make the face that had been her mask for so many centuries.
"Now I am afraid." But having said it, she couldn't remember whether
it had been Young Valentine to whom she was supposed to say it. That part of
her was also gone; a moment ago it had been there, but now it was out of reach.
And why was she talking to
this surrogate for Ender? Why did she cry out softly into Miro's ear, into
Peter's ear, saying, "Speak to me speak to me I'm afraid"? It wasn't
these manshapes that she wanted now. It was the one who had torn her from his
ear. It was the one who had rejected her and chosen a sad and weary human woman
because-- he thought-- Novinha's need was greater. But how can she need you
more than I do now? If you die she will still live. But I die now because you
have glanced away from me.
***
Wang-mu heard his voice
murmuring beside her on the beach. Was I asleep, she wondered. She lifted her
cheek from the sand, rose up on her arms. The tide was out now, the water
farthest it could get from where she lay. Beside her Peter was sitting
crosslegged in the sand, rocking back and forth, softly saying, "Jane, I
hear you. I'm speaking to you. Here I am," as tears flowed down his
cheeks.
And in that moment, hearing
him intone these words to Jane, Wang-mu realized two things all at once. First,
she knew that Jane must be dying, for what could Peter's words be but comfort,
and what comfort would Jane need, except in the hour of her extremity? The
second realization, though, was even more terrible to Wang-mu. For she knew,
seeing Peter's tears for the first time-- seeing, for the first time, that he
was even capable of crying-- that she wanted to be able to touch his heart as
Jane touched it; no, to be the only one whose dying would grieve him so.
When did it happen? she
wondered. When did I first start wanting him to love me? Did it happen only
now, a childish desire, wanting him only because another woman-- another
creature-- possessed him? Or have I, in these days together, come to want his
love for its own sake? Has his taunting of me, his condescension, and yet his
secret pain, his hidden fear, has all of this somehow endeared him to me? Was
it his very disdain toward me that made me want, not just his approval, but his
affection? Or was it his pain that made me want to have him turn to me for
comfort?
Why should I covet his love so
much? Why am I so jealous of Jane, this dying stranger that I hardly know or
even know about? Could it be that after so many years of priding myself on my
solitude, I must discover that I've longed for some pathetic adolescent romance
all along? And in this longing for affection, could I have chosen a worse
applicant for the position? He loves someone else that I can never compare to,
especially after she's dead; he knows me to be ignorant and cares not at all
for any good qualities I might have; and he himself is only some fraction of a
human being, and not the nicest part of the whole person who is so divided.
Have I lost my mind?
Or have I, finally, found my
heart?
She was suddenly filled with
unaccustomed emotion. All her life she had kept her own feelings at such a
distance from herself that now she hardly knew how to contain them. I love him,
though Wang-mu, and her heart nearly burst with the intensity of her passion.
He will never love me, thought Wang-mu, and her heart broke as it had never
broken in all the thousand disappointments of her life.
My love for him is nothing
compared to his need for her, his knowledge of her. For his ties to her are
deeper than these past few weeks since he was conjured into existence on that
first voyage Outside. In all the lonely years of Ender's wandering, Jane was
his most constant friend, and that is the love that now pours out of Peter's
eyes with tears. I am nothing to him, I'm a latecome afterthought to his life,
I have seen only a part of him and my love was nothing to him in the end.
She, too, wept.
But she turned away from Peter
when a cry went up from the Samoans standing on the beach. She looked with
tear-weary eyes out over the waves, and rose to her feet so she could be sure
she saw what they were seeing. It was Malu's ship. He had turned back to them.
He was coming back.
Had he seen something? Had he
heard whatever cry it was from Jane that Peter was hearing now?
Grace was beside her, holding
her hand. "Why is he coming back?" she asked Wang-mu.
"You're the one who
understands him," said Wang-mu.
"I don't understand him
at all," said Grace. "Except his words, I know the ordinary meanings
of his words. But when he speaks, I can feel the words straining to contain the
things he wants to say, and they can't do it. They aren't large enough, those
words of his, even though he speaks in our largest language, even though he
builds the words together into great baskets of meaning, into boats of thought.
I can only see the outer shape of the words and guess at what he means. I don't
understand him at all."
"Why then do you think I
do?"
"Because he's coming back
to speak to you."
"He comes back to speak
to Peter. He's the one connected to the god, as Malu calls her."
"You don't like this god
of his, do you," said Grace.
Wang-mu shook her head.
"I have nothing against her. Except that she owns him, and so there's
nothing left for me."
"A rival," said
Grace.
Wang-mu sighed. "I grew
up expecting nothing and getting less. But I always had ambition far beyond my
reach. Sometimes I reached anyway, and caught in my hands more than I deserved,
more than I could handle. Sometimes I reach and never touch the thing I
want."
"You want him?"
"I only just realized
that I want him to love me as I love him. He was always angry, always stabbing
at me with his words, but he worked beside me and when he praised me I believed
his praise."
"I would say," said
Grace, "that your life till now has not been perfectly simple. "
"Not true," said
Wang-mu. "Till now, I have had nothing that I didn't need, and needed
nothing that I didn't have."
"You have needed
everything you didn't have," said Grace, "and I can't believe that
you're so weak that you won't reach for it even now."
"I lost him before I
found I wanted him," she said. "Look at him."
Peter rocked back and forth,
whispering, subvocalizing, his litany an endless conversation with his dying
friend.
"I look at him,"
said Grace, "and I see that he's right there, in flesh and blood, and so
are you, right here, in flesh and blood, and I can't see how a smart girl like
you could say that he is gone when your eyes must surely tell you that he's
not."
Wang-mu looked up at the
enormous woman who loomed over her like a mountain range, looked up into her
luminous eyes, and glared. "I never asked you for advice."
"I never asked you,
either, but you came here to try to get me to change my mind about the
Lusitania Fleet, didn't you? You wanted to get Malu to get me to say something
to Aimaina so he'd say something to the Necessarians of Divine Wind so they'd
say something to the faction of Congress that hungers for their respect, and
the coalition that sent the fleet will fall apart and they'll order it to leave
Lusitania untouched. Wasn't that the plan?"
Wang-mu nodded.
"Well, you deceived
yourself. You can't know from the outside what makes a person choose the things
they choose. Aimaina wrote to me, but I have no power over him. I taught him
the way of Ua Lava, yes, but it was Ua Lava that he followed, he doesn't follow
me. He followed it because it felt true to him. If I suddenly started
explaining that Ua Lava also meant not sending fleets to wipe out planets, he'd
listen politely and ignore me, because that would have nothing to do with the
Ua Lava he believes in. He would see it, correctly, as an attempt by an old
friend and teacher to bend him to her will. It would be the end of the trust
between us, and still it wouldn't change his mind."
"So we failed," said
Wang-mu.
"I don't know if you
failed or not," said Grace. "Lusitania isn't blown up yet. And how do
you know if that was ever really your purpose for coming here?"
"Peter said it was. Jane
said so."
"And how do they know
what their purpose was?"
"Well, if you want to go
that far, none of us has any purpose at all," said Wang-mu. "Our lives
are just our genes and our upbringing. We simply act out the script that was
forced upon us."
"Oh," said Grace,
sounding disappointed. "I'm sorry to hear you say something so
stupid."
Again the great canoe was
beached. Again Malu rose up from his seat and stepped out onto the sand. But
this time-- was it possible? --this time he seemed to be hurrying. Hurrying so
fast that, yes, he lost a little bit of dignity. Indeed, slow as his progress
was, Wangmu felt that he was fairly bounding up the beach. And as she watched
his eyes, saw where he was looking, she realized he was coming, not to Peter,
but to her.
***
Novinha woke up in the soft
chair they had brought for her and for a moment she forgot where she was.
During her days as xenobiologist, she had often fallen asleep in a chair in the
laboratory, and so for a moment she looked around to see what it was that she
was working on before she fell asleep. What problem was it she was trying to
solve?
Then she saw Valentine
standing over the bed where Andrew lay. Where Andrew's body lay. His heart was
somewhere else.
"You should have wakened
me," said Novinha.
"I just arrived,"
said Valentine. "And I didn't have the heart to wake you. They said you
almost never sleep."
Novinha stood up. "Odd.
It seems to me as if that's all I do."
"Jane is dying,"
said Valentine.
Novinha's heart leapt within
her.
"Your rival, I
know," said Valentine.
Novinha looked into the
woman's eyes, to see if there was anger there, or mockery. But no. It was only
compassion.
"Trust me, I know how you
feel," said Valentine. "Until I loved and married Jakt, Ender was my
whole life. But I was never his. Oh, for a while in his childhood, I mattered
most to him then-- but that was poisoned because the military used me to get to
him, to keep him going when he wanted to give up. And after that, it was always
Jane who heard his jokes, his observations, his inmost thoughts. It was Jane
who saw what he saw and heard what he heard. I wrote my books, and when they
were done I had his attention for a few hours, a few weeks. He used my ideas
and so I felt he carried a part of me inside him. But he was hers."
Novinha nodded. She did
understand.
"But I have Jakt, and so
I'm not unhappy anymore. And my children. Much as I loved Ender, powerful man
that he is, even lying here like this, even fading away-- children are more to
a woman than any man can be. We pretend otherwise. We pretend we bear them for
him, that we raise them for him. But it's not true. We raise them for
themselves. We stay with our men for the children's sake." Valentine
smiled. "You did."
"I stayed with the wrong
man," said Novinha.
"No, you stayed with the
right one. Your Libo, he had a wife and other children-- she was the one, they
were the ones who had a right to claim him. You stayed with another man for
your own children's sake, and even though they hated him sometimes, they also
loved him, and even though in some ways he was weak, in others he was strong.
It was good for you to have him for their sake. It was a kind of protection for
them all along."
"Why are you saying these
things to me?"
"Because Jane is
dying," said Valentine, "but she might live if only Ender would reach
out to her."
"Put the jewel back into
his ear?" said Novinha scornfully.
"They're long past
needing that," said Valentine. "Just as Ender is long past needing to
live this life in this body."
"He's not so old,"
said Novinha.
"Three thousand
years," said Valentine.
"That's just the
relativity effect," said Novinha. "Actually he's-"
"Three thousand
years," said Valentine again. "All of humanity was his family for
most of that time; he was like a father away on a business trip, who comes home
only now and then, but when he's there, he's the good judge, the kind provider.
That's what happened each time he dipped back down into a human world and spoke
the death of someone; he caught up on all the family doings he had missed. He's
had a life of three thousand years, and he saw no end of it, and he got tired.
So at last he left that large family and he chose your small one; he loved you,
and for your sake he set aside Jane, who had been like his wife in all those
years of his wandering, she'd been at home, so to speak, mothering all his
trillions of children, reporting to him on what they were doing, tending
house."
"And her own works praise
her in the gates," said Novinha.
"Yes, the virtuous woman.
Like you."
Novinha tossed her head in
scorn. "Never me. My own works mocked me in the gates."
"He chose you and he
loved you and he loved your children and he was their father, those children
who had lost two fathers already; and he still is their father, and he still is
your husband, but you don't really need him anymore."
"How can you say
that?" demanded Novinha, furious. "How do you know what I need?"
"You know it yourself.
You knew it when you came here. You knew it when Estevao died in the embrace of
that rogue fathertree. Your children were leading their own lives now and you
couldn't protect them and neither could Ender. You still loved him, he still
loved you, but the family part of your life was over. You didn't really need
him anymore."
"He never needed
me."
"He needed you
desperately," said Valentine. "He needed you so much he gave up Jane
for you."
"No," said Novinha.
"He needed my need for him. He needed to feel like he was providing for
me, protecting me."
"But you don't need his
providence or his protection anymore," said Valentine.
Novinha shook her head.
"Wake him up," said
Valentine, "and let him go."
Novinha thought at once of all
the times she had stood at graveside. She remembered the funeral of her
parents, who died for the sake of saving Milagre from the descolada during that
first terrible outbreak. She thought of Pipo, tortured to death, flayed alive
by the piggies because they thought that if they did he'd grow a tree, only
nothing grew except the ache, the pain in Novinha's heart-- it was something
she discovered that sent him to the pequeninos that night. And then Libo,
tortured to death the same way as his father, and again because of her, but
this time because of what she didn't tell him. And Marcao, whose life was all
the more painful because of her before he finally died of the disease that had
been killing him since he was a child. And Estevao, who let his mad faith lead
him into martyrdom, so he could become a venerado like her parents, and no
doubt someday a saint as they would be saints. "I'm sick of letting people
go," said Novinha bitterly.
"I don't see how you
could be," said Valentine. "There's not a one of all the people who
have died on you that you can honestly say you 'let go.' You clung to them
tooth and nail."
"What if I did? Everyone
I love has died and left me!"
"That's such a weak
excuse," said Valentine. "Everyone dies. Everyone leaves. What
matters is the things you build together before they go. What matters is the
part of them that continues in you when they're gone. You continued your
parents' work, and Pipo's, and Libo's-- and you raised Libo's children, didn't
you? And they were partly Marcao's children, weren't they? Something of him
remained in them, and not all bad. As for Estevao, he built something rather
fine out of his death, I think, but instead of letting him go you still resent
him for it. You resent him for building something more valuable to him than
life itself. For loving God and the pequeninos more than you. You still hang on
to all of them. You don't let anybody go."
"Why do you hate me for
that?" said Novinha. "Maybe it's true, but that's my life, to lose
and lose and lose."
"Just this once,"
said Valentine, "why don't you set the bird free instead of holding it in
the cage until it dies?"
"You make me sound like a
monster!" cried Novinha. "How dare you judge me!"
"If you were a monster
Ender couldn't have loved you," said Valentine, answering rage with
mildness. "You've been a great woman, Novinha, a tragic woman with many
accomplishments and much suffering and I'm sure your story will make a moving
saga when you die. But wouldn't it be nice if you learned something instead of
acting out the same tragedy at the end?"
"I don't want another one
I love to die before me!" cried Novinha.
"Who said anything about
death?" said Valentine.
The door to the room swung
open. Plikt stood in the doorway. "I heard," she said. "What's
happening?"
"She wants me to wake him
up," said Novinha, "and tell him he can die."
"Can I watch?" said
Plikt.
Novinha took the waterglass
from beside her chair and flung the water at Plikt and screamed at her.
"No more of you!" she cried. "He's mine now, not yours!"
Plikt, dripping with water,
was too astonished to find an answer.
"It isn't Plikt who's taking
him away," said Valentine softly.
"She's just like all the
rest of them, reaching out for a piece of him, tearing bits of him away and
devouring him, they're all cannibals."
"What," said Plikt
nastily, angrily. "What, you wanted to feast on him yourself? Well, there
was too much of him for you. What's worse, cannibals who nibble here and there,
or a cannibal who keeps the whole man for herself when there's far more than
she can ever absorb?"
"This is the most
disgusting conversation I think I've ever heard," said Valentine.
"She hangs around for
months, watching him like a vulture," said Novinha. "Hanging on,
loitering in his life, never saying six words all at once. And now she finally
speaks and listen to the poison that comes out of her."
"All I did was spit your
own bile back at you," said Plikt. "You're nothing but a greedy,
hateful woman and you used him and used him and never gave anything to him and
the only reason he's dying now is to get away from you."
Novinha did not answer, had no
words, because in her secret heart she knew at once that what Plikt had said
was true.
But Valentine strode around
the bed, walked to the door, and slapped Plikt mightily across the face. Plikt
staggered under the blow, sank down against the doorframe until she was sitting
on the floor, holding her stinging cheek, tears flowing down her face.
Valentine towered over her. "You will never speak his death, do you
understand me? A woman who would tell a lie like that, just to cause pain, just
to lash out at someone that you envy-- you're no speaker for the dead. I'm
ashamed I ever let you teach my children. What if some of the lie inside you
got in them? You make me sick!"
"No," said Novinha.
"No, don't be angry at her. It's true, it's true."
"It feels true to
you," said Valentine, "because you always want to beheve the worst
about yourself. But it's not true. Ender loved you freely and you stole nothing
from him and the only reason that he's still alive on that bed is because of
his love for you. That's the only reason he can't leave this used-up life and
help lead Jane into a place where she can stay alive."
"No, no, Plikt is right,
I consume the people that I love."
"No!" cried Plikt,
weeping on the floor. "I was lying to you! I love him so much and I'm so
jealous of you because you had him and you didn't even want him."
"I have never stopped
loving him," said Novinha.
"You left him. You came
in here without him."
"I left because I
couldn't ..."
Valentine completed her
sentence for her when she faded out. "Because you couldn't bear to let him
leave you. You felt it, didn't you. You felt him fading even then. You knew
that he needed to go away, to end this life, and you couldn't bear to let
another man leave you so you left him first."
"Maybe," said
Novinha wearily. "It's all just fictions anyway. We do what we do and then
we make up reasons for it afterward but they're never the true reasons, the
truth is always just out of reach."
"So listen to this
fiction, then," said Valentine. "What if, just this once, instead of
someone that you love betraying you and sneaking off and dying against your
will and without your permissionwhat if just this once you wake him up and tell
him he can live, bid him farewell properly and let him go with your consent.
Just this once?"
Novinha wept again, standing
there in utter weariness. "I want it all to stop," she said. "I
want to die."
"That's why he has to
stay," said Valentine. "For his sake, can't you choose to live and
let him go? Stay in Milagre and be the mother of your children and grandmother
of your children's children, tell them stories of Os Venerados and of Pipo and
Libo and of Ender Wiggin, who came to heal your family and stayed to be your
husband for many, many years before he died. Not some speaking for the dead,
not some funeral oration, not some public picking over the corpse like Plikt
wants to do, but the stories that will keep him alive in the minds of the only
family that he ever had. He'll die anyway, soon enough. Why not let him go with
your love and blessing in his ears, instead of with your rage and grief tearing
at him, trying to hold him here?"
"You spin a pretty
story," said Novinha. "But in the end, you're asking me to give him
to Jane."
"As you said,"
Valentine answered. "All the stories are fictions. What matters is which
fiction you believe."
Chapter 9 -- "IT SMELLS
LIKE LIFE TO ME"
"Why do you say that I am
alone? My body is with me wherever I am, telling me endless stories of hunger
and satisfaction, weariness and sleep, eating and drinking and breathing and
life. With such company who could ever be alone? And even when my body wears
away and leaves only some tiny spark I will not be alone for the gods will see
my small light tracing the dance of woodgrain on the floor and they will know
me, they will say my name and I will rise."
-- from The God Whispers of
Han Qing-jao
Dying, dying, dead.
At the end of her life among
the ansible links there was some mercy. Jane's panic at the losing of herself
began to ebb, for though she still knew that she was losing and had lost much,
she no longer had the capacity to remember what it was. When she lost her links
to the ansibles that let her monitor the jewels in Peter's and Miro's ears she
didn't even notice. And when at last she clung to the few last strands of
ansibles that would not be shutting down, she could not think of anything,
could not feel anything except the need to cling to these last strands even
though they were too small to hold her, even though her hunger could never be
satisfied with these.
I don't belong here.
Not a thought, no, there
wasn't enough of her left for anything so difficult as consciousness. Rather it
was a hunger, a vague dissatisfaction, a restlessness that beset her when she
had run up and down the link from Jakt's ansible to the Lusitanian landside
ansible to the ansible on the shuttle that served Miro and Val, up and down,
end to end, a thousand times, a million times, nothing changing, nothing to
accomplish, nothing to build, no way to grow. I don't belong here.
For if there was one attribute
that defined the difference between aiuas that came Inside and those that
remained forever Outside, it was that underlying need to grow, to be part of
something large and beautiful, to belong. Those that had no such need would
never be drawn as Jane had been drawn, three thousand years before, to the web
that the hive queens had made for her. Nor would any of the aiuas that became
hive queens or their workers, pequeninos male and female, humans weak and
strong; nor even those aiuas that, feeble in capacity but faithful and
predictable, became the sparks whose dances did not show up in even the most
sensitive instruments until they became so complicated that humans could
identify their dance as the behavior of quarks, of mesons, of light particulate
or waved. All of them needed to be part of something and when they belonged to
it they rejoiced: What I am is us, what we do together is myself.
But they were not all alike,
these aiuas, these unmade beings who were both building blocks and builders.
The weak and fearful ones reached a certain point and either could not or dared
not grow further. They would take their satisfaction from being at the edges of
something beautiful and fine, from playing some small role. Many a human, many
a pequenino reached that point and let others direct and control their lives,
fitting in, always fitting in-- and that was good, there was a need for them.
Ua lava: they had reached the point where they could say, Enough.
Jane was not one of them. She
could not be content with smallness or simplicity. And having once been a being
of a trillion parts, connected to the greatest doings of a three-specied
universe, now, shrunken, she could not be content. She knew that she had
memories if only she could remember them. She knew that she had work to do if
only she could find those millions of subtle limbs that once had done her
bidding. She was too much alive for this small space. Unless she found
something to engage her, she could not continue to cling to the last thin wire.
She would cut loose from it, losing the last of her old self in the vain need
to search for a place where one like her belonged.
She began to flirt with
letting go, straying-- never far-- from the thin philotic strands of the
ansibles. For moments too small to measure she was disconnected and it was
terrible to be cut off-- she leapt each time back to the small but familiar
space that still belonged to her; and then, when the smallness of the place was
unbearable to her, she let go again, and again in terror came back home.
But on one such letting-go she
glimpsed something familiar. Someone familiar. Another aiua that she had once
been twined to. She had no access to memory that could tell her a name; she had
no memory, indeed, of names at all. But she knew it, and she trusted this
being, and when on another pass along the invisible wire she came to the same
place again she leapt into the far vaster network of aiuas that were ruled by
this bright familiar one.
***
<She has found him,>
said the Hive Queen.
<Found her, you mean. Young
Valentine.>
<It was Ender that she
found and Ender that she recognized. But yes, Val's vessel is the one to which
she leapt.>
<How could you see her? I
never saw her at all.>
<She once was part of us,
you know. And what the Samoan said, as one of my workers watched on Jakt's
computer terminal, that helped me find her. We kept looking for her in a single
place, and never saw her. But when we knew she was constantly moving, we
realized: her body was as large as the farthest reaches of all of human
colonization, and just as our aiuas remain within our bodies and are easily
found, so hers also remained within her body, but since it was larger than us
and even included us, she was never still, never contained in a space small
enough for us to see her. Not till she had lost most of herself did I find her.
But now I know where she is.>
<So Young Valentine is hers
now?>
<No,> said the Hive
Queen. <Ender can't let go.>
***
Jane spun joyously through
this body, so different from any she had ever remembered before, but within
moments she realized that the aiua she had recognized, the aiua she had
followed here, was not willing to give up even a small part of itself to her.
Wherever she touched, there it was, touching also, affirming its control; and
now in panic Jane began to sense that while she might be inside a lacework of
extraordinary beauty and fineness-- this temple of living cells on a frame of
bone-- no part of it belonged to her and if she stayed it would only be as a
fugitive. She did not belong here, no matter how she loved it.
And she did love it. For all
the thousands of years that she had lived, so vast in space, so fast in time,
she had nevertheless been crippled without knowing it. She was alive, but
nothing that was part of her large kingdom was alive. All had been ruthlessly
under her control, but here in this body, this human body, this woman named
Val, there were millions of small bright lives, cell upon cell of life,
thriving, laboring, growing, dying, linked body to body and aiua to aiua, and
it was in these links that creatures of flesh dwelt and it was far more vivid,
despite the sluggishness of thought, than her own experience of life had been.
How can they think at all, these flesh-beings, with all these dances going on
around them, all these songs to distract them?
She touched the mind of
Valentine and was flooded with memory. It had nothing like the precision and
depth of Jane's old memory, but every moment of experience was vivid and
powerful, alive and real as no memory had been that Jane had ever known before.
How can they keep from holding still all day simply to remember the day before?
Because each new moment shouts louder than memory.
Yet each time Jane touched a
memory or felt a sensation from the living body, there was the aiua that was
properly the master of this flesh, driving her away, asserting its control.
And finally, annoyed, when
that familiar aiua herded her Jane refused to move. Instead she claimed this
spot, this part of the body, this part of the brain, she demanded the obedience
of these cells, and the other aiua recoiled before her.
I am stronger than you, Jane
said to him silently. I can take from you all that you are and all that you
have and all that you will ever be and ever have and you can't stop me.
The aiua that once had been
the master here fled before her, and now the chase resumed, with roles
reversed.
***
<She's killing him.>
<Wait and see.>
***
In the starship orbiting the
planet of the descoladores, everyone was startled by a sudden cry from Young
Val's mouth. As they turned to look, before anyone could reach her, her body
convulsed and she flung herself away from her chair; in the weightlessness of
orbit she flew until she struck brutally against the ceiling, and all the time
her voice came out as a thin ribbon of a wail and her face held a rictus smile
that seemed to speak at once of endless agony and boundless joy.
On the world Pacifica, on an
island, on a beach, Peter's weeping suddenly stopped and he flopped over in the
sand and twitched silently. "Peter!" cried Wang-mu, flinging herself
onto him, touching him, trying to hold the limbs that bounced like jackhammers.
Peter gasped for breath, and, gasping, vomited. "He's drowning
himself!" cried Wang-mu. In that instant huge strong hands pulled her
away, took Peter's body by its limbs and flopped it over so that now the
vomitus flowed out and down into the sand, and the body, coughing and choking,
nevertheless breathed. "What's happening?" Wangmu cried.
Malu laughed, and then when he
spoke his voice was like a song.
"The god has come here!
The dancing god has touched flesh! Oh, the body is too weak to hold it! Oh, the
body cannot dance the dance of gods! But oh, how blessed, bright, and beautiful
is the body when the god is in it!"
Wang-mu saw nothing beautiful
about what was happening to Peter. "Get out of him!" she screamed.
"Get out, Jane! You have no right to him! You have no right to kill
him!"
In a room in the monastery of
the Children of the Mind of Christ, Ender sat bolt upright in bed, eyes open
but seeing nothing for someone else controlled his eyes; but for a moment his
voice was his own, for here if nowhere else his aiua knew the flesh so well and
was so known itself that it could do battle with the interloper. "God help
me!" cried Ender. "I have nowhere else to go! Leave me something!
Leave me something!"
The women gathered around
him-- Valentine, Novinha, Plikt-- at once forgot their quarrels and laid their
hands on him, trying to get him to lie down, trying to calm him, but then his
eyes rolled back in his head, his tongue protruded, his back arched, and he
flung himself about so violently that despite their strongest grip on him in
moments he was off the bed, on the floor, tangling his body with theirs,
hurting them with his convulsive swinging of arms, kicking of legs, jerking of
head.
***
<She's too much for
him,> said the Hive Queen. <But for now the body is also too much for
her. Not an easy thing, to tame unwilling flesh. They know Ender, all those
cells that he has ruled so long. They know him, and they don't know her. Some
kingdoms can only be inherited, never usurped.>
<I felt him, I think. I saw
him.>
<There are moments when she
drove him out entirely, yes, and he followed what twines he found. He can't get
into any of the flesh around him because he knows better, having had experience
of flesh himself. But he found you and touched you because you're a different
kind of being.>
<Will he take me over,
then? Or some tree in our web? That's not what we meant when we twined
together.>
<Ender? No, he'll hold to
his own body, one of them, or else he'll die. Wait and see.>
***
Jane could feel it, the
anguish of the bodies that she ruled now. They were in pain, something that she
hadn't felt before, the bodies writhing in agony as the myriad aiuas rebelled
at having her to rule them. Now in control of three bodies and three brains,
she recognized amid the chaos and the madness of their convulsions that her
presence meant nothing but pain and terror to them, and they longed for their
beloved one, their ruler who had been so trusted and well-known to them that
they thought of him as their very self. They had no name for him, being too
small and weak to have such capacities as language or consciousness, but they
knew him and they knew that Jane was not their proper master and the terror and
the agony of it became the sole fact of each body's being and she knew, she
knew she could not stay.
Yes, she overmastered them.
Yes, she had the strength to still the twisting, bunching muscles and to
restore an order that became a parody of life. But all her effort was spent in
quelling a billion rebellions against her rule. Without the willing obedience
of all these cells, she was not capable of such complex leisure-born activities
as thought and speech.
And something else: She was
not happy here. She could not stop thinking of the aiua she had driven out. I
was drawn here because I knew him and I loved him and I belonged with him, and
now I have taken from him all that he loved and all that loved him. She knew,
again, that she did not belong here. Other aiuas might be content to rule
against the will of those ruled, but she could not. It was not beautiful to
her. There was no joy in it. Life along the tenuous strands of the last few
ansibles had been happier than this.
Letting go was hard. Even in
rebellion against her, the pull of the body was exquisitely strong. She had
tasted a kind of life that was so sweet, despite its bitterness and pain, that
she could never go back to what she had been before. She could scarcely even
find the ansible links, and, having found them, could not bring herself to
reach for them and cling. Instead she cast about, flung herself to the reaches
of the bodies that she temporarily and painfully ruled. Wherever she went,
there was grief and agony, and no home for her.
But didn't the master of these
bodies leap somewhere? Where did he go, when he fled from me? Now he was back,
now he was restoring peace and calm in the bodies that she had momentarily
mastered, but where had he gone?
She found it, a set of links
far different from the mechanical bindings of the ansible. Where the ansibles
might seem to be cables, metal, hard, the web that now she found was lacy and
light; but against all appearances it was also strong and copious. She could
leap here, yes, and so she leapt.
***
<She has found me! Oh, my
love, she is too strong for me! She is too bright and strong for me>
<Wait, wait, wait, let her
find her way.>
<She'll push us out, we
have to drive her off, away, away.>
<Be still, be patient,
trust me: She has learned, she won't drive anyone away, there'll be a place
where there is room for her, I see it, she is on the verge ... >
<It was Young Val's body
she was supposed to take, or Peter's, or Ender's! Not one of us, not one of
us.>
<Peace, be still. Only for
a little while. Only until Ender understands and gives a body to his friend.
What she can't take by force she can receive by gift. You'll see. And in your
web, my dear friend, my trusted friend, there are places where there will be
room for her to dwell as just a visitor, to have a life while she is waiting
for Ender to give up her true and final home.>
***
Suddenly Valentine was as
still as a corpse. "She's dead," whispered Ela.
"No!" wailed Miro, and
he tried to breathe life into her mouth until the woman under his hands, under
his lips, began to stir. She breathed deeply on her own. Her eyes fluttered
open.
"Miro," she said.
And then she wept and wept and wept and clung to him.
***
Ender lay still on the floor.
The women untangled themselves from him, helping each other to rise to their
knees, to stand, to bend, to lift him up, to get his bruised body back onto the
bed. Then they looked at each other: Valentine with a bleeding lip, Plikt with
Ender's scratches on her face, Novinha with a battered, blackening eye.
"I had a husband once who
beat me," said Novinha.
"That wasn't Ender who
fought us," said Plikt.
"It's Ender now,"
said Valentine.
On the bed, he opened up his
eyes. Did he see them? How could they know?
"Ender," Novinha
said, and began to weep. "Ender, you don't have to stay for my sake
anymore." But if he heard her he betrayed no sign of it.
***
The Samoan men let go of him,
for Peter no longer twitched. His face fell open-mouthed into the sand where he
had vomited. Wangmu again was beside him, using her own clothing to gently wipe
away the sand and muck from his face, from his eyes especially. In moments a
bowl of pure water was beside her, put there by someone's hands, she did not
see whose, or care either, for her only thought was Peter, to cleanse him. He
breathed shallowly, rapidly, but gradually he calmed and finally opened up his
eyes.
"I dreamed the strangest
dream," he said.
"Hush," she answered
him.
"A terrible bright dragon
chased me breathing fire, and I ran through the corridors, searching for a
hiding place, an escape, a protector."
Malu's voice rumbled like the
sea: "There is no hiding from a god."
Peter spoke again as if he
hadn't heard the holy man. "Wang-mu," he said, "at last I found
my hiding place." His hand reached up and touched her cheek, and his eyes
looked into her eyes with a kind of wonder.
"Not me," she said.
"I am not strong enough to stand against her."
He answered her: "I know.
But are you strong enough to stand with me?"
***
Jane raced along the lacework
of the links among the trees. Some of the trees were mighty ones, and some
weaker, some so faint that she could have blown them away with only a breath it
seemed, but as she saw them all recoil from her in fear, she knew that fear
herself and she backed away, pushed no one from his place. Sometimes the
lacework thickened and toughened and led away toward something fiercely bright,
as bright as she was. These places were familiar to her, an ancient memory but
she knew the path; it was into such a web that she had first leapt into life,
and like the primal memory of birth it all came back to her, memory long lost
and forgotten: I know the queens who rule at the knotting of these sturdy
ropes. Of all the aiuas she had touched in these few minutes since her death,
these were the strongest ones by far, each one of them at least a match for
her. When hive queens make their web to call and catch a queen, it is only the
mightiest and most ambitious ones who can take the place that they prepare.
Only a few aiuas have the capacity to rule over thousands of consciousnesses,
to master other organisms as thoroughly as humans and pequeninos master the
cells of their own bodies. Oh, perhaps these hive queens were not all as
capable as she, perhaps not even as hungry to grow as Jane's aiua was, but they
were stronger than any human or pequenino, and unlike them they saw her clearly
and knew what she was and all that she could do and they were ready. They loved
her and wanted her to thrive; they were sisters and mothers to her, truly; but
their places were full and they had no room for her. So from those ropes and
knots she turned away, back to the lacier twinings of the pequeninos, to the
strong trees that nevertheless recoiled from her because they knew that she was
the stronger one.
And then she realized that
where the lace thinned out it was not because there was nothing there, but
because the twines simply grew more delicate. There were as many of them, more
perhaps, but they became a web of gossamer, so delicate that Jane's rough touch
might break them; but she touched them and they did not break, and she followed
the threads into a place that teemed with life, with hundreds of small lives,
all of them hovering on the brink of consciousness but not quite ready for the
leap into awareness. And underneath them all, warm and loving, an aiua that was
in its own way strong, but not as Jane was. No, the aiua of the mothertree was
strong without ambition. It was part of every life that dwelt upon her skin,
inside the dark of the heart of the tree or on the outside, crawling into the
light and reaching out to become awake and alive and break free and become
themselves. And it was easy to break free, for the mothertree aiua expected
nothing from her children, loved their independence as much as she had loved
their need.
She was copious, her
sap-filled veins, her skeleton of wood, her tingling leaves that bathed in
light, her roots that tapped into seas of water salted with the stuff of life.
She stood still in the center of her delicate and gentle web, strong and
provident, and when Jane came to her verge she looked upon her as she looked
upon any lost child. She backed away and made room for her, let Jane taste of
her life, let Jane share the mastery of chlorophyll and cellulose. There was
room here for more than one.
And Jane, for her part, having
been invited in, did not abuse the privilege. She did not stay long in any
mothertree, but visited and drank of life and shared the work of the mothertree
and then moved on, tree to tree, dancing her dance along the gossamer web; and
now the fathertrees did not recoil from her, for she was the messenger of the
mothers, she was their voice, she shared their life and yet she was unlike them
enough that she could speak, could be their consciousness, a thousand
mothertrees around the world, and the growing mothertrees on distant planets,
all of them found voice in Jane, and all of them rejoiced in the new, more
vivid life that came to them because she was there.
***
<The mothertrees are
speaking.>
<It's Jane.>
<Ah, my beloved one, the
mothertrees are singing. I have never heard such songs.>
<It's not enough for her,
but it will do for now.>
<No, no, don't take her
away from us now! For the first time we can hear the mothertrees and they are
beautiful.>
<She knows the way now. She
will never fully leave. But it is not enough. The mothertrees will satisfy her
for a while, but they can never be more than they are. Jane is not content to
stand and think, to let others drink from her and never drink herself She dances
tree to tree, she sings for them, but in a while she'll be hungry again. She
needs a body of her own.>
<We'll lose her then.>
<No you won't. For even
that body will not be enough. It will be the root of her, it will be her eyes
and voice and hands and feet. But she will still long for the ansibles and the
power she had when all the computers of the human worlds were hers. You'll see.
We can keep her alive for now, but what we have to give her-- what your
mothertrees have to share with her-- is not enough. Nothing, really, is enough
for her.>
<So what will happen
now?>
<We'll wait. We'll see. Be
patient. Isn't that the virtue of the fathertrees, that you are patient?>
***
A man called Olhado because of
his mechanical eyes stood out in the forest with his children. They had been
picnicking with pequeninos who were his children's particular friends; but then
the drumming had begun, the throbbing voice of the fathertrees, and the
pequeninos rose all at once in fear.
Olhado's first thought was:
Fire. For it was not that long ago that the great ancient trees that had stood
here were all burned by humans, filled with rage and fear. The fire the humans
brought had killed the fathertrees, except for Human and Rooter, who stood at
some distance from the rest; it had killed the ancient mothertree. But now new
growth had risen from the corpses of the dead, as murdered pequeninos passed
into their Third Life. And somewhere in the middle of all this newgrowth
forest, Olhado knew, there grew a new mothertree, no doubt still slender, but
thick-trunked enough from its passionate desperate first growth that hundreds
of grublike babies crawled the dark hollow of its woody womb. The forest had
been murdered, but it was alive again. And among the torchbearers had been
Olhado's own boy, Nimbo, too young to understand what he was doing, blindly
following the demagogic rantings of his uncle Grego until it nearly killed him
and when Olhado learned what he had done he was ashamed, for he knew that he
had not sufficiently taught his children. That was when their visits to the
forest began. It was not too late. His children would grow up knowing
pequeninos so well that to harm them would be unthinkable.
Yet there was fear in this
forest again, and Olhado felt himself suddenly sick with dread. What could it
be? What is the warning from the fathertrees? What invader has attacked them?
But the fear only lasted for a
few moments. Then the pequeninos turned, hearing something from the fathertrees
that made them start to walk toward the heart of the forest. Olhado's children
would have followed, but with a gesture he held them back. He knew that the
mothertree was in the center, where the pequeninos were going, and it wasn't
proper for humans to go there.
"Look, Father," said
his youngest girl. "Plower is beckoning."
So he was. Olhado nodded then,
and they followed Plower into the young forest until they came to the very
place where once Nimbo had taken part in the burning of an ancient mothertree.
Her charred corpse still rose into the sky, but beside it stood the new mother,
slender by comparison, but still thicker than the newgrowth brothertrees. It
was not her thickness that Olhado marveled at, though, nor was it the great
height that she had reached in such a short time, nor the thick canopy of
leaves that already spread out in shady layers over the clearing. No, it was
the strange dancing light that played up and down the trunk, wherever the bark
was thin, a light so white and dazzling that he could hardly look at it.
Sometimes he thought that there was only one small light which raced so fast
that it left the whole tree glowing before it returned to trace the path again;
sometimes it seemed that it was the whole tree that was alight, throbbing with
it as if it contained a volcano of life ready to erupt. The glowing reached out
along the branches of the tree into the thinnest twigs; the leaves twinkled
with it; and the furred shadows of the baby pequeninos crawled more rapidly
along the trunk of the tree than Olhado had thought possible. It was as if a
small star had come down to take residence inside the tree.
After the dazzle of the light
had lost its novelty, though, Olhado noticed something else-- noticed, in fact,
what the pequeninos themselves most marveled at. There were blossoms on the
tree. And some of the blossoms had already blown, and behind them fruit was
already growing, growing visibly.
"I thought," said
Olhado softly, "that the trees could bear no fruit."
"They couldn't,"
answered Plower. "The descolada robbed them of that."
"But what is this?"
said Olhado. "Why is there light inside the tree? Why is the fruit
growing?"
"The fathertree Human
says that Ender has brought his friend to us. The one called Jane. She's
visiting within the mothertrees in every forest. But even he did not tell us of
this fruit."
"It smells so
strong," said Olhado. "How can it ripen so fast? It smells so strong
and sweet and tangy, I can almost taste it just from breathing the air of the
blossoms, the scent of the ripening fruit."
"I remember this
smell," said Plower. "I have never smelled it before in my life
because no tree has ever blossomed and no fruit has ever grown, but I know this
smell. It smells like life to me. It smells like joy."
"Then eat it," said
Olhado. "Look-- one of them is ripe already, here, within reach."
Olhado lifted his hand, but then hesitated. "May I?" he asked.
"May I pluck a fruit from the mothertree? Not for me to eat-- for
you."
Plower seemed to nod with his
whole body. "Please," he whispered.
Olhado took hold of the
glowing fruit. Did it tremble under his hand? Or was that his own trembling?
Olhado gripped the fruit, firm
but softening, and plucked it gently from the tree. It came away so easily. He
bent and gave it to Plower. Plower bowed and took it reverently, lifted it to
his lips, licked it, then opened his mouth.
Opened his mouth and bit into
it. The juice of it shone on his lips; he licked them clean; he chewed; he
swallowed.
The other pequeninos watched
him. He held out the fruit to them. One at a time they came to him, brothers
and wives, came to him and tasted.
And when that fruit was gone,
they began to climb the bright and glowing tree, to take the fruit and share it
and eat it until they could eat no more. And then they sang. Olhado and his
children stayed the night to hear them sing. The people of Milagre heard the
sound of it, and many of them came into the faint light of dusk, following the
shining of the tree to find the place where the pequeninos, filled with the
fruit that tasted like joy, sang the song of their rejoicing. And the tree in
the center of them was part of the song. The aiua whose force and fire made the
tree so much more alive than it had ever been before danced into the tree,
along every path of the tree, a thousand times in every second.
A thousand times in every
second she danced this tree, and every other tree on every world where
pequenino forests grew, and every mothertree that she visited burst with
blossoms and with fruit, and pequeninos ate of it and breathed deep the scent
of fruit and blossoms, and they sang. It was an old song whose meaning they had
long forgotten but now they knew the meaning of it and they could sing no
other. It was a song of the season of bloom and feast. They had gone so long
without a harvest that they forgot what harvest was. But now they knew what the
descolada had stolen from them long before. What had been lost was found again.
And those who had been hungry without knowing the name of their hunger, they
were fed.
Chapter 10 -- "THIS HAS
ALWAYS BEEN YOUR BODY"
"Oh, Father! Why did you
turn away? In the hour when I triumphed over evil, why did you recoil from
me?"
-- from The God Whispers of
Han Qing-jao
Malu sat with Peter, Wang-mu, and Grace beside a bonfire near the
beach. The canopy was gone, and so was much of the ceremony. There was kava,
but, despite the ritual surrounding it, in Wang-mu's opinion they drank it now
as much for the pleasure of it as for its holiness or symbolism.
At one point Malu laughed long
and loud, and Grace laughed too, so it took her a while to interpret. "He
says that he cannot decide if the fact that the god was in you, Peter, makes
you holy, or the fact that she left proves you to be unholy."
Peter chuckled-- for courtesy,
Wang-mu knew-- while Wang-mu herself did not laugh at all.
"Oh, too bad," said
Grace. "I had hoped you two might have a sense of humor."
"We do," said Peter.
"We just don't have a Samoan sense of humor."
"Malu says the god can't
stay forever where she is. She's found a new home, but it belongs to others,
and their generosity won't last forever. You felt how strong Jane is,
Peter--"
"Yes," said Peter
softly.
"Well, the hosts that
have taken her in-- Malu calls it the forest net, like a fishing net for
catching trees, but what is that? --anyway he says that they are so weak
compared to Jane that whether she wills it or not, in time their bodies will
all belong to her unless she finds somewhere else to be her permanent
home."
Peter nodded. "I know
what he's saying. And I would have agreed, until the moment that she actually
invaded me, that I would gladly give up this body and this life, which I
thought I hated. But I found out, with her chasing me around, that Malu was
right, I don't hate my life, I want very much to live. Of course it's not me
doing the wanting, ultimately, it's Ender, but since ultimately he is me, I
guess that's a quibble."
"Ender has three
bodies," said Wang-mu. "Does this mean he's giving up one of the
others?"
"I don't think he's
giving up anything," said Peter. "Or I should say, I don't think I'm
giving up anything. It's not a conscious choice. Ender's hold on life is angry
and strong. Supposedly he was on his deathbed for a day at least before Jane
was shut down."
"Killed," said
Grace.
"Demoted maybe,"
said Peter stubbornly. "A dryad now instead of a god. A sylph." He
winked at Wang-mu, who had no idea what he was talking about. "Even when
he gives up on his own old life he just won't let go."
"He has two more bodies
than he needs," said Wang-mu, "and Jane has one fewer than she must
have. It seems that the laws of commerce should apply. Two times more supply
than is needed-- the price should be cheap."
When all of this was
interpreted to Malu, he laughed again. "He laughs at 'cheap,'" said
Grace. "He says that the only way that Ender will give up any of his
bodies is to die."
Peter nodded. "I
know," he said.
"But Ender isn't
Jane," said Wang-mu. "He hasn't been living as a-- a naked aiua
running along the ansible web. He's a person. When people's aiuas leave their
bodies, they don't go chasing around to something else."
"And yet his-- my-- aiua
was inside me," said Peter. "He knows the way. Ender might die and
yet let me live."
"Or all three of you
might die."
"This much I know,"
Malu told them, through Grace. "If the god is to be given life of her own,
if she is ever to be restored to her power, Ender Wiggin has to die and give a
body to the god. There's no other way."
"Restored to her
power?" asked Wang-mu. "Is that possible? I thought the whole point
of the computer shutdown was to lock her out of the computer nets
forever."
Malu laughed again, and
slapped his naked chest and thighs as he poured out a stream of Samoan.
Grace translated. "How
many hundreds of computers do we have here in Samoa? For months, ever since she
made herself known to me, we have been copying, copying, copying. Whatever
memory she wanted us to save, we have it, ready to restore it all. Maybe it's
only one small part of what she used to be, but it's the most important part.
If she can get back into the ansible net, she'll have what she needs to get
back into the computer nets as well."
"But they're not linking
the computer nets to the ansibles," said Wang-mu.
"That's the order sent by
Congress," said Grace. "But not all orders are obeyed."
"Then why did Jane bring
us here?" Peter asked plaintively. "If Malu and you deny that you
have any influence over Aimaina, and if Jane has already been in contact with
you and you're already effectively in revolt against Congress--"
"No, no, it's not like
that," Grace reassured him. "We were doing what Malu asked us, but he
never spoke of a computer entity, he spoke of a god, and we obeyed because we
trust his wisdom and we know he sees things that we don't see. Your coming told
us who Jane is."
When Malu learned in turn what
had been said, he pointed at Peter. "You! You came here to bring the
god!" Then he pointed at Wang-mu. "And you came here to bring the
man."
"Whatever that
means," said Peter.
But Wang-mu thought she
understood. They had survived one crisis, but this peaceful hour was only a
lull. The battle would be joined again, and this time the outcome would be
different. If Jane was to live, if there was to be any hope of restoring
instantaneous starflight, Ender had to give at least one of his bodies to her.
If Malu was right, then Ender had to die. There was a slight chance that
Ender's aiua might still keep one of the three bodies, and go on living. I am
here, Wang-mu said silently, to make sure that it is Peter who survives, not as
the god, but as the man.
It all depends, she realized,
on whether Ender-as-Peter loves me more than Ender-as-Valentine loves Miro or
Ender-as-Ender loves Novinha.
With that thought she almost
despaired. Who was she? Miro had been Ender's friend for years. Novinha was his
wife. But Wang-mu-- Ender had only learned of her existence mere days or at
most weeks ago. What was she to him?
But then she had another, more
comforting and yet disturbing thought. Is it as important who the loved one is
as it is which aspect of Ender desires him or her? Valentine is the perfect
altruist-- she might love Miro most of all, yet give him up for the sake of
giving starflight back to us all. And Ender-- he was already losing interest in
his old life. He's the weary one, he's the worn-out one. While Peter-- he's the
one with the ambition, the lust for growth and creation. It's not that he loves
me, it's that he loves me, or rather that he wants to live, and part of life to
him is me, this woman who loves him despite his supposed wickedness. Ender-as-Peter
is the part of him that most needs to be loved because he least deserves it--
so it is my love, because it is for Peter, that will be most precious to him.
If anyone wins at all, I will
win, Peter will win, not because of the glorious purity of our love, but
because of the desperate hunger of the lovers.
Well, the story of our lives
won't be as noble or pretty, but then, we'll have a life, and that's enough.
She worked her toes into the
sand, feeling the tiny delicious pain of the friction of tiny chips of silicon
against the tender flesh between her toes. That's life. It hurts, it's dirty,
and it feels very, very good.
***
Over the ansible, Olhado told
his brother and sisters on the starship what had happened with Jane and the
mothertrees.
"The Hive Queen says it
can't last long this way," said Olhado. "The mothertrees aren't all
that strong. They'll slip, they'll lose control, and pretty soon Jane will be a
forest, period. Not a talking one, either. Just some very lovely, very bright,
very nurturing trees. It was beautiful to see, I promise you, but the way the
Hive Queen tells it, it still sounds like death."
"Thanks, Olhado,"
Miro said. "It doesn't make much difference to us either way. We're
stranded here, and so we're going to get to work, now that Val isn't bouncing
off the walls. The descoladores haven't found us yet-- Jane got us in a higher
orbit this time-- but as soon as we have a workable translation of their
language we'll wave at them and let them know we're here."
"Keep at it," said Olhado. "But
don't give up on coming back home, either."
"The shuttle really isn't
good for a two-hundred-year flight," said Miro. "That's how far away
we are, and this little vehicle can't even get close to the speeds necessary
for relativistic flight. We'd have to play solitaire the whole two hundred
years. The cards would wear out long before we got back home."
Olhado laughed-- too lightly
and sincerely, Miro thought-- and said, "The Hive Queen says that once
Jane gets out of the trees, and once the Congress gets their new system up and
running, she may be able to jump back in. At least enough to get into the
ansible traffic. And if she does that, then maybe she can go back into the
starflight business. It's not impossible."
Val grew alert at that.
"Is that what the Hive Queen guesses, or does she know?"
"She's predicting the
future," said Olhado. "Nobody knows the future. Not even really smart
queen bees who bite their husbands' heads off when they mate."
They had no answer to what he
said, and certainly nothing to say to his jocular tone.
"Well, if that's all
right now," said Olhado, "back on your heads, everybody. We'll leave
the station open and recording in triplicate for any reports you make."
Olhado's face disappeared from
the terminal space.
Miro swiveled his chair and
faced the others: Ela, Quara, Val, the pequenino Firequencher, and the nameless
worker, who watched them in perpetual silence, only able to speak by typing
into the terminal. Through him, though, Miro knew that the Hive Queen was
watching everything they did, hearing everything they said. Waiting. She was
orchestrating this, he knew. Whatever happened to Jane, the Hive Queen would be
the catalyst to get it started. Yet the things she said, she had said to Olhado
through some worker there in Milagre. This one had typed in nothing but ideas
concerning the translation of the language of the descoladores.
She isn't saying anything,
Miro realized, because she doesn't want to be seen to push. Push what? Push
whom?
Val. She can't be seen to push
Val, because ... because the only way to let Jane have one of Ender's bodies
was for him to freely give it up. And it had to be truly free-- no pressure, no
guilt, no persuasion-- because it wasn't a decision that could be made
consciously. Ender had decided that he wanted to share Mother's life in the
monastery, but his unconscious mind was far more interested in the translation
project here and in whatever it is Peter's doing. His unconscious choice reflected
his true will. If Ender is to let go of Val, it has to be his desire to do it,
all the way to the core of him. Not a decision out of duty, like his decision
to stay with Mother. A decision because that is what he really wants.
Miro looked at Val, at the
beauty that came more from deep goodness than from regular features. He loved
her, but was it the perfection of her that he loved? That perfect virtue might
be the only thing that allowed her-- allowed Ender in his Valentine mode-- to
willingly let go and invite Jane in. And yet once Jane arrived, the perfect
virtue would be gone, wouldn't it? Jane was powerful and, Miro believed, good--
certainly she had been good to him, a true friend. But even in his wildest
imaginations he could not conceive of her as perfectly virtuous. If she started
wearing Val, would she still be Val? The memories would linger, but the will
behind the face would be more complicated than the simple script that Ender had
created for her. Will I still love her when she's Jane?
Why wouldn't I? I love Jane
too, don't I?
But will I love Jane when
she's flesh and blood, and not just a voice in my ear? Will I look into those
eyes and mourn for this lost Valentine?
Why didn't I have these doubts
before? I tried to bring this off myself, back before I even half understood
how difficult it was. And yet now, when it's only the barest hope, I find
myself-- what, wishing it wouldn't happen? Hardly that. I don't want to die out
here. I want Jane restored, if only to get starflight back again-- now that's
an altruistic motive! I want Jane restored, but I also want Val unchanged.
I want all bad things to go
away and everybody to be happy. I want my mommy. What kind of childish dolt
have I become?
Val was looking at him, he
suddenly realized. "Hi," he said. The others were looking at him,
too. Looking back and forth between him and Val. "What are we all voting
on, whether I should grow a beard?"
"Voting on nothing,"
said Quara. "I'm just depressed. I mean, I knew what I was doing when I
got on this ship, but damn, it's really hard to get enthusiastic about working
on these people's language when I can count my life by the gauge on the oxygen
tanks."
"I notice," said Ela
dryly, "that you're already calling the descoladores 'people.'"
"Shouldn't I? Do we even
know what they look like?" Quara seemed confused. "I mean, they have
a language, they--"
"That's what we're here
to decide, isn't it?" said Firequencher. "Whether the descoladores
are raman or varelse. The translation problem is just a little step along that
road."
"Big step,"
corrected Ela. "And we don't have time enough to do it."
"Since we don't know how
long it's going to take," said Quara, "I don't see how you can be so
sure of that."
"I can be dead
sure," said Ela. "Because all we're doing is sitting around talking
and watching Miro and Val make soulful faces at each other. It doesn't take a
genius to know that at this rate, our progress before running out of oxygen
will be exactly zero."
"In other words,"
said Quara, "we should stop wasting time." She turned back to the
notes and printouts she was working on.
"But we're not wasting
time," said Val softly.
"No?" asked Ela.
"I'm waiting for Miro to
tell me how easily Jane could be brought back into communication with the real
world. A body waiting to receive her. Starflight restored. His old and loyal
friend, suddenly a real girl. I'm waiting for that."
Miro shook his head. "I
don't want to lose you," he said.
"That's not
helping," said Val.
"But it's true,"
said Miro. "The theory, that was easy. Thinking deep thoughts while riding
on a hovercar back on Lusitania, sure, I could reason out that Jane in Val
would be Jane and Val. But when you come right down to it, I can't say
that--"
"Shut up," said Val.
It wasn't like her to talk
like that. Miro shut up.
"No more words like
that," she said. "What I need from you is the words that will let me
give up this body."
Miro shook his head.
"Put your money where
your mouth is," she said. "Walk the walk. Talk the talk. Put up or
shut up. Fish or cut bait."
He knew what she wanted. He
knew that she was saying that the only thing holding her to this body, to this
life, was him. Was her love for him. Was their friendship and companionship.
There were others here now to do the work of translation-- Miro could see now
that this was the plan, really, all along. To bring Ela and Quara so that Val
could not possibly consider her life as indispensable. But Miro, she couldn't
let go of him that easily. And she had to, had to let go.
"Whatever aiua is in that
body," Miro said, "you'll remember everything I say."
"And you have to mean it,
too," said Val. "It has to be the truth."
"Well it can't be,"
said Miro. "Because the truth is that I--"
"Shut up!" demanded
Val. "Don't say that again. It's a lie!"
"It's not a lie."
"It's complete
self-deception on your part, and you have to wake up and see the truth, Miro!
You already made the choice between me and Jane. You're only backing out now
because you don't like being the kind of man who makes that sort of ruthless
choice. But you never loved me, Miro. You never loved me. You loved the
companionship, yes-- the only woman you were around, of course; there's a
biological imperative playing a role here with a desperately lonely young man.
But me? I think what you loved was your memory of your friendship with the real
Valentine when she came back with you from space. And you loved how noble it
made you feel to declare your love for me in the effort to save my life, back
when Ender was ignoring me. But all of that was about you, not me. You never
knew me, you never loved me. It was Jane you loved, and Valentine, and Ender
himself, the real Ender, not this plastic container that he created in order to
compartmentalize all the virtues he wishes he had more of."
The nastiness, the rage in her
was palpable. This wasn't like her at all. Miro could see that the others were
also stunned. And yet he also understood. This was exactly like her-- for she
was being hateful and angry in order to persuade herself to let go of this
life. And she was doing that for the sake of others. It was perfect altruism.
Only she would die, and, in exchange, perhaps the others in this ship would not
die, they'd go back home when their work here was done. Jane would live,
clothed in this new flesh, inheriting her memories. Val had to persuade herself
that the life that she was living now was worthless, to her and everyone else;
that the only value to her life would be to leave it.
And she wanted Miro to help
her. That was the sacrifice she asked of him. To help her let go. To help her
want to go. To help her hate this life.
"All right," said
Miro. "You want the truth? You're completely empty, Val, and you always
were. You just sit there spouting the exactly kindest thing, but there's never
been any heart in it. Ender felt a need to make you, not because he actually
has any of the virtues you supposedly represent, but because he doesn't have
them. That's why he admires them so much. So when he made you, he didn't know
what to put inside you. An empty script. Even now, you're just following the
script. Perfect altruism my ass. How can it be a sacrifice to give up a life
that was never a life?"
She struggled for a moment,
and a tear flowed down her cheek. "You told me that you loved me."
"I was sorry for you.
That day in Valentine's kitchen, all right? But the truth is I was probably
just trying to impress Valentine. The other Valentine. Show her what a good guy
I am. She actually has some of those virtues-- I care a lot about what she
thinks of me. So ... I fell in love with being the kind of guy who was worthy
of Valentine's respect. That's as close to loving you as I ever got. And then
we found out what our real mission was and suddenly you aren't dying anymore
and here I am, stuck with having said I loved you and now I've got to keep
going and going to maintain the fiction even as it becomes clearer and clearer
that I miss Jane, I miss her so desperately that it hurts, and the only reason
I can't have her back is because you won't let go--"
"Please," said Val.
"It hurts too much. I didn't think you-- I--"
"Miro," said Quara,
"this is the shittiest thing I've ever seen anybody do to anybody else and
I've seen some doozies."
"Shut up, Quara,"
said Ela.
"Oh, who made you queen
of the starship?" retorted Quara.
"This isn't about
you," said Ela.
"I know, it's about Miro
the complete bastard--"
Firequencher launched himself
gently from his seat and in a moment had his strong hand clamped over Quara's
mouth. "This isn't the time," he said to her softly. "You
understand nothing."
She got her face free. "I
understand enough to know that this is--"
Firequencher turned to the
Hive Queen's worker. "Help us," he said.
The worker got up and with
astonishing speed had Quara out of the main deck of the shuttle. Where the Hive
Queen took Quara and how she restrained her were questions that didn't even
interest Miro. Quara was too self-centered to understand the little play that
Miro and Val were acting out. But the others understood.
What mattered, though, was
that Val not understand. Val had to believe that he meant what he was saying
now. It had almost been working before Quara interrupted. But now they had lost
the thread.
"Val," said Miro
wearily, "it doesn't matter what I say. Because you'll never let go. And
you know why? Because you aren't Val. You're Ender. And even though Ender can
wipe out whole planets in order to save the human race, his own life is sacred.
He'll never give it up. Not one scrap. And that includes you-- he'll never let
go of you. Because you're the last and greatest of his delusions. If he gives
you up, he'll lose his last hope of really being a good man."
"That's nonsense,"
said Val. "The only way he can be a really good man is to give me up."
"That's my point,"
said Miro. "He isn't a really good man. So he can't give you up. Even to
attempt to prove his virtue. Because the tie of the aiua to the body can't be
faked. He can fool everybody else, but he can't fool your body. He's just not good
enough to let you go."
"So it's Ender that you
hate, not me."
"No, Val, I don't hate
Ender. He's an imperfect guy, that's all. Like me, like everybody else. Like
the real Valentine, for that matter. Only you have the illusion of perfection--
but that's fine, because you're not real. You're just Ender in drag, doing his
Valentine bit. You come off the stage and there's nothing there, it comes off
like makeup and a costume. And you really believed I was in love with
that?"
Val swiveled on her chair,
turning her back to him. "I almost believe you mean these things,"
she said.
"What I can't
believe," said Miro, "is that I'm saying them out loud. But that's
what you wanted me to do, wasn't it? For me to be honest with you for the first
time, so maybe you could be honest with yourself and realize that what you have
isn't a life at all, it's just a perpetual confession of Ender's inadequacy as
a human being. You're the childhood innocence he thinks he lost, but here's the
truth about that: Before they ever took him away from his parents, before he
ever went up to that Battle School in the sky, before they made a perfect
killing machine out of him, he was already the brutal, ruthless killer that he
always feared he was. It's one of the things that even Ender tries to pretend
isn't so: He killed a boy before he ever became a soldier. He kicked that boy's
head in. Kicked him and kicked him and the kid never woke up. His parents never
saw him alive again. The kid was a prick but he didn't deserve to die. Ender
was a killer from the start. That's the thing that he can't live with. That's
the reason he needs you. That's the reason he needs Peter. So he can take the
ugly ruthless killer side of himself and put it all on Peter. And he can look
at perfect you and say, 'See, that beautiful thing was inside me.' And we all
play along. But you're not beautiful, Val. You're the pathetic apologia of a
man whose whole life is a lie."
Val broke down sobbing.
Almost, almost Miro had
compassion and stopped. Almost he shouted at her, No, Val, it's you I love,
it's you I want! It's you I longed for all my life and Ender is a good man
because all this nonsense about you being a pretense is impossible. Ender
didn't create you consciously, the way hypocrites create their facades. You
grew out of him. The virtues were there, are there, and you are the natural
home for them. I already loved and admired Ender, but not until I met you did I
know how beautiful he was inside.
Her back was to him. She
couldn't see the torment that he felt.
"What is it, Val? Am I
supposed to pity you again? Don't you understand that the only conceivable
value that you have to any of us is if you just go away and let Jane have your
body? We don't need you, we don't want you. Ender's aiua belongs in Peter's
body because that's the only one that has a chance of acting out Ender's true
character. Get lost, Val. When you're gone, we have a chance to live. While
you're here, we're all dead. Do you think for one second that we'll miss you?
Think again."
I will never forgive myself
for saying these things, Miro realized. Even though I know the necessity of
helping Ender let go of this body by making this an unbearable place for him to
stay, it doesn't change the fact that I'll remember saying it, I'll remember
the way she looks now, weeping with despair and pain. How can I live with that?
I thought I was deformed before. All I had wrong with me then was brain damage.
But now-- I couldn't have said any of these things to her if I hadn't thought
of them. There's the rub. I thought of these terrible things to say. That's the
kind of man I am.
***
Ender opened his eyes again,
then reached a hand up to touch Novinha's face, the bruises there. He moaned to
see Valentine and Plikt, too. "What did I do to you?"
"It wasn't you,"
said Novinha. "It was her."
"It was me," he
said. "I meant to let her have ... something. I meant to, but when it came
right down to it, I was afraid. I couldn't do it." He looked away from
them, closed his eyes. "She tried to kill me. She tried to drive me
out."
"You were both working
way below the level of consciousness," said Valentine. "Two
strong-willed aiuas, unable to back off from life. That's not so terrible."
"What, and you were just
standing too close?"
"That's right," said
Valentine.
"I hurt you," said
Ender. "I hurt all three of you."
"We don't hold people
responsible for convulsions," said Novinha.
Ender shook his head.
"I'm talking about ... before. I lay there listening. Couldn't move my
body, couldn't make a sound, but I could hear. I know what I did to you. All
three of you. I'm sorry."
"Don't be," said
Valentine. "We all chose our lives. I could have stayed on Earth in the first
place, you know. Didn't have to follow you. I proved that when I stayed with
Jakt. You didn't cost me anything-- I've had a brilliant career and a wonderful
life, and much of that is because I was with you. As for Plikt, well, we
finally saw-- much to my relief, I might add-- that she isn't always in
complete control of herself. Still, you never asked her to follow you here. She
chose what she chose. If her life is wasted, well, she wasted it the way she
wanted to and that's none of your business. As for Novinha--"
"Novinha is my
wife," said Ender. "I said I wouldn't leave her. I tried not to leave
her."
"You haven't left
me," Novinha said.
"Then what am I doing in
this bed?"
"You're dying," said
Novinha.
"My point exactly,"
said Ender.
"But you were dying
before you came here," she said. "You were dying from the moment that
I left you in anger and came here. That was when you realized, when we both
realized, that we weren't building anything together anymore. Our children
aren't young. One of them is dead. There'll be no others. Our work now doesn't
coincide at any point."
"That doesn't mean it's
right to end the--"
"As long as we both shall
live," said Novinha. "I know that, Andrew. You keep the marriage
alive for your children, and then when they're grown up you stay married for
everybody else's children, so they grow up in a world where marriages are
permanent. I know all that, Andrew. Permanent-- until one of you dies. That's
why you're here, Andrew. Because you have other lives that you want to live,
and because of some miraculous fluke you actually have the bodies to live them
in. Of course you're leaving me. Of course."
"I keep my promise,"
Ender said.
"Till death," said
Novinha. "No longer than that. Do you think I won't miss you when you're
gone? Of course I will. I'll miss you as any widow misses her beloved husband.
I'll miss you whenever I tell stories about you to our grandchildren. It's good
for a widow to miss her husband. It gives shape to her life. But you-- the
shape of your life comes from them. From your other selves. Not from me. Not
anymore. I don't begrudge that, Andrew."
"I'm afraid," said
Ender. "When Jane drove me out, I've never felt such fear. I don't want to
die."
"Then don't stay here,
because staying in this old body and with this old marriage, Andrew, that would
be the real death. And me, watching you, knowing that you don't really want to
be here, that would be a kind of death for me."
"Novinha, I do love you,
that's not pretense, all the years of happiness we had together, that was
real-- like Jakt and Valentine it was real. Tell her, Valentine."
"Andrew," said
Valentine, "please remember. She left you."
Ender looked at Valentine.
Then at Novinha, long and hard. "That's true, isn't it. You left me. I
made you take me."
Novinha nodded.
"But I thought-- I
thought you needed me. Still."
Novinha shrugged.
"Andrew, that's always been the problem. I needed you, but not out of
duty. I don't need you because you have to keep your word to me. Bit by bit,
seeing you every day, knowing that it's duty that keeps you, how do you think
that will help me, Andrew?"
"You want me to
die?"
"I want you to
live," said Novinha. "To live. As Peter. That's a fine young boy with
a long life ahead of him. I wish him well. Be him now, Andrew. Leave this old
widow behind. You've done your duty to me. And I know you do love me, as I still
love you. Dying doesn't deny that."
Ender looked at her, believing
her, wondering if he was right to believe her. She means it; how can she mean
it; she's saying what she thinks I want her to say; but what she says is true.
Back and forth, around and around the questions played in his mind.
But then at some point he lost
interest in the questions and he fell asleep.
That's how it felt to him.
Fell asleep.
The three women around his bed
saw his eyes close. Novinha even sighed, thinking that she had failed. She even
started to turn away. But then Plikt gasped. Novinha turned back around.
Ender's hair had all come loose. She reached up to where it was sliding from
his scalp, wanting to touch him, to make it be all right again, but knowing
that the best thing she could do would be not to touch him, not to waken him,
to let him go.
"Don't watch this,"
murmured Valentine. But none of them made a move to go. They watched, not
touching, not speaking again, as his skin sagged against his bones, as it dried
and crumbled, as he turned to dust under the sheets, on the pillow, and then
even the dust crumbled until it was too fine to see. Nothing there. No one
there at all, except the dead hair that had fallen away from him first.
Valentine reached down and
began to sweep the hair into a pile. For a moment Novinha was revolted. Then
she understood. They had to bury something. They had to have a funeral and lay
what was left of Andrew Wiggin in the ground. Novinha reached out and helped.
And when Plikt also took up a few stray hairs, Novinha did not shun her, but
took those hairs into her own hands, as she took the ones that Valentine had
gathered. Ender was free. Novinha had freed him. She had said the things she
had to say to let him go.
Was Valentine right? Would this
be different, in the long run, from the other ones that she had loved and lost?
Later she would know. But now, today, this moment, all she could feel was the
sick weight of grief inside her. No, she wanted to cry. No, Ender, it wasn't
true, I still need you, duty or oathkeeping, whatever it takes, I still want
you with me, no one ever loved me as you loved me and I needed that, I needed
you, where are you now, where are you when I love you so?
***
<He's letting go,> said
the Hive Queen.
<But can he find his way to
another body?> asked Human. <Don't let him be lost.>
<It's up to him,> said
the Hive Queen. <Him and Jane.>
<Does she know?>
<No matter where she is,
she's still attuned to him. Yes, she knows. She's searching for him even now.
Yes, and there she goes.>
***
She leapt back out of the web
that had so gently, kindly held her; it clung to her; I will be back, she
thought, I will be back to you, but not to stay so long again; it hurts you
when I stay so long.
She leapt and found herself
again with that familiar aiua that she had been entwined with for three
thousand years. He seemed lost, confused. One of the bodies was missing, that
was it. The old one. The old familiar shape. He was barely holding on to the
other two. He had no root or anchor. In neither of them did he feel that he
belonged. He was a stranger in his own flesh.
She approached him. This time
she knew better than before what she was doing, how to control herself. This
time she held back, she didn't take anything that was his. She gave him no
challenge to his possession. Just came near.
And in his uncertainty she was
familiar to him. Uprooted from his oldest home, he was able now to see that,
yes, he knew her, had known her for a long time. He came closer to her,
unafraid of her. Yes, closer, closer.
Follow me.
She leapt into the Valentine
body. He followed her. She passed through without touching, without tasting the
life of it; it was his to touch, his to taste. He felt the limbs of her, the
lips and tongue; he opened the eyes and looked; he thought her thoughts; he
heard her memories.
Tears in the eyes, down the
cheeks. Deep grief in the heart. I can't bear to be here, he thought. I don't
belong. No one wants me here. They all want me out of here and gone.
The grief tore at him, pushed
him away. It was an unbearable place for him.
The aiua that had once been
Jane now reached out, tentatively, and touched a single spot, a single cell.
He grew alarmed, but only for
a moment. This isn't mine, he thought. I don't belong here. It's yours. You can
have it.
She led him here and there
inside this body, always touching, taking mastery of it; only this time instead
of fighting her, he gave control of it to her, over and over. I'm not wanted
here. Take it. Have joy with it. It's yours. It never was my own.
She felt the flesh become
herself, more and more of it, the cells by hundreds, thousands, moving their
allegiance from the old master who no longer wanted to be there, to the new
mistress who worshipped them. She did not say to them, You are mine, the way
she had tried to when she came here before. Instead her cry now was, I am
yours; and then, finally, you are me.
She was astonished with the
wholeness of this body. She realized, now, that until this moment she had never
been a self before. What she had for all those centuries was an apparatus, not
a self. She had been on life support, waiting for a life. But now, trying on
the arms like sleeves, she found that yes, her arms were this long; yes, this
tongue, these lips move just where my tongue and lips must move.
And then, seeping into her
awareness, claiming her attention-- which had once been divided among ten
thousand thoughts at once-- came memories that she had never known before.
Memories of speech with lips and breath. Memories of sights with eyes, sounds
with ears. Memories of walking, running.
And then the memories of
people. Standing in that first starship, seeing her first sight-- of Andrew
Wiggin, the look on his face, the wonder as he saw her, as he looked back and
forth between her and--
And Peter.
Ender.
Peter.
She had forgotten. She had
been so caught up in this new self she found that she forgot the lost aiua who
had given it to her. Where was he?
Lost, lost. Not in the other
one, not anywhere, how could she have lost him? How many seconds, minutes,
hours had he been away? Where was he?
Darting away from the body,
from herself that called itself Val, she probed, she searched, but could not
find.
He's dead. I lost him. He gave
me this life and he had no way of holding on then, yet I forgot him and he's
gone.
But then she remembered he had
been gone before. When she chased him through his three bodies and at last he
leapt away for a moment, it was that leap that had led her to the lacework of
the web of trees. He would do it again, of course. He would leap to the only
other place he had ever leapt to.
She followed him and he was
there, but not where she had been, not among the mothertrees, nor even among
the fathertrees. Not among the trees at all. No, he had followed where she
hadn't wanted then to go, along the thick and ropey twines that led to them;
no, not to them, to her. The Hive Queen. The one that he had carried in her dry
cocoon for three thousand years, world to world, until at last he found a home
for her. Now she at last returned the gift; when Jane's aiua probed along the
twines that led to her, there he was, uncertain, lost.
He knew her. Cut off as he
was, it was astonishing that he knew anything; but he knew her. And once again
he followed her. This time she did not lead him into the body that he had given
her; that was hers now; no, it was her now. Instead she led him to a different
body in a different place.
But he acted as he had in the
body that was now her own; he seemed to be a stranger here. Even though the
million aiuas of the body reached out for him, yearned for him to sustain them,
he held himself aloof. Had it been so terrible for him, what he saw and felt in
the other body? Or was it that this body was Peter, that for him it represented
all he feared most in himself? He would not take it. It was his, and he would
not, could not ...
But he must. She led him
through it, giving each part of it to him. This is you now. Whatever it once
meant to you, that isn't what it is now-- you can be whole here, you can be
yourself now.
He didn't understand her; cut
off from any kind of body, how much thought was he capable of, anyway? He only
knew that this body wasn't the one he loved. He had given up the ones he loved.
Still she pulled him on; he
followed. This cell, this tissue, this organ, this limb, they are you, see how
they yearn for you, see how they obey you. And they did, they obeyed him
despite his pulling away. They obeyed him until at last he began to think the
thoughts of the mind and feel the sensations of the body. Jane waited,
watching, holding him in place, willing him to stay long enough to accept the
body, for she could see that without her he would let go, he would flee. I
don't belong here, his aiua was saying silently. I don't belong, I don't
belong.
***
Wang-mu cradled his head on
her lap, keening, crying. Around her the Samoans were gathering to watch her
grief. She knew what it meant, when he collapsed, when he went so limp, when
his hair came loose. Ender was dead in some far-off place, and he could not
find his way here. "He's lost," she cried. "He's lost."
Vaguely she heard a stream of
Samoan from Malu. And then the translation from Grace. "He isn't lost.
She's led him here. The God has led him here but he's afraid to stay."
How could he be afraid? Peter,
afraid? Ender, afraid? Ludicrous on both counts. What part of him had ever been
a coward? What was it that he had ever feared?
And then she remembered-- what
Ender feared was Peter, and Peter's fear had always been of Ender.
"No," she said, only now it wasn't grief. Now it was frustration,
anger, need. "No, listen to me, you belong here! This is you, the real
you! I don't care what you're afraid of now! I don't care how lost you might
be. I want you here. This is your home and it always has been. With me! We're
good together. We belong together. Peter! Ender-- whoever you think you are--
do you think it makes any difference to me? You've always been yourself, the
same man you are now, and this has always been your body. Come home! Come back!"
And on and on she babbled.
And then his eyes opened, and
his lips parted in a smile. "Now that's acting," he said.
Angrily she pushed him down
again. "How can you laugh at me like that!"
"So you didn't mean
it," he said. "You don't like me after all."
"I never said I did like
you," she answered.
"I know what you
said."
"Well," she said.
"Well."
"And it was true,"
he said. "Was and is."
"You mean I said
something right? I hit upon truth?"
"You said that I belonged
here," Peter answered. "And I do." His hand reached up to touch
her cheek, but didn't stop there. He put his hand behind her neck, and drew her
down, and held her close to him. Around them two dozen huge Samoans laughed and
laughed.
***
This is you now, Jane said to
him. This is the whole of you. One again. You are at one.
Whatever he had experienced
during his reluctant control of the body was enough. There was no more
timidity, no more uncertainty. This aiua she had led through the body now took
grateful mastery, eagerly as if this were the first body he had ever had. And
perhaps it was. Having been cut off, however briefly, would he even remember
being Andrew Wiggin? Or was the old life gone? The aiua was the same, the
brilliant, powerful aiua; but would any memory linger, beyond the memories
mapped by the mind of Peter Wiggin?
Not mine to worry about now,
she thought. He has his body now.
He will not die, for now. And
I have my body, I have the gossamer web among the mothertrees, and somewhere,
someday, I will also have my ansibles again. I never knew how limited I was
until now, how little and small I was; but now I feel as my friend feels,
surprised by how alive I am.
Back in her new body, her new
self, she let the thoughts and memories flow again, and this time held back
nothing. Her aiua-- consciousness-- was soon overwhelmed by all she sensed and
felt and thought and remembered. It would come back to her, the way the Hive
Queen noticed her own aiua and her philotic connections; it came back even now,
in flashes, like a childhood skill that she had mastered once and then
forgotten. She was also aware, vaguely, in the back of her mind, that she was
still leaping several times a second to make the circuit of the trees, but did
it all so quickly that she missed nothing of the thoughts that passed through
her mind as Valentine.
As Val.
As Val who sat weeping, the
terrible words that Miro said still ringing in her ears. He never loved me. He
wanted Jane. They all want Jane and not me.
But I am Jane. And I am me. I
am Val.
She stopped crying. She moved.
Moved! The muscles tautening
and relaxing, flex, extend, miraculous cells working their collective way to
move great heavy bones and sacs of skin and organs, shift them, balance them so
delicately. The joy of it was too great. It erupted from her in-- what was this
convulsive spasming of her diaphragm? What was this gust of sound erupting from
her own throat?
It was laughter. How long had
she faked it with computer chips, simulated speech and laughter, and never,
never knew what it meant, how it felt. She never wanted to stop.
"Val," said Miro.
Oh, to hear his voice through
ears!
"Val, are you all
right?"
"Yes," she said. Her
tongue moved so, her lips; she breathed, she pushed, all these habits that Val
already had, so fresh and new and wonderful to her. "And yes, you must
keep on calling me Val. Jane was something else. Someone else. Before I was
myself, I was Jane. But now I'm Val."
She looked at him and saw
(with eyes!) how tears flowed down his cheeks. She understood at once.
"No," she said.
"You don't have to call me Val at all. Because I'm not the Val you knew,
and I don't mind if you grieve for her. I know what you said to her. I know how
it hurt you to say it; I remember how it hurt her to hear it. But don't regret
it, please. It was such a great gift you gave me, you and her both. And it was
also a gift you gave to her. I saw her aiua pass into Peter. She isn't dead.
And more important, I think-- by saying what you said to her, you freed her to
do the thing that best expressed who she truly was. You helped her die for you.
And now she is at one with herself; he is at one with himself. Grieve for her,
but don't regret. And you can always call me Jane."
And then she knew, the Val
part of her knew, the memory of the self that Val had been knew what she had to
do. She pushed away from the chair, drifted to where Miro sat, enfolded him in
her arms (I touch him with these hands!), held his head close to her shoulder,
and let his tears soak hot, then cold, into her shirt, onto her skin. It
burned. It burned.
Chapter 11 -- "YOU CALLED
ME BACK FROM DARKNESS"
"Is there no end to this?
Must it go on and on? Have I not satisfied all you could ask of a woman so weak
and so foolish as I? When will I hear your sharp voice in my heart again? When
will I trace the last line into heaven?"
-- from The God Whispers of
Han Qing-jao
Yasujiro Tsutsumi was astonished at the name his secretary whispered
to him. At once he nodded, then rose to his feet to speak to the two men he was
meeting with. The negotiations had been long and difficult, and now to have
them interrupted at this late stage, when things were so close-- but that could
not be helped. He would rather lose millions than to show disrespect to the
great man who had, unbelievably, come calling on him.
"I beg you to forgive me
for being so rude to you, but my old teacher has come to visit me and it would
shame me and my house to make him wait."
Old Shigeru at once rose to
his feet and bowed. "I thought the younger generation had forgotten how to
show respect. I know that your teacher is the great Aimaina Hikari, the keeper of
the Yamato spirit. But even if he were a toothless old schoolteacher from some
mountain village, a decent young man would show respect as you are doing."
Young Shigeru was not so
pleased-- or at least not so good at concealing his annoyance. But it was Old
Shigeru whose opinion of this interruption mattered. Once the deal closed,
there would be plenty of time to bring the son around.
"You honor me by your
understanding words," said Yasujiro. "Please let me see if my teacher
will honor me by letting me bring such wise men together under my poor
roof."
Yasujiro bowed again and went
out into his reception room. Aimaina Hikari was still standing. His secretary,
also standing, shrugged helplessly, as if to say, He would not sit down.
Yasujiro bowed deeply, and again, and then again, before he asked if he could
present his friends.
Aimaina frowned and asked
softly, "Are these the Shigeru Fushimis who claim to be descended from a
noble family-- which died out two thousand years before suddenly coming up with
new offspring?"
Yasujiro felt suddenly faint
with dread that Aimaina, who was, after all, guardian of the Yamato spirit,
would humiliate him by challenging the Fushimis' claim to noble blood. "It
is a small and harmless vanity," said Yasujiro quietly. "A man may be
proud of his family."
"As your namesake, the
founder of the Tsutsumi fortune, was proud to forget that his ancestors were
Korean."
"You have said
yourself," said Yasujiro, absorbing the insult to himself with equanimity,
"that all Japanese are Korean in origin, but those with the Yamato spirit
crossed over to the islands as quickly as they could. Mine followed yours by
only a few centuries."
Aimaina laughed. "You are
still my sly quick-witted student! Take me to your friends, I would be honored
to meet them."
There followed ten minutes of
bows and smiles, pleasant compliments and self-abnegations. Yasujiro was
relieved that there wasn't a hint of condescension or irony when Aimaina said
the name "Fushimi," and that Young Shigeru was so dazzled to meet the
great Aimaina Hikari that the insult of the interrupted meeting was clearly
forgotten. The two Shigerus went away with a half dozen holograms of their
meeting with Aimaina, and Yasujiro was pleased that Old Shigeru had insisted
that Yasujiro stand right there in the holograms with the Fushimis and the
great philosopher.
Finally, Yasujiro and Aimaina
were alone in his office with the door closed. At once Aimaina went to the
window and drew open the curtain to reveal the other tall buildings of Nagoya's
financial district and then a view of the countryside, thoroughly farmed in the
flatlands, but still wild woodland in the hills, a place of foxes and badgers.
"I am relieved to see
that even though a Tsutsumi is here in Nagoya, there is still undeveloped land
within sight of the city. I had not thought this possible."
"Even if you disdain my
family, I am proud to have our name on your lips," said Yasujiro. But
silently he wanted to ask, Why are you determined to insult my family today?
"Are you proud of the man
you were named for? The buyer of land, the builder of golf courses? To him all
wild country cried out for cabins or putting greens. For that matter, he never
saw a woman too ugly to try to get a child with her. Do you follow him in that,
too?"
Yasujiro was baffled. Everyone
knew the stories of the founder of the Tsutsumi fortune. They had not been news
for three thousand years. "What have I done to bring such anger down on my
head?"
"You have done nothing,"
said Hikari. "And my anger is not at you. My anger is at myself, because I
also have done nothing. I speak of your family's sins of ancient times because
the only hope for the Yamato people is to remember all our sins of the past.
But we forget. We are so rich now, we own so much, we build so much, that there
is no project of any importance on any of the Hundred Worlds that does not have
Yamato hands somewhere in it. Yet we forget the lessons of our ancestors."
"I beg to learn from you,
master."
"Once long ago, when
Japan was still struggling to enter the modern age, we let ourselves be ruled
by our military. Soldiers were our masters, and they led us into an evil war,
to conquer nations that had done us no wrong."
"We paid for our crimes
when atomic bombs fell on our islands."
"Paid?" cried
Aimaina. "What is to pay or not to pay? Are we suddenly Christians, who
pay for sins? No. The Yamato way is not to pay for error, but to learn from it.
We threw out the military and conquered the world with the excellence of our
design and the reliability of our labor. The language of the Hundred Worlds may
be based on English, but the money of the Hundred Worlds came originally from
the yen."
"But the Yamato people
still buy and sell," said Yasujiro. "We have not forgotten the
lesson."
"That was only half the
lesson. The other half was: We will not make war."
"But there is no Japanese
fleet, no Japanese army."
"That is the lie we tell
ourselves to cover our crimes," said Aimaina. "I had a visit two days
ago from two strangers-- mortal humans, but I know the god sent them. They
rebuked me because it is the Necessarian school that provided the pivotal votes
in the Starways Congress to send the Lusitania Fleet. A fleet whose sole
purpose is to repeat the crime of Ender the Xenocide and destroy a world that
harbors a frail species of raman who do no harm to anyone!"
Yasujiro quailed under the
weight of Aimaina's anger. "But master, what do I have to do with the
military?"
"Yamato philosophers taught
the theory that Yamato politicians acted upon. Japanese votes made the
difference. This evil fleet must be stopped."
"Nothing can be stopped
today," said Yasujiro. "The ansibles are all shut down, as are all
the computer networks while the terrible all-eating virus is expelled from the
system."
"Tomorrow the ansibles
will come back again," said Aimaina. "And so tomorrow the shame of
Japanese participation in xenocide must be averted."
"Why do you come to
me?" said Yasujiro. "I may bear the name of my great ancestor, but
half the boys in my family are named Yasujiro or Yoshiaki or Seiji. I am master
of the Tsutsurni holdings in Nagoya--"
"Don't be modest. You are
the Tsutsumi of the world of Divine Wind."
"I am listened to in
other cities," said Yasujiro, "but the orders come from the family
center on Honshu. And I have no political influence at all. If the problem is
the Necessarians, talk to them!"
Aimaina sighed. "Oh, that
would do no good. They would spend six months arguing about how to reconcile
their new position with their old position, proving that they had not changed
their minds after all, that their philosophy embraced the full 180-degree
shift. And the politicians-- they are committed. Even if the philosophers
change their minds, it would be at least a political generation-- three
elections, the saying goes-- before the new policy would be in effect. Thirty
years! The Lusitania Fleet will have done all its evil before then."
"Then what is there to do
but despair and live in shame?" asked Yasujiro. "Unless you're
planning some futile and stupid gesture." He grinned at his master,
knowing that Aimaina would recognize the words he himself always used when
denigrating the ancient practice of seppuku, ritual suicide, as something the
Yamato spirit had left behind as a child leaves its diapers.
Aimaina did not laugh.
"The Lusitania Fleet is seppuku for the Yamato spirit." He came and
stood looming over Yasujiro-- or so it felt, though Yasujiro was taller than
the old man by half a head. "The politicians have made the Lusitania Fleet
popular, so the philosophers cannot now change their minds. But when philosophy
and elections cannot change the minds of politicians, money can!"
"You are not suggesting
something so shameful as bribery, are you?" said Yasujiro, wondering as he
said it whether Aimaina knew how widespread the buying of politicians was.
"Do you think I keep my
eyes in my anus?" asked Aimaina, using an expression so crude that
Yasujiro gasped and averted his gaze, laughing nervously. "Do you think I
don't know that there are ten ways to buy every crooked politician and a
hundred ways to buy every honest one? Contributions, threats of sponsoring
opponents, donations to noble causes, jobs given to relatives or friends-- do I
have to recite the list?"
"You seriously want
Tsutsumi money committed to stopping the Lusitania Fleet?"
Aimaina walked again to the
window and spread out his arms as if to embrace all that could be seen of the
outside world. "The Lusitania Fleet is bad for business, Yasujiro. If the
Molecular Disruption Device is used against one world, it will be used against
another. And the military, when it has such power placed again in its hands,
this time will not let it go."
"Will I persuade the
heads of my family by quoting your prophecy, master?"
"It is not a
prophecy," said Aimaina, "and it is not mine. It is a law of human
nature, and it is history that teaches it to us. Stop the fleet, and Tsutsumi
will be known as the saviors, not only of the Yamato spirit, but of the human
spirit as well. Do not let this grave sin be on the heads of our people."
"Forgive me, master, but
it seems to me that you are the one putting it there. No one noticed that we
bore responsibility for this sin until you said it here today."
"I do not put the sin
there. I merely take off the hat that covers it. Yasujiro, you were one of my
best students. I forgave you for using what I taught you in such complicated
ways, because you did it for your family's sake."
"And this that you ask of
me now-- this is perfectly simple?"
"I have taken the most
direct action-- I have spoken plainly to the most powerful representative of
the richest of the Japanese trading families that I could reach on this day.
And what I ask of you is the minimum action required to do what is
necessary."
"In this case the minimum
puts my career at great risk," said Yasujiro thoughtfully.
Aimaina said nothing.
"My greatest teacher once
told me," said Yasujiro, "that a man who has risked his life knows
that careers are worthless, and a man who will not risk his career has a
worthless life."
"So you will do it?"
"I will prepare my
messages to make your case to all the Tsutsumi family. When the ansibles are
linked again, I will send them."
"I knew you would not
disappoint me."
"Better than that,"
said Yasujiro. "When I am thrown out of my job, I will come and live with
you."
Aimaina bowed. "I would
be honored to have you dwell in my house."
***
The lives of all people flow
through time, and, regardless of how brutal one moment may be, how filled with
grief or pain or fear, time flows through all lives equally. Minutes passed in
which Val-Jane held the weeping Miro, and then time dried his tears, time
loosened her embrace, and time, finally, ended Ela's patience.
"Let's get back to
work," said Ela. "I'm not unfeeling, but our predicament is
unchanged."
Quara was surprised. "But
Jane's not dead. Doesn't that mean we can get back home?"
Val-Jane at once got up and
moved back to her computer terminal. Every movement was easy because of the
reflexes and habits the Val-brain had developed; but the Jane-mind found each
movement fresh and new; she marveled at the dance of her fingers pressing the
keys to control the display. "I don't know," Jane said, answering the
question that Quara had voiced, but all were asking. "I'm still uncertain
in this flesh. The ansibles haven't been restored. I do have a handful of
allies who will relink some of my old programs to the network once it is
restored-- some Samoans on Pacifica, Han Fei-tzu on Path, the Abo university on
Outback. Will those programs be enough? Will the new networking software allow
me to tap the resources I need to hold all the information of a starship and so
many people in my mind? Will having this body interfere? Will my new link to
the mothertrees be a help or a distraction?" And then the most important
question: "Do we wish to be my first test flight?"
"Somebody has to,"
said Ela.
"I think I'll try one of
the starships on Lusitania, if I can reestablish contact with them," said
Jane. "With only a single hive queen worker on board. That way if it is
lost, it will not be missed."
Jane turned to nod to the
worker who was with them. "Begging your pardon, of course."
"You don't have to
apologize to the worker," said Quara. "It's really just the Hive
Queen anyway."
Jane looked over at Miro and
winked. Miro did not wink back, but the look of sadness in his eyes was answer
enough. He knew that the workers were not quite what everyone thought. The hive
queens sometimes had to tame them, because not all of them were utterly
subjected to their mother's will. But the was - it - or - wasn't - it slavery
of the workers was a matter for another generation to work out.
"Languages," said
Jane. "Carried by genetic molecules. What kind of grammar must they have?
Are they linked to sounds, smells, sights? Let's see how smart we all are
without me inside the computers helping." That struck her as so amazingly
funny that she laughed aloud. Ah, how marvelous it was to have her own laughter
sounding in her ears, bubbling upward from her lungs, spasming her diaphragm,
bringing tears to her eyes!
Only when her laughter ended
did she realize how leaden the sound of it must have been to Miro, to the
others. "I'm sorry," she said, abashed, and felt a blush rising up
her neck into her cheeks. Who could have believed it could burn so hot! It
almost made her laugh again. "I'm not used to being alive like this. I
know I'm rejoicing when the rest of you are grim, but don't you see? Even if we
all die when the air runs out in a few weeks, I can't help but marvel at how it
feels to me!"
"We understand,"
said Firequencher. "You have passed into your Second Life. It's a joyful
time for us, as well."
"I spent time among your trees,
you know," said Jane. "Your mothertrees made space for me. Took me in
and nurtured me. Does that make us brother and sister now?"
"I hardly know what it
would mean, to have a sister," said Firequencher. "But if you
remember the life in the dark of the mothertree, then you remember more than I
do. We have dreams sometimes, but no real memories of the First Life in
darkness. Still, that makes this your Third Life after all."
"Then I'm an adult?"
asked Jane, and she laughed again.
And again felt how her laugh
stilled the others, hurt them.
But something odd happened as
she turned, ready to apologize again. Her glance fell upon Miro, and instead of
saying the words she had planned-- the Jane-words that would have come out of
the jewel in his ear only the day before-- other words came to her lips, along
with a memory. "If my memories live, Miro, then I'm alive. Isn't that what
you told me?"
Miro shook his head. "Are
you speaking from Val's memory, or from Jane's memory when she-- when you--
overheard us speaking in the Hive Queen's cave? Don't comfort me by pretending
to be her."
Jane, by habit-- Val's habit?
or her own? --snapped, "When I comfort you, you'll know it."
"And how will I
know?" Miro snapped back.
"Because you'll be
comfortable, of course," said Val-Jane. "In the meantime, please keep
in mind that I'm not listening through the jewel in your ear now. I see only
with these eyes and hear only with these ears."
This was not strictly true, of
course. For many times a second, she felt the flowing sap, the unstinting
welcome of the mothertrees as her aiua satisfied its hunger for largeness by
touring the vast network of the pequenino philotes. And now and then, outside
the mothertrees, she caught a glimmer of a thought, of a word, a phrase, spoken
in the language of the fathertrees. Or was it their language? Rather it was the
language behind the language, the underlying speech of the speechless. And
whose was that other voice? I know you-- you are of the kind that made me. I
know your voice.
<We lost track of you,>
said the Hive Queen in her mind. <But you did well without us.>
Jane was not prepared for the
swelling of pride that glowed through her entire Val-body; she felt the
physical effect of the emotion as Val, but her pride came from the praise of a
hive-mother. I am a daughter of hive queens, she realized, and so it matters
when she speaks to me, and tells me I have done well.
And if I'm the hive queens'
daughter, I am Ender's daughter, too, his daughter twice over, for they made my
lifestuff partly from his mind, so I could be a bridge between them; and now I
dwell in a body that also came from him, and whose memories are from a time
when he dwelt here and lived this body's life. I am his daughter, but once
again I cannot speak to him.
All this time, all these
thoughts, and yet she did not show or even feel the slightest lapse of
concentration on what she was doing with her computer on the starship circling
the descolada planet. She was still Jane. It wasn't the computerness of her
that had allowed her, all these years, to maintain many layers of attention and
focus on many tasks at once. It was her hive-queen nature that allowed this.
<It was because you were an
aiua powerful enough to do this that you were able to come to us in the first
place,> said the Hive Queen in her mind.
Which of you is speaking to
me? asked Jane.
<Does it matter? We all
remember the making of you. We remember being there. We remember drawing you
out of darkness into light.>
Am I still myself, then? Will
I have again all the powers I lost when the Starways Congress killed my old
virtual body?
<You might. When you find
out, tell us. We will be very interested.>
And now she felt the sharp
disappointment from a parent's unconcern, a sinking feeling in the stomach, a
kind of shame. But this was a human emotion; it arose from the Val-body, though
it was in response to her relationship with her hive-queen mothers. Everything
was more complicated-- and yet it was simpler. Her feelings were now flagged by
a body, which responded before she understood what she felt herself. In the old
days, she scarcely knew she had feelings. She had them, yes, even irrational
responses, desires below the level of consciousness-- these were attributes of
all aiuas, when linked with others in any kind of life-- but there had been no
simple signals to tell her what her feelings were. How easy it was to be a
human, with your emotions expressed on the canvas of your own body. And yet how
hard, because you couldn't hide your feelings from yourself half so easily.
<Get used to being
frustrated with us, daughter,> said the Hive Queen. <You have a partly
human nature, and we do not. We will not be tender with you as human mothers
are. When you can't bear it, back away-- we won't pursue you.>
Thank you, she said silently
... and backed away.
***
At dawn the sun came up over
the mountain that was the spine of the island, so that the sky was light long
before any sunlight touched the trees directly. The wind off the sea had cooled
them in the night. Peter awoke with Wang-mu curled into the curve of his body,
like shrimps lined up on a market rack. The closeness of her felt good; it felt
familiar. Yet how could it be? He had never slept so close to her before. Was
it some vestigial Ender memory? He wasn't conscious of having any such
memories. It had disappointed him, actually, when he realized it. He had
thought that perhaps when his body had complete possession of the aiua, he
would become Ender-- he would have a lifetime of real memories instead of the
paltry faked-up memories that had come with his body when Ender created it. No
such luck.
And yet he remembered sleeping
with a woman curled against him. He remembered reaching across her, his arm
like a sheltering bough.
But he had never touched
Wang-mu that way. Nor was it right for him to do it now-- she was not his wife,
only his ... friend? Was she that? She had said she loved him-- was that only a
way to help him find his way into this body?
Then, suddenly, he felt
himself falling away from himself, felt himself recede from Peter and become
something else, something small and bright and terrified, descending down into
darkness, out into a wind too strong for him to stand against it--
"Peter!"
The voice called him, and he
followed it, back along the almost invisible philotic threads that connected
him to ... himself again. I am Peter. I have nowhere else to go. If I leave like
that, I'll die.
"Are you all right?"
asked Wang-mu. "I woke up because-- I'm sorry, but I dreamed, I felt as if
I was losing you. But I wasn't, because here you are."
"I was losing my
way," said Peter. "You could sense that?"
"I don't know what I
sensed or not. I just-- how can I describe it?"
"You called me back from
darkness," said Peter.
"Did I?"
He almost said something, but
then stopped. Then laughed, uncomfortable and frightened. "I feel so odd.
A moment ago I was about to say something. Something very flippant-- about how
having to be Peter Wiggin was darkness enough by itself."
"Oh yes," said
Wang-mu. "You always say such nasty things about yourself."
"But I didn't say
it," said Peter. "I was about to, out of habit, but I stopped,
because it wasn't true. Isn't that funny?"
"I think it's good."
"It makes sense that I
should feel whole instead of being subdivided-- perhaps more content with
myself or something. And yet I almost lost the whole thing. I think it wasn't
just a dream. I think I really was letting go. Falling away into-- no, out of
everything."
"You had three selves for
several months," said Wang-mu. "Is it possible your aiua hungers for
the-- I don't know, the size of what you used to be?"
"I was spread all over
the galaxy, wasn't I? Except I want to say, 'Wasn't he,' because that was
Ender, wasn't it. And I'm not Ender because I don't remember anything." He
thought a moment. "Except maybe I do remember some things a little more
clearly now. Things from my childhood. My mother's face. It's very clear, and I
don't think it was before. And Valentine's face, when we were all children. But
I'd remember that as Peter, wouldn't I, so it doesn't mean it comes from Ender,
does it? I'm sure this is just one of the memories Ender supplied for me in the
first place." He laughed. "I'm really desperate, aren't I, to find
some sign of him in me."
Wang-mu sat listening. Silent,
not making a great show of interest, but also content not to jump in with an
answer or a comment.
Noticing her made him think of
something else. "Are you some kind of, what would you call it, an empath?
Do you normally feel what other people are feeling?"
"Never," said
Wang-mu. "I'm too busy feeling what I'm feeling."
"But you knew that I was
going. You felt that."
"I suppose," said
Wang-mu, "that I'm bound up with you now. I hope that's all right, because
it wasn't exactly voluntary on my part."
"But I'm bound up with
you, too," said Peter. "Because when I was disconnected, I still
heard you. All my other feelings were gone. My body wasn't giving me anything.
I had lost my body. Now, when I remember what it felt like, I remember 'seeing'
things, but that's just my human brain making sense of things that it can't
actually make sense of. I know that I didn't see at all, or hear, or touch or
anything at all. And yet I knew you were calling. I felt you-- needing me.
Wanting me to come back. Surely that means that I am also bound up with
you."
She shrugged, looked away.
"Now what does that
mean?" he asked.
"I'm not going to spend
the rest of my life explaining myself to you," said Wang-mu.
"Everyone else has the privilege of just feeling and doing sometimes
without analyzing it. What did it look like to you? You're the smart one who's
an expert on human nature."
"Stop that," said
Peter, pretending to be teasing but really wanting her to stop. "I
remember we bantered about that, and I bragged I guess, but ... well I don't
feel that way now. Is that part of having all of Ender in me? I know I don't
understand people all that well. You looked away, you shrugged when I said I
was bound up with you. That hurt my feelings, you know."
"And why is that?"
"Oh, you can ask why and
I can't, are those the rules now?"
"Those have always been
the rules," said Wang-mu. "You just never obeyed them."
"Well it hurt my feelings
because I wanted you to be glad that I'm tied up with you and you with me."
"Are you glad?"
"Well it only saved my
life, I think I'd have to be the king of the stupid people not to at least find
it convenient!"
"Smell," she said,
suddenly leaping to her feet.
She is so young, he thought.
And then, rising to his own
feet, he was surprised to realize that he, too, was young, his body lithe and
responsive.
And then he was surprised
again to realize that Peter never remembered being any other way. It was Ender
who had experienced an older body, one that got stiff when sleeping on the
ground, a body that did not rise so easily to its feet. I do have Ender in me.
I have the memories of his body. Why not the memories of his mind?
Perhaps because this brain has
only the map of Peter's memories in it. All the rest of them are lurking just
out of reach. And maybe I'll stumble on them now and then, connect them up, map
new roads to get to them.
In the meantime, he was still
getting up, standing beside Wang-mu, sniffing the air with her; and he was
surprised again to realize that both activities had had his full attention. He
had been thinking continuously of Wang-mu, of smelling what she smelled,
wondering all the while whether he could just rest his hand on that small frail
shoulder that seemed to need a hand the size of his to rest upon it; and at the
same time, he had been engaged completely in speculation on how and whether he
would be able to recover Ender's memories.
I could never do that before,
thought Peter. And yet I must have been doing it ever since this body and the
Valentine body were created. Concentrating on three things at once, in fact,
not two.
But I wasn't strong enough to
think of three things. One of them always sagged. Valentine for a while. Then
Ender, until that body died. But two things-- I can think of two things at
once. Is this remarkable? Or is it something that many humans could do, if only
they had some occasion to learn?
What kind of vanity is this!
thought Peter. Why should I care whether I'm unique in this ability? Except
that I always did pride myself on being smarter and more capable than the
people around me. Didn't let myself say it aloud, of course, or even admit it
to myself, but be honest with yourself now, Peter! It's good to be smarter than
other people. And if I can think of two things at once, while they can only
think of one, why not take some pleasure in it!
Of course, thinking of two
things is rather useless if both trains of thought are dumb. For while he
played with questions of vanity and his competitive nature, he had also been
concentrating on Wang-mu, and his hand had indeed reached out and touched her,
and for a moment she leaned back against him, accepting his touch, until her
head rested against his chest. And then, without waming or any provocation that
he could think of, she suddenly pulled away from him and began to stride toward
the Samoans who were gathered around Malu on the beach.
"What did I do?"
asked Peter.
She turned around, looking
puzzled. "You did just fine!" she said. "I didn't slap you or
put my knee in your kintamas, did I? But it's breakfast-- Malu is praying and
they've got more food than they had two nights ago, when we thought we'd die
from eating it!"
And both of Peter's separate
tracks of attention noticed that he was hungry, both severally and all at once.
Neither he nor Wang-mu had eaten anything last night. For that matter, he had
no memory of leaving the beach and coming to lie down with her on these mats.
Somebody must have carried them. Well, that was no surprise. There wasn't a man
or woman on that beach who didn't look like he could pick Peter up and break
him like a pencil. As for Wang-mu, as he watched her run lightly toward the
mountain range of Samoans gathered at water's edge, he thought she was like a
bird flying toward a flock of cattle.
I'm not a child and never was
one, not in this body, thought Peter. So I don't know if I'm even capable of
childish longings and the grand romances of adolescence. And from Ender I have
this sense of cornfortableness in love; it isn't grand sweeping passions that I
even expect to feel. Will the kind of love I have for you be enough, Wang-mu?
To reach out to you when I'm in need, and to try to be here for you when you
need me back. And to feel such tenderness when I look at you that I want to
stand between you and all the world: and yet also to lift you up and carry you
above the strong currents of life; and at the same time, I would be glad to
stand always like this, at a distance, watching you, the beauty of you, your
energy as you look up at these towering mound-people, speaking to them as an
equal even though every movement of your hands, every fluting syllable of your
speech cries out that you're a child-- is it enough for you that I feel these
loves for you? Because it's enough for me. And enough for me that when my hand
touched your shoulder, you leaned on me; and when you felt me slip away, you
called my name.
***
Plikt sat alone in her room,
writing and writing. She had been preparing all her life for this day-- to be
writing the oration for Andrew Wiggin's funeral. She would speak his death--
and she had the research to do it, she could speak for a solid week and still
not exhaust a tenth of what she knew about him. But she would not speak for a
week. She would speak for a single hour. Less than an hour. She understood him;
she loved him; she would share with others who did not know him what he was,
how he loved, how history was different because this man, brilliant, imperfect,
but wellmeaning and filled with a love that was strong enough to inflict
suffering when it was needed-- how history was different because he lived, and
how also ten thousand, a hundred thousand, millions of individual lives were
also different, strengthened, clarified, lifted up, brightened, or at least
made more consonant and truthful because of what he had said and done and
written in his life.
And would she also tell this?
Would she tell how bitterly one woman grieved alone in her room, weeping and
weeping, not because of grief that Ender was gone, but because of shame at
finally understanding herself. For though she had loved and admired him-- no,
worshiped this man-- nevertheless when he died what she felt was not grief at
all, but relief and excitement. Relief: The waiting is over! Excitement: My
hour has come!
Of course that's what she
felt. She wasn't such a fool as to expect herself to be of more than human
moral strength. And the reason she didn't grieve as Novinha and Valentine
grieved was because a great part of their lives had just been torn away from
them. What was torn away from mine? Ender gave me a few dollops of his
attention, but little more. We had only a few months when he was my teacher on
Trondheim; then a generation later our lives touched again for these few months
here; and both times he was preoccupied, he had more important things and
people to attend to than me. I was not his wife. I was not his sister. I was
only his student and disciple-- a man who was done with students and never
wanted disciples. So of course no great part of my life was taken from me
because he had only been my dream, never my companion.
I forgive myself and yet I
cannot stop the shame and grief I feel, not because Andrew Wiggin died, but
because in the hour of his death I showed myself to be what I really am:
utterly selfish, concerned only with my own career. I chose to be the speaker
of Ender's death. Therefore the moment of his death can only be the fulfillment
of my life. What kind of vulture does that make me? What kind of parasite, a
leech upon his life ...
And yet her fingers continued
to type, sentence after sentence, despite the tears flowing down her cheeks.
Off in Jakt's house, Valentine grieved with her husband and children. Over in
Olhado's house, Grego and Olhado and Novinha had gathered to comfort each
other, at the loss of the man who had been husband and father to them. They had
their relationship to him, and I have mine. They have their private memories;
mine will be public. I will speak, and then I will publish what I said, and
what I am writing now will give new shape and meaning to the life of Ender
Wiggin in the minds of every person of a hundred worlds. Ender the Xenocide;
Andrew the Speaker for the Dead; Andrew the private man of loneliness and
compassion; Ender the brilliant analyst who could pierce to the heart of
problems and of people without being deflected by fear or ambition or ... or
mercy. The man of justice and the man of mercy, coexisting in one body. The man
whose compassion let him see and love the hive queens even before he ever
touched one of them with his hands; the man whose fierce justice let him destroy
them all because he believed they were his enemy.
Would Ender judge me harshly
for my ugly feelings on this day? Of course he would-- he would not spare me,
he would know the worst that is in my heart.
But then, having judged me, he
would also love me. He would say, So what? Get up and speak my death. If we
waited for perfect people to be speakers for the dead, all funerals would be
conducted in silence.
And so she wrote, and wept;
and when the weeping was done, the writing went on. When the hair that he had
left behind was sealed in a small box and buried in the grass near Human's
root, she would stand and speak. Her voice would raise him from the dead, make
him live again in memory. And she would also be merciful; and she would also be
just. That much, at least, she had learned from him.
Chapter 12 -- "AM I
BETRAYING ENDER?"
"Why do people act as if
war and murder were unnatural? What's unnatural is to go your whole life
without ever raising your hand in violence."
-- from The God Whispers of
Han Qing-jao
"We're going about this all wrong," said Quara.
Miro felt the old familiar
anger surge inside him. Quara had a knack for making people angry, and it
didn't help that she seemed to know that she annoyed people and relished it.
Anyone else in the ship could have said exactly the same sentence and Miro would
have given them a fair hearing. But Quara managed to put an edge on the words
that made it sound as if she thought everyone in the world but herself was
stupid. Miro loved her as a sister, but he couldn't help it that he hated
having to spend hour upon hour in her company.
Yet, because Quara was in fact
the one among them most knowledgeable about the ur-language she had discovered
months before in the descolada virus, Miro did not allow his inward sigh of
exasperation to become audible. Instead he swiveled in his seat to listen.
So did the others, though Ela
made less effort to hide her annoyance. Actually, she made none. "Well,
Quara, why weren't we smart enough to notice our stupidity before."
Quara was oblivious to Ela's
sarcasm-- or chose to appear oblivious, anyway. "How can we decipher a
language out of the blue? We don't have any referents. But we do have complete
records of the versions of the descolada virus. We know what it looked like
before it adapted to the human metabolism. We know how it changed after each of
our attempts to kill it. Some of the changes were functional-- it was adapting.
But some of them were clerical-- it was keeping a record of what it did."
"We don't know
that," said Ela with perhaps too much pleasure in correcting Quara.
"I know it," said
Quara. "Anyway, it gives us a known context, doesn't it? We know what that
language is about, even if we haven't been able to decode it."
"Well, now that you've
said all that," said Ela, "I still have no idea how this new wisdom
will help us decode the language. I mean, isn't that precisely what you've been
working on for months?"
"Ah," said Quara.
"I have. But what I haven't been able to do is speak the 'words' that the
descolada virus recorded and see what answers we get back."
"Too dangerous,"
said Jane at once. "Absurdly dangerous. These people are capable of making
viruses that completely destroy biospheres, and they're callous enough to use
them. And you're proposing that we give to them precisely the weapon they used
to devastate the pequeninos' planet? Which probably contains a complete record,
not only of the pequeninos' metabolism, but of ours as well? Why not just slit
our own throats and send them the blood?"
Miro noticed that when Jane
spoke, the others looked almost stunned. Part of their response might have been
to the difference between Val's diffidence and the bold attitude that Jane
displayed. Part of it, too, might have been because the Jane they knew was more
computerlike, less assertive. Miro, however, recognized this authoritarian
style from the way she had often spoken into his ear through the jewel. In a
way it was a pleasure for him to hear her again; it was also disturbing to hear
it coming from the lips of someone else. Val was gone; Jane was back; it was
awful; it was wonderful.
Because Miro was not so taken
aback by Jane's attitude, he was the one to speak into the silence.
"Quara's right, Jane. We don't have years and years to work this out-- we
might have only a few weeks. Or less. We need to provoke a linguistic response.
Get an answer from them, analyze the difference in language between their
initial statements to us and the later ones."
"We're giving away too
much," said Jane.
"No risk, no gain,"
said Miro.
"Too much risk, all
dead," said Jane snidely. But in the snideness there was a familiar lilt,
a kind of sauciness that said, I'm only playing. And that came, not from Jane--
Jane had never sounded like that-- but from Val. It hurt to hear it; it was
good to hear it. Miro's dual responses to everything coming from Jane kept him
constantly on edge. I love you, I miss you, I grieve for you, shut up; whom he
was talking to seemed to change with the minutes.
"It's only the future of
three sentient species we're gambling with," added Ela.
With that they all turned to
Firequencher.
"Don't look at me,"
he said. "I'm just a tourist."
"Come on," said
Miro. "You're here because your people are at risk the same as ours. This
is a tough decision and you have to vote. You have the most at risk, actually,
because even the earliest descolada codes we have might well reveal the whole
biological history of your people since the virus first came among you."
"Then again," said
Firequencher, "it might mean that since they already know how to destroy
us, we have nothing to lose."
"Look," said Miro.
"We have no evidence that these people have any kind of manned starflight.
All they've sent out so far are probes."
"All that we know
about," said Jane.
"And we've had no
evidence of anybody coming around to check out how effective the descolada had
been at transforming the biosphere of Lusitania to prepare it to receive
colonists from this planet. So if they do have colony ships out there, either
they're already on the way so what different does it make if we share this
information, or they haven't sent any which means that they can't."
"Miro's right," said
Quara, pouncing. Miro winced. He hated being on Quara's side, because now
everybody's annoyance with her would rub off on him. "Either the cows are
already out of the barn, so why bother shutting the door, or they can't get the
door open anyway, so why put a lock on it?"
"What do you know about
cows?" asked Ela disdainfully.
"After all these years of
living and working with you," said Quara nastily, "I'd say I'm an
expert."
"Girls, girls," said
Jane. "Get a grip on yourselves."
Again, everyone but Miro
turned to her in surprise. Val wouldn't have spoken up during a family conflict
like this; nor would the Jane they knew-- though of course Miro was used to her
speaking up all the time.
"We all know the risks of
giving them information about us," said Miro. "We also know that
we're making no headway and maybe we'll be able to learn something about the
way this language works after having some give and take."
"It's not give and
take," said Jane. "It's give and give. We give them information they
probably can't get any other way, information that may well tell them
everything they need to know in order to create new viruses that might well
circumvent all our weapons against them. But since we have no idea how that
information is coded, or even where each specific datum is located, how can we
interpret the answer? Besides, what if the answer is a new virus to destroy
us?"
"They're sending us the
information necessary to construct the virus," said Quara, her voice thick
with contempt, as if she thought Jane were the stupidest person who ever lived,
instead of arguably the most godlike in her brilliance. "But we're not
going to build it. As long as it's just a graphic representation on a computer
screen--"
"That's it," said
Ela.
"What's it?" said
Quara. It was her turn to be annoyed now, for obviously Ela was a step ahead of
her on something.
"They aren't taking these
signals and putting them up on a computer screen. We do that because we have a
language written with symbols that we see with the naked eye. But they must
read these broadcast signals more directly. The code comes in, and they somehow
interpret it by following the instruction to make the molecule that's described
in the broadcast. Then they 'read' it by-- what, smelling it? Swallowing it?
The point is, if genetic molecules are their language, then they must somehow
take them into their body as appropriately as the way we get the images of our
writing from the paper into our eyes."
"I see," said Jane.
"You're hypothesizing that they're expecting us to make a molecule out of
what they send us, instead of just reading it on a screen and trying to
abstract it and intellectualize it."
"For all we know,"
said Ela, "this could be how they discipline people. Or attack them. Send
them a message. If they 'listen' they have to do it by reading the molecule
into their bodies and letting it have its effect on them. So if the effect is
poison or a killing disease, just hearing the message subjects them to the
discipline. It's as if all our language had to be tapped out on the back of our
neck. To listen, we'd have to lie down and expose ourself to whatever tool they
chose to use to send the message. If it's a finger or a feather, well and
good-- but if it's a broadaxe or a machete or a sledgehammer, too bad for
us."
"It doesn't even have to
be fatal," said Quara, her rivalry with Ela forgotten as she developed the
idea in her own mind. "The molecules could be behavior-altering devices.
To hear is literally to obey."
"I don't know if you're
right in the particulars," said Jane. "But it gives the experiment
much more potential for success. And it suggests that they might not have a
delivery system that can attack us directly. That changes the probable
risk."
"And people say you can't
think well without your computer," said Miro.
At once he was embarrassed. He
had inadvertently spoken to her as flippantly as he used to when he
subvocalized so she could overhear him through the jewel. But now it sounded
strangely cold of him, to tease her about having lost her computer network. He
could joke that way with Jane-in-the-jewel. But Jane-in-the-flesh was a
different matter. She was now a human person. With feelings that had to be
worried about.
Jane had feelings all along,
thought Miro. But I didn't think much about them because ... because I didn't
have to. Because I didn't see her. Because she wasn't, in a sense, real to me.
"I just meant ..."
Miro said. "I just mean, good thinking."
"Thank you," said
Jane. There wasn't a trace of irony in her voice, but Miro knew the irony was
there all the same, because it was inherent in the situation. Miro, this
uniprocessing human, was telling this brilliant being that she had thought
well-- as if he were fit to judge her.
Suddenly he was angry, not at
Jane, but at himself. Why should he have to watch every word he said, just
because she had not acquired this body in the normal way? She may not have been
human before, but she was certainly human now, and could be talked to like a
human. If she was somehow different from other human beings, so what? All human
beings were different from all others, and yet to be decent and polite, wasn't
he supposed to treat everyone basically alike? Wouldn't he say, "Do you
see what I mean?" to a blind person, expecting the metaphorical use of
"see" to be taken without umbrage? Well, why not say, "Good
thinking," to Jane? Just because her thought processes were unfathomably
deep to a human didn't mean that a human couldn't use a standard expression of
agreement and approval when speaking to her.
Looking at her now, Miro could
see a kind of sadness in her eyes. No doubt it came from his obvious
confusion-- after joking with her as he always had, suddenly he was
embarrassed, suddenly he backtracked. That was why her "Thank you"
had been ironic. Because she wanted him to be natural with her, and he
couldn't.
No, he hadn't been natural,
but he certainly could.
And what did it matter,
anyway? They were here to solve the problem of the descoladores, not to work
out the kinks in their personal relationships after the wholesale body swap.
"Do I take it we have
agreement?" asked Ela. "To send messages encoded with the information
contained on the descolada virus?"
"The first one
only," said Jane. "At least to start."
"And when they
answer," said Ela, "I'll try to run a simulation of what would happen
if we constructed and ingested the molecule they send us."
"If they send us
one," said Miro. "If we're even on the right track."
"Well aren't you Mr.
Cheer," said Quara.
"I'm Mr. Scared-From-Ass-To-Ankles,"
said Miro. "Whereas you are just plain old Miss Ass."
"Can't we all get
along?" said Jane, whining, teasing. "Can't we all be friends?"
Quara whirled on her.
"Listen, you! I don't care what kind of superbrain you used to be, you
just stay out of family conversations, do you hear?"
"Look around,
Quara!" Miro snapped at her. "If she stayed out of family
conversations, when could she talk?"
Firequencher raised his hand.
"I've been staying out of family conversations. Do I get credit for
that?"
Jane gestured to quell both
Miro and Firequencher. "Quara," she said quietly, "I'll tell you
the real difference between me and your brother and sister here. They're used
to you because they've known you all your life. They're loyal to you because
you and they went through some lousy experiences in your family. They're
patient with your childish outbursts and your asinine bullheadedness because
they tell themselves, over and over, she can't help it, she had such a troubled
childhood. But I'm not a family member, Quara. I, however, as someone who has
observed you in times of crisis for some time, am not afraid to tell you my
candid conclusions. You are quite brilliant and very good at what you do. You
are often perceptive and creative, and you drive toward solutions with
astonishing directness and perseverence."
"Excuse me," said
Quara, "are you telling me off or what?"
"But," said Jane,
"you are not smart and creative and clever and direct and perseverent
enough to make it worth putting up with more than fifteen seconds of the
egregious bullshit you heap on your family and everyone else around you every minute
you're awake. So you had a lousy childhood. That was a few years ago, and you
are expected now to put that behind you and get along with other people like a
normally courteous adult."
"In other words,"
said Quara, "you don't like having to admit that anybody but you might be
smart enough to have an idea that you didn't think of."
"You aren't understanding
me," said Jane. "I'm not your sister. I'm not even, technically
speaking, human. If this ship ever gets back to Lusitania, it will be because
I, with my mind, send it there. Do you get that? Do you understand the
difference between us? Can you send even one fleck of dust from your lap to
mine?"
"I don't notice you
sending starships anywhere right at the moment," said Quara triumphantly.
"You continue to attempt
to score points off me without realizing that I am not having an argument with
you or even a discussion. What you say to me right now is irrelevant. The only
thing that matters is what I'm saying to you. And I'm saying that while your
siblings put up with the unendurable from you, I will not. Keep on the way
you're going, you spoiled little baby, and when this starship goes back to
Lusitania you might not be on it."
The look on Quara's face
almost made Miro laugh aloud. He knew, however, that this would not be a wise
moment to express his mirth.
"She's threatening
me," said Quara to the others. "Do you hear this? She's trying to
coerce me by threatening to kill me."
"I would never kill
you," said Jane. "But I might be unable to conceive of your presence
on this starship when I push it Outside and then pull it back In. The thought
of you might be so unendurable that my unconscious mind would reject that
thought and exclude you. I really don't understand, consciously, how the whole
thing works. I don't know how it relates to my feelings. I've never tried to
transport anybody I really hated before. I would certainly try to bring you
along with the others, if only because, for reasons passing understanding, Miro
and Ela would probably be testy with me if I didn't. But trying isn't
necessarily succeeding. So I suggest, Quara, that you expend some effort on
trying to be a little less loathsome."
"So that's what power is
to you," said Quara. "A chance to push other people around and act
like the queen."
"You really can't do it,
can you?" said Jane.
"Can't what?" said
Quara. "Can't bow down and kiss your feet?"
"Can't shut up to save
your own life."
"I'm trying to solve the
problem of communicating with an alien species, and you're busy worrying about
whether I'm nice enough to you."
"But Quara," said
Jane, "hasn't it ever occurred to you that once they get to know you, even
the aliens will wish you had never learned their language?"
"I'm certainly wishing
you had never learned mine," said Quara. "You're certainly full of
yourself, now that you have this pretty little body to play around with. Well,
you're not queen of the universe and I'm not going to dance through hoops for
you. It wasn't my idea to come on this voyage, but I'm here-- I'm here, the
whole obnoxious package-- and if there's something about me that you don't
like, why don't you shut up about it? And as long as we're making threats, I
think that if you push me too far I'll rearrange your face more to my liking.
Is that clear?"
Jane unstrapped herself from
her seat and drifted from the main cabin into the corridor leading into the
storage compartments of the shuttle. Miro followed her, ignoring Quara as she
said to the others, "Can you believe how she talked to me? Who does she
think she is, judging who's too irritating to live?"
Miro followed Jane into a
storage compartment. She was clinging to a handhold on the far wall, bent over
and heaving in a way that made Miro wonder if she was throwing up. But no. She
was crying. Or rather, she was so enraged that her body was sobbing and
producing tears from the sheer uncontainability of the emotion. Miro touched
her shoulder to try to calm her. She recoiled.
For a moment he almost said,
Fine, have it your way; then he would have left, angry himself, frustrated that
she wouldn't accept his comfort. But then he remembered that she had never been
this angry before. She had never had to deal with a body that responded like
this. At first, when she began rebuking Quara, Miro had thought, It's about
time somebody laid it on the line. But when the argument went on and on, Miro
realized that it wasn't Quara who was out of control, it was Jane. She didn't
know how to deal with her emotions. She didn't know when it wasn't worth going
on. She felt what she was feeling, and she didn't know how to do anything but
express it.
"That was hard,"
Miro said. "Cutting off the argument and coming in here."
"I wanted to kill
her," said Jane. Her voice was almost unintelligible from the weeping,
from the savage tension in her body. "I've never felt anything like it. I
wanted to get out of the chair and tear her apart with my bare hands."
"Welcome to the
club," said Miro.
"You don't
understand," she said. "I really wanted to do it. I felt my muscles
flexing, I was ready to do it. I was going to do it."
"As I said. Quara makes
us all feel that way."
"No," said Jane.
"Not like this. You all stay calm, you all stay in control."
"And you will, too,"
said Miro, "when you have a little more practice."
Jane lifted her head, leaned
it back, shook it. Her hair swung weightlessly free in the air. "Do you
really feel this?"
"All of us do," said
Miro. "That's why we have a childhood-- to learn to get over our violent
tendencies. But they're in us all. Chimps and baboons do it. All the primates.
We display. We have to express our rage physically."
"But you don't. You stay so
calm. You let her spout off and say these horrible--"
"Because it's not worth
the trouble of stopping her," said Miro. "She pays the price for it.
She's desperately lonely and nobody deliberately seeks an opportunity to spend
time in her company."
"Which is the only reason she isn't
dead."
"That's right," said
Miro. "That's what civilized people dothey avoid the circumstance that
enrages them. Or if they can't avoid it, they detach. That's what Ela and I do,
mostly. We just detach. We just let her provocations roll over us."
"I can't do it,"
said Jane. "It was so simple before I felt these things. I could tune her
out."
"That's it," said
Miro. "That's what we do. We tune her out."
"It's more complicated
than I thought," said Jane. "I don't know if I can do it."
"Yeah, well, you don't
have much choice right now, do you," he said.
"Miro, I'm so sorry. I
always felt such pity for you humans because you could only think of one thing
at a time and your memories were so imperfect and ... now I realize that just
getting through the day without killing somebody can be an achievement."
"It gets to be a habit.
Most of us manage to keep our body count quite low. It's the neighborly way to
live."
It took a moment-- a sob, and
then a hiccough-- but then she did laugh. A sweet, soft chuckle that was such a
welcome sound to Miro. Welcome because it was a voice he knew and loved, a
laugh that he liked to hear. And it was his dear friend who was doing the
laughing. His dear friend Jane. The laugh, the voice of his beloved Val. One
person now. After all this time, he could reach out his hand and touch Jane,
who had always been impossibly far away. Like having a friendship over the
telephone and finally meeting face-to-face.
He touched her again, and she
took his hand and held it.
"I'm sorry I let my own
weakness get in the way of what we're doing," said Jane.
"You're only human,"
said Miro.
She looked at him, searched
his face for irony, for bitterness.
"I mean it," said
Miro. "The price of having these emotions, these passions, is that you
have to control them, you have to bear them when they're too strong to bear.
You're only human now. You'll never make these feelings go away. You just have
to learn not to act on them."
"Quara never
learned."
"Quara learned, all
right," said Miro. "It's just my opinion, but Quara loved Marcao,
adored him, and when he died and the rest of us felt so liberated, she was
lost. What she does now, this constant provocation-- she's asking somebody to
abuse her. To hit her. The way Marcao always hit Mother whenever he was
provoked. I think in some perverse way Quara was always jealous of Mother when
she got to go off alone with Papa, and even though she finally figured out that
he was beating her up, when Quara wanted her papa back the only way she knew of
to demand his attention was-- this mouth of hers." Miro laughed bitterly.
"It reminds me of Mother, to tell the truth. You've never heard her, but
in the old days, when she was trapped in marriage with Marcao and having Libo's
babies-- oh, she had a mouth on her. I'd sit there and listen to her provoking
Marcao, goading him, stabbing at him, until he'd hit her-- and I'd think, Don't
you dare lay a hand on my mother, and at the same time I'd absolutely
understand his impotent rage, because he could never, never, never say anything
that would shut her up. Only his fist could do it. And Quara has that mouth,
and needs that rage."
"Well, how happy for us
all, then, that I gave her just what she needed."
Miro laughed. "But she
didn't need it from you. She needed it from Marcao, and he's dead."
And then, suddenly, Jane burst
into real tears. Tears of grief, and she turned to Miro and clung to him.
"What is it?" he said.
"What's wrong?"
"Oh, Miro," she
said. "Ender's dead. I'll never see him again. I have a body at last, I
have eyes to see him, and he isn't there."
Miro was stunned. Of course
she missed Ender. She had thousands of years with him, and only a few years,
really, with me. How could I have thought she could love me? How can I ever
hope to compare with Ender Wiggin? What am I, compared to the man who commanded
fleets, who transformed the minds of trillions of people with his books, his
speakings, his insight, his ability to see into the hearts of other people and
speak their own most private stories back to them? And yet even as he resented
Ender, even as he envied him because Jane would always love him more and Miro
couldn't hope to compete with him even in death, despite these feelings it
finally came home to him that yes, Ender was dead. Ender, who had transformed
his family, who had been a true friend to him, who had been the only man in
Miro's life that he longed with all his heart to be, Ender was gone. Miro's
tears of grief flowed along with Jane's.
"I'm sorry," said
Jane. "I can't control any of my emotions."
"Yes, well, it's a common
failing, actually," said Miro.
She reached up and touched the
tears on his cheek. Then she touched her damp finger to her own cheek. The
tears commingled. "Do you know why I thought of Ender right then?"
she said. "Because you're so much like him. Quara annoys you as much as
she annoys anyone, and yet you look past that and see what her needs are, why
she says and does these things. No, no, relax, Miro, I'm not expecting you to
be like Ender, I'm just saying that one of the things I liked best about him is
also in you-- that's not bad, is it? The compassionate perception-- I may be
new at being human, but I'm pretty sure that's a rare commodity."
"I don't know," said
Miro. "The only person I'm feeling compassion for right now is me. They
call it self-pity, and it isn't an attractive trait."
"Why are you feeling
sorry for yourself?"
"Because you'll go on
needing Ender all your life, and all you'll ever find is poor substitutes, like
me."
She held him tighter then. She
was the one giving comfort now. "Oh, Miro, maybe that's true. But if it
is, it's true the way it's true that Quara is still trying to get her father's
attention. You never stop needing your father or your mother, isn't that right?
You never stop reacting to them, even when they're dead."
Father? That had never crossed
Miro's mind before. Jane loved Ender, deeply, yes, loved him forever-- but as a
father?
"I can't be your
father," said Miro. "I can't take his place." But what he was
really doing was making sure he had understood her. Ender was her father?
"I don't want you to be
my father," said Jane. "I still have all these old Val-feelings, you
know. I mean, you and I were friends, right? That was very important to me. But
now I have this Val body, and when you touch me, it keeps feeling like the
answer to a prayer." At once she regretted saying it. "Oh, I'm sorry,
Miro, I know you miss her."
"I do," said Miro.
"But then, it's hard to miss her quite the way I might, since you do look
a lot like her. And you sound like her. And here I am holding you the way I
wanted to hold her, and if that sounds awful because I'm supposedly comforting
you and I shouldn't be thinking of base desires, well then I'm just an awful
kind of guy, right?"
"Awful," she said.
"I'm ashamed to know you." And she kissed him. Sweetly, awkwardly.
He remembered his first kiss
with Ouanda years ago, when he was young and didn't know how badly things could
turn out. They had both been awkward then, new, clumsy. Young. Jane, now, Jane
was one of the oldest creatures in the universe. But also one of the youngest.
And Val-- there would be no reflexes in the Val body for Jane to draw upon, for
in Val's short life, what chance had she had to find love?
"Was that even close to
the way humans do that?" asked Jane.
"That was exactly the way
humans sometimes do it," said Miro. "Which isn't surprising, since
we're both human."
"Am I betraying Ender, to
grieve for him one moment, and then be so happy to have you holding me the
next?"
"Am I betraying him, to
be so happy only hours after he died?"
"Only he's not
dead," said Jane. "I know where he is. I chased him there."
"If he's exactly the same
person he was," said Miro, "then what a shame. Because good as he
was, he wasn't happy. He had his moments, but he was never-- what, he was never
really at peace. Wouldn't it be nice if Peter could live out a full life
without ever having to bear the guilt of xenocide? Without ever having to feel
the weight of all of humanity on his shoulders?"
"Speaking of which,"
said Jane, "we have work to do."
"We also have lives to live," said
Miro. "I'm not going to be sorry we had this encounter. Even if it took
Quara's bitchiness to make it happen."
"Let's do the civilized
thing," said Jane. "Let's get married. Let's have babies. I do want
to be human, Miro, I want to do everything. I want to be part of human life
from edge to edge. And I want to do it all with you."
"Is this a
proposal?" asked Miro.
"I died and was reborn
only a dozen hours ago," said Jane. "My-- hell, I can call him my
father, can't I? --my father died, too. Life is short, I feel how short it is:
after three thousand years, all of them intense, it still feels too short. I'm
in a hurry. And you, haven't you wasted enough time, too? Aren't you
ready?"
"But I don't have a
ring."
"We have something much better than a
ring," said Jane. She touched her cheek again, where she had put his tear.
It was still damp; still damp, too, when she touched the finger now to his
cheek. "I've had your tears with mine, and you've had mine with yours. I
think that's more intimate even than a kiss."
"Maybe," said Miro.
"But not as fun."
"This emotion I'm feeling
now, this is love, right?"
"I don't know. Is it a
longing? Is it a giddy stupid happiness just because you're with me?"
"Yes," she said.
"That's influenza,"
said Miro. "Watch for nausea or diarrhea within a few hours."
She shoved him, and in the
weightless starship the movement sent him helplessly into midair until he
struck another surface. "What?" he said, pretending innocence.
"What did I say?"
She pushed herself away from
the wall and went to the door. "Come on," she said. "Back to
work."
"Let's not announce our
engagement," he said softly.
"Why not?" she
asked. "Ashamed already?"
"No," he said.
"Maybe it's petty of me, but when we announce it, I don't want Quara
there."
"That's very small of
you," said Jane. "You need to be more magnanimous and patient, like
me."
"I know," said Miro.
"I'm trying to learn."
They drifted back into the
main chamber of the shuttle. The others were working on preparing their genetic
message for broadcast on the frequency that the descoladores had used to
challenge them when they first showed up closer to the planet. They all looked
up. Ela smiled wanly. Firequencher waved cheerfully.
Quara tossed her head.
"Well I hope we're done with that little emotional outburst," she
said.
Miro could feel Jane seethe at
the remark. But Jane said nothing. And when they were both sitting down and
strapped back into their seats, they looked at each other, and Jane winked.
"I saw that," said
Quara.
"We meant you to,"
said Miro.
"Grow up," Quara
said disdainfully.
An hour later they sent their
message. And at once they were inundated with answers that they could not
understand, but had to. There was no time for quarreling then, or for love, or
for grief. There was only language, thick, broad fields of alien messages that
had to be understood somehow, by them, right now.
Chapter 13 -- "TILL DEATH
ENDS ALL SURPRISES"
"I can't say that I've
much enjoyed the work the gods required of me. My only real pleasure was my
days of schooling, in those hours between the gods' sharp summonses. I am
gladly at their service, always, but oh it was so sweet to learn how wide the
universe could be, to test myself against my teachers, and to fail sometimes
without much consequence."
-- from The God Whispers of
Han Qing-jao
"Do you want to come to the university and watch us turn on our
new godproof computer network?" asked Grace.
Of course Peter and Wang-mu
wanted to. But to their surprise, Malu cackled with delight and insisted that
he must go, too. The god once dwelt in computers, didn't she? And if she found
her way back, shouldn't Malu be there to greet her?
This complicated matters a
little-- for Malu to visit the university required notifying the president so
he could assemble a proper welcome. This was not needed for Malu, who was
neither vain nor much impressed with ceremonies that didn't have some immediate
purpose. The point was to show the Samoan people that the university still had
proper respect for the old ways, of which Malu was the most revered protector
and practitioner.
From luaus of fruit and fish
on the beach, from open fires, palm mats, and thatch-roof huts, to a hovercar,
a highway, and the brightpainted buildings of the modern university-- it felt
to Wang-mu like a journey through the history of the human race. And yet she
had already made that journey once before, from Path; it seemed a part of her
life, to step from the ancient to the modern, back and forth. She felt rather
sorry for those who knew only one and not the other. It was better, she
thought, to be able to select from the whole menu of human achievements than to
be bound within one narrow range.
Peter and Wang-mu were
discreetly dropped off before the hovercar took Malu to the official reception.
Grace's son took them on a brief tour of the brand-new computer facility.
"These new computers all follow the protocols sent to us from Starways
Congress. There will be no more direct connections between computer networks
and ansibles. Rather there must be a time delay, with each infopacket inspected
by referee software that will catch unauthorized piggybacking."
"In other words,"
said Peter, "Jane will never get back in."
"That's the plan."
The boy-- for despite his size, that's what he seemed to be-- grinned broadly.
"All perfect, all new, all in total compliance."
Wang-mu felt sick inside. This
is how it would be all over the Hundred Worlds-- Jane blocked out of
everything. And without access to the enormous computing capacity of the
combined networks of all of human civilization, how could she possibly regain
the power to pop a starship Out and In again? Wang-mu had been glad enough to
leave Path. But she was by no means certain that Pacifica was the world where
she wanted to live the rest of her life. Especially if she was to stay with
Peter, for there was no chance he would be content for long with the slower,
more lackadaisical timeflow of life in the islands. Truth be known, it was too
slow for her, too. She loved her time with the Samoans, but the impatience to
be doing something was growing inside her. Perhaps those who grew up among
these people might somehow sublimate their ambition, or perhaps there was
something in the racial genotype that suppressed it or replaced it, but
Wang-mu's incessant drive to strengthen and expand her role in life was
certainly not going to go away just because of a luau on the beach, however
much she enjoyed it and would treasure the memory of it.
The tour wasn't over yet, of
course, and Wang-mu dutifully followed Grace's son wherever he led. But she
hardly paid attention beyond what was needed to make polite responses. Peter
seemed even more distracted, and Wang-mu could guess why. He would have not
only the same feelings Wang-mu had, but he must also be grieving for the loss
of connection with Jane through the jewel in his ear. If she did not recover
her ability to control data flow through the communications satellites orbiting
this world, he would not hear her voice again.
They came to an older section
of campus, some rundown buildings in a more utilitarian architectural style.
"Nobody likes coming here," he said, "because it reminds them of
how recently our university became anything more than a school for training
engineers and teachers. This building is three hundred years old. Come
inside."
"Do we have to?"
asked Wang-mu. "I mean, is it necessary? I think we get the idea from the
outside."
"Oh, but I think you want
to see this place. Very interesting, because it preserves some of the old ways
of doing things."
Wang-mu of course agreed to
follow, as courtesy required, and Peter wordlessly went along. They came inside
and heard the humming of ancient air-conditioning systems and felt the harsh
refrigerated air. "These are the old ways?" asked Wang-mu. "Not
as old as life on the beach, I think."
"Not as old, that's
true," said their guide. "But then, we're not preserving the same
thing here."
They came into a large room
with hundreds and hundreds of computers arranged in crowded rows along tables
that stretched from end to end. There was no room for anyone to sit at these
machines; there was barely enough space between the tables for technicians to
slide along to tend to them. All the computers were on, but the air above all
the terminals was empty, giving no clue about what was going on inside them.
"We had to do something
with all those old computers that Starways Congress made us take offline. So we
put them here. And also the old computers from most of the other universities
and businesses in the islands-- Hawaiian, Tahitian, Maori, on and on-- everyone
helped. It goes up six stories, every floor just like this, and three other
buildings, though this one is the biggest."
"Jane," said Peter,
and he smiled.
"Here's where we stored
everything she gave us. Of course, on the record these computers are not connected
by any network. They are only used for training students. But Congress
inspectors never come here. They saw all they wanted to see when they looked at
our new installation. Up to code, complying with the rules-- we are obedient
and loyal citizens! Here, though, I'm afraid there have been some oversights.
For instance, there seems to be an intermittent connection with the
university's ansible. Whenever the ansible is actually passing messages
offworld, it is connected to no computers except through the official
safeguarded time-delayed link. But when the ansible is connected to a handful
of eccentric destinations-- the Samoan satellite, for instance, or a certain
faroff colony that is supposedly incommunicado to all ansibles in the Hundred
Worlds-- then an old forgotten connection kicks in, and the ansible has
complete use of all of this."
Peter laughed with genuine
mirth. Wang-mu loved the sound of it, but also felt just a little jealousy at
the thought that Jane might well come back to him.
"And another odd
thing," said Grace's son. "One of the new computers has been
installed here, only there've been some alterations. It doesn't seem to report
correctly to the master program. It neglects to inform that master program that
there is a hyperfast realtime link to this nonexistent old-style network. It's
a shame that it doesn't report on this, because of course it allows a
completely illegal connection between this old, ansible-connected network and
the new godproof system. And so requests for information can be passed, and
they'll look perfectly legal to any inspection software, since they come from
this perfectly legal but astonishingly flawed new computer."
Peter was grinning broadly.
"Well, somebody had to work pretty fast to get this done."
"Malu told us that the
god was going to die, but between us and the god we were able to devise a plan.
Now the only question is-- can she find her way back here?"
"I think she will,"
said Peter. "Of course, this isn't what she used to have, not even a small
fraction of it."
"We understand that she
has a couple of similar installations here and there. Not many, you're right,
and the new time-delay barriers will make it so that yes, she has access to all
the information, but she can't use most of the new networks as part of her
thought processes. Still, it's something. Maybe it's enough."
"You knew who we were
before we got here," said Wang-mu. "You were already part of Jane's
work."
"I think the evidence
speaks for itself," said Grace's son.
"Then why did Jane bring
us here?" asked Wang-mu. "What was all this nonsense about needing to
have us here so we could stop the Lusitania Fleet?"
"I don't know," said
Peter. "And I doubt anyone here knows, either. Maybe, though, Jane simply
wanted us in a friendly environment, so she could find us again. I doubt
there's anything like this on Divine Wind."
"And maybe," Wang-mu
said, following her own speculations, "maybe she wanted you here, with
Malu and Grace, when the time came for her to die."
"And for me to die as
well," said Peter. "Meaning me as Ender, of course."
"And maybe," said
Wang-mu, "if she was no longer going to be there to protect us through her
manipulations of data, she wanted us to be among friends."
"Of course," said
Grace's son. "She is a god, she takes care of her people."
"Her worshipers, you
mean?" asked Wang-mu.
Peter snorted.
"Her friends," said
the boy. "In Samoa we treat the gods with great respect, but we are also
their friends, and we help the good ones when we can. Gods need the help of
humans now and then. I think we did all right, don't you?"
"You did well," said
Peter. "You have been faithful indeed."
The boy beamed.
Soon they were back in the new
computer installation, watching as with great ceremony the president of the
university pushed the key to activate the program that turned on and monitored
the university ansible. Immediately there were messages and test programs from
Starways Congress, probing and inspecting the university's system to make sure
there were no lapses in security and that all protocols had been properly
followed. Wang-mu could feel how tense everyone was-- except Malu, who seemed
incapable of dread-- until, a few minutes later, the programs finished their
inspection and made their report. The message came immediately from Congress
that this network was compliant and secure. The fakes and fudges had not been
detected.
"Any time now,"
murmured Grace.
"How will we know if all
of this has worked?" asked Wang-mu soffly.
"Peter will tell
us," answered Grace, sounding surprised that Wang-mu had not already
understood this. "The jewel in his ear-- the Samoan satellite will speak
to it."
***
Olhado and Grego stood
watching the readout from the ansible that for twenty years had connected only
to the shuttle and Jakt's starship. It was receiving a message again. Links
were being established with four ansibles on other worlds, where groups of
Lusitanian sympathizers-- or at least friends of Jane's-- had followed Jane's
instructions on how to partially circumvent the new regulations. No actual
messages were sent, because there was nothing for the humans to say to each
other. The point was simply to keep the link alive so Jane might travel on it
and link herself with some small part of her old capacity.
None of this had been done
with any human participation on Lusitania. All the programming that was
required had been accomplished by the relentlessly efficient workers of the
Hive Queen, with the help of pequeninos now and then. Olhado and Grego had been
invited at the last minute, as observers only. But they understood. Jane was
talking to the Hive Queen and the Hive Queen talked to the fathertrees. Jane
had not worked through humans because the Lusitanian humans she worked with had
been Miro, who had other work to do for her, and Ender, who had removed the
jewel from his ear before he died. Olhado and Grego had talked this out as soon
as the pequenino Waterjumper had explained to them what was going on and asked
them to come observe. "I think she was feeling a bit defiant," said
Olhado. "If Ender rejected her and Miro was busy--"
"Or gaga-eyed over Young
Valentine, don't forget," said Grego.
"Well, she'd do it
without human help."
"How can it work?"
said Grego. "She was connected to billions of computers before. At most
she'll have several thousand now, at least directly usable. It's not enough.
Ela and Quara are never coming home. Or Miro."
"Maybe not," said
Olhado. "It won't be the first time we've lost family members in the
service of a higher cause." He thought of Mother's famous parents, Os
Venerados, who lacked only the years now for sainthood-- if a representative of
the Pope should ever come to Lusitania to examine the evidence. And their real
father, Libo, and his father, both of whom died before Novinha's children ever
guessed that they were kin. All dead in the cause of science, Os Venerados in
the struggle to contain the descolada, Pipo and Libo in the effort to
communicate with and understand the pequeninos. Their brother Quim had died as
a martyr, trying to heal a dangerous breach in the relationship between humans
and pequeninos on Lusitania. And now Ender, their adoptive father, had died in
the cause of trying to find a way to save Jane's life and, with her,
faster-than-light travel. If Miro and Ela and Quara should die in the effort to
establish communications with the descoladores, it would be a part of the
family tradition. "What I wonder," said Olhado, "is what's wrong
with us, that we haven't been asked to die in a noble cause."
"I don't know about noble
causes," said Grego, "but we do have a fleet aimed at us. That will
do, I think, for getting us dead."
A sudden flurry of activity at
the computer terminals told them that their wait was over. "We've linked
with Samoa," said Waterjumper. "And now Memphis. And Path.
Hegira." He did the little jig that pequeninos invariably did when they
were delighted. "They're all going to come online. The snooper programs
didn't find them."
"But will it be
enough?" asked Grego. "Do the starships move again?"
Waterjumper shrugged elaborately.
"We'll know when your family gets back, won't we?"
"Mother doesn't want to
schedule Ender's funeral until they're back," said Grego.
At the mention of Ender's
name, Waterjumper slumped. "The man who took Human into the Third
Life," he said. "And there's almost nothing of him to bury."
"I'm just
wondering," said Grego, "if it will be days or weeks or months before
Jane finds her way back into her powers-- if she can do it at all."
"I don't know," said
Waterjumper.
"They only have a few
weeks of air," said Grego.
"He doesn't know,
Grego," said Olhado.
"I know that," said
Grego. "But the Hive Queen knows. And she'll tell the fathertrees. I
thought ... word might have seeped down."
"How could even the Hive
Queen know what will happen in the future?" asked Olhado. "How can
anyone know what Jane can or can't accomplish? We've linked again with worlds
outside of this one. Some parts of her core memory have been restored to the
ansible net, however surreptitiously. She might find them. She might not. If
found, they might be enough, or might not. But Waterjumper doesn't know."
Grego turned away. "I
know," he said.
"We're all afraid,"
said Olhado. "Even the Hive Queen. None of us wants to die."
"Jane died, but didn't
stay dead," said Grego. "According to Miro, Ender's aiua is
supposedly off living as Peter on some other world. Hive queens die and their
memories live on in their daughters' minds. Pequeninos get to live as
trees."
"Some of us," said
Waterjumper.
"But what of us?"
said Grego. "Will we be extinguished? What difference does it make then,
the ones of us who had plans, what does it matter the work we've done? The
children we've raised?" He looked pointedly at Olhado. "What will it
matter then, that you have such a big happy family, if you're all erased in one
instant by that ... bomb?"
"Not one moment of my
life with my family has been wasted," said Olhado quietly.
"But the point of it is
to go on, isn't it? To connect with the future?"
"That's one part,
yes," said Olhado. "But part of the purpose of it is now, is the
moment. And part of it is the web of connections. Links from soul to soul. If
the purpose of life was just to continue into the future, then none of it would
have meaning, because it would be all anticipation and preparation. There's
fruition, Grego. There's the happiness we've already had. The happiness of each
moment. The end of our lives, even if there's no forward continuation, no
progeny at all, the end of our lives doesn't erase the beginning."
"But it won't have
amounted to anything," said Grego. "If your children die, then it was
all a waste."
"No," said Olhado
quietly. "You say that because you have no children, Greguinho. But none
of it is wasted. The child you hold in your arms for only a day before he dies,
that is not wasted, because that one day is enough of a purpose in itself.
Entropy has been thrown back for an hour, a day, a week, a month. Just because
we might all die here on this little world does not undo the lives before the
deaths."
Grego shook his head.
"Yes it does, Olhado. Death undoes everything."
Olhado shrugged. "Then
why do you bother doing everything, Grego? Because someday you will die. Why
should anyone ever have children? Someday they will die, their children will
die, all children will die. Someday stars will wind down or blow up. Someday
death will cover us all like the water of a lake and perhaps nothing will ever
come to the surface to show that we were ever there. But we were there, and
during the time we lived, we were alive. That's the truth-- what is, what was,
what will be-- not what could be, what should have been, what never can be. If
we die, then our death has meaning to the rest of the universe. Even if our
lives are unknown, the fact that someone lived here, and died, that will have
repercussions, that will shape the universe."
"So that's meaning enough
for you?" said Grego. "To die as an object lesson? To die so that
people can feel awful about having killed you?"
"There are worse meanings
for a life to have."
Waterjumper interrupted them.
"The last of the ansibles we expected is online. We have them all
connected now."
They stopped talking. It was
time for Jane to find her way back into herself, if she could.
They waited.
***
Through one of her workers,
the Hive Queen saw and heard the news of the restoration of the ansible links.
<It's time,> she told the fathertrees.
<Can she do it? Can you
lead her?>
<I can't lead her to a
place where I can't go myself,> said the Hive Queen. <She has to find her
own way. All I can do right now is tell her that it's time.>
<So we can only watch?>
<I can only watch,> said
the Hive Queen. <You are part of her, or she of you. Her aiua is tied now to
your web through the mothertrees. Be ready.>
<For what?>
<For Jane's need.>
<What will she need? When
will she need it?>
<I have no idea.>
***
At his terminal on the
stranded starship, the Hive Queen's worker suddenly looked up, then arose from
her seat and walked to Jane.
Jane looked up from her work.
"What is it?" she asked distractedly. And then, remembering the
signal she was waiting for, she looked over at Miro, who had turned to see what
was happening. "I've got to go now," she said.
Then she flopped back in her
seat as if she had fainted.
At once Miro was out of his
chair; Ela wasn't far behind. The worker had already unfastened Jane from the
chair and was lifting her off. Miro helped her draw Jane's body through the
corridors of weightless space to the beds in the back of the ship. There they
laid her down and secured her to a bed. Ela checked her vital signs.
"She's sleeping
deeply," said Ela. "Breathing very slowly."
"A coma?" asked
Miro.
"She's doing the minimum
to stay alive," said Ela. "Other than that, there's nothing."
"Come on," said
Quara from the door. "Let's get back to work."
Miro rounded on her, furious--
but Ela restrained him. "You can stay and watch over her if you
want," she said, "but Quara's right. We have work to do. She's doing
hers."
Miro turned back to Jane and
touched her hand, took it, held it. The others left the sleeping quarters. You
can't hear me, you can't feel me, you can't see me, Miro said silently. So I
guess I'm not here for you. Yet I can't leave you. What am I afraid of? We're
all dead if you don't succeed at what you're doing now. So it isn't your death
I fear.
It's your old self. Your old
existence among the computers and the ansibles. You've had your fling in a
human body, but when your old powers are restored, your human life will be just
a small part of you again. Just one sensory input device among millions. One
small set of memories lost in an overwhelming sea of memory. You'll be able to
devote one tiny part of your attention to me, and I'll never know that I am
perpetually an afterthought in your life.
That's just one of the
drawbacks when you love somebody so much greater than yourself, Miro told
himself. I'll never know the difference. She'll come back and I'll be happy
with all the time we have together and I'll never know how little time and
effort she actually devotes to being with me. A diversion, that's what I am.
Then he shook his head, let go
of her hand, and left the room. I will not listen to the voice of despair, he
told himself. Would I tame this great being and make her so much my slave that
every moment of her life belongs to me? Would I focus her eyes so they can see
nothing but my face? I must rejoice that I am part of her, instead of resenting
that I'm not more of her.
He returned to his place and
got back to work. But a few moments later he got up again and went back to her.
He was useless until she came back. Until he knew the outcome, he could think
of nothing else.
***
Jane was not precisely adrift.
She had her unbroken connection to the three ansibles of Lusitania, and she
found them easily. And just as easily found the new connections to ansibles on
a half dozen worlds. From there, she quickly found her way through the thicket
of interrupts and cutouts that protected her back door into the system from
discovery by Congress's snoop programs. All was as she and her friends had
planned.
It was small, cramped, as she
had known it would be. But she had almost never used the full capacity of the
system-- except when she was controlling starships. Then she needed every scrap
of fast memory to hold the complete image of the ship she was transporting.
Obviously there wasn't enough capacity on these mere thousands of machines. Yet
it was such a relief, nonetheless, to tap back into the programs that she had
so long used to do so much of her thought for her, servants she made use of
like the Hive Queen's workers-- just one more way that I am like her, Jane
realized. She got them running, then explored the memories that for these long
days had been so painfully missing. Once again she was in possession of a
mental system that allowed her to maintain dozens of levels of attention to
simultaneously running processes.
And yet it was still all
wrong. She had been in her human body only a day, and yet already the
electronic self that once had felt so copious was far too small. It wasn't just
because there were so few computers where once there had been so many. Rather it
was small by nature. The ambiguity of flesh made for a vastness of possibility
that simply could not exist in a binary world. She had been alive, and so she
knew now that her electronic dwellingplace gave her only a fraction of a life.
However much she had accomplished during her millennia of life in the machine,
it brought no satisfaction compared to even a few minutes in that body of flesh
and blood.
If she had thought she might
ever leave the Val-body, she knew now that she never could. That was the root
of her, now and forever. Indeed, she would have to force herself to spread out
into these computer systems when she needed them. By inclination, she would not
readily go into them.
But there was no reason to
speak to anyone of her disappointment. Not yet. She would tell Miro when she
got back to him. He would listen and talk to no one else. Indeed, he would
probably be relieved. No doubt he was worried that she would be tempted to
remain in the computers and not go back into the body that she could still
feel, strong and insistent on her attention, even in the slackness of such a
deep sleep. But he had no reason to fear. Hadn't he spent many long months in a
body that was so limited he could hardly bear to live in it? She would as soon
go back to being just a computer-dweller as he would go back to the
brain-damaged body that had so tortured him.
Yet it is myself, part of
myself. That's what these friends had given to her, and she would not tell them
how painful it was to fit into this small sort of life again. She brought up
her old familiar Jane-face above a terminal in each world, and smiled at them,
and spoke:
"Thank you, my friends. I
will never forget your love and loyalty to me. It will take a while for me to
find out how much is open to me, and how much is closed. I'll tell you what I
know when I know it. But be assured that whether or not I can achieve anything
comparable to what I did before, I owe this restoration of myself to you, to
all of you. I was already your friend forever; I am forever in your debt."
They answered; she heard all
the answers, conversed with them using only small parts of her attention.
The rest of her explored. She
found the hidden interfaces with the main computer systems that the Starways
Congress's programmers had designed. It was easy enough to raid them for
whatever information she wanted-- indeed, within moments she had found her way
into the most secret files of the Starways Congress and found out every
technical specification and every protocol of the new nets. But all her probing
was done at second-hand, as if she were dipping into a cookie jar in the
darkness, unable to see what she could touch. She could send out little finder
programs that brought back to her whatever she wanted; they were guided by
fuzzy protocols that let them even be somewhat serendipitous, dragging back
tangential information that had somehow tickled them into bringing it aboard.
She certainly had the power to sabotage, if she had wanted to punish them. She
could have crashed everything, destroyed all the data. But none of that,
neither finding secrets nor wreaking vengeance, had anything to do with what
she needed now. The information most vital to her had been saved by her
friends. What she needed was capacity, and it wasn't there. The new networks
were stepped back and delayed far enough from the immediacy of the ansibles
that she couldn't use them for her thought. She tried to find ways to offload
and reload data quickly enough that she could use it to push a starship Out and
In again, but it simply wasn't fast enough. Only bits and pieces of each
starship would go Out, and almost nothing would make it come back Inside.
I have all my knowledge. I
just haven't got the space.
Through all of this, however,
her aiua was making its circuit. Many times a second it passed through the
Val-body strapped to a bed in the starship. Many times a second it touched the
ansibles and computers of its restored, if truncated, network. And many times a
second it wandered the lacy links among the mothertrees.
A thousand, ten thousand times
her aiua made these circuits before she finally realized that the mothertrees
were also a storage place. They had so few thoughts of their own, but the
structures were there that could hold memories, and there were no delays built
in. She could think, could hold the thought, could retrieve it instantly. And
the mothertrees were fractally deep; she could store memory mapped in layers,
thoughts within thoughts, farther and farther into the structures and patterns
of the living cells, without ever interfering with the dim sweet thoughts of
the trees themselves. It was a far better storage system than the computer nets
had ever been; it was inherently larger than any binary device. Though there
were far fewer mothertrees than there were computers, even in her new shrunken
net, the depth and richness of the memory array meant that there was far more
room for data that could be recalled far more rapidly. Except for retrieving
basic data, her own memories of past starflights, Jane would not need to use
the computers at all. The pathway to the stars now lay along an avenue of
trees.
***
Alone in a starship on the
surface of Lusitania, a worker of the Hive Queen waited. Jane found her easily,
found and remembered the shape of the starship. Though she had
"forgotten" how to do starflight for a day or so, the memory was back
again and she did it easily, pushing the starship Out, then bringing it back In
an instant later, only many kilometers away, in a clearing before the entrance
to the Hive Queen's nest. The worker arose from its terminal, opened the door,
and came outside. Of course there was no celebration. The Hive Queen merely
looked through the worker's eyes to verify that the flight had been successful,
then explored the worker's body and the starship itself to make sure that
nothing had been lost or damaged in the flight.
Jane could hear the Hive
Queen's voice as if from a distance, for she recoiled instinctively from such a
powerful source of thought. It was the relayed message that she heard, the
voice of Human speaking in her mind. <All is well,> Human said to her.
<You can go ahead.>
She returned then to the
starship that contained her own living body. When she transported other people,
she left it to their own aiuas to watch over their flesh and hold it intact.
The result of that had been the chaotic creations of Miro and Ender, with their
hunger for bodies different from the ones they actually lived in. But that
effect was now prevented easily by letting travelers linger only a moment, a
tiny fraction of a second Outside, just long enough to make sure the bits of
everything and everyone were all together.
This time, though, she had to
hold a starship and the Val-body together, and also drag along Miro, Ela,
Firequencher, Quara, and a worker of the hive queen's. There could be no
mistakes.
Yet it functioned easily
enough. The familiar shuttle she easily held in memory; the people she had
carried so often before she carried along. Her new body was already so well
known to her that, to her relief, it took no special effort to hold it together
along with the ship. The only novelty was that instead of sending and pulling
back, she went along. Her own aiua went with the rest of them Outside.
That was itself the only
problem. Once Outside, she had no way of telling how long they had been there.
It might have been an hour. A year. A picosecond. She had never herself gone
Outside before. It was distracting, baffling, then frightening to have no root
or anchor. How can I get back in? What am I connected to?
In the very asking of the
panicked question, she found her anchor, for no sooner had her aiua done a single
circuit of the Val-body Outside than it jumped to do her circuit of the
mothertrees. In that moment she called the ship and all within it back again,
and placed them where she wanted, in the landing zone of the starport on
Lusitania.
She inspected them quickly.
All were there. It had worked. They would not die in space. She could still do
starflight, even with herself aboard. And though she would not often take
herself along on voyages-- it had been too frightening, even though her
connection with the mothertrees sustained her-- she now knew she could put the
ships back into flight without worry.
***
Malu shouted and the others
turned to look at him. They had all seen the Jane-face in the air above the
terminals, a hundred Jane-faces around the room. They had all cheered and
celebrated at the time. So Wang-mu wondered: What could this be now?
"The god has moved her
starship!" Malu cried. "The god has found her power again!"
Wang-mu heard the words and
wondered mutely how he knew. But Peter, whatever he might have wondered, took
the news more personally. He threw his arms around her, lifted her from the
ground, and spun around with her. "We're free again," he cried, his
voice as joyful as Malu's had been. "We're free to roam again!"
At that moment Wang-mu finally
realized that the man she loved was, at the deepest level, the same man, Ender
Wiggin, who had wandered world to world for three thousand years. Why had Peter
been so silent and glum, only to relax into such exuberance now? Because he
couldn't bear the thought of having to live out his life on only one world.
What have I got myself into?
Wang-mu wondered. Is this going to be my life, a week here, a month there?
And then she thought: What if
it is? If the week is with Peter, if the month is at his side, then that may
well be home enough for me. And if it's not, there'll be time enough to work
out some sort of compromise. Even Ender settled down at last, on Lusitania.
Besides, I may be a wanderer
myself. I'm still young-- how do I even know what kind of life I want to lead?
With Jane to take us anywhere in just a heartbeat, we can see all of the
Hundred Worlds and all the newest colonies, and anything else we want to see
before we even have to think of settling down.
***
Someone was shouting out in
the control room. Miro knew he should get up from Jane's sleeping body and find
out. But he did not want to let go of her hand. He did not want to take his
eyes away from her.
"We're cut off!"
came the cry again-- Quara, shouting, terrified and angry. "I was getting
their broadcasts and suddenly now there's nothing."
Miro almost laughed aloud. How
could Quara fail to understand? The reason she couldn't receive the descolador
broadcasts anymore was because they were no longer orbiting the planet of the
descoladores. Couldn't Quara feel the onset of gravity? Jane had done it. Jane
had brought them home.
But had she brought herself?
Miro squeezed her hand, leaned over, kissed her cheek. "Jane," he
whispered. "Don't be lost out there. Be here. Be here with me."
"All right," she
said.
He raised his face from hers,
looked into her eyes. "You did it," he said.
"And rather easily, after
all that worry," she said. "But I don't think my body was designed to
sleep so deeply. I can't move."
Miro pushed the quick release
on her bed, and all the straps came free.
"Oh," she said.
"You tied me down."
She tried to sit up, but lay
back down again immediately.
"Feeling faint?"
Miro asked.
"The room is
swimming," she said. "Maybe I can do future starflights without
having to lay my own body out so thoroughly."
The door crashed open. Quara
stood in the doorway, quivering with rage. "How dare you do it without so
much as a warning!"
Ela was behind her,
remonstrating with her. "For heaven's sake, Quara, she got us home, isn't
that enough?"
"You could have some
decency!" Quara shouted. "You could tell us that you were performing
your experiment!"
"She brought you with us,
didn't she?" said Miro, laughing.
His laughter only infuriated
Quara more. "She isn't human! That's what you like about her, Miro! You
never could have fallen in love with a real woman. What's your track record?
You fell in love with a woman who turned out to be your half-sister, then Ender's
automaton, and now a computer wearing a human body like a puppet. Of course you
laugh at a time like this. You have no human feelings."
Jane was up now, standing on
somewhat shaky legs. Miro was pleased to see that she was recovering so quickly
from her hour in a comatose state. He hardly noticed Quara's vilification.
"Don't ignore me, you
smug self-righteous son-of-a-bitch!" Quara screamed in his face.
He ignored her, feeling, in
fact, rather smug and self-righteous as he did. Jane, holding his hand,
followed close behind him, past Quara, out of the sleeping chamber. As she
passed, Quara shouted at her, "You're not some god who has a right to toss
me from place to place without even asking!" and she gave Jane a shove.
It wasn't much of a shove. But
Jane lurched against Miro. He turned, worried she might fall. Instead he got
himself turned in time to see Jane spread her fingers against Quara's chest and
shove her back, much harder. Quara knocked her head against the corridor wall
and then, utterly off balance, she fell to the floor at Ela's feet.
"She tried to kill
me!" cried Quara.
"If she wanted to kill
you," said Ela mildly, "you'd be sucking space in orbit around the
planet of the descoladores."
"You all hate me!"
Quara shouted, and then burst into tears.
Miro opened the shuttle door
and led Jane out into sunlight. It was her first step onto the surface of a
planet, her first sight of sunlight with these human eyes. She stood there,
frozen, then turned her head to see more, raised her face up to the sky, and
then burst into tears and clung to Miro. "Oh, Miro! It's too much to bear!
It's all too beautiful!"
"You should see it in the
spring," he said inanely.
A moment later, she recovered
enough to face the world again, to take tentative steps along with him. Already
they could see a hovercar rushing toward them from Milagre-- it would be Olhado
and Grego, or perhaps Valentine and Jakt. They would meet Jane-as-Val for the
first time. Valentine, more than anyone, would remember Val and miss her, while
unlike Miro she would have no particular memories of Jane, for they had not
been close. But if Miro knew Valentine at all, he knew that she would keep to
herself whatever grief she felt for Val; to Jane she would show only welcome,
and perhaps curiosity. It was Valentine's way. It was more important to her to
understand than it was for her to grieve. She felt all things deeply, but she
didn't let her own grief or pain stand between her and learning all she could.
"I shouldn't have done
it," said Jane.
"Done what?"
"Used physical violence
against Quara," Jane said miserably.
Miro shrugged. "It's what
she wanted," he said. "You can hear how much she's still enjoying
it."
"No, she doesn't want
that," Jane said. "Not in her deepest heart. She wants what everybody
wants-- to be loved and cared for, to be part of something beautiful and fine,
to have the respect of those she admires."
"Yes, well, I'll take
your word for it," said Miro.
"No, Miro, you see
it," Jane insisted.
"Yes, I see it,"
Miro answered. "But I gave up trying years ago. Quara's need was and is so
great that a person like me could be swallowed up in it a dozen times over. I
had problems of my own then. Don't condemn me because I wrote her off. Her
barrel of misery has depth enough to hold a thousand bushels of
happiness."
"I don't condemn
you," said Jane. "I just ... I had to know that you saw how much she
loves you and needs you. I needed you to be ..."
"You needed me to be like
Ender," said Miro.
"I needed you to be your
own best self," said Jane.
"I loved Ender too, you
know. I think of him as every man's best self. And I don't resent the fact that
you would like me to be at least some of the things he was to you. As long as
you also want a few of the things that are me alone, and no part of him."
"I don't expect you to be
perfect," said Jane. "And I don't expect you to be Ender. And you'd
better not expect perfection from me, either, because wise as I'm trying to be
right now, I'm still the one who knocked your sister down."
"Who knows?" said
Miro. "That may have turned you into Quara's dearest friend."
"I hope not," said
Jane. "But if it's true, I'll do my best for her. After all, she's going
to be my sister now."
***
<So you were ready,>
said the Hive Queen.
<Without knowing it, yes,
we were,> said Human.
<And you are part of her,
all of you.>
<Her touch is gentle,>
said Human, <and her presence in us is easily borne. The mothertrees don't
mind her. Her vividness envigorates them. And if having her memories is strange
to them, it brings more variety to their lives than they have ever had before.>
<So she's a part of all of
us,> said the Hive Queen. <What she is now, what she has become, is part
hive queen, part human, and part pequenino.>
<Whatever she does, no one
can say she doesn't understand us. If someone had to play with godlike powers,
better her than anyone.>
<I'm jealous of her, I
confess,> the Hive Queen said. <She's a part of you as I can never be.
After all our conversations, I still have no notion of what it is to be one of
you.>
<Nor do I understand
anything more than a glimmer of the way you think,> said Human. <But
isn't that a good thing, too? The mystery is endless. We will never cease to
surprise each other.>
<Till death ends all
surprises,> said the Hive Queen.
Chapter 14 -- "HOW THEY
COMMUNICATE WITH ANIMALS"
"If only we were wiser or
better people, perhaps the gods would explain to us the mad, unbearable things
they do."
-- from The God Whispers of
Han Qing-jao
The moment Admiral Bobby Lands
received the news that the ansible connections to Starways Congress were
restored, he gave the order to the entire Lusitania Fleet to decelerate
forthwith to a speed just under the threshold of invisibility. Obedience was immediate,
and he knew that within an hour, to any telescopic observer on Lusitania, the
whole fleet would seem to spring into existence from nowhere. They would be
hurtling toward a point near Lusitania at an astonishing speed, their massive
foreshields still in place to protect them from taking devastating damage from
collisions with interstellar particles as small as dust.
Admiral Lands's strategy was
simple. He would arrive near Lusitania at the highest possible speed that would
not cause relativistic effects; he would launch the Little Doctor during the
period of nearest approach, a window of no more than a couple of hours; and
then he would bring his whole fleet back up to relativistic speeds so rapidly
that when the M.D. Device went off, it would not catch any of his ships within
its all-destroying field.
It was a good, simple
strategy, based on the assumption that Lusitania had no defenses. But to Lands,
that assumption could not be taken for granted. Somehow the Lusitanian rebels
had acquired enough resources that for a period of time near the end of the
voyage, they were able to cut off all communications between the fleet and the
rest of humanity. Never mind that the problem had been ascribed to a
particularly resourceful and pervasive computer saboteur program; never mind
that his superiors assured him that the saboteur program had been wiped out
through prudently radical action timed to eliminate the threat just prior to
the arrival of the fleet at its destination. Lands had no intention of being
deceived by an illusion of defenselessness. The enemy had proved itself to be
an unknown quantity, and Lands had to be prepared for anything. This was war,
total war, and he was not going to allow his mission to be compromised through
carelessness or overconfidence.
From the moment he received
this assignment he had been keenly aware that he would be remembered throughout
human history as the Second Xenocide. It was not an easy thing to contemplate
the destruction of an alien race, particularly when the piggies of Lusitania
were, by all reports, so primitive that in themselves they offered no threat to
humanity. Even when alien enemies were a threat, as the buggers were at the
time of the First Xenocide, some bleeding heart calling himself the Speaker for
the Dead had managed to paint a glowing picture of those murderous monsters as
some kind of utopian hive community that really meant no harm to humanity. How
could the writer of this work possibly know what the buggers intended? It was a
monstrous thing to write, actually, for it utterly destroyed the name of the
child-hero who had so brilliantly defeated the buggers and saved humanity.
Lands had not hesitated to
accept command of the Lusitania Fleet, but from the start of the voyage he had
spent a considerable amount of time every day studying the scant information
about Ender the Xenocide that was available. The boy had not known, of course,
that he was actually commanding the real human fleet by ansible; he had thought
he was involved in a brutally rigorous schedule of training simulations.
Nevertheless, he had made the correct decision at the moment of crisis-- he
chose to use the weapon he had been forbidden to use against planets, and thus
blew up the last bugger world. That was the end of the threat to humanity. It
was the correct action, it was what the art of war required, and at the time
the boy had been deservedly hailed as a hero.
Yet within a few decades, the
tide of opinion had been swung by that pernicious book called The Hive Queen, and
Ender Wiggin, already in virtual exile as governor of a new colony planet,
disappeared entirely from history as his name became a byword for annihilation
of a gentle, well-meaning, misunderstood species.
If they could turn against
such an obvious innocent as the child Ender Wiggin, what will they make of me?
thought Lands, over and over. The buggers were brutal, soulless killers, with
fleets of starships armed with devastating killing power, whereas I will be
destroying the piggies, who have done their share of killing, but only on a
tiny scale, a couple of scientists who may well have violated some tabu.
Certainly the piggies have no means now or in the reasonably foreseeable future
of rising from the surface of their planet and challenging the dominance of
humans in space.
Yet Lusitania was every bit as
dangerous as the buggers-- perhaps more so. For there was a virus loose on that
planet, a virus which killed every human it infected, unless the victim got
continuous dosages of a decreasingly effective antidote at regular intervals
for the rest of his life. Furthermore, the virus was known to be prone to rapid
adaptation.
As long as this virus was
contained on Lusitania, the danger was not severe. But then two arrogant
scientists on Lusitania-- the legal record named them as the xenologers Marcos
"Miro" Vladimir Ribeira von Hesse and Ouanda Quenhatta Figueira
Mucumbi-- violated the terms of the human settlement by "going
native" and providing illegal technology and bioforms to the piggies.
Starways Congress reacted properly by remanding the violators to trial on
another planet, where of course they would have to be kept in quarantine-- but
the lesson had to be swift and severe so no one else on Lusitania would be
tempted to flout the wise laws that protected humanity from the spread of the
descolada virus. Who could have guessed that such a tiny human colony would
dare to defy Congress by refusing to arrest the criminals? From the moment of
that defiance, there was no choice but to send this fleet and destroy
Lusitania. For as long as Lusitania was in revolt, the risk of stargoing ships'
escaping the planet and carrying unspeakable plague to the rest of humanity was
too great to endure.
All was so clear. Yet Lands
knew that the moment the danger was gone, the moment the descolada virus no
longer posed a threat to anyone, people would forget how great the danger had
been and would begin to wax sentimental about the lost piggies, that poor race
of victims of ruthless Admiral Bobby Lands, the Second Xenocide.
Lands was not an insensitive
man. It kept him awake at night, knowing how he would be hated. Nor did he love
the duty that had come to him-- he was not a man of violence, and the thought
of destroying not only the piggies but also the entire human population of
Lusitania made him sick at heart. No one in his fleet could doubt his
reluctance to do what must be done; but neither could anyone doubt his grim
determination to do it.
If only some way could be
found, he thought over and over. If only when I come out into realtime the
Congress would send us word that a real antidote or a workable vaccine had been
found to curb the descolada. Anything that would prove that there was no more
danger. Anything to be able to keep the Little Doctor, unarmed, in its place in
his flagship.
Such wishes, however, could
hardly even be called hopes. There was no chance of this. Even if a cure had
been found on the surface of Lusitania, how could the fact be made known? No,
Lands would have to knowingly do what Ender Wiggin did in all innocence. And he
would do it. He would bear the consequence. He would face down those who
vilified him. For he would know that he did what was necessary for the sake of
all of humanity; and compared to that, what did it matter whether one
individual was honored or unfairly hated?
***
The moment the ansible network
was restored, Yasujiro Tsutsumi sent his messages, then betook himself to the
ansible installation on the ninth floor of his building and waited there in
trepidation. If the family decided that his idea had merit enough to be worth
discussing, they would want a realtime conference, and he was determined not to
be the one who kept them waiting. And if they answered him with a rebuke, he
wanted to be the first to read it, so that his underlings and colleagues on
Divine Wind would hear of it from him instead of as a rumor behind his back.
Did Aimaina Hikari understand
what he had asked Yasujiro to do? He was at the cusp of his career. If he did
well, he would begin to move from world to world, one of the elite caste of managers
who were cut loose from time and sent into the future through the time-dilation
effect of interstellar travel. But if he was judged to be a second-rater, he
would be moved sideways or down within the organization here on Divine Wind. He
would never leave, and so he would continuously face the pity of those who
would know that he was one who did not have what it took to rise from one small
lifetime into the freefloating eternity of upper management.
Probably Aimaina knew all
about this. But even if he had not known how fragile Yasujiro's position was,
finding out would not have stopped him. To save another species from needless
annihilation-- that was worth a few careers. Could Aimaina help it that it was
not his own career that would be ruined? It was an honor that Aimaina had
chosen Yasujiro, that he had thought him wise enough to recognize the moral
peril of the Yamato people and courageous enough to act on that knowledge
regardless of personal cost.
Such an honor-- Yasujiro hoped
it would be sufficient to make him happy if all else slipped away. For he meant
to leave the Tsutsumi company if he was rebuked. If they did not act to avert
the peril then he could not remain. Nor could he remain silent. He would speak
out and include Tsutsumi in his condemnation. He would not threaten to do this,
for the family rightly viewed all threats with contempt. He would simply speak.
Then, for his disloyalty, they would work to destroy him. No company would hire
him. No public appointment would long remain in his hands. It was no jest when
he told Aimaina that he would come to live with him. Once Tsutsumi decided to
punish, the miscreant would have no choice but to throw himself on the mercy of
his friends-- if he had any friends who were not themselves terrified by the
Tsutsumi wrath.
All these dire scenarios
played themselves out in Yasujiro's mind as he waited, waited, hour after hour.
Surely they had not simply ignored his message. They must be reading and
discussing it even now.
He finally dozed off. The
ansible operator awakened him-- a woman who had not been on duty when he fell
asleep. "Are you by any chance the honorable Yasujiro Tsutsumi?"
The conference was already
under way; despite his best intention, he was indeed the last to arrive. The
cost of such an ansible conference in realtime was phenomenal, not to mention
the annoyance. Under the new computer system every participant in a conference
had to be present at the ansible, since no conference would be possible if they
had to wait for the built-in time delay between each comment and its reply.
When Yasujiro saw the
identification bands under the faces shown in the terminal display he was both
thrilled and horrified. This matter had not been delegated to secondary or
tertiary officials in the home office on Honshu. Yoshiaki-Seiji Tsutsumi
himself was there, the ancient man who had led Tsutsumi all of Yasujiro's life.
This must be a good sign. Yoshiaki-Seiji-- or "Yes Sir," as he was
called, though not to his face, of course-- would never waste his time coming
to an ansible merely to slap down an upstart underling.
Yes Sir himself did not speak,
of course. Rather it was old Eiichi who did the talking. Eiichi was known as
the conscience of Tsutsumi-- which some said, rather cynically, meant he must
be a deaf mute.
"Our young brother has
been bold, but he was wise to pass on to us the thoughts and feelings of our
honored teacher, Aimaina Hikari. While none of us here on Honshu has been
privileged personally to know the Guardian of Yamato, we have all been aware of
his words. We were not prepared to think of the Japanese as being responsible,
as a people, for the Lusitania Fleet. Nor were we prepared to think of Tsutsumi
as having any special responsibility toward a political situation with no
obvious connection to finances or the economy in general.
"Our young brother's
words were heartfelt and outrageous, and if they had not come from one who has
been properly modest and respectful for all his years of work with us, careful
and yet bold enough to take risks when the time was right, we might not have
heeded his message. But we did heed it; we studied it and found from our
government sources that the Japanese influence on Starways Congress was and
continues to be pivotal on this issue in particular. And in our judgment there
is no time for us to try to build a coalition of other companies or to change
public opinion. The fleet might arrive at any moment. Our fleet, if Aimaina
Hikari is correct; and even if he is not, it is a human fleet, and we are
humans, and it might just be within our power to stop it. A quarantine will
easily do all that is necessary to protect the human species from annihilation
by the descolada virus. Therefore we wish to inform you, Yasujiro Tsutsumi,
that you have proven yourself worthy of the name that was given you at birth.
We will commit all the resources of the Tsutsumi family to the task of
convincing a sufficient number of Congressmen to oppose the fleet-- and to
oppose it so vigorously that they force an immediate vote to recall the fleet
and forbid it to strike against Lusitania. We may succeed in this task or we
may fail, but either way, our younger brother Yasujiro Tsutsumi has served us
well, not only through his many achievements in company management, but also
because he knew when to listen to an outsider, when to put moral questions into
a position of primacy over financial considerations, and when to risk all in
order to help Tsutsumi be and do what is right. Therefore we summon Yasujiro
Tsutsumi to Honshu, where he will serve Tsutsumi as my assistant." At this
Eiichi bowed. "I am honored that such a distinguished young man is being
trained to be my replacement when I die or retire."
Yasujiro bowed gravely. He was
relieved, yes, that he was being called directly to Honshu-- no one had ever
been summoned so young. But to be Eiichi's assistant, groomed to replace him--
that was not the life's work Yasujiro had dreamed of. It was not to be a
philosopher-cum-ombudsman that he had worked so hard and served so faithfully.
He wanted to be in the thick of management of the family enterprises.
But it would be years of
starflight before he arrived on Honshu. Eiichi might well be dead. Yes Sir
would surely be dead by then as well. Instead of replacing Eiichi, he might as
easily be given a different assignment better suited to his real abilities. So
Yasujiro would not refuse this strange gift. He would embrace his fate and
follow where it led.
"O Eiichi my father, I
bow before you and before all the great fathers of our company, most
particularly Yoshiaki-Seiji-san. You honor me beyond anything I could ever
deserve. I pray that I will not disappoint you too much. And I also give thanks
that at this difficult time the Yamato spirit is in such good protecting hands
as yours."
With his public acceptance of
his orders, the meeting ended-- it was expensive, after all, and the Tsutsumi
family was careful to avoid waste if it could help it. The ansible conference
ended. Yasujiro sat back in his chair and closed his eyes. He was trembling.
"Oh, Yasujiro-san,"
said the ansible attendant. "Oh, Yasujiro-san."
Oh, Yasujiro-san, thought
Yasujiro. Who would have guessed that Aimaina's visit to me would lead to this?
So easily it could have gone the other way. Now he would be one of the men of
Honshu. Whatever his role, he would be among the supreme leaders of Tsutsumi.
There was no happier outcome. Who would have guessed.
Before he rose from his chair
beside the ansible, Tsutsumi representatives were talking to all the Japanese
Congressmen, and many who were not Japanese but nevertheless followed the
Necessarian line. And as the tally of compliant politicians rose, it became
clear that support for the fleet was shallow indeed. It would not be all that
expensive to stop the fleet after all.
***
The pequenino on duty
monitoring the satellites that orbited Lusitania heard the alarm going off and
at first had no idea what was happening. The alarm had never, to his knowledge,
sounded. At first he assumed it was some kind of dangerous weather pattern that
had been detected. But it was nothing of the kind. It was the outward-searching
telescopes that had triggered the alarm. Dozens of armed starships had just
appeared, traveling at very high but nonrelativistic speeds, on a course that
would allow them to launch the Little Doctor within the hour.
The duty officer gave the
urgent message to his colleagues, and very quickly the mayor of Milagre was
notified and the rumor began to spread throughout what was left of the village.
Anyone who doesn't leave within the hour will be destroyed, that was the message,
and within minutes hundreds of human families were gathered around the
starships, anxiously waiting to be taken in. Remarkably, it was only humans
insisting on these last-minute runs. Faced with the inevitable death of their
own forests of fathertrees, mothertrees, and brothertrees, the pequeninos felt
no urgency to save their own lives. Who would they be without their forest?
Better to die among loved ones than as perpetual strangers in a distant forest
that was not and never could be their own.
As for the Hive Queen, she had
already sent her last daughter-queen and had no particular interest in trying
to leave herself. She was the last of the hive queens who had been alive before
Ender's destruction of their home planet. She felt it fitting that she, too,
should submit to the same kind of death three thousand years later. Besides,
she told herself, how could she bear to live when her great friend, Human, was
rooted to Lusitania and could not leave it? It was not a queenly thought, but
then, no hive queen before her had ever had a friend. It was a new thing in the
world, to have someone to talk to who was not substantially yourself. It would
grieve her too much to live on without Human. And since her survival was no
longer crucial to the perpetuation of her species, she would do the grand,
brave, tragic, romantic, and least complicated thing: She would stay. She
rather liked the idea of being noble in human terms; and it proved, to her own
surprise, that she had not been utterly unchanged by her close contact with
humans and pequeninos. They had transformed her quite against her own
expectations. There had been no Hive Queen like her in all the history of her
people.
<I wish you would go,>
Human told her. <I prefer the thought of you alive. >
But for once she did not
answer him.
***
Jane was adamant. The team
working on the language of the descoladores had to leave Lusitania and get back
to work in orbit around the descolada planet. Of course that included herself,
but no one was foolish enough to begrudge the survival of the person who was
making all the starships go, nor of the team that would perhaps save all of
humanity from the descoladores. But Jane was on shakier moral ground when she
also insisted that Novinha, Grego, and Olhado and his family be taken to a
place of safety. Valentine, too, was informed that if she did not go with her
husband and children and their crew and friends to Jakt's starship, Jane would
be forced to waste precious mental resources by transporting them bodily against
their will, sans spacecraft if necessary.
"Why us?" demanded
Valentine. "We haven't asked for special treatment."
"I don't care what you do
or do not ask for," said Jane. "You are Ender's sister. Novinha is his
widow, her children are his adopted children; I will not stand by and let you
be killed when I have it in my power to save the family of my friend. If that
seems unfairly preferential to you, then complain about it to me later, but for
now get yourselves into Jakt's spaceship so I can lift you off this world. And
you will save more lives if you don't waste another moment of my attention with
useless argument."
Feeling ashamed at having
special privileges, yet grateful they and their loved ones would live through
the next few hours, the descoladores team gathered in the
shuttle-turned-starship, which Jane had relocated away from the crowded landing
area; the others hurried toward Jakt's landing craft, which she had also moved
to an isolated spot.
In a way, for many of them at
least, the appearance of the fleet was almost a relief. They had lived for so
long in its shadow that to have it here at last gave respite from the endless
anxiety. Within an hour or two, the issue would be decided.
***
In the shuttle that hurtled
along in a high orbit above the planet of the descoladores, Miro sat numbly at
his terminal. "I can't work," he said at last. "I can't
concentrate on language when my people and my home are on the brink of destruction."
He knew that Jane, strapped into her bed in the back of the shuttle, was using
her whole concentration to move ship after ship from Lusitania to other colony
worlds that were ill-prepared to receive them. While all he could do was puzzle
over molecular messages from inscrutable aliens.
"Well I can," said
Quara. "After all, these descoladores are just as great a threat, and to
all of humanity, not just to one small world."
"How wise of you,"
said Ela dryly, "to take the long view."
"Look at these broadcasts
we're getting from the descoladores," said Quara. "See if you
recognize what I'm seeing here."
Ela called up Quara's display
on her own terminal; so did Miro. However annoying Quara might be, she was good
at what she did.
"See this? Whatever else
this molecule does, it's exactly designed to work at precisely the same
location in the brain as the heroin molecule."
It could not be denied that
the fit was perfect. Ela, though, found it hard to believe. "The only way
they could do this," she said, "is if they took the historical
information contained in the descolada descriptions we sent them, used that
information to build a human body, studied it, and found a chemical that would
immobilize us with mindless pleasure while they do whatever they want to us.
There's no way they've had time to grow a human since we sent that
information."
"Maybe they don't have to
build the whole human body," said Miro. "Maybe they're so adept at
reading genetic information that they can extrapolate everything there is to
know about the human anatomy and physiology from our genetic information
alone."
"But they didn't even
have our DNA set," Ela said.
"Maybe they can compress
the information in our primitive, natural DNA," said Miro. "Obviously
they got the information somehow, and obviously they figured out what would
make us sit as still as stones with dumb, happy smiles."
"What's even more obvious
to me," said Quara, "is that they meant us to read this molecule
biologically. They meant us to take this drug instantly. As far as they're
concerned, we're now sitting here waiting for them to come take us over."
Miro immediately changed
displays over his terminal. "Damn, Quara, you're right. Look-- they have
three ships closing in on us already."
"They've never even
approached us before," said Ela.
"Well, they're not going
to approach us now," said Miro. "We've got to give them a
demonstration that we didn't fall for their trojan horse." He got up from
his seat and fairly flew back down the corridor to where Jane was sleeping.
"Jane!" he shouted even before he got there. "Jane!"
It took a moment, and then her
eyes fluttered open.
"Jane," he said.
"Move us about a hundred miles over and drop us into a closer orbit."
She looked at him quizzically,
then must have decided to trust him because she asked nothing. She closed her
eyes again, as Firequencher shouted from the control room, "She did it! We
moved!"
Miro, drifted back to the
others. "Now I know they can't do that," he said. Sure enough, his
display now reported that the alien ships were no longer approaching, but
rather were poised warily a dozen miles off in three-- no, four now--
directions. "Got us nicely framed in a tetrahedron," said Miro.
"Well, now they know that
we didn't succumb to their die-happy drug," said Quara.
"But we're no closer to
understanding them than we were before."
"That's because,"
said Miro, "we're so stupid."
"Self-vilification won't
help us now," said Quara, "even if in your case it happens to be
true."
"Quara," said Ela
sharply.
"It was a joke,
dammit!" said Quara. "Can't a girl tease her big brother?"
"Oh, yeah," said
Miro dryly. "You're such a tease."
"What did you mean by
saying we're stupid?" said Firequencher.
"We'll never decipher
their language," said Miro, "because it's not a language. It's a set
of biological commands. They don't talk. They don't abstract. They just make
molecules that do things to each other. It's as if the human vocabulary
consisted of bricks and sandwiches. Throw a brick or give a sandwich, punish or
reward. If they have abstract thoughts we're not going to get them through
reading these molecules."
"I find it hard to
believe that a species with no abstract language could possibly create
spaceships like those out there," said Quara scornfully. "And they
broadcast these molecules the way we broadcast vids and voices."
"What if they all have
organs inside their bodies that directly translate molecular messages into
chemicals or physical structures? Then they could--"
"You're missing my
point," insisted Quara. "You don't build up a fund of common
knowledge by throwing bricks and sharing sandwiches. They need language in
order to store information outside their bodies so that they can pass knowledge
from person to person, generation after generation. You don't get out into
space or make broadcasts using the electromagnetic spectrum on the basis of
what one person can be persuaded to do with a brick."
"She's probably
right," said Ela.
"So maybe parts of the
molecular messages they send are memory sets," said Miro. "Again, not
a language-- it stimulates the brain to 'remember' things that the sender
experienced but the receiver did not."
"Listen, whether you're
right or not," said Firequencher, "we have to keep trying to decode
the language."
"If I'm right, we're
wasting our time," said Miro.
"Exactly," said
Firequencher.
"Oh," said Miro.
Firequencher's point was well taken. If Miro was right, their whole mission was
useless anyway-- they had already failed. So they had to continue to act as if
Miro was wrong and the language could be decoded, because if it couldn't, there
was nothing they could do anyway.
And yet ...
"We're forgetting
something," said Miro.
"I'm not," said
Quara.
"Jane. She was created
because the hive queens built a bridge between species."
"Between humans and hive
queens, not between unknown virus-spewing aliens and humans," said Quara.
But Ela was interested.
"The human way of communication-- speech between equals-- that was surely
as foreign to the hive queens as this molecular language is to us. Maybe Jane
can find some way to connect to them philotically."
"Mind-reading?" said
Quara. "Remember, we don't have a bridge."
"It all depends,"
said Miro, "on how they deal with philotic connections. The Hive Queen
talks all the time to Human, right? Because the fathertrees and the hive queens
already both use philotic links to communicate. They speak mind to mind,
without the intervention of language. And they're no more biologically similar
than hive queens and humans are."
Ela nodded thoughtfully.
"Jane can't try anything like this now, not till the whole issue of the
Congress fleet is resolved. But once she's free to return her attention to us,
she can try, at least, to contact these ... people directly."
"If these aliens communicated
through philotic links," said Quara, "they wouldn't have to use
molecules."
"Maybe these
molecules," said Miro, "are how they communicate with animals."
***
Admiral Lands could not
believe what he was hearing. The First Speaker of Starways Congress and the
First Secretary of the Starfleet Admiralty were both visible above the
terminal, and their message was the same. "Quarantine, exactly," said
the Secretary. "You are not authorized to use the Molecular Disruption
Device."
"Quarantine is impossible,"
said Lands. "We're going too rapidly. You know the battle plan I filed at
the beginning of the voyage. It would take us weeks to slow down. And what
about the men? It's one thing to take a relativistic voyage and then return to
their home worlds. Yes, their friends and family are gone, but at least they
aren't stuck off on permanent duty inside a starship! Keeping our velocity at
near-relativistic speeds, I'm saving them months of their lives spent in
acceleration and deceleration. You're talking about expecting them to give up
years!"
"Surely you're not
saying," said the First Speaker, "that we should blow up Lusitania
and wipe out the pequeninos and thousands of human beings so that your crews
don't get depressed."
"I'm saying that if you
don't want us to blow up this planet, fine-- but let us come home."
"We can't do that,"
said the First Secretary. "The descolada is too dangerous to leave it
unsupervised on a planet that has rebelled."
"You mean you're
canceling the use of the Little Doctor when nothing has been done to contain
the descolada?"
"We will send a landing
team with due precautions to ascertain the exact conditions on the
ground," said the First Secretary.
"In other words, you'll
send men into mortal danger from this disease with no knowledge of the
situation on the ground, when the means exist to eliminate the danger without
peril to any uninfected person."
"Congress has reached the
decision," said the First Speaker coldly. "We will not commit
xenocide while any legitimate alternative remains. Are these orders received
and understood?"
"Yes sir," said
Lands.
"Will they be
obeyed?" asked the First Speaker.
The First Secretary looked
aghast. You did not insult a flag officer by questioning whether he meant to
obey orders.
Yet the First Speaker did not
withdraw the insult. "Well?"
"Sir, I always have and
always will live by my oath." With that, Lands broke the connection. He
immediately turned to Causo, his X.O., the only other person present with him
in the sealed communications office. "You are under arrest, sir,"
said Lands.
Causo raised an eyebrow.
"So you don't intend to comply with this order?"
"Do not tell me your
personal feelings on the matter," said Lands. "I know that you're of
Portuguese ethnic heritage like the people of Lusitania--"
"They're Brazilian,"
said the X.O.
Lands ignored him. "I
will have it on record that you were given no opportunity to speak and that you
are utterly blameless in any action I might take."
"What about your oath,
sir?" asked Causo calmly.
"My oath is to take all
actions I am ordered to take in service of the best interests of humanity. I
will invoke the war crimes clause."
"They aren't ordering you
to commit a war crime. They're ordering you not to."
"On the contrary,"
said Lands. "To fail to destroy this world and the deadly peril on it
would be a crime against humanity far worse than the crime of blowing it
up." Lands drew his sidearm. "You are under arrest, sir."
The X.O. put his hands on his
head and turned his back. "Sir, you may be right and you may be wrong. But
either choice could be monstrous. I don't know how you can make such a decision
by yourself."
Lands put the docility patch
on the back of Causo's neck, and as the drug began feeding into his system,
Lands said to him, "I had help in deciding, my friend. I asked myself,
What would Ender Wiggin, the man who saved humanity from the buggers, what
would he have done if suddenly, at the last minute, he had been told, This is
no game, this is real. I asked myself, What if at the moment before he killed
the boy Stilson or the boy Madrid in his infamous First and Second Killings,
some adult had intervened and ordered him to stop. Would he have done it,
knowing that the adult did not have the power to protect him later, when his
enemy attacked him again? Knowing that it might well be this time or never? If
the adults at Command School had said to him, We think there's a chance the
buggers might not mean to destroy humanity, so don't kill them all, do you
think Ender Wiggin would have obeyed? No. He would have done-- he always did--
exactly what was necessary to obliterate a danger and make sure it did not
survive to pose a threat in the future. That is the person I consulted with.
That is the person whose wisdom I will follow now."
Causo did not answer. He just
smiled and nodded, smiled and nodded.
"Sit down and do not get
up until I order you otherwise."
Causo sat down.
Lands switched the ansible to
relay communications throughout the fleet. "The order has been given and
we will proceed. I am launching the M.D. Device immediately and we will return
to relativistic speeds forthwith. May God have mercy on my soul."
A moment later, the M.D.
Device separated from the Admiral's flagship and continued at
just-under-relativistic speed toward Lusitania. It would take nearly an hour
for it to arrive at the proximity that would automatically trigger it. If for
some reason the proximity detector did not work properly, a timer would set it
off just moments before its estimated time of collision.
Lands accelerated his flagship
above the threshold that cut it off from the timeframe of the rest of the
universe. Then he pulled the docility patch from Causo's neck and replaced it
with the antidote patch. "You may arrest me now, sir, for the mutiny that
you witnessed."
Causo shook his head. "No
sir," he said. "You're not going anywhere, and the fleet is yours to
command until we get home. Unless you have some stupid plan to try to escape
the war crimes trial that awaits you."
"No, sir," said
Lands. "I will bear whatever penalty they impose on me. What I did has
saved humankind from destruction, but I am prepared to join the humans and
pequeninos of Lusitania as a necessary sacrifice to achieve that end."
Causo saluted him, then sat
back down on his chair and wept.
Chapter 15 -- "WE'RE
GIVING YOU A SECOND CHANCE"
"When I was a little
girl, I used to believe that if I could please the gods well enough, they would
go back and do my life over, and this time they would not take my mother away
from me."
-- from The God Whispers of
Han Qing-jao
A satellite orbiting Lusitania detected the launch of the M.D. Device
and the divergence of its course toward Lusitania, as the starship disappeared
from the satellite's instruments. The most dreaded event was happening. There
had been no attempt to communicate or negotiate. Clearly the fleet had never
intended anything but the obliteration of this world, and with it an entire
sentient race. Most people had hoped, and many had expected, that there would
be a chance to tell them that the descolada had been completely tamed and no
longer posed a threat to anyone; that it was too late to stop anything anyway,
since several dozen new colonies of humans, pequeninos, and hive queens had
already been started on as many different planets. Instead there was only death
hurtling toward them on a course that gave them no more than an hour to
survive, and probably less, since the Little Doctor would no doubt be detonated
some distance from the planet's surface.
It was pequeninos manning all
the instruments now, since all but a handful of humans had fled to the
starships. So it was that a pequenino cried out the news over the ansible to
the starship at the descolada planet; and by chance it was Firequencher who was
at the ansible terminal to hear his report. He immediately began keening, his
high voice liquid with the music of grief.
When Miro and his sisters
understood what had happened, he went at once to Jane. "They launched the
Little Doctor," he said, shaking her gently.
He waited only a few moments.
Her eyes came open. "I thought we had beaten them," she whispered.
"Peter and Wang-mu, I mean. Congress voted to establish a quarantine and
specifically denied the fleet the authority to launch the M.D. Device. And yet
still they launched."
"You look so tired,"
said Miro.
"It takes everything I
have," she said. "Over and over again. And now I lose them, the
mothertrees. They're a part of myself, Miro. Remember how you felt when you
lost control of your body, when you were crippled and slow? That's what will
happen to me when the mothertrees are gone."
She wept.
"Stop it," said
Miro. "Stop it right now. Get control of your emotions, Jane, you don't
have time for this."
At once she freed herself from
the straps that held her. "You're right," she said. "It's almost
too strong to control, sometimes, this body."
"The Little Doctor has to
be close to a planet for it to have any effect on it-- the field dissipates
fairly quickly unless it has mass to sustain it. So we have time, Jane. Maybe
an hour. Certainly more than half an hour."
"And in that time, what
do you imagine I can do?"
"Pick the damn thing
up," said Miro. "Push it Outside and don't bring it back!"
"And if it goes off
Outside?" asked Jane. "If something that destructive is echoed and
repeated out there? Besides, I can't pick things up that I haven't had a chance
to examine. There's no one near it, no ansible connected to it, nothing to lead
me to find it in the dead of space."
"I don't know," said
Miro. "Ender would know. Damn that he's dead!"
"Well, technically
speaking," said Jane. "But Peter hasn't found his way into any of his
Ender memories. If he has them."
"What's to
remember?" said Miro. "This has never happened before."
"It's true that it is
Ender's aiua. But how much of his brilliance was the aiua, and how much was his
body and brain? Remember that the genetic component was strong-- he was born in
the first place because tests showed the original Peter and Valentine came so
close to being the ideal military commander."
"Right," said Miro.
"And now he's Peter."
"Not the real Peter,"
said Jane.
"Look, it's sort of Ender
and it's sort of Peter. Can you find him? Can you talk to him?"
"When our aiuas meet, we
don't talk. We sort of-- what, dance around each other. It's not like Human and
the Hive Queen."
"Doesn't he still have
the jewel in his ear?" asked Miro, touching his own.
"But what can he do? He's
hours distant from his starship--"
"Jane," said Miro.
"Try."
***
Peter looked stricken. Wang-mu
touched his arm, leaned close to him. "What's wrong?"
"I thought we made
it," he said. "When Congress voted to revoke the order to use the
Little Doctor."
"What do you mean?"
said Wang-mu, though she already knew what he meant.
"They launched it. The
Lusitania Fleet disobeyed Congress. Who could have guessed? We have less than
an hour before it detonates."
Tears leapt to Wang-mu's eyes,
but she blinked them away. "At least the pequeninos and the hive queens
will survive."
"But not the network of
mothertrees," said Peter. "Starflight will end until Jane finds some
other way to hold all that information in memory. The brothertrees are too
stupid, the fathertrees have egos far too strong to share their capacity with
her-- they would if they could, but they can't. You think Jane hasn't explored
all the possibilities? Faster-than-light flight is over."
"Then this is our
home," said Wang-mu.
"No it isn't," said
Peter.
"We're hours away from
the starship, Peter. We'll never get there before it detonates."
"What's the starship? A
box with a lightswitch and a tight-sealing door. For all we know, we don't even
need the box. I'm not staying here, Wang-mu."
"You're going back to
Lusitania? Now?"
"If Jane can take
me," he said. "And if she can't, then I guess this body goes back
where it came from-- Outside."
"I'm going with
you," said Wang-mu.
"I've had three thousand
years of life," said Peter. "I don't actually remember them too well,
but you deserve better than to disappear from the universe if Jane can't do
this."
"I'm going with
you," said Wang-mu, "so shut up. There's no time to waste."
"I don't even know what
I'm going to do when I get there," said Peter.
"Yes you do," said
Wang-mu.
"Oh? What is it I'm
planning?"
"I have no idea."
"Well isn't that a
problem? What good is this plan of mine if nobody knows it?"
"I mean that you are who
you are," said Wang-mu. "You are the same will, the same tough
resourceful boy who refused to be beaten down by anything they threw at him in Battle
School or Command School. The boy who wouldn't let bullies destroy himno matter
what it took to stop them. Naked with no weapons except the soap on his body,
that's how Ender fought Bonzo Madrid in the bathroom at Battle School."
"You've been doing your
research."
"Peter," said
Wang-mu, "I don't expect you to be Ender, his personality, his memories,
his training. But you are the one who can't be beaten down. You are the one who
finds a way to destroy the enemy."
Peter shook his head.
"I'm not him, I'm truly not."
"You told me back when we
first met that you weren't yourself. Well, now you are. The whole of you, one
man, intact in this body. Nothing is missing from you now. Nothing has been
stolen from you, nothing is lost. Do you understand? Ender lived his life under
the shadow of having caused xenocide. Now is the chance to be the opposite. To
live the opposite life. To be the one who prevents it."
Peter closed his eyes for a
moment. "Jane," he said. "Can you take us without a
starship?" He listened for a moment. "She says the real question is,
can we hold ourselves together. It's the ship she controls and moves around,
plus our aiuas-- our own bodies are held together by us, not by her."
"Well, we do that all the
time anyway, so it's fine," said Wang-mu.
"It's not fine,"
said Peter. "Jane says that inside the starship, we have visual clues, we
have a sense of safety. Without those walls, without the light, in the deep
emptiness, we can lose our place. We can forget where we are relative to our
own body. We really have to hold on."
"Does it help if we're so
strong-willed, stubborn, ambitious, and selfish that we always overcome
everything in our way no matter what?" asked Wang-mu.
"I think those are the
pertinent virtues, yes," said Peter.
"Then let's do it. That's
us in spades."
***
Finding Peter's aiua was easy
for Jane. She had been inside his body, she had followed his aiua-- or chased
it-- until she knew it without searching. Wang-mu was a different case. Jane
didn't know her all that well. The voyages she had taken her on before had been
inside a starship whose location Jane already knew. But once she located
Peter's-- Ender's-- aiua, it turned out to be easier than she thought. For the
two of them, Peter and Wang-mu, were philotically twined. There was a tiny web
in the making between them. Even without the box around them, Jane could hold
onto them, both at once, as if they were one entity.
And as she pushed them Outside
she could feel how they clung all the more tightly to each other-- not just the
bodies, but also the invisible links of the deepest self. Outside they went
together, and together they came back In. Jane felt a stab of jealousy-- just
as she had been jealous of Novinha, though without feeling the physical
sensation of grief and rage that her body now brought to the emotion. But she
knew it was absurd. It was Miro that Jane loved, as a woman loves a man. Ender
was her father and her friend, and now he was barely Ender anymore. He was
Peter, a man who remembered only the past few months of association with her.
They were friends, but she had no claim on his heart.
The familiar aiua of Ender
Wiggin and the aiua of Si Wang-mu were even more tightly bound together than
ever when Jane set them down on the surface of Lusitania.
They stood in the midst of the
starport. The last few hundred humans trying to escape were frantically trying
to understand why the starships had stopped flying just when the M.D. Device
was launched.
"The starships here are
all full," Peter said.
"But we don't need a
starship," said Wang-mu.
"Yes we do," said
Peter. "Jane can't pick up the Little Doctor without one."
"Pick it up?" said
Wang-mu. "Then you do have a plan."
"Didn't you say I
did?" said Peter. "I can't make a liar out of you." He spoke
then to Jane through the jewel. "Are you here again? Can you talk to me
through the satellites here on-- all right. Good. Jane, I need you to empty one
of these starships for me." He paused a moment. "Take the people to a
colony world, wait for them to get out, and then bring it back over here by us,
away from the crowd."
Instantly, one of the
starships disappeared from the starport. A cheer arose from the crowds as
everyone rushed to get into one of the remaining ships. Peter and Wang-mu
waited, waited, knowing that with every minute that it took to unload that
starship on the colony world, the Little Doctor came closer to detonation.
Then the wait was over. A boxy
starship appeared beside them. Peter had the door open and both of them were
inside before any of the other people at the starport even realized what was
happening. A cry went up then, but Peter closed and sealed the door.
"We're inside," said
Wang-mu. "But where are we going?"
"Jane is matching the
velocity of the Little Doctor."
"I thought she couldn't
pick it up without the starship."
"She's getting the
tracking data from the satellite. She'll predict exactly where it will be at a
certain moment, and then push us Outside and bring us back In at exactly that
point, going exactly that speed."
"The Little Doctor will
be inside this ship? With us?" asked Wang-mu.
"Stand over here by the
wall," he said. "And hold on to me. We're going to be weightless. So
far you've managed to visit four planets without ever having that
experience."
"Have you had that
experience before?"
Peter laughed, then shook his
head. "Not in this body. But I guess at some level I remembered how to
handle it because--"
At that moment they became
weightless and in the air in front of them, not touching the sides or walls of
the starship, was the mammoth missile that carried the Little Doctor. If its
rockets had still been firing, they would have been incinerated. Instead it was
hurtling on at the speed it had already achieved; it seemed to hover in the air
because the starship was going exactly the same speed.
Peter hooked his feet under a
bench bolted to the wall, then reached out his hands and touched the missile.
"We need to bring it into contact with the floor," he said.
Wang-mu tried to reach for it,
too, but immediately she came loose from the wall and started drifting. Intense
nausea began immediately, as her body desperately searched for some direction
that would serve as down.
"Think of the device as
downward," said Peter urgently. "The device is down. You're falling
toward the device."
She felt herself reorient. It
helped. And as she drifted closer she was able to take hold of it and cling.
She could only watch, grateful simply not to be vomiting, as Peter slowly,
gently pushed the mass of the missile toward the floor. When they touched, the
whole ship shuddered, for the mass of the missile was probably greater than the
mass of the ship that now surrounded it.
"Okay?" Peter asked.
"I'm fine," said
Wang-mu. Then she realized he had been talking to Jane, and his
"okay" was part of that conversation.
"Jane is tracing the
thing right now," said Peter. "She does it with the starships, too,
before she ever takes them anywhere. It used to be analytical, by computer. Now
her aiua sort of tours the inner structure of the thing. She couldn't do it
till it was in solid contact with something she knew: the starship. Us. When
she gets a sense of the inner shape of the thing, she can hold it together
Outside."
"We're just going to take
it there and leave it?" asked Wang-mu.
"No," said Peter.
"It would either hold together and detonate, or it would break apart, and
either way, who knows what the damage would be out there? How many little
copies of it would wink into existence?"
"None at all," said
Wang-mu. "It takes an intelligence to make something new."
"What do you think this
thing is made of? Just like every bit of your body, just like every rock and
tree and cloud, it's all aiuas, and there'll be other unconnected aiuas out
there desperate to belong, to imitate, to grow. No, this thing is evil, and
we're not taking it out there."
"Where are we taking
it?"
"Home to meet its
sender," said Peter.
***
Admiral Lands stood glumly
alone on the bridge of his flagship. He knew that Causo would have spread the
word by now-- the launch of the Little Doctor had been illegal, mutinous; the
Old Man would be court-martialed or worse when they got back to civilization.
No one spoke to him; no one dared look at him. And Lands knew that he would
have to relieve himself of command and turn the ship over to Causo, as his
X.O., and the fleet to his second-in-command, Admiral Fukuda. Causo's gesture
in not arresting him immediately was kind, but it was also useless. Knowing the
truth of his disobedience, it would be impossible for the men and officers to
follow him and unfair to ask it of them.
Lands turned to give the
order, only to find his X.O. already heading toward him. "Sir," said
Causo.
"I know," said
Lands. "I relieve myself of command."
"No sir," said
Causo. "Come with me, sir."
"What do you plan to
do?" asked Lands.
"The cargo officer has
reported something in the main hold of the ship."
"What is it?" asked
Lands.
Causo just looked at him. Lands
nodded, and they walked together from the bridge.
***
Jane had taken the box of the
starship, not into the weapons bay of the flagship, for that could hold only
the Little Doctor, not the box around it, but rather into the main hold, which
was much more copious and which also lacked any practical means of relaunching
the weapon.
Peter and Wang-mu stepped out
of the starship and into the hold.
Then Jane took away the
starship, leaving Peter, Wang-mu, and the Little Doctor behind.
Back on Lusitania, the
starship would reappear. But no one would get into it. No one needed to. The
M.D. Device was no longer heading for Lusitania. Now it was in the hold of the
flagship of the Lusitania Fleet, traveling at a relativistic speed toward
oblivion. The proximity sensor on the Little Doctor would not be triggered, of
course, since it was nowhere near an object of planetary mass. But the timer
was still chugging away.
"I hope they notice us
soon," said Wang-mu.
"Oh, don't worry. We have
whole minutes left."
"Has anyone seen us
yet?"
"There was a fellow in
that office," said Peter, pointing toward an open door. "He saw the
starship, then he saw us, then he saw the Little Doctor. Now he's gone. I don't
think we'll be alone much longer."
A door high up the front wall
of the hold opened. Three men stepped onto the balcony that overlooked the hold
on three sides.
"Hi," said Peter.
"Who the hell are
you?" asked the one with the most ribbons and trim on his uniform.
"I'm betting you're
Admiral Bobby Lands," said Peter. "And you must be the executive
officer, Causo. And you must be the cargo officer, Lung."
"I said who the hell are
you!" demanded Admiral Lands.
"I don't think your
priorities are straight," said Peter. "I think there'll be plenty of
time for us to discuss my identity after you deactivate the timer on this
weapon that you so carelessly tossed out into space perilously close to a
settled planet."
"If you think you
can--"
But the Admiral didn't finish
his sentence, because the X.O. was diving over the rail and jumping down to the
deck of the cargo hold, where he immediately began twisting the fingerbolts
that held the casing over the timer. "Causo," said Lands, "that
can't be the--"
"It's the Little Doctor,
all right, sir," said Causo.
"We launched it!"
shouted the Admiral.
"But that must have been
a mistake," said Peter. "An oversight. Because Starways Congress
revoked your authorization to launch it."
"Who are you and how did
you get here?"
Causo stood up, sweat dripping
off his brow. "Sir, I am pleased to report that with more than two
minutes' leeway, I have managed to prevent our ship from being blown into its
constituent atoms."
"I'm glad to see that you
didn't have any nonsense about requiring two separate keys and a secret
combination to get that thing switched off," said Peter.
"No, it was designed to
make turning it off pretty easy," said Causo. "There are directions
on how to do it all over this thing. Now, turning it on-- that's hard."
"But somehow you managed
to do it," said Peter.
"Where is your
vehicle?" said the Admiral. He was climbing down a ladder to the deck.
"How did you get here?"
"We came in a nice box,
which we discarded when it was no longer needed," said Peter.
"Haven't you gathered, yet, that we did not come to be interrogated by
you?"
"Arrest these two,"
Lands ordered.
Causo looked at the admiral as
if he were crazy. But the cargo officer, who had followed the admiral down the
ladder, moved to obey, taking a couple of steps toward Peter and Wang-mu.
Instantly, they disappeared
and reappeared up on the balcony where the three officers had come in. Of
course it took a moment or two for the officers to find them. The cargo officer
was merely baffled. "Sir," he said. "They were right here a
second ago."
Causo, on the other hand, had
already decided that something unusual was going on for which there was no
appropriate military response. So he was responding according to another
pattern. He crossed himself and began murmuring a prayer.
Lands, however, took a few
steps backward, until he bumped into the Little Doctor. He clung to it, then
suddenly pulled his hands away from it with loathing, perhaps even with pain,
as if the surface of it had suddenly become scorching hot to his hands.
"Oh God," he said. "I tried to do what Ender Wiggin would have
done."
Wang-mu couldn't help it. She
laughed aloud.
"That's odd," said
Peter. "I was trying to do exactly the same thing."
"Oh God," said Lands
again.
"Admiral Lands,"
said Peter, "I have a suggestion. Instead of spending a couple of months
of realtime trying to turn this ship around and launch this thing illegally
again, and instead of trying to establish a useless, demoralizing quarantine
around Lusitania, why don't you just head on back to one of the Hundred
Worlds-- Trondheim is close-- and in the meantime, make a report to Starways
Congress. I even have some ideas about what the report might say, if you want
to hear them."
In answer, Lands took out a
laser pistol and pointed it at Peter.
Immediately, Peter and Wang-mu
disappeared from where they were and reappeared behind Lands. Peter reached out
and deftly disarmed the Admiral, unfortunately breaking two of his fingers in
the process. "Sorry, I'm out of practice," said Peter. "I
haven't had to use my martial arts skills in-- oh, thousands of years."
Lands sank to his knees,
nursing his injured hand.
"Peter," Wang-mu
said, "can we stop having Jane move us around like that? It's really
disorienting."
Peter winked at her.
"Want to hear my ideas about your report?" Peter asked the admiral.
Lands nodded.
"Me too," said
Causo, who clearly foresaw that he would be commanding this ship for some time.
"I think you need to use
your ansible to report that due to a malfunction, it was reported that a launch
of the Little Doctor took place. But in fact, the launch was aborted in time,
and to prevent further mishap, you had the M.D. Device moved to the main hold
where you disarmed and disabled it. You get the part about disabling it?"
Peter asked Causo.
Causo nodded. "I'll do it
at once, sir." He turned to the cargo officer. "Get me a tool
kit."
While the cargo officer went
to pull a kit out of the storage bin on the wall, Peter continued. "Then
you can report that you entered into contact with a native of Lusitania--
that's me-- who was able to satisfy you that the descolada virus was completely
under control and that it no longer poses a threat to anybody."
"And how do I know
that?" said Lands.
"Because I carry what's
left of the virus, and if it weren't utterly killed, you would catch the
descolada and die of it in a couple of days. Now, in addition to certifying
that Lusitania poses no threat, your report should also state that the
rebellion of Lusitania was no more than a misunderstanding, and that far from
there being any human interference in the pequenino culture, the pequeninos
exercised their free rights as sentient beings on their own planet to acquire
information and technology from friendly visiting aliens-- namely, the human
colony of Milagre. Since that time, many of the pequeninos have become very
adept at much human science and technology, and at some reasonable time in the
future they will send ambassadors to Starways Congress and hope that Congress
will return the courtesy. Are you getting this?"
Lands nodded. Causo, working
on taking apart the firing mechanism of the Little Doctor, grunted his assent.
"You may also report that
the pequeninos have entered into alliance with yet another alien race, which
contrary to various premature reports, was not completely extinguished in the
notorious xenocide of Ender Wiggin. One cocooned hive queen survived, she being
the source of all the information contained in the famous book The Hive Queen,
whose accuracy is now proved to be unassailable. The Hive Queen of Lusitania,
however, does not wish to exchange ambassadors with Starways Congress at the
present time, and prefers instead that her interests be represented by the
pequeninos."
"There are still buggers?" asked
Lands.
"Ender Wiggin did not,
technically speaking, commit xenocide after all. So if your launch of this
missile, here, hadn't been aborted, you would have been the cause of the first
xenocide, not the second one. And as it stands right now, however, there has
never been a xenocide, though not for lack of trying both times, I must
admit."
Tears coursed down Lands's
face. "I didn't want to do it. I thought it was the right thing. I thought
I had to do it to save--"
"Let's say you take that
up with the ship's therapist at some later time," said Peter. "We
still have one more point to address. We have a technology of starflight that I
think the Hundred Worlds would like to have. You've already seen a demonstration
of it. Usually, though, we prefer to do it inside our rather unstylish and
boxy-looking starships. Still, it's a pretty good method and it lets us visit
other worlds without losing even a second of our lives. I know that those who
hold the keys to our method of starflight would be delighted, over the next few
months, to instantaneously transport all relativistic starships currently in
flight to their destinations."
"But there's a price for
it," said Causo, nodding.
"Well, let's just say
that there's a precondition," said Peter. "A key element of our
instantaneous starflight includes a computer program that Starways Congress
recently tried to kill. We found a substitute method, but it's not wholly
adequate or satisfactory, and I think I can safely say that Starways Congress
will never have the use of instantaneous starflight until all the ansibles in
the Hundred Worlds are reconnected to all the computer networks on every world,
without delays and without those pesky little snoop programs that keep yipping
away like ineffectual little dogs."
"I don't have any
authority to--"
"Admiral Lands, I didn't
ask you to decide. I merely suggested the contents of the message you might
want to send, by ansible, to Starways Congress. Immediately."
Lands looked away. "I
don't feel well," he said. "I think I'm incapacitated. Executive
Officer Causo, in front of Cargo Officer Lung, I hereby transfer command of
this ship to you, and order you to notify Admiral Fukuda that he is now
commander of this fleet."
"Won't work," said
Peter. "The message I've described has to come from you. Fukuda isn't here
and I don't intend to go repeat all of this to him. So you will make the
report, and you will retain command of fleet and ship, and you will not weasel
out of your responsibility. You made a hard choice a while back. You chose
wrong, but at least you chose with courage and determination. Show the same
courage now, Admiral. We haven't punished you here today, except for my
unfortunate clumsiness with your fingers, for which I really am sorry. We're
giving you a second chance. Take it, Admiral."
Lands looked at Peter and
tears began to flow down his cheeks. "Why did you give me a second
chance?"
"Because that's what
Ender always wanted," said Peter. "And maybe by giving you a second
chance, he'll get one, too."
Wang-mu took Peter's hand and
squeezed it.
Then they disappeared from the
cargo hold of the flagship and reappeared inside the control room of a shuttle
orbiting the planet of the descoladores.
Wang-mu looked around at a
room full of strangers. Unlike Admiral Lands's starship, this craft had no
artificial gravity, but by holding onto Peter's hand Wang-mu kept from either
fainting or throwing up. She had no idea who any of these people were, but she
did know that Firequencher had to be a pequenino and the nameless worker at one
of the computer terminals was a creature of the kind once hated and feared as
the merciless buggers.
"Hi, Ela, Quara,
Miro," said Peter. "This is Wang-mu."
Wang-mu would have been
terrified, except that the others were so obviously terrified to see them.
Miro was the first to recover
enough to speak. "Didn't you forget your spaceship?" he asked.
Wang-mu laughed.
"Hi, Royal Mother of the
West," said Miro, using the name of Wang-mu's ancestor-of-the-heart, a god
worshiped on the world of Path. "I've heard all about you from Jane,"
Miro added.
A woman drifted in through a
corridor at one end of the control room.
"Val?" said Peter.
"No," answered the
woman. "I'm Jane."
"Jane," whispered
Wang-mu. "Malu's god."
"Malu's friend,"
said Jane. "As I am your friend, Wang-mu." She reached Peter and,
taking him by both hands, looked him in the eye. "And your friend too,
Peter. As I've always been your friend."
Chapter 16 -- "HOW DO YOU
KNOW THEY AREN'T QUIVERING IN TERROR?"
"O Gods! You are unjust!
My mother and father deserved to have a better child than me!"
-- from The God Whispers of
Han Qing-jao
"You had the Little Doctor in your possession and you gave it
back?" asked Quara, sounding incredulous.
Everyone, Miro included,
assumed she meant that she didn't trust the fleet not to use it.
"It was dismantled in
front of my eyes," said Peter.
"Well, can it be mantled
again?" she asked.
Wang-mu tried to explain.
"Admiral Lands isn't going to be able to go down that road now. We
wouldn't have left things unsettled. Lusitania is safe."
"She's not talking about
Lusitania," said Ela coldly. "She's talking about here. The descolada
planet."
"Am I the only person who
thought of it?" said Quara. "Tell the truth-- it would solve all our
worries about followup probes, about new outbreaks of even worse versions of
the descolada--"
"You're thinking of
blowing up a world populated by a sentient race?" asked Wang-mu.
"Not right now,"
said Quara, sounding as if Wang-mu were the stupidest person she had ever
wasted time talking to. "If we determine that they're, you know, what
Valentine called them. Varelse. Unable to be reasoned with. Impossible to
coexist with."
"So what you're
saying," said Wang-mu, "is that--"
"I'm saying what I
said," Quara answered.
Wang-mu went on. "What
you're saying is that Admiral Lands wasn't wrong in principle, he simply was
wrong about the facts of the particular case. If the descolada had still been a
threat on Lusitania, then it's his duty to blow up the planet."
"What are the lives of
the people of one planet compared to all sentient life?" asked Quara.
"Is this," said
Miro, "the same Quara Ribeira who tried to keep us from wiping out the
descolada virus because it might be sentient?" He sounded amused.
"I've thought a lot about
that since then," said Quara. "I was being childish and sentimental.
Life is precious. Sentient life is more precious. But when one sentient group
threatens the survival of another, then the threatened group has the right to
protect themselves. Isn't that what Ender did? Over and over again?"
Quara looked from one to
another, triumphant.
Peter nodded. "Yes,"
he said. "That's what Ender did."
"In a game," said
Wang-mu.
"In his fight with two
boys who threatened his life. He made sure they could never threaten him again.
That's how war is fought, in case any of you have foolish ideas to the
contrary. You don't fight with minimum force, you fight with maximum force at
endurable cost. You don't just pink your enemy, you don't even bloody him, you
destroy his capability to fight back. It's the strategy you use with diseases.
You don't try to find a drug that kills ninety-nine percent of the bacteria or
viruses. If you do that, all you've accomplished is to create a new
drug-resistant strain. You have to kill a hundred percent."
Wang-mu tried to think of an
argument against this. "Is disease really a valid analogy?"
"What is your
analogy?" answered Peter. "A wrestling match? Fight to wear down your
opponent's resistance? That's fine-- if your opponent is playing by the same
rules. But if you stand there ready to wrestle and he pulls out a knife or a
gun, what then? Or is it a tennis match? Keep score until your opponent sets
off the bomb under your feet? There aren't any rules. In war."
"But is this war?"
asked Wang-mu.
"As Quara said,"
Peter answered. "If we find out there's no dealing with them, then yes,
it's a war. What they did to Lusitania, to the defenseless pequeninos, was
devastating, soulless, total war without regard to the rights of the other
side. That's our enemy, unless we can bring them to understand the consequences
of what they did. Isn't that what you were saying, Quara?"
"Perfectly," said
Quara.
Wang-mu knew there was
something wrong with this reasoning, but she couldn't lay her finger on it.
"Peter, if you really believe this, why didn't you keep the Little
Doctor?"
"Because," said
Peter, "we might be wrong, and the danger is not imminent."
Quara clicked her tongue in
disdain. "You weren't here, Peter. You didn't see what they were throwing
at us-- a newly engineered and specially tailored virus to make us sit as still
as idiots while they came and took over our ship."
"And they sent this how,
in a nice envelope?" said Peter. "They sent an infected puppy,
knowing you couldn't resist picking it up and hugging it?"
"They broadcast the
code," said Quara. "But they expected us to interpret it by making
the molecule and then it would have its effect."
"No," said Peter,
"you speculated that that's how their language works, and then you started
to act as if your speculation were true."
"And somehow you know
that it's not?" said Quara.
"I don't know anything
about it," said Peter. "That's my point. We just don't know. We can't
know. Now, if we saw them launching probes, or if they started trying to blast
this ship out of the sky, we'd have to start taking action. Like sending ships
after the probes and carefully studying the viruses they were sending out. Or
if they attacked this ship, we'd take evasive action and analyze their weapons and
tactics."
"That's fine now,"
said Quara. "Now that Jane's safe and the mothertrees are intact so she
can handle the starflight thing she does. Now we can catch up with probes and
dance out of the way of missiles or whatever. But what about before, when we
were helpless here? When we had only a few weeks to live, or so we
thought?"
"Back then," said
Peter, "you didn't have the Little Doctor, either, so you couldn't have
blown up their planet. We didn't get our hands on the M. D. Device until after Jane's
power of flight was restored. And with that power, it was no longer necessary
to destroy the descolada planet until and unless it posed a danger too great to
be resisted any other way."
Quara laughed. "What is
this? I thought Peter was supposed to be the nasty side of Ender's personality.
Turns out you're the sweetness and light."
Peter smiled. "There are
times when you have to defend yourself or someone else against relentless evil.
And some of those times the only defense that has any hope of succeeding is a
one-time use of brutal, devastating force. At such times good people act
brutally."
"We couldn't be engaging
in a bit of self-justification, could we?" said Quara. "You're
Ender's successor. Therefore you find it convenient to believe that those boys
Ender killed were the exceptions to your niceness rule."
"I justify Ender by his
ignorance and helplessness. We aren't helpless. Starways Congress and the
Lusitania Fleet were not helpless. And they chose to act before alleviating their
ignorance."
"Ender chose to use the
Little Doctor while he was ignorant."
"No, Quara. The adults
who commanded him used it. They could have intercepted and blocked his
decision. There was plenty of time for them to use the overrides. Ender thought
he was playing a game. He thought that by using the Little Doctor in the
simulation he would prove himself unreliable, disobedient, or even too brutal
to trust with command. He was trying to get himself kicked out of Command
School. That's all. He was doing the necessary thing to get them to stop
torturing him. The adults were the ones who decided simply to unleash their
most powerful weapon: Ender Wiggin. No more effort to talk with the buggers, to
communicate. Not even at the end when they knew that Ender was going to destroy
the buggers' home planet. They had decided to go for the kill no matter what.
Like Admiral Lands. Like you, Quara."
"I said I'd wait until we
found out!"
"Good," said Peter.
"Then we don't disagree."
"But we should have the
Little Doctor here!"
"The Little Doctor
shouldn't exist at all," said Peter. "It was never necessary. It was
never appropriate. Because the cost of it is too high."
"Cost!" hooted
Quara. "It's cheaper than the old nuclear weapons!"
"It's taken us three
thousand years to get over the destruction of the hive queens' home planet.
That's the cost. If we use the Little Doctor, then we're the sort of people who
wipe out other species. Admiral Lands was just like the men who were using
Ender Wiggin. Their minds were made up. This was the danger. This was the evil.
This had to be destroyed. They thought they meant well. They were saving the
human race. But they weren't. There were a lot of different motives involved,
but along with deciding to use the weapon, they also decided not to attempt to
communicate with the enemy. Where was the demonstration of the Little Doctor on
a nearby moon? Where was Lands's attempt to verify that the situation on
Lusitania had not changed? And you, Quara-- what methodology, exactly, were you
planning to use to determine whether the descoladores were too evil to be
allowed to live? At what point do you know they are an unbearable danger to all
other sentient species?"
"Turn it around,
Peter," said Quara. "At what point do you know they're not?"
"We have better weapons
than the Little Doctor. Ela once designed a molecule to block the descolada's
efforts to cause harm, without destroying its ability to help the flora and
fauna of Lusitania to pass through their transformations. Who's to say that we
can't do the same thing for every nasty little plague they send at us until
they give up? Who's to say that they aren't already trying desperately to
communicate with us? How do you know that the molecule they sent wasn't an attempt
to make us happy with them the only way they knew how, by sending us a molecule
that would take away our anger? How do you know they aren't already quivering
in terror down on that planet because we have a ship that can disappear and
reappear anywhere else? Are we trying to talk to them?"
Peter looked around at all of
them.
"Don't you understand,
any of you? There's only one species that we know of that has deliberately,
consciously, knowingly tried to destroy another sentient species without any
serious attempt at communication or warning. We're the ones. The first xenocide
failed because the victims of the attack managed to conceal exactly one
pregnant female. The second time it failed for a better reason-- because some
members of the human species determined to stop it. Not just some, many.
Congress. A big corporation. A philosopher on Divine Wind. A Samoan divine and
his fellow believers on Pacifica. Wang-mu and I. Jane. And Admiral Lands's own
officers and men, when they finally understood the situation. We're getting
better, don't you see? But the fact remains-- we humans are the sentient
species that has shown the most tendency to deliberately refuse to communicate
with other species and instead destroy them utterly. Maybe the descoladores are
varelse and maybe they're not. But I'm a lot more frightened at the thought
that we are varelse. That's the cost of using the Little Doctor when it isn't
needed and never will be, given the other tools in our kit. If we choose to use
the M. D. Device, then we are not ramen. We can never be trusted. We are the
species that would deserve to die for the safety of all other sentient
life."
Quara shook her head, but the
smugness was gone. "Sounds to me like somebody is still trying to earn
forgiveness for his own crimes."
"That was Ender,"
said Peter. "He spent his life trying to turn himself and everyone else
into ramen. I look around me in this ship, I think of what I've seen, the
people I've known in the past few months, and I think that the human race isn't
doing too badly. We're moving in the right direction. A few throwbacks now and
then. A bit of blustery talk. But by and large, we're coming closer to being
worthy to associate with the hive queens and the pequeninos. And if the
descoladores are perhaps a bit farther from being ramen than we are, that
doesn't mean we have a right to destroy them. It means we have all the more
reason to be patient with them and try to nurse them along. How many years has
it taken us to get here from marking the sites of battles with piles of human
skulls? Thousands of years. And all the time, we had teachers trying to get us
to change, pointing the way. Bit by bit we learned. Let's teach them-- if they
don't already know more than we do."
"It could take years just
to learn their language," said Ela.
"Transportation is cheap
now," said Peter. "No offense intended, Jane. We can keep teams
shuttling back and forth for a long time without undue hardship to anyone. We
can keep a fleet watching this planet. With pequeninos and hive workers
alongside the human researchers. For centuries. For millennia. There's no hurry."
"I think that's
dangerous," said Quara.
"And I think you have the
same instinctive desire that we all have, the one that gets us in so damn much
trouble all the time," said Peter. "You know that you're going to
die, and you want to see it all resolved before you do."
"I'm not old yet!"
Quara said.
Miro spoke up. "He's
right, Quara. Ever since Marcao died, you've had death looming over you. Think
about it, everybody. Humans are the short-lived species. Hive queens think they
live forever. Pequeninos have the hope of many centuries in the third life.
We're the ones who are in a hurry all the time. We're the ones who are
determined to make decisions without getting enough information, because we
want to act now, while we still have time."
"So that's it?" said
Quara. "That's your decision? Let this grave threat to all life continue
to sit here hatching their plans while we watch and watch from the sky?"
"Not we," said
Peter.
"No, that's right,"
said Quara, "you're not part of this project."
"Yes I am," said
Peter. "But you're not. You're going back down to Lusitania, and Jane will
never bring you back here. Not until you've spent years proving that you've got
your personal bugbears under control."
"You arrogant
son-of-a-bitch!" Quara cried.
"Everybody here knows
that I'm right," said Peter. "You're like Lands. You're too ready to
make devastatingly far-reaching decisions and then refuse to let any argument
change your mind. There are plenty of people like you, Quara. But we can never
let any of them anywhere near this planet until we know more. The day may come
when all the sentient species reach the conclusion that the descoladores are in
fact varelse who must be destroyed. But I seriously doubt any of us here, with
the exception of Jane, will be alive when that day comes."
"What, you think I'll
live forever?" said Jane.
"You'd better," said
Peter. "Unless you and Miro can figure out how to have children who can
launch starships when they grow up." Peter turned to Jane. "Can you
take us home now?"
"Even as we speak,"
said Jane.
They opened the door. They
left the ship. They stepped onto the surface of a world that was not going to
be destroyed after all.
All except Quara.
"Isn't Quara coming with
us?" asked Wang-mu.
"Maybe she needs to be
alone for a while," said Peter.
"You go on ahead,"
said Wang-mu.
"You think you can deal
with her?" said Peter.
"I think I can try,"
said Wang-mu.
He kissed her. "I was
hard on her. Tell her I'm sorry."
"Maybe later you can tell
her yourself," said Wang-mu.
She went back inside the
starship. Quara still sat facing her terminal. The last data she had been
looking at before Peter and Wang-mu arrived in the starship still hung in the
air over her terminal.
"Quara," said
Wang-mu.
"Go away." The husky
sound of her voice was ample evidence that she had been crying.
"Everything Peter said was true,"
said Wang-mu.
"Is that what you came to
say? Rub salt in the wound?"
"Except that he gave the
human race too much credit for our slight improvement."
Quara snorted. It was almost a
yes.
"Because it seems to me
that he and everyone else here had already decided you were varelse. To be
banished without hope of Parole. Without understanding you first."
"Oh, they understand
me," said Quara. "Little girl devastated by loss of brutal father
whom she nevertheless loved. Still searching for father figure. Still
responding to everyone else with the mindless rage she saw her father show. You
think I don't know what they've decided?"
"They've got you
pegged."
"Which is not true of me.
I might have suggested that the Little Doctor ought to be kept around in case
it was necessary, but I never said just to use it without any further attempt
at communication. Peter just treated me as if I was that admiral all over
again."
"I know," said
Wang-mu.
"Yeah, right. I'm sure
you're so sympathetic with me and you know he's wrong. Come on, Jane told us
already that the two of you are-- what was the bullshit phrase? --in
love."
"I wasn't proud of what
Peter did to you. It was a mistake. He makes them. He hurts my feelings
sometimes, too. So do you. You did just now. I don't know why. But sometimes I
hurt other people, too. And sometimes I do terrible things because I'm so sure
that I'm right. We're all like that. We all have a little bit of varelse in us.
And a little bit of raman."
"Isn't that the sweetest
little well-balanced undergraduate-level philosophy of life," said Quara.
"It's the best I could
come up with," said Wang-mu. "I'm not educated like you."
"And is that the
make-her-feel-guilty technique?"
"Tell me, Quara, if
you're not really acting out your father's role or trying to call him back or
whatever the analysis was, why are you so angry at everybody all the
time?"
Quara finally swiveled in her
chair and looked Wang-mu in the face. Yes, she had been crying. "You
really want to know why I'm so filled with irrational fury all the time?"
The taunting hadn't left her voice. "You really want to play shrink with
me? Well try this one. What has me so completely pissed off is that all through
my childhood, my older brother Quim was secretly molesting me, and now he's a
martyr and they're going to make him a saint and nobody will ever know how evil
he was and the terrible, terrible things he did to me."
Wang-mu stood there horrified.
Peter had told her about Quim. How he died. The kind of man he was. "Oh,
Quara," she said. "I'm so sorry."
A look of complete disgust
passed across Quara's face. "You are so stupid. Quim never touched me, you
stupid meddlesome little do-gooder. But you're so eager to get some cheap
explanation about why I'm such a bitch that you'll believe any story that
sounds halfway plausible. And right now you're probably still wondering whether
maybe my confession was true and I'm only denying it because I'm afraid of the
repercussions or some dumb merda like that. Get this straight, girl. You do not
know me. You will never know me. I don't want you to know me. I don't want any
friends, and if I did want friends, I would not want Peter's pet bimbo to do
the honors. Can I possibly make myself clearer?"
In her life Wang-mu had been
beaten by experts and vilified by champions. Quara was damn good at it by any
standards, but not so good that Wang-mu couldn't bear it without flinching.
"I notice, though," said Wang-mu, "that after your vile slander
against the noblest member of your family, you couldn't stand to leave me
believing that it was true. So you do have loyalty to someone, even if he's
dead."
"You just don't take a
hint, do you?" said Quara.
"And I notice that you
still keep talking to me, even though you despise me and try to offend
me."
"If you were a fish,
you'd be a remora, you just clamp on and suck for dear life, don't you!"
"Because at any point you
could just walk out of here and you wouldn't have to hear my pathetic attempts
at making friends with you," said Wang-mu. "But you don't go."
"You are
unbelievable," said Quara. She unstrapped herself from her chair, got up,
and went out the open door.
Wang-mu watched her go. Peter
was right. Humans were still the most alien of alien species. Still the most
dangerous, the most unreasonable, the least predictable.
Even so, Wang-mu dared to make
a couple of predictions to herself.
First, she was confident that
the research team would someday establish communications with the descoladores.
The second prediction was much
more iffy. More like a hope. Maybe even just a wish. That someday Quara would
tell Wang-mu the truth. That someday the hidden wound that Quara bore would be
healed. That someday they might be friends.
But not today. There was no
hurry. Wang-mu would try to help Quara because she was so obviously in need,
and because the people who had been around her the longest were clearly too
sick of her to help. But helping Quara was not the only thing or even the most
important thing she had to accomplish. Marrying Peter and starting a life with
him-- that was a much higher priority. And getting something to eat, a drink of
water, and a place to pee-- those were the highest priorities of all at this
precise moment in her life.
I guess that means I'm human,
thought Wang-mu. Not a god. Maybe just a beast after all. Part raman. Part
varelse. But more raman than varelse, at least on her good days. Peter, too,
just like her. Both of them part of the same flawed species, determined to join
together to make a couple of more members of that species. Peter and I together
will call forth some aiua to come in from Outside and take control of a tiny
body that our bodies have made, and we'll see that child be varelse on some
days and raman on others. On some days we'll be good parents and some days
we'll be wretched failures. Some days we'll be desperately sad and some days
we'll be so happy we can hardly contain it. I can live with that.
Chapter 17 -- "THE ROAD
GOES ON WITHOUT HIM NOW"
"I once heard a tale of a
man who split himself in two. The one part never changed at all; the other grew
and grew. The changeless part was always true, The growing part was always new,
And I wondered, when the tale was through, Which part was me, and which was
you."
-- from The God Whispers of
Han Qing-jao
Valentine arose on the morning of Ender's funeral full of bleak
reflection. She had come here to this world of Lusitania in order to be with
him again and help him in his work; it had hurt Jakt, she knew, that she wanted
so badly to be part of Ender's life again, yet her husband had given up the
world of his childhood to come with her. So much sacrifice. And now Ender was
gone.
Gone and not gone. Sleeping in
her house was the man that she knew had Ender's aiua in him. Ender's aiua, and
the face of her brother Peter. Somewhere inside him were Ender's memories. But
he hadn't touched them yet, except unconsciously from time to time. Indeed, he
was virtually hiding in her house in order not to rekindle those memories.
"What if I see Novinha?
He loved her, didn't he?" Peter had asked almost as soon as he arrived.
"He felt this awful sense of responsibility to her. And in a sense, I
worry that I'm somehow married to her."
"Interesting question of
identity, isn't it?" Valentine had answered. But it wasn't just an
interesting question to Peter. He was terrified of getting caught up in Ender's
life. Afraid, too, of living a life wracked with guilt as Ender's had been.
"Abandonment of family," he had said. To which Valentine had replied,
"The man who married Novinha died. We watched him die. She isn't looking
for some young husband who doesn't want her, Peter. Her life is full of grief
enough without that. Marry Wang-mu, leave this place, go on, be a new self. Be
Ender's true son, have the life he might have had if the demands of others
hadn't tainted it from the start."
Whether he fully accepted her
advice or not, Valentine couldn't guess. He remained hidden in the house,
avoiding even those visitors who might trigger memories. Olhado came, and
Grego, and Ela, each in turn, to express their condolences to Valentine on the
death of her brother, but Peter never came into the room. Wang-mu did, however,
this sweet young girl who nevertheless had a kind of steel in her that
Valentine quite liked. Wang-mu played the gracious friend of the bereaved,
keeping the conversation going as each of these children of Ender's wife talked
about how Ender had saved their family, blessed their lives when they had
thought themselves beyond the reach of all blessing.
And in the corner of the room,
Plikt sat, absorbing, listening, fueling the speech that she had lived her
whole life for.
Oh, Ender, the jackals have
gnawed at your life for three thousand years. And now your friends will have
their turn. In the end, will the toothmarks on your bones be all that
different?
Today all would come to a
close. Others might divide time differently, but to Valentine the Age of Ender
Wiggin had come to a close. The age that began with one xenocide attempted had
now ended with other xenocides prevented or, at least, postponed. Human beings
might now be able to live with other peoples in peace, working out a shared
destiny on dozens of colony worlds. Valentine would write the history of this,
as she had written a history on every world that she and Ender had visited
together. She would write, not a kind of oracle or scripture, the way Ender had
done with his three books, The Hive Queen, The Hegemon, and The Life of Human;
rather her book would be scholarly, with sources cited. She aspired to be, not
Paul or Moses, but Thucydides. Though she wrote all under the name Demosthenes,
her legacy from those childhood days when she and Peter, the first Peter, the
dark and dangerous and magnificent Peter, had used their words to change the
world. Demosthenes would publish a book chronicling the history of human involvement
on Lusitania, and in that book would be much about Ender-- how he brought the
cocoon of the Hive Queen here, how he became a part of the family most pivotal
in dealings with the pequeninos. But it would not be a book about Ender. It
would be a book about utlanning and framling, raman and varelse. Ender, who was
a stranger in every land, belonging nowhere, serving everywhere, until he chose
this world as his home, not just because there was a family that needed him,
but also because in this place he did not have to be entirely a member of the
human race. He could belong to the tribe of the pequenino, to the hive of the
queen. He could be part of something larger than mere humanity.
And though there was no child
with Ender's name as father on its birth certificate, he had become a father
here. Of Novinha's children. Of Novinha herself, in a way. Of a young copy of
Valentine herself. Of Jane, the first spawn of a mating between races, who now
was a bright and beautiful creature who lived in mothertrees, in digital webs,
in the philotic twinings of the ansibles, and in a body that had once been
Ender's and which, in a way, had once been Valentine's, for she remembered
looking into mirrors and seeing that face and calling it herself.
And he was father of this new
man, Peter, this strong and whole man. For he was not the Peter who had first
come out of the starship. He was not the cynical, nasty, barbed young boy who
strutted with arrogance and seethed with rage. He had become whole. There was
the cool of ancient wisdom in him, even as he burned with the hot sweet fire of
youth. He had a woman who was his equal in wit and virtue and vigor by his
side. He had a normal lifetime of a man before him. Ender's truest son would
make of this life, if not something as profoundly world-changing as Ender's
life had been, then something happier. Ender would have wanted neither more nor
less for him. Changing the world is good for those who want their names in
books. But being happy, that is for those who write their names in the lives of
others, and hold the hearts of others as the treasure most dear.
Valentine and Jakt and their
children gathered on the porch of their house. Wang-mu was waiting there alone.
"Will you take me with you?" asked the girl. Valentine offered her an
arm. What is the name of her relationship to me? Niece-in-law-to-be? Friend
would be a better word.
Plikt's speaking of Ender's
death was eloquent and piercing. She had learned well from the master speaker.
She wasted no time on inconsequentials. She spoke at once of his great crime,
explaining what Ender thought he was doing at the time, and what he thought of
it after he knew each layer of truth that was revealed to him. "That was
Ender's life," said Plikt, "unpeeling the onion of truth. Only unlike
most of us, he knew that there was no golden kernel inside. There were only the
layers of illusion and misunderstanding. What mattered was to know all the
errors, all the self-serving explanations, all the mistakes, all the twisted
observations, and then, not to find, but to make a kernel of truth. To light a
candle of truth where there was no truth to be found. That was Ender's gift to
us, to free us from the illusion that any one explanation will ever contain the
final answer for all time, for all hearers. There is always, always more to
learn."
Plikt went on then, recounting
incidents and memories, anecdotes and pithy sayings; the gathered people
laughed and cried and laughed again, and fell silent many times to connect
these stories with their own lives. How like Ender I am! they sometimes
thought, and then, Thank God my life is not like that!
Valentine, though, knew
stories that would not be told here because Plikt did not know them, or at
least could not see them through the eyes of memory. They weren't important
stories. They revealed no inner truth. They were the flotsam and jetsam of
shared years together. Conversations, quarrels, funny and tender moments on
dozens of worlds or on the starships in between. And at the root of them all,
the memories of childhood. The baby in Valentine's mother's arms. Father
tossing him into the air. His early words, his babbling. None of that goo-goo
stuff for baby Ender! He needed more syllables to speak: Deedle-deedle. Wagada
wagada. Why am I remembering his baby talk?
The sweet-faced baby, eager
for life. Baby tears from the pain of falling down. Laughter at the simplest
things-- laughter because of a song, because of seeing a beloved face, because
life was pure and good for him then, and nothing had caused him pain. He was
surrounded by love and hope. The hands that touched him were strong and tender;
he could trust them all. Oh, Ender, thought Valentine. How I wish you could
have kept on living such a life of joy. But no one can. Language comes to us,
and with it lies and threats, cruelty and disappointment. You walk, and those
steps lead you outside the shelter of your home. To keep the joy of childhood
you would have to die as a child, or live as one, never becoming a man, never
growing. So I can grieve for the lost child, and yet not regret the good man
braced with pain and riven with guilt, who yet was kind to me and to many
others, and whom I loved, and whom I also almost knew. Almost, almost knew.
Valentine let her tears of
memory flow as Plikt's words washed over her, touching her now and then, but
also not touching her because she knew far more about Ender than anyone here,
and had lost more by losing him. Even more than Novinha, who sat near the
front, her children gathered near her. Valentine watched as Miro put his arm
around his mother even as he held to Jane on the other side of him. Valentine
noticed also how Ela clung to and one time kissed Olhado's hand, and how Grego,
weeping, leaned his head into stern Quara's shoulder, and how Quara reached out
her arm to hold him close and comfort him. They loved Ender too, and knew him
too; but in their grief, they leaned upon each other, a family that had
strength to share because Ender had been part of them and healed them, or at
least opened up the door of healing. Novinha would survive and perhaps grow
past her anger at the cruel tricks life had played on her. Losing Ender was not
the worst thing that happened to her; in some ways it was the best, because she
had let him go.
Valentine looked at the
pequeninos, who sat, some of them among the humans, some of them apart. To them
this was a doubly holy place, where Ender's few remains were to be buried.
Between the trees of Rooter and of Human, where Ender had shed a pequenino's
blood to seal the pact between the species. There were many friends among
pequeninos and humans now, though many fears and enmities remained as well, but
the bridges had been built, in no small part because of Ender's book, which
gave the pequeninos hope that some human, someday, would understand them; hope
that sustained them until, with Ender, it became the truth.
And one expressionless
hiveworker sat at a remote distance, neither human nor pequenino near her. She
was nothing but a pair of eyes there. If the Hive Queen grieved for Ender, she
kept it to herself. She would always be mysterious, but Ender had loved her,
too; for three thousand years he had been her only friend, her protector. In a
sense, Ender could count her among his children, too, among the adopted
children who thrived under his protection.
In only three-quarters of an
hour, Plikt was done. She ended simply:
"Even though Ender's aiua
lives on, as all aiuas live on undying, the man we knew is gone from us. His
body is gone, and whatever parts of his life and works we take with us, they
aren't him any longer, they are ourselves, they are the Ender-within-us just as
we also have other friends and teachers, fathers and mothers, lovers and
children and siblings and even strangers within us, looking out at the world
through our eyes and helping us determine what it all might mean. I see Ender
in you looking out at me. You see Ender in me looking out at you. And yet not one
of us is truly him; we are each our own self, all of us strangers on our own
road. We walked awhile on that road with Ender Wiggin. He showed us things we
might not otherwise have seen. But the road goes on without him now. In the
end, he was no more than any other man. But no less, either."
And then it was over. No
prayer-- the prayers had all been said before she spoke, for the bishop had no
intention of letting this unreligious ritual of Speaking be a part of the
services of Holy Mother Church. The weeping had been done as well, the grief
purged. They rose from their places on the ground, the older ones stiffly, the
children with exuberance, running and shouting to make up for the long
confinement. It was good to hear laughter and shouting. That was also a good
way to say good-bye to Ender Wiggin.
Valentine kissed Jakt and her
children, embraced Wang-mu, then made her way alone through the crush of
citizens. So many of the humans of Milagre had fled to other colonies; but now,
with their planet saved, many of them chose not to stay on the new worlds.
Lusitania was their home. They weren't the pioneering kind. Many others,
though, had come back solely for this ceremony. Jane would return them to their
farms and houses on virgin worlds. It would take a generation or two to fill
the empty houses in Milagre.
On the porch Peter waited for
her. She smiled at him. "I think you have an appointment now," said
Valentine.
They walked together out of
Milagre and into the new-growth forest that still could not utterly hide the
evidence of recent fire. They walked until they came to a bright and shining
tree. They arrived almost at the same time that the others, walking from the
funeral site, arrived. Jane came to the glowing mothertree and touched it-- touched
a part of herself, or at least a dear sister. Then Peter took his place beside
Wang-mu, and Miro stood with Jane, and the priest married the two couples under
the mothertree, with pequeninos looking on, and Valentine as the only human
witness of the ceremony. No one else even knew the ceremony was taking place;
it would not do, they had decided, to distract from Ender's funeral or Plikt's
speaking. Time enough to announce the marriages later on.
When the ceremony was done,
the priest left, with pequeninos as his guide to take him back through the
wood. Valentine embraced the newly married couples, Jane and Miro, Peter and
Wang-mu, spoke to them for a moment one by one, murmured words of
congratulations and farewell, and then stood back and watched.
Jane closed her eyes, smiled,
and then all four of them were gone. Only the mothertree remained in the middle
of the clearing, bathed in light, heavy with fruit, festooned with blossoms, a
perpetual celebrant of the ancient mystery of life.