"I talk to anybody and everybody. I'm quite the chatterbox."
"There's a stone wall around you and those words you just said are some of the bricks."
"Bricks in a stone wall?"
"So you are listening!" she said triumphantly. "Ender, I'm not trying to violate your privacy. Keep it all in. Whatever it is."
"I'm not keeping anything in," said Ender. "I don't have any secrets. My whole life is on the nets, it belongs to the human race now, and I'm really not that worried about it. It's like I don't even live in my body. Just in my mind. Just trying to solve this question that won't leave me alone."
"What question?"
"The question I keep asking the hive queens, and they never answer."
"What question?"
"I keep asking them, 'Why did you die?'"
Petra searched his face for...what, a sign that he was joking? "Ender, they died because we--"
"Why were they still on that planet? Why weren't they in ships, speeding away? They chose to stay, knowing we had that weapon, knowing what it did and how it worked, they stayed for the battle, they waited for us to come."
"They fought us as hard as they could. They didn't want to die, Ender. They didn't commit suicide by human soldier."
"They knew we had beaten them time after time. They had to think it was at least a possibility that it would happen again. And they stayed."
"So they stayed."
"It's not like they had to prove their loyalty or courage to the footsoldiers. The workers and soldiers were like their own body parts. That would be like saying, 'I have to do this because I want my hands to know how brave I am.'"
"I can see you've given this a lot of thought. Obsessive, borderline crazy thought. But whatever keeps you happy. You are happy, you know. People all over Eros talk about it--how cheerful that Wiggin boy always is. You've got to cut back on the whistling, though. It's driving people crazy."
"Petra, I've done my life's work. I don't think they're going to let me go back to Earth, not even to visit. I hate that, I'm angry about it, but I also understand it. And in a way it's fine with me. I've had all the responsibility I want. I'm done. I'm retired. No more duty to anybody. So now I get to think about what actually bothers me. The problem I have to solve."
He slid the pictures forward on the library table. "Who are these people?" he asked.
Petra looked at the pictures of the dead larvae and formic workers and said, "They aren't people, Ender. They're formics. And they're gone."
"For years I've bent every thought to understanding them, Petra. To knowing them better than I know any human being in my life. To loving them. So I could use that knowledge to defeat them and destroy them. Now they're destroyed, but that doesn't mean that I can switch off my attention to them."
Petra's face lit up. "I get it. I finally get it!"
"Get what?"
"Why you're so weird, Ender Wiggin, sir. It's not weird at all."
"If you think I'm not weird, Petra, it proves you don't understand me."
"The rest of us, we fought a war and we won it and we're going home. But you, Ender, you were married to the formics. When the war ended you were widowed."
Ender sighed and rolled his chair back from the table.
"I'm not joking," said Petra. "It's like when my great-grandpa died. Great-grandma had always taken care of him, it was pathetic the way he bossed her around, and she just did whatever he wanted, and my mother would say to me, 'Don't you ever marry a man who treats you like that,' but when he died, you'd think Great-grandma would have been liberated. Free at last! But she wasn't. She was lost. She kept looking for him. She kept talking about things she was working on for him. Can't do this, can't do that, Babo wouldn't like it, until my grandpa--her son--said, 'He's gone.'"
"I know the formics are gone, Petra."
"And so did Great-grandma. That's what she said. 'I know. I just can't figure out why I'm not gone too.'"
Ender slapped his forehead. "Thank you, doctor, you finally revealed my innermost motivations and now I'm able to get on with my life."
Petra ignored his sarcasm. "They died without giving you answers. That's why you hardly notice what's going on around you. Why you can't act like a regular friend to anybody. Why you don't even seem to care that there are people down there on Earth who are trying to keep you from ever coming home. You win the victory and they want to exile you for life and you don't care because all you can think about is your lost formics. They're your dead wife and you can't let go."
"It wasn't much of a marriage," said Ender.
"You're still in love."
"Petra, cross-species romance just isn't for me."
"You said it yourself. You had to love them to defeat them. You don't have to agree with me now. It will come to you later. You'll wake up in a cold sweat and you'll shout, 'Eureka! Petra was right!' Then you can start fighting for the right to return to the planet you saved. You can start caring about something again."
"I care about you, Petra," said Ender. What he didn't say was: I already care about understanding the hive queens, but you don't count that because you don't get it.
She shook her head. "No getting through the wall," she said. "But I thought it was worth one last try. I'm right, though. You'll see. You can't let these hive queens deform the rest of your life. You have to let them be dead and move on."
Ender smiled. "I hope you find happiness at home, Petra. And love. And I hope you have the babies that you want and a good life full of meaning and accomplishment. You are so ambitious--and I think you'll have it all, true love and domesticity and great achievements."
Petra stood up. "What makes you think I want babies?" she said.
"I know you," said Ender.
"You think you know me."
"The way you think you know me?"
"I'm not a lovesick girl," said Petra, "and if I were, it wouldn't be over you."
"Ah, so it bothers you when somebody presumes to know your deepest inner motivation."
"It bothers me that you're such an oomo."
"Well, you've cheered me up marvelous well, Miss Arkanian. We oomos are grateful when the fine folk from the big house come to visit us."
Petra's voice was angry and defiant when she fired her parting shot. "Well, I actually love you and care about you, Ender Wiggin." Then she turned and walked away.
"And I love and care about you, only you wouldn't believe me when I said it!"
At the door she turned back to face him. "Ender Wiggin, I wasn't being sarcastic or patronizing when I said that."
"Neither was I!"
But she was gone.
"Maybe I've been trying to study the wrong alien species," he said softly.
He looked at the display above his desk. It was still in motion, though muted, showing bits from Mazer's testimony. He looked so cold, so aloof, as if he had contempt for the whole business. When they asked about Ender's violence and whether that made it hard to train him, Mazer turned to face the judges and said, "I'm sorry, I misunderstood, isn't this a court martial? Aren't we all soldiers here, trained to commit acts of violence?"
The judge gaveled him down and reprimanded him, but the point was made. Violence was what the military existed for--controlled violence, directed against appropriate targets. Without actually having to say a word about Ender, Mazer had made it clear that violence wasn't a drawback, it was the point.
It made Ender feel better. He could switch off the newslink and get back to work.
He stood up to reach across the table and retrieve the photos that Petra had moved. The face of a dead formic farmer from one of the faroff planets stared up at him, the torso open and the organs arranged neatly around the corpse.
I can't believe you gave up, Ender said silently to the picture. I can't believe that a whole species lost its will to live. Why did you let me kill you?
"I will not rest until I know you," he whispered.
But they were gone. Which meant that he cou
ld never, never rest.
CHAPTER 3
To: mazerrackham%[email protected]/imaginary.heroes
From: hgraff%[email protected]
{self-shred protocol}
Subj: How about a little voyage?
Dear Mazer,
I know as well as anyone that you almost refused to come home from your last voyage, and I'm certainly not going to let them send you anywhere now. But you took too big a risk testifying for me (or for Ender; or for truth and justice; I don't presume to guess your motives) and the heat is on. The best way, I think, for you to become less visible and therefore less likely to be further interfered with is to let it be known that you will be the commander of a certain colony ship. The one that's going to carry Ender away to safety.
Once you're fully ignored because you're supposedly going on a forty-year voyage, it will be easy enough to reassign you at the last minute to another ship that isn't leaving till later. No publicity that time. You'll just happen not to go.
As for Ender, we'll let him in on the lie from the start. He doesn't need or deserve any more surprises. But he also doesn't need you or me to protect him. I think he's proven that many times over.
--Hyrum
PS: It's just too cute for you to use your real name as your secret identity on Unguessable.com. Who knew you had a sense of irony?
Mother and Father were both out of the house. That was a bad thing, because it meant Peter could get in full carpet-chewing mode if he felt like it, and things were definitely heading that way.
"I can't believe I got suckered into this," said Peter.
"Suckered into what?"
"Having Locke and Demosthenes push for Ender not to come home."
"You haven't been paying attention," said Valentine. "Demosthenes is pushing for Ender to come back and restore America to its former greatness. And Locke is the conciliatory moderate, trying to find a middle way, as he always does, the miserable appeaser."
"Oh shut up," said Peter. "It's too late for you to start playing dumb. But I had no way of knowing they were going to turn that stupid court martial into a smear campaign against the Wiggin name!"
"Oh, I see," said Valentine. "It's not Ender, it's the fact that you can't take advantage of being Locke without revealing who you are, and who you are is Ender's brother. Now that won't be such a nice boost for you."
"I can't accomplish anything unless I get into a position of influence, and now it's going to be a lot harder because Ender killed people."
"In self-defense."
"When he was a baby."
"I distinctly remember," said Valentine, "that you once promised to kill him."
"I didn't mean it."
Valentine had her doubts. She was the only one who didn't trust Peter's sudden bout of niceness several Christmases ago, when apparently he was anointed by Saint Nick--or Uriah Heap--with the unguent of altruism. "My point is that Ender didn't kill everybody who threatened him."
And there it was--a flash of the old rage. She watched, amused, as Peter fought it down, got it under control.
"It's too late to change our position on Ender's return." He said it like an accusation, as if this had all been her idea.
Well, in a way, it had. But not the actual implementation--that was all Peter's script.
"But before we let it be discovered who Locke really is, we have to rehabilitate Ender's reputation. That's not going to be easy. I just can't figure out which of us should do it. On the one hand, Demosthenes would be right in character--but nobody would trust his motives. On the other hand, if Locke does it openly, then everybody will think I had an ulterior motive when it comes out who I really am."
Valentine didn't even smirk, though she knew--had known for years--that Colonel Graff and probably half the I.F. command knew who Locke and Demosthenes really were. They had kept the secret so that it wouldn't compromise Ender. But at some point, somebody was going to let it slip--and it wasn't going to be on Peter's own timing.
"No, I think what we have to do," said Peter, "is bring Ender home after all. But not to the United States, or at least not under the control of the U.S. government. I think Locke needs to speak with compassion about the young hero who can't help how he was exploited." Peter put on his Locke voice--a conciliatory whine that if he ever used it in public, Locke would be out of business in a trice. "Let him come home, as a citizen of the world he saved. Let the Hegemon's Council protect him. If no one threatens him, the boy poses no danger." Peter looked at her triumphantly and went back to his own voice. "See? We bring him home, and then when my identity comes out, I'm a loyal brother, yes, but I also acted for the good of the whole world, and not for the advantage of the United States."
"You're forgetting a couple of things," said Valentine.
Peter glared at her. He hated it when she accused him of making a mistake, but he had to listen to her because she was often right. Even though he usually pretended that he had already thought of her objection.
"First, you're assuming that Ender wants to come home."
"Of course he wants to come home."
"You don't know that. We don't know him. Second, you're assuming that if he does come home, he'll be such a cuddly kid that everybody will decide he isn't really a child-killing monster."
"We've both watched the vids of the court martial," said Peter. "Those men love Ender Wiggin. You could see it in everything they said and did. All that mattered to them was protecting him. Which is exactly how everybody used to act when Ender lived here."
"He never actually lived here," said Valentine. "We moved after he left, remember?"
Another glare. "Ender makes people want to die for him."
"Or kill him," she said with a smile.
"Ender makes adults love him."
"So we're back to the first problem."
"He wants to come home," said Peter. "He's human. Humans want to go home."
"But where is Ender's home?" asked Valentine. "He's spent more than half his life in Battle School. What does he even remember about living with us? An older brother who was constantly bullying him, threatening to kill him--"
"I'll apologize," said Peter. "I really am sorry I acted like that."
"But you can't apologize if he doesn't come home. Besides, Peter, he's a smart kid. Smarter than us--there's a reason we weren't taken into Battle School and he was. So he'll figure out exactly how you're using him. Hegemon's Council--that is such itshay. He won't stay under your thumb."
"He's been trained for war. Not for politics," said Peter.
His hint of a smile was so smug Valentine wanted to smash a baseball bat into his face a little. "It doesn't matter," said Valentine. "You can't bring him home no matter what Locke writes."
"And why is that?"
"Because you didn't create the forces that dread him and fear his return, you just exploited them. They aren't going to change their minds, not even for Locke. And also, Demosthenes won't let you."
Peter looked at her with amused contempt. "Oh, going freelance, eh?"
"I think I can scare people into keeping Ender in space better than you can make them pity him enough to bring him home."
"I thought you loved him best. I thought you wanted him home."
"I wanted him home for the past seven years, Peter," said Valentine, "and you were glad he was gone. But now--to bring him home so that he can be under the protection of the Hegemon's Council--which means under your control, since you've got the thing packed with your toadies--"
"Locke's toadies," Peter corrected her.
"I'm not helping you bring Ender home so he can be a tool to advance your career."
"So you'd make your beloved little brother stay in permanent exile in space, just to spite your nasty older brother?" asked Peter. "Wow, I'm glad I'm not the one you love."
"You nailed it, Peter," said Valentine. "I've spent all these years under your thumb. I know exactly how it feels. Ender would hate it. I know, because I hate it."
&n
bsp; "You've loved the whole thing. Being Demosthenes--you know what power feels like."
"I know what it feels like to have power flow through me and into your hands," said Valentine.
"Is that what this is about? You're suddenly power hungry?"
"Peter, you're such an idiot about the people you supposedly know best. I'm not telling you I want your power. I'm telling you that I'm getting out from under your thumb."
"Fine, I'll just write the Demosthenes essays myself."
"No you won't, because people would know something was wrong. You can't do Demosthenes."
"Anything you can do..."
"I've changed all the passwords. I've hidden all of Demosthenes' memberships and money and you can't get to any of it."
Peter gazed at her with pity. "I'll find it all if I want to."
"It wouldn't do you any good. Demosthenes is retiring from politics, Peter. He's going to plead ill health and offer a ringing endorsement...of Locke!"
Peter looked horrorstruck. "You can't! It would destroy Locke to have Demosthenes' endorsement!"
"You see? I do have some weapons you fear."
"Why would you do this? All these years, and suddenly now you've decided to pack up your dolls and dishes and leave the tea party?"
"I never played with dolls, Peter. Apparently you did."
"Stop this," said Peter sternly. "Really. It's not funny. Let's get Ender home. I won't try to control him the way you're saying."
"You mean the way you control me."
"Come on, Val," said Peter. "Just a couple more years and I can unmask myself as Locke--and as Ender's brother. Sure, salvaging his reputation will help me, but it'll help Ender, too."
"I think you should do it. Salvage away, Peter. But I don't think Ender should come home. Instead, I'll go to him. Mom and Dad will, too, I bet."
"They're not going to pay for you to have a jaunt into space--not all the way to Eros. That would take months anyway. Right now it's practically on the other side of the sun."
"Not a jaunt," said Valentine. "I'm leaving Earth. I'm joining Ender in exile."
For a moment Peter believed her. It was gratifying to see genuine alarm on his face. Then he relaxed. "Mom and Dad won't let you," he said.
"Fifteen-year-old females don't have to have their parents' consent to volunteer to be colonists. We're the ideal age for reproduction, and are assumed to be dumb enough to volunteer."
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