Card, Orson Scott - Ender's Saga 3 - Xenocide

by Orson Scott Card

  O God, forgive me for playing God in the lives of these children of yours. When Planter's aiua comes before you to plead for us, grant the prayer he carries on our behalf— but only if it is your will to have his species altered so. Help us do good, but stop us if we would unwittingly cause harm. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

  She took a tear from her cheek onto her finger, and pressed it against the smooth bark of Planter's trunk. You aren't there to feel this, Planter, not inside the tree. But you feel it all the same, I do believe that. God would not let such a noble soul as yours be lost in darkness.

  It was time to go. Gentle brothers' hands touched her, pulled at her, drew her onward to the lab where Glass was waiting in isolation for his passage into the third life.

  ***

  When Ender had visited with Planter, he had been surrounded with medical equipment, lying on a bed. It was very different now inside the isolation chamber. Glass was in perfect health, and though he was wired up to all the monitoring devices, he was not bed-bound. Playful and happy, he could scarcely contain his eagerness to proceed.

  And now that Ela and the other pequeninos had come, it could begin.

  The only wall maintaining his isolation now was the disruptor field; outside it, the pequeninos who had gathered to watch his passage could see all that transpired. They were the only ones who watched in the open, however. Perhaps out of a sense of delicacy for pequenino feelings, or perhaps so they could have a wall between them and the brutality of this pequenino ritual, the humans had all gathered inside the lab, where only a window and the monitors let them see what would actually happen to Glass.

  Glass waited until the sterile-suited brothers were in place beside him, wooden knives in hand, before he tore up capirn and chewed it. It was the anaesthetic that would make this bearable for him. But it was also the first time that a brother bound for the third life had chewed native grass that contained no descolada virus within it. If Ela's new virus was right, then the capirn here would work as the descolada-ruled capirn had always worked.

  "If I pass into the third life," said Glass, "the honour belongs to God and to his servant Planter, not to me."

  It was fitting that Glass had chosen to use his last words of brother-speech to praise Planter. But his graciousness did not change the fact that thinking of Planter's sacrifice caused many among the humans to weep; hard as it was to interpret pequenino emotions, Ender had no doubt that the chattering sounds from the pequeninos gathered outside were also weeping, or some other emotion appropriate to Planter's memory. But Glass was wrong to think that there was no honour for him in this. Everyone knew that failure was still possible, that despite all the cause for hope they had, there was no certainty that Ela's recolada would have the power to take a brother into the third life.

  The sterile-suited brothers raised their knives and set to work. Not me, this time, thought Ender. Thank God I don't have to wield a knife to cause a brother's death.

  Yet he didn't avert his gaze, as so many others in the lab were doing. The blood and gore were not new to him, and even if that made it no less pleasant, at least he knew that he could bear it. And what Glass could bear to do, Ender could bear to witness. That was what a speaker for the dead was supposed to do, wasn't it? Witness. He watched as much as he could see of the ritual, as they opened up Glass's living body and planted his organs in the earth, so the tree could start to grow while Glass's mind was still alert and alive. Through it all, Glass made no sound or movement that suggested pain. Either his courage was beyond reckoning, or the recolada had done its work in the capirn grass as well, so that it maintained its anaesthetic properties.

  At last it was done, and the brothers who had taken him into the third life returned to the sterile chamber, where, once their suits were cleansed of the recolada and viricide bacteria, they shed them and returned naked into the lab. They were very solemn, but Ender thought he could see the excitement and exultation that they concealed. All had gone well. They had felt Glass's body respond to them. Within hours, perhaps minutes, the first leaves of the young tree should arise. And they were sure in their hearts that it would happen.

  Ender also noticed that one of them was a priest. He wondered what the Bishop would say, if he knew. Old Peregrino had proved himself to be quite adaptable to assimilating an alien species into the Catholic faith, and adapting ritual and doctrine to fit their peculiar needs. But that didn't change the fact that Peregrino was an old man who didn't enjoy the thought of priests taking part in rituals that, despite their clear resemblance to the crucifixion, were still not of the recognised sacraments. Well, these brothers knew what they were doing. Whether they had told the Bishop of one of his priests' participation or not, Ender wouldn't mention it; nor would any of the other humans present, if indeed any of them noticed.

  Yes, the tree was growing, and with great vigour, the leaves visibly rising as they watched. But it would still be many hours, days perhaps, before they knew if it was a father tree, with Glass still alive and conscious within it. A time of waiting, in which Glass's tree must grow in perfect isolation.

  If only I could find a place, thought Ender, in which I could also be isolated, in which I could work out the strange things that have happened to me, without interference.

  But he was not a pequenino, and whatever unease he suffered from was not a virus that could be killed, or driven from his life. His disease was at the root of his identity, and he didn't know if he could ever be rid of it without destroying himself in the process. Perhaps, he thought, Peter and Val represent the total of who I am; perhaps if they were gone, there'd be nothing left. What part of my soul, what action in my life is there that can't be explained as one or the other of them, acting out his or her will within me?

  Am I the sum of my siblings? Or the difference between them? What is the peculiar arithmetic of my soul?

  ***

  Valentine tried not to be obsessed with this young girl that Ender had brought back with him from Outside. Of course she knew it was her younger self as he remembered her, and she even thought it was rather sweet of him to carry inside his heart such a powerful memory of her at that age. She alone, of all the people on Lusitania, knew why it was at that age that she lingered in his unconscious. He had been in Battle School till then, cut off completely from his family. Though he could not have known it, she knew that their parents had pretty much forgotten him. Not forgotten that he existed, of course, but forgotten him as a presence in their lives. He simply wasn't there, wasn't their responsibility any more. Having given him away to the state, they were absolved. He would have been more a part of their lives if he had died; as it was, they didn't have even a grave to visit. Valentine didn't blame them for this — it proved that they were resilient and adaptable. But she wasn't able to mimic them. Ender was always with her, in her heart. And when, after being inwardly battered as he was forced to meet all the challenges they threw at him in Battle School, Ender now resolved to give up on the whole enterprise — when he, in effect, went on strike — the officer charged with turning him into a pliant tool came to her. Brought her to Ender. Gave them time together — the same man who had torn them apart and left such deep wounds in their hearts. She healed her brother then — enough that he could go back and save humanity by destroying the buggers.

  Of course he holds me in his memory at that age, more powerfully than any of our countless experiences together since. Of course when his unconscious mind brings forth its most intimate baggage, it is the girl I was then who lingers most deeply in his heart.

  She knew all this, she understood all this, she believed all this. Yet still it rankled, still it hurt that this almost mindlessly perfect creature was what he really thought of her all along. That the Valentine that Ender truly loved was a creature of impossible purity. It was for the sake of this imaginary Valentine that he was so close a companion to me all the years before I married Jakt. Unless it was because I married Jakt that he re
turned to this childish vision of me.

  Nonsense. There was nothing to be gained by trying to imagine what this young girl meant. Regardless of the manner of her creation, she was here now, and must be dealt with.

  Poor Ender— he seemed to understand nothing. He actually thought at first that he should keep young Val with him. "Isn't she my daughter, after a fashion?" he had asked.

  "After no fashion is she your daughter," she had answered. "If anything, she's mine. And it is certainly not proper for you to take her into your home, alone. Especially since Peter is there, and he isn't the most trustworthy co-guardian who ever lived." Ender still didn't fully agree — he would rather have got rid of Peter than Val — but he complied, and since then Val had lived in Valentine's house. Valentine's intention had been to become the girl's friend and mentor, but in the event she simply couldn't do it. She wasn't comfortable enough in Val's company. She kept finding reasons to leave home when Val was there; she kept feeling inordinately grateful when Ender came to let her tag along with him and Peter.

  What finally happened was that, as so often before, Plikt silently stepped in and solved the problem. Plikt became Val's primary companion and guardian in Valentine's house. When Val wasn't with Ender, she was with Plikt. And this morning Plikt had suggested setting up a house of her own— for her and Val. Perhaps I was too hasty in agreeing, thought Valentine. But it's probably as hard on Val to share a house with me as for me to share a house with her.

  Now, though, watching as Plikt and Val entered the new chapel on their knees and crawled forward — as all the other humans who entered had also crawled — to kiss Bishop Peregrino's ring before the altar, Valentine realised that she had done nothing for "Val's own good," whatever she might have told herself. Val was completely self-contained, unflappable, calm. Why should Valentine imagine that she could make young Val either more or less happy, more or less comfortable? I am irrelevant to this girl child's life. But she is not irrelevant to mine. She is at once an affirmation and a denial of the most important relationship of my childhood, and of much of my adulthood as well. I wish that she had crumbled into nothingness Outside, like Miro's old crippled body did. I wish I had never had to face myself like this.

  And it was herself she was facing. Ela had run that test immediately. Young Val and Valentine were genetically identical.

  "But it makes no sense," Valentine protested. "Ender could hardly have memorised my genetic code. There couldn't possibly have been a pattern of that code in the starship with him."

  "Am I supposed to explain it?" asked Ela.

  Ender had suggested a possibility— that young Val's genetic code was fluid until she and Valentine actually met, and then the philotes of Val's body had formed themselves into the pattern they found in Valentine's.

  Valentine kept her own opinion to herself, but she doubted that Ender's guess was right. Young Val had had Valentine's genes from the first moment, because any person who so perfectly fit Ender's vision of Valentine could not have any other genes; the natural law that Jane herself was helping to maintain within the starship would have required it. Or perhaps there was some force that shaped and gave order even to a place of such utter chaos. It hardly mattered, except that however annoyingly perfect and uncomplaining and unlike me this new pseudo-Val might be, Ender's vision of her had been true enough that genetically they were the same. His vision couldn't be much off the mark. Perhaps I really was that perfect then, and only got my rough edges during the years since then. Perhaps I really was that beautiful. Perhaps I really was so young.

  They knelt before the Bishop. Plikt kissed his ring, though she owed no part of the penance of Lusitania.

  When it came time for young Val to kiss the ring, however, the Bishop pulled away his hand and turned away. A priest came forward and told them to go to their seats.

  "How can I?" said young Val. "I haven't given my penance yet."

  "You have no penance," said the priest. "The Bishop told me before you came; you weren't here when the sin was committed, so you have no part in the penance."

  Young Val looked at him very sadly and said, "I was created by someone other than God. That's why the Bishop won't receive me. I'll never have communion while he lives."

  The priest looked very sad— it was impossible not to feel sorry for young Val, for her simplicity and sweetness made her seem fragile, and the person who hurt her therefore had to feel clumsy for having damaged such a tender thing. "Until the Pope can decide," he said. "All this is very hard."

  "I know," whispered young Val. Then she came and sat down between Plikt and Valentine.

  Our elbows touch, thought Valentine. A daughter who is perfectly myself, as if I had cloned her thirteen years ago.

  But I didn't want another daughter, and I certainly didn't want a duplicate of me. She knows that. She feels it. And so she suffers something that I never suffered— she feels unwanted and unloved by those who are most like her.

  How does Ender feel about her? Does he also wish that she would go away? Or does he yearn to be her brother, as he was my young brother so many years ago? When I was that age, Ender had not yet committed xenocide. But then, he had not yet spoken for the dead, either. The Hive Queen, The Hegemon, The Life of Human— all that was beyond him then.

  He was just a child, confused, despairing, afraid. How could Ender yearn for that time again?

  Miro soon came in, crawled to the altar, and kissed the ring. Though the Bishop had absolved him of any responsibility, he bore the penance with all others. Valentine noticed, of course, the many whispers as he moved forward. Everyone in Lusitania who had known him before his brain damage recognised the miracle that had been performed— a perfect restoration of the Miro who had lived so brightly among them all before.

  I didn't know you then, Miro, thought Valentine. Did you always have that distant, brooding air? Healed your body may be, but you're still the man who lived in pain for this time. Has it made you cold or more compassionate?

  He came and sat beside her, in the chair that would have been Jakt's, except that Jakt was still in space. With the descolada soon to be destroyed, someone had to bring to Lusitania's surface the thousands of frozen microbes and plant and animal species that had to be introduced in order to establish a self-regulating gaialogy and keep the planetary systems in order. It was a job that had been done on many other worlds, but it was being made trickier by the need not to compete too intensely with the local species that the pequeninos depended on. Jakt was up there, labouring for them all; it was a good reason to be gone, but Valentine still missed him— needed him badly, in fact, what with Ender's new creations causing her such turmoil. Miro was no substitute for her husband, especially because his own new body was such a sharp reminder of what had been done Outside.

  If I went out there, what would I create? I doubt that I'd bring back a person, because I fear there is no one soul at the root of my psyche. Not even my own, I fear. What else has my passionate study of history been, except a search for humanity? Others find humanity by looking in their own hearts. Only lost souls need to search for it outside themselves.

  "The line's almost done," whispered Miro.

  So the service would begin soon.

  "Ready to have your sins purged?" whispered Valentine.

  "As the Bishop explained, he'll purge only the sins of this new body. I still have to confess and do penance for the sins I had left over from the old one. Not many carnal sins were possible, of course, but there's plenty of envy, spite, malice, and self-pity. What I'm trying to decide is whether I also have a suicide to confess. When my old body crumbled into nothing, it was answering the wish of my heart."

  "You should never have got your voice back," said Valentine. "You babble now just to hear yourself talk so prettily."

  He smiled and patted her arm.

  The Bishop began the service with prayer, giving thanks to God for all that had been accomplished in recent months. Conspicuous by omission was the creation of Lusi
tania's two newest citizens, though Miro's healing was definitely laid at God's door. He called Miro forward and baptised him almost at once, and then, because this was not a mass, the Bishop proceeded immediately to his homily.

  "God's mercy has an infinite reach," said the Bishop. "We can only hope he will choose to reach farther than we deserve, to forgive us for our terrible sins as individuals and as a people. We can only hope that, like Nineveh, which turned away destruction through repentance, we can convince our Lord to spare us from the fleet that he has permitted to come against us to punish us."