The Ender Quintet (Omnibus)

by Card, Orson Scott

  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 memorized 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 recognized 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, laboring 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 Lusitania’s two newest citizens, though Miro’s healing was definitely laid at God’s door. He called Miro forward and baptized 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.”

  Miro whispered, softly, so that only she could hear, “Didn’t he send the fleet before the burning of the forest?”

  “Maybe the Lord counts only the arrival time, not the departure,” Valentine suggested. At once, though, she regretted her flippancy. What was happening here today was a solemn thing; even if she wasn’t a deep believer in Catholic doctrine, she knew that it was a holy thing when a community accepted responsibility for the evil it committed and did true penance for it.

  The Bishop spoke of those who had died in holiness—Os Venerados, who first saved humanity from the descolada plague; Father Estevão, whose body was buried under the floor of the chapel and who suffered martyrdom in the cause of defending truth against heresy; Planter, who died to prove that his people’s soul was from God, and not from a virus; and the pequeninos who had died as innocent victims of slaughter. “All of these may be saints someday, for this is a time like the early days of Christianity, when great deeds and great holiness were much more needed, and therefore much more often achieved. This chapel is a shrine to all those who have loved their God with all their heart, might, mind and strength, and who have loved their neighbor as themself. Let all who enter here do it with a broken heart and a contrite spirit, so that holiness may also touch them.”

  The homily wasn’t long, because there were many more identical services scheduled for that day—the people were coming to the chapel in shifts, since it was far too small to accommodate the whole human population of Lusitania all at once. Soon enough they were done, and Valentine got up to leave. S
he would have followed close behind Plikt and Val, except that Miro caught at her arm.

  “Jane just told me,” he said. “I thought you’d want to know.”

  “What?”

  “She just tested the starship, without Ender in it.”

  “How could she do that?” asked Valentine.

  “Peter,” he said. “She took him Outside and back again. He can contain her aiúa, if that’s how this process is actually working.”

  She gave voice to her immediate fear. “Did he—”

  “Create anything? No.” Miro grinned—but with a hint of the twisted wryness that Valentine had thought was a product of his affliction. “He claims it’s because his mind is much clearer and healthier than Andrew’s.”

  “Maybe so,” said Valentine.

  “I say it’s because none of the philotes out there were willing to be part of his pattern. Too twisted.”

  Valentine laughed a little.

  The Bishop came up to them then. Since they were among the last to leave, they were alone at the front of the chapel.

  “Thank you for accepting a new baptism,” said the Bishop.

  Miro bowed his head. “Not many men have a chance to be purified so far along in their sins,” he said.

  “And Valentine, I’m sorry I couldn’t receive your—namesake.”

  “Don’t worry, Bishop Peregrino. I understand. I may even agree with you.”

  The Bishop shook his head. “It would be better if they could just—”

  “Leave?” offered Miro. “You get your wish. Peter will soon be gone—Jane can pilot a ship with him aboard. No doubt the same thing will be possible with young Val.”

  “No,” said Valentine. “She can’t go. She’s too—”

  “Young?” asked Miro. He seemed amused. “They were both born knowing everything that Ender knows. You can hardly call the girl a child, despite her body.”

  “If they had been born,” said the Bishop, “They wouldn’t have to leave.”

  “They’re not leaving because of your wish,” said Miro. “They’re leaving because Peter’s going to deliver Ela’s new virus to Path, and young Val’s ship is going to go off in search of planets where pequeninos and hive queens can be established.”

  “You can’t send her on such a mission,” said Valentine.

  “I won’t send her,” said Miro. “I’ll take her. Or rather, she’ll take me. I want to go. Whatever risks there are, I’ll take them. She’ll be safe, Valentine.”

  Valentine still shook her head, but she knew already that in the end she would be defeated. Young Val herself would insist on going, however young she might seem, because if she didn’t go, only one starship could travel; and if Peter was the one doing the traveling, there was no telling whether the ship would be used for any good purpose. In the long run, Valentine herself would bow to the necessity. Whatever danger young Val might be exposed to, it was no worse than the risks already taken by others. Like Planter. Like Father Estevao. Like Glass.

  The pequeninos gathered at Planter’s tree. It would have been Glass’s tree, since he was the first to pass into the third life with the recolada, but almost his first words, once they were able to talk with him, were an adamant rejection of the idea of introducing the viricide and recolada into the world beside his tree. This occasion belonged to Planter, he declared, and the brothers and wives ultimately agreed with him.

  So it was that Ender leaned against his friend Human, whom he had planted in order to help him into the third life so many years before. It would have been a moment of complete joy to Ender, the liberation of the pequeninos from the descolada—except that he had Peter with him through it all.

  “Weakness celebrates weakness,” said Peter. “Planter failed, and here they are honoring him, while Glass succeeded, and there he stands, alone out there in the experimental field. And the stupidest thing is that it can’t possibly mean anything to Planter, since his aiúa isn’t even here.”

  “It may not mean anything to Planter,” said Ender—a point he wasn’t altogether sure of, anyway—“but it means something to the people here.”

  “Yes,” he said. “It means they’re weak.”

  “Jane says she took you Outside.”

  “An easy trip,” said Peter. “Next time, though, Lusitania won’t be my destination.”

  “She says you plan to take Ela’s virus to Path.”

  “My first stop,” Peter said. “But I won’t be coming back here. Count on that, old boy.”

  “We need the ship.”

  “You’ve got that sweet little slip of a girl,” said Peter, “and the bugger bitch can pop out starships for you by the dozen, if only you could spawn enough creatures like me and Valzinha to pilot them.”

  “I’ll be glad to see the last of you.”

  “Aren’t you curious what I intend to do?”

  “No,” said Ender.

  But it was a lie, and of course Peter knew it. “I intend to do what you have neither the brains nor the stomach to do. I intend to stop the fleet.”

  “How? Magically appear on the flagship?”

  “Well, if worse came to worst, dear lad, I could always deliver an M.D. Device to the fleet before they even knew I was there. But that wouldn’t accomplish much, would it? To stop the fleet, I need to stop Congress. And to stop Congress, I need to get control.”

  Ender knew at once what this meant. “So you think you can be Hegemon again? God help humanity if you succeed.”

  “Why shouldn’t I?” said Peter. “I did it once before, and I didn’t do so badly. You should know—you wrote the book yourself.”

  “That was the real Peter,” said Ender. “Not you, the twisted version conjured up out of my hatred and fear.”

  Did Peter have soul enough to resent these harsh words? Ender thought, for a moment at least, that Peter paused, that his face showed a moment of—what, hurt? Or simply rage?

  “I’m the real Peter now,” he answered, after that momentary pause. “And you’d better hope that I have all the skill I had before. After all, you managed to give Valette the same genes as Valentine. Maybe I’m all that Peter ever was.”

  “Maybe pigs have wings.”

  Peter laughed. “They would, if you went Outside and believed hard enough.”

  “Go, then,” said Ender.

  “Yes, I know you’ll be glad to get rid of me.”

  “And sic you on the rest of humanity? Let that be punishment enough, for their having sent the fleet.” Ender gripped Peter by the arm, pulled him close. “Don’t think that this time you can maneuver me into helplessness. I’m not a little boy anymore, and if you get out of hand, I’ll destroy you.”

  “You can’t,” said Peter. “You could more easily kill yourself.”

  The ceremony began. This time there was no pomp, no ring to kiss, no homily. Ela and her assistants simply brought several hundred sugar cubes impregnated with the viricide bacterium, and as many vials of solution containing the recolada. They were passed among the congregation, and each of the pequeninos took the sugar cube, dissolved and swallowed it, and then drank off the contents of the vial.

  “This is my body which is given for you,” intoned Peter. “This do in remembrance of me.”

  “Have you no respect for anything?” asked Ender.

  “This is my blood, which I shed for you. Drink in remembrance of me.” Peter smiled. “This is a communion even I can take, unbaptized as I am.”

  “I can promise you this,” said Ender. “They haven’t invented the baptism yet that can purify you.”

  “I’ll bet you’ve been saving up all your life, just to say that to me.” Peter turned to him, so Ender could see the ear in which the jewel had been implanted, linking him to Jane. In case Ender didn’t notice what he was pointing out, Peter touched the jewel rather ostentatiously. “Just remember, I have the source of all wisdom here. She’ll show you what I’m doing, if you ever care. If you don’t forget me the moment I’m gone.”

&
nbsp; “I won’t forget you,” said Ender.

  “You could come along,” said Peter.

  “And risk making more like you Outside?”

  “I could use the company.”

  “I promise you, Peter, you’d soon get as sick of yourself as I am sick of you.”

  “Never,” said Peter. “I’m not filled with self-loathing the way you are, you poor guilt-obsessed tool of better, stronger men. And if you won’t make more companions for me, why, I’ll find my own along the way.”

  “I have no doubt of it,” said Ender.

  The sugar cubes and vials came to them; they ate, drank.

  “The taste of freedom,” said Peter. “Delicious.”

  “Is it?” said Ender. “We’re killing a species that we never understood.”

  “I know what you mean,” said Peter. “It’s a lot more fun to destroy an opponent when he’s able to understand how thoroughly you defeated him.”

  Then, at last, Peter walked away.

  Ender stayed through the end of the ceremony, and spoke to many there: Human and Rooter, of course, and Valentine, Ela, Ouanda, and Miro.

  He had another visit to make, however. A visit he had made several times before, always to be rebuffed, sent away without a word. This time, though, Novinha came out to speak with him. And instead of being filled with rage and grief, she seemed quite calm.

  “I’m much more at peace,” she said. “And I know, for what it’s worth, that my rage at you was unrighteous.”