The Ender Quintet (Omnibus)

by Card, Orson Scott

  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 aiúa running along the ansible web. He’s a person. When people’s aiúas leave their bodies, they don’t go chasing around to something else.”

  “And yet his—my—aiúa 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 aiúa 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 aiúa 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?”