“Sixteen is old enough to join a colony without parental permission,” he said softly.
Alessandra pulled away from him, looked searchingly in his eyes.
“No,” said Ender. “Nothing will happen between us. I’m not asking you to stay for me.”
“Then why would you ask me to stay at all?”
“I’m not,” said Ender. “I’m telling you how. Right now, right here, I can set you free from your mother. Not to take her place, not to take control of your life, but to let you take control of it. The question is, do you want it?”
Alessandra’s eyes filled with sudden tears. “You don’t love me?”
“I care about you,” said Ender. “You’re a good person who has never had a moment’s freedom. Your mother controls your coming and going. She spins stories around you and eventually you always believe them and do what she wants. You barely know what you want. Here in Shakespeare, you’ll find out. Up there, with your mother and Admiral Morgan, I wonder if you’ll ever know.”
She nodded, understanding. “I know what I want. I want to stay.”
“Then stay,” said Ender.
“Tell her,” said Alessandra. “Please.”
“No.”
“If I talk to her, she’ll find some reason why I’m being stupid.”
“Don’t believe her.”
“She’ll make me feel guilty. Like I’m doing something really awful to her.”
“You’re not. In a way, you’re setting her free, too. She can have Morgan’s children and not worry about you.”
“You know about that? You know she’s going to have children with him?”
Ender sighed. “We don’t have time for this conversation now. Your mother’s coming because the shuttle has to leave and she expects you to be on it. If you decide to stay, I’ll back you up. If you go with her willingly, I won’t lift a hand to stop you.”
Then Ender stepped away from her, just as Dorabella arrived.
“I can see what he’s doing,” said Mother. “Promising you anything you want, just to get you to stay and become his plaything.”
“Mother,” said Alessandra, “you don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I know that whatever he promised you is a lie. He doesn’t love you.”
“I know he doesn’t,” said Alessandra. “He told me he doesn’t.”
It was rather satisfying to see how surprised Mother looked. “Then what was all that hugging about? The way he nuzzled you?”
“He was whispering in my ear.”
“What did he say?”
“He only reminded me of something I already knew,” said Alessandra.
“Tell me on the shuttle, my dear little fairy princess, because they’re getting quite impatient. They don’t want to make your father angry by arriving late.”
It hadn’t been a whole day since Alessandra told her mother never to call Quincy her “father,” and she was already doing it again. That’s how it always was—Mother decided how things should be, and nothing Alessandra did could change her. Instead Alessandra always had to change. Whatever Mother wanted, eventually Alessandra would go along with because it was easier. Mother made sure that doing things her way was always easier.
The only time I ever defied her was behind her back. When she wasn’t looking, when I could pretend she wouldn’t know. I walk in fear of her, even though she’s not a monster like my grandmother. Or…or maybe she is, but I never defied her enough to find out.
I don’t have to go with her. I can stay here.
But Ender doesn’t love me. Who do I have here? No friends, really. People I know from the voyage, but they all related to Mother, not to me. They talked about me, right in front of me, because Mother did. When they did speak to me, it was to say the things that Mother had virtually commanded them to say. I have no friends.
Ender and Valentine were the only ones who treated me like a person in my own right. And Ender doesn’t love me.
Why doesn’t he love me? What’s wrong with me? I’m pretty, I’m smart. Not as smart as he is, or Valentine is, but nobody’s that smart, not even on Earth. He said he desired me, that time back on the ship. He wants me, but he doesn’t love me. I’m just a body to him, just a big nothing, and if I stay here, I’ll be reminded of that all the time.
“My fairy darling,” said Mother, tugging at her sleeve again. “Come with me. We’re going to be so happy together, voyaging among the stars! You’ll get a superb education with the midshipmen—your father already promised me that—and by the time you’re the right age, we’ll certainly be back near Earth, so you can go to a real university and you can find a man instead of this obnoxious, self-centered boy.”
By now Mother was almost dragging her toward the shuttle. It was how things always went. Mother made it seem so inevitable to go along with her plans. And the alternatives were always so awful. Other people never understood Alessandra the way Mother did.
But Mother doesn’t, thought Alessandra. She doesn’t understand me. She just understands the insane picture she has of me. Her fairy changeling daughter.
Alessandra looked back over her shoulder, looking for Ender. There he was, showing nothing on his face at all. How can he do that? Has he no feelings? Won’t he miss me? Won’t he call me back? Won’t he plead for me?
No. He said he wouldn’t. He told me…my own choice…willingly…
Am I going with her willingly?
She’s dragging at me, but not with very much force at all. She’s talking me into it with every step, and I’m going. Like the rats following the pied piper of Hamelin. The music of her voice entrances me, and I follow, and then I find myself…here, on the ramp, heading to the shuttle.
Going back to where I’ll be under her thumb all the time. A rival to the children she and Quincy have together. A nuisance, ultimately. What will happen then, when she turns on me? And even if she doesn’t, it will only be because I’m complying completely with what she wants for me.
Alessandra stopped.
Mother’s hand slipped away from her arm—she really hadn’t been gripping her, or just barely.
“Alessandra,” said Mother. “I saw you look back at him, but you see? He doesn’t want you. He isn’t calling for you. There’s nothing for you here. But up there, in the stars, there’s my love for you. There’s the magic of our wonderful world together.”
But their wonderful world together wasn’t magic, it was a nightmare that Mother only called magic. And now there was someone else in that “wonderful world,” someone that Mother was sleeping with and going to have babies with.
Mother isn’t just lying to me, she’s lying to herself. She doesn’t really want me there. She has found her own new life, and she’s only pretending that nothing will be changed by it. The fact is that Mother desperately needs to be rid of me, so she can get on with her happiness. For sixteen years I’ve been the weight dragging her down, holding her to the ground, keeping her from doing any of the things she dreamed of. Now she has the man of her dreams—well, a man who can give her the life of her dreams. And I am in the way.
“Mother,” said Alessandra. “I’m not going with you.”
“Yes you are.”
“I’m sixteen,” said Alessandra. “The law says I can decide for myself whether to join a colony.”
“Nonsense.”
“It’s true. Valentine Wiggin joined this colony when she was only fifteen. Her parents didn’t want her to, but she did it.”
“Is that the lie she told you? It may seem romantic and brave, but you’ll just be lonely all the time.”
“Mother,” said Alessandra. “I’m lonely all the time anyway.”
Mother recoiled from her words. “How can you say that, you ungrateful little brat,” she said. “I’m with you. You’re never lonely.”
“I’m always lonely,” said Alessandra. “And you’re never with me. You’re with your darling angel fairy changeling child. And that’s not me.”
&nbs
p; Alessandra turned away and headed back down the ramp.
She heard Mother’s footsteps. No, she felt them, as the ramp bounced slightly under the impact of her feet.
Then she felt Mother shove her from behind, a brutal shove that threw her completely off balance. “Go, then, you little bitch!” Mother screamed.
Alessandra struggled to get her feet under her, but her upper body was moving far faster than her feet could match, and she felt herself falling forward, the ramp looking so steep, she was going to hit so hard and her hands wouldn’t be able to hold her up—
All of those thoughts in a split second, and then she felt her arm grabbed from behind and instead of hitting the ramp she swung down and then up again and it wasn’t Mother who caught her, Mother was still a few steps away, where she had been when she shoved her. This was Ensign Akbar, and his face looked so concerned, so kind.
“Are you all right?” he said, once he had her standing up.
“That’s right!” Mother shouted. “Bring that ungrateful little brat right inside here.”
“Do you want to go back to the ship with us?” asked Ensign Akbar.
“Of course she does,” said Mother, who was now at Akbar’s elbow. Alessandra could see the transformation in Mother’s face as she switched from the screamer who called Alessandra a bitch and a brat to the sweet fairy queen. “My darling fairy child is only happy when she’s with her mother.”
“I think I want to stay here,” said Alessandra softly. “Will you let me go?”
Ensign Akbar leaned over to her and whispered in her ear, exactly as Ender had done. “I wish I could stay here with you,” he said. Then he stood up to military attention. “Good-bye, Alessandra Toscano. Have a happy life here in this good world.”
“What are you saying! My husband will court-martial you for this!” The Mother moved past him, heading for Alessandra, a hand reaching out for her like the bony hand of death.
Ensign Akbar caught her by the wrist.
“How dare you,” she hissed directly into his face. “You’ve signed your death warrant for mutiny.”
“Admiral Morgan will approve of my preventing his wife from breaking the law,” said Ensign Akbar. “He will approve of my allowing this free colonist to exercise her right to fulfil her contract and stay in this colony.”
Mother put her face right up into his, and Alessandra could see how flecks of her spittle sprayed right into his mouth, his nose, and onto his chin and cheeks. Yet he didn’t budge. “It won’t be about this, you fool,” she said. “It will be about the time you tried to rape me in a darkened room on the ship.”
For a moment, Alessandra found herself wondering when such a thing might have happened, and why Mother didn’t mention it at the time.
Then she realized: It hadn’t happened. Mother only intended to say it had. She was threatening Ensign Akbar with a lie. And there was one thing for sure—Mother was a good liar. Because she believed her own lies.
But Akbar only smiled. “The lady Dorabella Morgan has forgotten something.”
“What is that?”
“Everything is recorded.” Then Akbar let go of Mother’s wrist, turned her around, and gave her a gentle nudge up the ramp.
Alessandra couldn’t help herself. She gave one short, sharp laugh.
Mother whirled around, her face full of rage. Looking so much like Grandmother. “Grandmother,” Alessandra said aloud. “I thought we left her behind, but look, we brought her with us.”
It was the cruelest thing Alessandra could have said, that was plain. Mother was dumbstruck with the pain of it. Yet it was also the simple truth, and Alessandra hadn’t said it to hurt her mother, it had simply spilled out of her mouth the moment she realized it was so.
“Good-bye, Mother,” said Alessandra. “Have lots of babies with Admiral Morgan. Be happy all the time. I wish you would. I hope you will.” Then she let Ensign Akbar take her down the ramp.
Ender was there—he had come closer while Mother was distracting her, and Alessandra hadn’t realized it. He had come for her after all.
She and Akbar reached the base of the ramp; she noticed that Ender did not set foot on it.
“Ensign Akbar,” said Ender, “you’re mistaken about Admiral Morgan. He will believe her, if only to have peace with her.”
“I’m afraid you’re right,” he said. “But what can I do?”
“You can resign your commission. Both by real time and relativistic time, your term of enlistment has expired.”
“I can’t resign in mid-voyage,” said Akbar.
“But you’re not in mid-voyage,” said Ender. “You’re in a port that is under the authority of the Hegemony, in the person of myself, the governor.”
“He won’t let it happen,” said Akbar.
“Yes he will,” said Ender. “He will obey the law, because it’s the same law that gives him his absolute authority during a voyage. If he breaks it against you, then it can be broken against him. He knows that.”
“And if he didn’t,” said Akbar, “you’re telling him right now.”
Only then did Alessandra realize that their words were still being recorded.
“I am,” said Ender. “So you don’t have to face the consequences of defying Mrs. Morgan. You acted with complete propriety. Here in the town of Miranda, you’ll be treated with the respect that a man of your integrity deserves.” Ender turned and with a sweep of his hand indicated the whole settlement. “The town is very small. But look—it’s so much larger than the ship.”
It was true. Alessandra could see that now for the first time. That this place was huge. There was room to get away from people if you didn’t like them. Room to carve out a space for yourself, to say things that nobody else could hear, to think your own thoughts.
I’ve made the right choice.
Ensign Akbar stepped off the end of the ramp. So did Alessandra. Back on the ramp, Mother howled something. But Alessandra did not make any sense of the sound. She could hear no words in it, though surely words were being said.
She didn’t have to hear it. She didn’t have to understand it. She no longer lived in Mother’s world.
CHAPTER 18
From: [email protected]
To: Gov%[email protected]
Subj: Unexpected colonists
Dear Ender,
I’m glad to hear that things are going so well in Shakespeare Colony. The successful assimilation of the new colonists is not being matched everywhere, and we have granted the petition of the governor of Colony IX that we not send them colonists—or a new governor—after all. In short, they have declared themselves even more in dependent than you have. (Your declaration that Shakespeare would accept no more offworld governors was cited as having prompted them to decide whether they wanted new colonists, so in a way this is all your fault, don’t you think?)
Unfortunately, their declaration came when I already had a ship with several thousand colonists, a new governor, and a huge amount of supplies most of the way toward their planet. They left not very long after your ship. Now they’re thirty-nine lightyears from home, and the party they were invited to has been canceled.
However, Shakespeare is close to the route they were taking, and at this moment, they are in such a position that we can bring them out of lightspeed, start turning them as soon as that becomes feasible, and get them to your planet in about a year.
These colonists will all be strangers to you. They have their own governor—again, someone you do not know or even know of. It would almost certainly work best if they establish their own settlement, accepting guidance and medical help and supplies from you, but governing themselves.
Since you have already divided your colony into four villages, the settlement they form will be larger than any of yours. It will be a far more difficult assimilation than when your ship arrived, and I suggest a federation of two colonies rather than incorporating them in your colony. Or, if you prefer, a federation of five cities, though having the ne
w colonists outnumbered four-to-one in such a federation will cause its own tensions.
If you tell me not to send them, I will follow your wishes; I can keep them on a holding pattern, even putting most of the crew in stasis, until one of the planets we’re terraforming is ready for them.
But if anyone can adapt to this situation, and induce his colony to accept the newcomers, it is you.
I am attaching full information, including bios and manifest.
—Hyrum
From: Gov%[email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subj: Re: Unexpected colonists
Dear Hyrum,
We’ll find a site for them and have habitations prepared when they arrive. We will put them near a formic city, so they can mine their technology and farm their fields, as we did; and because you’ve given us a year’s notice, we’ll have time to plant fields and orchards for them with human-adapted local crops and genetically altered Earth crops. The people of Shakespeare voted on this and are embracing the project with enthusiasm. I will leave shortly to choose an appropriate site.
—Andrew
In all eleven years of Abra’s life, only one thing had ever happened that mattered: the arrival of Ender Wiggin.
Until then, it was all work. Children were expected to do whatever was within their ability, and Abra had the misfortune to be clever with his hands. He could untie knots and tie them before he could make sentences. He could see how machinery worked and when he became strong enough to use adult tools, he could fix it or adapt it. He understood the flow of power through the metal parts. And so there were jobs for him to do even when other children were playing.
His father, Ix, was proud of his son, and so Abra was proud of himself. He was glad to be a child who was needed for grownup tasks. He was much smaller than his older brother Po, who had gone along with Uncle Sel to find the gold bugs; but he was sent to help rig the low trolley that people rode into and out of the cave, and on which food was taken to the colony of bugs, and gold carcasses removed.
The Ender Quintet (Omnibus) Page 197