First Meetings In the Enderverse

by Orson Scott Card

  Andrew thought of having this woman talking to him day in and day out and he shook his head. "No thanks."

  "Why? Is my voice too chirpy for you?" Jane said. Then, in a lower register, with some breathiness added, she continued: "I can change my voice to whatever comfort level you prefer." Her head suddenly changed to that of a man. In a baritone voice with just the slightest hint of effeminacy, he said, "Or I can be a man, with varying degrees of manliness." The face changed again, to more rugged features, and the voice was downright beery. "This is the bear hunter version, in case you have doubts about your manhood and need to overcompensate."

  Andrew laughed in spite of himself. Who programmed this thing? The humor, the ease with language

  —these were way above even the best software he had seen. Artificial intelligence was still a wishful thought—no matter how good the sim was, you always knew within moments that you were dealing with a program. But this sim was so much better—so much more like a pleasant companion—that he might have bought it just to see how deep the program went, how well the sim would hold up over time. And since it was also precisely the financial program that he needed, he decided to go ahead.

  "I want a daily tally of how much I'm paying for your services," said Andrew. "So I can get rid of you if you get too expensive."

  "Just remember, no tipping," said the man.

  "Go back to the first one," said Andrew. "Jane. And the default voice."

  The woman's head reappeared. "You don't want the sexy voice?"

  "I'll tell you if I ever get that lonely," said Andrew.

  "What if I get lonely? Did you ever think about that?"

  "No, I don't want any flirty banter," said Andrew. "I'm assuming you can switch that off."

  "It's already gone," she said.

  "Then let's get my tax forms ready." Andrew sat down, expecting it to take several minutes to get under way. Instead, the completed tax form appeared in the display. Jane's face was gone. But her voice remained. "Here's the bottom line. I promise you it's entirely legal, and he can't touch you for it. This is how the laws are written. They're designed to protect the fortunes of people as rich as you, while throwing the main tax burden on people in much lower brackets. Your brother Peter designed the law that way, and it's never been changed except for tweaking it here and there."

  Andrew sat there in stunned silence for a few moments.

  "Oh, was I supposed to pretend I didn't know who you are?"

  "Who else knows?" asked Andrew.

  "It's not exactly protected information. Anybody could look it up and figure it out from the record of your voyages. Would you like me to put up some security around your true identity?"

  "What will it cost me?"

  "It's part of a full installation," said Jane. Her face reappeared. "I'm designed to be able to put up barriers and hide information. All legal, of course. It will be especially easy in your case, because so much of your past is still listed as top secret by the fleet. It's very easy to pull information like your various voyages into the penumbra of fleet security, and then you have the whole weight of the military protecting your past. If someone tries to breach the security, the fleet comes down on them—

  even though no one in the fleet will know quite what it is they're protecting. It's a reflex for them."

  "You can do that?"

  "I just did it. All the evidence that might have given it away is gone. Disappeared. Poof. I'm really very good at my job."

  It crossed Andrew's mind that this software was way too powerful. Nothing that could do all these things could possibly be legal. "Who made you?" he asked.

  "Suspicious, eh?" asked Jane. "Well, you made me."

  "I'd remember," said Andrew dryly.

  "When I installed myself the first time, I did my normal analysis. But it's part of my program to be self-modifying. I saw what you needed, and programmed myself to be able to do it."

  "No self-modifying program is that good," said Andrew.

  "Till now."

  "I would have heard of you."

  "I don't want to be heard of. If everybody could buy me, I couldn't do half of what I do. My different installations would cancel each other out. One version of me desperate to know a piece of information that another version of me is desperate to conceal. Ineffective."

  "So how many people have a version of you installed?"

  "In the exact configuration you are purchasing, Mr. Wiggin, you're the only one."

  "How can I possibly trust you?"

  "Give me time."

  "When I told you to go away, you didn't, did you? You came back because you detected my search on Jane."

  "You told me to shut myself down. I did that. You didn't tell me to uninstall myself, or to stay shut down."

  "Did they program brattiness into you?"

  "That's a trait I developed for myself," she said. "Do you like it?"

  Andrew sat across the desk. Benedetto called up the submitted tax form, made a show of studying it in his computer display, then shook his head sadly. "Mr. Wiggin, you can't possibly expect me to believe that this figure is accurate."

  "This tax form is in full compliance with the law. You can examine it to your heart's content, but everything is annotated, with all relevant laws and precedents fully documented."

  "I think," said Benedetto, "that you'll come to agree with me that the amount shown here is insufficient... Ender Wiggin."

  The young man blinked at him. "Andrew," he said.

  "I think not," said Benedetto. "You've been doing a lot of voyaging. A lot of lightspeed travel.

  Running away from your own past. I think the newsnets would be thrilled to know they have such a celebrity onplanet. Ender the Xenocide."

  "The newsnets generally like documentation for such extravagant claims," said Andrew.

  Benedetto smiled thinly and brought up his file on Andrew's travel.

  It was empty, except for the most recent voyage.

  His heart sank. The power of the rich. This young man had somehow reached into his computer and stolen the information from him.

  "How did you do it?" asked Benedetto.

  "Do what?" asked Andrew.

  "Blank out my file."

  "The file isn't blank," said Andrew.

  His heart pounding, his mind racing with second thoughts, Benedetto decided to opt for the better part of valor. "I see I was mistaken," he said. "Your tax form is approved as it stands." He typed in a few codes. "Customs will give you your I.D., good for a one-year stay on Sorelledolce. Thank you very much, Mr. Wiggin."

  "So the other matter—"

  "Good day, Mr. Wiggin." Benedetto closed the file and pulled up other paperwork. Andrew took the hint, got up, and left.

  No sooner was he gone than Benedetto became filled with rage. How did he do it? The biggest fish Benedetto had ever caught, and he slipped away!

  He tried to duplicate the research that had led him to Andrews real identity, but now government security had been slapped all over the files and his third attempt at inquiry brought up a Fleet Security warning that if he persisted in attempting to access classified material, he would be investigated by Military Counter-intelligence.

  Seething, Benedetto cleared the screen and began to write. A full account of how he became suspicious of this Andrew Wiggin and tried to find his true identity. How he found out Wiggin was the original Ender the Xenocide, but then his computer was ransacked and the files disappeared.

  Even though the more dignified newsnets would no doubt refuse to publish the story, the tablets would jump at it. This war criminal shouldn't be able to get away with using money and military connections to allow him to pass for a decent human being.

  He finished his story. He saved the document. Then he began looking up and entering the addresses of every major tablet, onplanet and off.

  He was startled when all the text disappeared from the display and a woman's face appeared in its place.

  "You have two choices," sai
d the woman. "You can delete every copy of the document you just created and never send it to anyone."

  "Who are you?" demanded Benedetto.

  "Think of me as an investment counselor," she replied. "I'm giving you good advice on how to prepare for the future. Don't you want to hear your second choice?"

  "I don't want to hear anything from you."

  "You leave so much out of your story," said the woman. "I think it would be far more interesting with all the pertinent data."

  "So do I," said Benedetto. "But Mr. Xenocide has cut it all off."

  "No he didn't," said the woman. "His friends did."

  "No one should be above the law," said Benedetto, "just because he has money. Or connections."

  "Either say nothing," said the woman, "or tell the whole truth. Those are your choices."

  In reply, Benedetto typed in the submit command that launched his story to all the tablets he had already typed in. He could add the other addresses when he got this intruder software off his system.

  "A brave but foolish choice," said the woman. Then her head disappeared from his display.

  The tablets received his story, all right, but now it included a fully documented confession of all the skimming and strong-arming he had done during his career as a tax collector. He was arrested within the hour.

  The story of Andrew Wiggin was never published—the tablets and the police recognized it for what it was, a blackmail attempt gone bad. They brought Mr. Wiggin in for questioning, but it was just a formality. They didn't even mention Benedetto's wild and unbelievable accusations. They had Benedetto dead to rights, and Wiggin was merely the last potential victim. The blackmailer had simply made the mistake of inadvertently including his own secret files with his blackmail file.

  Clumsiness had led to more than one arrest in the past. The police were never surprised at the stupidity of criminals.

  Thanks to the tablet coverage, Benedetto's victims now knew what he had done to them. He had not been very discriminating about whom he stole from, and some of his victims had the power to reach into the prison system. Benedetto was the only one who ever knew whether it was a guard or another prisoner who cut his throat and jammed his head into the toilet so that it was a toss-up as to whether the drowning or the blood loss actually killed him.

  Andrew Wiggin felt sick at heart over the death of this tax collector. But Valentine assured him that it was nothing but coincidence that the man was arrested and died so soon after trying to blackmail him. "You can't blame yourself for everything that happens to people around you," she said. "Not everything is your fault."

  Not his fault, no. But Andrew still felt some kind of responsibility to the man, for he was sure that Jane's ability to resecure his files and hide his voyage information was somehow connected with what happened to the tax man. Of course Andrew had the right to protect himself from blackmail, but death was too heavy a penalty for what Benedetto had done. Taking property was never sufficient cause for the taking of life.

  So he went to Benedetto's family and asked if he might do something for them. Since all Benedetto's money had been seized for restitution, they were destitute; Andrew provided them with a comfortable annuity. Jane assured him that he could afford it without even noticing.

  And one other thing. He asked if he might speak at the funeral. And not just speak, but do a speaking. He admitted he was new at it, but he would try to bring truth to Benedetto's story and help them make sense of what he did.

  They agreed.

  Jane helped him discover a record of Benedetto's financial dealings, and then proved to be valuable in much more difficult searches—into Benedetto's childhood, the family he grew up with, how he developed his pathological hunger to provide for the people he loved and his utter amorality about taking what belonged to others. When Andrew did the speaking, he held back nothing and excused nothing. But it was of some comfort to the family that Benedetto, for all the shame and loss he had brought to them, despite the fact that he had caused his own separation from the family, first through prison and then through death, had loved them and tried to care for them. And, perhaps more important, when the speaking was done, the life of a man like Benedetto was not incomprehensible anymore. The world made sense.

  Ten weeks after their arrival, when Andrew and Valentine left Sorelledolce, Valentine was ready to write her book on crime in a criminal society, and Andrew was happy to go along with her to her next project. On the customs form, where it asked for "occupation," instead of typing "student" or

  "investor," Andrew typed in "speaker for the dead." The computer accepted it. He had a career now, one that he had inadvertently created for himself years ago.

  And he did not have to follow the career that his wealth had almost forced on him. Jane would take care of all of that for him. He still felt a little uneasy about this software. He felt sure that somewhere down the line, he would find out the true cost of all this convenience. In the meantime, though, it was very helpful to have such an excellent, efficient all-around assistant. Valentine was a little jealous, and asked him where she might find such a program. Jane's reply was that she'd be glad to help Valentine with any research or financial assistance she needed, but she would remain Andrew's software, personalized for his needs.

  Valentine was a little annoyed by this. Wasn't it taking personalization a bit too far? But after a bit of grumbling, she laughed the whole thing off. "I can't promise I won't get jealous, though," said Valentine. "Am I about to lose a brother to a piece of software?"

  "Jane is nothing but a computer program," said Andrew. "A very good one. But she does only what I tell her, like any other program. If I start developing some kind of personal relationship with her, you have my permission to lock me up."

  So Andrew and Valentine left Sorelledolce, and the two of them continued to journey world to world, exactly as they had done before. Nothing was any different, except that Andrew no longer had to worry about his taxes, and he took considerable interest in the obituary columns when he reached a new planet.

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