Xenocide

Nor did Han Fei-tzu mind the touch of his wife's flesh as he tucked his own three papers into her other sleeve. What was there to fear from death now, when it had already done its worst?

No one knew what was written on his papers, or they would have been horrified, for he had written, “My body,” “My spirit,” and “My soul.” Thus it was that he burned himself on Jiang-qing's funeral pyre, and sent himself with her wherever it was she was going.

Then Jiang-qing's secret maid, Mu-pao, laid the torch onto the sacred wood and the pyre burst into flames. The heat of the fire was painful, and Qing-jao hid herself behind her father, only peeking around him now and then to watch her mother leave on her endless journey. Han Fei-tzu, though, welcomed the dry heat that seared his skin and made brittle the silk of his robe. Her body had not been as dry as it seemed; long after the papers had crisped into ash and blown upward into the smoke of the fire, her body still sizzled, and the heavy incense burning all around the fire could not conceal from him the smell of burning flesh. That is what we're burning here: meat, fish, carrion, nothing. Not my Jiang-qing. Only the costume she wore into this life. That which made that body into the woman that I loved is still alive, must still live. And for a moment he thought he could see, or hear, or somehow feel the passage of Jiang-qing.

Into the air, into the earth, into the fire. I am with you.

Chapter 2 – A MEETING

Valentine Wiggin read over her essay, making a few corrections here and there. When she was done, the words stood in the air over her computer terminal. She was feeling pleased with herself for having written such a deft ironic dismemberment of the personal character of Rymus Ojman, the chairman of the cabinet of Starways Congress.

“Have we finished another attack on the masters of the Hundred Worlds?”

Valentine did not turn to face her husband; she knew from his voice exactly what expression would be on his face, and so she smiled back at him without turning around. After twenty-five years of marriage, they could see each other clearly without having to look. “We have made Rymus Ojman look ridiculous.”

Jakt leaned into her tiny office, his face so close to hers that she could hear his soft breathing as he read the opening paragraphs. He wasn't young anymore; the exertion of leaning into her office, bracing his hands on the doorframe, was making him breathe more rapidly than she liked to hear.

Then he spoke, but with his face so close to hers that she felt his lips brush her cheek, tickling her with every word. “From now on even his mother will laugh behind her hand whenever she sees the poor bastard.”

“It was hard to make it fu

“This is better.”

“Oh, I know. If I had let my outrage show, if I had accused him of all his crimes, it would have made him seem more formidable and frightening and the Rule-of-law Faction would have loved him all the more, while the cowards on every world would have bowed to him even lower.”

“If they bow any lower they'll have to buy thi

She laughed, but it was as much because the tickling of his lips on her cheek was becoming unbearable. It was also begi

“We could put a do-not-enter sign on the door.”

“Then you might just as well put out a sign that says, 'naked elderly couple reliving old memories inside.'”

“I'm not elderly.”

“You're over sixty.”

“If the old soldier can still stand up and salute, I say let him march in the parade.”

“No parades till the voyage is over. It's only a couple of weeks more. We only have to complete this rendezvous with Ender's stepson and then we're back on course to Lusitania.”

Jakt drew away from her, pulled himself out of her doorway and stood upright in the corridor– one of the few places on the starship where he could actually do that. He groaned as he did it, though.

“You creak like an old rusty door,” said Valentine.

“I've heard you make the same sounds when you get up from your desk here. I'm not the only senile, decrepit, miserable old coot in our family.”

“Go away and let me transmit this.”

“I'm used to having work to do on a voyage,” said Jakt. “The computers do everything here, and this ship never rolls or pitches in the sea.”

“Read a book.”

“I worry about you. All work and no play makes Val a mean-tempered old hag.”

“Every minute that we talk here is eight and a half hours in real time.”

“Our time here on this starship is just as real as their time out there,” said Jakt. “Sometimes I wish Ender's friends hadn't figured out a way for our starship to keep up a landside link.”

“It takes up a huge amount of computer time,” said Val. “Until now, only the military could communicate with starships during near-lightspeed flight. If Ender's friends can achieve it, then I owe it to them to use it.”

“You're not doing all this because you owe it to somebody.”

That was true enough. “If I write an essay every hour, Jakt, it means that to the rest of humanity Demosthenes is publishing something only once every three weeks.”

“You can't possibly write an essay every hour. You sleep, you eat.”

“You talk, I listen. Go away, Jakt.”

“If I'd known that saving a planet from destruction would mean my returning to a state of virginity, I'd never have agreed to it.”

He was only half teasing. Leaving Trondheim was a hard decision for all her family– even for her, even knowing that she was going to see Ender again. The children were all adults now, or nearly so; they saw this voyage as a great adventure. Their visions of the future were not so tied to a particular place. None of them had become a sailor, like their father; all of them were becoming scholars or scientists, living the life of public discourse and private contemplation, like their mother. They could live their lives, substantially unchanged, anywhere, on any world. Jakt was proud of them, but disappointed that the chain of family reaching back for seven generations on the seas of Trondheim would end with him. And now, for her sake, he had given up the sea himself. Giving up Trondheim was the hardest thing she could ever have asked of Jakt, and he had said yes without hesitation.