Xenocide

It came into Valentine's mind as if it were her own idea. The hive queen only had to place a living worker's body into the egg casing when the egg was supposed to grow into a new hive queen. But this wasn't Valentine's own idea; it felt too certain for that. There was no way she could know this information, and yet the idea came clearly, unquestionably, all at once. As Valentine had always imagined that ancient prophets and mystics heard the voice of God.

“Did you hear her? Any of you?” asked Ender.

“Yes,” said Plikt.

“I think so,” said Valentine.

“Hear what?” asked Miro.

“The hive queen,” said Ender. “She explained that she only has to place a worker into the egg casing when she's laying the egg of a new hive queen. She's laying five– there are two already in place. She invited us to come to see this. It's her way of telling us that she's sending out a colony ship. She lays five queen-eggs, and then waits to see which is strongest. That's the one she sends.”

“What about the others?” asked Valentine.

“If any of them is worth anything, she cocoons the larva. That's what they did to her. The others she kills and eats. She has to– if any trace of a rival queen's body should touch one of the drones that hasn't yet mated with this hive queen, it would go crazy and try to kill her. Drones are very loyal mates.”

“Everybody else heard this?” asked Miro. He sounded disappointed. The hive queen wasn't able to talk to him.

“Yes,” said Plikt.

“Only a bit of it,” said Valentine.

“Empty your mind as best you can,” said Ender. “Get some tune going in your head. That helps.”

In the meantime, the hive queen was nearly done with the next set of amputations. Valentine imagined stepping on the growing pile of legs around the queen; in her imagination, they broke like twigs with hideous snapping sounds.

Valentine felt the word like a hammer inside her mind. She means me. She means me, me, me… she struggled to remember who me was. Valentine. I'm Valentine. She means Valentine.

It gave her a sick feeling inside. Was it possible that the military was correct all along? Was it possible that only their cruel separation of Valentine and Ender saved him? That if she had been with Ender, the buggers could have used her to get control of him?

Valentine thought of the picture that had come to her mind on the ship. Of people twined together, families tied by invisible cords, children to parents, parents to each other, or to their own parents. A shifting network of strings tying people together, wherever their allegiance belonged. Only now the picture was of herself, tied to Ender. And then of Ender, tied… to the hive queen… the queen shaking her ovipositor, the strands quivering, and at the end of the strand, Ender's head, wagging, bobbing …

She shook her head, trying to clear away the image.