Xenocide

If that happened, Ender didn't know what he would do. It had never occurred to him that his marriage might be threatened. He had not entered into it lightly; he intended to die married to Novinha, and all these years together had been filled with the joy that comes from utter confidence in another person. Now Novinha had lost that confidence in him. Only it wasn't right. He was still her husband, faithful to her as no other man, no other person in her life had ever been. He didn't deserve to lose her over a ridiculous misunderstanding. And if he let things go as Novinha seemed determined, however unconsciously, to make them happen, she would be utterly convinced that she could never depend on any other person. That would be tragic because it would be false.

So Ender was already pla

“Andrew.”

Ela was standing in the doorway. If she had clapped hands outside, asking for admittance, Ender hadn't heard her. But then, she would hardly need to clap for entrance to her mother's house.

“Novinha's in our room,” said Ender.

“I came to talk to you,” said Ela.

“I'm sorry, you can't have an advance on your allowance.”

Ela laughed as she came to sit beside him, but the laughter died quickly. She was worried.

“Quara,” she said.

Ender sighed and smiled. Quara was born contrary, and nothing in her life had made her more compliant. Still, Ela had always been able to get along with her better than anyone.

“It's not just the normal,” said Ela. “In fact, she's less trouble than usual. Not a quarrel.”

“A dangerous sign?”

“You know she's trying to communicate with the descolada.”

“Molecular language.”

“Well, what she's doing is dangerous, and it won't establish communication even if it succeeds. Especially if it succeeds, because then there's a good chance that we'll all be dead.”

“What's she doing?”

“She's been raiding my files– which isn't hard, because I didn't think I needed to block them off from a fellow xenobiologist. She's been constructing the inhibitors I've been trying to splice into plants– easy enough, because I've laid out exactly how it's done. Only instead of splicing it into anything, she's giving it directly to the descolada.”

“What do you mean, giving it?”

“Those are her messages. That's what she's sending them on their precious little message carriers. Now, whether those carriers are language or not isn't going to be settled by a non-experiment like that. But sentient or not, we know that the descolada is a hell of a good adapter– and she might well be helping them adapt to some of my best strategies for blocking them.”

“Treason.”

“Right. She's feeding our military secrets to the enemy.”

“Have you talked to her about this?”

“'Sta brincando. Claro que falei. Ela quase me matou.” You're joking– of course I talked to her. She nearly killed me.

“Has she successfully trained any viruses?”

“She's not even testing for that. It's like she's run to the window and hollered, 'They're coming to kill you!' She's not doing science, she's doing interspecies politics, only we don't know that the other side even has politics, we only know that with her help it might just kill us faster than we ever imagined.”

“Nossa Senhora,” murmured Ender. “It's too dangerous. She can't play around with something like this.”

“It may already be too late– I can't guess whether she's done damage or not.”

“Then we've got to stop her.”

“How, break her arms?”

“I'll talk to her, but she's too old– or too young– to listen to reason. I'm afraid it'll end up with the Mayor, not with us.”

Only when Novinha spoke did Ender realize that his wife had entered the room. “In other words, jail,” said Novinha. “You plan to have my daughter locked up. When were you going to inform me?”

“Jail didn't occur to me,” said Ender. “I expected he'd shut off her access to–”

“That isn't the Mayor's job,” said Novinha. “It's mine. I'm the head xenobiologist. Why didn't you come to me, Elanora? Why to him?”

Ela sat there in silence, looking at her mother steadily. It was how she handled conflict with her mother, with passive resistance.

“Quara's out of control, Novinha,” said Ender. “Telling secrets to the fathertrees was bad enough. Telling them to the descolada is insane.”

“Es psicologista, agora?” Now you're a psychologist?

“I'm not pla

“You're not pla

“That's right,” said Ender. “I'm not pla

“And where did you get that noble responsibility, Andrew? Did God come down to the mountain and carve your license to rule people on tablets of stone?”

“Fine,” said Ender. “What do you suggest?”

“I suggest you stay out of business that doesn't concern you. And frankly, Andrew, that includes pretty much everything. You're not a xenobiologist. You're not a physicist. You're not a xenologer. In fact, you're not much of anything, are you, except a professional meddler in other people's lives.”

Ela gasped. “Mother!”

“The only thing that gives you any power anywhere is that damned jewel in your ear. She whispers secrets to you, she talks to you at night when you're in bed with your wife, and whenever she wants something, there you are in a meeting where you have no business, saying whatever it was she told you to say. You talk about Quara committing treason– as far as I can tell, you're the one who's betraying real people in favor of an overgrown piece of software!”

“Novinha,” said Ender. It was supposed to be the begi

But she wasn't interested in dialogue. “Don't you dare to try to deal with me, Andrew. All these years I thought you loved me–”

“I do.”

“I thought you had really become one of us, part of our lives-”

“I am.”

“I thought it was real–”

“It is.”

“But you're just what Bishop Peregrino warned us you were from the start. A manipulator. A controller. Your brother once ruled all of humanity, isn't that the story? But you aren't so ambitious. You'll settle for a little planet.”

“In the name of God, Mother, have you lost your mind? Don't you know this man?”

“I thought I did!” Novinha was weeping now. “But no one who loved me would ever let my son go out and face those murderous little swine–”

“He couldn't have stopped Quim, Mother! Nobody could!”

“He didn't even try. He approved!”

“Yes,” said Ender. “I thought your son was acting nobly and bravely, and I approved of that. He knew that while the danger wasn't great, it was real, and yet he still chose to go– and I approved of that. It's exactly what you would have done, and I hope that it's what I would do in the same place. Quim is a man, a good man, maybe a great one. He doesn't need your protection and he doesn't want it. He has decided what his life's work is and he's doing it. I honor him for that, and so should you. How dare you suggest that either of us should have stood in his way!”

Novinha was silent at last, for the moment, anyway. Was she measuring Ender's words? Was she finally realizing how futile and, yes, cruel it was for her to send Quim away with her anger instead of her hope? During that silence, Ender still had some hope.

Then the silence ended. “If you ever meddle in the lives of my children again, I'm done with you,” said Novinha. “And if anything happens to Quim– anything– I will hate you till you die, and I'll pray for that day to come soon. You don't know everything, you bastard, and it's about time you stopped acting as if you did.”