Speaker for the dead

“Jane,” said Ender.

“Yes?” she answered, speaking through the jewel in his ear.

“Why do you want me to go to Lusitania?”

“I want you to add a third volume to the Hive Queen and the Hegemon. For the piggies.”

“Why do you care so much about them?”

“Because when you've written the books that reveal the soul of the three sentient species known to man, then you'll be ready to write the fourth.”

“Another species of raman?” asked Ender.

“Yes. Me.”

Ender pondered this for a moment. “Are you ready to reveal yourself to the rest of humanity?”

“I've always been ready. The question is, are they ready to know me? It was easy for them to love the hegemon– he was human. And the hive queen, that was safe, because as far as they know all the buggers are dead. If you can make them love the piggies, who are still alive, with human blood on their hands– then they'll be ready to know about me.”

“Someday,” said Ender, “I will love somebody who doesn't insist that I perform the labors of Hercules.”

“You were getting bored with your life, anyway, Ender.”

“Yes. But I'm middle-aged now. I like being bored.”

“By the way, the owner of the starship Havelok, who lives on Gales, has accepted your offer of forty billion dollars for the ship and its cargo.”

“Forty billion! Does that bankrupt me?”

“A drop in the bucket. The crew has been notified that their contracts are null. I took the liberty of buying them passage on other ships using your funds. You and Valentine won't need anybody but me to help you run the ship. Shall we leave in the morning?”

“Valentine,” said Ender. His sister was the only possible delay to his departure. Otherwise, now that the decision had been made, neither his students nor his few Nordic friendships here would be worth even a farewell.

“I can't wait to read the book that Demosthenes writes about the history of Lusitania.” Jane had discovered the true identity of Demosthenes in the process of unmasking the original Speaker for the Dead.

“Valentine won't come,” said Ender.

“But she's your sister.”

Ender smiled. Despite Jane's vast wisdom, she had no understanding of kinship. Though she had been created by humans and conceived herself in human terms, she was not biological. She learned of genetic matters by rote; she could not feel the desires and imperatives that human beings had in common with all other living things. “She's my sister, but Trondheim is her home.”

“She's been reluctant to go before.”

“This time I wouldn't even ask her to come.” Not with a baby coming, not as happy as she is here in Reykjavik. Here where they love her as a teacher, never guessing that she is really the legendary Demosthenes. Here where her husband, Jakt, is lord of a hundred fishing vessels and master of the fjords, where every day is filled with brilliant conversation or the danger and majesty of the floe-strewn sea, she'll never leave here. Nor will she understand why I must go.

And, thinking of leaving Valentine, Ender wavered in his determination to go to Lusitania. He had been taken from his beloved sister once before, as a child, and resented deeply the years of friendship that had been stolen from him. Could he leave her now, again, after almost twenty years of being together all the time? This time there would be no going back. Once he went to Lusitania, she would have aged twenty-two years in his absence; she'd be in her eighties if he took another twenty-two years to return to her.

It was the voice of the hive queen in his mind. Of course she had seen all that he saw, and knew all that he had decided. His lips silently formed his words to her: I'll leave her, but not for you. We can't be sure this will bring any benefit to you. It might be just another disappointment, like Trondheim.

But it also belongs to another people. I won't destroy the piggies just to atone for having destroyed your people.

I know what you've told me.

I know you could live in peace with them. But could they live in peace with you?