Children of the Mind (Ender's Saga 4)

"We're hoping he will change his mind," said Peter, "or our trip will be a failure. The thing is, there's no chance he'll be open to direct persuasion from us, and Jane can't tell from his writings what or who it is who might influence him. We have to talk to him to find out where to go next--so maybe we can change their mind."

"This is really complicated, isn't it?" said Wang-mu.

"Which is why I didn't think it was worth explaining it to you. What exactly are you going to do with this information? Enter into a discussion of the subtleties of history with an analytical philosopher of the first rank, like Hikari?"

"I'm going to listen," said Wang-mu.

"That's what you were going to do before," said Peter.

"But now I will know who it is I'm listening to."

"Jane thinks it was a mistake for me to tell you, because now you'll be interpreting everything he says in light of what Jane and I already think we know."

"Tell Jane that the only people who ever prize purity of ignorance are those who profit from a monopoly on knowledge."

Peter laughed. "Epigrams again," he said. "You're supposed to say--"

"Don't tell me how to be gnomic again," said Wang-mu. She got up from the floor. Now her head was higher than Peter's. "You're the gnome. And as for me being mantic--remember that the mantic eats its mate."

"I'm not your mate," said Peter, "and 'mantic' means a philosophy that comes from vision or inspiration or intuition rather than from scholarship and reason."

"If you're not my mate," said Wang-mu, "stop treating me like a wife."

Peter looked puzzled, then looked away. "Was I doing that?"

"On Path, a husband assumes his wife is a fool and teaches her even the things she already knows. On Path, a wife has to pretend, when she is teaching her husband, that she is only reminding him of things he taught her long before."

"Well, I'm just an insensitive oaf, aren't I."

"Please remember," said Wang-mu, "that when we meet with Aimaina Hikari, he and I have one fund of knowledge that you can never have."

"And what's that?"

"A life."

She saw the pain on his face and at once regretted causing it. But it was a reflexive regret--she had been trained from childhood up to be sorry when she gave offense, no matter how richly it was deserved.

"Ouch," said Peter, as if his pain were a joke.

Wang-mu showed no mercy--she was not a servant now. "You're so proud of knowing more than me, but everything you know is either what Ender put in your head or what Jane whispers in your ear. I have no Jane, I had no Ender. Everything I know, I learned the hard way. I lived through it. So please don't treat me with contempt again. If I have any value on this expedition, it will come from my knowing everything you know--because everything you know, I can be taught, but what I know, you can never learn."

The joking was over. Peter's face reddened with anger. "How . . . who . . ."

"How dare I," said Wang-mu, echoing the phrases she assumed he had begun. "Who do I think I am."

"I didn't say that," said Peter softly, turning away.

"I'm not staying in my place, am I?" she asked. "Han Fei-tzu taught me about Peter Wiggin. The original, not the copy. How he made his sister Valentine take part in his conspiracy to seize the hegemony of Earth. How he made her write all of the Demosthenes material--rabble-rousing demagoguery--while he wrote all the Locke material, the lofty, analytical ideas. But the low demagoguery came from him."

"So did the lofty ideas," said Peter.

"Exactly," said Wang-mu. "What never came from him, what came only from Valentine, was something he never saw or valued. A human soul."

"Han Fei-tzu said that?"

"Yes."

"Then he's an ass," said Peter. "Because Peter had as much of a human soul as Valentine had." He stepped toward her, looming. "I'm the one without a soul, Wang-mu."