Children of the Mind (Ender's Saga 4)

or choose servants who will behave like machines.

I believe this will continue

until the gods stop laughing."

from The God Whispers of Han Qing-jao

The hovercar skimmed over the fields of amaranth being tended by buggers under the morning sun of Lusitania. In the distance, clouds already arose, cumulus stacks billowing upward, though it was not yet noon.

"Why aren't we going to the ship?" asked Val.

Miro shook his head. "We've found enough worlds," he said.

"Does Jane say so?"

"Jane is impatient with me today," said Miro, "which makes us about even."

Val fixed her gaze on him. "Imagine my impatience then," she said. "You haven't even bothered to ask me what I want to do. Am I so inconsequential, then?"

He glanced at her. "You're the one who's dying," he said. "I tried talking to Ender, but it didn't accomplish anything."

"When did I ask you for help? And what exactly are you doing to help me right now?"

"I'm going to the Hive Queen."

"You might as well say you're going to see your fairy godmother."

"Your problem, Val, is that you are completely dependent on Ender's will. If he loses interest in you, you're gone. Well, I'm going to find out how we can get you a will of your own."

Val laughed and looked away from him. "You're so romantic, Miro. But you don't think things through."

"I think them through very well," said Miro. "I spend all my time thinking things through. It's acting on my thoughts that gets tricky. Which ones should I act on, and which ones should I ignore?"

"Act on the thought of steering us without crashing," said Val.

Miro swerved to avoid a starship under construction.

"She still makes more," said Miro, "even though we have enough."

"Maybe she knows that when Jane dies, starflight ends for us. So the more ships, the more we can accomplish before she dies."

"Who can guess how the Hive Queen thinks?" said Miro. "She promises, but even she can't predict whether her predictions will come true."

"So why are you going to see her?"

"The hive queens made a bridge one time, a living bridge to allow them to link their minds with the mind of Ender Wiggin when he was just a boy, and their most dangerous enemy. They called an aiua out of darkness and set it in place somewhere between the stars. It was a being that partook of the nature of the hive queens, but also of the nature of human beings, specifically of Ender Wiggin, as nearly as they could understand him. When they were done with the bridge--when Ender killed them all but the one they had cocooned to wait for him--the bridge remained, alive among the feeble ansible connections of humankind, storing its memory in the small, fragile computer networks of the first human world and its few outposts. As the computer networks grew, so did that bridge, that being, drawing on Ender Wiggin for its life and character."

"Jane," said Val.

"Yes, that's Jane. What I'm going to try to learn, Val, is how to get Jane's aiua into you."

"Then I'll be Jane, and not myself."

Miro smacked the joystick of the hovercar with his fist. The craft wobbled, then automatically righted itself.

"Do you think I haven't thought of that?" demanded Miro. "But you're not yourself now! You're Ender--you're Ender's dream or his need or something like that."

"I don't feel like Ender. I feel like me."