Children of the Mind (Ender's Saga 4)

And Peter.

Ender.

Peter.

She had forgotten. She had been so caught up in this new self she found that she forgot the lost aiua who had given it to her. Where was he?

Lost, lost. Not in the other one, not anywhere, how could she have lost him? How many seconds, minutes, hours had he been away? Where was he?

Darting away from the body, from herself that called itself Val, she probed, she searched, but could not find.

He's dead. I lost him. He gave me this life and he had no way of holding on then, yet I fo

rgot him and he's gone.

But then she remembered he had been gone before. When she chased him through his three bodies and at last he leapt away for a moment, it was that leap that had led her to the lacework of the web of trees. He would do it again, of course. He would leap to the only other place he had ever leapt to.

She followed him and he was there, but not where she had been, not among the mothertrees, nor even among the fathertrees. Not among the trees at all. No, he had followed where she hadn't wanted then to go, along the thick and ropey twines that led to them; no, not to them, to her. The Hive Queen. The one that he had carried in her dry cocoon for three thousand years, world to world, until at last he found a home for her. Now she at last returned the gift; when Jane's aiua probed along the twines that led to her, there he was, uncertain, lost.

He knew her. Cut off as he was, it was astonishing that he knew anything; but he knew her. And once again he followed her. This time she did not lead him into the body that he had given her; that was hers now; no, it was her now. Instead she led him to a different body in a different place.

But he acted as he had in the body that was now her own; he seemed to be a stranger here. Even though the million aiuas of the body reached out for him, yearned for him to sustain them, he held himself aloof. Had it been so terrible for him, what he saw and felt in the other body? Or was it that this body was Peter, that for him it represented all he feared most in himself? He would not take it. It was his, and he would not, could not . . .

But he must. She led him through it, giving each part of it to him. This is you now. Whatever it once meant to you, that isn't what it is now--you can be whole here, you can be yourself now.

He didn't understand her; cut off from any kind of body, how much thought was he capable of, anyway? He only knew that this body wasn't the one he loved. He had given up the ones he loved.

Still she pulled him on; he followed. This cell, this tissue, this organ, this limb, they are you, see how they yearn for you, see how they obey you. And they did, they obeyed him despite his pulling away. They obeyed him until at last he began to think the thoughts of the mind and feel the sensations of the body. Jane waited, watching, holding him in place, willing him to stay long enough to accept the body, for she could see that without her he would let go, he would flee. I don't belong here, his aiua was saying silently. I don't belong, I don't belong.

Wang-mu cradled his head on her lap, keening, crying. Around her the Samoans were gathering to watch her grief. She knew what it meant, when he collapsed, when he went so limp, when his hair came loose. Ender was dead in some far-off place, and he could not find his way here. "He's lost," she cried. "He's lost."

Vaguely she heard a stream of Samoan from Malu. And then the translation from Grace. "He isn't lost. She's led him here. The God has led him here but he's afraid to stay."

How could he be afraid? Peter, afraid? Ender, afraid? Ludicrous on both counts. What part of him had ever been a coward? What was it that he had ever feared?

And then she remembered--what Ender feared was Peter, and Peter's fear had always been of Ender. "No," she said, only now it wasn't grief. Now it was frustration, anger, need. "No, listen to me, you belong here! This is you, the real you! I don't care what you're afraid of now! I don't care how lost you might be. I want you here. This is your home and it always has been. With me! We're good together. We belong together. Peter! Ender--whoever you think you are--do you think it makes any difference to me? You've always been yourself, the same man you are now, and this has always been your body. Come home! Come back!" And on and on she babbled.

And then his eyes opened, and his lips parted in a smile. "Now that's acting," he said.

Angrily she pushed him down again. "How can you laugh at me like that!"

"So you didn't mean it," he said. "You don't like me after all."

"I never said I did like you," she answered.

"I know what you said."

"Well," she said. "Well."

"And it was true," he said. "Was and is."

"You mean I said something right? I hit upon truth?"

"You said that I belonged here," Peter answered. "And I do." His hand reached up to touch her cheek, but didn't stop there. He put his hand behind her neck, and drew her down, and held her close to him. Around them two dozen huge Samoans laughed and laughed.

This is you now, Jane said to him. This is the whole of you. One again. You are at one.

Whatever he had experienced during his reluctant control of the body was enough. There was no more timidity, no more uncertainty. This aiua she had led through the body now took grateful mastery, eagerly as if this were the first body he had ever had. And perhaps it was. Having been cut off, however briefly, would he even remember being Andrew Wiggin? Or was the old life gone? The aiua was the same, the brilliant, powerful aiua; but would any memory linger, beyond the memories mapped by the mind of Peter Wiggin?