Children of the Mind (Ender's Saga 4)

"Any time now," murmured Grace.

"How will we know if all of this has worked?" asked Wang-mu softly.

"Peter will tell us," answered Grace, sounding surprised that Wang-mu had not already understood this. "The jewel in his ear--the Samoan satellite will speak to it."

Olhado and Grego stood watching the readout from the ansible that for twenty years had connected only to the shuttle and Jakt's starship. It was receiving a message again. Links were being established with four ansibles on other worlds, where groups of Lusitanian sympathizers--or at least friends of Jane's--had followed Jane's instructions on how to partially circumvent the new regulations. No actual messages were sent, because there was nothing for the humans to say to each other. The point was simply to keep the link alive so Jane might travel on it and link herself with some small part of her old capacity.

None of this had been done with any human participation on Lusitania. All the programming that was required had been accomplished by the relentlessly efficient workers of the Hive Queen, with the help of pequeninos now and then. Olhado and Grego had been invited at the last minute, as observers only. But they understood. Jane was talking to the Hive Queen and the Hive Queen talked to the fathertrees. Jane had not worked through humans because the Lusitanian humans she worked with had been Miro, who had other work to do for her, and Ender, who had removed the jewel from his ear before he died. Olhado and Grego had talked this out as soon as the pequenino Waterjumper had explained to them what was going on and asked them to come observe. "I think she was feeling a bit defiant," said Olhado. "If Ender rejected her and Miro was busy--"

"Or gaga-eyed over Young Valentine, don't forget," said Grego.

"Well, she'd do it without human help."

"How can it work?" said Grego. "She was connected to billions of computers before. At most she'll have several thousand now, at least directly usable. It's not enough. Ela and Quara are never coming home. Or Miro."

"Maybe not," said Olhado. "It won't be the first time we've lost family members in the service of a higher cause." He thought of Mother's famous parents, Os Venerados, who lacked only the years now for sainthood--if a representative of the Pope should ever come to Lusitania to examine the evidence. And their real father, Libo, and his father, both of whom died before Novinha's children ever guessed that they were kin. All dead in the cause of science, Os Venerados in the struggle to contain the descolada, Pipo and Libo in the effort to communicate with and understand the pequeninos. Their brother Quim had died as a martyr, trying to heal a dangerous breach in the relationship between humans and pequeninos on Lusitania. And now Ender, their adoptive father, had died in the cause of trying to find a way to save Jane's life and, with her, faster-than-light travel. If Miro and Ela and Quara should die in the effort to establish communications with the descoladores, it would be a part of the family tradition. "What I wonder," said Olhado, "is what's wrong with us, that we haven't been asked to die in a noble cause."

"I don't know about noble causes," said Grego, "but we do have a fleet aimed at us. That will do, I think, for getting us dead."

A sudden flurry of activity at the computer terminals told them that their wait was over. "We've linked with Samoa," said Waterjumper. "And now Memphis. And Path. Hegira." He did the little jig that pequeninos invariably did when they were delighted. "They're all going to come online. The snooper programs didn't find them."

"But will it be enough?" asked Grego. "Do the starships move again?"

Waterjumper shrugged elaborately. "We'll know when your family gets back, won't we?"

"Mother doesn't want to schedule Ender's funeral until they're back," said Grego.

At the mention of Ender's name, Waterjumper slumped. "The man who took Human into the Third Life," he said. "And there's almost nothing of him to bury."

"I'm just wondering," said Grego, "if it will be days or weeks or months before Jane finds her way back into her powers--if she can do it at all."

"I don't know," said Waterjumper.

"They only have a few weeks of air," said Grego.

"He doesn't know, Grego," said Olhado.

"I know that," said Grego. "But the Hive Queen knows. And she'll tell the fathertrees. I thought . . . word might have seeped down."

"How could even the Hive Queen know what will happen in the future?" asked Olhado. "How can anyone know what Jane can or can't accomplish? We've linked again with worlds outside of this one. Some parts of her core memory have been restored to the ansible net, however surreptitiously. She might find them. She might not. If found, they might be enough, or might not. But Waterjumper doesn't know."

Grego turned away. "I know," he said.

"We're all afraid," said Olhado. "Even the Hive Queen. None of us wants to die."

"Jane died, but didn't stay dead," said Grego. "According to Miro, Ender's aiua is supposedly off living as Peter on some other world. Hive queens die and their memories live on in their daughters' minds. Pequeninos get to live as trees."

"Some of us," said Waterjumper.

"But what of us?" said Grego. "Will we be extinguished? What difference does it make then, the ones of us who had plans, what does it matter the work we've done? The children we've raised?" He looked pointedly at Olhado. "What will it matter then, that you have such a big happy family, if you're all erased in one instant by that . . . bomb?"

"Not one moment of my life with my family has been wasted," said Olhado quietly.

"But the point of it is to go on, isn't it? To connect with the future?"

"That's one part, yes," said Olhado. "But part of the purpose of it is now, is the moment. And part of it is the web of connections. Links from soul to soul. If the purpose of life was just to continue into the future, then none of it would have meaning, because it would be all anticipation and preparation. There's fruition, Grego. There's the happiness we've already had. The happiness of each moment. The end of our lives, even if there's no forward continuation, no progeny at all, the end of our lives doesn't erase the beginning."

"But it won't have amounted to anything," said Grego. "If your children die, then it was all a waste."