Ender in Exile (Ender's Saga 1.20)

From: AWiggin%[email protected]/voy

Subj: If I am dead

Dear Val,

I don't expect to be dead. I expect to be alive, in which case, you won't receive this, because I will keep sending the do-not-deliver code until after the coming confrontation.

This is about the case. The code to unlock it is the name of your favorite stuffed animal when you were six. When you open it, hold what you find in your hands for a good long time. If you come up with some good ideas, then act on them; otherwise, please repack the item exactly as you found it, and arrange to ship it to Abra Tolo on Shakespeare with a message: "This is what I found that day. Please don't let it be destroyed."

But you won't need this, because, as is my fashion, I expect to win.

Love,

your demanding and mysterious little brother,

Ender

or, I suppose I should now say: Ended

Since the starship had not arrived full of new colonists, it was almost inconsequential to most of the people of the city of Andhra. Of course everyone turned out to watch the shuttle land. And there was some commotion as a few trade goods were loaded off and many supplies were loaded on. But the tasks being carried out were repetitive and people quickly lost interest and went back to their work. Governor Virlomi's visit to the shuttle was taken as good manners by those who heard about it--few knew or cared what the ordinary protocol would be, and so didn't realize that it had been altered. And those who did know simply took it as part of Virlomi's character--or her pose--that she did not make the visitors come to her.

Only when that evening's supper saw strangers come to Virlomi's house--which Achilles and his fellow "Natives of Ganges" liked to refer to as "the governor's mansion"--did anyone's curiosity get aroused. A teenage boy; a young woman of about twenty. Why were they the only passengers on the starship? Why was Virlomi giving them special honors? Were they new colonists or government officials or...what?

Since this was the ship that was supposed to take Achilles into exile for his "crime" of striking the governor, he was, quite naturally, anxious to find out anything he could to derail the plan. These guests were unusual, unexpected, unannounced, unexplained. That had to mean they presented an opportunity to embarrass Virlomi, at the very least--to stymie her or destroy her, if things went well.

It took two days of having his supporters consort with the crew before someone finally got their hands on the manifest and discovered the names of the passengers. Valentine Wiggin, student. Andrew Wiggin, student.

Student?

Achilles didn't even have to look anything up. The ship's last call had been to Shakespeare Colony. Up to the time of that ship's arrival, the governor of Shakespeare had been Andrew Wiggin, retired admiral of the I.F. and much-cited commander of the I.F. forces in the Third Formic War. Two starflights at relativistic speed explained the boy's age. Boy? One year older than Achilles.

Wiggin was tall, but Achilles was taller; strong, but Achilles was stronger. Wiggin was chosen for Batt

le School because he was smart, but Achilles had never encountered anyone in his life who was as intelligent as he. Virlomi was Battle School bright--but she forgot things that he remembered, overlooked things that he noticed, thought two moves ahead instead of ten. And she was the closest to being in his league.

Achilles had learned to conceal just how intelligent he was, and to treat others as if he thought them his equal. But he knew the truth and counted on it: He was quicker, smarter, deeper, subtler than anyone else. Hadn't he, as a mere boy on a faraway colony world, using only the lowest-priority ansible messaging, created a significant political movement on Earth?

Even intelligent people are sometimes just plain lucky. Wiggin's arrival just at this time clearly fell into that category. Wiggin couldn't have known that he was coming to the colony where dwelt the son of Achilles the Great, whom Ender's brother had arranged to murder. And when Achilles-who-was-called-Randall launched his attack on the reputation of Ender Wiggin, labeling him as Ender the Xenocide, he had no idea that within the month that very Andrew Wiggin would be having supper at Virlomi's house.

It was an easy thing to get pictures of Virlomi and Wiggin together. It was just as easy to get, from the nets, pictures of Peter the Hegemon at roughly the same age as Ender was now. Juxtaposing their pictures made it easy to see they were brothers, the resemblance was so strong. Achilles then put pictures of Ender and Virlomi, so that anyone could see that Peter's brother was consorting with the anti-native governor of Ganges.

Never mind that it was Peter who had sent Virlomi into exile. Achilles dismissed that as an obvious fraud--Virlomi had been part of Peter's conspiracy all along. Her consorting with Ender Wiggin proved it, if anyone had doubts.

Now Achilles could paint his exile as the result of an obvious conspiracy between Virlomi and her Wiggin masters--Ender's sister was along for the ride. They were exiling him so that Wiggin's xenocidal, anti-native plots could proceed on Ganges without opposition.

It would take a week for any of this story to reach Earth, but the computers worked impartially, and Virlomi couldn't stop him from sending them. And locally, the story and pictures went up immediately.

Achilles watched with delight as people began watching the Wiggins' every move. Everything he did or said was seen through the lens of Achilles' accusations. Even the Indians, who regarded Achilles with suspicion or hostility, were convinced by the pictures that Achilles was not lying. What was going on?

It's costing you, Virlomi. You attacked my father, and through him, me. You tried to exile me--hoping my troublesome mother would disappear along with me. Well, I have attacked Ender Wiggin, and through him, you--and you very kindly have taken him in as your honored guest at precisely the moment when it was most useful to me.

Three days after his public tagging of Ender Wiggin, Achilles made his next move. This time, he used a surrogate writer--one of his brighter supporters, who could actually put sentences together coherently--to put out the allegation, disguised as a denial, that Virlomi's plan was to have Ender Wiggin himself murder Randall Firth on the trip to Earth. He would be sent into exile, supposedly, but he would never be seen again.

Randall Firth has offended, not just the Wiggin stooge Virlomi, but the whole hegemonistic conspiracy. He has to be eliminated, or so the story goes. But we have found no evidence to corroborate this account, and therefore we must dismiss it as nothing but a rumor, a mere suspicion. How else can we explain Wiggin's multiple secret meetings with Virlomi?

Randall Firth himself, when questioned, asserted that Virlomi is too intelligent to consort openly with Wiggin if she were planning any violent action against Firth. Therefore he fears nothing.

But we wonder: Does Virlomi count on Firth making that assumption, so that his guard will be down? Will she insist that he goes into stasis, from which Wiggin, aboard the ship, will make sure he never wakes up? It would be so easy to call it an accident.