Xenocide (Ender's Saga 3)

"And Valentine, I'm sorry I couldn't receive your--namesake."

"Don't worry, Bishop Peregrino. I understand. I may even agree with you."

The Bishop shook his head. "It would be better if they could just--"

"Leave?" offered Miro. "You get your wish. Peter will soon be gone--Jane can pilot a ship with him aboard. No doubt the same thing will be possible with young Val."

"No," said Valentine. "She can't go. She's too--"

"Young?" asked Miro. He seemed amused. "They were both born knowing everything that Ender knows. You can hardly call the girl a child, despite her body."

"If they had been born," said the Bishop, "They wouldn't have to leave."

"They're not leaving because of your wish," said Miro. "They're leaving because Peter's going to deliver Ela's new virus to Path, and young Val's ship is going to go off in search of planets where pequeninos and hive queens can be established."

"You can't send her on such a mission," said Valentine.

"I won't send her," said Miro. "I'll take her. Or rather, she'll take me. I want to go. Whatever risks there are, I'll take them. She'll be safe, Valentine."

Valentine still shook her head, but she knew already that in the end she would be defeated. Young Val herself would insist on going, however young she might seem, because if she didn't go, only one starship could travel; and if Peter was the one doing the traveling, there was no telling whether the ship would be used for any good purpose. In the long run, Valentine herself would bow to the necessity. Whatever danger young Val might be exposed to, it was no worse than the risks already taken by others. Like Planter. Like Fat

her Estevao. Like Glass.

The pequeninos gathered at Planter's tree. It would have been Glass's tree, since he was the first to pass into the third life with the recolada, but almost his first words, once they were able to talk with him, were an adamant rejection of the idea of introducing the viricide and recolada into the world beside his tree. This occasion belonged to Planter, he declared, and the brothers and wives ultimately agreed with him.

So it was that Ender leaned against his friend Human, whom he had planted in order to help him into the third life so many years before. It would have been a moment of complete joy to Ender, the liberation of the pequeninos from the descolada--except that he had Peter with him through it all.

"Weakness celebrates weakness," said Peter. "Planter failed, and here they are honoring him, while Glass succeeded, and there he stands, alone out there in the experimental field. And the stupidest thing is that it can't possibly mean anything to Planter, since his aiua isn't even here."

"It may not mean anything to Planter," said Ender--a point he wasn't altogether sure of, anyway--"but it means something to the people here."

"Yes," he said. "It means they're weak."

"Jane says she took you Outside."

"An easy trip," said Peter. "Next time, though, Lusitania won't be my destination."

"She says you plan to take Ela's virus to Path."

"My first stop," Peter said. "But I won't be coming back here. Count on that, old boy."

"We need the ship."

"You've got that sweet little slip of a girl," said Peter, "and the bugger bitch can pop out starships for you by the dozen, if only you could spawn enough creatures like me and Valzinha to pilot them."

"I'll be glad to see the last of you."

"Aren't you curious what I intend to do?"

"No," said Ender.

But it was a lie, and of course Peter knew it. "I intend to do what you have neither the brains nor the stomach to do. I intend to stop the fleet."

"How? Magically appear on the flagship?"

"Well, if worse came to worst, dear lad, I could always deliver an M.D. Device to the fleet before they even knew I was there. But that wouldn't accomplish much, would it? To stop the fleet, I need to stop Congress. And to stop Congress, I need to get control."

Ender knew at once what this meant. "So you think you can be Hegemon again? God help humanity if you succeed."