Children of the Mind (Ender's Saga 4)

"Peter!"

The voice called him, and he followed it, back along the almost-invisible philotic threads that connected him to . . . himself again. I am Peter. I have nowhere else to go. If I leave like that, I'll die.

"Are you all right?" asked Wang-mu. "I woke up because I--I'm sorry, but I dreamed, I felt as if I was losing you. But I wasn't, because here you are."

"I was losing my way," said Peter. "You could sense that?"

"I don't know what I sensed or not. I just--how can I describe it?"

"You called me back from darkness," said Peter.

"Did I?"

He almost said something, but then stopped. Then laughed, uncomfortable and frightened. "I feel so odd. A moment ago I was about to say something. Something very flippant--about how having to be Peter Wiggin was darkness enough by itself."

"Oh yes," said Wang-mu. "You always say such nasty things about yourself."

"But I didn't say it," said Peter. "I was about to, out of habit, but I stopped, because it wasn't true. Isn't that funny?"

"I think it's good."

"It makes sense that I should feel whole instead of being subdivided--perhaps more content with myself or something. And yet I almost lost the whole thing. I think it wasn't just a dream. I think I really was letting go. Falling away into--no, out of everything."

"You had three selves for several months," said Wang-mu. "Is it possible your aiua hungers for the--I don't know, the size of what you used to be?"

"I was spread all over the galaxy, wasn't I? Except I want to say, 'Wasn't he,' because that was Ender, wasn't it. And I'm not Ender because I don't remember anything." He thought a moment. "Except maybe I do remember some things a little more clearly now. Things from my childhood. My mother's face. It's very clear, and I don't think it was before. And Valentine's face, when we were all children. But I'd remember that as Peter, wouldn't I, so it doesn't mean it comes from Ender, does it? I'm sure this is just one of the memories Ender supplied for me in the first place." He laughed. "I'm really desperate, aren't I, to find some sign of him in me."

Wang-mu sat listening. Silent, not making a great show of interest, but also content not to jump in with an answer or a comment.

Noticing her made him think of something else. "Are you some kind of, what would you call it, an empath? Do you normally feel what other people are feeling?"

"Never," said Wang-mu. "I'm too busy feeling what I'm feeling."

"But you knew that I was going. You felt that."

"I suppose," said Wang-mu, "that I'm bound up with you now. I hope that's all right, because it wasn't exactly voluntary on my part."

"But I'm bound up with you, too," said Peter. "Because when I was disconnected, I still heard you. All my other feelings were gone. My body wasn't giving me anything. I had lost my body. Now, when I remember what it felt like, I remember 'seeing' things, but that's just my human brain making sense of things that it can't actually make sense of. I know that I didn't see at all, or hear, or touch or anything at all. And yet I knew you were calling. I felt you--needing me. Wanting me to come back. Surely that means that I am also bound up with you."

She shrugged, looked away.

"Now what does that mean?" he asked.

"I'm not going to spend the rest of my life explaining myself to you," said Wang-mu. "Everyone else has the privilege of just feeling and doing sometimes without analyzing it. What did it look like to you? You're the smart one who's an expert on human nature."

"Stop that," said Peter, pretending to be teasing but really wanting her to stop. "I remember we bantered about that, and I bragged I guess, but . . . well I don't feel that way now. Is that part of having all of Ender in me? I know I don't understand people all that well. You looked away, you shrugged when I said I was bound up with you. That hurt my feelings, you know."

"And why is that?"

"Oh, you can ask why and I can't, are those the rules now?"

"Those have always been the rules," said Wang-mu. "You just never obeyed them."

"Well it hurt my feelings because I wanted you to be glad that I'm tied up with you and you with me."

"Are you glad?"

"Well it only saved my life, I think I'd have to be the king of the stupid people not to at least find it convenient!"