Children of the Mind (Ender's Saga 4)

"Will they be obeyed?" asked the First Speaker.

The First Secretary looked aghast. You did not insult a flag officer by questioning whether he meant to obey orders.

Yet the First Speaker did not withdraw the insult. "Well?"

"Sir, I always have and always will live by my oath." With that, Lands broke the connection. He immediately turned to Causo, his X.O., the only other person present with him in the sealed communications office. "You are under arrest, sir," said Lands.

Causo raised an eyebrow. "So you don't intend to comply with this order?"

"Do not tell me your personal feelings on the matter," said Lands. "I know that you're of Portuguese ethnic heritage like the people of Lusitania--"

"They're Brazilian," said the X.O.

Lands ignored him. "I will have it on record that you were given no opportunity to speak and that you are utterly blameless in any action I might take."

"What about your oath, sir?" asked Causo calmly.

"My oath is to take all actions I am ordered to take in service of the best interests of humanity. I will invoke the war crimes clause."

"They aren't ordering you to commit a war crime. They're ordering you not to."

"On the contrary," said Lands. "To fail to destroy this world and the deadly peril on it would be a crime against humanity far worse than the crime of blowing it up." Lands drew his sidearm. "You are under arrest, sir."

The X.O. put his hands on his head and turned his back. "Sir, you may be right and you may be wrong. But either choice could be monstrous. I don't know how you can make such a decision by yourself."

Lands put the docility patch on the back of Causo's neck, and as the drug began feeding into his system, Lands said to him, "I had help in deciding, my friend. I asked myself, What would Ender Wiggin, the man who saved humanity from the buggers, what would he have done if suddenly, at the last minute, he had been told, This is no game, this is real. I asked myself, What if at the moment before he killed the boy Stilson or the boy Madrid in his infamous First and Second Killings, some adult had intervened and ordered him to stop. Would he have done it, knowing that the adult did not have the power to protect him later, when his enemy attacked him again? Knowing that it might well be this time or never? If the adults at Command School had said to him, We think there's a chance the buggers might not mean to destroy humanity, so don't kill them all, do you think Ender Wiggin would have obeyed? No. He would have done--he always did--exactly what was necessary to obliterate a danger and make sure it did not survive to pose a threat in the future. That is the person I consulted with. That is the person whose wisdom I will follow now."

Causo did not answer. He just smiled and nodded, smiled and nodded.

"Sit down and do not get up until I order you otherwise."

Causo sat down.

Lands switched the ansible to relay communications throughout the fleet. "The order has been given and we will proceed. I am launching the M.D. Device immediately and we will return to relativistic speeds forthwith. May God have mercy on my soul."

A moment later, the M.D. Device separated from the Admiral's flagship and continued at just-under-relativistic speed toward Lusitania. It would take nearly an hour for it to arrive at the proximity that would automatically trigger it. If for some reason the proximity detector did not work properly, a timer would set it off just moments before its estimated time of collision.

Lands accelerated his flagship above the threshold that cut it off from the timeframe of the rest of the universe. Then he pulled the docility patch from Causo's neck and replaced it with the antidote patch. "You may arrest me now, sir, for the mutiny that you witnessed."

Causo shook his head. "No sir," he said. "You're not going anywhere, and the fleet is yours to command until we get home. Unless you have some stupid plan to try to escape the war crimes trial that awaits you."

"No, sir," said Lands. "I will bear whatever penalty they impose on me. What I did has saved humankind from destruction, but I am prepared to join the humans and pequeninos of Lusitania as a necessary sacrifice to achieve that end."

Causo saluted him, then sat back down on his chair and wept.

15

"WE'RE GIVING YOU A SECOND CHANCE"

"When I was a little girl, I used to believe

that if I could please the gods well enough,

they would go back and do my life over,

and this time they would not take

my mother away from me."