“That’s not even on the table,” said Carlotta. “There’s no place for us in the regular academic system of any nation on any world. But I also don’t want us to be confined in a tube hurtling through space with no outside human contact at all.”
“Father already has the Herodotus,” said Thulium, “and it would be a waste of money to buy another near-lightspeed ship.”
“Not that there’s any chance of any of you running out of money in our lifetime,” said Yuuto.
“You’ve seen our financials?” asked Little Mum.
“I’ve seen that the list of the leguminid holdings would take me a year just to read,” said Yuuto.
“Where shall we go?” asked Boss. “I want to go everywhere and see everything.”
“A lovely thought, impossible to achieve,” said Ender’s wife, Mayumi. “I can assure you, once you’ve seen your first dozen flocks of sheep on grassy slopes and meadows, you’ve seen them all.”
“I intend to do some traveling,” said Thulium, “sometimes with company, if you want, and sometimes alone. I’m going to visit my mother and grandmother at least once a year, and probably more often. I’m going to visit the ravens and keas—on the colony worlds, I’m not violating the rules and returning to Nest. But in between trips, this is where I want to be. As long as Miro and Jane are here—”
“We plan to be,” said Miro.
“And Wang-Mu and Peter, too,” said Thulium.
“At least till the baby is born, they’ve assured me,” said Miro.
“And I want to come back home to the place where I know I’ll see the cousins. You’ve been my whole life, till the last six months. I don’t want to lose you, not now, not ever.”
Boss laughed. “Come on now, Thulium, what if we’re trying to get away from you.”
“Then tell me what I’m doing to annoy you, and I’ll stop,” said Thulium.
“Just a joke,” said Boss. “You’re fine, and I want a place to come home to, as well. Can we still use this building? Will there still be support staff?”
Miro shrugged. “The project won’t be picking up the bill anymore. But if you’ll authorize Yuuto to pay out the expenses, this can become the property of the leguminids. It’s not as if real estate on Lusitania is going at a premium.”
“And will we someday meet the actual people of Lusitania?” asked Sprout. “The regular citizens?”
“We’ll start getting them used to you right away,” said Miro. “These are good people. Just remember that what seems normal to you will be very strange to them. And watch what you say about religion. It means a lot to these people, so be respectful or, failing that, silent on the matter.”
They all understood, or said they did. Lusitania was officially declared to be their home.
“And keep Q-Bay fully equipped and at least a skeleton staff,” said Thulium. “You never know when we might come home with some bug or other creature.”
“Another heavy expense that won’t even be a blip on the family finances,” said Yuuto.
They sat around in silence, until Sprout finally spoke up. “I guess we’re about to start having actual lives now.”
“Saving the world isn’t a lifetime career,” said Ender. “Just a hobby for a while.”
25
Plikt: What I ask is simple enough. You have access to your own memories from the past three thousand years.
Jane: As well as all the written records that have been digitized.
Plikt: It’s your own memories I need. You were in Ender’s ear for most of his life, seeing all he saw, hearing all he heard.
Jane: And hearing whichever of his thoughts he chose to share with me.
Plikt: To write the final document of my Speaking of his death—
Jane: You want to write The Life of Ender to stand parallel with The Hive Queen and The Hegemon and The Life of Human.
Plikt: Doesn’t he deserve such treatment? More than his brother ever did.
Jane: But he deserves as good a Speaker as the writer of those works, and you are not qualified.
Plikt: I know. But with your help, with your memories and perceptions, I can come closer than I can without.
Jane: So I should help you make a project that is a botch from its conception into somewhat less of a botch?
Plikt: Yes. It’s all that’s within my reach, and nobody else is reaching.
—Memorandum of conversation: Jane and Plikt from Plikt, “Notes on The Life of Ender”
“Please let me come with you,” said Thulium.
Wang-Mu looked at her carefully. Was she sincere, or had she merely improved her ability to pretend to be a caring, sensitive person? So much evidence pointed both ways.
“We can’t stop you from coming,” said Peter, “so why ask?”
“I want to be part of the conversation,” said Thulium.
“So, talk whenever you want,” said Peter. “We’ll listen.”
“I want to be a respected part of the conversation.”
“That will depend on what you say,” said Peter.
Wang-Mu knew it was time to intervene. “Thulium, I know you think we cheated when we went to the surface of Nest without you.”
“I was offended and hurt and angry, yes,” said Thulium. “But by the time you got back, and definitely after that, I realized that it would have been crazy for me and Sprout to go at the same time. You would have had to think about protecting us the whole time.”
“What has changed?” asked Wang-Mu.
“I’ve grown up a little. Not just smarter, but wiser, too. I almost died from the bioweapon of the Folk, which hit me hardest because of my own stupidity in going first, and going alone.”
“This is all good news,” said Wang-Mu. “But it doesn’t explain why you want to go with us.”
“The keas are insane,” said Thulium. “If I go to them alone, I’ll be lucky if I get treated as mildly as Sprout did.”
“Kea poop is a good thing to avoid,” said Peter.
“But you have a friend among the kea. A friend who seems to be a leader. Are you going to the world where Royal Son is living?”
“Yes,” said Wang-Mu.
“Please let me meet him and his tribe under your protection.”
Wang-Mu knew what was really happening. Though Thulium treated her Aunt Carlotta as a kind of foster mother, Carlotta couldn’t be her mother in all the ways that Thulium needed. In other cultures and other eras, mothers would introduce their daughters in society, giving them standing and asserting protection. Thulium was asking Wang-Mu to be her sponsor with another species. And for Peter to be her protection, though Wang-Mu knew Royal Son’s relationship was primarily with her.
But it was more than that. Peter had been assigned to love her, back when they thought Peter would be the one helping her detour. But what happened, inadvertently, was the development of a far greater philotic bond between Wang-Mu and Thulium. With me, she not only feels safe, she feels known.
“Peter,” said Wang-Mu, “what if Thulium stays with me, and only contributes to a conversation when I tell her it’s all right?”
“She won’t abide by any such rules,” said Peter.
“I know why you believe that,” said Thulium, “but—”
“This is a conversation,” said Peter, “between Wang-Mu and me. Between husband and wife, deciding whether to take a child into a conversation which she has not earned a place in. This is not a time for you to plead your own case.”
Wang-Mu smiled at Thulium, to soften Peter’s words.
“Wang-Mu is speaking for you,” said Peter, “far better than you could possibly speak for yourself.”
Wang-Mu could see that Thulium already had a retort in her mind, in her mouth, ready to be spoken. But she did not speak.
“If she makes a mistake, my love,” said Wang-Mu to Peter, “let me smooth over any misunderstanding. I believe I will be able to do it, though I think it will never be necessary.”
“Royal Son and all th
e other keas will wonder why we brought her, what her purpose is,” said Peter.
Wang-Mu took a few steps to the bassinet where baby Fei-Tzu was sleeping. She picked up the baby carefully, not waking him, and handed him to Thulium. At first Thulium shrank back—when would she have ever handled a baby in her life?—but then she understood, if not everything, then something, and she reached out and took the baby from Wang-Mu.
This time, finding himself in unfamiliar hands that did not hold him in familiar ways, he woke up, and began to whimper softly.
“What am I doing wrong?” asked Thulium.
“Absolutely nothing, except for the horrible mistake of not being me or Peter,” said Wang-Mu.
“Well, I plead guilty to that.”
“Rock slightly back and forth. It’s a pattern all parents learn, and while it doesn’t always work, it improves your chances,” said Wang-Mu.
“It worked for me,” said Peter, getting into the spirit of this. Wang-Mu knew that Peter recognized that she was determined to bring Thulium—and he would join her in trusting Thulium with the care of their little boy in order to bring it off.
Within a half-hour, Thulium had been taught and had practiced feeding the baby, changing his diaper, singing softly to him, and getting him back to sleep.
“I’m obviously not an expert,” said Thulium.
“Stay with me and help me with the baby for a few days before we go.”
Peter did not remind her that they had planned to leave today after lunch.
Thulium agreed.
So it was that when Jane led them for the first time to the continent where keas lived, Thulium was with Peter, Wang-Mu, and little Fei-Tzu, holding on to the backpack that held the supplies for the baby.
“Where are the keas?” Peter asked Jane.
“This is the continent where they live,” said Jane. “I didn’t stay to see where they built their nests.”
“But they could be anywhere,” said Peter. “How big is this continent?”
“The size of Africa, back on Earth,” said Jane.
“How are we supposed to find them?” asked Peter.
“By looking in the right places,” said Jane. “All three of you are very smart. Figure it out.” And with that, Jane was gone.
They were on fairly level ground. There were mountains visible in the distance, though with clouds gathered along the peaks it was hard for Wang-Mu to decide whether the mountains were snow-capped or not. “What do we know about keas?” she asked.
“They were the only alpine parrots on Earth,” said Peter. “They lived in the mountains and high forests of the South Island of New Zealand. They must have flown there as ordinary parrots, and then became keas on that island.”
“So should we look in the mountains?” asked Wang-Mu.
“Well-watered mountains, I imagine,” said Peter. “Forests need water.”
“There hasn’t been time for any Earth flora to take over anywhere, so are we even sure what a forest will look like here?” asked Wang-Mu.
“The vegetation will be thick and lush,” said Thulium. “If there are no predators, the keas will nest on the ground; if there are trees with strong wooden branches, they’ll nest in the trees.”
Wang-Mu saw Peter looking at Thulium for a moment before he said, “So how do we go about finding such a location? I don’t want to try doing aerial reconnaissance, because I’m not Jane and we don’t have a box.”
“We could try reasoning,” said Wang-Mu.
“We know nothing about this planet,” said Peter.
“We know that Jane didn’t take us to the arctic or antarctic zones,” said Thulium. “The sun is fairly low in that direction, and I’ll assume, because it isn’t very hot, that it’s still early in the morning.”
“Well, that’s something,” said Peter.
“Judging from the trajectory of the sun,” Thulium continued, “we’re near the equator. I think we’ll find that at noon, our shadows pool around our feet.”
“So, this continent straddles the equator,” said Peter, “and that’s about where we are.”
“This is a grassy plain, but it isn’t yet in seed. And the keas evolved in a more deciduous environment, at a high elevation,” said Thulium. “So perhaps we should simply move either north or south, until we find mountains and forests. At this latitude, we’re likely to find only jungles, grasslands, or deserts.”
Wang-Mu looked at Peter and smiled. “Good advice is good advice,” she said.
“Would you like me or Wang-Mu to lead the way?” asked Peter.
“What if I take you with me?” asked Thulium.
“No,” said Peter. “You will take the backpack with you, Wang-Mu or I will hold the baby in its wrap, and whichever of us doesn’t have the baby, that’s the one that leads. That’s plenty for any of us to keep in our minds while detouring.”
Wang-Mu could see that an argument had already leapt to Thulium’s mind, but the girl held her tongue, and Wang-Mu was pleased.
“The baby is the most important,” said Thulium mildly. “But the diapers, wipes, and food and drink for him will make this trip much easier. Thank you for trusting me with that.”
“Wang-Mu,” said Peter, “you have the baby, so I’ll explore ahead first.”
“Me first,” said Wang-Mu, and, still holding the baby in the wrap, she leapt.
As soon as Wang-Mu arrived, she walked up a rise of ground and saw that there was no apparent danger nearby. She turned back and could barely see the others in the distance. Prairie land like this was convenient, but as soon as they reached trees, beckoning wouldn’t work. But it could work now, so she waved. And then beckoned.
A moment later, Thulium was there, with all the supplies.
“He said he’d wait to make sure nothing got left behind,” said Thulium.
“Don’t be offended,” said Wang-Mu. “He’s just careful.”
“I get it,” said Thulium.
When they got into rolling ground, and then trees, and finally the slopes of a snow-covered mountain range, Wang-Mu calculated that they had detoured so far that they were out of the tropics. The air was markedly cooler, especially near water or among trees.
“They might have gone north,” said Thulium.
“We had to choose a direction,” said Peter. “And if we need to go back to where we started, we don’t have to do it in baby steps.”
They began to climb, and whichever of the Wiggins moved ahead, they couldn’t wave—now they had to detour back and tell the others it was safe to follow. They could all sense each other well enough that they didn’t have to go by line of sight. They just knew where they needed to go.
They had journeyed a significant amount of the circumference of this planet when the sun began approaching the western horizon. “At this elevation, the baby will get cold,” said Thulium.
“Oh, we’ll go back to Lusitania and sleep in our beds tonight,” said Peter. “We’re not insane.”
Wang-Mu laughed lightly at Thulium’s consternation. “We won’t spend a night here, Thulium, until we know it’s safe.”
“Snakes,” said Peter. “Scorpions.”
“Surely when the colonists got here they didn’t release such dangerous Earth creatures,” said Thulium.
“We don’t know the native life here. Lions hunting by night are a danger in Africa. We don’t know if there are native creatures here to which we look like prey,” said Peter.
“I don’t believe Jane would have established colonies on worlds with dangerous predators,” said Thulium.
“She had no time to explore any of them,” said Peter, “beyond ascertaining they had a breathable atmosphere, plenty of water, lots of photosynthesizing plant life on land, and were inside the goldilocks climate zone.”
“That was already kind of a lot,” said Wang-Mu.
“And the colonists were armed,” said Peter. “Plus they had Formics with them.”
“And we don’t,” said Thulium.
&n
bsp; “Baby Fei-Tzu likes sleeping on his mattress in his bassinet in an air-conditioned house,” said Wang-Mu.
“And so do I,” said Thulium, laughing. “I wasn’t criticizing your plan, I was just surprised by it.”
The sound of fluttering wings interrupted them. There was still plenty of sunlight, and they could pick up the bright colors of the keas flying toward them. Only a dozen or so.
They whirled chaotically around the human party, and skimmed just over the baby, as if deciding what it was.
A kea perched on Wang-Mu’s shoulder. “Good evening, Royal Mother of the West.”
“Are we near your home forest?” asked Peter.
“You’ve been in it for your last three jumps,” said Royal Son. “But I was far off to the east, where it’s already nearly night, and it took time for them to find me and tell me you were here.”
“By far off, do you mean—” Peter began.
“Not far for people who can travel between worlds,” said Royal Son. “But a half-hour’s journey for us.”
Wang-Mu interrupted the technical questions with the matters that seemed more important to her. “Royal Son, we want you to meet our son, Fei-Tzu.”
Royal Son said, “I must change my name now, for there really is a royal son in your family.”
“Treat this baby as your brother,” said Wang-Mu, “and keep your name. Fei-Tzu is blood of my blood, but you were my son before he was.”
Royal Son nuzzled her neck with his head and beak.
“And we brought a girl to help us care for Fei-Tzu. Her name is Thulium.”
“We saw her,” said Royal Son. “She came with Sprout and stayed long enough for us to play with her a while. But then she left and didn’t come back.”
“I was afraid,” said Thulium. “And I was angry. The keas had taken all my equipment.”
“We didn’t take your eyes and ears and fingers and feet,” said Royal Son. “But I understand. I’m glad to know your name. And you’ll notice that you are not being played with today. This visit is far too important for us to want to be annoying.”
Last Shadow (9781250252135) Page 34
