Ender wondered how much of this had been scripted by her mother. Probably not much. Alessandra really did think about things like this--they'd had enough conversations on socio-political topics that this didn't seem out of line for her.
The problem was that even though Ender understood perfectly well what was going on, he was enjoying it. He didn't want it to stop.
But it had to stop. Stop or change. The back-rubbing thing couldn't go on forever.
And he couldn't stop it abruptly. He had a role to play. Morgan had to believe that Ender was devoted to Alessandra, so that by marrying Dorabella, he would become Ender's future father-in-law. One more set of levers to control him by. Ender had planned to do it platonically. The time he spent with Alessandra, the attention he devoted to her, that would do the job.
Until now. Now they were pushing him. Through Alessandra--for Ender did not believe she had thought of this little encounter herself. "Thinking about your mother and Admiral Morgan?" said Ender. "Getting jealous?"
That got her to pull her hands away. "No," she said. "Not at all. What does rubbing your shoulders have to do with them getting married?"
Now, with her no longer touching him, Ender could swivel the chair around to face her. She was dressed...differently. Nothing obvious, not like the vids he'd seen of supposedly sexy fashions on Earth. She was wearing clothing he'd seen before. But a button less was fastened. Was that the only difference? Perhaps, because she had been touching him until a moment before, he was seeing her through new eyes.
"Alessandra," he said, "let's not pretend we don't know what's happening here."
"What do you think is happening?" she said.
"I was asleep, and you did what you've never done before."
"I never felt like that before," she said. "I saw how heavy a weight you carry. Not just the governorship and all that, I mean...all that came before. The weight of being Ender Wiggin. I know you don't like to be touched, but that doesn't mean other people can't want to touch you."
Ender reached out and touched her hand, hooked it lightly in his fingers. He knew even as he did it that he shouldn't. Yet the desire to do it was almost overwhelming, and a part of him said, There's no danger in this. Touching hands? People do it all the time.
Yes, and they do other things all the time, another part of his mind said.
Shut up, said the part that liked touching Alessandra.
What if this did go according to Alessandra's script--or her mother's. Were there worse fates? He was coming to a colony world. Colonies were all about reproduction. He liked this girl. There wasn't going to be a huge pool of girls to choose from in the colony; there were few his age among the passengers in stasis, so it would be mostly the girls born on Shakespeare that he would have to choose from, and they would be--not from Earth.
While he argued with himself, she held his hand more tightly and moved closer to him. Beside him. Now he could feel her warmth--or imagined he could. Now her body touched his upper arm; now her other hand, the one he was not holding, stroked his hair. Now she brought his hand up to her chest. Pressed the back of his hand, not to her breast--that would be too obvious--but to her chest, where her heart was beating. Or was that his own pulse he felt pounding in his hand?
"On this voyage I've come to know you," she whispered. "Not the famous boy who saved the world, but this teenager, this young man of about my own age, so careful, so thoughtful of other people, so patient with them. With me, with my mother. You think I haven't seen that? Never wanting to hurt anyone, never wanting to offend, but never letting anyone come close, either, except your sister. Is that your future, Ender? You and your sister, in a circle that lets no one else inside?"
Yes, thought Ender. That's what I decided. When Valentine showed up, I thought: Yes, I can let her in. I can trust this one person.
I can't trust you, Alessandra, thought Ender. You're here in service of someone else's plans. Maybe you mean what you're saying, maybe you're sincere. But you're also being used. You are a weapon aimed at my heart. Someone dressed you today. Someone told you what to do, and how to do it. Or if you really know all this yourself, then you're too much for me. I'm too caught up in this. I want too much for it to go forward as you seem to be offering.
I will not let this go on, thought Ender.
But even with that decision, he couldn't just leap to his feet and say, Get thee hence, temptress, like Joseph did with Potiphar's wife. He would have to make her want to stop, so that it would never seem to Admiral Morgan that he refused her. Morgan would certainly watch the playback of this. On the eve of his own marriage, Morgan could not see Ender absolutely refuse Alessandra.
"Alessandra," said Ender, speaking just as softly as she was. "Do you really want to live your mother's life?"
For the first time, Alessandra hesitated, uncertain.
Ender took his hand back, leaned on the chair's armrests, rose to his feet. He reached for her, gathered her into an embrace, and decided that for this to work, he would need to kiss her.
So he did. He was not good at it. To his relief, neither was she. It was awkward, they missed each other a little and had to recenter, and neither of them knew what they were actually supposed to do. Oddly enough, this kiss broke the mood and when they were done with it, they both laughed. "There," said Ender. "We've done it. Our first kiss. My first kiss, of anyone, ever."
"Mine too," she said. "The first one I've even wanted."
"We could go farther," said Ender. "We're both equipped for it--we make a complete matching set, I'm sure."
She laughed again. That's right, thought Ender. Laughing is the right mood, not the other.
"I meant what I said, about your mother," said Ender. "She did this, right at your age. Conceived you when she was fourteen, you were born when she was fifteen. The age you are now. And she married the boy, yes?"
"And it was wonderful," said Alessandra. "Mother told me, so many times, how happy she was with him. How good it was. How much they both loved me."
Of course your mother said that, thought Ender. She's a good person, she wouldn't want to tell you what a nightmare it was, being fifteen and having so much responsibility.
But maybe it was good, said another part of his mind. The part that was keenly aware that their bodies were still pressed together, that his fingers were pressing gently against the back of her shirt, moving slightly, caressing the skin and body under the cloth.
"Your mother was under the domination of someone stronger than her," said Ender. "Your grandmother. She wanted to get free."
That did it. Alessandra pulled away from him. "What are you saying? What do you know about my grandmother?"
"Only what your mother told me herself," said Ender. "In front of you."
He could see on her face that she remembered, and the flash of anger subsided. But she did not come back into his embrace. Nor did he invite her to. He thought more clearly when she was standing a half-meter away. A meter would be even better.
"My mother isn't anything like my grandmother," said Alessandra.
"Of course not," said Ender. "But the two of you have lived together your whole life. Very close all the time."
"I'm not trying to get away from her," said Alessandra. "I wouldn't use you like that." But her face showed something else. A recognition, perhaps, that she had been using him--that her whole visit to him was prompted by her mother.
"I was just thinking," said Ender, "that even the cheerful fairyland she likes to pretend she lives in--"
"When did you--" she began, and then stopped herself, because of course Dorabella had done her queen-of-the-fairies bit several times, to the delight of the other colonists.
"I was thinking," said Ender, "that after such a long while, you might not want to spend the rest of your life in her fairyland. Maybe your world is better for you than her imaginary places. That's all I was thinking. She's made a lovely cocoon for you, but maybe you still want to break out of it and fly."
Alessandra s
tood there, her hand to her mouth. Then tears came to her eyes. "Per tutte sante," she said. "I was...doing what she wanted. I thought it was my own idea, but it was hers, it was...I wanted you to like me, I really did, that wasn't made up, but the idea of coming here...I wasn't getting away from her, I was obeying her."
"You were?" Ender said, trying to act as if he hadn't already guessed.
"She told me just what to do, how far to..." Alessandra started unbuttoning her blouse, tears flowing. She was wearing nothing under it. "What you were going to see, what you could touch, but no more..."
Ender stepped to her, embraced her again, to stop her from unbuttoning any more. Because even in this emotional moment, there was a part of him that only cared about the blouse and what would be revealed, not about the girl who was doing it.
"You do care about me," she said.
"Of course I do," said Ender.
"More than she does," she said. Her tears were dampening his shirt.
"Probably not," said Ender.
"I wonder if she cares for me at all," said Alessandra into his chest. "I wonder if I've ever been anything more than her puppet, just the way she was Grandmother's. Maybe if Mother had stayed home and hadn't married and hadn't had me, Grandmother would have been full of fairyland and beauty--because she was getting her way."
Perfect, thought Ender. Despite my own impulses, my biological distractibility, this has gone exactly right. Admiral Morgan would see that even though the sex angle didn't play according to script, Ender and Alessandra were still close, still bonding--whatever he wanted to read into it. The game was still on. Even if the romance was definitely on hold.
"The door to this room can't lock," said Ender.
"I know," she said.
"Someone might come in at any time." He thought it was best not to point out that surveillance cameras were in every room, including most particularly this one, and someone could be watching them right now.
She took the hint, pulled away from him, rebuttoned her blouse. This time all the way up to where she usually buttoned it. "You saw through me," she said.
"No," said Ender. "I saw you. Maybe your mother doesn't."
"I know she doesn't," said Alessandra. "I know it. I'm just--it's just--Admiral Morgan, that's what it is, she said she was bringing me here to find a young man with prospects, but she found an old man with even better prospects, that's what it is, and I just fit into her plans, that's all, I--"
"Don't do this," said Ender. "Your mother loves you, this wasn't cynical, she thought she was helping you get what you wanted."
"Maybe," said Alessandra. Then she laughed bitterly. "Or is this just your version of fairyland? Everybody wants me to be happy, so they construct a fake reality around me. Yes, I want to be happy, but not with a lie!"
"I'm not lying to you," said Ender.
She looked at him fiercely. "Did you desire me? At all?"
Ender closed his eyes and nodded.
"Look at me and say it."
"I wanted you," said Ender.
"And now?"
"There are lots of things I want that aren't right for me to have."
"You sound as if your mother taught you to say that."
"If I'd been raised by my mother, maybe she would have," said Ender. "But as it is, I learned that when I decided to go to Battle School, when I decided to live by the rules of that place. There are rules to everything, even if nobody made them up, even if nobody calls it a game. And if you want things to work out well, it's best to know the rules and only break them if you're playing a different game and following those rules."
"Do you think that made sense of some kind?"
"To me it did," said Ender. "I want you. You wanted me. That's a nice thing to know. I had my first kiss."
"It wasn't bad, was it? I wasn't awful?"
"Let's put it this way," said Ender. "I haven't ruled out doing it again. Sometime in the future."
She giggled. The crying had stopped.
"I really do have work to do," said Ender. "And believe me, you woke me right up. Not sleepy at all. Very helpful."
She laughed. "I get it. Time for me to go."
"I think so," he said. "But I'll see you later. As we always do."
"Yes," said Alessandra. "I'll try not to act too giggly and strange."
"Act like yourself," said Ender. "You can't be happy if you're pretending all the time."
"Mother is."
"Which? Pretending? Or happy?"
"Pretending to be happy."
"So maybe you can grow up to be happy without having to pretend."
"Maybe," she said. And then she was gone.
Ender closed the door and sat down. He wanted to scream in frustration at thwarted desire, in rage at a mother who would send her daughter on such an errand, at Admiral Morgan for making all this necessary, at himself for being such a liar. "You can't be happy if you're pretending all the time." Well, his life certainly didn't contradict that statement. He was pretending all the time, and he certainly was not happy.
CHAPTER 15
To: GovDes%[email protected]/voy
From: vwiggin%[email protected]/voy
Subj: relax about it, kid
E:
Nothing about your behavior with A should either surprise or embarrass you. If desire did not dim the brain, nobody would ever get married, drunk, or fat.
-V
By the time Sel and Po had been a fortnight gone, with almost two hundred kilometers behind them, they had talked about every conceivable subject at least twice, and finally walked along in companionable silence most of the time, except when the exigencies of their journey forced them to speak.
One-sentence warnings: "Don't grab that vine, it's not secure."
Scientific speculations: "I wonder if that bright-colored froglike thing is venomous?"
"I doubt it, considering that it's a rock."
"Oh. It was so vivid I thought--"
"A good guess. And you're not a geologist, so how could you be expected to recognize a rock?"
Mostly there was nothing but their breathing, their footfalls, and the sounds and smells and sights of a new world revealing itself to the first of the human species to pass through this portion of it.
At two hundred clicks, though, it was time to stop. They had rationed carefully, but their food was half gone. They pitched a more permanent camp by a clear water source, chose a safe spot and dug a latrine, and pitched the tent with the stakes deeper and the ground more padded under the floor of it. They would be here for a week.
A week, because that's about how long they expected to be able to live on the meat of the two dogs they slaughtered that afternoon.
Sel was sorry that only two of the dogs were smart enough to extrapolate from the skins and carcasses that their human masters were no longer reliable companions. Those two left--they had to drive the other pair away with stones.
By now, like everyone else in the colony, both Sel and Po knew how to preserve meat by smoking it; they cooked only a little of the meat fresh, but kept the fire going to smoke the rest as it hung from the bending limbs of a fernlike tree...or treelike fern.
They marked out a rough circle on the satellite map they carried with them and each morning they set out in a different direction to see what they might find. Now they collected samples in earnest, and took photographs that they bounced to the orbiting transport ship for storage on the big computer there. The pictures they sent up, the test results, those were secure--they would not be lost, no matter what happened to Sel and Po.
The physical samples, though, were by far the most valuable items. Once they brought them back, they could be studied at great length using far more sophisticated equipment--the new equipment the xenos on the new colony ship would bring.
At night, Sel lay awake for long hours, thinking of what he and Po had seen, classifying it in his mind, trying to make sense of the biology of this world.
But when he woke up, he c
ould not remember having had any great insights the night before, and certainly had none by morning light. No great breakthroughs; just a continuation of the work he had already done.
I should have gone north, into the jungles.
But jungles are far more dangerous to explore. I'm an old man. Jungles could kill me. This temperate plateau, colder than the colony because it's a little closer to the poles and higher in elevation, is also safer--at least in summer--for an old man who needs open country to hike through and nothing unusually dangerous to snag or snap at him.
On the fifth day, they crossed a path.
There was no mistaking it. It was not a road, certainly not, but that was no surprise, the formics had built few roads. What they made were paths, and those inadvertent, the natural result of thousands of feet treading the same route.
Those feet had trodden here, though it was forty years before. Trodden so long and often that after all these years, and overgrown as it was, the naked eye could trace the path of it through the pebbly soil of a narrow alluvial valley.
There was no question now of pursuing any more flora and fauna. The formics had found something of value here, and archaeology took precedence, at least for a few hours, over xenobiology.
The path wound upward into the hills, but not terribly far before it led to a number of cave entrances.
"These aren't caves," said Po.
"Oh?"
"They're tunnels. These are too new, and the land hasn't shaped itself around them the way that it does with real caves. These were dug as doorways. All the same height, do you see?"
"That damnably inconvenient height that makes it such a pain for humans to go inside."
"It's not our purpose here, sir," said Po. "We've found the spot. Let's call for others to explore the tunnels. We're here for the living, not the dead."
"I have to know what they were doing here. Certainly not farming--there's no trace of their crops gone wild here. No orchards. No middens, either--this wasn't a great settlement. And yet there was so much traffic, along that single path."
"Mining?" asked Po.
"Can you think of any other purpose? There's something in those tunnels that the formics thought was worth the trouble of digging out. In large quantities. For a long time."
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