“What can I do?” asked Jane.
Ender subvocalized his response. “Why are you asking me a question that only you can answer?”
“If you tell me to do it,” said Jane, “I can block all their messages, and save us all.”
“Even if it led to the destruction of Path?”
“If you tell me to,” she pleaded.
“Even though you know that in the long run you'll probably be discovered anyway? That the fleet will probably not be turned away from us, in spite of all you can do?”
“If you tell me to live, Ender, then I can do what it takes to live.”
“Then do it,” said Ender. “Cut off Path's ansible communications.”
Did he detect a tiny fraction of a second in which Jane hesitated? She could have had many hours of inward argument during that micropause.
“Command me,” said Jane.
“I command you.”
Again that tiny hesitation. Then: “Make me do it,” she insisted.
“How can I make you do it, if you don't want to?”
“I want to live,” she said.
“Not as much as you want to be yourself,” said Ender.
“Any animal is willing to kill in order to save itself.”
“Any animal is willing to kill the Other,” said Ender. “But the higher beings include more and more living things within their self-story, until at last there is no Other. Until the needs of others are more important than any private desires. The highest beings of all are the ones who are willing to pay any personal cost for the good of those who need them.”
“I would risk hurting Path,” said Jane, “if I thought it would really save Lusitania.”
“But it wouldn't.”
"I'd try to drive Qing-jao into helpless madness, if I thought it could save the hive queen and the pequeninos. She's very close to losing her mind– I could do it. "
“Do it,” said Ender. “Do what it takes.”
“I can't,” said Jane. “Because it would only hurt her, and wouldn't save us in the end.”
“If you were a slightly lower animal,” said Ender, “you'd have a much better chance of coming out of this thing alive.”
“As low as you were, Ender the Xenocide?”
“As low as that,” said Ender. “Then you could live.”
“Or perhaps if I were as wise as you were then.”
“I have my brother Peter inside me, as well as my sister Valentine,” said Ender. “The beast as well as the angel. That's what you taught me, back when you were nothing but the program we called the Fantasy Game.”
“Where is the beast inside me?”
“You don't have one,” said Ender.
“Maybe I'm not really alive at all,” said Jane. “Maybe because I never passed through the crucible of natural selection, I lack the will to survive.”
“Or maybe you know, in some secret place within yourself, that there's another way to survive, a way that you simply haven't found yet.”
“That's a cheerful thought,” said Jane. “I'll pretend to believe in that.”
“Peco que deus te abencoe,” said Ender.
“Oh, you're just getting sentimental,” said Jane.
* * *
For a long time, several minutes, the three faces in the display gazed in silence at Qing-jao, at Wang-mu. Then at last the two alien faces disappeared, and all that remained was the face named Jane. “I wish I could do it,” she said. “I wish I could kill your world to save my friends.”
Relief came to Qing-jao like the first strong breath to a swimmer who nearly drowned. “So you can't stop me,” she said triumphantly. “I can send my message!”
Qing-jao walked to the terminal and sat down before Jane's watching face. But she knew that the image in the display was an illusion. If Jane watched, it was not with those human eyes, it was with the visual sensors of the computer. It was all electronics, infinitesimal machinery but machinery nonetheless. Not a living soul. It was irrational to feel ashamed under that illusionary gaze.
“Mistress,” said Wang-mu.
“Later,” said Qing-jao.
“If you do this, Jane will die. They'll shut down the ansibles and kill her.”
“What doesn't live cannot die,” said Qing-jao.
“The only reason you have the power to kill her is because of her compassion.”
“If she seems to have compassion it's an illusion– she was programmed to simulate compassion, that's all.”
“Mistress, if you kill every manifestation of this program, so that no part of her remains alive, how are you different from Ender the Xenocide, who killed all the buggers three thousand years ago?”
“Maybe I'm not different,” said Qing-jao. “Maybe Ender also was the servant of the gods.”
Wang-mu knelt beside Qing-jao and wept on the skirt of her gown. “I beg you, Mistress, don't do this evil thing.”
But Qing-jao wrote her report. It stood as clear and simple in her mind as if the gods had given the words to her. “To Starways Congress: The seditious writer known as Demosthenes is a woman now on or near Lusitania. She has control of or access to a program that has infested all ansible computers, causing them to fail to report messages from the fleet and concealing the transmission of Demosthenes' own writings. The only solution to this problem is to extinguish the program's control over ansible transmissions by disconnecting all ansibles from their present computers and bringing clean new computers online, all at once. For the present I have neutralized the program, allowing me to send this message and probably allowing you to send your orders to all worlds; but that cannot be guaranteed now and certainly cannot be expected to continue indefinitely, so you must act quickly. I suggest you set a date exactly forty standard weeks from today for all ansibles to go offline at once for a period of at least one standard day. All the new ansible computers, when they go online, must be completely unconnected to any other computer. From now on ansible messages must be manually re-entered at each ansible computer so that electronic contamination will never be possible again. If you retransmit this message immediately to all ansibles, using your code of authority, my report will become your orders; no further instructions will be needed and Demosthenes' influence will end. If you do not act immediately, I will not be responsible for the consequences.”
To this report Qing-jao affixed her father's name and the authority code he had given her; her name would mean nothing to Congress, but his name would be heeded, and the presence of his authority code would ensure that it was received by all the people who had particular interest in his statements.
The message finished, Qing-jao looked up into the eyes of the apparition before her. With her left hand resting on Wang-mu's shuddering back, and her right hand over the transmit key, Qing-jao made her final challenge. “Will you stop me or will you allow this?”
To which Jane answered, “Will you kill a raman who has done no harm to any living soul, or will you let me live?”
Qing-jao pressed the transmit button. Jane bowed her head and disappeared.
It would take several seconds for the message to be routed by the house computer to the nearest ansible; from there, it would go instantly to every Congress authority on every one of the Hundred Worlds and many of the colonies as well. On many receiving computers it would be just one more message in the queue; but on some, perhaps hundreds, Father's code would give it enough priority that already someone would be reading it, realizing its implications, and preparing a response. If Jane in fact had let the message through.
So Qing-jao waited for a response. Perhaps the reason no one answered immediately was because they had to contact each other and discuss this message and decide, quickly, what had to be done. Perhaps that was why no reply came to the empty display above her terminal.
The door opened. It would be Mu-pao with the game computer. "Put it in the corner by the north window," said Qing-jao without looking. "I may yet need it, though I hope not.
“Qing
-jao.”
It was Father, not Mu-pao at all. Qing-jao turned to him, knelt at once to show her respect– but also her pride. “Father, I've made your report to Congress. While you communed with the gods, I was able to neutralize the enemy program and send the message telling how to destroy it. I'm waiting for their answer.”
She waited for Father's praise.
“You did this?” he asked. “Without waiting for me? You spoke directly to Congress and didn't ask for my consent?”
“You were being purified, Father. I fulfilled your assignment.”
“But then– Jane will be killed.”
“That much is certain,” said Qing-jao. “Whether contact with the Lusitania Fleet will be restored then or not, I can't be sure.” Suddenly she thought of a flaw in her plans. “But the computers on the fleet will also be contaminated by this program! When contact is restored, the program can retransmit itself and– but then all we'll have to do is blank out the ansibles one more time …”
Father was not looking at her. He was looking at the terminal display behind her. Qing-jao turned to see.
It was a message from Congress, with the official seal displayed. It was very brief, in the clipped style of the bureaucracy.
Han: Brilliant work. Have transmitted your suggestions as our orders. Contact with the fleet already restored. Did daughter help per your note 14FE.3A? Medals for both if so.
“Then it's done,” murmured Father. “They'll destroy Lusitania, the pequeninos, all those innocent people.”
“Only if the gods wish it,” said Qing-jao. She was surprised that Father sounded so morose.
Wang-mu raised her head from Qing-jao's lap, her face red and wet with weeping. “And Jane and Demosthenes will be gone as well,” she said.
Qing-jao gripped Wang-mu by the shoulder, held her an arm's length away. “Demosthenes is a traitor,” said Qing-jao. But Wang-mu only looked away from her, turning her gaze up to Han Fei-tzu. Qing-jao also looked to her father. “And Jane– Father, you saw what she was, how dangerous.”
“She tried to save us,” said Father, “and we've thanked her by setting in motion her destruction.”
Qing-jao couldn't speak or move, could only stare at Father as he leaned over her shoulder and touched the save key, then the clear key.
“Jane,” said Father. “If you hear me. Please forgive me.”
There was no answer from the terminal.
“May all the gods forgive me,” said Father. “I was weak in the moment when I should have been strong, and so my daughter has innocently done evil in my name.” He shuddered. “I must– purify myself.” The word plainly tasted like poison in his mouth. “That will last forever, too, I'm sure.”
He stepped back from the computer, turned away, and left the room. Wang-mu returned to her crying. Stupid, meaningless crying, thought Qingjao. This is a moment of victory. Except Jane has snatched the victory away from me so that even as I triumph over her, she triumphs over me. She has stolen my father. He no longer serves the gods in his heart, even as he continues to serve them with his body.
Yet along with the pain of this realization came a hot stab of joy: I was stronger. I was stronger than Father, after all. When it came to the test, it was I who served the gods, and he who broke, who fell, who failed. There is more to me than I ever dreamed of. I am a worthy tool in the hands of the gods; who knows how they might wield me now?
Chapter 12 – GREGO'S WAR
Quara was the last to arrive at Mother's house. It was Planter who fetched her, the pequenino who served as Ender's assistant in the fields. It was clear from the expectant silence in the living room that Miro had not actually told anyone anything yet. But they all knew, as surely as Quara knew, why he had called them together. It had to be Quim. Ender might have reached Quim by now, just barely; and Ender could talk to Miro by way of the transmitters they wore.
If Quim were all right, they wouldn't have been summoned. They would simply have been told.
So they all knew. Quara scanned their faces as she stood in the doorway. Ela, looking stricken. Grego, his face angry– always angry, the petulant fool. Olhado, expressionless, his eyes gleaming. And Mother. Who could read that terrible mask she wore? Grief, certain
ly, like Ela, and fury as hot as Grego's, and also the cold inhuman distance of Olhado's face. We all wear Mother's face, one way or another. What part of her is me? If I could understand myself, what would I then recognize in Mother's twisted posture in her chair?
“He died of the descolada,” Miro said. “This morning. Andrew got there just now.”
“Don't say that name,” Mother said. Her voice was husky with ill-contained grief.
“He died as a martyr,” said Miro. “He died as he would have wanted to.”
Mother got up from her chair, awkwardly– for the first time, Quara realized that Mother was getting old. She walked with uncertain steps until she stood right in front of Miro, straddling his knees. Then she slapped him with all her strength across the face.
It was an unbearable moment. An adult woman striking a helpless cripple, that was hard enough to see; but Mother striking Miro, the one who had been their strength and salvation all through their childhood, that could not be endured. Ela and Grego leaped to their feet and pulled her away, dragged her back to her chair.
“What are you trying to do!” cried Ela. “Hitting Miro won't bring Quim back to us!”
“Him and that jewel in his ear!” Mother shouted. She lunged toward Miro again; they barely held her back, despite her seeming feebleness. “What do you know about the way people want to die!”
Quara had to admire the way Miro faced her, unabashed, even though his cheek was red from her blow. “I know that death is not the worst thing in this world,” said Miro.
“Get out of my house,” said Mother.
Miro stood up. “You aren't grieving for him,” he said. “You don't even know who he was.”
“Don't you dare say that to me!”
“If you loved him you wouldn't have tried to stop him from going,” said Miro. His voice wasn't loud, and his speech was thick and hard to understand. They listened, all of them, in silence. Even Mother, in anguished silence, for his words were terrible. “But you don't love him. You don't know how to love people. You only know how to own them. And because people will never act just like you want them to, Mother, you'll always feel betrayed. And because eventually everybody dies, you'll always feel cheated. But you're the cheat, Mother. You're the one who uses our love for you to try to control us.”
Xenocide ew-4 Page 30
