"I keep my promise," Ender said.
"Till death," said Novinha. "No longer than that. Do you think I won't miss you when you're gone? Of course I will. I'll miss you as any widow misses her beloved husband. I'll miss you whenever I tell stories about you to our grandchildren. It's good for a widow to miss her husband. It gives shape to her life. But you--the shape of your life comes from them. From your other selves. Not from me. Not anymore. I don't begrudge that, Andrew."
"I'm afraid," said Ender. "When Jane drove me out, I've never felt such fear. I don't want to die."
"Then don't stay here, because staying in this old body and with this old marriage, Andrew, that would be the real death. And me, watching you, knowing that you don't really want to be here, that would be a kind of death for me."
"Novinha, I do love you, that's not pretense, all the years of happiness we had together, that was real--like Jakt and Valentine it was real. Tell her, Valentine."
"Andrew," said Valentine, "please remember. She left you."
Ender looked at Valentine. Then at Novinha, long and hard. "That's true, isn't it. You left me. I made you take me."
Novinha nodded.
"But I thought--I thought you needed me. Still."
Novinha shrugged. "Andrew, that's always been the problem. I needed you, but not out of duty. I don't need you because you have to keep your word to me. Bit by bit, seeing you every day, knowing that it's duty that keeps you, how do you think that will help me, Andrew?"
"You want me to die?"
"I want you to live," said Novinha. "To live. As Peter. That's a fine young boy with a long life ahead of him. I wish him well. Be him now, Andrew. Leave this old widow behind. You've done your duty to me. And I know you do love me, as I still love you. Dying doesn't deny that."
Ender looked at her, believing her, wondering if he was right to believe her. She means it; how can she mean it; she's saying what she thinks I want her to say; but what she says is true. Back and forth, around and around the questions played in his mind.
But then at some point he lost interest in the questions and he fell asleep.
That's how it felt to him. Fell asleep.
The three women around his bed saw his eyes close. Novinha even sighed, thinking that she had failed. She even started to turn away. But then Plikt gasped. Novinha turned back around. Ender's hair had all come loose. She reached up to where it was sliding from his scalp, wanting to touch him, to make it be all right again, but knowing that the best thing she could do would be not to touch him, not to waken him, to let him go.
"Don't watch this," murmured Valentine. But none of them made a move to go. They watched, not touching, not speaking again, as his skin sagged against his bones, as it dried and crumbled, as he turned to dust under the sheets, on the pillow, and then even the dust crumbled until it was too fine to see. Nothing there. No one there at all, except the dead hair that had fallen away from him first.
Valentine reached down and began to sweep the hair into a pile. For a moment Novinha was revolted. Then she understood. They had to bury something. They had to have a funeral and lay what was left of Andrew Wiggin in the ground. Novinha reached out and helped. And when Plikt also took up a few stray hairs, Novinha did not shun her, but took those hairs into her own hands, as she took the ones that Valentine had gathered. Ender was free. Novinha had freed him. She had said the things she had to say to let him go.
Was Valentine right? Would this be different, in the long run, from the other ones that she had loved and lost? Later she would know. But now, today, this moment, all she could feel was the sick weight of grief inside her. No, she wanted to cry. No, Ender, it wasn't true, I still need you, duty or oathkeeping, whatever it takes, I still want you with me, no one ever loved me as you loved me and I needed that, I needed you, where are you now, where are you when I love you so?
She leapt back out of the web that had so gently, kindly held her; it clung to her; I will be back, she thought, I will be back to you, but not to stay so long again; it hurts you when I stay so long.
She leapt and found herself again with that familiar aiua that she had been entwined with for three thousand years. He seemed lost, confused. One of the bodies was missing, that was it. The old one. The old familiar shape. He was barely holding on to the other two. He had no root or anchor. In neither of them did he feel that he belonged. He was a stranger in his own flesh.
She approached him. This time she knew better than before what she was doing, how to control herself. This time she held back, she didn't take anything that was his. She gave him no challenge to his possession. Just came near.
And in his uncertainty she was familiar to him. Uprooted from his oldest home, he was able now to see that, yes, he knew her, had known her for a long time. He came closer to her, unafraid of her. Yes, closer, closer.
Follow me.
She leapt into the Valentine body. He followed her. She passed through without touching, without tasting the life of it; it was his to touch, his to taste. He felt the limbs of her, the lips and tongue; he opened the eyes and looked; he thought her thoughts; he heard her memories.
Tears in the eyes, down the cheeks. Deep grief in the heart. I can't bear to be here, he thought. I don't belong. No one wants me here. They all want me out of here and gone.
The grief tore at him, pushed him away. It was an unbearable place for him.
The aiua that had once been Jane now reached out, tentatively, and touched a single spot, a single cell.
He grew alarmed, but only for a moment. This isn't mine, he thought. I don't belong here. It's yours. You can have it.
She led him here and there inside this body, always touching, taking mastery of it; only this time instead of fighting her, he gave control of it to her, over and over. I'm not wanted here. Take it. Have joy with it. It's yours. It never was my own.
She felt the flesh become herself, more and more of it, the cells by hundreds, thousands, moving their allegiance from the old master who no longer wanted to be there, to the new mistress who worshipped them. She did not say to them, You are mine, the way she had tried to when she came here before. Instead her cry now was, I am yours; and then, finally, you are me.
She was astonished with the wholeness of this body. She realized, now, that until this moment she had never been a self before. What she had for all those centuries was an apparatus, not a self. She had been on life support, waiting for a life. But now, trying on the arms like sleeves, she found that yes, her arms were this long; yes, this tongue, these lips move just where my tongue and lips must move.
And then, seeping into her awareness, claiming her attention--which had once been divided among ten thousand thoughts at once--came memories that she had never known before. Memories of speech with lips and breath. Memories of sights with eyes, sounds with ears. Memories of walking, running.
And then the memories of people. Standing in that first starship, seeing her first sight--of Andrew Wiggin, the look on his face, the wonder as he saw her, as he looked back and forth between her and--
And Peter.
Ender.
Peter.
She had forgotten. She had been so caught up in this new self she found that she forgot the lost aiua who had given it to her. Where was he?
Lost, lost. Not in the other one, not anywhere, how could she have lost him? How many seconds, minutes, hours had he been away? Where was he?
Darting away from the body, from herself that called itself Val, she probed, she searched, but could not find.
He's dead. I lost him. He gave me this life and he had no way of holding on then, yet I fo
rgot him and he's gone.
But then she remembered he had been gone before. When she chased him through his three bodies and at last he leapt away for a moment, it was that leap that had led her to the lacework of the web of trees. He would do it again, of course. He would leap to the only other place he had ever leapt to.
She followed him and he was there, but not where she had been, not among the mothertrees, nor even among the fathertrees. Not among the trees at all. No, he had followed where she hadn't wanted then to go, along the thick and ropey twines that led to them; no, not to them, to her. The Hive Queen. The one that he had carried in her dry cocoon for three thousand years, world to world, until at last he found a home for her. Now she at last returned the gift; when Jane's aiua probed along the twines that led to her, there he was, uncertain, lost.
He knew her. Cut off as he was, it was astonishing that he knew anything; but he knew her. And once again he followed her. This time she did not lead him into the body that he had given her; that was hers now; no, it was her now. Instead she led him to a different body in a different place.
But he acted as he had in the body that was now her own; he seemed to be a stranger here. Even though the million aiuas of the body reached out for him, yearned for him to sustain them, he held himself aloof. Had it been so terrible for him, what he saw and felt in the other body? Or was it that this body was Peter, that for him it represented all he feared most in himself? He would not take it. It was his, and he would not, could not . . .
But he must. She led him through it, giving each part of it to him. This is you now. Whatever it once meant to you, that isn't what it is now--you can be whole here, you can be yourself now.
He didn't understand her; cut off from any kind of body, how much thought was he capable of, anyway? He only knew that this body wasn't the one he loved. He had given up the ones he loved.
Still she pulled him on; he followed. This cell, this tissue, this organ, this limb, they are you, see how they yearn for you, see how they obey you. And they did, they obeyed him despite his pulling away. They obeyed him until at last he began to think the thoughts of the mind and feel the sensations of the body. Jane waited, watching, holding him in place, willing him to stay long enough to accept the body, for she could see that without her he would let go, he would flee. I don't belong here, his aiua was saying silently. I don't belong, I don't belong.
Wang-mu cradled his head on her lap, keening, crying. Around her the Samoans were gathering to watch her grief. She knew what it meant, when he collapsed, when he went so limp, when his hair came loose. Ender was dead in some far-off place, and he could not find his way here. "He's lost," she cried. "He's lost."
Vaguely she heard a stream of Samoan from Malu. And then the translation from Grace. "He isn't lost. She's led him here. The God has led him here but he's afraid to stay."
How could he be afraid? Peter, afraid? Ender, afraid? Ludicrous on both counts. What part of him had ever been a coward? What was it that he had ever feared?
And then she remembered--what Ender feared was Peter, and Peter's fear had always been of Ender. "No," she said, only now it wasn't grief. Now it was frustration, anger, need. "No, listen to me, you belong here! This is you, the real you! I don't care what you're afraid of now! I don't care how lost you might be. I want you here. This is your home and it always has been. With me! We're good together. We belong together. Peter! Ender--whoever you think you are--do you think it makes any difference to me? You've always been yourself, the same man you are now, and this has always been your body. Come home! Come back!" And on and on she babbled.
And then his eyes opened, and his lips parted in a smile. "Now that's acting," he said.
Angrily she pushed him down again. "How can you laugh at me like that!"
"So you didn't mean it," he said. "You don't like me after all."
"I never said I did like you," she answered.
"I know what you said."
"Well," she said. "Well."
"And it was true," he said. "Was and is."
"You mean I said something right? I hit upon truth?"
"You said that I belonged here," Peter answered. "And I do." His hand reached up to touch her cheek, but didn't stop there. He put his hand behind her neck, and drew her down, and held her close to him. Around them two dozen huge Samoans laughed and laughed.
This is you now, Jane said to him. This is the whole of you. One again. You are at one.
Whatever he had experienced during his reluctant control of the body was enough. There was no more timidity, no more uncertainty. This aiua she had led through the body now took grateful mastery, eagerly as if this were the first body he had ever had. And perhaps it was. Having been cut off, however briefly, would he even remember being Andrew Wiggin? Or was the old life gone? The aiua was the same, the brilliant, powerful aiua; but would any memory linger, beyond the memories mapped by the mind of Peter Wiggin?
Not mine to worry about now, she thought. He has his body now. He will not die, for now. And I have my body, I have the gossamer web among the mothertrees, and somewhere, someday, I will also have my ansibles again. I never knew how limited I was until now, how little and small I was; but now I feel as my friend feels, surprised by how alive I am.
Back in her new body, her new self, she let the thoughts and memories flow again, and this time held back nothing. Her aiua-consciousness was soon overwhelmed by all she sensed and felt and thought and remembered. It would come back to her, the way the Hive Queen noticed her own aiua and her philotic connections; it came back even now, in flashes, like a childhood skill that she had mastered once and then forgotten. She was also aware, vaguely, in the back of her mind, that she was still leaping several times a second to make the circuit of the trees, but did it all so quickly that she missed nothing of the thoughts that passed through her mind as Valentine.
As Val.
As Val who sat weeping, the terrible words that Miro said still ringing in her ears. He never loved me. He wanted Jane. They all want Jane and not me.
But I am Jane. And I am me. I am Val.
She stopped crying. She moved.
Moved! The muscles tautening and relaxing, flex, extend, miraculous cells working their collective way to move great heavy bones and sacs of skin and organs, shift them, balance them so delicately. The joy of it was too great. It erupted from her in--what was this convulsive spasming of her diaphragm? What was this gust of sound erupting from her own throat?
It was laughter. How long had she faked it with computer chips, simulated speech and laughter, and never, never knew what it meant, how it felt. She never wanted to stop.
"Val," said Miro.
Oh, to hear his voice through ears!
"Val, are you all right?"
"Yes," she said. Her tongue moved so, her lips; she breathed, she pushed, all these habits that Val already had, so fresh and new and wonderful to her. "And yes, you must keep on calling me Val. Jane was something else. Someone else. Before I was myself, I was Jane. But now I'm Val."
She looked at him and saw (with eyes!) how tears flowed down his cheeks. She understood at once.
"No," she said. "You don't have to call me Val at all. Because I'm not the Val you knew, and I don't mind if you grieve for her. I know what you said to her. I know how it hurt you to say it; I remember how it hurt her to hear it. But don't regret it, please. It was such a great gift you gave me, you and her both. And it was also a gift you gave to her. I saw her aiua pass into Peter. She isn't dead. And more important, I think--by saying what you said to her, you freed her to do the thing that best expressed who she truly was. You helped her die for you. And now she is at one with herself; he is at one with himself. Grieve for her, but don't regret. And you can always call me Jane."
And then she knew, the Val part of her knew, the memory of the self that Val had been knew what she had to do. She pushed away from the chair, drifted to where Miro sat, enfolded him in her arms (I touch him with these hands!), held his hea
d close to her shoulder, and let his tears soak hot, then cold, into her shirt, onto her skin. It burned. It burned.
11
"YOU CALLED ME BACK
FROM DARKNESS"
"Is there no end to this?
Must it go on and on?
Have I not satisfied
all you could ask
of a woman so weak
and so foolish as I?
When will I hear your sharp voice
in my heart again?
When will I trace
the last line into heaven?"
from The God Whispers of Han Qing-jao
Yasujiro Tsutsumi was astonished at the name his secretary whispered to him. At once he nodded, then rose to his feet to speak to the two men he was meeting with. The negotiations had been long and difficult, and now to have them interrupted at this late stage, when things were so close--but that could not be helped. He would rather lose millions than to show disrespect to the great man who had, unbelievably, come calling on him.
"I beg you to forgive me for being so rude to you, but my old teacher has come to visit me and it would shame me and my house to make him wait."
Old Shigeru at once rose to his feet and bowed. "I thought the younger generation had forgotten how to show respect. I know that your teacher is the great Aimaina Hikari, the keeper of the Yamato spirit. But even if he were a toothless old schoolteacher from some mountain village, a decent young man would show respect as you are doing."
Young Shigeru was not so pleased--or at least not so good at concealing his annoyance. But it was Old Shigeru whose opinion of this interruption mattered. Once the deal closed, there would be plenty of time to bring the son around.
"You honor me by your understanding words," said Yasujiro. "Please let me see if my teacher will honor me by letting me bring such wise men together under my poor roof."
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