Ender in Exile

  "That we have as much chance of finding live ones as dead. That's what Father says."

  "But that isn't really true," said Ender. "Because in the cave Sel and Po found, the bugs weren't thriving. They had almost died out. And in the other cave, they had died out. So now what are the odds?"

  Abra thought hard about it. "I don't know," he said. "It depends on how big each colony was, and whether they would think of eating their own parents' bodies like these bugs did, and maybe other stuff I don't even know about."

  "Now you're thinking like a scientist," said Ender. "Now, please think like a sleeping person. We have a long day tomorrow."

  They traveled all day the next day, and it all began to look the same to Abra. "What's wrong with any of these places?" said Abra. "The...formics farmed there, and they did fine. And a landing strip could go there."

  "Too close," said Ender. "Not enough room for the newcomers to develop their own culture. So close that if they became envious of Falstaff village, they might try to take it over."

  "Why would they do that?"

  "Because they're human," said Ender. "And, specifically, because then they'd have people who knew everything that we know and can do everything we do."

  "But they'd still be our people," said Abra.

  "Not for long," said Ender. "Now that the villages are separate, the Falstaffians will start thinking about what's good for Falstaff. They might resent Miranda for thinking we should be their boss, and maybe they'd want to join these new people voluntarily."

  Abra thought about that for about ten clicks. "What would be wrong with that?" he said.

  This time it took Ender a moment of thought before he was able to answer. "Ah, Falstaff joining the new people voluntarily. Well, I don't know if anything would be wrong with it. I just know that what I want to happen is for all the villages--including the new one--to be separate enough to develop their own traditions and cultures, and far enough apart that they won't fight over the same resources, yet close enough to intermarry and trade. I'm hoping that there's some perfect distance apart that will make it so they don't start fighting each other, or at least not for a long time."

  "As long as we have you as governor, we'll just win anyway," said Abra.

  "I don't care who wins," said Ender. "It's having a war at all that would be terrible."

  "That's not how you felt when you beat the formics!"

  "No," said Ender. "When the survival of the human race is at stake, you can't help but care who wins. But in a war between colonists on this planet, why would I care which side won? Either way, there'd be killing and loss and grief and hate and bitter memories and the seeds of wars to come. And both sides would be human, so no matter what, humans would lose. And lose and keep on losing. Abra, I sometimes say prayers, did you know that? Because my parents prayed. I sometimes talk to God even though I don't know anything about him. I ask him: Let the wars end."

  "They have ended," said Abra. "On earth. The Hegemon united the whole world and nobody's at war anywhere."

  "Yes," said Ender. "Wouldn't it be ridiculous if they finally got peace on Earth and we just started up the whole warfare thing again here on Shakespeare?"

  "The Hegemon is your brother, right?" asked Abra.

  "He's Valentine's brother," said Ender.

  "But she's your sister," said Abra.

  "He's Valentine's brother," said Ender, and his face looked sort of dark and Abra didn't ask him what in the world he was talking about.

  On the third day of their trip, as the sun got to about two hands above the western horizon--time on clocks and watches meant nothing here, since they had all been made on Earth for Earth days, and nobody liked any of the schemes for dividing up the Shakespearian day into hours and minutes--Ender finally stopped the skimmer on the crest of a hill overlooking a broad valley with overgrown orchards and fields with forty years' growth of trees in them. There were tunnel entrances in some of the surrounding hills, and chimneys that showed there had been manufacturing here.

  "This place looks as likely as any," said Ender. So, just like that, the site of the new colony was chosen.

  They pitched the tent and Ender fixed dinner and he and Abra walked down into the valley together and looked inside a couple of the caves. No bugs, of course, since this wasn't that kind of settlement, but there was machinery of a kind that they hadn't seen before and Abra wanted to plunge right in and figure it all out but Ender said, "I promise you'll be the first one to get a look at these machines, but not now. Not tonight. That's not our mission. We have to lay out a colony. I have to determine where the fields will be, the water source--we have to find the formic sewer system, we have to see if we can wake up their generating equipment. All the things that Sel Menach's generation did, long before you were born. But before too long, we'll have time for the formic machines. And then, believe me, they'll let you spend days and weeks on them."

  Abra wanted to wheedle like a little kid, but he knew Ender was right. And so he accepted Ender's promise and stayed with him for the rest of that night's walk.

  The sun had set before they got back to camp--they had only a faint light in the sky when they turned in to sleep. This time their conversation consisted of Ender asking Abra to tell stories that his parents had told him, his father's Mayan stories and his mother's Chinese stories and the Catholic stories they both had in common, and that took until Abra could hardly keep his eyes open, and then they slept.

  The next day, Ender and Abra marked out fields and laid out streets, recording everything on the holomaps in Ender's field desk, which were automatically transmitted to the orbiting computer. No need even to call Papa on the satfone, because he would get all this information automatically and he could see the work they were doing.

  Late in the afternoon, Ender sighed and said, "You know, this is actually kind of boring."

  "Really?" said Abra sarcastically.

  "Even slaves get time off now and then."

  "Who?" Abra was afraid this was some school-learning thing that he didn't know because he couldn't read and stopped going to school.

  "You have no idea how happy it makes me that you don't know what I'm talking about."

  Well, if Ender was happy, Abra was happy.

  "For the next hour, I say we do whatever we want," said Ender.

  "Like what?" asked Abra.

  "What, you mean I have to decide for you what you think would be fun?"

  "What are you going to do?"

  "I'm going to see if the river's good for swimming."

  "That's dangerous and you shouldn't do it alone."

  "If I drown, call your father to come get you."

  "I could drive the skimmer home, you know."

  "But you couldn't get my corpse up onto it," said Ender.

  "Don't talk about dying!" Abra said. He meant to sound angry. Instead his voice shook and he sounded scared.

  "I'm a good swimmer," said Ender. "I'm going to test the water to make sure it won't make me sick, and I'll only swim where there's no current, all right? And you're free to swim with me, if you want."

  "I don't like to swim." He'd never really learned, not well.

  "So--don't go climbing into any caves or fiddling with machinery, all right?" said Ender. "Because machinery really is scary."

  "Only because you don't understand it."

  "Right," said Ender. "But what if something went wrong? What if I had to take your mangled or incinerated body back to your parents?"

  Abra laughed. "So I can let the governor die, but you can't let one dumb kid get killed."

  "Exactly right," said Ender. "Because I'm responsible for you, but you're only responsible for reporting my death if it happens."

  So Ender went back to the skimmer and got the water testing equipment. And since Abra knew perfectly well Ender was going to have to test the river anyway, he realized that Ender wasn't really taking a break, he was giving Abra a break. Well, two could play this game. Abra would use the time to scout ou
t the crest of the far ridge and see what lay on the other side. That was useful. That was a real job that would have to be done. So while Ender swam around in the river, Abra would be adding to the map.

  It was a longer walk than Abra thought it would be. The far hills looked deceptively close. The higher he got, though, the easier it was to spot the place where Ender was, in fact, swimming. He wondered if Ender could also see him. He turned and waved a couple of times, but Ender didn't wave back, probably because he would look like a speck to Ender, just as Ender looked like a speck to him. Or else Ender wasn't looking, and that was fine, too. It meant Ender trusted him not to screw up and get hurt or lost.

  At the top of the hill, Abra could see why the river in the valley behind him widened--there was an irrigation dam between the hills so the widening of the river was really a pond behind the dam. The drop wasn't very severe, though, and certain sluices were permanently open so that the river flowed permanently into three channels. One was the original riverbed, and the other two carried water through slightly higher canals skirting the north side of the valley. Here on the south side of the river, the canals were permanently empty, and so Abra could easily see the difference that the irrigation made. Both sides of the lower valley were lush with life, but on the wet side, trees were growing, and on the drier side, it was grass and low shrubs.

  But as he gazed at the south side--the grassy side--he realized that there was something wrong with the landscape. Instead of being a smooth flood plain, like the upper valley behind him where Ender was, there were several mounds in the plain below him. And there was nothing natural about the way they were laid out.

  The formics had to have built them. But what were they for?

  And now that he looked closely, he could see that there were even-more-artificial-looking structures here and there. They didn't look like normal formic buildings, either. This was something new and strange, and even though they were overgrown with grass and vines, they were still plainly visible.

  Abra scrambled down the slope--not running, because it was unfamiliar ground, and the last thing he wanted was to sprain an ankle and become a burden on Ender. He came to the largest of the artificial mounds. It was steep-sided but covered with grass, so climbing it wasn't very hard. He reached the top and realized that it was hollow inside, and there was water gathered in it.

  Abra walked the ridge line and found that at one end, two ridges extended out like legs, making a widening vale between them. And when he turned around, he realized that there were also low ridges that could be arms, and where a head would be, a large white rock glistened in the sunlight, looking for all the world like a skull.

  It was shaped like a man. Not like a formic--a man.

  He felt a thrill go through him--of fear, of dread, of excitement. Such a place as this could not exist. And yet it did.

  He heard a voice calling his name. He looked up and saw that Ender had driven the skimmer over the ridge from the other valley and was looking for him. Abra waved and called out, "Ho, Ender!"

  Ender saw him and skimmed over to the base of the steep hill where Abra had climbed. "Come up," said Abra.

  When Ender had scrambled up the slope--displacing a few turves in the process, since he was bigger than Abra and weighed more--Abra gestured to the body-like structure of the artificial hills. "Can you believe this?"

  Apparently Ender didn't see it the way Abra did. He simply looked, and said nothing.

  "It's like a giant died here," said Abra, "and the earth grew up to cover his carcass."

  Abra heard a sharp intake of breath from Ender, so he knew now that he had seen.

  Ender looked around and pointed wordlessly at some of the smaller, vine-covered structures. He pulled out his binoculars and looked for a long time. "Impossible," he muttered.

  "What? What are they?"

  Ender didn't answer. Instead he walked the length of the hill, toward the "head." Abra scrambled down onto the neck and up the chin. "Somebody had to build this," Abra said. He scratched at the white surface. "Look, this skull place, it's not rock, look at it. This is concrete."

  "I know," said Ender. "They built it for me."

  "What?"

  "I know this place, Abra. The buggers built it for me."

  "They were all dead before Grandpa and Grandma even got here," said Abra.

  "You're right, it's impossible, but I know what I know." Ender put a hand on Abra's shoulder. "Abra, I shouldn't take you with me."

  "Where?"

  "Over there." Ender pointed. "It might be dangerous. If they knew me well enough to build this place, they might be planning to--"

  "To get even with you," said Abra.

  "For killing them," said Ender.

  "So don't go, Ender. Don't do what they want you to do."

  "If they want to get revenge, Abra, I don't mind. But perhaps they don't. Perhaps this is the closest they could come to talking. To writing me a note."

  "They didn't know how to read and write." They didn't even know the idea of reading and writing--that's what Father said. So how would they know about leaving notes?

  "Maybe they were learning when they died," said Ender.

  "Well I'm sure as hell not sticking around here if you're taking off somewhere. I'm going with you."

  Ender looked amused when Abra said "hell." He shook his head, smiling. "No. You're too young to take the risk of--"

  "Come on!" said Abra with disgust. "You're Ender Wiggin. Don't tell me what eleven-year-old kids can do!"

  So they rode in the skimmer together until they got to the first set of structures. Ender stopped and they got off. The shape of the structures came from metal frameworks underlying and supporting the vines. Now Abra realized they were swings and slides, just like those in the town park in Miranda. The ones in Miranda were smaller, because they were just for the little kids. But there was no mistaking what they were.

  But formics didn't have babies, they had larvae. Worms would hardly needs swings and slides.

  "They made human stuff," said Abra.

  Ender only nodded.

  "They really were taking stuff out of your head," said Abra.

  "That's one explanation," said Ender. Then they got on the skimmer and went on. Ender seemed to know the way.

  They neared the farthest structure. It was a thick tower and some lower walls, all covered with ivy. There was a window near the top of the tower.

  "You knew this would be here," said Abra.

  "It was my nightmare," said Ender. "My memory of the fantasy game."

  Abra had no idea what "the fantasy game" was, but he understood that this place represented one of those dreams that the formics were taking out of Ender when they vivisected him in that nightmare he had talked about.

  Ender got out of the skimmer. "Don't come after me," he said. "If I'm not back in an hour, it means it's dangerous here, and you must go home at once and tell them everything."

  "Eat it, Ender, I'm coming with you," said Abra.

  Ender looked at him coldly. "Eat it yourself, Abra, or I'll stuff you with mud."

  His words were jocular, and so was his tone. But his eyes were not joking, and Abra knew that he meant it.

  So Abra stayed with the skimmer and watched Ender jog over to the castle--for that's what it was. And then Ender climbed up the outside of the tower and went in through the window.

  Abra stayed, watching the tower, for a long time. He checked the skimmer's clock now and then. And finally his gaze began to wander. He watched birds and insects, small animals in the grass, clouds moving across the sky.

  That's why he didn't see Ender come out of the tower. He only saw him walking toward the skimmer, carrying his jacket in a wad under his arm.

  Only it wasn't a wad. There was something inside the jacket. But Abra didn't ask what Ender had found. He figured that if Ender wanted him to know, he'd tell him.

  "We aren't building the new colony here," said Ender.

  "OK," said Abra.

>   "Let's go back and strike camp," said Ender.

  They searched for five more days, well to the east and south of the place they had first found, until they had another colony site. It was a bigger formic settlement, with a much larger area of fields and all the signs of a much larger annual rainfall. "This is the right place," said Ender. "Better climate, warmer. Good, rich soil."

  They spent a week laying out the new site.

  Then it was time to go home. The night before they left, lying out on the open ground--it was too hot at night inside the tent--Abra finally asked. Not what it was that Ender brought back from the tower--he would never ask that--but the deeper question.

  "Ender, what did they mean? Building this for you?"

  Ender was silent for a long time. "I'm not going to tell you the whole truth, Abra. Because I don't want anyone to know. I don't even want them to know what we found there. I hope it's all decayed and crumbled away before people go back there. But even if it's not, nobody else will understand it. And in the far future, nobody will believe that the formics made that place. They'll think it's something that human colonists did."

  "You don't have to tell me everything," said Abra. "And I won't tell anybody else what we found."

  "I know you won't," said Ender. He hesitated again. "I don't want to lie to you. So I'll only tell you true things. I found the answer, Abra."

  "To what?"

  "My question."

  "Can't you tell me any of it?"

  "You've never asked the question. I hope to God you never know what it is."

  "But the message really was for you."

  "Yes, Abra. They left a message that told me why they died."

  "Why?"

  "No, Abra. It's my burden, truly. Mine alone." Ender reached out a hand, gripped Abra by the arm. "Let there be no rumors of what Ender Wiggin found when he came to this place."

  "There never will be," said Abra.

  "You mean that at the age of eleven, you're prepared to take a secret to your grave?"

  "Yes," said Abra without hesitation. "But I hope I don't have to do that very soon."

  Ender laughed. "I hope the same. I hope you live a long, long time."

  "I'll keep the secret all my life. Even though I don't actually know what it is."

  Ender came into the house where Valentine was working on the next-to-last volume of her history of the Formic Wars. He set his own desk on the table across from her. She looked up at him. He smiled--a jokey, mechanical smile--and started typing.