'I've been present and human ears don't close. My point is that the very best way it could all turn out is if Ender Wiggin is governor, but taking the advice of Admiral Morgan.'
'On everything.'
'That's better than Ender being put in stasis and sent home.'
'No! He wouldn't do that!'
'It has already been threatened, and there have been hints that it might be necessary. Now, look at this picture: Ender and a beautiful colonist girl fall in love. They pledge to marry. Now he's affianced. It happens that his mother-in-law-to-be —»
'Who happens to be a deranged woman who thinks she's a fairy and the mother of a fairy.'
'In-law-to-be is married or about to be married to the admiral who is most definitely going to be the power behind the throne, so to speak. Unless Ender gives him trouble, in which case he'll take the throne, so to speak, quite openly. But Ender will not give him trouble, because he won't need to. His beautiful young wife will look out for his interests by talking things over with her mother, who will then talk things over with her husband, and everything will work smoothly for everyone.'
'In other words, I would marry him in order to be a spy.'
'There would be a pair of loving and beloved go-betweens who would make sure there was never any conflict between the admirals on this ship.'
'By suppressing Ender and making him dance to Quincy's tune.'
'Until he becomes old enough and experienced enough himself,' said Dorabella.
'Which would happen exactly never, at least not in Quincy's eyes,' said Alessandra. 'Mother, I'm not stupid and neither is anyone else involved in this. You're betting that Admiral Morgan will seize power, and so by marrying him, you'll be the wife of the governor of the colony. But because you can't be sure that Ender Wiggin won't prevail, you want me to marry him. That way, no matter who wins this little power struggle, we'll be able to cash in. Am I correct?'
Alessandra had spoken the phrase 'cash in' in English. Dorabella seized on that. 'Shakespeare Colony has no cash yet, darling,' said Dorabella. 'It's all barter and allotment so far. You haven't been studying the lessons on our colony-to-be.'
'Mother,' said Alessandra. 'That is your plan, isn't it?'
'Hardly,' said Dorabella. 'I'm a woman in love. So are you. Don't deny it!'
'I think about him all the time,' said Alessandra. 'I dream of him every night. If that's being in love, they need a pill to cure it.'
'You only feel that way because the boy you love is not aware enough of his own feelings to make things clear to you or even to himself. That's what I've been trying to tell you all along.'
'No, Mother,' said Alessandra. 'You've been trying to do everything but tell me. What you want me to do, but refuse to say out loud, is seduce him.'
'I do not.'
'Mother!'
'I've already said this. There's a lot of road between pining for him and seducing him. There's little touches.'
'He doesn't like being touched.'
'He thinks he doesn't like being touched because he doesn't yet understand that he's in love with you.'
'Wow,' said Alessandra. 'And all of this without a degree in psychology.'
'A fairy woman doesn't need to study psychology, she's born with it.'
'Mother!'
'You keep saying that. As if you weren't sure I know my title. Yes, dear, I am indeed your mother.'
'For once in your life, can't you just say what you mean?'
Dorabella closed her eyes. Saying things plainly had never worked out well for her. Yet Alessandra was right. The girl was so naive she really didn't know what Dorabella was talking about. She didn't understand the need, the urgency — and she didn't understand what she had to do about it.
Candor was probably unavoidable. Might as well get it over with.
'Sit down, darling,' said Dorabella.
'So it's going to be a more complicated self-deception,' said Alessandra. 'One that requires rest.'
'I'm cutting you out of my will if you keep that up.'
'That threat won't work until you have something to leave me that I want to have.'
'Sit down, bratty bad girl,' said Dorabella, using her playfully stern voice.
Alessandra lay down on her bed. 'I'm listening.'
'You can never just do what I ask, can you.'
'I'm listening, and you didn't ask, you commanded.'
Dorabella took a deep breath and laid it on the line. 'If you don't have Ender Wiggin locked down and tied up in a relationship with you within these next four weeks, he almost certainly will be left behind on this ship, under guard or in stasis, when Admiral Morgan goes down to see how the colony is getting along. But if Ender Wiggin is Admiral Morgan's son-in-law-to-be, then he will most definitely be presented to the Shakespearians as their new governor. So either you will be affianced to the titular governor and hero of the human race, or you'll be permanently separated from him and will have to pick one of the local clowns when it comes time for you to marry.'
Alessandra closed her eyes for long enough that Dorabella was thinking about throwing a cup of water on her to wake her back up.
'Thank you,' said Alessandra.
'For what?'
'For telling me what you actually meant,' said Alessandra. 'What the plan is. I can see that whatever I do will be for Ender's own good. But I'm fifteen, Mother, and the only thing I know is the way the worst girls in school behaved. I don't think that will have any good results with Ender Wiggin. So even though I would like to do what you say, I have no idea how to do it.'
Dorabella went to Alessandra's bed and knelt beside it and kissed her daughter's cheek. 'My darling girl, all you had to do was ask.'
CHAPTER 14
To: smenach%[email protected]
From: GovDes%[email protected]/voy
Subj: As we approach
Dear Dr. Menach,
I have admired — and been grateful for — your work as I've studied it during the voyage. Vitaly Kolmogorov spoke of you with feelings beyond admiration — awe and deep friendship are also inadequate words — and while I have not known you as he did, I have seen your accomplishments. The fact that I and the thousands of new colonists with me will arrive to find Shakespeare Colony a going concern, instead of coming here as rescuers of a failing colony, is owed to all the colonists, of course, but without your solutions for the diseases and protein incompatibilities, it is quite likely we would have come to find no one here at all.
Vitaly told me that you were reluctant to consider accepting the governorship, but I see that you have done so, and governed effectively for nearly five years. Thank you for bending your principles and accepting a political job. I can assure you that I was nearly as reluctant to take the job myself; in my case, I had nowhere else to go.
I am young and inexperienced as a governor, though like you I have served my time as a soldier. I hope to find you in place when I arrive, so I can learn from you and work with you in helping assimilate four thousand 'new colonists' and one thousand 'old colonists' so that, within a reasonable period of time, they will simply be. citizens of Shakespeare.
My name is Andrew Wiggin, but I have usually been called by my childhood nickname, Ender. Since you
