but Valentine stopped him. 'Let it find its own value, tied to whatever people eventually pay for whatever it is we eventually export to other worlds.' So the currency floated within their own private universe.
The first edition of The Hive Queen sold slowly at first, but then faster and faster. It was translated into many languages, even though almost everyone on Earth had a working knowledge of Common, since that was the official language of Peter's 'Free People of Earth' — the propagandistic name he had chosen for his new international government.
Meanwhile, free copies circulated on the nets, and one day it was included in a message one of the xenobotanists received. She started telling everyone in Miranda about it, and copies were printed out and handed around. Ender and Valentine made no comment; when Alessandra pressed a copy on Ender, he accepted it, waited a while, and returned it. 'Isn't it wonderful?' Alessandra asked.
'I think it is, yes,' said Ender.
'Oh, yes, that analytical voice, that dispassionate attitude.'
'What can I say?' said Ender. 'I am who I am.'
'I think this book has changed my life,' said Alessandra.
'For the better, I hope,' said Ender. And then, glancing at her swollen belly, he asked, 'Changed your life more than that?'
Alessandra smiled. 'I don't know yet. I'll tell you in a year.'
Ender did not say: In a year I'll be on a starship and far away.
Valentine finished her penultimate volume and when it was published, she included the full text of The Hive Queen at the end, with an introductory note:
'We know so little of the formics that it is impossible for me, as a historian, to tell of this war from their point of view. So I will include an artistic imagining of the history, because even if it can't be proved, I believe this is the true story.'
Not long after, Valentine came to Ender. 'Peter read my book,' she said.
'I'm glad someone did,' said Ender.
'He sent me a message about the last chapter. He said, 'I know who wrote it.»
'And was he right?'
'He was.'
'Isn't he the clever one.'
'He was moved, Ender.'
'People seem to be liking it.'
'More than liking, and you know it. Let me read what Peter said: 'If he can speak for the buggers, surely he can speak for me.»
'What's that supposed to mean?'
'He wants you to write about him. About his life.'
'When I last saw Peter I was six and he had threatened to kill me just a few hours before.'
'So you're saying no.'
'I'm saying that I'll talk to him and we'll see what happens.'
On the ansible, they talked for an hour at a time, Peter in his late fifties, with a weak heart that had the doctors worried, Ender still a boy of sixteen. But Peter was still himself, and so was Ender, only now there was no anger between them. Maybe because Peter had achieved everything he dreamed of, and Ender hadn't stood in his way or even, at least in Peter's mind, surpassed him.
In Ender's mind, too. 'What you did,' said Ender, 'you knew you were doing.'
'Is that good or bad?'
'Nobody had to trick Alexander into conquering Persia,' said Ender. 'If they had, would we call him 'the Great'?'
When Peter had told of his whole life, everything he did that mattered enough to come up in these conversations, Ender spent only five days writing a slim volume called 'The Hegemon.'
He sent a copy to Peter with a note: 'Since the author will be 'Speaker for the Dead, this can't be published until after you die.'
Peter wrote back: 'It can't happen a moment too soon for me.' But in a letter to Valentine, he poured out his heart about what it meant to him to feel so completely understood. 'He didn't conceal any of the bad things I did. But he kept them in balance. In perspective.'
Valentine showed the letter to Ender and he laughed. 'Balance! How can anybody know the relative weight of sins and great achievements? Five chickens do not make a cow.'
CHAPTER 20
From: Gov%[email protected]
Subj: Is that job still open?
Dear Hyrum,
I have reasons of my own that I won't go into, but I also believe that Shakespeare will be well served if, when this colony ship leaves, I am on it. I will be here throughout the arrival and establishment of the new colonists. The present settlers have already passed through a profound change: The colonists who arrived with me are now included in the term 'old settlers' in anticipation of the arrival of the ship. The old folks who fought the formics are now called «originals» but there is no common term to distinguish between their descendants and the people who arrived with me.
If I remained, then both the governor of the new settlement and I would be appointees from ColMin. If I leave, replaced by an elected council of the four settlements, with an elected president and elected mayors, it will create almost irresistible pressure on the new governor to limit himself to a single two-year term, as I did, and allow himself to be replaced by an elected mayor.
Meanwhile, the 'old settlers' have planted their crops for them, but have built only half enough houses. That is at my suggestion, so that the new colonists can join with them in building the rest. They need to experience how much work it takes, so they'll appreciate better just how much work was done for them by the old settlers. And working side by side will help keep the two groups from being strangers — even though I have located them far enough away that your goal of separate development will also have a chance of being met. They can't be completely separated, however, or exogamy would be impractical and genes are more important than culture at this moment for the future health of this world's human stock.
Human stock. but we ARE having to concern ourselves with the physical bodies in just the way herders always have. Uncle Sel would be the first to laugh and say that this is exactly right. We're mammals before we're humans, and if we ever forget the mammal, then all that makes us human will be overwhelmed by the hungry beast.
I've been studying everything I can about Virlomi and the wars she fought. What an astonishing woman! Her Battle School records show only an ordinary student (in an admittedly extraordinary group). But Battle School is about war, not revolution or national survival; nor did your tests measure anyone's propensity for becoming a demigod. If you had such a test, I wonder what you would have found out about Peter, back when he was a child and not ruler of the world.
Speaking of Peter, he and I are in conversation; perhaps you knew. We're not messaging, we're using ansible bandwidth for conversation. It's bittersweet to see him at nearly sixty years of age. Hair turning steely grey, face lined, carrying a little weight (but still fit), and the lines of responsibility etched on his face. He's not the boy I knew and hated. But the existence of this man does not erase that boy from my memory. They are simply two separate people in my mind, who happen to have the same name.
I find myself admiring the man; even loving him. He has faced choices every bit as terrible as mine ever were — and he dealt with them with his eyes open. He knew before he made his decisions that people would die from them. And yet he has more compassion than he — or I, or Valentine for that matter — ever expected of him.
He tells me that in his childhood, after I was in Battle School, he decided that the only way to succeed in his
