obsessively protective of her son, there was nothing perverse about their relationship — she never tried to keep him in her bed, for instance, and she never bathed him after infancy — none of the danger signs. He was such a tiny baby. Almost like a toy. But he walked and talked incredibly young. Shockingly young.'
'And he stayed small,' said Ender, 'until he was in his teens. Just kept growing at an ordinary pace and then didn't stop. I imagine he's something of a giant now.'
'Two full meters in height with no sign of stopping,' said Virlomi. 'How did you know this?'
'Because of who his parents are.'
Virlomi gasped. 'Graff knows who the real father is. And he didn't tell me. How was I supposed to deal with this situation if he didn't give me all the information?'
'Forgive me for reminding you,' said Ender, 'but you were not widely trusted at the time.'
'No,' she said. 'But I thought if he made me governor, he'd give me. but that's past and gone.'
Ender wondered if, indeed, Graff was gone. He wasn't on any of the registries he could access — but he didn't have ansible privileges like those he'd had before, as a new governor coming to his colony. There were deep searches he simply wasn't given time to pursue.
'Graff didn't want to leave you without knowledge. But he gave it to me, and left it to me to judge how much to tell you.'
'So you don't trust me either?' Her voice sounded jocular, but there was pain under it.
'I don't know you,' said Ender. 'You made war against my friends. You liberated your country from the invaders. But then you became a vengeful invader yourself. I don't know what to do with this information. Let me make up my mind as I come to know you.'
Valentine spoke up for the first time since their initial greetings. 'What is it that has happened that made you assure us that you told no one Ender was coming?'
Virlomi turned to her respectfully. 'It's part of the longstanding struggle between me and Randall Firth.'
'Isn't he still a child?'
Virlomi laughed bitterly. 'Do Battle School graduates really say such things to each other?'
Ender chuckled. 'Apparently so. How long has this struggle gone on?'
'By the time he was twelve, he was such a precocious. orator. that he had the old settlers and the non- Indian colonists who came with me eating out of his hand. At first he was their clever mascot. Now he is something closer to a spiritual leader, a.»
'A Virlomi,' said Ender.
'He has made himself into their equivalent of the way the Indian colonists regard me, yes,' she said. 'I never claimed to be a goddess.'
'Let's not argue such old issues.'
'I just want you to know the truth.'
'No, Virlomi,' said Valentine, intruding again, or so Virlomi's expression seemed to say. 'You deliberately constructed the goddess image, and when people asked you, you gave nondenial denials: 'Since when do goddesses walk the earth? 'Would a goddess fail so often? And the most loathsomely deceptive of them all: 'What do you think?»
Virlomi sighed. 'You have no mercy,' she said.
'No,' said Valentine. 'I have a lot of mercy. I just don't have any manners.'
'Yes,' said Virlomi. 'He has learned from watching me, how I handle the Indians, how they worship me. His group has no shared religion, no traditions in common. But he constructed one, especially because everyone knew that evil book The Hive Queen.'
'How is it evil?' asked Ender.
'Because it's a pack of lies. Who could know what the hive queens thought or felt or remembered or tried to do? But it has turned the formics into tragic figures in the minds of the impressionable fools who memorize that damnable book.'
Ender chuckled. 'Smart boy.'
'What?' Virlomi asked him, looking suspicious.
'I assume you're telling me this because he somehow claims that he is the heir of the hive queens.'
'Which is absolutely absurd because ours is the first colony that was not founded on the ruins of formic civilization.'
'So how does he manage it?' asked Ender.
'He claims that the Indian population — eighty percent of the total — are merely trying to reestablish here the exact culture they had on Earth. While he and the others are the ones who are trying to create something new. He really does have the gall to call his little movement the 'Natives of Ganges. And he says we Indians are like the jackals who have settled other worlds — destroying the natives and then stealing all that they accomplished.'
'And people buy this?'
'Oddly enough,' she said, 'not that many do. Most of the non-Indian colonists are trying to get along.'
'But some believe him,' said Ender.
'Millions.'
'There aren't that many colonists,' said Valentine.
'He isn't just playing to the local crowd,' said Virlomi. 'He sends his writings out by ansible. There are chapters of the Natives of Ganges in most of the major cities of Earth. Even in India. Millions, as I told you.'
Valentine sighed. 'I saw them referred to only as 'the Natives' on the nets and I wasn't interested. That originated here?'
'They regard The Hive Queen as their scripture, and the formics as their spiritual forebears,' said Virlomi. 'On Earth, their doctrine is almost the opposite of what Randall preaches here. They claim that the FPE should be abolished because it erases all the 'genuine, 'native' cultures of Earth. They refuse to speak Common. They make a big show of following native religions.'
'While here, Randall condemns your people for doing exactly that,' said Ender. 'Preserving your culture from Earth.'
'Yes,' said Virlomi. 'But he claims it isn't inconsistent — this is not where Indian culture originated. It's a new place, and so he and his 'Natives of Ganges' are creating the real native culture of this world, instead of a warmed-over copy of an old one from Earth.'
Ender chuckled.
'It's funny to you,' Virlomi said.
'Not at all,' said Ender. 'I'm just thinking that Graff really was such a genius. Not as smart as the kids he trained in Battle School, but. with Randall just an infant in his mother's arms, he knew that they would cause trouble.'
'And sent you to save me,' she said.
'I doubt you need saving,' said Ender.
'No, I don't,' she said. 'I've already dealt with it. I provoked him into assaulting me in my house. It's on vid and we've already held the trial and sentenced him to be exiled. He's going back to Earth — along with any of his malcontents who want to go with him.'
Ender shook his head. 'And it doesn't occur to you that that's exactly what he wants you to do?'
'Of course it did. But I also don't care, as long as I don't have to deal with him.'
Ender sighed. 'Of course you care, Virlomi. If he already has a following there, and then he returns to Earth as an exile from what he calls his 'native world, then you have just sown the seed that can bring down the FPE and restore the Earth to the miserable chaos of war and hatred that Peter Wiggin ended such a short time ago.'
'That's not my problem,' said Virlomi.
'Our generation is gone from power, Virlomi,' said Ender, 'except in a few remote colonies. Peter is dead. His successors are lackluster placeholders. Do you think they'll be competent to deal with this Randall Firth?'
Virlomi hesitated. 'No.'
'So if you knowingly infect someone with a virus that you know their body can't fight off, have you not murdered them?'
Virlomi buried her face in her hands. 'I know,' she said. 'I tried not to know, but I know.'
'What I can't yet determine,' said Valentine, 'is why your first words to us were a protest that you hadn't told anyone that Ender was coming. Why would that matter?'
