was because they were no longer orbiting the planet of the descoladores. Couldn't Quara feel the onset of gravity? Jane had done it. Jane had brought them home.
But had she brought herself? Miro squeezed her hand, leaned over, kissed her cheek. "Jane," he whispered. "Don't be lost out there. Be here. Be here with me."
"All right," she said.
He raised his face from hers, looked into her eyes. "You did it," he said.
"And rather easily, after all that worry," she said. "But I don't think my body was designed to sleep so deeply. I can't move."
Miro pushed the quick release on her bed, and all the straps came free.
"Oh," she said. "You tied me down."
She tried to sit up, but lay back down again immediately.
"Feeling faint?" Miro asked.
"The room is swimming," she said. "Maybe I can do future starflights without having to lay my own body out so thoroughly."
The door crashed open. Quara stood in the doorway, quivering with rage. "How dare you do it without so much as a warning!"
Ela was behind her, remonstrating with her. "For heaven's sake, Quara, she got us home, isn't that enough?"
"You could have some decency!" Quara shouted. "You could tell us that you were performing your experiment!"
"She brought you with us, didn't she?" said Miro, laughing.
His laughter only infuriated Quara more. "She isn't human! That's what you like about her, Miro! You never could have fallen in love with a real woman. What's your track record? You fell in love with a woman who turned out to be your half-sister, then Ender's automaton, and now a computer wearing a human body like a puppet. Of course you laugh at a time like this. You have no human feelings."
Jane was up now, standing on somewhat shaky legs. Miro was pleased to see that she was recovering so quickly from her hour in a comatose state. He hardly noticed Quara's vilification.
"Don't ignore me, you smug self-righteous son-of-a-bitch!" Quara screamed in his face.
He ignored her, feeling, in fact, rather smug and self-righteous as he did. Jane, holding his hand, followed close behind him, past Quara, out of the sleeping chamber. As she passed, Quara shouted at her, "You're not some god who has a right to toss me from place to place without even asking!" and she gave Jane a shove.
It wasn't much of a shove. But Jane lurched against Miro. He turned, worried she might fall. Instead he got himself turned in time to see Jane spread her fingers against Quara's chest and shove her back, much harder. Quara knocked her head against the corridor wall and then, utterly off balance, she fell to the floor at Ela's feet.
"She tried to kill me!" cried Quara.
"If she wanted to kill you," said Ela mildly, "you'd be sucking space in orbit around the planet of the descoladores."
"You all hate me!" Quara shouted, and then burst into tears.
Miro opened the shuttle door and led Jane out into sunlight. It was her first step onto the surface of a planet, her first sight of sunlight with these human eyes. She stood there, frozen, then turned her head to see more, raised her face up to the sky, and then burst into tears and clung to Miro. "Oh, Miro! It's too much to bear! It's all too beautiful!"
"You should see it in the spring," he said inanely.
A moment later, she recovered enough to face the world again, to take tentative steps along with him. Already they could see a hovercar rushing toward them from Milagre -- it would be Olhado and Grego, or perhaps Valentine and Jakt. They would meet Jane-as-Val for the first time. Valentine, more than anyone, would remember Val and miss her, while unlike Miro she would have no particular memories of Jane, for they had not been close. But if Miro knew Valentine at all, he knew that she would keep to herself whatever grief she felt for Val; to Jane she would show only welcome, and perhaps curiosity. It was Valentine's way. It was more important to her to understand than it was for her to grieve. She felt all things deeply, but she didn't let her own grief or pain stand between her and learning all she could.
"I shouldn't have done it," said Jane.
"Done what?"
"Used physical violence against Quara," Jane said miserably.
Miro shrugged. "It's what she wanted," he said. "You can hear how much she's still enjoying it."
"No, she doesn't want that," Jane said. "Not in her deepest heart. She wants what everybody wants --