tragic, romantic, and least complicated thing: She would stay. She rather liked the idea of being noble in human terms; and it proved, to her own surprise, that she had not been utterly unchanged by her close contact with humans and pequeninos. They had transformed her quite against her own expectations. There had been no Hive Queen like her in all the history of her people.
"I wish you would go," Human told her. "I prefer the thought of you alive. "
But for once she did not answer him.
Jane was adamant. The team working on the language of the descoladores had to leave Lusitania and get back to work in orbit around the descolada planet. Of course that included herself, but no one was foolish enough to begrudge the survival of the person who was making all the starships go, nor of the team that would perhaps save all of humanity from the descoladores. But Jane was on shakier moral ground when she also insisted that Novinha, Grego, and Olhado and his family be taken to a place of safety. Valentine, too, was informed that if she did not go with her husband and children and their crew and friends to Jakt's starship, Jane would be forced to waste precious mental resources by transporting them bodily against their will, sans spacecraft if necessary.
"Why us?" demanded Valentine. "We haven't asked for special treatment."
"I don't care what you do or do not ask for," said Jane. "You are Ender's sister. Novinha is his widow, her children are his adopted children; I will not stand by and let you be killed when I have it in my power to save the family of my friend. If that seems unfairly preferential to you, then complain about it to me later, but for now get yourselves into Jakt's spaceship so I can lift you off this world. And you will save more lives if you don't waste another moment of my attention with useless argument."
Feeling ashamed at having special privileges, yet grateful they and their loved ones would live through the next few hours, the descoladores team gathered in the shuttle-turned-starship, which Jane had relocated away from the crowded landing area; the others hurried toward Jakt's landing craft, which she had also moved to an isolated spot.
In a way, for many of them at least, the appearance of the fleet was almost a relief. They had lived for so long in its shadow that to have it here at last gave respite from the endless anxiety. Within an hour or two, the issue would be decided.
In the shuttle that hurtled along in a high orbit above the planet of the descoladores, Miro sat numbly at his terminal. "I can't work," he said at last. "I can't concentrate on language when my people and my home are on the brink of destruction." He knew that Jane, strapped into her bed in the back of the shuttle, was using her whole concentration to move ship after ship from Lusitania to other colony worlds that were ill-prepared to receive them. While all he could do was puzzle over molecular messages from inscrutable aliens.
"Well I can," said Quara. "After all, these descoladores are just as great a threat, and to all of humanity, not just to one small world."
"How wise of you," said Ela dryly, "to take the long view."
"Look at these broadcasts we're getting from the descoladores," said Quara. "See if you recognize what I'm seeing here."
Ela called up Quara's display on her own terminal; so did Miro. However annoying Quara might be, she was good at what she did.
"See this? Whatever else this molecule does, it's exactly designed to work at precisely the same location in the brain as the heroin molecule."
It could not be denied that the fit was perfect. Ela, though, found it hard to believe. "The only way they could do this," she said, "is if they took the historical information contained in the descolada descriptions we sent them, used that information to build a human body, studied it, and found a chemical that would immobilize us with mindless pleasure while they do whatever they want to us. There's no way they've had time to grow a human since we sent that information."
"Maybe they don't have to build the whole human body," said Miro. "Maybe they're so adept at reading genetic information that they can extrapolate everything there is to know about the human anatomy and physiology from our genetic information alone."