she ruled now. They were in pain, something that she hadn't felt before, the bodies writhing in agony as the myriad aiuas rebelled at having her to rule them. Now in control of three bodies and three brains, she recognized amid the chaos and the madness of their convulsions that her presence meant nothing but pain and terror to them, and they longed for their beloved one, their ruler who had been so trusted and well-known to them that they thought of him as their very self. They had no name for him, being too small and weak to have such capacities as language or consciousness, but they knew him and they knew that Jane was not their proper master and the terror and the agony of it became the sole fact of each body's being and she knew, she knew she could not stay.
Yes, she overmastered them. Yes, she had the strength to still the twisting, bunching muscles and to restore an order that became a parody of life. But all her effort was spent in quelling a billion rebellions against her rule. Without the willing obedience of all these cells, she was not capable of such complex leisure-born activities as thought and speech.
And something else: She was not happy here. She could not stop thinking of the aiua she had driven out. I was drawn here because I knew him and I loved him and I belonged with him, and now I have taken from him all that he loved and all that loved him. She knew, again, that she did not belong here. Other aiuas might be content to rule against the will of those ruled, but she could not. It was not beautiful to her. There was no joy in it. Life along the tenuous strands of the last few ansibles had been happier than this.
Letting go was hard. Even in rebellion against her, the pull of the body was exquisitely strong. She had tasted a kind of life that was so sweet, despite its bitterness and pain, that she could never go back to what she had been before. She could scarcely even find the ansible links, and, having found them, could not bring herself to reach for them and cling. Instead she cast about, flung herself to the reaches of the bodies that she temporarily and painfully ruled. Wherever she went, there was grief and agony, and no home for her.
But didn't the master of these bodies leap somewhere? Where did he go, when he fled from me? Now he was back, now he was restoring peace and calm in the bodies that she had momentarily mastered, but where had he gone?
She found it, a set of links far different from the mechanical bindings of the ansible. Where the ansibles might seem to be cables, metal, hard, the web that now she found was lacy and light; but against all appearances it was also strong and copious. She could leap here, yes, and so she leapt.
"She has found me! Oh, my love, she is too strong for me! She is too bright and strong for me"
"Wait, wait, wait, let her find her way."
"She'll push us out, we have to drive her off, away, away."
"Be still, be patient, trust me: She has learned, she won't drive anyone away, there'll be a place where there is room for her, I see it, she is on the verge ..."
"It was Young Val's body she was supposed to take, or Peter's, or Ender's! Not one of us, not one of us."
"Peace, be still. Only for a little while. Only until Ender understands and gives a body to his friend. What she can't take by force she can receive by gift. You'll see. And in your web, my dear friend, my trusted friend, there are places where there will be room for her to dwell as just a visitor, to have a life while she is waiting for Ender to give up her true and final home."
Suddenly Valentine was as still as a corpse. "She's dead," whispered Ela.
"No!" wailed Miro, and he tried to breathe life into her mouth until the woman under his hands, under his lips, began to stir. She breathed deeply on her own. Her eyes fluttered open.
"Miro," she said. And then she wept and wept and wept and clung to him.
Ender lay still on the floor. The women untangled themselves from him, helping each other to rise to their knees, to stand, to bend, to