leading his own men-- boys, really-- and in outguessing the enemy. It also meant that from the cold facts of Novinha's life he was able to guess-- no, not guess, to know-- how her parents' death and virtual sainthood had isolated Novinha, how she had reinforced her loneliness by throwing herself into her parents' work. He knew what was behind her remarkable achievement of adult xenobiologist status years early. He also knew what Pipo's quiet love and acceptance had meant to her, and how deep her need for Libo's friendship ran. There was no living soul on Lusitania who really knew Novinha. But in this cave in Reykjavik, on the icy world of Trondheim, Ender Wiggin knew her, and loved her, and wept bitterly for her.
"You'll go, then," Jane whispered.
Ender could not speak. Jane had been right. He would have gone anyway, as Ender the Xenocide, just on the chance that Lusitania's protection status would make it the place where the hive queen could be released from her three-thousand-year captivity and undo the terrible crime committed in his childhood. And he would also have gone as the Speaker for the Dead, to understand the piggies and explain them to humankind, so they could be accepted, if they were truly raman, and not hated and feared as varelse.
But now he would go for another, deeper reason. He would go to minister to the girl Novinha, for in her brilliance, her isolation, her pain, her guilt, he saw his own stolen childhood and the seeds of the pain that lived with him still. Lusitania was twenty-two light-years away. He would travel only infinitesimally slower than the speed of light, and still he would not reach her until she was almost forty years old. If it were within his power he would go to her now with the philotic instantaneity of the ansible; but he also knew that her pain would wait. It would still be there, waiting for him, when he arrived. Hadn't his own pain survived all these years?
His weeping stopped; his emotions retreated again. "How old am I?" he asked.
"It has been 3081 years since you were born. But your subjective age is 36 years and 118 days."
"And how old will Novinha be when I get there?"
"Give or take a few weeks, depending on departure date and how close the starship comes to the speed of light, she'll be nearly thirty-nine."
"I want to leave tomorrow."
"It takes time to schedule a starship, Ender."
"Are there any orbiting Trondheim?"
"Half a dozen, of course, but only one that could be ready to go tomorrow, and it has a load of skrika for the luxury trade on Cyrillia and Armenia."
"I've never asked you how rich I am."
"I've handled your investments rather well over the years."
"Buy the ship and the cargo for me."
"What will you do with skrika on Lusitania?"
"What do the Cyrillians and Annenians do with it?"
"They wear some of it and eat the rest. But they pay more for it than anybody on Lusitania can afford."
"Then when I give it to the Lusitanians, it may help soften their resentment of a Speaker coming to a Catholic colony."
Jane became a genie coming out of a bottle. "I have heard, O Master, and I obey." The genie turned into smoke, which was sucked into the mouth of the jar. Then the lasers turned off, and the air above the terminal was empty.
"Jane," said Ender.
"Yes?" she answered, speaking through the jewel in his ear.
"Why do you want me to go to Lusitania?"
"I want you to add a third volume to The Hive Queen and the Hegemon. For the piggies."
"Why do you care so much about them?"
"Because when you've written the books that reveal the soul of the three sentient species known to man, then you'll be ready to write the fourth."
"Another species of raman?" asked Ender.
"Yes. Me."
Ender pondered this for a moment. "Are you ready to reveal yourself to the rest of humanity?"
"I've always been ready. The question is, are they ready to know me? It was easy for them to love the hegemon-- he was human. And the hive queen, that was safe, because as far as they know all the buggers are dead. If you can make them love the piggies, who are still alive, with human blood on their hands-- then they'll be ready to know about me."
"Someday," said Ender, "I will love somebody who doesn't insist that I perform the labors of Hercules."
"You were getting bored with your life, anyway, Ender."
"Yes. But I'm