Last Shadow (9781250252135) Read online

  Wang-Mu said it without a trace of disrespect or even reproof in her voice—she was a superb servant, wasn’t she?—yet Peter also knew that when the two of them were alone, she had learned never to say such things to him, certainly not with such clarity and certainty, because he would fly into a rage (at first) or simply leave the room until he cooled off enough to feel no need to reprove her for her temerity.

  He knew that she spoke now because in front of Jane and Thulium he could not rage, and on this errand he could not walk away. He had to bear it.

  She manipulates me, he thought. But only to tell me what is obvious to everyone else. I am who I am, I have the history I have.

  But I don’t remember being Ender Wiggin. I have avoided reading his writings as much as possible, and I haven’t read the transcript of Plikt’s Speaking for his death. Nor have I talked much with the original Valentine about him. It’s Peter Wiggin that I’ve studied and tried to learn from. I read The Hegemon again and again, until I realized that I could not find the real Peter Wiggin in those pages. But I found the original Andrew Wiggin there, because every page was filled with his wisdom, his understanding, his admiration, and his forgiveness of his brother.

  Not my forgiveness, though. I don’t remember being either one of them. I only remember coming to consciousness inside that starship where Ela was making her anti-descolada virus and Miro was refashioning himself. I had enough memory to know my name, and Valentine’s, and Ender’s. I even knew why we were in that ship, and who the other people were, and that a being named Jane was controlling it all. I had the full range of the languages Ender Wiggin understood and spoke—not just the English of his childhood in America or the Stark he had spoken on every world since, or the slang of Battle School. On every world where Ender had spoken for the dead, he had learned at least some of the local language, and in some places an astonishing amount. That’s why Peter was able to follow many conversations in Japanese, in Mandarin, in the Lusitanian dialect of Portuguese—because they came along with Ender’s aiúa into Peter’s brain.

  I am full of languages.

  My muscles are full of memories, too. They can’t be Peter Wiggin’s, because muscle memory is not in the DNA.

  As he walked alongside Wang-Mu, following Jane and the child, he realized that if someone were to rush at them to attack them, his body knew exactly what to do. He knew how to manipulate body weight, duck and dodge, and where to strike an opponent to immobilize him. Why hadn’t he noticed he had this skill before?

  It had never come up.

  He had never admitted to himself that he really was, in some way, Ender Wiggin. But now, walking this longish distance, his muscles were coming alive and awake.

  This isn’t the body I wore when I learned these skills, he thought, and my kinesthesia would not place my blows exactly where intended, but I could adapt to it. I can wear this body and call it myself, even though my mind remembers wearing a different body.

  How can the dimensionless aiúa carry muscle memory with it?

  That is not an interesting question, his own deep mind assured him. What matters is that now you know the aiúa can carry memories, from languages to body movements, and if it can bring those along into this new flesh Ender made, what other memories might there be?

  Jane started talking to Thulium in front of him. “Oh, Thulium, let’s not go down there. We don’t have to follow your exact track to the Hive Queen; we’ll save ourselves a climb later if we stay high up on this slope.”

  Thulium looked up at Jane and blushed. Then she looked hurriedly away, but accepted Jane’s suggestion about the route.

  If Jane wanted anyone else to know why she took this detour, she would have explained it. Thulium’s obvious embarrassment suggested that Jane was helping her avoid some spot that had scared her before, or something like that. Something that would make this seemingly fearless child wary of returning by that route.

  Yet Thulium had not asked for a detour, and had not chosen one. She might want to avoid something, but she had not chosen to avoid it. Jane knew something that Thulium had not known that she knew.

  As far as I’m concerned, he said to himself, I didn’t notice anything about their conversation about the route. It was trivial. I’m just a passenger on this little journey. He started looking around for landmarks, to see if he could return to this spot later, using his newly acquired Outside-In mobility.

  No, he thought. I will not come back here and try to find evidence of something that would have shamed Thulium. Even if she were really a simple eight-year-old child, she would deserve privacy and respect. And since she’s a leguminid, and not an ordinary child at all, I need to show her all the more respect.

  Si Wang-Mu squeezed his hand.

  He looked at her.

  She wasn’t looking at him. She was merely smiling.

  Did she hear and understand my entire conversation with myself? Did she see how I avoided asking questions? Did she know that I decided not to return here and search for answers? Is she judging me every second?

  No, he thought. She’s observing me with affection and understanding, guessing the things I’m struggling with, and she’s happy when I triumph over the Peter Wiggin nature built into this body.

  So it isn’t me she loves. It’s Ender Wiggin.

  Fool, he told himself. It isn’t the Peter Wiggin aspect of me that she loves, it’s my deepest inner nature, which happens to be the same one that made all of Ender Wiggin’s choices in life.

  Shut up, he told himself.

  He squeezed her hand back, and if she had looked up at him, she would have seen him smiling, too. Because it was certainly true that whoever he turned out to be, Si Wang-Mu was his wife, and she would be on his side.

  * * *

  Thulium recognized everything about the place. The river, meandering through nearly level ground, with meadows and then farmland stretching away west and north, and a bank of hills on the south shore. The cavern or tunnel entrance—she still couldn’t tell which—with Formic workers moving in and out, all of them on an urgent errand, judging by their haste, but nobody plotting their trajectories, which seemed to be negotiated at the moment, and not according to any protocol. Maybe some kind of invisible ranking? They moved like ants, individually purposeful, collectively chaotic. Does the course of history change depending on whether the two Formics, instead of colliding, pass each other on the right or the left? Or is chaos simply the easiest control method for the Hive Queen, who has more important matters to attend to?

  “I believe she lives inside that cave somewhere,” said Thulium. “Depending on how much of insect cultural patterns remain with her, she may be very deep inside, with almost no light, but with some kind of air movement passages that can be opened and fanned for cooling, or closed and warmed for heating.”

  “I’ve never been inside,” said Jane. “Except my observations through the jewel that Ender wore in his ear.”

  “Nor have I,” said Thulium. “A Formic came and talked to me as I stopped to drink and wash myself in the river.” Would the others wonder why she felt a need to wash? Let them, thought Thulium. I can’t control what they wonder.

  Peter was saying nothing. But Wang-Mu said, “If Peter has any memories from Ender’s passage into the habitation of the Hive Queen, they haven’t surfaced yet.”

  Thulium wondered why Wang-Mu was answering for Peter, as if he were a child too shy to speak his mind.

  But then again, he came to consciousness far more recently than I did. Just because he’s adult-sized doesn’t imply that he is not, in some ways at least, still in his childhood.

  So, trying not to give offense, Thulium did not ask if Wang-Mu also cut up his food for him to eat. She didn’t have to be Sergeant’s child all the time.

  Without Thulium noticing its approach, a Formic now stood on the opposite bank.

  “It’s shallow,” said Jane. “She expects us to cross.”

  “When you say ‘she,’” said Wang-Mu, “do
you mean that the Formic we’re looking at is female, or that you’re telling us what the Hive Queen wants?”

  “Both,” said Jane. “We know there must be males to fertilize the eggs, but she has never shown them to us.”

  “The parents have seen male Formics,” said Thulium. “And the cousins have all seen the vids. The Giant and our parents came across an ancient Formic colony ship, pre-lightspeed. The Queen had died, but the interior biome was still functioning reasonably well, under the half-mad direction of the drones.”

  “I will want to see those vids,” said Jane.

  “Oh, please,” said Thulium. “You already ransacked all our computer storage. You’ve studied them.”

  “I would rather have them given to me than to ransack them,” said Jane.

  “A cosmetic difference,” said Thulium, “since the ransacking has already happened.”

  “It’s one of the things the Hyrum Graff simulation was doing before and during his conversation with you.”

  “So he was a virus,” said Thulium.

  “Not a hostile one,” said Jane. “He took nothing away from you.”

  “Except our privacy.”

  “Do we cross the river barefoot?” asked Wang-Mu. “The water seems to be drinkable, but it isn’t clear enough for me to see the bottom. Will I need to wear my shoes or carry them?”

  Thulium noted that Wang-Mu was mothering them all—keeping them on the subject that mattered. Steering them away from conflict. Well done, Chinese servant-girl.

  Thulium, who had already felt the bottom of the river, at least near the shore, took her shoes off and strode barefoot into the water.

  At once the Formic splashed into the water, raced across, and scooped Thulium up in her arms.

  Thulium understood the moment she saw how deep the water was in the middle. The others could safely ford the river, but Thulium’s body was too weak to resist the strong center current. Thulium’s question was whether the Hive Queen, paying attention at that moment, had ordered the Formic to come and carry her, or if the Formic itself had enough intelligence to make such an evaluation and decision on its own. Or had the Hive Queen given it a prior instruction which it was now, intelligently, obeying?

  She saw the consternation in the others, now splashing after her. She waved and called out, “It’s all right! I’m not big enough to fight the current, so she’s keeping me safe!”

  “Good,” said the Formic, in its strange voice. Thulium realized that it was easier to understand this time.

  Then they were on dry land, and Thulium slid out of its arms—her arms—and stood again, waiting for the humans to catch up.

  They did, soaking wet. They wasted a few minutes wringing out their clothing, as much as possible, and then putting dry shoes on wet feet, never an easy task. Thulium said nothing by way of criticism; she had been ferried across, so nothing above her knees was even damp, and she already had her shoes back on. They would do what they believed they must, and what was the hurry? This was their errand, not hers, so their sense of urgency was what must guide their progress.

  Still, Thulium felt as if the Hive Queen were calling her. Saying to hurry. Why was she waiting for the others?

  Because I’m terrified to face you alone, she thought.

  Even in the darkness and with your weak eyes, came the answer, you are never safer than you are with me.

  Was that really the Hive Queen talking to her? The Queen had communed with Ender, when she was inside the cocoon. She had given him the visions that allowed him to write The Hive Queen. Could she also talk to Thulium? But she was receiving words, not images, the way Ender had described their communication.

  That was how we talked at first, Little One, but I learned to think in a languagey way, so now I use my vocabulary look-up tables to allow me to speak into your mind with some hope of achieving understanding.

  You’re terrific at it, Thulium said silently. Or at least I think I’m understanding everything you say.

  Alas that I cannot say in your language everything that I want you to understand, the Queen replied. But we’ll see what happens over time.

  And then, as those words ended, Thulium’s vision was filled with a scene inside a huge enclosed space, where an enormously tall man was stepping away from a harness and walking clumsily, thunderously on the soil of a strange garden. Then he stumbled and fell, and lay still, and Thulium knew that she had just witnessed the death of the Giant, her grandfather.

  How do you have this image? Thulium asked.

  In reply, she saw the images of all the animals in the garden. Their eyes open, watching.

  The mother of these creatures was dead, said the Queen, but when the leguminids found the place, I quickly learned to see through the eyes of those orphaned creatures and add their observations to my memory. I remember it as if I saw it myself.

  Thulium felt an arm around her shoulder. “Don’t be afraid,” said Wang-Mu. “She’s clearly protecting you.”

  Jane’s voice answered. “Thulium didn’t stop because she’s afraid. The Queen is already speaking to her, and she showed Thulium a memory that means a lot to her. Let’s give her a moment to recover before we press her to lead us on.”

  Wang-Mu’s hand withdrew from Thulium’s shoulder.

  Thulium reached out, took Wang-Mu’s hand, and drew her arm across her shoulders again. “I’m not sorry that you touched me,” she said. “I was taken from my mother at a very early age. A human touch, kindly meant, has been rare in my life.”

  Wang-Mu tentatively squeezed her in something like a sideways hug. It was, of course, awkward; but love is love.

  Instantly Thulium saw an image of herself and Wang-Mu as they were at that moment; it must be the vision being passed to the Hive Queen from the Formic who had carried her across the river. But there was more to the image than just the girl and the young woman. There was also a glimmer of light, a thread like a strand of spiderweb glistening in the sunlight on a dewy morning.

  Am I making a philotic connection with Wang-Mu? asked Thulium in her mind.

  You are connecting with each other, said the Queen.

  Show me all the connections! Please!

  You could not comprehend them all, the Queen said. Your brain could not contain them.

  Try me!

  No, the Queen said, with finality. But look at these.

  Now Thulium saw the four of them, still from behind, but the gossamer connection between her and Wang-Mu was reduced to insignificance by the vast bright ropes that came from Jane—one leading back toward Lusitania colony, where Thulium assumed it connected with Miro, and another thick as a hawser connecting her to Peter. Then other thick philotic connections reached into the cavern, and Thulium knew that they led to the Hive Queen. A hawser-like connection from Peter, another from Jane. A slight one from Wang-Mu, but a stronger one from Thulium herself.

  What about a connection between Peter and Wang-Mu?

  Then she saw it, as it briefly glowed a little brighter. It was there. Nothing like the connections that had grown over years—no, centuries—between Ender’s aiúa and those of Jane and the Hive Queen. But not a weak connection, either. Many strands. Not yet formed into a firm rope, as the longstanding philotic connections appeared to Thulium in this vision. But still too many strands to break easily.

  Is it enough? Thulium asked. Can Peter carry Wang-Mu along with him?

  Little One, said the Hive Queen in her mind. That is Peter’s question to ask, and it is for him to learn the answer.

  “Let’s go on in,” said Thulium. “I think she’ll show us the way.”

  “There will be well-worn paths,” said Jane, “and no traps or obstacles, not even low ceilings, because her children cleared them all away long ago. And the darkness is not absolute. Look around you and think. No one needs to stumble.”

  Thulium strode into the tunnel’s mouth.

  “Shouldn’t the Formic lead us?” asked Peter.

  “You may hold the Formic’s
hand, if you like,” said Jane. “But she will follow us, not lead.”

  Thulium heard them follow her, their feet scuffing the dirt of the hard-packed road. How many thousands or millions of steps had Formic feet taken to form this path? And back on the original Formic worlds and colonies, which existed thousands and thousands of years, what paths and tunnels did they form? Will I ever see anything truly ancient from the Hive Queen civilization?

  I can show you many images, said the voice inside her mind. But your yearning is to see them with your eyes. That might be arranged, with one of those who can travel world to world. Be patient, Little One. Your eyes will see many things. But your mind will see far more. Things that were, things that are, things that are yet to come. You will imagine things and make them come to be; you will imagine other things, and do whatever is necessary to avoid them. You are one of the hinges of memory.

  No, of history. Your word is history, because you learn it instead of remembering it.

  “I will write about this day,” said Wang-Mu softly. “I will write to Master Han.”

  “Please don’t,” said Jane. “Let him live out his days in the company of his beloved daughter. Let him forget how much better he was pleased with you than with her.”

  Thulium thought: Jane can be cruel.

  Then she thought: Jane knows how much pain can be a part of love. The way Father loves me, even though he hurts and frightens me. While the twins hurt and frighten me for the pleasure of it, and have no love for me at all.

  I wish I could see philotic connections the way the Queen does.

  8

  Quara: I wish that any of you took my findings seriously.

  Ela: I wish your findings didn’t all match up so perfectly with your previously determined hypotheses.

  Quara: Do you have another way to read my data? Then tell me and we can design experiments.

  Ela: Design your own experiments to try to falsify your interpretations of the data. That’s what scientists do.