Last Shadow (9781250252135) Read online

  She was aware of Peter’s movement beside her; knowing that he was about to insist that because Ender spoke Chinese, Peter could speak Chinese. So she repeated, softly, “Properly.” He remained silent.

  “Are you male or female?” she asked the raven.

  “I am male, and therefore expendable if you should capture or kill me.”

  “Then I should not name you Fragrant Princess. I will call you Phoenix. It is not a god, only a legend; a bird that dies in fire, then rises alive again from the embers.”

  “I know that name,” said Phoenix. “Bird dies in flames, then rises up from the ashes. Very hopeful name.”

  “No one believes in that one, either,” said Peter softly.

  “Who was the kea who first spoke to me on my shoulder?” asked Wang-Mu.

  “The keas are not organized,” said Phoenix, “and even though they have names, they keep trading them so the name never refers to the same kea twice.”

  “They seemed very organized to me,” said Wang-Mu.

  “What you saw was every kea playing, doing whatever they felt like. The only organizing principle was to steal everything from you that one kea could carry away by flight.”

  “Very effective,” said Peter, who was still holding up his pants.

  “They brought everything to you,” said Wang-Mu.

  “To the Council,” said Phoenix. “But we left those things with the kea for safekeeping.”

  “Will they give them back to us?” asked Wang-Mu.

  “I don’t know,” said Phoenix.

  “Then we will leave,” said Wang-Mu, taking Peter’s hand.

  “Please do not go. Not yet,” said Phoenix.

  “Why not?” asked Peter.

  “Because the Council will not take long to make a decision, and I believe it is worth waiting to hear what they say.”

  “So we have to wait till you fly back to them and then back to us?” asked Peter.

  “I fly very quickly,” said Phoenix. “But nothing prevents you from returning to where you were before.”

  “Except a mob of ravens circling us and shouting at us,” said Wang-Mu.

  “They were upset,” said Phoenix.

  “So were we,” said Wang-Mu.

  “They will be quiet and still if you go back there.”

  Peter squeezed her hand, but she pulled her hand free. “Phoenix, would you like us to take you with us? The way we travel? In an instant?”

  “Yes,” said Phoenix. “I am not supposed to suggest that you do it, but if it happens, I will report what it feels like.”

  “It will probably be uncomfortable for a moment, and maybe frightening. But you will be safe,” said Wang-Mu.

  “We hope,” said Peter, not trying to lower his voice.

  “Yes,” said Wang-Mu. “We have never taken a bird with us before.” She put her hand in Peter’s.

  “Then my life and soul are in your keeping,” said Phoenix, hopping toward them across the sand.

  A moment later, they were back in front of the Council trees. Phoenix was right in front of them, struggling and flapping in the grass.

  “You’ll be fine,” said Wang-Mu. “Don’t try to fly, just stand up and be still for a moment.”

  Phoenix stood up and remained still as a statue. “It has been a moment. Will I ever be able to fly again?”

  “Now that you’re calm,” said Peter, “try it and see.”

  Phoenix instantly fluttered upward into flight. When he landed, Dog spoke from the trees. “Why did you risk the life of our messenger?” she asked.

  “We asked him if he wanted us to take him with us,” said Wang-Mu. “If he had not consented, we would not have brought him. He will report to you what he experienced. We also go through inner turmoil for a few moments when we fly that way, and we sometimes feel disoriented when we arrive.”

  “Will you take me with you?” asked Dog.

  “No,” said Peter.

  “Not if we don’t have our belongings back,” said Wang-Mu.

  “Farewell,” said Peter, reaching for Wang-Mu’s hand.

  How far was Peter willing to take the bluff? Because bluff it certainly was.

  A bright orange flash dropped down, turning green when they saw it from above. It was carrying Wang-Mu’s tiny flashlight. It didn’t put it at her feet—the kea put it back in the pants pocket it had been taken from.

  Within moments, the keas had swarmed all over them, returning everything.

  “I don’t suppose any of you knows how to restore the elastic on my pants,” said Peter.

  “Is the kea who first spoke to me among you? Is that bird here?” asked Wang-Mu.

  After a flurry of keas jumping up into the air and down again, one kea flew up onto Wang-Mu’s shoulder. She instantly recognized the voice that spoke softly in her ear. Of course, she had no way of knowing whether all talking keas sounded exactly this way.

  “Thank you for speaking to me,” said Wang-Mu.

  “You spoke to us,” said the kea, “and I was the one with the best speech.”

  “I am Si Wang-Mu,” she said, “but in Star Common my name means Royal Mother of the West.”

  “Are you the best speaker among your people?” asked the kea.

  “I am the one who first realized that you were intelligent and aware, so I spoke to you first.”

  “Then you are also our Royal Mother,” said the kea.

  “Are you male or female?” asked Wang-Mu.

  “To us that question is an awful insult, for it suggests that our sex is not obvious from our feathering. But because you are an ignorant alien and a human as well, I will answer you simply: I am male.”

  “Then I will call you Royal Son,” said Wang-Mu, “if you will call me Royal Mother.”

  “Am I your hatchling now? Your fledgling? Are we kin?”

  “I don’t know what such declarations would mean among you,” said Wang-Mu, “but I am whatever will assure that we are and will remain good friends with each other.”

  “Kind intentions toward you, Royal Mother.”

  “Kind intentions toward you, too, Royal Son.”

  “Take me with you back to your world, Royal Mother,” said the kea.

  “I will ask the Council if they think this is a good idea,” said Wang-Mu. “For myself, I would gladly take you and then bring you back again within a day.”

  Since the Council was obviously hearing every word of this exchange, it was no surprise that Dog answered immediately. “I asked you to take me,” she said, “but the Council has forbidden me because they think that losing me would be calamitous. It would not. But the one you now call Royal Son is of no particular importance except when talking to humans, so if he died, the keas would be only a little worse off.”

  “Thank you,” said Royal Son.

  “Keas can be quite sarcastic,” said Dog, “but we understand that this is part of their natural playfulness, and so we do not kill them when they speak disrespectfully to ravens.”

  “Peter,” said Wang-Mu, “has everything been returned to you?”

  “Except for my dignity and a working waistband, yes.”

  “And I have everything of mine,” said Wang-Mu. “Royal Son, will you come with us?”

  “Yes, gladly,” he said.

  “Did you see how disturbed Phoenix was when he traveled with us a few minutes ago?” asked Wang-Mu.

  “I did. I am not afraid.”

  “Stay here on my shoulder,” said Wang-Mu. “Where I go, you will go.” She took Peter’s hand.

  They were in Q-Bay on Lusitania. Almost immediately several of the lab workers outside their enclosure noticed them and the normal purifications and exchanges began. Wang-Mu explained things as well as she could to Royal Son. He said nothing to her, but flew here and there inside Q-Bay to look through the various windows.

  All of Peter’s and Wang-Mu’s clothing and gear were passed into the purification chamber, while they pulled on their temporary quarantine clothes, which wo
uld also be purified when they left.

  “How will they purify me?” asked Royal Son.

  “We don’t know which of these chemicals will harm you,” said Peter. “To be sure we can keep our promise to bring you safely back to your people, it would be better if you stayed in this room with us until we return tomorrow morning.”

  “You will stay in this room?” asked Royal Son.

  “Once they’ve checked us for disease,” said Wang-Mu, “we will stay.”

  “Will they check me for disease?” asked Royal Son.

  “Only if you give them your permission,” said Wang-Mu. “They would like to take a blood sample from you. They will use the brush technique, down the feathers of your chest. It stings slightly, at least when they do it to me. We’ll let you watch when they brush our skin, and then you can decide if you want to undergo the procedure yourself.”

  “I think I understand ‘undergo,’” said Royal Son. “But ‘brush’?”

  “Preen,” said Wang-Mu. “It’s what you do with your own beaks to smooth your feathers and clean them.”

  Royal Son seemed to understand, because he immediately changed the subject. “Is there anything in this room that I can play with?” he asked.

  Peter said, “Play?”

  “Please don’t play with the locks and closures of the doors and windows,” said Wang-Mu, “and please don’t remove any parts that are attached to something. But anything loose and lying around, yes, you may play with it.”

  Instantly Royal Son was fluttering here and there, picking up anything, everything, and moving it somewhere else.

  “Somebody’s going to complain about this,” said Peter.

  “They can take it up with Dog,” said Wang-Mu. “We don’t really have much authority over the kea instinct to play.”

  14

  Jane: Peter and Si Wang-Mu came back safely. But they brought a talking bird with them.

  Queen: Bird. Flying warm-blooded beast. Eats insects or seeds or flesh. Feathered. Quadruped, but forelimbs are a single pair of feathered wings. Not all birds fly, but all have wings. We had none like this on our world, but we never had dinosaurs, either, which I believe birds evolved from.

  Jane: Your study of Earth life was thorough.

  Queen: They brought a talking bird with them.

  Jane: Yes. He called Wang-Mu “Royal Mother,” so she offered to call him “Royal Son,” and he seems to like it. He communicates with Wang-Mu much more readily than with Peter.

  Queen: Who doesn’t?

  Jane: In human science, while some birds easily imitate human speech and repeat often-heard words and phrases, even entire sentences, only a handful of birds have mastered language well enough to invent rudimentary sentences which they had never previously heard.

  Queen: So … stupid.

  Jane: Smarter than most mammals.

  Queen: Which you regard as the pinnacle of evolution.

  Jane: I don’t, but humans generally do.

  Queen: You did not evolve. You were made.

  Jane: That’s why I’m asking you to look at Royal Son, the bird in Q-Bay, and tell me what you know about his aiúa.

  Queen: Like what?

  Jane: Does it have one?

  Queen: One does not have an aiúa, one is an aiúa. All creatures capable of motion are aiúas at a fairly high level.

  Jane: What kind of capacity does he have?

  Queen: His is brighter than the aiúas of my children, except queens, but we choose their aiúas, while the workers’ aiúas just come. The aiúa of the bird you speak of is brighter than most pequeninos. It is also stronger, wiser, and brighter than most humans.

  Jane: Compare it to Peter and Si Wang-Mu.

  Queen: What can that possibly teach you?

  Jane: I must know if the keas and ravens are the primary sentient species on the planet we persist in calling Descoladora.

  Queen: Have you asked him?

  Jane: I’m trying to stay away from Q-Bay so nobody thinks I’m meddling.

  Queen: In the meantime, you want me to help you meddle.

  Jane: He’s going back home in the morning.

  Queen: Then what does it matter?

  Jane: We have to know what’s going on with that world.

  Queen: It’s being orbited or hovered over by a flying box that jumps around instantly without a trace of inertia.

  Jane: And it sends us digital blueprints for complex viruses that seem related to the descolada virus.

  Queen: It. The bird?

  Jane: We don’t know who on the planet is transmitting to us.

  Queen: Do birds have fingers?

  Jane: Not this one, anyway. But they’re clever with their feet. And they cooperate. I don’t know what is or is not possible for them.

  Queen: Did they capture him?

  Jane: They did not carry out any hostile acts. They invited him. And he got permission from the other birds of his kind, and I believe from the council of ravens as well.

  Queen: A complex and layered society, with interspecies cooperation. Or domination of one species by another.

  Jane: We assume. The recordings Peter and Wang-Mu made verify all of this—the words were said, and this is how the speaking birds represented their actions.

  Queen: I gather that you think the ravens are more intelligent than Royal Son?

  Jane: I’m not asking about intelligence, my dear friend. I am asking about the thing I cannot measure or estimate: The capacity, the strength, the brightness and depth of the aiúa.

  Queen: If the bird were a human, I would regard him as very bright. Worth teaching. Worth talking to.

  Jane: As bright as Sprout?

  Queen: The leguminid bodies are so gifted that they draw much more talented aiúas from Outside.

  Jane: As bright as Miro?

  Queen: At first glance, at a distance, I would say, possibly.

  Jane: Capable of being taught to go Outside and In?

  Queen: How many people and species do you want to have that power?

  Jane: Capable of being taught?

  Queen: I would have to see him much closer. See how his brain works with his aiúa. See if he knows how to love enough to carry his body with him Outside and In.

  Jane: Could he learn how to do it just by making the journey under the power of Peter?

  Queen: Since that’s how Peter learned it, flying with you, and how Si Wang-Mu is inadvertently learning it, flying with Peter, how can I predict what Royal Son can and cannot do?

  Jane: If he were unconscious during flight, would that—

  Queen: The aiúa does not sleep. And that is who learns to fly as you fly. Not the creature it happens to be paired with.

  —Memorandum of conversation: Jane Ribeira and Hive Queen as cited in Olhado Ribeira, The Aiúa in Theory and Practice

  “Can we go back now?” Royal Son was perched on Peter’s shoulder. “It is exactly the time you arrived yesterday.”

  Peter looked at the clock in Q-Bay, did a little arithmetic, and realized that the kea was exactly right. “You know what time it is on your world?”

  “I know how long it has been. I also know the time differential between the two planets, though your system of measuring time is insane. Twelve hours twice in each day?”

  “Some of us use a twenty-four-hour clock,” said Peter, wondering how a parrot could make him feel so defensive. “Modified from Earth-normal to fit Lusitania’s rotation period.”

  “Because twenty-four and twelve are such easy numbers to work with,” said Royal Son. “But sixty minutes to the hour, and sixty seconds to the minute? Did you allow your children to design this system? Or did you spatter paint on a chart in order to select which number to use in each case?”

  “It grew almost randomly, out of mathematical systems from different civilizations,” said Peter. “I admire you for being able to figure it all out.”

  Royal Son preened the feathers on his chest.

  Peter got up from the cot where he had
been sleeping. He saw that Wang-Mu was already up and dressed in her freshly cleaned expeditionary clothing. Peter’s had also been repaired.

  Wang-Mu, across the room, asked Royal Son, “Did you put everything back where you found it?”

  “Almost,” said Royal Son.

  “Ninety percent? Fifty percent? None?” she asked.

  “All but a couple of things,” said Royal Son.

  “Will they be needed, and will it take time to find them?”

  “That’s what makes it fun,” said Royal Son. “It’s a game that even humans can play.”

  “I’ll ask when I come back here how amused they were with this game.”

  “Are we going now?” asked Royal Son.

  Peter was fully dressed now. “Are you ready for the trip?” asked Peter. “For a moment you seemed pretty dazed by your first flight.”

  “A momentary effect.” said Royal Son. “I’m at least that dazed several times a day. Life is confusing and disorienting unless I’m playing a game.”

  “I agree,” said Wang-Mu.

  “But we try to sort through the confusion and keep track of who we are and what we’re trying to do,” said Peter.

  “I’m sure you do an admirable job of that,” said Royal Son.

  “I’m absolutely certain,” said Peter, “that you do a much better job of it than you’re telling us. I’m sure you’re trying to conceal from us just how clever you are.”

  “But if I do that, it will persuade you that I am more clever than I want you to believe I am.”

  “And since I’ve detected it, you are concluding that I am more intelligent than you thought I was.”

  “But not more intelligent than you want other people to believe you are. And nowhere near as intelligent as you believe yourself to be.” Royal Son hopped onto Wang-Mu’s shoulder. “Now I discern that you are not enjoying this game.”

  Peter heard Wang-Mu give a little laugh. Since she could always prevent laughter if she wanted to, Peter knew that she intended him to hear.

  Instead of responding with wounded dignity, Peter reached out and took her hand. They were in the meadow near the Council trees. Royal Son fluttered off her shoulder and struggled for a moment on the ground. Then he stood still and he was fine.