Last Shadow (9781250252135) Read online

  And then what choice would I have, except to change my mind and go?

  * * *

  Thulium had learned to speak and understand Japanese at an early age, though she tried not to show the others what she was doing. They would mock her for yearning for her mother so much that she would try to learn the language of Nokonoshima. Aunt Carlotta was the only one who guessed, and that was probably due to Sprout, who noticed Thulium’s actions more than anybody else. Carlotta said to her one day, “You do know that on Nokonoshima, everyone speaks Stark, just like every other planet in the Hundred Worlds.”

  “I assume,” said Thulium. “But that doesn’t mean that I shouldn’t learn Japanese, so I can read ancient books and watch ancient vids.”

  And that’s as far as the conversation went.

  Thulium realized that her mother’s refusal to join Father on Lusitania was a rational choice, but it didn’t mean Mother did not wish to meet her only daughter. The twins she had met—Thulium knew them too well to think they might have made a good impression.

  She also knew herself, and how bad an impression she, too, was likely to make.

  But if I go to Nokonoshima, to Airi’s house in Tochoji, and I do my best to be patient and kind and loving and obedient, then if she still doesn’t like me, that only means that she would not have loved me no matter how events had gone. And I will let go of that childish fantasy.

  What she absolutely would not do was transport Mother Airi to Lusitania against her will. Not just because Jane would never tolerate such a thing, and would surely send Mother back at once, but also because love does not compel. That was the lesson that growing up with Sergeant as her father had taught her: Love does not compel. Love like Aunt Carlotta’s for her children. And for Thulium herself.

  Walking along the streets of Nokonoshima, Thulium could feel the furtive glances of the people she passed. They were too polite to stare openly, except a few very small children. But she could see that her Lusitanian garb was sadly out of fashion here—and probably had never been in fashion anywhere. Thulium thought of going into a shop and buying local clothing, but before she tried it she remembered that she had nothing that would pass for money here, and that her Stark would have a pronounced accent.

  She didn’t want to create a stir, just find her mother.

  She appreciated the fact that ancient characters were rarely used on signs—the roman alphabet of Stark and English was used on every world. So she was able to find the street she had heard mentioned. It had many apartment buildings, though none was more than two stories high. This colony was too new and uncrowded to need high-rise buildings. Still, it would be a challenge to enter every one of the buildings and try to find her mother’s name on a mailbox or address list.

  But what was she thinking? She walked behind a delivery truck parked on the street and then made her twisting jump into the lobby of the first apartment building. She searched the listed names and then asked the man who seemed to be the guardian of the place, “Does Airi live here?”

  “No one by that name,” he said. “I’m so sorry to disappoint you.”

  She believed that he actually meant it.

  In some buildings, she had to leap floor to floor because the names were beside the doors instead of in a central place. But the process was still far faster than it would have been had she been required to climb up and down stairs.

  And then she came to a block of standalone houses, narrow and close together, but with no shared walls. The third house she checked had the name Wiggin on the mailbox. Since that was obviously not a common Japanese name, Thulium walked to the door and clapped.

  Soon the door opened, and an elderly lady bowed to her. Thulium’s heart sank. Her mother could not possibly be that old.

  “No, no, don’t be disappointed,” said the old woman. “I am not Mrs. Wiggin. That will be my daughter, who owns this house.”

  “Is your daughter’s name Airi?” asked Thulium.

  Apparently her emotions showed on her face.

  “If I am not guessing wrong, I believe you are my long-lost granddaughter, Thulium.”

  The woman extended her hands, and Thulium bounded forward and they embraced long and hard. “My father never told me that my mother lived with her mother,” said Thulium.

  “I took great pains to make sure I was off visiting friends when he lived here. He and I did not get along.”

  “He doesn’t get along with anyone,” said Thulium.

  Grandmother changed the subject, as any polite person would. “Please come in and sit with me. Airi will be home from the market very soon now, and then you can prepare dinner with us.”

  “I have no experience with cooking,” said Thulium.

  “But after tonight, you will have had some experience.”

  They sat in the front room, on comfortable chairs, and Thulium listened as Grandmother told stories of when Airi was young and had friends and was pursued by fine young men.

  “And then a strange man came from another world,” said Thulium, anticipating where it all ended. “And he ruined her life.”

  “He fulfilled her life,” said Grandmother. “Airi was madly in love with him, and she bore him three babies—twin boys, and a daughter. Her husband insisted on giving them nonsensical names—rare earth elements?—but Airi thought, I will get used to any name, just to have these children in my life. You lived here, in this very house, for three weeks, Thulium. You crawled in your first week, your body developed so quickly. It was going to be thrilling to watch you grow, because unlike your brothers you had a sweet and loving disposition. Then one day Airi came home from market and her babies were gone.”

  “Were you here?”

  “I was,” said Grandmother. “I asked him where he was taking you. He said, ‘To the park,’ and since he had often done that, why would I doubt him? By then the twins were sturdy walkers, so your father carried you and led them out, and so I told your mother when she got home. We waited up all night for him to bring you home.”

  “He didn’t even tell you we were gone?” asked Thulium.

  “After the spaceship was out of Nokonoshima’s atmosphere, he sent a message by ansible. A text message, not even a vid. And that was when your mother’s life ended.”

  “But she’s alive!” said Thulium.

  “Of course,” said Grandmother. “But she takes little interest in anything. Your father did provide for her—he bought this house, as well as several apartment buildings to provide her with a good income. At first she wanted to refuse all his aid—he had her babies, why would she care about his money? But I am her mother, and I prevented her from doing something flamboyantly stupid in her grief and rage.”

  “So Father did provide for her.”

  “Oh, the widow Wiggin is well known for her charitable works and her kind treatment of her tenants. You see that we live simply, not lavishly, so there is always money for her to help those who need it.”

  Then they talked of other things, half in Japanese and half in Stark, until the door opened and a strikingly lovely woman entered the room, carrying two mesh bags of vegetables and fruits.

  Airi stopped when she saw her mother’s face. Then she looked where her mother was looking.

  “Are you…” asked Airi.

  Thulium rose to her feet, then bowed deeply before her mother. “I apologize for my father’s decisions and actions, and I grieve that I did not have a chance to grow up in your care.”

  Airi embaced her and wept, and then they sat together, her mother’s arms about her, and talked and talked. Thulium didn’t notice when Grandmother got up. Only when Grandmother returned and told them that supper was ready did Thulium realize she had left the room.

  They ate together, a traditional Japanese meal, or at least the version that was traditional in Tochoji. They talked gently with each other. Only when the food was gone and the bowls were taken into the kitchen did someone ask the question that they were afraid to ask.

  “Thulium,”
said Airi. “Did your father bring you?”

  “No,” said Thulium. “I brought myself. No one knows that I’m here.”

  Grandmother nodded and said, “This next generation was bound to be miraculous.”

  “Do you have to go back?” asked Airi.

  “I have responsibilities,” said Thulium. “We are on the verge of crucial decisions and decisive actions.”

  “Will you stay this night?” asked Airi. “A night with my own daughter under the same roof?”

  “I would not stop talking to you until you fell asleep,” said Thulium, “and then I would stay awake memorizing your face. Yet it’s almost morning now on the planet where we live and work, and I will need to have some sleep before I get back to work. So I need to leave in a few minutes.”

  “I’m sure that was a weakness in your Japanese,” said Airi. “The word you meant to use was ‘hours.’”

  “Minutes, dear Mother Airi,” said Thulium. “But a thousand hours of remembering this beautiful evening, the happiest in my life.”

  “Change the worlds, my daughter,” said Airi. “I always knew you would.”

  “Anyone can change the world,” said Thulium. “But to change it for the better—that’s always the challenge.”

  More things were said, and eventually it was well over an hour before Thulium stood in the middle of the sitting room and said her good-byes.

  She would not hide her power from Mother Airi and Grandmother. Thulium stood there in their plain sight, and then she was on Lusitania as the first blush of dawn appeared in the eastern sky. She arrived outdoors, on the meadow beyond the fence. She meant to run to the gate and then catch a few hours of sleep, but instead she lay down—collapsed, rather—and wept for joy and sorrow.

  I will never regret meeting my mother, thought Thulium, though it makes me miss her even more. And Grandmother is a blessing I had never thought possible—how can an orphan like me have a grandmother?

  It was there, weeping, that she fell asleep. Hours later she awoke feeling stiff and damp, but she quickly recovered her limberness and walked to the gate. “Did you sleep well?” asked the pequenino on watch.

  Of course they had known she was there. Nothing passed on Lusitania without the pequeninos knowing it.

  “I did,” said Thulium. “Thank you for letting me use your beautiful bed for a few hours.”

  “You are always welcome here, Thulium,” said the pequenino. Thulium wondered if she knew him, if he was one of the pequeninos from Q-Bay. But the thought soon passed out of her mind. She could hardly tell pequeninos apart, even though she could plainly see that there were many different facial structures among them. It was a sign of carelessness and inattention on her part, she knew that. And yet she was still too full of her visit with her wonderful mother and grandmother to trouble herself about anything as trivial as telling pequeninos apart.

  20

  Quara: What Ruqyaq told Sprout might well be true. Our initial analyses told us that the descolada code they sent us at first had only trivial differences to the virus we’ve known for so long.

  Ela: Well, that was foolish of us, to think that any differences were trivial.

  Quara: I think so. But we all agreed to that error, until Sprout told us that here the descolada did not behave as a destructive disease.

  Ela: I assume you’ve found the points of difference.

  Quara: Two, in fact. And each of those genes is off by one broken molecule. In our version.

  Ela: You’re saying that their copy is the original, and ours is defective?

  Quara: I’ve run functional simulations based on your earlier studies of how the descolada progressed in our cells. The Nest version enters the nucleus and splits the entire genome, connecting it to a neutral protein strand that prevents the genes from being active in any way. It’s a complete record of that creature’s genome.

  Ela: The Recorder virus.

  Quara: Then the simulation shows the Nest version of the descolada, with the captured genome, leaving the nucleus and the cell and then eventually leaving the body. It does not propagate inside the original host, because this switch here keeps it from activating the replication sequence inside the host body.

  Ela: But in our descolada, the anti-replication switch is broken.

  Quara: And so the descolada does replicate, eventually taking every cell in the body, tearing apart its DNA, and then using the nucleus to create new copies of itself.

  Ela: And the other broken gene?

  Quara: The simulation doesn’t know what to do with it. So I thought, what does the Recorder virus do that our descolada never did?

  Ela: Record?

  Quara: That’s why you’re head of this project, dear sister. When I studied the Nest Recorder virus, that other gene seems to be the switch to create the neutral strands that the host DNA attaches to.

  Ela: Everything that the Recorder virus does that is useful, our version doesn’t do. And everything ours does that is most dangerous, theirs doesn’t do.

  Quara: Without clinical trials—which would be unethical to attempt—we can’t be sure, but it makes sense. My question is, was the breaking of those genes deliberate, in order to weaponize the descolada? Or could these two occur by collisions with cosmic radiation during the passage from planet to planet?

  Ela: For only two variations to occur, in the two places that would make the descolada most destructive—can that just be the random chance of mutations?

  Quara: Leaving the genes broken but present is sloppy work, if it was deliberate.

  Ela: But consistent with the mutations we’ve seen from worlds without a significant ozone layer or other shield. Sloppy.

  Quara: In just the right places. Or wrong ones, depending.

  Ela: So as far as we know, some ancient species might have created the Recorder virus to make records of every living creature on every planet that uses the DNA system of reproduction, so that when the viruses were collected and read out, a database of life could be assembled.

  Quara: An obviously mad project, considering that they might eventually collect so much information that there’d be no place to store it or interpret it or index it so you could find and retrieve any of it in the first place.

  Ela: Well, when it comes to mad projects, we’re the team for it.

  Quara: One thing is certain—our descolada virus certainly did not originate on Nest. Ruqyaq’s story seems to be supported by the evidence of the virus genomes.

  Ela: In that case, we already have all the data we need, don’t we?

  Quara: Oh, biological curiosity invites us to explore how genomes of various earth biota have changed in the intervening years, but you’re right—we’ve troubled these innocent people enough.

  Ela: And birds.

  Quara: When I said people, I was including the birds and the Engineers.

  Ela: Of course. That’s the best attitude.

  —Transcript: Ela and Quara Ribeira as quoted in “Conversations in the Box”

  Just because Peter and Wang-Mu had already decided to heed Dog’s advice and remain on Lusitania instead of going back did not mean that they should not attend the meeting of all the members of the descolada project.

  Ela allowed Quara to explain that it seemed more than likely that the destructive descolada virus was a broken copy, coincidentally broken in the most dangerous possible places. It was most likely that most versions that arrived on planets would still be Recorder viruses, harmless and scientifically full of potential.

  “Maybe someday we’ll meet one of the ships sent out by the Recorders to collect and catalogue the viruses that worked properly, creating libraries of genomes,” said Quara.

  “And maybe their star went supernova a hundred million years ago, on the far side of the Milky Way,” said Sergeant.

  “So glad you’re here, Cincinnatus,” said Jane. “That seems to me the most likely outcome. Not necessarily the nova, but the high probability that if they survived, they lost interest in the R
ecorder virus project and forgot all about it. After all, the virus they sent out was a harmless data collection device.”

  “Unless it wasn’t,” said Sergeant.

  “Sprout talked with Ruqyaq again this morning,” said Jane, “and he passed along an invitation from the Folk, to come tonight to a banquet given in our honor.”

  “A trap,” said Sergeant.

  “Quite possibly,” said Jane. “History and mythology are full of such traps, where guests are slaughtered because they trusted in the good will and honor of treacherous hosts.”

  “We don’t even know these people,” said Carlotta.

  “We have to meet them sometime, for that situation to be rectified,” said Quara.

  “But why all of us?” asked Miro. “That seems a strange request.”

  “And it’s one that they can’t verify. If we arrive with a certain number and say that it’s all of us, how can they argue?” asked Quara.

  “As long as the group we send contains every person they’ve met on the surface of the planet,” said Ender Delphiki.

  “And it won’t,” said Peter, who could no longer keep silent. “Wang-Mu and I will not go back.”

  “Do you think what Dog said to you was a threat?” asked Jane.

  Peter said nothing.

  Wang-Mu said nothing.

  “We can explain,” said Ela, “that because Wang-Mu is pregnant, you will not transport her through our method anymore.”

  “We need a name for ‘our method,’” murmured Boss, Ender’s son.

  “I have one already,” said his older sister, called Little Mum by the cousins. “I call it detouring. We never go anywhere directly, right? Jane carries us Outside and then back Inside to another location. So no matter where we go, we take a detour.”

  “A short cut, you mean,” said Boss.

  “It seems to me that the two of you have already had this argument,” said Carlotta.

  “We have, but I won,” said Little Mum.

  Boss merely rolled his eyes.

  “Detouring is fine,” said Jane. “New names will evolve as long as this mode of travel is being used. But Ela, will you forgive me if, time being so short, I simply cut to the chase? Which of you want to accept this invitation?”