Last Shadow (9781250252135) Page 3

“Almost everyone is dead,” said the man, “except you.”

  “And you? How did you stay alive, relativistic travel?”

  “I sometimes did that,” said the man. “Until it became too boring. Then the brain-state-recording equipment became sophisticated enough that I had myself recorded a few dozen times using a few dozen different methodologies. Now all those recordings talk to each other and decide what to make me say or do. Right now, only one of them has been copied into the computer aboard Herodotus, but that one is able to make me speak for all.”

  “I know who you are,” said Mother. She turned to Sprout. “Do you know who he is?”

  “He’s Hyrum Graff,” said Sprout. “The Minister of Colonization who ended up controlling all space travel for a while. The founder of Battle School and the teacher of the original Andrew Wiggin and of the Giant.”

  “I knew him first as ‘Bean,’” said Hyrum Graff. “I’m flattered that you have been taught anything about me.”

  “Mother loves to teach us extremely obscure facts,” said Sprout.

  “I’m sure you know many of them,” said Graff. “I believe they call you Sprout.”

  “You have been spying,” said Sprout. “That name isn’t in any records that—”

  “Your mother writes about her children in her notes, and your uncle Andrew writes about all the children in his notes.”

  “And those notes,” said Mother, “are transmitted to the foundations we work with, where no one ever reads them.”

  “I read them,” said Graff. “Everything you transmit, you are sending to me.”

  “Why are you here?” asked Mother. “After millennia of keeping your vigil a secret, why are you coming here more-or-less in person?”

  “I have been slowing down your ship to non-relativistic speed. I have a job I need you to do in real time.”

  “What job?” asked Sprout.

  “Saving the human race.”

  Mother shook her head and laughed. “That was your job back when the Formics still existed and it was your job to save the human species. Now humanity is spread among the Hundred Worlds and beyond, preserving thousands of unique cultures and languages, with trade constantly flowing among them. There are no Hive Queens, and there is no other possible threat that can put human survival at risk.”

  Graff gave a wan little smile. “The threat is not coming in spaceships that can be shot out of the sky, or in colonies that can be detected and obliterated,” said Graff. “It comes in the form of a virus called ‘descolada,’ which can insinuate itself into every form of life, comprehend and parse its genetic code, and then reconstruct it so that it must faithfully reproduce the descolada virus or die.”

  “So I’ve heard,” said Mother. “I believe a fleet was sent to destroy the planet where it resides.”

  “The virus is, in some incomprehensible way, intelligent enough to adapt to every attempt to destroy it. Before he died, Andrew Wiggin led a scientific project to create an antivirus that replaces the descolada with a workalike that preserves the lives of the infected, but no longer has the power to infect new victims.”

  “Did he succeed?” asked Mother.

  “He did,” said Graff. “By methods that cannot yet be duplicated. But that solved only that one world’s problem. We can only assume that this virus has been broadly dispersed in order to infect every world that has genetically coded life. Eventually, it may find and infect all the human colonies.”

  “Distribute the cure,” said Mother. “Save the human race.”

  “If every world has the cure,” said Graff, “the descolada will find a way around it. It may be trying to do so on the world that it already controls.”

  “Lusitania,” said Sprout.

  Graff looked at him with surprise. A very good simulation, thought Sprout, to imitate the facial expressions of the man who provided the model for this hologram.

  “‘Descolada’ means ‘unsticker’ or ‘unglued’ in Portuguese or Spanish. Only in the tiny Brazilian colony world of Lusitania could such a thing be kept under control.”

  “Why do you need us?” asked Blue. “It’s my birthday party.”

  “Sorry to spoil it,” said Graff.

  “I just wondered if you wanted some ice cream,” said Blue.

  “He’s a hologram,” said Sprout.

  “We can give him a hologram of ice cream,” said Blue, as if it were the most obvious thing.

  Graff smiled. “Yes, that would be nice. It would be nice to be included in the party.”

  Sprout could imagine Uncle Sergeant saying something about fraternizing with the enemy, and Uncle Ender speaking of meaningless gestures and fake hospitality.

  “You don’t know where the descolada originates,” said Mother.

  “We found a candidate, but we haven’t figured out how to know if that planet was the origin, or an earlier victim,” said Graff.

  “You no longer control all the ships in the Hundred Worlds,” said Mother, “but what do you imagine we can accomplish with one ship?”

  “My original may be dead,” said Graff, “though I don’t know that for sure, he may just be retired. But I still have some control over all the shipping between worlds, and all ansible communications are handled by a brilliant program that shares information extensively with me. So don’t imagine that I’m powerless. The only place, in fact, where I am powerless is aboard this ship.”

  “Not powerless, if you can appear inside my home during a private family party,” said Mother.

  “Not your nuclear family,” said Graff, “since young Thulium is here, soaking up everything that we’re saying.”

  Thulium stood up. “Nobody will hear about any of this from me,” she said.

  “She’s telling the truth,” said Blue. “Thulium never tells secrets.”

  “What I say to one, I’d happily say to all. I merely assumed that I would be listened to better by the people in this room than by any other group of people on the Herodotus.”

  Sprout had to agree with him. “What do you want us to do?” asked Sprout.

  Graff raised an eyebrow and looked at him. “Are you now negotiating on behalf of the leguminids on this ship?”

  “Asking an obvious question isn’t negotiating,” said Sprout. “You came here to get us to do something. Test your possible Descolada Planet? We’re ill-equipped to do that, as Mother said.”

  “All the exploratory teams, all the computer analyses, all of the everything that we’ve applied to the problem have come up empty. So we need somebody smarter, to figure out what we should be searching for, and what the markers of its role as the descolada’s origin might be, so we’ll know if this is it.” To Sprout’s pleasure, Graff directed all these words to him, as if he was an actual person instead of a child.

  Then it dawned on him that maybe this was how he always spoke to bright children. How he spoke to the Giant and Ender Wiggin when they were small, and Graff was the commander of Battle School.

  “Here in this room,” said Graff, “is a team of four—Carlotta, Brussels, Blue, and Thulium—who might be the best combination to think of what the parameters of our quest should be.”

  “Are you trying to divide the leguminids into rival camps, Hyrum Graff?” asked Mother.

  “I’m trying to evade the skepticism and resentment of the uncles and their children,” said Graff.

  “And when they discover what you’ve been doing, won’t their skepticism and resentment be many times greater because of this concealment?”

  “Yes it will. If you’re afraid of them—”

  “Taunting us won’t earn our trust or our cooperation,” said Mother. “Of course we’re afraid of them—we have no other friends or allies in the universe, and if they turn against us—”

  “You have me,” said Graff.

  “A shadow of a human being who once lived.”

  “A shadow with enormous influence in the Hundred Worlds,” said Graff.

  “Says you,” said Thulium.
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  “You’ll see,” said Graff. “But not just me. There are the very bright humans from Lusitania, and a few from other worlds as well. They might not have Anton’s Key within their genome, but they’re among the best that the human race has to offer, at present. Their help and cooperation will not be useless to you.”

  “I’m sure you intend us to meet them all,” said Mother.

  “I don’t care if you ever meet,” said Graff. “What would that matter? What I care about is sharing information, sharing ideas, trying experiments under each other’s direction or suggestions. Working together in real time. An alliance.”

  “So we’re to trust beings of another species,” said Mother, “but not my own brothers and their children?”

  Thulium spoke up again. “Come on, Aunt Carlotta. You know we all lie to Father so he doesn’t go on a rampage. And nothing touches Uncle Ender’s heart, period. He’d analyze everything Hyrum Graff has told us out of existence.”

  Mother looked at Thulium. “I believe I haven’t paid enough attention to you,” Mother said to her. “I will not make that mistake again.”

  Thulium rolled her eyes. “I didn’t say anything that the rest of you didn’t already know,” she said. “Mr. Graff was right to come to this room, at this time. In fact, he was waiting for me to arrive, wasn’t he?”

  She turned to look at the hologram. “I believe so,” said Graff, “though that plan might not have been a conscious one. The part of my character that is intertwined with your ship’s computer might carry plans and decisions that I am not consciously aware of making.”

  “He means no, he wasn’t waiting for you,” said Blue.

  “He means that he didn’t know he was waiting for you,” said Mother.

  “He means,” said Sprout, “that he was absolutely waiting for you, but he doesn’t want you or the rest of us to know just how important he thinks you are.”

  Thulium cocked her head and looked at Sprout. “I didn’t think you liked me,” she said.

  “Blue is your best friend,” said Sprout. “Why would I interfere with that by befriending you myself?”

  “You’re all so ridiculously nice,” said Mother. “Sprout, get the kitchen to whip up some virtual ice cream and convey it into the hands of this simulacrum.”

  “Have you sung ‘Happy Birthday’ yet?” asked Graff.

  “Is that a song?” asked Mother.

  “Every schoolchild knew it in America,” said Graff, “which is where I grew up.”

  “My mother was Armenian,” said Mother, “and my father grew up in Holland. And the Giant wasn’t much for birthdays and he also sang with little sense of tune or tone.”

  “The words are easy,” said Graff. “I’ll teach you.”

  “Is that why you came to our ship tonight?” asked Mother. “To teach us a song?”

  “Yes,” said Graff. “To try to get us all singing the same tune together.”

  “That’s a metaphor,” said Blue to Thulium.

  “But it’s also literally true,” said Thulium, and Graff launched into the simple tune and the simple words. The only dispute was over whether to sing “Happy Birthday dear Blue,” or “dear China” or “dear Delft.” They settled on Blue, of course, as they all must have known they were going to. And then Sprout couldn’t get the stupid melody and the stupid words out of his head for the rest of the night, long after Graff popped back out of visible existence and Mother ushered Thulium out into the corridor, and then tried to get the brothers calmed down enough to sleep.

  The last thing Sprout said to Mother that night was, “You’re going to tell the uncles about this, aren’t you?”

  “Don’t you think I should?” asked Mother.

  “I think you absolutely should not,” said Sprout. “But I also think you absolutely must. Tonight. If you wait till tomorrow, Uncle Sergeant will accuse you of delaying because you intended not to tell.”

  “My reasoning exactly. Secrets can’t exist in a tribe this small. It would tear us apart. So even though Graff’s plan would work much more smoothly, the cost of discovery would be too high. And it happens that all the other leguminids are very, very clever and creative. Maybe we’ll do better together than apart.”

  “Please don’t ever sing that horrible song again, Mother,” said Sprout. “Especially not on my birthday.”

  “Can’t get it out of your mind?” asked Mother.

  “I want to jab forks in my ears to make it stop,” said Sprout.

  “Fortunately,” said Mother, “you can’t get a fork into your ear.”

  3

  How long did it take her to decide to tell the rest of us about this holographic spy embedded in our computer?

  Thulium says that Carlotta’s decision was probably made as soon as the Graff image disappeared.

  But if Carlotta has corrupted Thule, how can I trust what she says?

  Watch and watch and watch, that’s what you have to do when trust is not and cannot be maintained.

  Meanwhile, how to identify a world that manufactured killer viruses and dispersed them to infect life-bearing planets? What is the supposed delivery system? How can we even begin the inquiry? What other projects will we have to set aside in order to conduct such research? Which of our preexisting projects is the real target of this spyware assault?

  —Cincinnatus Delphiki, decrypted notes, Leguminid Project #22

  After everyone on the Herodotus got used to the idea that the simulated version of the legendary Hyrum Graff was embedded in their ship’s computer, they started thinking about the assignment he had brought them. Especially the cousins, and most especially Carlotta’s boys, Sprout and Blue. And Thulium, of course, because her father had told her not to take part in any discussions of that nonsense, so it was guaranteed that she would talk of nothing else.

  Finally all the cousins got together in the mess hall with Uncle Ender and talked about identifying the Descolada Planet. Uncle Sergeant came in and listened to the discussion for about a minute, laughed, and started walking out.

  “You could help us, you know,” said Uncle Ender.

  Uncle Sergeant stopped at the door, leaned on it. “Were you listening to yourselves?” he asked. “Supposedly smarter than the whole human race, and you think you can figure out your parameters based on the proximity to Lusitania, where the descolada virus came to rest?”

  “That’s all we’ve got,” said Uncle Ender.

  “You’ve got nothing,” said Uncle Sergeant. “One planet doesn’t work as a vector. Maybe if you knew the delivery system—a spaceship? A tiny capsule? Traveling near lightspeed? Traveling at conventional speeds? Or no container at all, just a complex virus, in its own encapsulation, moving through the cold of space till it hits an atmosphere and gets wafted gently down to a planet’s surface? How long was that encapsulated virus moving through space? A century? Seems too short a time. A hundred centuries? Maybe—but then the Descolada Planet would have to be about next door to Lusitania. What about a million years? A hundred million? A billion years? What if that virus originated in another galaxy? Can you triangulate from your single vector and find it?”

  “Just like you, Sarge,” said Uncle Ender. “Think of the worst-case scenario.”

  “Somebody has to,” said Uncle Sergeant. “Whatever species created the descolada virus—if anybody did—probably died a hundred million years ago when their sun went nova. That is far more likely than finding that species still alive, still spewing out destructive, self-modifying viruses for no conceivable purpose except to cause mischief to species on faraway worlds that they would never find because they aren’t even looking for them.”

  Then Uncle Sergeant’s gaze shifted. Sprout saw where he looked, and there stood the hologram of Graff. Uncle Sergeant pointed at him steadily and said, “Speak no words to me, fake human. You have nothing to teach me, just as you never had anything to teach my father.”

  Sprout saw Graff move as if he meant to speak, but then he said nothing. Just stood
there, looking at Uncle Sergeant.

  “What?” asked Uncle Sergeant. “You’re actually doing what I asked?”

  Graff still said nothing.

  Uncle Sergeant barked out a little laugh and left them, deliberately walking through Graff’s image as he went.

  “He has a point, Father,” said Little Mum. “We don’t know enough to do anything except waste our time.”

  Uncle Ender turned toward Graff. “You’re still here? Sergeant is gone, so you can talk now.”

  Graff shrugged. “I have nothing to add,” he said.

  “Anything to subtract?” asked Uncle Ender.

  “The scientists on Lusitania have been working on this for a while,” said Graff. “But I think they probably ran into the same problem Cincinnatus just outlined.”

  “How large a search area to include,” said Uncle Ender.

  “It’s the whole universe, obviously,” said Graff. “No, the delivery system. Nobody’s found the descolada in its encapsulated form—if it has one. Nobody knows what it looked like and acted like when it arrived. The last I checked, no results whatsoever had been published.”

  Now it was Sprout’s turn to laugh. “Come on, Graff,” he said. “You haven’t been in continuous contact with anyone for quite a while. The whole network of ansibles and computers was disabled during the past year of real time, and a fleet was sent to destroy Lusitania in order to prevent the spread of the descolada virus, and you have no idea how that all turned out. You haven’t heard anything from Lusitania lately.”

  “The ansible network is up and running,” said Graff.

  “Not the way it used to be,” said Sprout. “We have been keeping track. Everybody has installed delays between computers and ansibles. As a true network, it’s almost nonfunctional.”

  “I should have known you’d be keeping track,” said Graff.

  “We always keep track,” said Sprout. “There was no point in the Giant taking our parents away from Earth if it wasn’t to allow time for scientists to find a cure for their giantism.”

  “They never found a cure,” said Graff.

  “But we did,” said Uncle Ender. “And it worked. So our children have all the intelligence of Anton’s Key, but they’re growing at a normal rate until they reach a normal size.”