![Children of the Mind (Ender, Book 4) (Ender Quartet)]()
Children of the Mind (Ender, Book 4) (Ender Quartet)
feelings from yourself half so easily.
said the Hive Queen.
Thank you, she said silently ... and backed away.
At dawn the sun came up over the mountain that was the spine of the island, so that the sky was light long before any sunlight touched the trees directly. The wind off the sea had cooled them in the night. Peter awoke with Wang-mu curled into the curve of his body, like shrimps lined up on a market rack. The closeness of her felt good; it felt familiar. Yet how could it be? He had never slept so close to her before. Was it some vestigial Ender memory? He wasn't conscious of having any such memories. It had disappointed him, actually, when he realized it. He had thought that perhaps when his body had complete possession of the aiúa, he would become Ender -- he would have a lifetime of real memories instead of the paltry faked-up memories that had come with his body when Ender created it. No such luck.
And yet he remembered sleeping with a woman curled against him. He remembered reaching across her, his arm like a sheltering bough.
But he had never touched Wang-mu that way. Nor was it right for him to do it now -- she was not his wife, only his ... friend? Was she that? She had said she loved him -- was that only a way to help him find his way into this body?
Then, suddenly, he felt himself falling away from himself, felt himself recede from Peter and become something else, something small and bright and terrified, descending down into darkness, out into a wind too strong for him to stand against it --
"Peter!"
The voice called him, and he followed it, back along the almost invisible philotic threads that connected him to ... himself again. I am Peter. I have nowhere else to go. If I leave like that, I'll die.
"Are you all right?" asked Wang-mu. "I woke up because -- I'm sorry, but I dreamed, I felt as if I was losing you. But I wasn't, because here you are."
"I was losing my way," said Peter. "You could sense that?"
"I don't know what I sensed or not. I just -- how can I describe it?"
"You called me back from darkness," said Peter.
"Did I?"
He almost said something, but then stopped. Then laughed, uncomfortable and frightened. "I feel so odd. A moment ago I was about to say something. Something very flippant -- about how having to be Peter Wiggin was darkness enough by itself."
"Oh yes," said Wang-mu. "You always say such nasty things about yourself."
"But I didn't say it," said Peter. "I was about to, out of habit, but I stopped, because it wasn't true. Isn't that funny?"
"I think it's good."
"It makes sense that I should feel whole instead of being subdivided -- perhaps more content with myself or something. And yet I almost lost the whole thing. I think it wasn't just a dream. I think I really was letting go. Falling away into -- no, out of everything."
"You had three selves for several months," said Wang-mu. "Is it possible your aiúa hungers for the -- I don't know, the size of what you used to be?"
"I was spread all over the galaxy, wasn't I? Except I want to say, 'Wasn't he ,' because that was Ender, wasn't it. And I'm not Ender because I don't remember anything." He thought a moment. "Except maybe I do remember some things a little more clearly now. Things from my childhood. My mother's face. It's very clear, and I don't think it was before. And Valentine's face, when we were all children. But I'd remember that as Peter, wouldn't I, so it doesn't mean it comes from Ender, does it? I'm sure this is just one of the memories Ender supplied for me in the first place." He laughed. "I'm really desperate, aren't I, to find some sign of him in me."
Wang-mu sat listening. Silent, not making a great show of interest, but also content not to jump in with an answer or a comment.
Noticing her made him think of something else. "Are you some kind of, what would you call it, an empath? Do you normally feel what other people are feeling?"
"Never," said Wang-mu. "I'm too busy feeling what I'm feeling."
"But you knew that I was going. You felt that."
"I suppose," said Wang-mu, "that I'm bound up with you now. I hope that's all right, because it wasn't exactly voluntary on my part."
"But I'm bound up with you, too," said Peter. "Because when I was disconnected, I still heard you.
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