Enders In Exile

what
needed saying. Next to him, Morgan was a novice. No, a fumbling
incompetent.
    Morgan made his way
back inside the shuttle, pausing only to tell the waiting officers that
Governor Wiggin would be giving them their orders about unloading the
cargo.
    Then he went to the
bathroom, tore the letter into tiny pieces, chewed them into pulp, and
spat the wad into the toilet. The taste of paper and ink nauseated him,
and he retched a couple of times before he got control of himself.
    Then he went into his
communications center and had lunch. He was still eating it when a
lieutenant commander supervised a couple of the natives in bringing in
a fine mess of fresh fruits and vegetables, just as Wiggin had
predicted. It was delicious, and afterward, Morgan napped until one of
his aides woke him to tell him the unloading was finished, they had
taken aboard a vast supply of excellent foodstuffs and fresh water, and
they were about to take off to return to the ship.
    "The Wiggin boy will
make a fine governor, don't you think?" Morgan said.
    "Yes, sir, I believe
so, sir," said the aide.
    "And to think I
imagined that he might need help from me to get started." Morgan
laughed. "Well, I have a ship to run. Let's get back to it!"

    Sel watched warily as
the larva made its way back into the cavern. Was it heading for him, or
just returning the way he came? He might test it by moving, but then
his very motion might draw its attention to him.
    "Nice larva," whispered
Sel. "How about some nice dried dog?"
    When he reached for his
pack, to extract the food, it wasn't there. Po had his pack.
    But Sel had the little
bag at his waist where he carried his own food for each day's hike. He
opened it, took out the dried dog meat and the vegetables that he
carried there, and tossed them toward the larva.
    It stopped. It nudged
the food lying on the ground. Just in case sending mental images had
actually worked, Sel created a mental image of the food as being part
of the belly of a dying gold bug. This is magical thinking, he told
himself, to believe that what I form in my mind will affect the
behavior of this beast. But at least it occupied his mind while he
waited to see whether the larva liked its food in small batches, or
large and on the hoof.
    The larva rose up and
plunged its gaping mouth down on the food like a remora attaching
itself to a shark.
    Sel could imagine a
smaller version of the larva being exactly that—a remora,
attaching itself to larger creatures to suck the blood out of them. Or
to burrow into them?
    He remembered the tiny
parasites that had killed people when the colony was first formed. The
ones Sel had invented blood additives to repel.
    This creature
is
a hybrid. Half native to this world. Half derived from organisms of the
formic world.
    No, not "organisms."
Derived from the formics themselves. The body structure was basically
formicoid. It would take very creative and knowledgeable gene-splicing
to construct a viable creature that combined attributes
of two species growing out of such disparate genetic heritages. The
result would be a species that was half formic, so that perhaps the
hive queens could communicate with them mentally, control them like any
other formics. Only they were still different enough that they didn't
completely bond with the queen—so when this world's hive
queen died, the gold bugs didn't.
    Or maybe they already
had a species they used for menial tasks, one that had a weak mental
bond with the hive queens, and
that's
what they
interbred with the parasitic worms. Those incredible teeth that could
burrow right through leather, cloth, skin, and bone. But sentient, or
nearly so. It could still be ruled by the hive queen's mind.
    Or my mind. Did it come
back at my summoning? Or was it simply taking the easy food first?
    By now the larva had
plunged down onto each of the bits of food and devoured
them—along with a thin layer of the stone floor at each spot.
The thing
was
hungry.
    Sel formed a picture in
his mind—a complicated one now. A picture of Sel and Po
bringing food into the tunnel. Feeding the larva. He pictured himself
and Po going in and out of the cave, bringing food. Lots of food.
Leaves. Grain. Fruit. Small animals.
    The larva came toward
him, but then circled around him. Writhed around his legs. Like a
constrictor? Did it have that snakelike pattern, too?
    No. It didn't get
tighter. It was more like a cat.
    Then it pushed from
behind. Nudging him toward the tunnel.
    Sel obeyed.