Enders In Exile

The thing
understood. There was rudimentary communication going on.
    Sel hurried to the
tunnel, then knelt and sat and started to try to slide along as he had
coming in.
    The larve slid past him
in the tunnel and then stopped. Waiting.
    The image came into his
mind, just a flash of it: Sel holding on to the larva.
    Sel took hold of the
creature's dry, articulated surface, and it began moving forward again.
It was carefully not thrashing him against the wall, though he scraped
now and then. It hurt and probably drew blood, but none of his bones
broke and none of the lacerations were deep. Perhaps it
was bred to give rides like this to formics when they were still alive.
It wouldn't have bothered a formic to bash against the walls a little.
    The larva stopped. But
now Sel could see the light of day. So could the larva. It didn't go
out there; it shied from the light and backed down the tunnel past Sel.
    When Sel emerged into
the daylight and stood up, Po ran to him and hugged him. "It didn't eat
you!"
    "No, it gave me a
ride," he said.
    Po wasn't sure how to
make sense of this.
    "All our food," said
Sel. "I promised we'd feed it."
    Po didn't argue. He ran
to the pack and started handing food to Sel, who gathered it into a
basket made by holding his shirt out in front of him. "Enough for the
moment," said Sel.
    In a few moments, he
had his shirt off and stuffed with food. Then he started laboriously
down the tunnel again. In moments the larva was there again, coiling
around him. Sel opened the shirt and dropped the food. The larva began
eating ravenously. Sel was still close enough to the entrance that he
could squat-walk out again.
    "We'll need more food,"
said Sel.
    "What's food to the
larva?" asked Po. "Grass? Bushes?"
    "It ate the vegetables
from my lunch pack."
    "There's not going to
be anything edible growing around here."
    "Not edible to
us,
"
said Sel. "But if I'm right, this thing is half native to this world,
and it can probably metabolize the local vegetation."
    If there was one thing
they knew how to do, it was identify the local flora. Soon they were
shuttling shirtfuls of tuberous vegetables down the tunnel. They took
turns carrying food to the larva.

    * * * * *
    Morgan had gone inside
the shuttle; Ender had given his orders and the ship's crew was
unloading the shuttle while the locals loaded up the skimmers and
transported the cargo to the right places. Other people knew better
than Ender how to direct and carry out these tasks, so he left them to
it while Ix took him to the xeno station where Sel's ansible was
waiting, amid the other communications equipment. "I just need to
transmit a quick message back to Eros," Ender said.
    While he was still
composing it, the voice of young Po Tolo came in on the radio.
    "No, I'm not your
father," said Ender. "I'll call him."
    He didn't have
to—Ix had heard his voice, probably heard Po's voice on the
radio, and he was there in a moment. Ender quickly finished his message
while catching the gist of Ix's conversation with his son. Ender
transmitted to Graff and Wuri just as Ix said, "We'll be there quicker
than you can guess."
    Ix turned to Ender. "We
need to take a skimmer to Sel and Po. They're out of supplies."
    Ender couldn't believe
Sel would plan so badly that he could do anything as foolish as that.
But before he could say anything, Ix went on.
    "They've found a
creature," said Ix. "At least a hybrid. Cave dweller. Six legs in the
adult form. Huge wormlike larva. It can chew rock, but it doesn't
metabolize it. It was starving, so they gave it all their food."
    "He's such a generous
man," said Ender.
    "The skimmer can travel
that far? Two hundred clicks, over uneven terrain?"
    "Easily," said Ender.
"It charges by solar, but the normal range is five hundred kilometers
without a pause for recharge."
    "I'm very glad you got
here when you did."
    "Not a coincidence,"
said Ender. "Sel left
because
I was coming,
remember?"
    "But he didn't need
to," said Ix.
    "I know. But as I said,
he's a generous man."
    They had two of the
skimmers loaded with food in about twenty minutes, and along with
experienced marines to pilot the things, Ender brought along Ix
himself. They rode together on the more lightly loaded of the two.
    Too bad none of the new
xenos had been wakened yet—they would have killed for a
chance to be along for the ride. But all in good time.
    On the way, Ix
explained to Ender as much as he had gleaned from talking to his son.
"Po didn't want to leap to