Enders In Exile

stay for me."
    "Then why would you ask
me to stay at all?"
    "I'm not," said Ender.
"I'm telling you
how.
Right now, right here, I
can set you free from your mother. Not to take her place, not to take
control of your life, but to let
you
take control
of it. The question is, do you want it?"
    Alessandra's eyes
filled with sudden tears. "You don't love me?"
    "I care about you,"
said Ender. "You're a good person who has never had a moment's freedom.
Your mother controls your coming and going. She spins stories around
you and eventually you always believe them and do what she wants. You
barely
know
what you want. Here in Shakespeare,
you'll find out. Up there, with your mother and Admiral Morgan, I
wonder if you'll ever know."
    She nodded,
understanding. "I know what I want. I want to stay."
    "Then stay," said Ender.
    "Tell her," said
Alessandra. "Please."
    "No."
    "If I talk to her,
she'll find some reason why I'm being stupid."
    "Don't believe her."
    "She'll make me feel
guilty. Like I'm doing something really awful to her."
    "You're not. In a way,
you're setting
her
free, too. She can have
Morgan's children and not worry about you."
    "You know about that?
You know she's going to have children with him?"
    Ender sighed. "We don't
have time for this conversation now. Your mother's coming because the
shuttle has to leave and she expects you to be on it. If you decide to
stay, I'll back you up. If you go with her willingly, I won't lift a
hand to stop you."
    Then Ender stepped away
from her, just as Dorabella arrived.

    * * * * *
    "I can see what he's
doing," said Mother. "Promising you anything you want, just to get you
to stay and become his
plaything.
"
    "Mother," said
Alessandra, "you don't know what you're talking about."
    "I know that whatever
he promised you is a lie. He doesn't love you."
    "I know he doesn't,"
said Alessandra. "He told me he doesn't."
    It was rather
satisfying to see how surprised Mother looked. "Then what was all that
hugging about? The way he nuzzled you?"
    "He was whispering in
my ear."
    "What did he say?"
    "He only reminded me of
something I already knew," said Alessandra.
    "Tell me on the
shuttle, my dear little fairy princess, because they're getting quite
impatient. They don't want to make your father angry by arriving late."
    It hadn't been a whole
day since Alessandra told her mother
never
to
call Quincy her "father," and she was already doing it again. That's
how it always was—Mother decided how things should be, and
nothing Alessandra did could change her. Instead Alessandra always had
to change. Whatever Mother wanted, eventually Alessandra would go along
with because it was easier. Mother made sure that doing things her way
was always easier.
    The only time I ever
defied her was behind her back. When she wasn't looking, when I could
pretend she wouldn't know. I walk in fear of her, even though she's not
a monster like my grandmother. Or . . . or maybe she is, but I never
defied her enough to find out.
    I don't have to go with
her. I can stay here.
    But Ender doesn't love
me. Who do I have here? No friends, really. People I know from the
voyage, but they all related to Mother, not to me. They talked
about
me, right in front of me, because Mother did. When they did speak to
me, it was to say the things that Mother had virtually commanded them
to say. I have no friends.
    Ender and Valentine
were the only ones who treated me like a person in my own right. And
Ender doesn't love me.
    Why doesn't he love me?
What's wrong with me? I'm pretty, I'm smart. Not as smart as he is, or
Valentine is, but
nobody's
that smart, not even
on Earth. He said he desired me, that time back on the ship. He wants
me, but he doesn't love me. I'm just a body to him, just a big nothing,
and if I stay here, I'll be reminded of that all the time.
    "My fairy darling,"
said Mother, tugging at her sleeve again. "Come with me. We're going to
be so happy together, voyaging among the stars! You'll get a superb
education with the midshipmen—your father already promised me
that—and by the time you're the right age, we'll certainly be
back near Earth, so you can go to a real university and you can find a
man
instead of this obnoxious, self-centered
boy.
"
    By now Mother was
almost dragging her toward the shuttle. It was how things always went.
Mother made it seem so inevitable to go along with her plans. And the
alternatives were always so awful. Other people never understood
Alessandra the way Mother did.
    But Mother