Enders In Exile

doesn't,
thought Alessandra. She doesn't understand
me.
She just understands the insane picture she has of me. Her fairy
changeling daughter.
    Alessandra looked back
over her shoulder, looking for Ender. There he was, showing nothing on
his face at all. How can he do that? Has he no feelings? Won't he miss
me? Won't he call me back? Won't he plead for me?
    No. He said he
wouldn't. He told me . . . my own choice . . . willingly . . .
    Am I going with her
willingly?
    She's dragging at me,
but not with very much force at all. She's talking me into it with
every step, and I'm going. Like the rats following the pied piper of
Hamelin. The music of her voice entrances me, and I follow, and then I
find myself . . . here, on the ramp, heading to the shuttle.
    Going back to where
I'll be under her thumb all the time. A rival to the children she and
Quincy have together. A nuisance, ultimately. What will happen then,
when she turns on me? And even if she doesn't, it will only be because
I'm complying completely with what she wants for me.
    Alessandra stopped.
    Mother's hand slipped
away from her arm—she really
hadn't
been gripping her, or just barely.
    "Alessandra," said
Mother. "I saw you look back at him, but you see? He doesn't want you.
He isn't calling for you. There's nothing for you here. But up there,
in the stars, there's my love for you. There's the magic of our
wonderful world together."
    But their wonderful
world together wasn't magic, it was a nightmare that Mother only
called
magic. And now there was someone else in that "wonderful world,"
someone that Mother was sleeping with and going to have babies with.
    Mother isn't just lying
to me, she's lying to herself. She doesn't really want me there. She
has found her own new life, and she's only pretending that nothing will
be changed by it. The fact is that Mother desperately needs
to be rid of me, so she can get on with her happiness. For sixteen
years I've been the weight dragging her down, holding her to the
ground, keeping her from doing any of the things she dreamed of. Now
she has the man of her dreams—well, a man who can give her
the
life
of her dreams. And I am in the way.
    "Mother," said
Alessandra. "I'm not going with you."
    "Yes you are."
    "I'm sixteen," said
Alessandra. "The law says I can decide for myself whether to join a
colony."
    "Nonsense."
    "It's true. Valentine
Wiggin joined this colony when
she
was only
fifteen. Her parents didn't want her to, but she did it."
    "Is that the lie she
told you? It may seem romantic and brave, but you'll just be
lonely
all the time."
    "Mother," said
Alessandra. "I'm lonely all the time anyway."
    Mother recoiled from
her words. "How can you say that, you ungrateful little brat," she
said. "I'm with you. You're
never
lonely."
    "I'm always lonely,"
said Alessandra. "And you're
never
with me.
You're with your darling angel fairy changeling child. And that's
not
me.
"
    Alessandra turned away
and headed back down the ramp.
    She heard Mother's
footsteps. No, she
felt
them, as the ramp bounced
slightly under the impact of her feet.
    Then she felt Mother
shove her from behind, a brutal shove that threw her completely off
balance. "Go, then, you little bitch!" Mother screamed.
    Alessandra struggled to
get her feet under her, but her upper body was moving far faster than
her feet could match, and she felt herself falling forward, the ramp
looking so steep, she was going to hit so
hard
and her hands wouldn't be able to hold her up—
    All of those thoughts
in a split second, and then she felt her arm grabbed from behind and
instead of hitting the ramp she swung down and then up again and it
wasn't Mother who caught her, Mother was still a few steps away, where
she had been when she shoved her. This was Ensign Akbar, and his face
looked so concerned, so kind.
    "Are you all right?" he
said, once he had her standing up.
    "That's right!" Mother
shouted. "Bring that ungrateful little brat right inside here."
    "Do you want to go back
to the ship with us?" asked Ensign Akbar.
    "Of course she does,"
said Mother, who was now at Akbar's elbow. Alessandra could see the
transformation in Mother's face as she switched from the screamer who
called Alessandra a bitch and a brat to the sweet fairy queen. "My
darling fairy child is only happy when she's with her mother."
    "I think I want to stay
here," said Alessandra softly. "Will you let me go?"
    Ensign Akbar leaned
over to her and whispered in her ear, exactly as Ender had done. "I
wish I