Enders In Exile

would be terrible."
    "That's not how you
felt when you beat the formics!"
    "No," said Ender. "When
the survival of the human race is at stake, you can't help but care who
wins. But in a war between colonists on this planet, why would I care
which side won? Either way, there'd be killing and loss and grief and
hate and bitter memories and the seeds of wars to come. And both sides
would be human, so no matter what, humans would lose. And lose and keep
on losing. Abra, I sometimes say prayers, did you know that? Because my
parents prayed. I sometimes talk to God even though I don't know
anything about him. I ask him: Let the wars end."
    "They
have
ended," said Abra. "On earth. The Hegemon united the whole world and
nobody's at war anywhere."
    "Yes," said Ender.
"Wouldn't it be ridiculous if they finally got peace on Earth and we
just started up the whole warfare thing again here on Shakespeare?"
    "The Hegemon is your
brother, right?" asked Abra.
    "He's Valentine's
brother," said Ender.
    "But she's your
sister," said Abra.
    "He's Valentine's
brother," said Ender, and his face looked sort of dark and Abra didn't
ask him what in the world he was talking about.

    * * * * *
    On the third day of
their trip, as the sun got to about two hands above the western
horizon—time on clocks and watches meant nothing here, since
they
had all been made on Earth for Earth days, and nobody liked any of the
schemes for dividing up the Shakespearian day into hours and
minutes—Ender finally stopped the skimmer on the crest of a
hill overlooking a broad valley with overgrown orchards and fields with
forty years' growth of trees in them. There were tunnel entrances in
some of the surrounding hills, and chimneys that showed there had been
manufacturing here.
    "This place looks as
likely as any," said Ender. So, just like that, the site of the new
colony was chosen.
    They pitched the tent
and Ender fixed dinner and he and Abra walked down into the valley
together and looked inside a couple of the caves. No bugs, of course,
since this wasn't that kind of settlement, but there was machinery of a
kind that they hadn't seen before and Abra wanted to plunge right in
and figure it all out but Ender said, "I promise you'll be the first
one to get a look at these machines, but not now. Not tonight. That's
not our mission. We have to lay out a colony. I have to determine where
the fields will be, the water source—we have to find the
formic sewer system, we have to see if we can wake up their generating
equipment. All the things that Sel Menach's generation did, long before
you were born. But before too long, we'll have time for the formic
machines. And then, believe me, they'll let you spend days and weeks on
them."
    Abra wanted to wheedle
like a little kid, but he knew Ender was right. And so he accepted
Ender's promise and stayed with him for the rest of that night's walk.
    The sun had set before
they got back to camp—they had only a faint light in the sky
when they turned in to sleep. This time their conversation consisted of
Ender asking Abra to tell stories that his parents had told him, his
father's Mayan stories and his mother's Chinese stories and the
Catholic stories they both had in common, and that took until Abra
could hardly keep his eyes open, and then they slept.
    The next day, Ender and
Abra marked out fields and laid out streets, recording everything on
the holomaps in Ender's field desk, which were automatically
transmitted to the orbiting computer. No need even to call Papa on the
satfone, because he would get all this information automatically and he
could see the work they were doing.
    Late in the afternoon,
Ender sighed and said, "You know, this is actually kind of boring."
    "Really?" said Abra
sarcastically.
    "Even slaves get time
off now and then."
    "Who?" Abra was afraid
this was some school-learning thing that he didn't know because he
couldn't read and stopped going to school.
    "You have no idea how
happy it makes me that you don't know what I'm talking about."
    Well, if Ender was
happy, Abra was happy.
    "For the next hour, I
say we do whatever we want," said Ender.
    "Like what?" asked Abra.
    "What, you mean I have
to decide for you what
you
think would be fun?"
    "What are
you
going to do?"
    "I'm going to see if
the river's good for swimming."
    "That's dangerous and
you shouldn't do it alone."
    "If I drown, call your
father to come get you."
    "I could drive the
skimmer home, you know."
    "But you couldn't get
my corpse up