Enders In Exile

mind, saying, "What is this, compared
to the pilots who died because of your clumsiness in command? What is
this, compared to the death at your hands of two admittedly unpleasant
but nevertheless young children? What is this, compared to the
slaughter of a species that you killed without first understanding
whether they needed killing?"
    There is something that
only parents can provide, and I need it, and I am not ashamed to ask it
from you.
    From my mother, I need
to know that I still belong, that I am part of you, that I do not stand
alone.
    From my father, I need
to know that I, as a separate being, have earned my place in this world.
    Let me resort to the
scriptures that I know have meant much to you in your lives. From my
mother, I need to know that she has watched my life and "kept all these
sayings in her heart." From my father, I need to hear these words:
"Well done, thou good and faithful servant. . . . Enter into the joy of
the Lord."
    No, I don't think I'm
Jesus and I don't think you're God. I just happen to believe that every
child needs to have what Mary gave; and the God of the New Testament
shows us what a father must be in his children's lives.
    Here is the irony:
Because I had to ask for these things, I will be suspicious of your
replies. So I ask you not only to give me these gifts, but also to help
me believe that you mean them.
    In return, I give you
this: I understand the impossibility of having me for a child. I
believe that in every case, you chose to do what you believed would be
best for me. Even if I disagree with your choices—and the
more I think, the less I disagree—I believe that no one who
knew no more than you did could have chosen better.
    Look at your children:
Peter rules the world, and seems to be doing it with a minimal amount
of blood and horror. I destroyed the enemy that terrified us most of
all, and now I'm a not-bad governor of a little colony. Valentine is a
paragon of selflessness and love—and has written and is
writing brilliant histories that will shape the way the human race
thinks about its own past.
    We're an extraordinary
crop of children. Having given us our genes, you then had the terrible
problem of trying to raise us. From what I see of Valentine and what
she tells me of Peter, you did very well, without your hand ever being
heavy in their lives.
    And as for me, the
absent one, the prodigal who never did come home, I still feel your
fingerprints in my life and soul, and where I find those traces of your
parenthood I am glad of them. Glad to have been your son.
    For me, there have been
only three years in which I COULD have written you; I'm sorry that it
took me all this time to sort out my heart and mind well enough to have
anything coherent to say. For you, there have been forty-one years in
which I believe you took my silence as a request for silence.
    I am far away from you
now, but at least we move through time at the same pace once more, day
for day, year for year. As governor of the colony I have constant
access to the ansible; as parents of the Hegemon, I believe you have a
similar opportunity. When I was on the voyage, you might have taken
weeks to compose your reply, and to me it would have seemed that only a
day had passed. But now, however long it takes you, that is how long I
will wait.
    With love and regret
and hope,
your son Andrew
     
    Valentine came to
Ender, carrying the printed-out pages of his little book. "What are you
calling this?" she asked, and there was a quaver in her voice.
    "I don't know," said
Ender.
    "To imagine the life of
the hive queens, to see our war from their perspective, to dare to
invent an entire history for them, and tell it as if a hive queen
herself were speaking—"
    "I didn't invent it,"
said Ender.
    Valentine sat down on
the edge of the table. "Out there with Abra, searching for the new
colony site. What did you find?"
    "You're holding it in
your hand," said Ender. "I found what I've been searching for ever
since the hive queens let me kill them."
    "You're telling me that
you found living formics on this planet?"
    "No," said Ender, and
technically it was true—he had found only one formic. And was
a dormant pupa truly describable as "living"? If you found only one
chrysalis, would you say that you had found "living butterflies"?
    Probably. But I have no
choice except to lie to everyone. Because if it was known that a single
hive queen still lived in this world, a cocoon from which she would
emerge with several