Enders In Exile

ear and seeing his smile,
given to you because you put it into his heart.
    I had no such moments,
because I did not treat my kidnapped Battle School children that way. I
was no one's father, by birth or adoption. Marry, Ender. Have children,
or adopt them, or borrow them—whatever it takes. But do not
live a life like mine.
    I have done great
things, but now, in the end, I am not happy. I wish I had let the
future take care of itself, and instead of skipping forward through
time, had stopped, made a family, and died in my proper time,
surrounded by children.
    See how I pour out my
heart to you? Somehow, you took me into your jeesh as well.
    Forgive the maudlinness
of old men; when you are my age, you will understand.
    I never treated you
like a son when I had you in my power, but I have loved you like a son;
and in this letter I have spoken to you as I'd like to think I might
have spoken to the sons I never had. I say to you: Well done, Ender.
Now be happy.
    Hyrum Graff
I.F. Col. Ret.

    Ender was shocked at
the difference in Valentine when he emerged from stasis at the end of
the voyage. "I told you I wasn't going into stasis until my book was
finished," she said when she saw his expression.
    "You didn't stay awake
for the whole voyage."
    "I did," she said.
"This wasn't a forty-year voyage in two years like our first one, it
was only an eighteen-year voyage in a bit over fourteen months." Ender
did the arithmetic quickly and saw that she was right. Acceleration and
deceleration always took about the same amount of time, while the
length of the voyage in between determined the difference in subjective
time.
    "Still," he said.
"You're a woman."
    "How flattering that
you noticed. I was disappointed that I didn't have any ship's captains
falling in love with me."
    "Perhaps the fact that
Captain Hong brought his wife and family with him had an effect on
that."
    "Bit by bit, they're
learning that you don't have to sacrifice everything to be a star
voyager," said Valentine.
    "Arithmetic—I'm
still seventeen, and you're nearly twenty-one."
    "I
am
twenty-one," she said. "Think of me as your Auntie Val."
    "I will not," he said.
"You finished your book?"
    "I wrote a history of
Shakespeare Colony, up to the time of your arrival. I couldn't have
done it if you had been awake."
    "Because I would have
insisted on accuracy?"
    "Because you wouldn't
have let me have complete access to your correspondence with
Kolmogorov."
    "My correspondence is
double-password encrypted."
    "Oh, Ender, you're
talking to
me,
" said Valentine. "Do you think I
wouldn't be able to guess 'Stilson' and 'Bonzo'?"
    "I didn't use their
names just like that, naked."
    "To me they were naked,
Ender. You think nobody really understands you, but I can guess your
passwords. That makes me your password buddy."
    "That makes you a
snoop," said Ender. "I can't wait to read the book."
    "Don't worry. I didn't
mention your name. His emails are cited as 'letter to a friend' with
the date."
    "Aren't you
considerate."
    "Don't be testy. I
haven't seen you in fourteen months and I missed you. Don't make me
change my mind."
    "I saw you yesterday,
and you've snooped my files since then. Don't expect me to ignore that.
What else did you snoop?"
    "Nothing," said
Valentine. "You have your luggage locked. I'm not a
yegg.
"
    "When can I read the
book?"
    "When you buy it and
download it. You can afford to pay."
    "I don't have any
money."
    "You haven't read Hyrum
Graff's letter yet," said Valentine. "He got you a nice pension and you
can draw on it without paying any taxes until you come of age."
    "So you didn't confine
yourself to your research topic."
    "I can never know
whether a letter contains useful data until I read it, can I?"
    "So you read all the
letters ever written in the history of the human race, in order to
write this book?"
    "Only the ones written
since the founding of Colony One after the Third Formic War." She
kissed his cheek. "Good morning, Ender. Welcome back to the world."
    Ender shook his head.
"Not Ender," he said. "Not here. I'm Andrew."
    "Ah," she said. "Why
not 'Andy,' then? Or 'Drew'?"
    "Andrew," Ender
repeated.
    "Well, you should have
told the governor that, because her letter of invitation is addressed
to 'Ender Wiggin.' "
    Ender frowned. "We
never knew each other in Battle School."
    "I imagine she
thinks
she knows you, having been so intimately involved with half your jeesh."
    "Having had her army
beaten into the ground by them," said Ender.
    "That's a