Enders In Exile

invaders. But then you became a vengeful invader
yourself. I don't know what to do with this information. Let me make up
my mind as I come to know you."
    Valentine spoke up for
the first time since their initial greetings. "What is it that has
happened that made you assure us that you told no one Ender was coming?"
    Virlomi turned to her
respectfully. "It's part of the longstanding struggle between me and
Randall Firth."
    "Isn't he still a
child?"
    Virlomi laughed
bitterly. "Do Battle School graduates really say such things to each
other?"
    Ender chuckled.
"Apparently so. How long has this struggle gone on?"
    "By the time he was
twelve, he was such a precocious . . . orator . . . that he had the old
settlers and the non-Indian colonists who came with me eating out of
his hand. At first he was their clever mascot. Now he is something
closer to a spiritual leader, a . . ."
    "A Virlomi," said Ender.
    "He has made himself
into their equivalent of the way the Indian colonists regard me, yes,"
she said. "I never claimed to be a goddess."
    "Let's not argue such
old issues."
    "I just want you to
know the truth."
    "No, Virlomi," said
Valentine, intruding again, or so Virlomi's expression seemed to say.
"You deliberately constructed the goddess image, and when people asked
you, you gave nondenial denials: 'Since when do goddesses walk the
earth?' 'Would a goddess fail so often?' And the most loathsomely
deceptive of them all: "What do you think?' "
    Virlomi sighed. "You
have no mercy," she said.
    "No," said Valentine.
"I have a lot of mercy. I just don't have any manners."
    "Yes," said Virlomi.
"He has learned from watching me, how I handle the Indians, how they
worship me. His group has no shared religion, no traditions in common.
But he constructed one, especially because everyone knew that evil book
The Hive Queen."
    "How is it evil?" asked
Ender.
    "Because it's a pack of
lies. Who could know what the hive queens thought or felt or remembered
or tried to do? But it has turned the formics into tragic figures in
the minds of the impressionable fools who memorize that damnable book."
    Ender chuckled. "Smart
boy."
    "What?" Virlomi asked
him, looking suspicious.
    "I assume you're
telling me this because he somehow claims that he is the heir of the
hive queens."
    "Which is absolutely
absurd because ours is the first colony that was
not
founded on the ruins of formic civilization."
    "So how does he manage
it?" asked Ender.
    "He claims that the
Indian population—eighty percent of the total—are
merely trying to reestablish here the exact culture they had on Earth.
While he and the others are the ones who are trying to create something
new. He really does have the gall to call his little movement the
'Natives of Ganges.' And he says we Indians are like the jackals who
have settled other worlds—destroying the natives and then
stealing all that they accomplished."
    "And people buy this?"
    "Oddly enough," she
said, "not that many do. Most of the non-Indian colonists are trying to
get along."
    "But some believe him,"
said Ender.
    "Millions."
    "There aren't that many
colonists," said Valentine.
    "He isn't just playing
to the local crowd," said Virlomi. "He sends his writings out by
ansible. There are chapters of the Natives of Ganges in most of the
major cities of Earth. Even in India. Millions, as I told you."
    Valentine sighed. "I
saw them referred to only as 'the Natives' on the nets and I wasn't
interested. That originated here?"
    "They regard The Hive
Queen as their scripture, and the formics as their spiritual
forebears," said Virlomi. "On Earth, their doctrine is almost the
opposite of what Randall preaches here. They claim that the FPE should
be abolished because it erases all the 'genuine,' 'native' cultures of
Earth. They refuse to speak Common. They make a big show of following
native religions."
    "While here, Randall
condemns your people for doing exactly that," said Ender. "Preserving
your culture from Earth."
    "Yes," said Virlomi.
"But he claims it isn't inconsistent—this is not where Indian
culture originated. It's a new place, and so he and his 'Natives of
Ganges' are creating the real native culture of this world, instead of
a warmed-over copy of an old one from Earth."
    Ender chuckled.
    "It's funny to you,"
Virlomi said.
    "Not at all," said
Ender. "I'm just thinking that Graff really was such a genius. Not as
smart as the kids he trained in Battle School, but . . . with Randall
just an infant in his mother's