Enders In Exile

the part of
China where they landed. They had no intention of eating anything that
grew here naturally. We don't know if our plants can grow on their
planets. All the colonists might die."
    "The survivors of the
fleet that defeated the formics will already have those problems
resolved by the time we get there."
    "Mother," said
Alessandra patiently. "I don't want to go."
    "That's because you
have been convinced by the dead souls at the school that you are an
ordinary child. But you are not. You are magical. You must get away
from this world of dust and misery and go to a land that is green and
filled with ancient powers. We will live in the caves of the dead ogres
and go out to harvest the fields that once were theirs! And in the cool
evening, with sweet green breezes fluttering your skirts, you will
dance with young men who gasp at your beauty and grace!"
    "And where will we find
young men like
that
?"
    "You'll see," said
Mother. Then she sang it: "You shall see! You shall see! A fine young
man with prospects will give his heart to you."
    Finally the paper
fluttered close enough for Alessandra to snatch it out of Mother's
hands. She read it, with Mother bending down to hover just behind the
paper, smiling her fairy smile. It was real. Dorabella Toscano (29) and
daughter Alessandra Toscano (14), accepted into Colony I.
    "Obviously there's no
sort of psychological screening after all," said Alessandra.
    "You try to hurt me but
I will not be hurt. Mother knows what is best for you. You shall not
make the mistakes that I have made."
    "No, but I'll pay for
them," said Alessandra.
    "Think, my darling,
beautiful, brilliant, graceful, kind, generous, and poutful girl, think
of this: What do you have to look forward to here in Monopoli, Italia,
living in a flat in the unfashionable end of Via Luigi Indelli?"
    "There is no
fashionable
end of Luigi Indelli."
    "You make my point for
me."
    "Mother, I don't dream
of marrying a prince and riding off into the sunset."
    "That's a good thing,
my darling, because there are no princes—only men and animals
who pretend to be men. I married one of the latter but he at least
provided you with the genes for those amazing cheekbones, that dazzling
smile. Your father had very good teeth."
    "If only he had been a
more attentive bicyclist."
    "It was not his fault,
dear."
    "The streetcars run on
tracks, Mother. You don't get hit if you stay out from between the
tracks."
    "Your father was not a
genius but fortunately I am, and therefore you have the blood of the
fairies in you."
    "Who knew that fairies
sweat so much?" Alessandra pulled one of Mother's dripping locks of
hair away from her face. "Oh, Mother, we won't do well in a colony.
Please don't do this."
    "The voyage takes forty
years—I went next door and looked it up on the net."
    "Did you
ask
them this time?"
    "Of course I did, they
lock their windows now. They were thrilled to hear we were going to be
colonists."
    "I have no doubt they
were."
    "But because of magic,
to us it will be only two years."
    "Because of the
relativistic effects of near-lightspeed travel."
    "Such a genius, my
daughter is. And even those two years we can sleep through, so we won't
even age."
    "Much."
    "It will be as if our
bodies slept a week, and we wake up forty years away."
    "And everyone we know
on Earth will be forty years older than we are."
    "And mostly dead," sang
Mother. "Including
my
hideous hag of a mother,
who disowned me when I married the man I loved, and who therefore will
never get her hands on my darling daughter." The melody to this refrain
was always cheery-sounding. Alessandra had never met her grandmother.
Now, though, it occurred to her that maybe a grandmother could get her
out of joining a colony.
    "I'm not going, Mother."
    "You are a minor child
and you will go where I go, tra-la."
    "You are a madwoman and
I will sue for emancipation rather than go, tra-lee."
    "You will think about
it first because I am going whether you go or not and if you think your
life with me is hard you should see what it's like without me."
    "Yes, I should," said
Alessandra. "Let me meet my grandmother."
    Mother's glare was
immediate, but Alessandra plowed ahead. "Let me live with her. You go
with the colony."
    "But there's no reason
for me to go with the colony, my darling. I'm doing this for you. So
without you, I will not go."
    "Then we're not going.
Tell them."
    "We
are
going, and we are thrilled about it."
    Might as well get off
the merry-go-round; Mother