Enders In Exile

Alessandra
pulled away from him. "What are you saying? What do you know about my
grandmother?"
    "Only what your mother
told me herself," said Ender. "In front of you."
    He could see on her
face that she remembered, and the flash of anger subsided. But she did
not come back into his embrace. Nor did he invite her to. He thought
more clearly when she was standing a half-meter away. A meter would be
even better.
    "My mother isn't
anything like my grandmother," said Alessandra.
    "Of course not," said
Ender. "But the two of you have lived together your whole life. Very
close all the time."
    "I'm not trying to get
away from her," said Alessandra. "I wouldn't use you like that." But
her face showed something else. A recognition, perhaps, that she
had
been using him—that her whole visit to him was prompted by
her mother.
    "I was just thinking,"
said Ender, "that even the cheerful fairyland she likes to pretend she
lives in—"
    "When did
you—" she began, and then stopped herself, because of course
Dorabella had done her queen-of-the-fairies bit several times, to the
delight of the other colonists.
    "I was thinking," said
Ender, "that after such a long while, you might not want to spend the
rest of your life in her fairyland. Maybe your world is better for you
than her imaginary places. That's all I was thinking. She's made a
lovely cocoon for you, but maybe you still want to break out of it and
fly."
    Alessandra stood there,
her hand to her mouth. Then tears came to her eyes. "Per tutte sante,"
she said. "I was . . . doing what she wanted. I thought it was my own
idea, but it was hers, it was . . . I wanted you to like me, I really
did, that wasn't made up, but the idea of coming here . . . I wasn't
getting away from her, I was
obeying
her."
    "You were?" Ender said,
trying to act as if he hadn't already guessed.
    "She told me just what
to do, how far to . . ." Alessandra started unbuttoning her blouse,
tears flowing. She was wearing nothing under it. "What you were going
to see, what you could touch, but no more . . ."
    Ender stepped to her,
embraced her again, to stop her from unbuttoning any more. Because even
in this emotional moment, there was a part of him that only cared about
the blouse and what would be revealed, not about the girl who was doing
it.
    "You do care about me,"
she said.
    "Of course I do," said
Ender.
    "More than she does,"
she said. Her tears were dampening his shirt.
    "Probably not," said
Ender.
    "I wonder if she cares
for me at all," said Alessandra into his chest. "I wonder if I've ever
been anything more than her puppet, just the way she was Grandmother's.
Maybe if Mother had stayed home and hadn't married and hadn't had
me,
Grandmother would have been full of fairyland and
beauty—because she was getting her way."
    Perfect, thought Ender.
Despite my own impulses, my biological distractibility, this has gone
exactly right. Admiral Morgan would see that even though the sex angle
didn't play according to script, Ender and Alessandra were still close,
still bonding—whatever he wanted to read into it. The game
was still on. Even if the romance was definitely on hold.
    "The door to this room
can't lock," said Ender.
    "I know," she said.
    "Someone might come in
at any time." He thought it was best not to point out that surveillance
cameras were in every room, including most particularly this one, and
someone could be watching them right now.
    She took the hint,
pulled away from him, rebuttoned her blouse. This time all the way up
to where she usually buttoned it. "You saw through me," she said.
    "No," said Ender. "I
saw
you
. Maybe your mother doesn't."
    "I know she doesn't,"
said Alessandra. "I know it. I'm just—it's
just—Admiral Morgan, that's what it is, she said she was
bringing me here to find a young man with prospects, but she found an
old man with even
better
prospects, that's what
it is, and I just fit into her plans, that's all, I—"
    "Don't do this," said
Ender. "Your mother loves you, this wasn't cynical, she thought she was
helping you get what you wanted."
    "Maybe," said
Alessandra. Then she laughed bitterly. "Or is this just
your
version of fairyland? Everybody wants me to be happy, so they construct
a fake reality around me. Yes, I want to be happy, but not with a lie!"
    "I'm not lying to you,"
said Ender.
    She looked at him
fiercely. "Did you desire me? At all?"
    Ender closed his eyes
and nodded.
    "Look at me and say it."
    "I wanted you," said
Ender.
    "And now?"
    "There are