Xenocide (Ender Wiggins Saga)

Leave bad enough alone."
    So here they were, walking to the lab together-- Peter, with Mayor Kovano completely in his pocket. Young Val, who had won over Quara no less completely, though her purpose was altruistic instead of exploitative. And Ender, their creator, furious and humiliated and afraid.
    I made them-- therefore I'm responsible for everything they do. And in the long run, they will both do terrible harm. Peter, because harm is his nature-- at least the way I conceived him in the patterns of my mind. And young Val, despite her innate goodness, because her very existence is a deep injury to my sister Valentine.
    "Don't let Peter goad you so," whispered Jane in his ear.
    "People think he belongs to me," Ender subvocalized. "They figure that he must be harmless because I'm harmless. But I have no control over him."
    "I think they know that."
    "I've got to get him away from here."
    "I'm working on that," said Jane.
    "Maybe I should pack them up and take them off to some deserted planet somewhere. Do you know Shakespeare's play The Tempest ?"
    "Caliban and Ariel, is that what they are?"
    "Exile, since I can't kill them."
    "I'm working on it," said Jane. "After all, they're part of you, aren't they? Part of the pattern of your mind? What if I can use them in your place, to allow me to go Outside? Then we could have three starships, and not just one."
    "Two," said Ender. "I'm never going Outside again."
    "Not even for a microsecond? If I take you out and then right back in again? There was no need to linger there."
    "It wasn't the lingering that did the harm," said Ender. "Peter and young Val were there instantly . If I go Outside again, I'll create them again."
    "Fine," she said. "Two starships, then. One with Peter, one with young Val. Let me figure it out, if I can. We can't just make that one voyage and then abandon faster-than-light flight forever."
    "Yes we can," said Ender. "We got the recolada. Miro got himself a healthy body. That's enough-- we'll work everything else out ourselves."
    "Wrong," said Jane. "We still have to transport pequeninos and Hive Queens off this planet before the fleet comes. We still have to get the transformational virus to Path, to set those people free."
    "I won't go Outside again."
    "Even if I can't use Peter and young Val to carry my aiúa ? You'd let the pequeninos and the Hive Queen be destroyed because you're afraid of your own unconscious mind?"
    "You don't understand how dangerous Peter is."
    "Perhaps not. But I do understand how dangerous the Little Doctor is. And if you weren't so wrapped up in your own misery, Ender, you'd know that even if we end up with five hundred little Peters and Vals running around, we've got to use this starship to carry pequeninos and the Hive Queen to other worlds."
    He knew she was right. He had known it all along. That didn't mean that he was prepared to admit it.
    "Just work on trying to move yourself into Peter and young Val," he subvocalized. "Though God help us if Peter is able to create things when he goes Outside."
    "I doubt he can," said Jane. "He's not as smart as he thinks he is."
    "Yes he is," said Ender. "And if you doubt it, you're not as smart as you think you are."
     
     
     
    Ela was not the only one who prepared for Glass's final test by going to visit Planter. His mute tree was still only a sapling, hardly a balance to Rooter's and Human's sturdy trunks. But it was around that sapling that the surviving pequeninos had gathered. And, like Ela, they had gathered to pray. It was a strange and silent kind of prayer service. The pequenino priests offered no pomp, no ceremony. They simply knelt with the others, and they murmured in their several languages. Some prayed in Brothers' Language, some in tree language. Ela supposed that what she was hearing from the wives gathered there was their own regular language, though it might as easily be the holy language they used to speak to the mothertree. And there were also human languages coming from pequenino lips-- Stark and Portuguese alike, and there might even have been some ancient Church Latin from one of the pequeninos priests. It was a virtual Babel, and yet she felt great unity. They prayed at the martyr's tomb-- all that was left of himself-- for the life of the brother who was following after him. If Glass died utterly today, he would only echo Planter's sacrifice. And if he passed into the third life, it would be a life owed to Planter's courage and example.
    Because it was