Xenocide (Ender Wiggins Saga)

place was not as complete as anyone supposed?
    Not possible. When Valentine met with the Mayor, Kovano Zeljezo, and with old Bishop Peregrino that morning, they had shown genuine affection for Ender. Valentine had attended too many meetings not to know the difference between formal courtesies, political hypocrisies, and genuine friendship. If Ender felt detached from these people, it wasn't by their choice.
    I'm reading too much into this, thought Valentine. If Ender seems to be strange and detached, it's because we have been apart so long. Or perhaps because he feels shy with this angry young man, Miro; or perhaps it's Plikt, with her silent, calculating worship of Ender Wiggin, who makes him choose to be distant with us. Or maybe it's nothing more than my insistence that I must meet the Hive Queen today, at once, even before meeting any of the leaders of the piggies. There's no reason to look beyond present company for the cause of his unconnection.
    They first located the Hive Queen's city by the pall of smoke. "Fossil fuels," said Ender. "She's burning them up at a disgusting rate. Ordinarily she'd never do that-- the Hive Queens tend their worlds with great care, and they never make such a waste and a stink. But there's a great hurry these days, and Human says that they've given her permission to burn and pollute as much as necessary."
    "Necessary for what?" asked Valentine.
    "Human won't say, and neither will the Hive Queen, but I have my guesses, and I imagine you will, too."
    "Are the piggies hoping to jump to a fully technological society in a single generation, relying on the Hive Queen's work?"
    "Hardly," said Ender. "They're far too conservative for that. They want to know everything there is to know-- but they aren't terribly interested in surrounding themselves with machines. Remember that the trees of the forest freely and gently give them every useful tool. What we call industry still looks like brutality to them."
    "What then? Why all this smoke?"
    "Ask her," said Ender. "Maybe she'll be honest with you ."
    "Will we actually see her?" asked Miro.
    "Oh yes," said Ender. "Or at least-- we'll be in her presence. She may even touch us. But perhaps the less we see the better. It's usually dark where she lives, unless she's near to egg-laying. At that time she needs to see, and the workers open tunnels to bring in daylight."
    "They don't have artificial light?" asked Miro.
    "They never used it," said Ender, "even on the starships that came to Sol System back during the Bugger Wars. They see heat the way we see light. Any source of warmth is clearly visible to them. I think they even arrange their heat sources in patterns that could only be interpreted aesthetically. Thermal painting."
    "So why do they use light for egg-laying?" asked Valentine.
    "I'd hesitate to call it a ritual-- the Hive Queen has such scorn for human religion. Let's just say it's part of their genetic heritage. Without sunlight there's no egg-laying."
    Then they were in the bugger city.
    Valentine wasn't surprised at what they found-- after all, when they were young, she and Ender had been with the first colony on Rov, a former bugger world. But she knew that the experience would be surprising and alien to Miro and Plikt, and in fact some of the old disorientation came back to her, too. Not that there was anything obviously strange about the city. There were buildings, most of them low, but based on the same structural principles as any human buildings. The strangeness came in the careless way that they were arranged. There were no roads and streets, no attempt to line up the buildings to face the same way. Nor did buildings rise out of the ground to any common height. Some were nothing but a roof resting on the ground; others rose to a great height. Paint seemed to be used only as a preservative-- there was no decoration. Ender had suggested that heat might be used aesthetically; it was a sure thing that nothing else was.
    "It makes no sense," said Miro.
    "Not from the surface," said Valentine, remembering Rov. "But if you could travel the tunnels, you'd realize that it all makes sense underground. They follow the natural seams and textures of the rock. There's a rhythm to geology, and the buggers are sensitive to it."
    "What about the tall buildings?" asked Miro.
    "The water table is their downward limit. If they need greater height, they have to go up."
    "What are they doing that requires a building so tall?" asked Miro.
    "I don't