Children of the Mind (Ender, Book 4) (Ender Quartet)

with the descoladores.
    The second prediction was much more iffy. More like a hope. Maybe even just a wish. That someday Quara would tell Wang-mu the truth. That someday the hidden wound that Quara bore would be healed. That someday they might be friends.
    But not today. There was no hurry. Wang-mu would try to help Quara because she was so obviously in need, and because the people who had been around her the longest were clearly too sick of her to help. But helping Quara was not the only thing or even the most important thing she had to accomplish. Marrying Peter and starting a life with him -- that was a much higher priority. And getting something to eat, a drink of water, and a place to pee -- those were the highest priorities of all at this precise moment in her life.
    I guess that means I'm human, thought Wang-mu. Not a god. Maybe just a beast after all. Part raman. Part varelse. But more raman than varelse, at least on her good days. Peter, too, just like her. Both of them part of the same flawed species, determined to join together to make a couple of more members of that species. Peter and I together will call forth some aiúa to come in from Outside and take control of a tiny body that our bodies have made, and we'll see that child be varelse on some days and raman on others. On some days we'll be good parents and some days we'll be wretched failures. Some days we'll be desperately sad and some days we'll be so happy we can hardly contain it. I can live with that.

CHAPTER 17
     
    “THE ROAD GOES ON WITHOUT HIM NOW”

    "I once heard a tale of a man
    who split himself in two.
    The one part never changed at all;
    the other grew and grew.
    The changeless part was always true,
    The growing part was always new,
    And I wondered, when the tale was through,
    Which part was me, and which was you."
    from The God Whispers of Han Qing-jao
     
     
    Valentine arose on the morning of Ender's funeral full of bleak reflection. She had come here to this world of Lusitania in order to be with him again and help him in his work; it had hurt Jakt, she knew, that she wanted so badly to be part of Ender's life again, yet her husband had given up the world of his childhood to come with her. So much sacrifice. And now Ender was gone.
    Gone and not gone. Sleeping in her house was the man that she knew had Ender's aiúa in him. Ender's aiúa, and the face of her brother Peter. Somewhere inside him were Ender's memories. But he hadn't touched them yet, except unconsciously from time to time. Indeed, he was virtually hiding in her house in order not to rekindle those memories.
    "What if I see Novinha? He loved her, didn't he?" Peter had asked almost as soon as he arrived. "He felt this awful sense of responsibility to her. And in a sense, I worry that I'm somehow married to her."
    "Interesting question of identity, isn't it?" Valentine had answered. But it wasn't just an interesting question to Peter. He was terrified of getting caught up in Ender's life. Afraid, too, of living a life wracked with guilt as Ender's had been. "Abandonment of family," he had said. To which Valentine had replied, "The man who married Novinha died. We watched him die. She isn't looking for some young husband who doesn't want her, Peter. Her life is full of grief enough without that. Marry Wang-mu, leave this place, go on, be a new self. Be Ender's true son, have the life he might have had if the demands of others hadn't tainted it from the start."
    Whether he fully accepted her advice or not, Valentine couldn't guess. He remained hidden in the house, avoiding even those visitors who might trigger memories. Olhado came, and Grego, and Ela, each in turn, to express their condolences to Valentine on the death of her brother, but Peter never came into the room. Wang-mu did, however, this sweet young girl who nevertheless had a kind of steel in her that Valentine quite liked. Wang-mu played the gracious friend of the bereaved, keeping the conversation going as each of these children of Ender's wife talked about how Ender had saved their family, blessed their lives when they had thought themselves beyond the reach of all blessing.
    And in the corner of the room, Plikt sat, absorbing, listening, fueling the speech that she had lived her whole life for.
    Oh, Ender, the jackals have gnawed at your life for three thousand years. And now your friends will have their turn. In the end, will the toothmarks on your bones be all that different?
    Today all would come to a