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curled into the curve of his body, like shrimps lined up on a market rack. The
closeness of her felt good; it felt familiar. Yet how could it be? He had
never slept so close to her before. Was it some vestigial Ender memory? He
wasn't conscious of having any such memories. It had disappointed him,
actually, when he realized it. He had thought that perhaps when his body had
complete possession of the aiúa, he would become
Ender -- he would have a lifetime of real memories instead of the paltry
faked-up memories that had come with his body when Ender created it. No such
luck.
And yet he remembered sleeping with a woman curled against him. He remembered
reaching across her, his arm like a sheltering bough.
But he had never touched Wang-mu that way. Nor was it right for him to do it
now -- she was not his wife, only his ... friend? Was she that? She had said
she loved him -- was that only a way to help him find his way into this body?
Then, suddenly, he felt himself falling away from himself, felt himself recede
from Peter and become something else, something small and bright and
terrified, descending down into darkness, out into a wind too strong for him
to stand against it --
"Peter!"
The voice called him, and he followed it, back along the almost invisible
philotic threads that connected him to ... himself again. I am Peter. I
have nowhere else to go. If I leave like that, I'll die.
"Are you all right?" asked Wang-mu. "I woke up because -- I'm sorry, but I
dreamed, I felt as if I was losing you. But I wasn't, because here you are."
"I was losing my way," said Peter. "You could sense that?"
"I don't know what I sensed or not. I just -- how can I describe it?"
"You called me back from darkness," said Peter.
"Did I?"
He almost said something, but then stopped. Then laughed, uncomfortable and
frightened. "I feel so odd. A moment ago I was about to say something.
Something very flippant -- about how having to be Peter Wiggin was darkness
enough by itself."
"Oh yes," said Wang-mu. "You always say such nasty things about yourself."
"But I didn't say it," said Peter. "I was about to, out of habit, but I
stopped, because it wasn't true. Isn't that funny?"
"I think it's good."
"It makes sense that I should feel whole instead of being subdivided --
perhaps more content with myself or something. And yet I almost lost the whole
thing. I think it wasn't just a dream. I think I really was letting go.
Falling away into -- no, out of everything."
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"You had three selves for several months," said Wang-mu. "Is it possible your
aiúa hungers for the -- I don't know, the size of what you used to be?"
"I was spread all over the galaxy, wasn't I? Except I want to say, 'Wasn't
he,' because that was Ender, wasn't it. And I'm not Ender because I don't
remember anything." He thought a moment. "Except maybe I do remember some
things a little more clearly now. Things from my childhood. My mother's face.
It's very clear, and I don't think it was before. And Valentine's face, when
we were all children. But I'd remember that as Peter, wouldn't
I, so it doesn't mean it comes from Ender, does it? I'm sure this is just one
of the memories Ender supplied for me in the first place." He laughed.
"I'm really desperate, aren't I, to find some sign of him in me."
Wang-mu sat listening. Silent, not making a great show of interest, but also
content not to jump in with an answer or a comment.
Noticing her made him think of something else. "Are you some kind of, what
would you call it, an empath? Do you normally feel what other people are
feeling?"
"Never," said Wang-mu. "I'm too busy feeling what I'm feeling."
"But you knew that I was going. You felt that."
"I suppose," said Wang-mu, "that I'm bound up with you now. I hope that's all
right, because it wasn't exactly voluntary on my part."
"But I'm bound up with you, too," said Peter. "Because when I was
disconnected, I still heard you. All my other feelings were gone. My body
wasn't giving me anything. I had lost my body. Now, when I remember what it
felt like, I remember 'seeing' things, but that's just my human brain making
sense of things that it can't actually make sense of. I know that I
didn't see at all, or hear, or touch or anything at all. And yet I knew you
were calling. I felt you -- needing me. Wanting me to come back. Surely that
means that I am also bound up with you."
She shrugged, looked away.
"Now what does that mean?" he asked.
"I'm not going to spend the rest of my life explaining myself to you," said
Wang-mu. "Everyone else has the privilege of just feeling and doing sometimes
without analyzing it. What did it look like to you? You're the smart one who's
an expert on human nature."
"Stop that," said Peter, pretending to be teasing but really wanting her to
stop. "I remember we bantered about that, and I bragged I guess, but ...
well I don't feel that way now. Is that part of having all of Ender in me?
I know I don't understand people all that well. You looked away, you shrugged
when I said I was bound up with you. That hurt my feelings, you know."
"And why is that?"
"Oh, you can ask why and I can't, are those the rules now?"
"Those have always been the rules," said Wang-mu. "You just never obeyed
them."
"Well it hurt my feelings because I wanted you to be glad that I'm tied up
with you and you with me."
"Are you glad?"
"Well it only saved my life, I think I'd have to be the king of the stupid
people not to at least find it convenient!"
"Smell," she said, suddenly leaping to her feet.
She is so young, he thought.
And then, rising to his own feet, he was surprised to realize that he, too,
was young, his body lithe and responsive.
And then he was surprised again to realize that Peter never remembered being
any other way. It was Ender who had experienced an older body, one that got
stiff when sleeping on the ground, a body that did not rise so easily to its [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]