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e married. It would be years before she and Jakt could possibly be as tightly bound together as she and her brother were. Jakt knew it, too, and it caused him some pain; a husband shouldn't have to compete with his brother-in-law for the devotion of his wife.

"Ho, Val," said Ender.

"Ho, Ender." Alone on the dock, where no one else could hear, she was free to call him by the childhood name, ignoring the fact that the rest of humanity had turned it into an epithet.

"What'll you do if the rabbit decides to bounce out during the sondring?"

She smiled. "Her papa would wrap her in a skrika skin, I would sing her silly Nordic songs, and the students would suddenly have great insights about the impact of reproductive imperatives on history."

They laughed together for a moment, and suddenly Valentine knew, without noticing why she knew, that Ender did not want to go on the sondring, that he had packed his bag to leave Trondheim, and that he had come, not to invite her along, but to say good-bye. Tears came unbidden to her eyes, and a terrible devastation wrenched at her. He reached out and held her, as he had so many times in the past; this time, though, her belly was between them, and the embrace was awkward and tentative.

"I thought you meant to stay," she whispered. "You turned down the calls that came."

"One came that I couldn't turn down."

"I can have this baby on sondring, but not on another world."

As she guessed, Ender hadn't meant her to come. "The baby's going to be shockingly blond," said Ender. "She'd look hopelessly out of place on Lusitania. Mostly black Brazilians there."

So it would be Lusitania. Valentine understood at once why he was going--the piggies' murder of the xenologer was public knowledge now, having been broadcast during the supper hour in Reykjavik. "You're out of your mind."

"Not really."

"Do you know what would happen if people realized that the Ender is going to the piggies' world? They'd crucify you!"

"They'd crucify me here, actually, except that no one but you knows who I am. Promise not to tell."

"What good can you do there? He'll have been dead for decades before you arrive."

"My subjects are usually quite cold before I arrive to speak for them. It's the main disadvantage of being itinerant."

"I never thought to lose you again."

"But I knew we had lost each other on the day you first loved Jakt."

"Then you should have told me! I wouldn't have done it!"

"That's why I didn't tell you. But it isn't true, Val. You would have done it anyway. And I wanted you to. You've never been happier." He put his hands astride her waist. "The Wiggin genes were crying out for continuation. I hope you have a dozen more."

"It's considered impolite to have more than four, greedy to go past five, and barbaric to have more than six." Even though she joked, she was deciding how best to handle the sondring--let the graduate assistants take it without her, cancel it altogether, or postpone it until Ender left?

But Ender made the question moot. "Do you think your husband would let one of his boats take me out to the mareld overnight, so I can shuttle to my starship in the morning?"

His haste was cruel. "If you hadn't needed a ship from Jakt, would you have left me a note on the computer?"

"I made the decision five minutes ago, and came straight to you."

"But you already booked passage--that takes planning!"

"Not if you buy the starship."

"Why are you in such a hurry? The voyage takes decades--"

"Twenty-two years."

"Twenty-two years! What difference would a couple of days make? Couldn't you wait a month to see my baby born?"

"In a month, Val, I might not have the courage to leave you."


Tags: Orson Scott Card Ender's Saga Science Fiction