The Ender Quintet (Omnibus) by Card Orson Scott

Author:Card, Orson Scott [Card, Orson Scott]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
ISBN: 9780765376824
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates
Published: 2013-09-16T16:00:00+00:00

“Ender,” said the voice in his ear.

Ender had been listening in silence, riding on the car that Varsam was driving. For the last hour Jane had been letting him listen in on her conversation with these people of Path, translating for him whenever they spoke in Chinese instead of Stark. Many kilometers of prairie had passed by as he listened, but he had not seen it; before his mind’s eye were these people as he imagined them. Han Fei-tzu—Ender well knew that name, tied as it was to the treaty that ended his hope that a rebellion of the colony worlds would put an end to Congress, or at least turn its fleet away from Lusitania. But now Jane’s existence, and perhaps the survival of Lusitania and all its peoples, hinged on what was thought and said and decided by two young girls in a bedroom on an obscure colony world.

Qing-jao, I know you well, thought Ender. You are such a bright one, but the light you see by comes entirely from the stories of your gods. You are like the pequenino brothers who sat and watched my stepson die, able at any time to save him by walking a few dozen steps to fetch his food with its anti-descolada agents; they weren’t guilty of murder. Rather they were guilty of too much belief in a story they were told. Most people are able to hold most stories they’re told in abeyance, to keep a little distance between the story and their inmost heart. But for these brothers—and for you, Qingjao—the terrible lie has become the self-story, the tale that you must believe if you are to remain yourself. How can I blame you for wanting us all to die? You are so filled with the largeness of the gods, how can you have compassion for such small concerns as the lives of three species of raman? I know you, Qing-jao, and I expect you to behave no differently from the way you do. Perhaps someday, confronted by the consequences of your own actions, you might change, but I doubt it. Few who are captured by such a powerful story are ever able to win free of it.

But you, Wang-mu, you are owned by no story. You trust nothing but your own judgment. Jane has told me what you are, how phenomenal your mind must be, to learn so many things so quickly, to have such a deep understanding of the people around you. Why couldn’t you have been just one bit wiser? Of course you had to realize that Jane could not possibly act in such a way as to cause the destruction of Path—but why couldn’t you have been wise enough to say nothing, wise enough to leave Qing-jao ignorant of that fact? Why couldn’t you have left just enough of the truth unspoken that Jane’s life might have been spared? If a would-be murderer, his sword drawn, had come to your door demanding that you tell him

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