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Why not the memories of his mind?
Perhaps because this brain has only the map of Peter's memories in it. All the
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rest of them are lurking just out of reach. And maybe I'll stumble on them now
and then, connect them up, map new roads to get to them.
In the meantime, he was still getting up, standing beside Wang-mu, sniffing
the air with her; and he was surprised again to realize that both activities
had had his full attention. He had been thinking continuously of
Wang-mu, of smelling what she smelled, wondering all the while whether he
could just rest his hand on that small frail shoulder that seemed to need a
hand the size of his to rest upon it; and at the same time, he had been
engaged completely in speculation on how and whether he would be able to
recover Ender's memories.
I could never do that before, thought Peter. And yet I must have been doing it
ever since this body and the Valentine body were created. Concentrating on
three things at once, in fact, not two.
But I wasn't strong enough to think of three things. One of them always
sagged. Valentine for a while. Then Ender, until that body died. But two
things -- I can think of two things at once. Is this remarkable? Or is it
something that many humans could do, if only they had some occasion to learn?
What kind of vanity is this! thought Peter. Why should I care whether I'm
unique in this ability? Except that I always did pride myself on being smarter
and more capable than the people around me. Didn't let myself say it aloud, of
course, or even admit it to myself, but be honest with yourself now, Peter!
It's good to be smarter than other people. And if I
can think of two things at once, while they can only think of one, why not
take some pleasure in it!
Of course, thinking of two things is rather useless if both trains of thought
are dumb. For while he played with questions of vanity and his competitive
nature, he had also been concentrating on Wang-mu, and his hand had indeed
reached out and touched her, and for a moment she leaned back against him,
accepting his touch, until her head rested against his chest.
And then, without warning or any provocation that he could think of, she
suddenly pulled away from him and began to stride toward the Samoans who were
gathered around Malu on the beach.
"What did I do?" asked Peter.
She turned around, looking puzzled. "You did just fine!" she said. "I
didn't slap you or put my knee in your kintamas, did I? But it's breakfast
-- Malu is praying and they've got more food than they had two nights ago,
when we thought we'd die from eating it!"
And both of Peter's separate tracks of attention noticed that he was hungry,
both severally and all at once. Neither he nor Wang-mu had eaten anything last
night. For that matter, he had no memory of leaving the beach and coming to
lie down with her on these mats. Somebody must have carried them. Well, that
was no surprise. There wasn't a man or woman on that beach who didn't look
like he could pick Peter up and break him like a pencil. As for Wang-mu, as he
watched her run lightly toward the mountain range of
Samoans gathered at water's edge, he thought she was like a bird flying toward
a flock of cattle.
I'm not a child and never was one, not in this body, thought Peter. So I
don't know if I'm even capable of childish longings and the grand romances of
adolescence. And from Ender I have this sense of comfortableness in love; it
isn't grand sweeping passions that I even expect to feel. Will the kind of
love I have for you be enough, Wang-mu? To reach out to you when
I'm in need, and to try to be here for you when you need me back. And to feel
such tenderness when I look at you that I want to stand between you and all
the world: and yet also to lift you up and carry you above the strong currents
of life; and at the same time, I would be glad to stand always like this, at a
distance, watching you, the beauty of you, your
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energy as you look up at these towering mound-people, speaking to them as an
equal even though every movement of your hands, every fluting syllable of your
speech cries out that you're a child -- is it enough for you that I
feel these loves for you? Because it's enough for me. And enough for me that
when my hand touched your shoulder, you leaned on me; and when you felt me
slip away, you called my name.
Plikt sat alone in her room, writing and writing. She had been preparing all
her life for this day -- to be writing the oration for Andrew Wiggin's
funeral. She would speak his death -- and she had the research to do it, she
could speak for a solid week and still not exhaust a tenth of what she knew
about him. But she would not speak for a week. She would speak for a single
hour. Less than an hour. She understood him; she loved him; she would share
with others who did not know him what he was, how he loved, how history was
different because this man, brilliant, imperfect, but well-meaning and filled
with a love that was strong enough to inflict suffering when it was needed --
how history was different because he lived, and how also ten thousand, a
hundred thousand, millions of individual lives were also different,
strengthened, clarified, lifted up, brightened, or at least made more
consonant and truthful because of what he had said and done and written in his
life.
And would she also tell this? Would she tell how bitterly one woman grieved
alone in her room, weeping and weeping, not because of grief that Ender was
gone, but because of shame at finally understanding herself. For though she
had loved and admired him -- no, worshiped this man -- nevertheless when he
died what she felt was not grief at all, but relief and excitement. Relief:
The waiting is over! Excitement: My hour has come!
Of course that's what she felt. She wasn't such a fool as to expect herself to
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