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When it was over, Ender moved to his bed and lay down, staring at the ceiling.
"I've shown this simulation already to scientists on half a dozen worlds," said Jane. "It won't be long before the press gets their hands on it."
"It's worse than it ever was with the buggers," said Ender. "All the videos they showed when I was little, buggers and humans in combat, it was clean compared to this."
An evil laugh came from the terminal. Ender looked to see what Jane was doing. A full-sized piggy was sitting there, laughing grotesquely, and as he giggled Jane transformed him. It was very subtle, a slight exaggeration of the teeth, an elongation of the eyes, a bit of slavering, some redness in the eye, the tongue darting in and out. The beast of every child's nightmare. "Well done, Jane. The metamorphosis from raman to varelse."
"How soon will the pequeninos be accepted as the equals of humanity, after this?"
"Has all contact been cut off?"
"The Starways Council has told the new xenologer to restrict himself to visits of no more than one hour, not more frequently than every other day. He is forbidden to ask the pequeninos why they did what they did."
"But no quarantine."
"It wasn't even proposed."
"But it will be, Jane. Another incident like this, and there'll be an outcry for quarantine. For replacing Milagre with a military garrison whose sole purpose is to keep the piggies ever from acquiring a technology to let them get off the planet."
"The piggies will have a public relations problem," said Jane. "And the new xenologer is only a boy. Pipo's son. Libo. Short for Liberdade Gracas a Deus Figueira de Medici."
"Liberdade. Liberty?"
"I didn't know you spoke Portuguese."
"It's like Spanish. I spoke the deaths of Zacatecas and San Angelo, remember?"
"On the planet Moctezuma. That was two thousand years ago."
"Not to me."
"To you it was subjectively eight years ago. Fifteen worlds
ago. Isn't relativity wonderful? It keeps you so young."
"I travel too much," said Ender. "Valentine is married, she's going to have a baby. I've already turned down two calls for a speaker. Why are you trying to tempt me to go again?"
The piggy on the terminal laughed viciously. "You think that was temptation? Look! I can turn stones to bread!" The piggy picked up jagged rocks and crunched them in his mouth. "Want a bite?"
"Your sense of humor is perverse, Jane."
"All the kingdoms of the worlds." The piggy opened his hands, and star systems drifted out of his grasp, planets in exaggeratedly quick orbits, all the Hundred Worlds. "I can give them to you. All of them."
"Not interested."
"It's real estate, the best investment. I know, I know, you're already rich. Three thousand years of collecting interest, you could afford to build your own planet. But what about this? The name of Ender Wiggin, known throughout all the Hundred Worlds--"
"It already is."
"--with love, and honor, and affection." The piggy disappeared. In its place Jane resurrected an ancient video from Ender's childhood and transformed it into a holo. A crowd shouting, screaming: Ender! Ender! Ender! And then a young boy standing on a platform, raising his hand to wave. The crowd went wild with rapture.
"It never happened," said Ender. "Peter never let me come back to Earth."
"Consider it a prophecy. Come, Ender, I can give that to you. Your good name restored."
"I don't care," said Ender. "I have several names now. Speaker for the Dead--that holds some honor."
The pequenino reappeared in its natural form, not the devilish one Jane had faked. "Come," said the pequenino softly.
