"Excellent project," she said. "It will look very good on your resume."
Ender found that Olhado was a much better driver than he was. The boy's depth perception was better, and when he plugged his eye directly into the onboard computer, navigation practically took care of itself. Ender could devote his energies to looking.
The scenery seemed monotonous when they first began these exploratory flights. Endless prairies, huge herds of cabra, occasional forests in the distance--they never came close to those, of course, since they didn't want to attract the attention of the piggies that lived there. Besides, they were looking for a home for the hive queen, and it wouldn't do to put her too close to any tribe.
Today they headed west, on the other side of Rooter's Forest, and they followed a small river to its outlet. They stopped there on the beach, with breakers rolling gently to shore. Ender tasted the water. Salt. The sea.
Olhado got the onboard terminal to display a map of this region of Lusitania, pointing out their location, Rooter's Forest, and the other piggy settlements nearby. It was a good place, and in the back of his mind Ender could sense the hive queen's approval. Near the sea, plenty of water, sunny.
They skimmed over the water, traveling upstream a few hundred meters until the right bank rose to form a low cliff. "Any place to stop along here?" asked Ender.
Olhado found a place, fifty meters from the crown of the hill. They walked back along the river's edge, where the reeds gave way to the grama. Every river on Lusitania looked like this, of course. Ela had easily documented the genetic patterns, as soon as she had access to Novinha's files and permission to pursue the subject. Reeds that co-reproduced with suckflies. Grama that mated with watersnakes. And then the endless capim, which rubbed its pollen-rich tassels on the bellies of fertile cabra to germinate the next generation of manure-producing animals. Entwined in the roots and stems of the capim were the tropecos, long trailing vines that Ela proved had the same genes as the xingadora, the ground-nesting bird that used the living plant for its nest. The same sort of pairing continued in the forest: Macio worms that hatched from the seeds of merdona vines and then gave birth to merdona seed. Puladors, small insects that mated with the shiny-leafed bushes in the forest. And, above all, the piggies and the trees, both at the peak of their kingdoms, plant and animal merged into one long life.
That was the list, the whole list of surface animals and plants of Lusitania. Under water there were many, many more. But the Descolada had left Lusitania monotonous.
And yet even the monotony had a peculiar beauty. The geography was as varied as any other world--rivers, hills, mountains, deserts, oceans, islands. The carpet of capim and the patches of forest became background music to the symphony of landforms. The eye became sensitized to undulations, outcroppings, cliffs, pits, and, above all, the sparkle and rush of water in the sunlight. Lusitania, like Trondheim, was one of the rare worlds that was dominated by a single motif instead of displaying the whole symphony of possibility. With Trondheim, however, it was because the planet was on the bare edge of habitability, its climate only just able to support surface life. Lusitania's climate and soil cried out a welcome to the oncoming plow, the excavator's pick, the mason's trowel. Bring me to life, it said.
Ender did not understand that he loved this place because it was as devastated and barren as his own life, stripped and distorted in his childhood by events every bit as terrible, on a small scale, as the Descolada had been to this world. And yet it had thrived, had found a few threads strong enough to survive and continue to grow. Out of the challenge of the Descolada had come the three lives of the Little Ones. Out of the Battle School, out of years of isolation, had come Ender Wiggin. He fit this place as if he had planned it. The boy who walked beside him through the grama felt like his true son, as if he had known the boy from infancy. I know how it feels to have a metal wall between me and the world, Olhado. But here and now I have made the wall come down, and flesh touches earth, drinks water, gives comfort, takes love.
The earthen bank of the river rose in terraces, a dozen meters from shore to crest. The soil was moist enough to dig and hold its shape. The hive queen was a burrower; Ender felt the desire in him to dig, and so he dug, Olhado beside him. The ground gave way easily enough, and yet the roof of their cavelet stayed firm.
And so it was decided.
"Here it is," said Ender aloud.
Olhado grinned. But it was really Jane that Ender was talking to, and her answer that he heard. "Novinha thinks they have it. The tests all came through negative--the Descolada stayed inactive with the new Colador present in the cloned bugger cells. Ela thinks that the daisies she's been working with can be adapted to produce the Colador naturally. If that works, you'll only have to plant seeds here and there and the buggers can keep the Descolada at bay by sucking flowers."
Her tone was lively enough, but it was all business, no fun. No fun at all. "Fine," Ender said. He felt a stab of jealousy--Jane was no doubt talking far more easily with Miro, teasing him, taunting him as she used to do with Ender.
But it was easy enough to drive the feeling of jealousy away. He put out a hand and rested it easily on Olhado's shoulder; he momentarily pulled the boy close, and then together they walked back to the waiting flyer. Olhado marked the spot on the map and stored it. He laughed and made jokes all the way home, and Ender laughed with him. The boy wasn't Jane. But he was Olhado, and Ender loved him, and Olhado needed Ender, and that was what a few million years of evolution had decided Ender needed most. It was the hunger that had gnawed at him through all those years with Valentine, that had kept him moving from world to world. This boy with metal eyes. His bright and devastatingly destructive little brother Grego. Quara's penetrating understanding, her innocence; Quim's utter self-control, asceticism, faith; Ela's d
ependability, like a rock, and yet she knew when to move out and act; and Miro . . .
Miro. I have no consolation for Miro, not in this world, not at this time. His life's work was taken from him, his body, his hope for the future, and nothing I can say or do will give him a vital work to do. He lives in pain, his lover turned into his sister, his life among the piggies now impossible to him as they look to other humans for friendship and learning.
"Miro needs . . ." Ender said softly.
"Miro needs to leave Lusitania," said Olhado.
"Mm," said Ender.
"You've got a starship, haven't you?" said Olhado. "I remember reading a story once. Or maybe it was a vid. About an old-time hero in the Bugger Wars, Mazer Rackham. He saved Earth from destruction once, but they knew he'd be dead long before the next battle. So they sent him out in a starship at relativistic speeds, just sent him out and had him come back. A hundred years had gone by for the Earth, but only two years for him."
"You think Miro needs something as drastic as that?"
"There's a battle coming. There are decisions to make. Miro's the smartest person in Lusitania, and the best. He doesn't get mad, you know. Even in the worst of times with Father. Marcao. Sorry, I still call him Father."
"That's all right. In many ways he was."
"Miro would think, and he'd decide the best thing to do, and it always was the best thing. Mother depended on him too. The way I see it, we need Miro when Starways Congress sends its fleet against us. He'll study all the information, everything we've learned in the years that he was gone, put it all together, and tell us what to do."
Ender couldn't help himself. He laughed.
"So it's a dumb idea," said Olhado.
"You see better than anybody else I know," said Ender. "I've got to think about this, but you might be right."
They drove on in silence for a while.