IGMS Issue 8 (24 page)

"All right," said Valentine. "If you're happy with it, I'm happy with it." Whereupon she did that momentary bug-eyed thing
she
did to let him know she was lying.

"I'm done with responsibility, Val," said Ender. "I had quite enough in Battle School and on Eros. I intend to spend the voyage making friends and reading everything I can get my hands on."

"And at the end, you can write an essay called, 'How I spent my summer vacation.'"

"It's always summer when your heart is full of joy," said Ender.

"You are so full of crap," said Valentine.

The play reading went off without a hitch. Everyone did well, or well enough, but Dorabella Toscano was luminous. She made a point of snubbing Admiral Morgan at first, but then played her great soliloquy straight to him, submissively kneeling and extending her hand. When he came up to her afterward, bursting with enthusiasm and, though he would not have said so, a feeling more ancient and powerful than mere admiration, she pouted at first. "You make me so mad to be almost stop this play," she said. But immediately she smiled and relented. "Now you are very glad you let me play my part?"

For the rest of the voyage, the crew and colonists were amused to watch Dorabella's coy reeling in of the bachelor admiral, and no one was surprised when, a few weeks before landing, she was able to persuade him that it would be better for everyone if she first set foot on Shakespeare Colony as Mrs. Quincy Morgan.

Dorabella had learned the lesson of her too-early marriage as a teenager. Morgan's desires had been held off until the ceremony was over. Afterward, the crew was even more amused than before, at Morgan's way of having urgent errands that somehow always seemed to lead back to his quarters and the woman who, wisely and patiently, waited for him there. He was never happier in his life.

But that did not mean he forgot, even for a moment, that his future on Shakespeare depended on keeping Ender Wiggin in his place. So Ender never relaxed his façade of eager, teachable youth, and gave every impression of being quite infatuated with Alessandra, so that Morgan could anticipate being Ender's father-in-law -- thus gaining influence on the boy through a young wife whose mother was devoted to advancing Quincy Morgan's career and prestige.

Through it all, Ender worked hard, going back over his correspondence with Governor Kolmogorov and the reports and logs of the original military expedition, learning everyone's name and story by heart. These were the people he had been sent to govern. If he did not try to understand them, he did not deserve his office and it would be right for Morgan to take it away from him.

The months of the voyage passed quickly enough, because they were all so busy. Then ... rapid deceleration, protected from inertia by technology acquired from the formics. They were coming to the planet Shakespeare; for the colonists, this meant they were coming home.

Admiral Morgan had been in communication with the
acting
acting governor, Ix Tolo -- ridiculous name -- because the official acting governor had had the bad manners to take off on a completely meaningless trip right when he was needed for the official public transfer of power. The man probably couldn't stand being displaced from his office. The vanity of some people.

Morgan's executive officer, Commodore Vlad das Lagrimas, confirmed that, as far as could be ascertained from orbit, the runway the colonists had constructed for the shuttle met the specifications. Thank heaven they didn't have to pave these things anymore -- it must have been tedious in the days when flying vehicles had to land on wheels.

The only thing that worried Morgan was bringing the Wiggin boy down with him for the first landing. It would be easy enough to tell the original settlers that Morgan was coming ahead of Wiggin to prepare the way. That would give him plenty of chance to make sure they were aware that Wiggin was a teenage boy and hardly likely to be the real governor.

Dorabella agreed with him. But then she pointed out, "Of course, all the older people in this colony are the pilots and soldiers who fought under Ender's command. They might be disappointed not to see him. But no, it will make it all the more special when he comes down later."

Morgan thought about it and decided that having Wiggin with him might be more of an asset than not. Let them
see
the legendary boy. Which was why he called the Wiggin boy to his quarters.

"I don't know that you need to say anything to the colonists on this first occasion," said Admiral Morgan. This was the test -- would Wiggin be miffed at being held in silence?

"Fine with me," said Wiggin instantly. "Because I'm not good at speeches."

"Excellent," said Morgan. "We'll have marines there in case these people are planning some sort of resistance -- you never know, all their cooperation might be a ruse. Four decades on their own here -- they might resent the imposition of authority from forty lightyears away."

Wiggin looked serious. "I never thought of that. Do you really think they might rebel?"

"No, I don't," said Morgan. "But a good commander prepares for everything. You'll acquire habits like that in time, I'm sure."

Wiggin sighed. "There's so much stuff to learn."

"When we get there, we'll put the ramp down at once and the marines will secure the immediate perimeter. When the people have assembled around the base of the ramp, then we'll come out. I'll introduce you, I'll say a few words, then you'll go back inside the shuttle until I can secure appropriate quarters for you in the settlement."

"Toguro," said Wiggin.

"Oh, right"

"Sorry. Battle School slang."

"Oh, yes. Never went to Battle School myself." Of course the little brat had to give his little reminder that he had gone to Battle School and Morgan had not. But his use of slang was encouraging. The more childish Wiggin appeared, the easier it would be to marginalize him.

"When can Valentine come down?"

"We won't start bringing down the new colonists for several days. We have to make sure we do this in an orderly way -- we don't want to swamp the old settlers with too many new ones before there's housing and food for them all. The same thing with supplies."

"We're going down empty-handed?" asked Wiggin, sounding surprised.

"Well, no, of course not," said Morgan. He hadn't thought of it that way. It
would
be a nice gesture to have some key supplies with them. "What do you think, some food? Chocolates?"

"They have better food than we do," said Ender. "Fresh fruits and vegetables -- that's going to be their gift to
us
. I bet they'd go boky over the skimmers, though."

"Skimmers! That's serious technology."

"Well, it's not like they're any use up here in the ship," said Ender, laughing. "But some of the xeno equipment, then. Something to show them how much it's going to help them, now that we're here. I mean, if you're worried they'll resent us, giving them some really useful tech will make us heroes."

"Of course -- that's what I was planning. I just didn't think of the skimmers on our
first
landing."

"Well, it'd sure help with carrying cargo to wherever it's going to be warehoused. I know they'd appreciate not having to lug stuff by hand or in carts or whatever they use for transportation."

"Excellent," said Morgan. "You're catching on to this leadership thing already." The kid really
was
clever. And Morgan would be the one to reap the good will that bringing the skimmers and other high-tech equipment would create. He would have thought of all this himself if he ever had a chance to stop and think about things. The boy could sit around and think about things, but Morgan couldn't afford the time. He was constantly on call, and though das Lagrimas handled most things well, Morgan also had to deal with Dorabella.

Not that she was demanding. In fact, she was amazingly supportive. He'd heard from other people that marriage was hellish. The honeymoon lasts a day, they said, and then she starts demanding, insisting, complaining.

All lies. If he had known marriage was like
this
, he'd have done it long ago. But maybe it was only like this with Dorabella. He was glad he had waited, to marry the one in a million who could make a man truly happy. Because he was besotted. He knew the men joked about it behind his back -- he caught their smirks whenever he came back from a rendezvous with Dorabella for an hour or two in the middle of the working day. Let them have their laughs! It was all about envy.

"Sir?" asked Wiggin.

"Oh, yes," said Morgan. It had happened again -- in the middle of a conversation, he had drifted off into thinking about Dorabella. "I have a lot on my mind, and I think we're through here. Just be in the shuttle at 0800 -- that's when we're closing the doors, everything loaded by the dawn watch. The descent will take several hours, the shuttle pilot tells me, but nobody will be able to sleep -- you'll want to get to bed early tonight so you're well rested. And it's better to enter the atmosphere on an empty stomach, if you know what I mean."

"Yes sir," said Wiggin.

"Dismissed, then," said Morgan.

Wiggin saluted and left. Morgan almost laughed out loud. The kid didn't realize that even on Morgan's ship, Wiggin's seniority as a Rear Admiral entitled him to courtesies, including the right to leave when he felt like it instead of being dismissed like a subordinate. But it was good to keep the boy in his place. Just because he had the office of admiral bestowed on him before Morgan actually
earned
his didn't mean Morgan had to pretend to show respect to an ignorant teenager.

Wiggin was in his place before Morgan got there, dressed in civilian clothes instead of military uniform -- which was all to the good, since it would not be helpful for people to see that they had identical dress uniforms and rank insignias, while Ender had markedly more battle decorations. Morgan merely nodded to Wiggin and went to his own seat, in the front of the shuttle with a communications array at his disposal.

At first the shuttle flight was normal space travel -- smooth, perfectly controlled. But as they orbited the planet and then dipped down into their point of entry, the shuttle reoriented itself to have the shield meet and dissipate the heat, which is when the bouncing and yawing and rolling began. As the pilot told him beforehand, "Roll and yaw mean nothing. If we start to pitch,
then
we've got problems."

Morgan found himself quite nauseated by the time they steadied out into smooth flight at ten thousand meters. But poor Wiggin -- the boy practically
flew
back to the head, where he was no doubt retching his poor head off. Unless the kid had forgotten not to eat and really had something to puke up.

The landing went smoothly, but Wiggin hadn't returned to his seat -- he took the landing in the head. And when the marines reported that the people were gathering, Wiggin was still inside.

Morgan went to the door of the head himself and rapped on it. "Wiggin," he said, "it's time."

"Just a few more minutes, sir," said Wiggin. His voice sounded weak and shaky. "Really. Looking at the skimmers will keep them busy for a few minutes, and then they'll meet us with a cheer."

It hadn't crossed Morgan's mind to send the skimmers out ahead of his own entrance, but Wiggin was right. If the people had already seen something wonderful from Earth technology, it would make them all the more enthusiastic when he came out himself. "They can't watch the skimmers forever, Wiggin," said Morgan. "When it's time to go out, I hope you're ready to join me."

"I will," said Wiggin. But then another retching sound gave the lie to that statement.

Of course, retching sounds could be made with or without nausea. Morgan had a momentary suspicion and so he acted on it, opening the door without any warning.

There was Wiggin, kneeling in front of the john, his belly convulsing as his body arched with another retch. He had his jacket and shirt off, tossed on the floor near the door -- at least the kid had thought ahead and arranged not to get vomit on his suit. "Anything I can do to help?" asked Morgan.

Wiggin looked at him, his face a mask of barely-controlled nausea. "I can't keep this up forever," he said weakly, managing a faint smile. "I'll be fine in a minute."