Part 43 (1/2)

”We humans get slower as we age. Give me a few more years and I'll be downright cozy.”

We know that you'll die someday. Even though you put it off for so long.

Ender didn't want this to become another conversation about mortality or any of the other aspects of human life that so fascinated the Hive Queen. There was still one question that had occurred to him during the Hive Queen's story. An intriguing possibility.

”The bridge you made. Where was it? In the computer?”

Inside you. The way I'm inside the body of the Hive Queen.

”But not part of me.”

Part of you but also not-you. Other. Outside but inside. Bound to you but free. It couldn't control you, and you couldn't control it.

”Could it control the computer?”

We didn't think about that. We didn't care. Maybe.

”How long did you use this bridge? How long was it there?”

We stopped thinking about it. We were thinking about you you.

”But it was still there the whole time you were studying me.”

Where would it go?

”How long would it last?”

We never made one like that before. How would we know? The Hive Queen dies when the queen-body dies.

”But what body was the bridge bridge in?” in?”

Yours. At the center of the pattern.

”This thing was inside inside me?” me?”

Of course. But it was still not-you. It disappointed us that way, when it couldn't let us control you, and we stopped thinking about it. But we see now that this was very important. We should have searched for it. We should have remembered it.

”No. To you it was like-- a bodily function. Like balling up your fist to hit somebody. You did it, and then when you didn't need it you didn't notice whether your fist was still there or not.”

We don't understand the connection but it seems to make sense inside you you.

”It's still alive, isn't it?”

It could be. We're trying to feel it. Find it. Where can we look? The old pattern isn't there. You don't play the Fantasy Game anymore.

”But it would still be linked to the computer, wouldn't it? A connection between me and the computer. Only the pattern could have grown, couldn't it? It could include other people, too. Think of it being linked to Miro-- the young man I brought with me--”

The broken one ...

”And instead of being linked to that one computer, linked to thousands and thousands of them, through the ansible links between worlds.”

This could be. It was alive. It could grow. The way we grow when we make more workers. All this time. Now that you mention it, we're sure it must still be there because we're still linked to you, and it was only through that pattern that we connected with you. The connection is very strong now-- that's part of what it is, the link between us and you. We thought the connection grew stronger because we knew you better. But maybe it also grew stronger because the bridge was growing.

”And I I always thought-- Jane and I always thought that she was-- that she had somehow come to exist in the ansible connections between worlds. That's probably where she always thought-- Jane and I always thought that she was-- that she had somehow come to exist in the ansible connections between worlds. That's probably where she feels feels herself, the place that feels like the center of her-- body, I was going to say.” herself, the place that feels like the center of her-- body, I was going to say.”

We're trying to feel whether the bridge between us is still there. Hard to feel it.

”Like trying to find a particular muscle that you've been using all your life but never by itself.”

Interesting comparison. We don't see the connection but no, now we see it.

”The comparison?”

The bridge. Very big. The pattern of it is too big. We can't grasp it anymore. Very big. Memory-- very confusing. Much harder than finding you the first time-- very confusing. Getting lost. We can't hold it in our mind anymore.

”Jane,” whispered Ender. ”You're a big girl now.”

Jane's voice came in answer: ”You're cheating, Ender. I can't hear what she's saying to you. I can only feel your heart pounding and your rapid breathing.”

Jane. We've seen this name in your mind many times. But the bridge wasn't a person with a face-- ”Neither is Jane.”

We see a face in your mind when you think of this name. We still see it. Always we thought it was a person. But now-- ”She's the bridge. You made her.”

Called her. her. You You made the pattern. made the pattern. She She possessed it. What she possessed it. What she is is, this Jane, this bridge, she began with the pattern we discovered in you and the Fantasy Game, yes, but she has imagined herself to be much larger. She must have been a very strong and powerful-- philote, if your word is the right name-- to be able to change her own pattern and still remember to be herself.

”You reached out across the light-years and found me me because I was looking for because I was looking for you you. And then you found a pattern and called a creature from another s.p.a.ce who grasped the pattern and possessed it and became Jane. All of this instantaneously. Faster than light.”

But this isn't faster-than-light travel travel. It's faster-than-light imagining imagining and and calling calling. It still doesn't pick you up here and put you there.

”I know. I know. This may not help us answer the question I came here with. But I had another question, just as important to me, that I never thought would have anything to do with you, and here you had the answer to it all along. Jane's real, alive the whole time, and her self isn't out there in s.p.a.ce, it's inside me me. Connected to me me. They can't kill her by switching her off. That's something.”

If they kill the pattern, she can die.

”But they can't kill the whole whole pattern, don't you see? It doesn't depend on the ansibles after all. It depends on me and on the link between me and the computers. They can't cut the link between me and the computers here and in the satellites...o...b..ting Lusitania. And maybe she doesn't need the ansibles, either. After all, pattern, don't you see? It doesn't depend on the ansibles after all. It depends on me and on the link between me and the computers. They can't cut the link between me and the computers here and in the satellites...o...b..ting Lusitania. And maybe she doesn't need the ansibles, either. After all, you you don't need them to reach me through her.” don't need them to reach me through her.”

Many strange things are possible. We can't imagine them. They feel very stupid and strange, the things going through your mind. You're making us very tired, with all your thinking of stupid imaginary impossible things.

”I'll leave you, then. But this will help. This has to help. If Jane can find a way to survive because of this, then that's a real victory. The first first victory, when I was beginning to think there wasn't any victory to be had in this.” victory, when I was beginning to think there wasn't any victory to be had in this.”

The moment he left the presence of the Hive Queen, he began talking to Jane, telling her everything he could remember of what the Hive Queen could explain. Who Jane was, how she was created.

And as he talked, she a.n.a.lyzed herself in light of what he said. Began to discover things about herself that she had never guessed. By the time Ender got back to the human colony, she had verified as much of his story as she could. ”I never found this because I always started with the wrong a.s.sumptions,” she said. ”I imagined my center to be out in s.p.a.ce somewhere. I should have guessed I was inside you from the fact that even when I was furious with you, I had to come back to you to be at peace.”

”And now the Hive Queen says that you've grown so big and complex that she can't hold the pattern of you in her mind anymore.”

”Must have gone through a growth spurt, back during my years of p.u.b.erty.”