“I suppose Human didn’t actually die,” said Miro. “But Planter did, and Ender let him do that, too. And how many hive queens died in the final battle between your people and Ender? Don’t brag to me about how Ender pays his own prices. He just sees to it that the price is paid, by whoever has the means to pay it.”
The Hive Queen’s answer was immediate.
“You don’t want Jane to die either,” said Miro.
“I don’t like her voice inside me,” said Val softly.
“Keep walking. Keep following.”
“I can’t,” said Val. “The worker — she let go of my hand.”
“You mean we’re stranded here?” asked Miro.
Val’s answer was silence. They held hands tightly in the dark, not daring to step in any direction.
“When I was here before,” said Miro, “you told us how all the hive queens made a web to trap Ender, only they couldn’t, so they made a bridge, they drew an aiъa from Outside and made a bridge out of it and used it to speak to Ender through his mind, through the fantasy game that he played on the computers in the Battle School. You did that once — you called an aiъa from Outside. Why can’t you find that same aiъa and put it somewhere else? Link it to something else?”
“All you’re saying is that it’s something new. Something you don’t know how to do. Not that it can’t be done.”
“So you can stop me,” Miro murmured to Val.
“She’s not talking about me,” Val answered.
“It’s Ender’s. He has two others. This is a spare. He doesn’t even want it himself.”
“We can’t go away in the dark,” said Miro.
Miro felt Val pull her hand away from him.
“No!” he cried. “Don’t let go!”
Miro knew the question was not directed toward him.
Miro heard Val’s voice — from surprisingly far away. She must be moving rapidly in the darkness. “If you and Jane are so concerned about saving my life,” she said, “then give me and Miro a guide. Otherwise, who cares if I drop down some shaft and break my neck? Not Ender. Not me. Certainly not Miro.”
“Stop moving!” cried Miro. “Just hold still, Val!”
“You hold still,” Val called back to him. “You’re the one with a life worth saving!”
Suddenly Miro felt a hand groping for his. No, a claw. He gripped the foreclaw of a worker and she led him forward through the darkness. Not very far. Then they turned a corner and it was lighter, turned another and they could see. Another, another, and there they were in a chamber illuminated by light through a shaft that led to the surface. Val was already there, seated on the ground before the Hive Queen.
When Miro saw her before, she had been in the midst of laying eggs — eggs that would grow into new hive queens, a brutal process, cruel and sensuous. Now, though, she simply lay in the damp earth of the tunnel, eating what a steady stream of workers brought to her. Clay dishes filled with a mash of amaranth and water. Now and then, gathered fruit. Now and then, meat. No interruption, worker after worker. Miro had never seen, had never imagined anyone eating so much.
“We’ll never stop the fleet without starflight,” said Miro. “They’re about to kill Jane, any day now. Shut down the ansible network, and she’ll die. What then? What are your ships for then? The Lusitania Fleet will come and destroy this world.”