“I can’t slip into it if Ender’s there, utterly engrossed in what she’s doing, either, can I,” said Jane.
“Is he utterly engrossed?”
“Apparently so,” said Jane. “His own body is falling apart. And more rapidly than Val’s was.”
It took Miro a moment to understand this. “You mean he’s dying?”
“I mean Val is very much alive,” said Jane.
“Don’t you love Ender anymore?” asked Miro. “Don’t you care?”
“If Ender doesn’t care about his own life,” said Jane, “why should I? We’re both doing our best to set a very messy situation to rights. It’s killing me, it’s killing him. It very nearly killed you, and if we fail a whole lot of other people will be killed, too.”
“You’re a cold one,” said Miro.
“Just a bunch of blips between the stars, that’s what I am,” said Jane.
“Merda de bode,” said Miro. “What’s this mood you’re in?”
“I don’t have feelings,” said Jane. “I’m a computer program.”
“We all know you have an aiъa of your own. As much of a soul, if that’s what you want to call it, as anyone else.”
“People with souls can’t be switched off by unplugging a few machines.”
“Come on, they’re going to have to shut down billions of computers and thousands of ansibles all at once in order to do you in. I’d say that’s pretty impressive. One bullet would do for me. An overgrown electric fence almost polished me off.”
“I suppose I just wanted to die with some kind of splashing sound or cooking smell or something,” said Jane. “If I only had a heart. You probably don’t know that song.”
“We grew up on classic videos,” said Miro. “It drowned out a lot of other unpleasantness at home. You’ve got the brain and the nerve. I think you’ve got the heart.”
“What I don’t have is the ruby slippers. I know there’s no place like home, but I can’t get there,” said Jane.
“Because Ender’s using her body so intensely?” asked Miro.
“I’m not as set on using Val’s body as you were to have me do it,” said Jane. “Peter’s will do as well. Even Ender’s, as long as he’s not using it. I’m not actually female. That was merely my choice of identity to get close to Ender. He had problems bonding readily with men. The dilemma I have is that even if Ender would let go of one of these bodies for me to use it, I don’t know how to get there. I don’t know where my aiъa is any more than you do. Can you put your aiъa where you want it? Where is it now?”
“But the Hive Queen is trying to find you. She can do that — her people made you.”
“Yes, she and her daughters and the fathertrees, they’re building some kind of web, but it’s never been done before — catching something already alive and leading it into a body that is already owned by someone else’s aiъa. It’s not going to work, I’m going to die, but I’m dammed if I’m going to let those bastards who made the descolada come along after I’m dead and wipe out all the other sentient species I’ve known. Humans will pull the plug on me, yes, thinking I’m just a computer program run amok, but that doesn’t mean I want someone else to pull the plug on humanity. Nor on the hive queens. Nor on the pequeninos. If we’re going to stop them, we have to do it before I’m dead. Or at least I have to get you and Val there so you can do something without me.”
“If we’re there when you die, we’ll never come home again.”
“Bad luck, eh?”
“So we’re a suicide mission.”
“Life is a suicide mission, Miro. Check it out — basic philosophy course. You spend your life running out of fuel and when you’re finally out, you croak.”
“You sound like Mother now,” said Miro.
“Oh, no,” said Jane. “I’m taking it with good humor. Your mother always thought her doom was tragic.”
Miro was readying some retort when Val’s voice interrupted his colloquy with Jane.
“I hate it when you do that!” she cried.