“Yes,” said Peter softly.
“Well, the hosts that have taken her in — Malu calls it the forest net, like a fishing net for catching trees, but what is that? — anyway he says that they are so weak compared to Jane that whether she wills it or not, in time their bodies will all belong to her unless she finds somewhere else to be her permanent home.”
Peter nodded. “I know what he’s saying. And I would have agreed, until the moment that she actually invaded me, that I would gladly give up this body and this life, which I thought I hated. But I found out, with her chasing me around, that Malu was right, I don’t hate my life, I want very much to live. Of course it’s not me doing the wanting, ultimately, it’s Ender, but since ultimately he is me, I guess that’s a quibble.”
“Ender has three bodies,” said Wang-mu. “Does this mean he’s giving up one of the others?”
“I don’t think he’s giving up anything,” said Peter. “Or I should say, I don’t think I’m giving up anything. It’s not a conscious choice. Ender’s hold on life is angry and strong. Supposedly he was on his deathbed for a day at least before Jane was shut down.”
“Killed,” said Grace.
“Demoted maybe,” said Peter stubbornly. “A dryad now instead of a god. A sylph.” He winked at Wang-mu, who had no idea what he was talking about. “Even when he gives up on his own old life he just won’t let go.”
“He has two more bodies than he needs,” said Wang-mu, “and Jane has one fewer than she must have. It seems that the laws of commerce should apply. Two times more supply than is needed — the price should be cheap.”
When all of this was interpreted to Malu, he laughed again. “He laughs at ‘cheap,'” said Grace. “He says that the only way that Ender will give up any of his bodies is to die.”
Peter nodded. “I know,” he said.
“But Ender isn’t Jane,” said Wang-mu. “He hasn’t been living as a — a naked aiъa running along the ansible web. He’s a person. When people’s aiъas leave their bodies, they don’t go chasing around to something else.”
“And yet his — my — aiъa was inside me,” said Peter. “He knows the way. Ender might die and yet let me live.”
“Or all three of you might die.”
“This much I know,” Malu told them, through Grace. “If the god is to be given life of her own, if she is ever to be restored to her power, Ender Wiggin has to die and give a body to the god. There’s no other way.”
“Restored to her power?” asked Wang-mu. “Is that possible? I thought the whole point of the computer shutdown was to lock her out of the computer nets forever.”
Malu laughed again, and slapped his naked chest and thighs as he poured out a stream of Samoan.
Grace translated. “How many hundreds of computers do we have here in Samoa? For months, ever since she made herself known to me, we have been copying, copying, copying. Whatever memory she wanted us to save, we have it, ready to restore it all. Maybe it’s only one small part of what she used to be, but it’s the most important part. If she can get back into the ansible net, she’ll have what she needs to get back into the computer nets as well.”
“But they’re not linking the computer nets to the ansibles,” said Wang-mu.
“That’s the order sent by Congress,” said Grace. “But not all orders are obeyed.”
“Then why did Jane bring us here?” Peter asked plaintively. “If Malu and you deny that you have any influence over Aimaina, and if Jane has already been in contact with you and you’re already effectively in revolt against Congress –”
“No, no, it’s not like that,” Grace reassured him. “We were doing what Malu asked us, but he never spoke of a computer entity, he spoke of a god, and we obeyed because we trust his wisdom and we know he sees things that we don’t see. Your coming told us who Jane is.”