The Authorized Ender Companion Read online

  Although married in a traditional Catholic culture, Novinha and Marcão could not conceive children. He had a congenital disease that sterilized him, caused him extreme physical agony, and would someday kill him. Novinha remained married to Marcão, but had a sexual affair with Libo, her childhood friend. Libo gave her six children, whom Marcão raised as his own. But, he took to a life of drinking.

  He was abusive to Novinha and her children because they were not his children—though that was not known to them. He died in a bar, and two of Novinha’s children called for a Speaker to Speak his death. Ender Wiggin, who was coming to Speak another death on the planet (one called for and canceled by Novinha), arrived and Spoke.

  When Ender spoke Marcão’s death, he revealed to the people of Lusitania the dark secrets of Novinha’s adultery. In many ways, the Speaking cleared Marcão’s name in the eyes of the colonists at Lusitania.

  Ribeira von Hesse, Ekaterina Elanora “Ela” (SD, XN, CM)

  The daughter of Libo and Novinha, Ela grew up on the planet Lusitania believing that her father was actually a man named Marcão. When he died, Ela, with her brother Miro, called for a Speaker to Speak his death. Ender Wiggin answered the call, and arrived at their home planet Lusitania to perform the Speaking.

  When Ender did arrive, Ela was concerned, as he’d come many years earlier than expected. She’d called the Speaker because she wanted her abusive father’s evil acts exposed, but it was too soon after his death to be comfortable.

  During Ender’s first visit to the Ribeira household, Ela greeted him coldly at first, but as she got to know him, she began to trust him. In fact, they became friends. After Ender had been on the planet for a few days, Ela met him at the river near their homes and confided that she wanted to be a scientist with full credentials. Her mother refused to let her because she feared Ela would die like the planet’s xenobiologists Pipo and Libo had. Ela explored all of her mother’s research anyway, and came to determine that there was a link between the disease known as the Descolada and the native life on the planet, the pequeninos.

  Ela was a mother figure to her siblings, caring for them and encouraging them to help Ender in his duties as the Speaker. This caused dissension with her brother Quim, but was something she felt very strongly about.

  She attended Ender’s Speaking for her father. She was at first disappointed that he seemed to be excusing Marcão’s abusive actions, but was shocked to learn that Marcão was not her real father, and that a man named Libo was. Her mother was an adulteress. Novinha seemed to hate Libo and had forbidden Ela from seeing her once-best friend, Libo’s daughter China.

  After the Speaking, Ender approached Ela, needing her help. Starways Congress had revoked Lusitania’s charter and was going to evacuate the planet. Ender was going to lead a rebellion against the Congress, but needed the information on the Descolada that Novinha had kept hidden. Ela agreed to approach her mother and find it out so they could protect their planet and particularly Miro, who faced criminal accusations in the evacuation.

  Ela was able to convince Novinha to explain the Descolada to the leaders of the planet/colony. With this information, the leaders decided to rebel against Starways Congress. The Descolada had infected all life on Lusitania, and as such all were carriers and couldn’t leave the planet.

  When it was learned that her brother Miro had been injured near the pequeninos’ land outside the city, Ela went with Ender and the leaders of the town to save him. She, Ouanda, and Ender crossed the deactivated fence and went to speak to the pequeninos’ leaders—the “wives.”

  Ela was fascinated by the pequeninos’ mating rituals, which she learned from the wives. She was a witness as Ender negotiated a treaty with the pequeninos. Ever the scientist, Ela insisted on observing Ender perform the “Third Life” ritual, where a pequenino is killed, a tree planted in its corpse.

  The next morning, she attended mass with her family, Ender sitting in the place reserved for her father. He had, after all, become a father figure to her.

  She continued to study the Descolada, and with Ouanda discovered properties of daisies that could allow the Hive Queen to flourish on Lusitania without being exposed to the virus. However, the Descolada evolved, and Ela, with her mother, worked tirelessly to protect the flora and fauna human beings had imported for their own sustenance from the disease. It was a losing battle, though, as the disease continued to evolve and infect.

  Over the next thirty years, Ela and her family rose to greater prominence on Lusitania. They were the planet’s scientists. Novinha and Ela created new strains of potatoes, trying to find a way to make a foodstuff that would be resistant to the Descolada. It was a difficult assignment, one that seemed impossible as the virus continually evolved.

  In her late forties, Ela developed a theory that would allow the human scientists on Lusitania to selectively eliminate certain aspects of the Descolada, while preserving the parts of the virus that the native Lusitanian life needed to survive and reproduce. The theory was a contentious issue between Ela and her sister, Quara, who felt the virus was actually a living, sentient creature. Despite their differing views, both Ela and Quara continued their respective research paths, trying to determine what would be best for all the life on their home planet.

  Ela and her family greeted Miro’s ship when it returned from its mission to rendezvous with Valentine Wiggin’s vessel. It was Ela who greeted her brother Miro the most warmly, and was able to mostly look beyond the thirty years that has passed between them. Because of relativistic travel, Miro had not aged, but the rest of his siblings had. It made for a subtle awkwardness at his return.

  Ela was called into a meeting at the mayor’s office where the problem of the pequeninos was discussed. A faction of pequeninos had decided to leave the planet, spreading the Descolada to other worlds. Ela was working on the antivirus version of the Descolada, which was still an extremely contentious issue between her and Quara. She was ordered to continue her research by the leaders of the colony, despite Quara’s objections.

  Quara responded by trying to communicate with the Descolada molecules and warn the virus of her sister’s research. She tried to transmit Ela’s research directly to the virus. Ela informed Ender, asking what should be done about the leak. But it was Novinha who reacted.

  Angrily, Novinha screamed terrible insults at Ender and informed Ela that she, as the head xenologist, would stop Quara from sending the research. She also threatened Ela that if Ela ever spoke about scientific matter to Ender or anyone again, she would cut off Ela’s access to the lab and research.

  Ela tried to smooth things over with Novinha, even though she thought more of Ender and thought he deserved to know what was going on.

  A short time later, when her brother Quim was killed by the pequeninos, Ela joined her family at their home to hear the news. When Miro informed everyone that Quim was dead, he was slapped by Novinha. The rest of the family, including Ela, rebelled against her, leaving her alone. Ela felt badly for speaking terrible words to her mother as she left, but was unable to reconcile with her. Novinha entered the religious school, the Children of the Mind of Christ.

  Ela tried to return to her research, but did not have access to the lab without Novinha’s passwords. Novinha told Ender to have Jane get the passwords, and give them to Ela.

  In the aftermath of Quim’s death, many citizens of Lusitania rioted, burning a large portion of the piggies’ home forest, including the mothertrees and fathertrees. Ela was there to see the results of the fire, and to study how the pequeninos would rebuild from a devastating loss.

  As she continued to work on the answer to the Descolada issue, Ela also worked on reversing a Starways Congress–caused genetic manipulation of the people on the planet Path. She was aided in this by Han Fei-tzu and his servant, Si Wang-mu, who lived on Path.

  During a conversation with Wang-mu via ansible that Jane arranged, Ela and Ender developed a hypothesis that the Descolada had been developed by a third party and
was used to regulate the planetary functions of Lusitania. The piggies were the slaves of the virus and its creator.

  She and Ender asked their friend Planter, the pequenino, to confirm the theory. He said that he had come to a similar hypothesis and wanted to be the test subject. He wanted to be free of the Descolada and see if he still had self-awareness and free will. This would be accomplished by purging the virus from him, and seeing if he still had his own mind. If not, then it would appear that the virus indeed was used to control the life on the planet, and the pequeninos themselves were not the sentient beings they appeared to have been.

  This decision was hard on Ela. She loved Planter as her closest friend and didn’t want to risk losing him. He insisted, though, stating that he would be the first of the race to be free, and his sacrifice could save all life on Lusitania.

  With the research on the Descolada proceeding, Ela and her assistant, a piggie named Glass, discovered the keys to unlocking the genetic manipulation on Path. It would be a simple enough process, she felt, once they figured out how to remove the Descolada to apply the same principles to the godspoken, freeing them of their obsessive-compulsive disorder but maintaining the increased intellect.

  She also discovered that one person on Path, Si Wang-mu, had been ge ne -tically altered, but had evolved beyond it. She did not suffer from the OCD, but maintained the increased intelligence.

  When Quara spoke to Planter shortly before his death, the piggie convinced her to share the information she had on the Descolada virus with Ela. With this new information, Ela was able to develop an antivirus for the Descolada, but was unable to manufacture it. Frustrated, she saw Planter die a martyr’s death, but knew that he had given her the keys to someday free the pequeninos from the virus that enslaved them.

  Ela was among those who was assigned to journey into space with Ender and Jane to test a new theory of faster-than-light travel Ender and his stepsons had developed, which used “Outspace” to manipulate philotes. What could be thought of could be created instantly in Outspace. There, Ela would imagine the anti-Descolada she called the recolada, as well as the cure for the godspoken on Path. If the theory worked, she would be able to manufacture both inoculations instantly.

  She traveled with the group into the mysterious Outspace, and the theory worked. She was able to instantly manufacture the recolada and the OCD antivirus. She and Ender tested them before returning to their home dimension moments later.

  Ela tested the recolada on Glass, and it worked. Successful in study, the recolada was sent throughout the planet. It cured all life of the Descolada without killing them. Her pathogen to reverse the genetic manipulations on Path worked equally well.

  She was among her siblings who beseeched Miro to confront Ender, who had joined their mother at the Children of the Mind of Christ abbey, to return to help save their home world.

  With Ender now on his deathbed, and Miro II having found the Descolada’s creators’ home world, Ela decided to leave her family behind and help discover the origin of the deadly virus at its home planet. She joined Miro, Valentine II, her sister Quara, a Formic drone, and a pequenino scientist named Firequencher on what they believed would be their final good-bye to Lusitania. Jane was also dying, and with her, the hope for more faster-than-light travel. As a result, Ela knew, if she traveled to the Descolada’s planet, she’d more than likely never return to Lusitania.

  As Ela and her comrades studied the biological communication of the Descolada, they were optimistic that they would figure out the language of the virus, and could potentially return to their home planet as Jane took over the body of Valentine II.

  With Quara, Ela figured out that the Descolada communicated by sending signals to its creators that were understood by translation into molecules. This pattern of communication was reciprocated by the virus’s creators.

  In the middle of their studies, Ela and Quara were shocked to see that Jane was able to control faster-than-light travel. They were suddenly back on Lusitania, with no warning. Ela celebrated being home, while Quara was angry that they weren’t told ahead of time.

  The fleet of starships that had been ordered to destroy their world was rapidly approaching, and so Ela and her companions returned to the descoladore world. There they learned that the molecule the descoladore had given them in the message was a deadly heroinlike creation.

  Jane used her instant transportation to send the crew to the other side of the planet, saving them. Moments later, Peter Wiggin II appeared on their ship and dissuaded them from their desires to use on the descoladore the Molecular Detatchment Device, the very weapon that was to destroy their own world. Ela agreed, and returned with her friends and family to Lusitania where she attended Ender’s funeral service.

  Ribeira von Hesse, Estevão Rei “Quim” (SD, XN)

  Quim was one of the children of Novinha and Libo, who was raised by Marcão Ribeira on the planet Lusitania. He was devoutly Catholic, as most of the colonists on Lusitania had been. He held an obvious disdain for Ender Wiggin, as he was a Speaker for the Dead, a career derided by the pope.

  When Ender first visited the Ribeira home, Quim was hostile. He called Ender names like “atheist” and “bastard”—the worst insults he could think of. He even tried to prevent his siblings from telling Ender anything about their father.

  As that first visit continued, however, he tearfully confessed that he’d prayed to God, the Virgin, and even his canonized grandparents that his father Marcão would die. He blamed himself for bringing, through these prayers, the disease that killed him.

  Quim hated Ender, though. He told Novinha that Ender was spending a lot of time with the other children. In the conversation, he accused Novinha of having illicit feelings for Ender. She slapped him for the comment. Quim felt terrible and begged for forgiveness. He held so closely to his faith that he felt repentance was the only course to happiness.

  After his brother Olhado helped Ender break into their mother’s computer files, Quim was mean to Olhado, adding to his guilt. It wasn’t until their sister Ela interfered that Quim stopped his bullying of Olhado.

  He attended the Speaking for his father, as said by Ender Wiggin. There he learned that his mother had been adulterous and the man he thought was his father was not. He called his mother a whore in front of the community gathered to attend the Speaking. He desperately wanted her to deny it, but she didn’t. Angrily, hurt, he ran from the service.

  He spoke with Bishop Peregrino, who instructed Quim to forgive his mother and continue to love her. He was initially resistant, but followed his ecclesiastical leader’s counsel.

  Quim accompanied his mother into the forest when she carried a warning message to Ender, who was negotiating with the pequeninos. Consequently, he was a witness when Ender performed the pequenino ritual known as the “Third Life.” In this ritual, Ender killed a pequenino named Human and planted a tree in him, turning him into a fathertree, the highest honor of pequenino society. Quim called the ritual a resurrection.

  After the “resurrection,” Quim devoted his life to learning about the pequeninos so he could be a missionary among them. He studied with his halfsister, Ouanda, and eventually set out for his proselytizing endeavors among the creatures.

  In the nearly thirty years that passed from the time Quim saw the so-called resurrection to the time when his brother Miro returned from what to him felt like a monthlong space mission, Quim had become a priest. He was the chief priest for the Catholic Church among the pequeninos. He relished his calling, for he had become the St. Paul to the piggies.

  He taught them as much of the gospel as he could; and while traditional marriage didn’t apply to the piggies because of their unique mating patterns, he did introduce the sacraments like communion and confirmation to the aliens.

  Quim was present when Miro returned from space and experienced, like the rest of their siblings, the strange awkwardness that comes with aging three decades while your brother doesn’t.

  Miro
met up with Quim the next time inside the piggies’ land, where Quim had performed mass. The two brothers argued, as they often did, over matters of faith and redemption. They reconciled as Quim revealed to Miro that he was going to preach in a rebellious region of pequenino land. Quim was certain he would be protected from the piggies’ violent ways because he was on a mission from God. Miro was unconvinced and worried that his brother would be killed.

  Before he left on this mission, Quim attended the meeting of the colony’s leaders. He listened to everyone’s objections about his mission, but with the support of the Bishop Peregrino and Ender, decided to go anyway.

  He traveled into the heart of the piggie lands. The pequeninos he sought believed that the Descolada virus that gave them life was actually the Holy Ghost. They refused to believe the dogma Quim preached to them.

  The piggies held Quim hostage and tested him to see if his God would save him. They starved him, and after a week of arguing doctrine and interpretation with the piggies, he died of the Descolada, lacking the inhibitors from his food to protect him.

  Ender said that he would not Speak Quim’s death, for Quim was true to himself, and there was nothing to be revealed in a Speaking. His mother Novinha was enraged from sorrow. She lost yet another loved one to the piggies and would never forgive those who supported Quim’s final mission because of it.

  Ribeira von Hesse, Gerão Gregario “Grego” (SD, XN, CM)

  Born on the planet Lusitania, Grego was one of the children of Novinha and Libo, who was raised by Novinha’s abusive husband Marcão. He was mischievous, and enjoyed doing what he wanted at church, even if the nuns would punish him.

  On Ender’s first visit to the Ribeira house, Grego tried stabbing Ender with a knife. Ender held him tightly as he sat and spoke with the family. Grego responded by urinating on Ender. Ender realized that Grego’s father’s death was devastating to him. He’d been the only child who had not suffered at Marcão’s hands.

  Though he had seemingly been drawn to Ender, his behavioral problems did not improve. He attacked a teacher at school, and wrecked his own bedsheets the day after Ender’s first appearance.