The Authorized Ender Companion Page 37

  Regardless, Bean and Petra agreed to go to Rwanda. With Bean leading the army there, Peter was able to gain a lot of worldwide support for his constitution. Many nations ratified it, and the Hegemony was changed to the Free People of Earth. Peter promised to resign his position as Hegemon, with no replacement, once the wars on Earth ended.

  He had used the wars in Asia to ignite the world population’s fear of war. This fear led to many people joining the Free People of Earth. Bean and Suriyawong defended the Free People members when they were attacked by outside nations. Their swift victories led to more people joining.

  Peter had succeeded in unifying the world, at least to a point. He had a long way to go before all the world would unite—most of Asia was still divided among the Chinese, the Muslim Caliphate, and India. But he was on the correct path to victory.

  His parents told him they were proud of him for all he’d accomplished. In telling him this, they did not mention Ender’s name or refer to him. It made Peter cry with joy that his parents finally treated him so.

  To advance his world government, Peter traveled to a neutral site where he met with Virlomi, the self-appointed goddess of India, to negotiate India’s entrance into the Free People of Earth. Virlomi refused to join his government, but had designs of her own. She tried to convince Peter to marry her, which Peter also refused.

  As the leader of the Free People of Earth, Peter called for his military to intervene when China, India, and Russia went to war with each other. China joined the FPE, adding to the government’s ever-growing influence around the world.

  Peter relied on several of the Battle Schoolers, such as Vlad and of course Bean and Petra, to help him in the wars. But during a conversation with Mazer Rackham, the hero of the Formic wars of nearly a century earlier, Peter realized it was time to send Bean and his mutated babies into space where they could wait for a cure for their life-threatening disease.

  Mazer and Peter facilitated Bean’s divorce from Petra, which was a crushing blow to her. He also helped fake Bean’s death during a military strike in Iran.

  He didn’t have time to remain sentimental about his soldiers. He was still the Hegemon and revealed to the world how many countries continued to join his government. With the help of Vlad, and the eventual joining of China, Virlomi’s India, and Alai’s Muslim world, the FPE had become a massive organization, and his role as Hegemon had real power.

  He spent much of his time helping raise Petra and Bean’s children. Petra had refused to leave her responsibilities in the battlefield, and so Peter watched out for the children.

  More than a year later, when Petra finally returned to Brazil, the military objectives of the FPE having been accomplished, Peter professed his love to her and for her children. Though Petra still loved Bean, she eventually married Peter and together they raised a family of her five children and five more that she had with Peter.

  The Free People of Earth continually grew in influence and alliance. Soon, every nation save the United States joined the world government. Many biographers wrote Peter’s story, but it wasn’t until Peter read Ender’s book on the Formic Hive Queen that he found the “right” biographer.

  Peter asked Ender to tell his story as he had the Hive Queen’s. This allowed Peter, now an old man with many grandchildren, to reconcile with Ender. The two brothers, although decades apart in age, were able to put past childhood differences mostly behind them. Ender wrote the biography of his brother, though it was not published on Earth until shortly after Peter’s death.

  The aggressive, unlikable boy who had been passed over for Battle School and who unified the whole world had been immortalized by the one person he had resented throughout his life. Despite the resentment of youth, both Peter and Ender did great things in the world, and neither stood in the other’s shadow.

  Wiggin, Peter Arkady II (XN, CM)

  Peter Wiggin II was created in the home of the philotes. Called Outspace, this place allowed thoughts to become real by instilling philotes—the foundation of life—into the thoughts. Ender Wiggin unconsciously thought of his brother Peter while in Outspace, and a new, real, version of his brother appeared instantly.

  Peter II looked like Ender’s memory of his brother Peter at around age twenty. But this Peter was not a completely developed individual. Created from Ender’s mind, he was aggressive and angry, which was how Ender remembered Peter. Also, having been created from Ender’s mind and soul, Peter II had a philotic connection to Jane. This allowed Peter II the ability to travel through Outspace, instantly arriving at distant planets. But, it also meant that while he had his own thought processes and emotions, he depended on Ender’s existence for his own.

  Knowing that he was not wanted on Lusitania, Ender’s longest home planet, Peter II chose to travel through the galaxy, planning to overthrow the Starways Congress. With Jane, he first went to the planet Path and delivered a virus that would reverse the consequences of congressional genetic manipulation on the planet.

  As he left Path, he was joined by Si Wang-mu, a brilliant but shy servant girl. She was to help him in his subversive journey. They fought with each other like future lovers or even siblings. Peter II explained his creation to her as they traveled to their first destination, Divine Wind, a planet settled by Japanese colonists. Peter II was sure that it was the most important place to start their efforts of bringing down the interplanetary government.

  On Divine Wind, Peter II treated Wang-mu very cruelly. They had been given a false identity as secret lovers and acted out the part, but his hatred for Ender, and his general aggression, made him unattractive to Wang-mu on the planet.

  Their primary stop on Divine Wind was to the home of a well-respected philosopher named Aimaina Hikari. Hikari had done a good job easing the Starways Congress’s conscience about destroying Lusitania and the Descolada by teaching that Ender’s act of xenocide was not immoral but necessary.

  Peter II and Wang-mu were unable to change Hikari’s mind about the rightness of the Congress’s actions, but they did give him cause to second-guess himself. Peter II also learned that Hikari was a believer in a religion based on the planet Pacifica, and they traveled there for the next step in their journey.

  Along the way, Wang-mu could see that Peter II was developing his own personality; thinking for himself. Though he was still aggressive and angry, he was acting more out of his own volition than on Ender’s will. She resented how cruel he was to her, but had hope that he would evolve.

  When they arrived at Pacifica, they met with Grace Drinker, a teacher of the Ua Lava religious tradition Hikari had shown them. Grace saw through their secret identities and exposed them as the very people her friend Hikari had impossibly spoken to the day before on his world—a twenty-light-year distance away.

  Grace introduced Peter II and Wang-mu to her family, but it was an awkward meeting since Peter II didn’t understand the family’s ominous sense of humor. However, it was not to last long. Malu, the Ua Lava followers’ prophetic leader, came from his secluded, sacred island to meet specifically with Peter II and Wang-mu.

  Malu told the two off-worlders the legend of a god who lived in the great web of life. Jane, they knew. Malu also reiterated the need for Jane to live. Peter II concurred, unsure of what to say to the wise man. Malu focused his energy on Peter II since he wore the jewel to communicate with Jane.

  Peter II had become obsessed with saving Jane, which made Wang-mu jealous. She had fallen in love with him despite his boyish cruelty. This love saved Peter II’s life in the days ahead. Jane, having been kicked out of her computer network home, was searching for a new body to house her Auía. She tried Peter II’s body, but he already carried a strong portion of Ender’s soul, or Auía. The two consciousnesses could not exist in the same place. Wang-mu helped free Peter II of Jane.

  A short time later, though, Ender himself died on Lusitania, and his Auía reconnected with both Valentine II’s and Peter II’s. They had both had a portion of Ender’s soul, but r
ejoined, they had become one person, living within Peter II. He could feel shadowlike memories of Ender’s life, but could not remember specifics.

  Ender’s soul continued to live on in Peter II. Though Peter II was his own person, he carried Ender with him in his heart. Ender’s work would continue, only in this younger, more able body. Peter II had held a deep disdain for himself, since Ender had created him, and hated the part of himself Peter represented. With his reunited soul, Peter II no longer hated himself and was at peace with who he was.

  He expressed his love for Wang-mu, telling her that it was she who had saved him from the darkness of death. Together they learned that Jane had contacted the people of Pacifica before she was exorcised from the Congress’s computer networks and told them to create an illegal secret computer network with a few other planets (including Lusitania) that would allow her to control faster-than-light travel.

  Peter II was present when Grace and Malu started the new illegal network. They quickly discovered that with the Hive Queen and Human’s help, Jane could, in fact, again control the instantaneous form of travel. There was much of Ender in Peter II. He didn’t want to be tied down to one planet, and this news was a great relief to him. He knew that he would travel with his beloved Wang-mu from planet to planet. Nothing brought either of them greater joy than the idea they could be together for the rest of their lives.

  Their joy would have to wait, though, as the fleet that was ordered to Lusitania deployed the Molecular Detachment Device against the planet. Jane bounced Peter II and Wang-mu, without a starship, to Lusitania. There they obtained a ship and captured the deadly missile. Using Jane’s power, they returned the deadly weapon to the cargo hold on the fleet’s flagship.

  Peter II used his influence as a speaker to convince the fleet’s commanding officer, Admiral Lands, to send a message to Starways Congress and tell them that the problems with Lusitania were solved—the Descolada had been eradicated and there was no rebellion. Furthermore, he ensured that the devastating device Ender had used on the Formics—and would have been used against Lusitania—was dismantled.

  With Wang-mu he then jumped across the galaxy to the ship that housed Jane, Miro II, Quara, Ela, Firequencher, and a Formic drone. They had been attacked by ships sent from the descoladore and wanted to stop the seemingly hostile species by using the Molecular Detachment Device on them. Peter II, tapping into the part of him that was Ender’s soul, convinced them to never use the device.

  He exchanged verbal barbs with Quara, but was firm in his stance that communication—real communication—needed to be achieved between humans and the descoladore.

  Peter II returned with Wang-mu to Lusitania. They attended Ender’s funeral together, then snuck off into the pequenino woods and were married. Jane made Peter II and Wang-mu disappear, presumably on an intergalactic honeymoon. The carrier of Ender’s true self was at last at peace. He’d found the true love of his life and a purpose to his existence.

  Wiggin, Theresa (née Brown) (TP, EG, WG, NS, EH, EE, SH, SP, SG)

  The daughter of prominent Mormon military strategist Hinckley Brown, Theresa Brown was an academic. A graduate student, she taught an undergraduate course titled Human Community. She was a stern, curt teacher who found herself particularly annoyed by the presence of one student, John Paul Wiggin. Their confrontations in the classroom amused other students, but were both engaging and frustrating to Theresa.

  Theresa had essentially disavowed her Mormon beliefs, choosing to focus on science over religion. This alienated her somewhat from her father, but it made her tremendously attractive to John Paul. She expelled a student from her class for asking a question about her Mormon faith versus science, citing the questions as bigoted and troublemaking.

  Theresa’s research as a grad student was well respected. It was thought it would benefit the entire human race. Because of this, it came as a great shock to Theresa when she was called into a meeting with her entire dissertation committee and told that her funding was being pulled. She would receive her degree, but the government of the Hegemony had made the decision that Theresa should not be involved in her own research. It was revealed that this was the government’s move against her father, in retaliation for his religion, or his war.

  John Paul began flirting with her immediately after this meeting. She was frustrated and didn’t wish to speak to him, but he was persistent. He set up a picnic outside her office that piqued her curiosity.

  At the picnic, Theresa learned the truth about this annoying student’s life and family. Like her family, his was outspokenly noncompliant. They spoke of world political philosophy and grew to be friends. John Paul declared his love for her, and she was unsure where it would lead, but she had come to admire this strange, annoying student.

  As she and John Paul talked and laughed together on this most unique of days, Theresa found herself falling in love with him. They closed their first-date picnic with an unexpected kiss. Theresa Brown went on to marry John Paul Wiggin, taking his name and, in the fashion befitting their mutually noncompliant families, bearing his three children: Peter, Valentine, and Andrew “Ender.” The third child, Ender, had been requested by the government, because Peter and Valentine had not lived up to the government and military’s expectations for brilliance in the Wiggin household. Though not active in the religious tradition of her upbringing, she was upset that her husband baptized the three children in their infancy.

  Years later, she consented to have the children monitored by the International Fleet. When it was revealed that Ender had been chosen to go to Battle School, Theresa was stunned. More so, she was angry, as the decision to recruit her youngest child had come because he had brutally beaten a boy at school. She loved Ender and was deeply saddened when he chose to go to Battle School.

  She missed him terribly and continued to hang his Christmas stocking, filling it with traditional gifts like five-dollar coins. She was protective of her memories of Ender, which led to conflicts with a jealous Peter. Though Ender was not dead, Theresa acted as though he was and mourned him for years.

  This experience taught Peter some lessons about cruelty. In an effort to win the hearts of those around him—though doing so only to increase his public influence—Peter made Theresa a mosaic of Ender pictures for Christmas that year. The gift brought Theresa to tears, and she expressed her love for both her sons.

  Even after Ender’s victory over the Formics, Teresa still missed him. She would often comment that it was remarkable to her that he would one day be in the history books as the savior of Earth.

  It was with unbearable sadness that Theresa said her final good-bye to Ender. Through a letter from Hyrum Graff, she realized that her son could never return to Earth. His life would be in too much jeopardy. She and John Paul subtly manipulated Peter and Valentine, in their guises as Locke and Demosthenes, to call for Ender to remain in space. These essays worked, and the International Fleet was convinced to assign Ender to a colony on a former Formic world. What Theresa hadn’t planned on, however, was Valentine’s desire to go with her brother to the new colony. In the course of a few months, Theresa lost her two youngest children to space.

  While on their journey into space, Valentine wrote her mother updates about Ender. Ender never wrote his parents, which broke Theresa’s heart, but she was grateful to have the communication with Valentine, whom she jokingly declared was the favorite child in the family.

  Not long after Ender and Valentine left Earth, Bean, Ender’s confidant at Battle School, showed up on Theresa’s doorstep. She recognized him and took him into her home. She knew it was dangerous to speak to him because he was being hunted by Achilles Flandres, a former Battle School student and a serial killer who was rising to power on the global scale.

  Theresa shared many of her deepest feelings and thoughts with Bean. She made it clear that she loved her children, all of them, and worried about them constantly. She revealed that she knew that Peter was the political pundit Locke, and that Valen
tine had been Demosthenes. But she and her husband had never let the children know that they knew.

  They had once wanted to raise their children religiously, in secret, but it was not to be. So they simply fostered their children’s talents as best they could. She wanted Peter to have children of his own but was scared that he never would—that his ambition would get in the way of ever having a life like that. These thoughts hit Bean hard, and he felt that he would also never have kids of his own.

  After their conversation, which was at times tense and condescending by both parties, Theresa greeted Peter back home. He brought Sister Carlotta, Bean’s guardian, with him. The Wiggin family took Bean and Sister Carlotta to dinner that night, where the guests invited Peter to join them in their running from Achilles.

  Later that night, Theresa learned that Peter would join Sister Carlotta and Bean. He told his parents that he was Locke and would be revealing that to the world. Theresa told him that she knew already, and she was as proud of him as she’d ever been of Ender. The words meant everything to Peter.

  Theresa and John Paul promised to support Peter however they could, knowing that once he revealed his identity and began running from Achilles, their lives would never be the same.

  They wouldn’t run for long, though. As China took over Asia and Russia conquered much of Europe, Peter was made Hegemon. He moved his office to Brazil, and his parents joined him there. He offered them jobs, assisting in the rising new government, but his parents both refused.

  When it was discovered that Peter had rescued Achilles Flandres, the serial killer with designs on world domination of his own, Hyrum Graff tried to convince Theresa to go into hiding to be safe from Achilles. Theresa refused, and as she and Graff spoke she realized that to protect Peter, Theresa had to assassinate Achilles. She was a little disconcerted that she had no moral qualm with killing the young man. She just started making plans for how and when to commit the murder.