The Authorized Ender Companion (35 page)

Jane was a little jealous of Miro’s affection for Valentine II, and teased him about it. He teased her back. He had fallen in love with her, too, but knew that she would soon be destroyed.

Upon his return from searching for the planets, his siblings asked him to convince Ender to leave the religious order he’d joined with their mother and return to them to help protect their home planet from the congressional fleet. Miro consented and traveled to the abbey.

He was not successful in swaying Ender. It became apparent to Miro that Ender was running from his past, and the creation of the new Valentine and Peter. All Ender wanted was to live out his days with his wife. He’d even removed the Jane jewel.

Defeated, Miro left his stepfather, but not before Ender suggested that Jane’s philotic consciousness could be put in Valentine II’s body. Miro and Jane began immediately to determine if it was possible.

Miro went to the Hive Queen to determine if she could (or would) help Jane take over Valentine II’s body. Accompanied by Valentine II, who used her “essence of Ender” to philotically communicate with the Hive Queen, Miro learned that the mission he’d undertaken to find a suitable planet for the Formics and pequeninos had been a cover. He’d actually been searching, under Jane and the Hive Queen’s secret agenda, for the home world of the Descolada.

The Hive Queen led Miro to this conclusion, but didn’t outright tell him. Furthermore, she did not commit to help in the transfer of Jane’s consciousness into Valentine II. She didn’t think it was possible, or that Jane or Valentine II wanted it to happen. Though both said they were against the idea, they both realized that fusing their two beings into one was really the only chance of survival for either.

Jane continued to tease Miro that he was in love with her. It was a defense mechanism to protect herself from the potential disappointment that she wouldn’t be able to make the jump from the computer into Valentine II. Miro felt he’d done all he could to help it happen by asking the Hive Queen.

Valentine II and Miro II located the Descolada’s home planet. There they determined that the virus could communicate, to report back to its creators what it found and infected as it traveled the galaxy via probes sent from the planet.

Miro wanted to study the virus further and enlisted the help of his sisters Ela and Quara. They reluctantly agreed to go with him back to the planet, but they all knew it was essentially a suicide mission.

As Ender lay dying at the abbey where he’d joined with Novinha, Jane herself was fading. Starways Congress had begun the process of killing her, and she was unable to sustain more faster-than-light missions. As a result, Miro and his comrades would be too far away from Lusitania to ever return. Ever the scientist, he agreed to go.

While on the journey, Jane and Ender both “died.” Their souls, or Auías, both searched for new host bodies. Valentine II fought with Jane inside her,
and begged Miro to sincerely say hateful, cruel things to her so that her small piece of Ender’s Auía, which gave her life, would leave her body and allow Jane to take it over. This would let both Jane and Valentine II live, as Valentine II’s portion of Ender’s soul would be reunited with the other two pieces that lived in Ender himself and Peter II.

Miro, heartbroken, told Valentine II that he’d never loved her, and that she wasn’t even a real person. His words enraged Quara, but did the trick. Valentine II let her small Auía leave her body and allowed Jane to inhabit it.

The new home for Jane created some awkwardness between her and Miro, as she could no longer speak to his mind. But her consciousness was there, and he hoped that his love for both her and Val (whose body she inhabited) would continue to grow. He was also optimistic that since Jane had been reborn in Valentine II’s body, they would, in fact, be able to return to Lusitania using faster-than-light travel.

In her human form, Jane was unable to fully control her newly discovered emotions. Miro II, loving Jane as he did, tried to comfort her and teach her what it meant to have and control emotions. Jane responded by asking Miro to marry her. He responded, perhaps rashly, that he would.

He tried unsuccessfully to protect Jane from her confrontations with Quara. And when Jane suddenly fell into a comalike state brought on by the Hive Queen and Human’s call to redo faster-than-light travel, Miro was by her side. He stayed with her as she unconsciously took their ship back from the Descolada’s planet to Lusitania. He comforted her as she hurt somewhat coming out of the brief coma. And he was with her as they exited the ship and she saw his own home planet with human eyes for the first time.

When the fleet that was ordered to destroy Lusitania came ever nearer, Jane took Miro, Ela, and company back to the descoladore planet. They learned that the message they’d received in response to their first signal (which included human DNA) was a deadly molecule that would have wiped out humanity if they’d tried to create it.

The descoladore launched several ships from their planet to attack the humans. Miro II called on Jane to protect them, and she instantly moved the ship and its crew to the other side of the planet.

Eventually, Miro II and his crew returned home, along with Peter Wiggin II and Si Wang-mu who had joined them after stopping the destruction of Lusitania. Miro and Jane attended Ender’s funeral and then were married in the shadows of the mothertrees in the pequenino land. Jane blinked them away for a secluded honeymoon.

Finally, Miro found happiness and peace in his life. He’d married Jane and was whole again.

Ribeirão Preto, Brazil (ES, SH, SP, SG)

Ribeirão Preto, Brazil, was the home of the Hegemony government led by Peter Wiggin in the years after Ender’s victory over the Formics. Peter and the rest of the Wiggin family, as well as Bean Delphiki and his family, lived in the city. It became one of the world capital cities when the Hegemony expanded its influence worldwide to become the unified world government called the Free People of Earth.

Righteous Labor (XN, CM)

Righteous labor was the work expected of every resident on the planet Path. Steeped in ancient Chinese tradition, the labor was usually performed in the planet’s rice paddies.

Ro (XN)

Ro was the second of three children born to Valentine Wiggin and her husband Jakt. She was born on the planet Trondheim, approximately three thousand years after Ender Wiggin’s victory over the Formics. At age twenty, she accompanied her parents into space initially heading toward the planet Lusitania, to protect that world from Starways Congress’s xenocidal intention toward it.

Rock-eating Worms (GB, EE)

The rock-eating worms were thought to be a life-form native to the former Formic world that was settled by Sel Menach and his party after Ender’s victory in the war. Sel and his assistant Po Tolo soon discovered that what they thought were worms were actually creatures they would call Gold Bugs.

Rooter (SD, XN, CM)

Rooter was a native of the planet Lusitania. A pequenino, or “piggie,” he was talented at climbing tress with his padded paws and their ankle-claws. He was fascinated by the bits and pieces of human culture he learned from Pipo, the planet’s scientist who studied the piggies. Rooter was also known for the tremendous acrobatic ability and agility he displayed.

He spoke to Libo, Pipo’s son, about the relationship between males and females in the pequenino culture, contrasting it to human culture. Rooter
thought human females were weak for not killing Pipo or Libo once they were discovered to be wise. The next day, Rooter was found dead—tortured to death—with a small tree having been planted in his open chest cavity.

The tree grew over the years, and the pequeninos believed that Rooter’s spirit inhabited it. They looked to the trees, and particularly Rooter’s, for guidance. They were certain that Rooter had told them that the newly arrived Speaker for the Dead was the original Speaker, Ender Wiggin. Furthermore, Rooter had apparently told them that the Speaker would bring them the Hive Queen, who would give them more guidance—most importantly the keys to space travel. The prophesy caused dissension among the piggies as the believers, led by Human, were threatened by the disbelievers, led by Leaf-eater.

Human was eventually made into a fathertree, too, and communicated silently with Rooter. They were considered the most noble and wise of the fathertrees. When Ender’s stepdaughter Quara warned the fathertrees that her family was working on ways to eliminate the Descolada virus from Lusitania (which the pequeninos relied on for life and reproduction), Rooter and Human contacted the Formic Hive Queen, who Ender had placed on the planet to regrow her species, and together they planned to build a spaceship that would remove them from Lusitania, the Descolada still living within them.

Rooter, as a tree, was unable to leave Lusitania, but it was of little consequence. The Descolada had been eradicated without harming the pequeninos, and the human fleet did not destroy his world.

After Ender died, his remains were buried in the pequenino land, near Rooter and Human.

Rosen, “Rose the Nose” (EG, ES, SH)

Rosen, a Jewish child from Israel, was Ender’s commander in Rat Army. He ordered Ender not to practice with his launch group or use his desk until he successfully froze two soldiers in battle. Ender defied the orders, but still froze the necessary enemies. Rosen didn’t speak to Ender after that.

“Rose the Nose,” as he was affectionately known, had been assigned a private room as a commander, but slept with his army in their barracks. He was reportedly scared of the dark and needed the company of his soldiers to feel safe.

Rosen aspired to be the International Fleet’s chief military officer, the Strategos. The position had been filled by an Israeli Jew since it had been created, and Rosen sought to continue the tradition. He was succeeded in command of Rat Army by Dink Meeker.

Rotterdam, Netherlands (ES, SP, SG)

Rotterdam, in the Netherlands, was the home to Bean Delphiki and Achilles Flandres. In the aftermath of the first and second Formic invasions of Earth, Rotterdam had crumbled and was full of orphans. Following Ender’s victory over the Formics, the city began to rebuild, becoming a cleaner, safer place. Bean returned to Rotterdam with his wife, Petra Arkanian, as a young adult, and was surprised about the changes for the better, which the city had made since he’d been an orphan child wandering the streets there.

Rotterdam Kids (ES)

In Rotterdam in the Netherlands, homeless, parentless children filled the streets. To survive, the children formed groups called “crews” and later “families.” These groups protected their own, but fought and even killed rival crews.

Bean and Achilles Flandres were two prominent kids among the crews. When Bean snuck out of his new home with Sister Carlotta at age four, he encountered a belligerent pair of eight-year-old kids, but confidently moved past them.

Rov (
See
Hundred Worlds)

Royal Mother of the West ([XN])

The Royal Mother of the West was one of the gods worshipped by the Chinese colonists on the planet Path. Si Wang-mu, a servant girl who would become Peter Wiggin II’s wife, was named for her. Royal Mother was Wang-mu’s ancestor-of-the-heart.

Rudolf, Captain Helena (PL)

Captain Helena Rudolf, a young German woman, was sent by the International Fleet to conduct Battle School testing in Poland. With a curt, almost stern demeanor, she tested the children of the Wieczorek family, and was the first to discover the exceptional intelligence of the family’s seventh child, John Paul. She took the findings back to the International Fleet and returned with her colleagues, Colonel Sillian and Captain Hyrum Graff, to further test five-year-old John Paul.

Russian General (PL)

Several leaders of the International Fleet evaluated six-year-old John Paul Wieczorek’s Battle School screening tests, among them the Russian general.
He was worried John Paul was bluffing—that his scores were too good. The Russian general was the representative of the Office of Strategos. In this capacity, he insisted that John Paul be considered for Battle School and agreed that Captain Hyrum Graff should make the final determination on the matter.

Russian Kidnappers (SH)

The Russian kidnappers were assigned by a mysterious leader to round up the members of Ender’s Command School team and take them to an undisclosed location in their home country where the captives would play war games. They were impatient with Petra Arkanian and used injections to make her unconscious. They held her in solitary confinement for nearly six weeks before allowing her to join the rest of her colleagues.

Saavedra, Ouanda Quenhatta Figueira Mucumbi (SD, XN, CM)

Ouanda was the firstborn child of Libo Figueira and his wife Bruxinha. She was a talented xenologist on the planet Lusitania. Following her father’s death at the hands of the native life-forms, the pequeninos, Ouanda violated the government rule that the pequeninos (or piggies) be quarantined. She visited the aliens frequently.

She developed a close, loving relationship with her xenologist colleague, Miro Ribeira von Hesse. They often argued about the best course of action to take with the piggies, including whether or not they should introduce to them the newly arrived Speaker for the Dead, Ender Wiggin.

Ouanda and Miro fell in love, but soon discovered they were actually siblings, sharing the same father—Libo.

Jane, Ender’s sentient computer program, sent a message through interplanetary computer networks stating that Ouanda and Miro had taught the piggies agriculture—a violation of the law. As a result, Lusitania’s charter was revoked, and Ouanda and Miro were ordered to go to the nearest planet, Trondheim, to face an inquiry into their criminal actions.

Before learning about the inquiry, Ouanda and Miro discovered that there was dissension among the piggies over the arrival of the Speaker. Some of the piggies threatened to kill others if the Speaker did not arrive. To prevent this, Ouanda agreed that Ender Wiggin should speak to the pequeninos.