"Who says I lost?" asked Ender.

"Touché," said Graff. "My point is that the person behind the online identity is actually younger than most people imagined. So the retirement isn't about age, it's about leaving home. Leaving Earth."

"Demosthenes is becoming a colonist?"

"Isn't that an odd choice," said Graff, sounding as if it weren't odd to him at all.

"Please don't tell me he's coming on my ship."

"Technically, it's Admiral Quincy Morgan's ship. You don't take over till you set foot on the ground in your colony. That's the law."

"Dodging the question as usual."

"Yes, you'll have Demosthenes on your ship. But of course no one will be using that name."

"You've been avoiding the use of the masculine pronoun — of any pronoun," said Ender. "So Demosthenes is a woman."

"And she's eager to see you."

Ender sagged in his chair. "Oh, sir, please."

"Not your normal hero-worshiper, Ender. And since she's also going to be awake through your whole voyage, I think you'll want to be prepared by seeing her in advance."

"When is she coming?"

"She's here."

"On Eros?"

"In my cozy little antechamber," said Graff.

"You're going to make me meet her now? Colonel Graff, I don't like anything she wrote. Or the result."

"Give her credit. She was warning the world about the Warsaw Pact's attempt to take over the fleet long before anybody else took the threat seriously."

"She was also crowing about how America could conquer the world once it had me."

"You can ask her about that."

"I have no such intention."

"Let me tell you one pure and simple truth. In everything she wrote about you, Ender, her only concern was to protect you from the terrible things people would have done to exploit you or destroy you if you ever set foot on Earth."

"I could have dealt with it."

"We'll never know, will we?"

"If I know you, sir, what you just told me is that you were behind this. Keeping me off Earth."

"Not really," said Graff. "I went along with it, yes."

Ender wanted to cry. From sheer moral exhaustion. "Because you know better than me what's in my best interest."

"In this case, Ender, I think you could have dealt with any challenge that came to you. Except one. Your brother, Peter, is determined to rule the world. You would have been either his tool or his enemy. Which would you have chosen?"

"Peter?" asked Ender. "Do you think he really has a chance of it?"

"He's done incredibly well so far — for a teenager."

"Isn't he twenty by now? No, I guess he'd still be seventeen. Or eighteen."

"I don't keep track of your family's birthdays," said Graff.

"If he's doing such a great job," said Ender, "why haven't I heard of him?"

"Oh, you have."

That meant Peter was using a pseudonym. Ender quickly thought through all the online personalities that might be considered close to some kind of world domination and when he got it, he sighed. "Peter is Locke."

"So, clever boy, who is Demosthenes?"

Ender rose to his feet and to his own chagrin he was crying, just like that. He didn't even know he was crying till his cheeks were wet and he couldn't see for the blur. "Valentine," he whispered.

"I'm going to leave my office now and let the two of you talk," said Graff.

When he left, the door stayed open. And then she came in.

To: imo%testadmin@colmin.gov

From: hgraff%mincol@heg.gov

Subj: What are we screening for?

Dear Imo,

I've been giving our conversation a great deal of thought, and I think you may be right. I had the foolish idea that we should test for desirable and useful traits so that we could assemble ideally balanced teams to the colonies. But we're not getting such a flood of volunteers that we can afford to be really choosy. And as history shows us, when colonization is voluntary, people will self-select better than any testing system.

It's like those foolish attempts to control immigration to America based on the traits that were deemed desirable, when in fact the only trait that defines Americans historically is "descended from somebody willing to give up everything to live there." And we won't go into the way Australian colonists were selected!

Willingness is the single most important test, as you said. But that means all the other tests are. what?

Not useless, as you suggested. On the contrary, I think the test results are a valuable resource. Even if the colonists are all insane, shouldn't the governor have a good dossier on each individual's particular species of madness?

I know, you're not letting through anyone who needs to maintain functional sanity with drugs. Or known addicts and alcoholics and sociopaths, or people with genetic diseases, etc. We always agreed on that, to avoid overburdening the colonies. They'll develop their own genetic and brain-based quirks in a few generations anyway, but for now, let them have a little breathing room.

But the family you queried about, the ones with a plan for marrying off a daughter to the governor — surely you will agree with me that in the long history of motives for joining a faraway colony, marriage was one of the noblest and most socially productive.

— Hyrum

"Do you know what I did today, Alessandra?"

"No, Mother." Fourteen-year-old Alessandra set her book bag on the floor by the front door and walked past her mother to the sink, where she poured herself a glass of water.

"Guess!"

"Got the electricity turned back on?"

"The elves would not speak to me," said Mother. It had once been funny, this game that electricity came from elves. But it wasn't funny now, in the sweltering Adriatic summer, with no refrigeration for the food, no air-conditioning, and no vids to distract her from the heat.

"Then I don't know what you did, Mother."

"I changed our lives," said Mother. "I created a future for us."

Alessandra froze in place and uttered a silent prayer. She had long since given up hope that any of her prayers would be answered, but she figured each unanswered prayer would add to the list of grievances she would take up with God, should the occasion arise.

"What future is that, Mother?"

Mother could hardly contain herself. "We are going to be colonists."

Alessandra sighed with relief. She had heard all about the Dispersal Project in school. Now that the formics had been destroyed, the idea was for humans to colonize all their former worlds, so that humanity's fate would not be tied to that of a single planet. But the requirements for colonists were strict. There was no chance that an unstable, irresponsible — no, pardon me, I meant "feckless and fey" — person like Mother would be accepted.

"Well, Mother, that's wonderful."

"You don't sound excited."

"It takes a long time for an application to be approved. Why would they take us? What do we know how to do?"

"You're such a pessimist, Alessandra. You'll have no future if you must frown at every new thing." Mother danced around her, holding a fluttering piece of paper in front of her. "I put in our application months ago, darling Alessandra. Today I got word that we have been accepted!"

"You kept a secret for all this time?"

"I can keep secrets," said Mother. "I have all kinds of secrets. But this is no secret, this piece of paper says that we will journey to a new world, and on that new world you will not be part of a persecuted surplus, you will be needed, all your talents and charms will be noticed and admired."

All her talents and charms. At the coleggio, no one seemed to notice them. She was merely another gawky girl, all arms and legs, who sat in the back and did her work and made no waves. Only Mother thought of Alessandra as some extraordinary, magical creature.