Father? That had never crossed Miro's mind before. Jane loved Ender, deeply, yes, loved him forever -- but as a father?

"I can't be your father," said Miro. "I can't take his place." But what he was really doing was making sure he had understood her. Ender was her father?

"I don't want you to be my father," said Jane. "I still have all these old Val-feelings, you know. I mean, you and I were friends, right? That was very important to me. But now I have this Val body, and when you touch me, it keeps feeling like the answer to a prayer." At once she regretted saying it. "Oh, I'm sorry, Miro, I know you miss her."

"I do," said Miro. "But then, it's hard to miss her quite the way I might, since you do look a lot like her. And you sound like her. And here I am holding you the way I wanted to hold her, and if that sounds awful because I'm supposedly comforting you and I shouldn't be thinking of base desires, well then I'm just an awful kind of guy, right?"

"Awful," she said. "I'm ashamed to know you." And she kissed him. Sweetly, awkwardly.

He remembered his first kiss with Ouanda years ago, when he was young and didn't know how badly things could turn out. They had both been awkward then, new, clumsy. Young. Jane, now, Jane was one of the oldest creatures in the universe. But also one of the youngest. And Val -- there would be no reflexes in the Val body for Jane to draw upon, for in Val's short life, what chance had she had to find love?

"Was that even close to the way humans do that?" asked Jane.

"That was exactly the way humans sometimes do it," said Miro. "Which isn't surprising, since we're both human."

"Am I betraying Ender, to grieve for him one moment, and then be so happy to have you holding me the next?"

"Am I betraying him, to be so happy only hours after he died?"

"Only he's not dead," said Jane. "I know where he is. I chased him there."

"If he's exactly the same person he was," said Miro, "then what a shame. Because good as he was, he wasn't happy. He had his moments, but he was never -- what, he was never really at peace. Wouldn't it be nice if Peter could live out a full life without ever having to bear the guilt of xenocide? Without ever having to feel the weight of all of humanity on his shoulders?"

"Speaking of which," said Jane, "we have work to do."

"We also have lives to live," said Miro. "I'm not going to be sorry we had this encounter. Even if it took Quara's bitchiness to make it happen."

"Let's do the civilized thing," said Jane. "Let's get married. Let's have babies. I do want to be human, Miro, I want to do everything. I want to be part of human life from edge to edge. And I want to do it all with you."

"Is this a proposal?" asked Miro.

"I died and was reborn only a dozen hours ago," said Jane. "My -- hell, I can call him my father, can't I? -- my father died, too. Life is short, I feel how short it is: after three thousand years, all of them intense, it still feels too short. I'm in a hurry. And you, haven't you wasted enough time, too? Aren't you ready?"

"But I don't have a ring."

"We have something much better than a ring," said Jane. She touched her cheek again, where she had put his tear. It was still damp; still damp, too, when she touched the finger now to his cheek. "I've had your tears with mine, and you've had mine with yours. I think that's more intimate even than a kiss."

"Maybe," said Miro. "But not as fun."

"This emotion I'm feeling now, this is love, right?"

"I don't know. Is it a longing? Is it a giddy stupid happiness just because you're with me?"

"Yes," she said.

"That's influenza," said Miro. "Watch for nausea or diarrhea within a few hours."

She shoved him, and in the weightless starship the movement sent him helplessly into midair until he struck another surface. "What?" he said, pretending innocence. "What did I say?"

She pushed herself away from the wall and went to the door. "Come on," she said. "Back to work."

"Let's not announce our engagement," he said softly.

"Why not?" she asked. "Ashamed already?"

"No," he said. "Maybe it's petty of me, but when we announce it, I don't want Quara there."

"That's very small of you," said Jane. "You need to be more magnanimous and patient, like me."

"I know," said Miro. "I'm trying to learn."

They drifted back into the main chamber of the shuttle. The others were working on preparing their genetic message for broadcast on the frequency that the descoladores had used to challenge them when they first showed up closer to the planet. They all looked up. Ela smiled wanly. Firequencher waved cheerfully.

Quara tossed her head. "Well I hope we're done with that little emotional outburst," she said.

Miro could feel Jane seethe at the remark. But Jane said nothing. And when they were both sitting down and strapped back into their seats, they looked at each other, and Jane winked.

"I saw that," said Quara.

"We meant you to," said Miro.

"Grow up," Quara said disdainfully.

An hour later they sent their message. And at once they were inundated with answers that they could not understand, but had to. There was no time for quarreling then, or for love, or for grief. There was only language, thick, broad fields of alien messages that had to be understood somehow, by them, right now.

"TILL DEATH ENDS ALL SURPRISES"

"I can't say that I've much enjoyed

the work the gods required of me.

My only real pleasure

was my days of schooling,

in those hours between the gods' sharp summonses.

I am gladly at their service, always,

but oh it was so sweet

to learn how wide the universe could be,

to test myself against my teachers,

and to fail sometimes without much consequence."

from The God Whispers of Han Qing-jao

"Do you want to come to the university and watch us turn on our new godproof computer network?" asked Grace.

Of course Peter and Wang-mu wanted to. But to their surprise, Malu cackled with delight and insisted that he must go, too. The god once dwelt in computers, didn't she? And if she found her way back, shouldn't Malu be there to greet her?

This complicated matters a little -- for Malu to visit the university required notifying the president so he could assemble a proper welcome. This was not needed for Malu, who was neither vain nor much impressed with ceremonies that didn't have some immediate purpose. The point was to show the Samoan people that the university still had proper respect for the old ways, of which Malu was the most revered protector and practitioner.

From luaus of fruit and fish on the beach, from open fires, palm mats, and thatch-roof huts, to a hovercar, a highway, and the bright-painted buildings of the modern university -- it felt to Wang-mu like a journey through the history of the human race. And yet she had already made that journey once before, from Path; it seemed a part of her life, to step from the ancient to the modern, back and forth. She felt rather sorry for those who knew only one and not the other. It was better, she thought, to be able to select from the whole menu of human achievements than to be bound within one narrow range.

Peter and Wang-mu were discreetly dropped off before the hovercar took Malu to the official reception. Grace's son took them on a brief tour of the brand-new computer facility. "These new computers all follow the protocols sent to us from Starways Congress. There will be no more direct connections between computer networks and ansibles. Rather there must be a time delay, with each infopacket inspected by referee software that will catch unauthorized piggybacking."