"Not a jaunt," said Valentine. "I'm leaving Earth. I'm joining Ender in exile."

For a moment Peter believed her. It was gratifying to see genuine alarm on his face. Then he relaxed. "Mom and Dad won't let you," he said.

"Fifteen-year-old females don't have to have their parents' consent to volunteer to be colonists. We're the ideal age for reproduction, and are assumed to be dumb enough to volunteer."

"What do the colonies have to do with anything? Ender's not going to be a colonist."

"What else will they do with him? It's the only task remaining for the I.F., and he's their responsibility. That's why I'm making arrangements to get assigned to the same colony as him."

"Where did you get these imasen ideas?" If she didn't understand Battle School slang, too bad. "Colonies, voluntary exile, it's just crazy. The future is here on Earth, not out at the far reaches of the galaxy."

"The formics' worlds were all in the same arm of the galaxy as us, and not all that far away, as galaxies go," said Valentine primly, to goad him. "And Peter, just because your future is all tied up with trying to become the ruler of the world doesn't mean that I want to spend my whole future as your sidekick. You've had my youth, you've used me up, but I will spend my declining years without you, my love."

"It's sickening when you talk as if we were married."

"I'm talking as if we were in an old movie," said Valentine.

"I don't watch movies," said Peter, "so I wouldn't know."

"There's so much you 'wouldn't know,' " said Valentine. For a moment she was tempted to tell him all about Ender's visit to Earth, when Graff tried to use Valentine to persuade a burnt-out Ender to get back to work. And to tell Peter that Graff knew all about their secret identities on the nets. That would take the smirk off his face.

But what would that accomplish? It was better for everyone to leave Peter in blissful ignorance.

While they were talking, Peter had been doing some desultory pointing and typing on his desk. Now he was seeing something in his holo that made him as angry as she had ever seen him. "What?" she asked, assuming it was some dreadful world news.

"You shut down my back doors!"

It took her a moment to understand what he meant. Then she realized—he had apparently thought she wouldn't notice that he had secret access points to all of Demosthenes' vital sites and identities. What an idiot. When he made a big deal about how he had created all these wonderful identities and accounts for her, of course she assumed that he had created back doors to all of them so he could always come in and change what she did. Why would he imagine she'd leave things that way? She found them all within a few weeks; anything he could do with Demosthenes on the nets, she could undo. So when she changed all the passwords and access codes, of course she closed the back doors, too. What did he think?

"Peter," she said, "they wouldn't be locked if I let you have a key, now, would they?"

Peter rose to his feet, his face turning red, his fists clenched. "You ungrateful little bitch."

"What are you going to do, Peter? Hit me? I'm ready. I think I can take you down."

Peter sat back down. "Go," he said. "Go into space. Shut down Demosthenes. I don't need you. I don't need anybody."

"That's why you're such a loser," said Valentine. "You'll never rule the world until you figure out that you can't do it without everybody's cooperation. You can't fool them, you can't force them. They have to want to follow you. Like Alexander's soldiers wanted to follow him and fight for him. And the moment they stopped wanting to, his power evaporated. You need everybody but you're too narcissistic to know it."

"I need the willing cooperation of key people here on Earth," said Peter, "but you won't be one of them, will you? So go, tell Mom and Dad what you're doing. Break their hearts. What do you care? You're going off to see your precious Ender."

"You still hate him," said Valentine.

"I never hated him," said Peter. "But at this moment, I certainly do hate you. Not a lot, but enough to make me want to piss on your bed."

It was a standing joke between them. She couldn't help it. It made her laugh. "Oh, Peter, you're such a boy."

Mother and Father took her decision surprisingly well. But they refused to come with her. "Val," Father said, "I think you're right—Ender won't be coming home. It broke our hearts to realize it. And it's wonderful of you to want to join him, even if neither of you ends up going with a colony. Even if it's just a few months in space. Even a few years. It's a good thing for him to be with you again."

"It would be better to have the two of you out there, too."

Father shook his head. Mother pressed a finger to each eye—her gesture that said, I'm not going to cry.

"We can't go," said Father. "Our work is here."

"They could spare you for a year or two."

"That's easy for you to say," said Father. "You're young. What's a couple of years to you? But we're older. Not old, but older than you. Time means something different to us. We love Ender, but we can't spend months or years just going out to visit him. We don't have that much time left."

"That's exactly the point," said Valentine. "You don't have much time—and still less time to get a chance to see Ender again."

"Val," said Mother, her voice quavering. "Nothing we do now will give us back the years we've lost."

She was right, and Valentine knew it. But she didn't see the relevance. "So you're going to treat him as if he's dead?"

"Val," said Father. "We know he's not dead. But we also know he doesn't want us. We've written to him—since the war ended. Graff—the one who's on trial—he wrote back. Ender doesn't want to write letters to us. He reads them, but he told Graff that he had nothing to say."

"Graff's a liar," said Valentine. "He probably hasn't shown Ender anything."

"That's possible," said Father. "But Ender doesn't need us. He's thirteen. He's becoming a man. He's done brilliantly since he left us, but he also went through terrible things, and we weren't there. I'm not sure he'll ever forgive us for letting him go."

"You had no choice," said Valentine. "They would have taken him to Battle School whether you liked it or not."

"I'm sure he knows that in his head," said Mother. "But in his heart?"

"So I'm going without you," she said. It had never crossed her mind that they wouldn't even want to go.

"You're going to leave us behind," said Father. "It's what children do. They live at home until they leave. Then they're gone. Even if they visit, even if they move back, it's never the same. You think it will be, but it won't. It happened with Ender, and it'll happen with you."

"The good thing," said Mother, who was crying a little now, "is that you won't be with Peter anymore."

Valentine couldn't believe her mother was saying such a thing.

"You've spent too much time with him," said Mother. "He's a bad influence on you. He makes you unhappy. He sucks you into his life so you can't have one of your own."

"That'll be our job now," said Father.

"Good luck," was all Valentine could say. Was it possible that her parents really did understand Peter? But if they did, why had they let him have his way for all these years?

"You see, Val," said Father, "if we went to Ender now, we'd want to be his parents, but we don't have any authority over him. Nor anything to offer him. He doesn't need parents anymore."

"A sister, now," said Mother. "A sister, he can use." She took Valentine's hand. She was asking for something.

So Valentine gave her the only thing she could think of that she might want. A promise. "I'll stick with him," said Valentine, "as long as he needs me."

"We would expect nothing less of you, dear," said Mother. She squeezed Valentine's hand and let go. Apparently that was what she had wanted.

"It's a kind and loving thing," said Father. "It's always been your nature. And Ender was always your darling baby brother."

Valentine winced at the old phrase from childhood. Darling baby brother. Ick. "I'll make sure to call him that."

"Do," said Mother. "Ender likes to be reminded of good things."

Did Mother really imagine that anything she knew about Ender at age six would still apply to him now, at age thirteen?

As if she had read Valentine's mind, Mother answered her. "People don't change, Val. Not their fundamental character. Whatever you're going to be as an adult is already visible to someone who really knows you from your birth onward."

Valentine laughed. "So . . . why did you let Peter live?"

They laughed, but uncomfortably. "Val," said Father, "we don't expect you to understand this, but some of the things that make Peter . . . difficult . . . are the very things that might also make him great someday."

"What about me?" asked Valentine. "As long as you're telling fortunes."

"Oh, Val," said Father. "All you have to do is live your life, and everyone around you will be happier."

"No greatness, then."

"Val," said Mother, "goodness trumps greatness any day."

"Not in the history books," said Valentine.

"Then the wrong people are writing history, aren't they?" said Father.