ENDER IN EXILE

Subj: Welcome back to the human universe

Of course my condolences on the passing of your parents. But I understand from them that you and they corresponded to great mutual satisfaction before they died. The passing of your brother must have come as more of a surprise. He was young, but his heart gave out. Pay no attention to the foolish rumors that always attend the death of the great. I saw the autopsy, and Peter had a weak heart, despite his healthy lifestyle. It was quick, a clot that stopped his life while he slept. He died at the peak of his power and his powers. Not a bad way to go. I hope you'll read the excellent essay on his life written by supposedly the same author as The Hive Queen. It's called The Hegemon, and I've attached it here.

An interesting thing happened to me while you were in stasis, sailing from Shakespeare to Ganges. I was fired.

Here is something I hadn't foreseen (believe it; I have foreseen very little in my long life; I survived and accomplished things because I adapted quickly), though I should have: When you spend ten months of every year in stasis, there is a side effect: Your underlings and superiors begin to regard your awakenings as intrusions. The ones who were fiercely loyal to you retire, pursue their careers into other avenues, or are maneuvered out of office. Soon, everyone around you is loyal to themselves, their careers, or someone who wants your job.

Everyone put on such a show of deference to me whenever I awoke. They reported on how all my decisions from my last awakening had been carried out—or had explanations as to why they had not.

For three awakenings, I should have noticed how unconvincing those explanations had become, and how ineffectively my orders had been carried out. I should have seen that the bureaucratic soup through which I had navigated for so many years had begun to congeal around me; I should have seen that my long absences were making me powerless.

Just because I wasn't having any fun, I didn't realize that my months in stasis were, in effect, vacations. It was an attempt to prolong my tenure in office by not attending to business. When has this ever been a good idea?

It was pure vanity, Ender. It could not work; it could not last. I awoke to find that my name was no longer on my office door. I was on the retired list of IFCom—and at a colonel's pay, to add insult to injury. As for any kind of pension from ColMin, that was out of the question, since I had not been retired, I had been dismissed for nonperformance of my duties. They cited years of missed meetings when I was in stasis; they cited my failure to seek any kind of leave; they even harked back to that ancient court martial to show a "pattern of negligent behavior." So . . . dismissed with cause, to live on a colonel's half pay.

I think they actually assumed that I had managed to enrich myself during my tenure in office. But I was never that kind of politician.

However, I also care little for material things. I am returning to Earth, where I still own a little property—I did make sure the taxes were kept up. I will be able to live in peaceful retirement on a lovely piece of land in Ireland that I fell in love with and bought during the years when I traveled the world in search of children to exploit and quite possibly destroy in Battle School. No one there will have any idea of who I am—or, rather, who I was. I have outlived my infamy.

One thing about retirement, however: I will have no more ansible privileges. Even this letter is going to you with such a low priority that it will be years before it's transmitted. But the computers do not forget and cannot be misused by anyone vindictive enough to want to prevent my saying good-bye to old friends. I saw to the security of the system, and the leaders of the I.F. and the FPE understand the importance of maintaining the independence of the nets. You will see this message when you come out of stasis yourself upon arriving at Ganges four years from now.

I write with two purposes. First, I want you to know that I understand and remember the great debt that I and all the world owe to you. Fifty-seven years ago, before you went to Shakespeare, I assembled your pay during the war (which was all retroactively at admiral rank), the cash bonuses voted for you and your jeesh during the first flush of gratitude, and your salary as governor of Shakespeare, and piggybacked them onto six different mutual funds of impeccable reputation.