The Authorized Ender Companion (49 page)

Ender’s soul continued to live on in Peter II. Though Peter II was his own person, he carried Ender with him in his heart. Ender’s work would continue, only in this younger, more able body. Peter II had held a deep disdain for himself, since Ender had created him, and hated the part of himself Peter
represented. With his reunited soul, Peter II no longer hated himself and was at peace with who he was.

He expressed his love for Wang-mu, telling her that it was she who had saved him from the darkness of death. Together they learned that Jane had contacted the people of Pacifica before she was exorcised from the Congress’s computer networks and told them to create an illegal secret computer network with a few other planets (including Lusitania) that would allow her to control faster-than-light travel.

Peter II was present when Grace and Malu started the new illegal network. They quickly discovered that with the Hive Queen and Human’s help, Jane could, in fact, again control the instantaneous form of travel. There was much of Ender in Peter II. He didn’t want to be tied down to one planet, and this news was a great relief to him. He knew that he would travel with his beloved Wang-mu from planet to planet. Nothing brought either of them greater joy than the idea they could be together for the rest of their lives.

Their joy would have to wait, though, as the fleet that was ordered to Lusitania deployed the Molecular Detachment Device against the planet. Jane bounced Peter II and Wang-mu, without a starship, to Lusitania. There they obtained a ship and captured the deadly missile. Using Jane’s power, they returned the deadly weapon to the cargo hold on the fleet’s flagship.

Peter II used his influence as a speaker to convince the fleet’s commanding officer, Admiral Lands, to send a message to Starways Congress and tell them that the problems with Lusitania were solved—the Descolada had been eradicated and there was no rebellion. Furthermore, he ensured that the devastating device Ender had used on the Formics—and would have been used against Lusitania—was dismantled.

With Wang-mu he then jumped across the galaxy to the ship that housed Jane, Miro II, Quara, Ela, Firequencher, and a Formic drone. They had been attacked by ships sent from the descoladore and wanted to stop the seemingly hostile species by using the Molecular Detachment Device on them. Peter II, tapping into the part of him that was Ender’s soul, convinced them to never use the device.

He exchanged verbal barbs with Quara, but was firm in his stance that communication—real communication—needed to be achieved between humans and the descoladore.

Peter II returned with Wang-mu to Lusitania. They attended Ender’s funeral together, then snuck off into the pequenino woods and were married. Jane made Peter II and Wang-mu disappear, presumably on an intergalactic
honeymoon. The carrier of Ender’s true self was at last at peace. He’d found the true love of his life and a purpose to his existence.

Wiggin, Theresa (née Brown) (TP, EG, WG, NS, EH, EE, SH, SP, SG)

The daughter of prominent Mormon military strategist Hinckley Brown, Theresa Brown was an academic. A graduate student, she taught an undergraduate course titled Human Community. She was a stern, curt teacher who found herself particularly annoyed by the presence of one student, John Paul Wiggin. Their confrontations in the classroom amused other students, but were both engaging and frustrating to Theresa.

Theresa had essentially disavowed her Mormon beliefs, choosing to focus on science over religion. This alienated her somewhat from her father, but it made her tremendously attractive to John Paul. She expelled a student from her class for asking a question about her Mormon faith versus science, citing the questions as bigoted and troublemaking.

Theresa’s research as a grad student was well respected. It was thought it would benefit the entire human race. Because of this, it came as a great shock to Theresa when she was called into a meeting with her entire dissertation committee and told that her funding was being pulled. She would receive her degree, but the government of the Hegemony had made the decision that Theresa should not be involved in her own research. It was revealed that this was the government’s move against her father, in retaliation for his religion, or his war.

John Paul began flirting with her immediately after this meeting. She was frustrated and didn’t wish to speak to him, but he was persistent. He set up a picnic outside her office that piqued her curiosity.

At the picnic, Theresa learned the truth about this annoying student’s life and family. Like her family, his was outspokenly noncompliant. They spoke of world political philosophy and grew to be friends. John Paul declared his love for her, and she was unsure where it would lead, but she had come to admire this strange, annoying student.

As she and John Paul talked and laughed together on this most unique of days, Theresa found herself falling in love with him. They closed their first-date picnic with an unexpected kiss. Theresa Brown went on to marry John Paul Wiggin, taking his name and, in the fashion befitting their mutually noncompliant families, bearing his three children: Peter, Valentine, and Andrew “Ender.” The third child, Ender, had been requested by the government, because Peter and Valentine had not lived up to the government and
military’s expectations for brilliance in the Wiggin household. Though not active in the religious tradition of her upbringing, she was upset that her husband baptized the three children in their infancy.

Years later, she consented to have the children monitored by the International Fleet. When it was revealed that Ender had been chosen to go to Battle School, Theresa was stunned. More so, she was angry, as the decision to recruit her youngest child had come because he had brutally beaten a boy at school. She loved Ender and was deeply saddened when he chose to go to Battle School.

She missed him terribly and continued to hang his Christmas stocking, filling it with traditional gifts like five-dollar coins. She was protective of her memories of Ender, which led to conflicts with a jealous Peter. Though Ender was not dead, Theresa acted as though he was and mourned him for years.

This experience taught Peter some lessons about cruelty. In an effort to win the hearts of those around him—though doing so only to increase his public influence—Peter made Theresa a mosaic of Ender pictures for Christmas that year. The gift brought Theresa to tears, and she expressed her love for both her sons.

Even after Ender’s victory over the Formics, Teresa still missed him. She would often comment that it was remarkable to her that he would one day be in the history books as the savior of Earth.

It was with unbearable sadness that Theresa said her final good-bye to Ender. Through a letter from Hyrum Graff, she realized that her son could never return to Earth. His life would be in too much jeopardy. She and John Paul subtly manipulated Peter and Valentine, in their guises as Locke and Demosthenes, to call for Ender to remain in space. These essays worked, and the International Fleet was convinced to assign Ender to a colony on a former Formic world. What Theresa hadn’t planned on, however, was Valentine’s desire to go with her brother to the new colony. In the course of a few months, Theresa lost her two youngest children to space.

While on their journey into space, Valentine wrote her mother updates about Ender. Ender never wrote his parents, which broke Theresa’s heart, but she was grateful to have the communication with Valentine, whom she jokingly declared was the favorite child in the family.

Not long after Ender and Valentine left Earth, Bean, Ender’s confidant at Battle School, showed up on Theresa’s doorstep. She recognized him and took him into her home. She knew it was dangerous to speak to him because he was being hunted by Achilles Flandres, a former Battle School student and a serial killer who was rising to power on the global scale.

Theresa shared many of her deepest feelings and thoughts with Bean. She made it clear that she loved her children, all of them, and worried about them constantly. She revealed that she knew that Peter was the political pundit Locke, and that Valentine had been Demosthenes. But she and her husband had never let the children know that they knew.

They had once wanted to raise their children religiously, in secret, but it was not to be. So they simply fostered their children’s talents as best they could. She wanted Peter to have children of his own but was scared that he never would—that his ambition would get in the way of ever having a life like that. These thoughts hit Bean hard, and he felt that he would also never have kids of his own.

After their conversation, which was at times tense and condescending by both parties, Theresa greeted Peter back home. He brought Sister Carlotta, Bean’s guardian, with him. The Wiggin family took Bean and Sister Carlotta to dinner that night, where the guests invited Peter to join them in their running from Achilles.

Later that night, Theresa learned that Peter would join Sister Carlotta and Bean. He told his parents that he was Locke and would be revealing that to the world. Theresa told him that she knew already, and she was as proud of him as she’d ever been of Ender. The words meant everything to Peter.

Theresa and John Paul promised to support Peter however they could, knowing that once he revealed his identity and began running from Achilles, their lives would never be the same.

They wouldn’t run for long, though. As China took over Asia and Russia conquered much of Europe, Peter was made Hegemon. He moved his office to Brazil, and his parents joined him there. He offered them jobs, assisting in the rising new government, but his parents both refused.

When it was discovered that Peter had rescued Achilles Flandres, the serial killer with designs on world domination of his own, Hyrum Graff tried to convince Theresa to go into hiding to be safe from Achilles. Theresa refused, and as she and Graff spoke she realized that to protect Peter, Theresa had to assassinate Achilles. She was a little disconcerted that she had no moral qualm with killing the young man. She just started making plans for how and when to commit the murder.

She tried to break into his quarters by posing as a housekeeper, but was unsuccessful. When John Paul confronted her about her attempts to kill Achilles, the couple decided that a better route was to have Achilles appear to be planning to kill them. Though Theresa thought the plan was crazy, she went along with it to protect Peter. Even this plan was unsuccessful, however.

Theresa and John Paul received a message from Bean that told them that Achilles had actually arranged his own release from China, and Peter had played right into his hands. It was Achilles who was winning the political chess match with Peter, and Peter’s parents were concerned, unsure how to protect their son.

They convinced Peter to leave the compound and go to the United States where he would continue to conduct his business as Hegemon, despite Achilles’s power grabs and attempts to discredit him. Theresa and John Paul watched as proud parents when Peter, from Greensboro, North Carolina, held a press conference that was full of honesty and forthrightness about the mistakes he’d made in trusting Achilles.

Peter’s parents watched out for their son. Theresa even took to carrying firearms to protect him as a pseudobodyguard.

She traveled with Peter and John Paul into space a short time later. Hyrum Graff had invited the family to stay at the Ministry of Colonization, which was housed in the refurbished Battle School satellite orbiting Earth. Theresa quietly explored the station where Ender had killed a boy but had also been an undefeated commander. She was not outwardly sentimental, but reflected on the many children she’d known who had lived at Battle School.

When it was discovered that someone had leaked the Wiggins’ presence on the station to someone on Earth—presumably Achilles—Theresa and her family made a plan with Graff to escape.

It turned out to be a ruse, though. A mole on the station had been leaking information about the Wiggins to Achilles. Graff and Peter set up a plot to expose the traitor and make it appear that the family was Earthbound. John Paul guessed that it was a cover, but Theresa did not. She felt stupid that she didn’t get it as fast as her husband had and was irritated with him for it.

When she finally did figure it out, she was mad at Graff, too, for not letting her in on the secret. She argued with him over how to handle the exposed mole and was angry that he and Peter had effectually gambled with her life to expose the mole.

She wanted to return to Earth. Peter and Graff set up a plan to really make that happen once the mole was discovered. The plan, which exposed Achilles’s evil designs in the process, came off without a hitch. Peter and Bean stormed the Hegemony compound on Earth, with Bean killing Achilles.

Theresa and John Paul returned to Brazil to serve as counselors to Peter as he resumed his duties as the Hegemon. Theresa was pleased with the maturation that Peter had gone through during their whirlwind experiences in space and in the United States over the last several months.

She returned to her position as observer and occasional adviser to Peter and suggested that he utilize the resources of the International Fleet and Ministry of Colonization and get as many Battle School graduates off Earth as he could. Peter resented the recommendation at first, but soon saw the wisdom it contained. He made the effort, offering the Battle Schoolers a new life in space, but was refused by all of them.

Theresa was present at the christening of Bean and Petra’s first child, Andrew, who was named for Ender. Ever snarky, Theresa told Peter that he should be relieved—he wouldn’t have to name a child after his hated brother since Bean already had.

Both she and John Paul were disappointed to learn that Peter had been embezzling Ender’s military pension to fund the Hegemony’s growth. She was even more frustrated with her son when he made it clear that if Bean corrected the embezzlement problem, Peter would cut his funding to search for his stolen embryos. Theresa couldn’t believe her son was so petty.

Bean resolved the embezzlement matter and led Peter’s armies, which allowed many nations of the world to ratify the Hegemony constitution. The Hegemony changed its name to the Free People of Earth, and Peter promised to resign his position as Hegemon, with no replacement, once there were no more wars on Earth.