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"I'M NOT MYSELF"

"Mother Father Did I do it right?"

The last words of Han Qing-jao, from

The God Whispers of Han Qing-jao

Si Wang- man named Peter took her hand and led her into the starship The door closed behind them

Wang- chairs inside the s to see soe and new Except for the metal walls, it could have been any office on the world of Path Clean, but not fastidiously so Furnished, in a utilitarian way She had seen holos of ships in flight: the shters and shuttles that dipped into and out of the atmosphere; the vast rounded structures of the starships that accelerated as near to the speed of light as et On the one hand, the sharp power of a needle; on the other, the ehammer But here in this room, no power at all Just a room

Where was the pilot? Thereto his co a starship capable of the feat of traveling faster than light

And yet that , for there were no other doors that ht lead to other rooms The starship had looked small from the outside; this room obviously used all the space that it contained There in the corner were the batteries that stored energy from the solar collectors on the top of the ship In that chest, which seeht be food and drink So ht now, if this was all it took? A mere room

With nothing else to watch, she watched the young in, he said his naemon, the one who first united all the human race under his control, back when people lived on only one world, all the nations and races and religions and philosophies crushed together elbow to elboith nowhere to go but into each other's lands, for the sky was a ceiling then, and space was a vast chasin, the man who ruled the human race This was not hiin sent his that Master Han had told her, that Andrew Wiggin had soreat Speaker of the Dead Peter's father? Or was he somehow Ender's brother, not just naemon who had died three thousand years before?

Peter stopped hed He rubbed his eyes, then stretched and groaned It was a very indelicate thing to do in com

pany The sort of thing one ht expect from a coarse fieldworker

He seeotten her and now suddenly re himself in his chair, he turned his head and looked at her

"Sorry," he said "I forgot I was not alone"

Wang-ed to speak boldly to hi from bold speech After all, he had spoken to her with offensive boldness, when his starship appeared like a fresh-sprouted le vial of a disease that would cure her hoenetic illness He had looked her in the eye not fifteen o and said, "Co history" And despite her fear, she had said yes

Had said yes, and now sat in a swivel chair watching hier in front of her Was that his beast-of-the-heart, the tiger? Wang-ereat and terrible - to know ie the course of history! Clean out the corruption in the Congress Stop the Lusitania Fleet Make all colony planets equal members of the Hundred Worlds This boy who stretched like a jungle cat