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To: GovDes[email protected]/voy

From: [email protected]

Subj: Strange encounter

Dear Ender,

Yes, I' into stasis for ten h This is only possible because I have a staff that I literally trust with est that I will still be alive when you reach Shakespeare

I' to you noever, because you were close to Bean I have attached docuenetic illness We kno that Bean's real name was Julian Delphiki; he was kidnapped as a frozen eenetic experienes ent Alas, it also affected his growth pattern Very srowth spurt at puberty Just a steady onward progress until death fro to be hospitalized and pathetic at the end of his life, has ee of exploration He will live as long as he lives, but to all intents and purposes, he is gone from Earth and from the human race

I don't know if anyone has t

old you, but Bean and Petra ht have would inherit his condition, they fertilized nine eggs--because they were hoaxed, alas, by a doctor who claienetic ave birth to one, but the other eight e what happened to Bean hiates who did not know the source of their babies After a search both deep and wide, we found seven of the lost babies The last was never found Till now

I say this because of a strange encounter earlier today I'm at Ellis Island--our nickname for what used to be Battle School All the colonists pass through here to be sorted out and sent on to wherever their ship is being sorted out--Eros is too far away in its orbit right now to be convenient, so we're refitting and launching the ships from closer in

I was giving an orientation lecture, full of es Colony Afterward, a wo a baby She said nothing She just spat on my shoe and walked on

Naturally, this piqued my interest--I'm a sucker for a flirtatious woman I looked her up Which is to say, I had one of round check on her It turns out that her colony name is a phony--not that unusual, and we don't care, you can be whoever you want to be, as long as you're not a child molester or serial killer In her previous life, she was er as completely sterile So the boy she has with her is not her ex-husband's--again, not that unusual What's unusual is that it also isn't hers

I a that I'm somewhat ashamed of I proenetic prints would remain anywhere But I kept a copy of the record we used in the search for the children, on the chance that so child

Somehow, this woman, Randi Johnson (nee Alba), non as Nichelle Firth, was i child This child is afflicted with Bean's genetic giantism He will be brilliant, but he will die in his twenties (or earlier) of growth that simply does not stop

And he is being raised by a woman who, for some reason, thinks it is important to spit on me I am not personally offended by this, but I am interested, because this action ates, she e of whose child she bore Or, ht have been told false stories In any event, I cannot quiz her on this because by the tione

She is going to Ganges Colony, which, like yours, is headed by a young Battle School graduate Virloh years on Earth post-Battle School to become the savior of India under Chinese occupation, and then the instigator of an ill-fated (and ill-planned) invasion of China She became quite the self-destructive fanatic by the end of her rise to power, believing her own propaganda She is back to sanity now, and instead of trying to decide whether to honor her for the liberation of her own people or condemn her for the invasion of the nation of their oppressors, she has been made the head of a colony that, for the first tiin on Earth Most of the colonists are Indians of the Hindu persuasion--but not all