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He sipped fro had reall

y done its job It eak, but he didn'tthese days, as long as he kept breathing in and out and there was no pain

"Going to say it anyway," said Graff "Poor fool of a boy Pacifisainst the innocent How et an enemy like that?"

Petra Arkanian Delphiki Wiggin was visiting with her son Andrew and his wife Lani and their two youngest children, the last ones still at home, when the letter came from Ender

She caa the letter, unable to speak

"Who died!" Lani cried out, but Andrew carief, Lani This is joy"

"How can you tell?"

"Mother tears things when she's grieving, and this letter is only wrinkled and wet"

Petra slapped hih that she could talk "Read it aloud, Andrew Read it out loud Our last little boy is found Ender found him for me Oh, if only Julian could know it! If only I could talk to Julian again!" And then she wept some more, until he started to read The letter was so short But Andrew and Lani, because they had children of their own, understood exactly what it meant to her, and they joined her in her tears, until the teenagers left the rooet some control"

"Nobody has control of anything," said Petra "We're all beggars at the throne of fate But sometimes he has mercy!"

Because it was not carrying Randall Firth into exile, the starship did not have to go back to Eros by the most direct route It added four e--six years to the realtime trip--but it was cleared at IFCoers wherever they wanted, for even if no one at IFCoin were, the captain knew He would justify the detour to his superiors His crew had started when he did, and also remembered, and did not mind

In their stateroom, Valentine nursed Ender back to health between shifts of writing her history of Ganges Colony

"I read that stupid letter of yours," she said one day

"Which? I write so many," he answered

"The one that I was only supposed to see if you died"