The Authorized Ender Companion (48 page)

Peter believed that everything was under control and did not heed the warnings about Achilles actually being the one in control. His parents tried to protect Peter by claiming that Achilles was going to kill them, but that plan failed. Peter grew increasingly irritated with his parents.

When Theresa and John Paul learned that Achilles had set up his own rescue, and that he was playing with Peter, they convinced their son to leave the Hegemony compound and find a safe location from where he could conduct his business. Peter was humiliated that he hadn’t seen Achilles’s power grabs and manipulations, but agreed to flee with his parents.

Though being discredited as an embezzler by Achilles, Peter held a press conference that reasserted his authority and position as the true Hegemon. Achilles had tried to play off Suriyawong as Acting Hegemon, but after the success of Peter’s press conference, few aligned themselves with Achilles’s vision.

Peter apologized to his parents for doubting them and treating them poorly over the years. He realized that his parents truly loved him. They had even taken up arms to protect him now that he was out of the compound. It was a changing point in the life perspective of Peter Wiggin. He knew he could still rise in power and influence, and his parents were assets not liabilities.

Hyrum Graff invited the Hegemon and his parents to stay in secret at the Ministry of Colonization, which was housed in the former Battle School, orbiting Earth. With the pseudonym Dick Raymond, Peter walked the halls where Ender had made a name for himself years before. There was no sentimentality there for Peter, who continued to write as Locke and to sway public opinion against China.

The Wiggins learned they were not safe for long at the Ministry as someone had secretly leaked their location to Earth. Peter created a plan with Graff that would get the Wiggins back to Earth safely and expose the mole on the station.

It was all a lie, however. The Wiggins did not return to Earth, but rather pretended to expose the mole. They discovered, thanks to Graff and the International Fleet’s Digital Security Force, that Uphanad, the Ministry’s security
head, was leaking the information to Achilles. Achilles had blackmailed Uphanad by threatening his family on Earth. Peter, as Hegemon, showed compassion to the officer by not having him arrested for treason. Uphanad was fired, but not arrested. Peter understood the intricacies of family.

His father figured out the ruse, but his mother did not. This made her angry with Peter and John Paul. She felt stupid for not getting it, despite Peter’s assurances that she wasn’t.

With the mole exposed, Peter and Graff made new plans to return the Wiggins to Earth. The plan used a decoy shuttle that Achilles shot down, hoping to kill Peter. This attack led to an authorized International Fleet attack on Achilles.

Peter led the attack, with Bean at his side. The two men stormed the Hegemony compound, accompanied by several bodyguards. Bean killed Achilles, and Peter resumed his role as Hegemon for the world. His parents joined him in Brazil as he took up his old life there. He was just a little more mature, and a little wiser, from the experiences he’d had over the last several months.

A few weeks later, Peter traveled to Damascus to meet with the Muslim Caliphate, Alai. He hoped to find an ally for the Hegemony in the Muslim world, but was unsure if it was realistic. He took Petra with him, posing as bickering lovers. It was an easy role for Petra to play since she hated Peter for putting her husband Bean’s life in jeopardy for his own gain. Furthermore, she resented that he would ask her to come, taking away valuable time she had with Bean, who was slowly dying from the genetic manipulation with which he’d been cursed.

In their meeting with Alai, Peter and Petra told the Islamic leader that his people were murdering innocents in India and that he had little real authority. Alai believed them and undertook measures to reassert his true influence over the Muslim world politically and spiritually.

Alai did not promise to be an ally of the Hegemon, but was appreciative that his disloyal followers were exposed. He assured Peter it would not be forgotten.

Matters grew more complicated, however, when Virlomi in India caused an insurgency there that threatened to bring about war with both the Muslim world and China. Peter turned to Bean and Petra for counsel, and though he didn’t listen much at first, they helped him develop a strategy to bring about peace once the impending war began. He would swoop in when war seemed to be the last thing anyone wanted, with offers of peace and unity in a worldwide government.

He returned to writing essays in the nets, now as “Lincoln,” criticizing his own policy, along with essays of a foil named “Martel,” which were written by Petra under his direction. He also realized that he needed to get as many Battle School graduates, who were the weapons in a virtual worldwide arms race, off the planet. He traveled around the world to offer a new life in space to all of Ender’s colleagues. They all refused.

Undeterred, Peter drafted a constitution that would unite the world in a peaceful society. He invited many of Ender’s colleagues to ratify the document and bring their nations into the ever-growing Hegemony. He was successful in gaining support from smaller countries—most of which had no connection to Ender—such as Rwanda. The leader of the African nation insisted that in exchange for ratifying the document and joining Peter’s government, Rwanda would receive Bean as leader of its armies. Peter consented, and Bean was sent.

It came at a time when tensions between Peter and Bean were once again on the rise. Bean discovered that Peter had been embezzling Ender’s military pension to fund the Hegemony. Thinking this was a grave injustice, Bean had Ender’s money transferred to a computer program from Battle School. Peter responded by cutting the funding for Bean and Petra’s worldwide search for their stolen embryos. Bean, prepared for that, had already found other funding.

Regardless, Bean and Petra agreed to go to Rwanda. With Bean leading the army there, Peter was able to gain a lot of worldwide support for his constitution. Many nations ratified it, and the Hegemony was changed to the Free People of Earth. Peter promised to resign his position as Hegemon, with no replacement, once the wars on Earth ended.

He had used the wars in Asia to ignite the world population’s fear of war. This fear led to many people joining the Free People of Earth. Bean and Suriyawong defended the Free People members when they were attacked by outside nations. Their swift victories led to more people joining.

Peter had succeeded in unifying the world, at least to a point. He had a long way to go before all the world would unite—most of Asia was still divided among the Chinese, the Muslim Caliphate, and India. But he was on the correct path to victory.

His parents told him they were proud of him for all he’d accomplished. In telling him this, they did not mention Ender’s name or refer to him. It made Peter cry with joy that his parents finally treated him so.

To advance his world government, Peter traveled to a neutral site where
he met with Virlomi, the self-appointed goddess of India, to negotiate India’s entrance into the Free People of Earth. Virlomi refused to join his government, but had designs of her own. She tried to convince Peter to marry her, which Peter also refused.

As the leader of the Free People of Earth, Peter called for his military to intervene when China, India, and Russia went to war with each other. China joined the FPE, adding to the government’s ever-growing influence around the world.

Peter relied on several of the Battle Schoolers, such as Vlad and of course Bean and Petra, to help him in the wars. But during a conversation with Mazer Rackham, the hero of the Formic wars of nearly a century earlier, Peter realized it was time to send Bean and his mutated babies into space where they could wait for a cure for their life-threatening disease.

Mazer and Peter facilitated Bean’s divorce from Petra, which was a crushing blow to her. He also helped fake Bean’s death during a military strike in Iran.

He didn’t have time to remain sentimental about his soldiers. He was still the Hegemon and revealed to the world how many countries continued to join his government. With the help of Vlad, and the eventual joining of China, Virlomi’s India, and Alai’s Muslim world, the FPE had become a massive organization, and his role as Hegemon had real power.

He spent much of his time helping raise Petra and Bean’s children. Petra had refused to leave her responsibilities in the battlefield, and so Peter watched out for the children.

More than a year later, when Petra finally returned to Brazil, the military objectives of the FPE having been accomplished, Peter professed his love to her and for her children. Though Petra still loved Bean, she eventually married Peter and together they raised a family of her five children and five more that she had with Peter.

The Free People of Earth continually grew in influence and alliance. Soon, every nation save the United States joined the world government. Many biographers wrote Peter’s story, but it wasn’t until Peter read Ender’s book on the Formic Hive Queen that he found the “right” biographer.

Peter asked Ender to tell his story as he had the Hive Queen’s. This allowed Peter, now an old man with many grandchildren, to reconcile with Ender. The two brothers, although decades apart in age, were able to put past childhood differences mostly behind them. Ender wrote the biography of his brother, though it was not published on Earth until shortly after Peter’s death.

The aggressive, unlikable boy who had been passed over for Battle School and who unified the whole world had been immortalized by the one person he had resented throughout his life. Despite the resentment of youth, both Peter and Ender did great things in the world, and neither stood in the other’s shadow.

Wiggin, Peter Arkady II (XN, CM)

Peter Wiggin II was created in the home of the philotes. Called Outspace, this place allowed thoughts to become real by instilling philotes—the foundation of life—into the thoughts. Ender Wiggin unconsciously thought of his brother Peter while in Outspace, and a new, real, version of his brother appeared instantly.

Peter II looked like Ender’s memory of his brother Peter at around age twenty. But this Peter was not a completely developed individual. Created from Ender’s mind, he was aggressive and angry, which was how Ender remembered Peter. Also, having been created from Ender’s mind and soul, Peter II had a philotic connection to Jane. This allowed Peter II the ability to travel through Outspace, instantly arriving at distant planets. But, it also meant that while he had his own thought processes and emotions, he depended on Ender’s existence for his own.

Knowing that he was not wanted on Lusitania, Ender’s longest home planet, Peter II chose to travel through the galaxy, planning to overthrow the Starways Congress. With Jane, he first went to the planet Path and delivered a virus that would reverse the consequences of congressional genetic manipulation on the planet.

As he left Path, he was joined by Si Wang-mu, a brilliant but shy servant girl. She was to help him in his subversive journey. They fought with each other like future lovers or even siblings. Peter II explained his creation to her as they traveled to their first destination, Divine Wind, a planet settled by Japanese colonists. Peter II was sure that it was the most important place to start their efforts of bringing down the interplanetary government.

On Divine Wind, Peter II treated Wang-mu very cruelly. They had been given a false identity as secret lovers and acted out the part, but his hatred for Ender, and his general aggression, made him unattractive to Wang-mu on the planet.

Their primary stop on Divine Wind was to the home of a well-respected philosopher named Aimaina Hikari. Hikari had done a good job easing the Starways Congress’s conscience about destroying Lusitania and the Descolada by teaching that Ender’s act of xenocide was not immoral but necessary.

Peter II and Wang-mu were unable to change Hikari’s mind about the rightness of the Congress’s actions, but they did give him cause to second-guess himself. Peter II also learned that Hikari was a believer in a religion based on the planet Pacifica, and they traveled there for the next step in their journey.

Along the way, Wang-mu could see that Peter II was developing his own personality; thinking for himself. Though he was still aggressive and angry, he was acting more out of his own volition than on Ender’s will. She resented how cruel he was to her, but had hope that he would evolve.

When they arrived at Pacifica, they met with Grace Drinker, a teacher of the Ua Lava religious tradition Hikari had shown them. Grace saw through their secret identities and exposed them as the very people her friend Hikari had impossibly spoken to the day before on his world—a twenty-light-year distance away.

Grace introduced Peter II and Wang-mu to her family, but it was an awkward meeting since Peter II didn’t understand the family’s ominous sense of humor. However, it was not to last long. Malu, the Ua Lava followers’ prophetic leader, came from his secluded, sacred island to meet specifically with Peter II and Wang-mu.

Malu told the two off-worlders the legend of a god who lived in the great web of life. Jane, they knew. Malu also reiterated the need for Jane to live. Peter II concurred, unsure of what to say to the wise man. Malu focused his energy on Peter II since he wore the jewel to communicate with Jane.

Peter II had become obsessed with saving Jane, which made Wang-mu jealous. She had fallen in love with him despite his boyish cruelty. This love saved Peter II’s life in the days ahead. Jane, having been kicked out of her computer network home, was searching for a new body to house her Auía. She tried Peter II’s body, but he already carried a strong portion of Ender’s soul, or Auía. The two consciousnesses could not exist in the same place. Wang-mu helped free Peter II of Jane.

A short time later, though, Ender himself died on Lusitania, and his Auía reconnected with both Valentine II’s and Peter II’s. They had both had a portion of Ender’s soul, but rejoined, they had become one person, living within Peter II. He could feel shadowlike memories of Ender’s life, but could not remember specifics.