Page 1098 - Enders_Game_Full_Book

on, tree to tree, dancing her dance along the gossamer web; and now the fathertrees did not recoil from her, for she was the messenger of the mothers, she was their voice, she shared their life and yet she was unlike them enough that she could speak, could be their consciousness, a thousand mothertrees around the world, and the growing mothertrees on distant planets, all of them found voice in Jane, and all of them rejoiced in the new, more vivid life that came to them because she was there.
***
<The mothertrees are speaking.>
<It's Jane.>
<Ah, my beloved one, the mothertrees are singing. I have never heard such songs.>
<It's not enough for her, but it will do for now.>
<No, no, don't take her away from us now! For the first time we can hear the mothertrees and they are beautiful.>
<She knows the way now. She will never fully leave. But it is not enough. The mothertrees will satisfy her for a while, but they can never be more than they are. Jane is not content to stand and think, to let others drink from her and never drink herself She dances tree to tree, she sings for them, but in a while she'll be hungry again. She needs a body of her own.>
<We'll lose her then.>
<No you won't. For even that body will not be enough. It will be the root of her, it will be her eyes and voice and hands and feet. But she will still long for the ansibles and the power she had when all the computers of the human worlds were hers. You'll see. We can keep her alive for now, but what we have to give her-- what your mothertrees have to share with her-- is not enough. Nothing, really, is enough for her.>
<So what will happen now?>
<We'll wait. We'll see. Be patient. Isn't that the virtue of the fathertrees, that you are patient?> ***
A man called Olhado because of his mechanical eyes stood out in the forest with his children. They had been picnicking with pequeninos who were his children's particular friends; but then the drumming had begun, the throbbing voice of the fathertrees, and the pequeninos rose all at once in fear.
Olhado's first thought was: Fire. For it was not that long ago that the great ancient trees that had stood here were all burned by humans, filled with rage and fear. The fire the humans brought had