Page 604 - Enders_Game_Full_Book

heard the oath she made. Perhaps she hadn't-- band so she wouldn't be so disappointed when her daughter failed.
Father kissed her, then stood up. "Now you are ready to hear your task," he said.
He took her by the hand and led her to his table. She stood beside him when he sat on his chair; she was not much taller, standing, than he was sitting down. Probably she had not yet reached her adult height, but she hoped she wouldn't grow much more. She didn't want to become one of those large, hulking women who carried heavy burdens in the fields. Better to be a mouse than a hog, that's what Mu-pao had told her years ago.
Father brought a starmap up into the display. She recognized the area immediately. It centered on the Lusitania star system, though the scale was too small for individual planets to be visible. "Lusitania is in the center," she said.
Father nodded. He typed a few more commands. "Now watch this," he said. "Not the display, my fingers. This, plus your voice identification, is the password that will allow you to access the information you'll need."
She watched him type: 4Gang. She recognized the reference at once. Her mother's ancestor-of- the-heart had been Jiang-qing, the widow of the first Communist Emperor, Mao Ze-dong. When Jiang-qing and her allies were driven from power, the Conspiracy of Cowards vilified them under the name "Gang of Four." Qing-jao's mother had been a true daughter-of-the-heart to that great martyred woman of the past. And now Qing-jao would be able to do further honor to her mother's ancestor-of-the-heart every time she typed the access code. It was a gracious thing for her father to arrange.
In the display there appeared many green dots. She quickly counted, almost without thinking: there were nineteen of them, clustered at some distance from Lusitania, but surrounding it in most directions.
"Is that the Lusitania Fleet?"
"Those were their positions five months ago." He typed again. The green dots all disappeared. "And those are their positions today."
She looked for them. She couldn't find a green dot anywhere. Yet Father clearly expected her to see something. "Are they already at Lusitania?"
"The ships are where you see them," said Father. "Five months ago the fleet disappeared." "Where did it go?"
"No one knows."
"Was it a mutiny?"