But then he realized that he couldn’t. The story wasn’t his to tell. If Ender wrote about it, then people would start looking for Bean. Somebody might try to contact him. Someone might call him home. And then his voyage would have been for nothing. His sacrifice. His Satyagraha.

  They never spoke again.

  Peter lived for some time after that, despite his weak heart. Hoping the whole time that Ender might write the book he wanted. But when he died, the book was still unwritten.

  So it was Petra who read the short biography called, simply, The Hegemon, and signed Speaker for the Dead.

  She wept all day after reading it.

  She read it aloud at Peter’s grave, stopping whenever any passersby came near. Until she realized that they were coming in order to hear her reading. So she invited them over and read it aloud again, from the beginning.

  The book wasn’t long, but there was power in it. To Petra, it was everything Peter had wanted it to be. It put a period on his life. The harm and the good. The wars and the peace. The lies and the truth. The manipulation and the liberty.

  The Hegemon was a companion piece, really, to The Hive Queen. The one book was the story of an entire species; and so was the other.

  But to Petra, it was the story of the man who had shaped her life more than any other.

  Except one. The one who lived now only as a shadow in other people’s stories. The Giant.

  There was no grave, and there was no book to read there. And his story wasn’t a human one because in a way he hadn’t lived a human life.

  It was a hero’s life. It ended with him being taken away into heaven, dying but not dead.

  I love you, Peter, she said to him at his grave. But you must have known that I never stopped loving Bean, and longing for him, and missing him whenever I looked in our children’s faces.

  Then she went home, leaving both her husbands behind, the one whose life had a monument and a book, and the one whose only monument was in her heart.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thanks to Joan Han, M.D., who works in pediatric endocrinology at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, for advice on what kinds of legitimate therapy might be tried to stop Bean’s unstoppable growth. Along the same lines, M. Jack Long, M.D., brought up the ideas that became Volescu’s suggestions for how Bean might live a long life. My thanks to Dr. Long—along with my relief that he realized they were truly appalling ideas. (His letter ended “Yikes—I hope not!”)

  Thanks to Danny Sale for suggesting that Bean might have a hand in the decision to convert the Fantasy Game from Battle School into the program that eventually became Jane. Farah Khimji of Lewisville, Texas, reminded me of the need for a world currency—and the fact that the dollar already is one. Andaiye Spencer let me know that I could not let the old Battle School relationship between Petra Arkanian and Dink Meeker die without at least some mention.

  Mark Trevors of New Brunswick reminded me that Peter and Ender conversed once before Peter died, and expressed the wish that he could see that scene more fully, and from Peter’s point of view. Since this idea was much better than the one I had for ending the book, I seized upon it immediately, with gratitude. I also had reminders and help from Rechavia Berman, my Hebrew translator, and from David Tayman.

  I’m not good with calendaring my books or aging my characters. I don’t pay attention to those things in real life, and so I have a hard time keeping track of the passage of time in my fiction. In response to a plea at our Hatrack River Web site (www.hatrack.com), Megan Schindele, Nathan Taylor, Maureen Fanta, Jennifer Rader, Samuel Sevlie, Carrie Pennow, Shannon Blood, Elizabeth Cohen, and Cecily Kiester all pitched in and sorted through all the age and time references in Ender’s Game and the other Shadow books to help sort it out for me. In addition, Jason Bradshaw and C. Porter Bassett caught a continuity error between the original Ender’s Game and this novel. I’m grateful for readers who know my books better than I do.

  I’m grateful for the willingness of my good friends Erin Absher, Aaron Johnston, and Kathy Kidd, who set aside many other more important concerns in order to join my wife, Kristine, in giving me quick feedback on each chapter as it was written. It never ceases to amaze me how many errors—not just typos, but also continuity lapses and outright contradictions—can slip past me and three or four very careful readers, only to be caught by the next. If there are such mistakes still in this book, it’s not their fault!

  Beth Meacham, my editor at Tor, went the extra mile on this book. Still in pain from major surgery and drugged to the gills, she read this manuscript while the bits and bytes were still sizzling, and gave me excellent advice. Some of the best scenes in this book are here because she suggested them and I was smart enough to recognize a great idea when I heard it.

  The whole production team at Tor went to extraordinary lengths to help us bring out this book in time for a good publishing window, and I appreciate their patience with an author whose estimate of the time needed to complete this book was so laughably wrong.

  And Tom Doherty may just be the most creative publisher in the business. There’s no idea too wacky for him to at least consider it; and when he decides to do something unusual—like a series of “parallel novels”—he puts everything behind it and makes it happen.

  Barbara Bova’s creativity and dedication as my agent have blessed my family for most of my career. And I haven’t forgotten that the Ender saga first reached the public because, even before she became an agent, her husband, Ben Bova, found a novella called “Ender’s Game” on his slushpile and, with a few small changes, agreed to publish it in the August 1977 Analog magazine. That one decision (and it wasn’t a no-brainer—other editors turned it down cold) has been putting bread on my table and opening the door for readers to find my other work ever since.

  But when the writing day is done and I come down out of my garret room, it’s finding my wife, Kristine, and my daughter Zina there that makes it all worth doing. Thanks for the love and joy in my life each day. And to my other kids as well, for leading lives that I’m proud to be connected with.

  This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this novel are either fictitious or are used fictitiously.

  SHADOW OF THE GIANT

  Copyright © 2005 by Orson Scott Card

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form.

  Edited by Beth Meacham

  A Tor Book

  Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC

  175 Fifth Avenue

  New York, NY 10010

  www.tor.com

  Tor® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.

  ISBN: 978-1-4299-6391-6

  Tor Books by Orson Scott Card

  Note: Within series, books are best read in listed order.

  —–

  ENDER UNIVERSE

  Ender Series

  Ender Wiggin: The finest general the world could hope to find or breed.

  Ender's Game

  Ender in Exile

  Speaker for the Dead

  Xenocide

  Children of the Mind

  Ender's Shadow Series

  Parallel storylines to Ender's Game from Bean: Ender's right hand, his strategist, and his friend.

  Ender's Shadow

  Shadow of the Hegemon

  Shadow Puppets

  Shadow of the Giant

  Shadows in Flight

  The First Formic War Series

  One hundred years before Ender's Game, the aliens arrived on Earth with fire and death.

  These are the stories of the First Formic War.

  Earth Unaware

  Earth Afire

  Ender novellas

  A War of Gifts

  First Meetings

  The Authorized Ender Companion by Jake Black

  A complete and in-depth encyclopedia of all the persons, places, things, and events in Orson Scott Card's Ender Universe.

  THE MITHER MAGES SERIES

  Danny North is different from his magical family. And when he discovers his gift, it is greater than he ever imagined—which could earn him a death sentence.

  The Lost Gate

  The Gate Thief

  THE TALES OF ALVIN MAKER SERIES

  Visit the magical America that might have been, marvel as the tale of Alvin Maker unfolds.

  Seventh Son

  Red Prophet

  Prentice Alvin

  Alvin Journeyman

  Heartfire

  The Crystal City

  HOMECOMING SERIES

  Earth has been rendered uninhabitable. But it is still vital.

  The Memory of Earth

  The Call of Earth

  The Ships of Earth

  Earthfall

  Earthborn

  WOMEN OF GENESIS SERIES

  Fiction exploring the human side of Biblical women.

  Sarah

  Rebekah

  Rachel & Leah

  THE COLLECTED SHORT FICTION OF ORSON SCOTT CARD

  Experience Card's full versatility, from science fiction to fantasy, from traditional narrative poetry to modern experimental fiction.

  Keeper of Dreams

  The Changed Man

  Cruel Miracles

  Flux

  Monkey Sonatas

  STAND-ALONE FICTION

  Hart's Hope: Dark and powerful fantasy.

  Lovelock (with Kathryn Kidd): A startling look at the ethics of bioengineering.

  Pastwatch: In this novel of time travel, can the past be changed?

  Saints: A novel of the early days of the Mormon Church.

  Songmaster: An SF classic and a haunting story of power and love.

  The Worthing Saga: The tale of a seed ship sent out to save the human race.

  Wyrms: The story of a young woman's journey to confront her destiny, and her world's.

  The Folk of the Fringe: When America is destroyed, it's up to those on the fringes to rebuild.

  —–

  www.tor-forge.com

 

 

  Orson Scott Card, Shadow of the Giant (The Shadow Saga Book 4)

 

 

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