"No, that's the point, don't you see? He lived. It was Miro. His own aiúa -- not the trillions of aiúas making up the atoms and molecules of his body, but the one that controlled them all, the one that was himself, his will -- his aiúa simply moved to the new and perfect body. That was his true self. And the old one ..."

"Had no use."

"Had nothing to give it shape. You see, I think our bodies are held together by love. The love of the master aiúa for the glorious powerful body that obeys it, that gives the self all its experience of the world. Even Miro, even with all his self-loathing when he was crippled, even he must have loved whatever pathetic remnant of his body was left to him. Until the moment that he had a new one."

"And then he moved."

"Without even knowing that he had done so," said Peter. "He followed his love."

Wang-mu heard this fanciful tale and knew that it must be true, for she had overheard many a mention of aiúas in the conversations between Han Fei-tzu and Jane, and now with Peter Wiggin's story, it made sense. It had to be true, if only because this starship really had appeared as if from nowhere on the bank of the river behind Han Fei-tzu's house.

"But now you must wonder," said Peter, "how I, unloved and unlovable as I know I am, came into existence."

"You already said. Ender's mind."

"Miro's most intensely held image was of his own younger, healthier, stronger self. But Ender, the images that mattered most in his mind were of his older sister Valentine and his older brother Peter. Not as they became, though, for his real older brother Peter was long dead, and Valentine -- she has accompanied or followed Ender on all his hops through space, so she is still alive, but aged as he has aged. Mature. A real person. Yet on that starship, during that time Outside, he conjured up a copy of her youthful self.