She becomes convinced its complexity shows signs of sentience, which means destroying it would be immoral. Quara, another daughter, doesn’t want to replace the descolada at all.

But descolada is so intertwined with the Lusitanian ecosystem that they’re not sure it’s even possible. She and her daughter Elanora are studying the descolada virus in an attempt to replace it with a harmless one that will still allow the pequeninos to reach their adult stage. Novhina Ribera is a Lusitania colonist and Ender’s wife. She stops Congress’s order from reaching the fleet, risking discovery and destruction by doing so. Lusitania has an ally in Jane, a sympathetic AI who has secretly formed in the ansible network used to communicate between planets. She warns of a “Second Xenocide”-the first was the apparent total destruction of the Formic race. Valentine, Ender’s sister, uses her pseudonym “Demosthenes” to reveal that the fleet contains a device powerful enough to destroy a planet. Now, Congress has sent a fleet to regain control of the planet-but the fleet will take close to thirty years to reach its destination. In Speaker for the Dead, Lusitania defied orders from Starways Congress to protect the lives of the pequeninos. All native life on Lusitania has adapted to the virus and evolved to accommodate it, but humans and the Hive Queen are vulnerable. The Brazilian colonists call it the “descolada,” Portuguese for “no longer glued.” The virus is complex, adaptable, and highly infectious. A deadly virus exists on the planet as well. Now, he wants to find a place where the Hive Queen can rebuild her species so he can atone for nearly committing xenocide. Ender has brought another species with him: the Hive Queen, the last of her insect-like species, the Formics, or “buggers.” Ender nearly annihilated her species in a war between humans and Formics in Ender’s Game, only to learn that the entire war was the result of a cultural misunderstanding. They live peacefully alongside the pequeninos, the planet Lusitania’s native sentient life. Ender lives in a Catholic Brazilian community of colonists. The action begins where Speaker for the Dead left off. He has won multiple Hugo and Nebula awards for his work. Card is best known for this series and for Ender’s Game in particular. An intergalactic congress orders the destruction of the planet and the virus with it, but that means xenocide. The planet also harbors a virus that is fatal to humans, but necessary for native species. A sequel to Ender’s Game and Speaker for the Dead, it follows Ender Wiggin on the planet Lusitania as he tries to find a way for different species to coexist. Xenocide is a 1991 science fiction novel by Orson Scott Card, the third installment in his Ender’s Saga series.

Xenocide by Orson Scott Card