"Investment Counselor" is a story by Orson Scott Card

Orson Scott Card

Orson Scott Card is an American author, critic, public speaker, essayist, columnist, and political activist. He writes in several genres, but is primarily known for his science fiction. His novel Ender's Game and its sequel Speaker for the Dead both won Hugo and Nebula Awards, making Card the...

 set in his Ender's Game universe

Ender's Game series

The Ender's Game series is a series of science fiction books by Orson Scott Card. The series started with the novelette "Ender's Game", which was later expanded into the novel Ender's Game. It currently consists of eleven novels and ten short stories...

. It tells the story of how Ender Wiggin first met the artificial intelligence Jane and became a speaker for the dead. It first appeared in the anthology Far Horizons

Far Horizons

Far Horizons is an anthology of 11 science fiction short stories or novellas by major authors, who also provide introductions and sometimes afterwords for the stories; it is edited by Robert Silverberg...

edited by Robert Silverberg

Robert Silverberg

Robert Silverberg is an American author, best known for writing science fiction. He is a multiple nominee of the Hugo Award and a winner of the Nebula Award.-Early years:...

 and then later in Card's short story collection First Meetings

First Meetings

First Meetings is a collection of Orson Scott Card's short stories from the Ender's Game series. The 2003 edition published by Tor Books also includes the story "Teacher's Pest", about the first meeting of Ender's parents.- Story list :The stories in this book are:*...

.

Plot summary

Ever since the events of Ender's Game

Ender's Game

Ender's Game is a science fiction novel by American author Orson Scott Card. The book originated as the short story "Ender's Game", published in the August 1977 issue of Analog Science Fiction and Fact. Elaborating on characters and plot lines depicted in the novel, Card later wrote additional...

, Andrew Wiggin

Ender Wiggin

Andrew "Ender" Wiggin is a fictional character from Orson Scott Card's science fiction story Ender's Game and its sequels , as well as in the first part of the spin-off series, Ender's Shadow...

 has been voyaging through space at near-lightspeed. When he arrives at the planet Sorelledolce, he has just turned twenty in relativistic time, so he has to file his first tax return on the trust fund which had been given to him by the International Fleet at the end of the Third Bugger

Formics

The Formics, also known as Buggers, are a fictional insectoid alien species from the Ender's Game series of science fiction novels by Orson Scott Card.The term "Formic" is derived from formica, the Latin word for ant...

 War. He shows his list of investments to Benedetto, a tax collector in the starport, who immediately plans to steal some of it. Meanwhile, Andrew receives an email offering him financial software, which has an interactive personality that calls itself Jane

Jane (Ender's Game)

Jane is a fictional character in Orson Scott Card's Ender series. She is an artificial sentience thought to exist within the ansible network by which spaceships and planets communicate instantly across galactic distances. She has appeared in the novels Speaker for the Dead, Xenocide, and Children...

.

While they are on Sorelledolce, Andrew's sister Valentine Wiggin

Valentine Wiggin

Valentine Wiggin is a fictional character in Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game series of novels. She is the older sister of Ender Wiggin.-Biography:...

 takes him to a "speaking" for a dead man. Andrew talks to the speaker and discovered that the man learned how to be a speaker for the dead from reading Ender's own books The Hive Queen and The Hegemon.

Andrew decides to accept the assistance of the Jane program. She prepares his tax forms, showing him ways to minimize what he owes. The amount is much less than he had expected. When Andrew delivers the forms to Benedetto, the tax collector tries to blackmail him because he has discovered Ender's identity as the hated Xenocide

Xenocide

Xenocide is the third novel in the Ender's Game series of books by Orson Scott Card. It was nominated for both the Hugo and Locus Awards for Best Novel in 1992...

. But Benedetto finds that his files have mysteriously disappeared. In an attempt to get revenge against Ender, he tries to leak what data he still has to the media, but Jane appears on his screen and gives him a choice: "Either say nothing, or tell the whole truth." Benedetto rejects the first option, but when the media receives his story, it has been mysteriously integrated with a full confession of his embezzlements.

Benedetto is arrested, and while he is in prison one of his more powerful victims has him killed. Andrew does a speaking at Benedetto's funeral. He has thus inadvertently given himself a career, that of "speaker for the dead."

Characters

• Andrew "Ender" Wiggin
• Valentine Wiggin – Ender's sister
• Benedetto – a tax collector
• Abyssinian hunter - unnamed
• Jane – an artificial intelligence
• People at a speaking – unnamed
• A speaker for the dead - unnamed

External links

• About the story "Investment Counselor" - from Card's website