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But it didn’t erase the pain of those earlier years when everything he did seemed to be wrong, every natural instinct an offense against one of their versions of God or the other. Well, in all your judging, remember this-it was Ender who turned out to be Cain, wasn’t it! And you always thought it was going to be me.
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Stupid stupid stupid, Peter told himself Ender didn’t kill his brother, Ender defended himself against his enemies. As I have done.
I have to get over this, he told himself again and again during the voyage.
I wish there were something to look at besides the stupid vids. Or Dad snoring. Or Mother looking at me now and then, sizing me up, and then winking. Does she have any idea how awful that is? How demeaning? To wink at me! What about smiling? What about looking at me with that dreamy fond expression she used to have for Val and Ender? Of course she liked them.
Stop it. Think about what you have to do, fool.
Think about what you have to write and publish, as Locke and as Demosthenes, to rouse the people in the free countries, to goad the governments of the nations ruled from above. There could be no business as usual, he couldn’t allow that. But it was hard to keep the people’s attention on a war in which no shots were being fired. A war that took place in a faraway land. What did they care, in Argentina, that the people of India had a government not of their choosing? Why should it matter to a light farmer tending his photovoltaic screens in the Kalahari Desert whether the people of Thailand were having dirt kicked in their faces?
China had no designs on Namibia or Argentina. The war was over, Why wouldn’t people just shut up about it and go back to making money?
That was Peter’s enemy. Not Achilles, ultimately. Not even China. It was the apathy of the rest of the world that played into their hands.
And here I am in space, no longer free to move about, far more dependent than I’ve ever been before. Because if Graff decides not to send me back to Earth, then I can’t go. There’s no alternative transport. He seems to be entirely on my side. But it’s his former Battle School brats that have his true loyalty. He thinks he can use me as I thought I could use Achilles. I was wrong. But probably he is right.
After all the voyaging, it was so frustrating to be there and still have to wait while the shuttle did its little dance of lining up with the station dock. There was nothing to watch. They blanked the “windows” because it was too nauseating in zero-G to watch the Earth spin madly as the shuttle matched the rotation of the great wheel.
My career might already be over. I might already have earned whatever mention I’ll have in history. I might already be nothing but a footnote in other people’s biographies, a paragraph in the history books.
Really, at this point my best strategy for beefing up my reputation is probably to be assassinated in some colorful way.
But the way things are going, I’ll probably die in some tragic airlock accident while doing a routine docking at the MinCol space station.
“Stop wallowing,” said Mother.
He looked at her sharply. “I’m not,” he said.
“Good,” she said. “Be angry at me. That’s better than feeling sorry for yourself.”
He wanted to snap back angrily, but he realized the futility of denying what they all knew was true. He was depressed, definitely, and yet he still had to work. Like the day of his press conference when they dragged him out of bed. He didn’t want a repeat of that humiliation. He’d do his work without having to have his parents prod him like some adolescent. And he wouldn’t get snippy at them when they merely told him the truth.
So he smiled at her. “Come on, Mother, you know that if I were on fire, nobody would so much as pee on me to put it out.”
“Be honest, son,” said his father. “There are hundreds of thousands of people back on Earth who have only to be asked. And some dozens who would do it without waiting for an invitation, if they saw an opportunity.”
“There are some good points about fame,” Peter observed. “And those with empty bladders would probably chip in with a little spit.”
“This is getting quite disgusting,” said Mother.
“You say that because it’s your job to say it,” said Peter.
“I’m underpaid, then,” said Mother “Because it’s nearly a fulltime position.”
“Your role in life. So womanly. Men need civilizing, and you’re just the one to do it.”
“I’m obviously not very good at it.”
At that moment the IF sergeant who was their flight steward came into the main cabin and told them it was time to go.
Because they docked at the center of the station, there was no gravity. They floated along, gripping handrails as the steward flipped their bags so they sailed through the airlock just under them. They were caught by a couple of orderlies who had obviously done this a hundred times, and were not the least bit impressed by having the Hegemon himself come to MinCol.
Though in all probability nobody knew who they were. They were traveling under false papers, of course, but Graff had undoubtedly let someone in the station know who they really were.
Probably not the orderlies, though.
Not until they were down one spoke of the wheel to a level where there was a definite floor to walk on did they meet anyone of real status in the station. A man in the grey suit that served MinCol as a uniform waited at the foot of the elevator, his hand outstretched. “Mr. and Mrs. Raymond,” he said. “I’m Underminister Dimak. And this must be your son, Dick.”
Peter smiled wanly at the faint humor in the pseudonym Graff had arbitrarily assigned to him.
“Please tell me that you know who we really are so we don’t have to keep up this charade,” said Peter.
“I know,” said Dimak softly, “but nobody else on this station does, and I’d like to keep it that way for now.”
“Graft isn’t here?”
“The Minister of Colonization is returning from his inspection of the outfitting of the newest colony ship. We’re two weeks away from first leg on that one, and starting next week you won’t believe the traffic that’ll come through here, sixteen shuttles a day, and that’s just for the colonists. The freighters go directly to the dry dock.”
“Is there,” said Father innocently, “a wet dock?”
Dimak grinned. “Nautical terminology dies hard.”
Dimak led them along a corridor to a down tube. They slid down the pole after him. The gravity wasn’t so intense yet as to make this a problem, even for Peter’s parents, who were, after all, in their forties. He helped them step out of the shaft into a lower-and therefore “heavier”-corridor.
There were old-fashioned directional stripes along the walls. “Your palm prints have already been keyed,” said Dimak. “Just touch here, and it will lead you to your room.
“This is left over from the old days, isn’t it?” said Father “Though I don’t imagine you were here when this was still-”
“But I was here,” said Dimak. “I was mother to groups of new kids. Not your son, I’m afraid. But an acquaintance of yours, I believe.”
Peter did not want to put himself in the pathetic position of naming off Battle School graduates he knew. Mother had no such qualms.
“Petra?” she said. “Suriyawong?”
Dimak leaned in close, so his voice would not have to be pitched loud enough that it might be overheard. “Bean,” he said.
“He must have been a remarkable boy,” said Mother.
“Looked like a three-year-old when he got here,” said Dimak. “Nobody could believe he was old enough for this place.”
“He doesn’t look like that now,” said Peter dryly.
“No, I ... I know about his condition. It’s not public knowledge, but Colonel Graff-the minister, I mean-he knows that I still care what happens to-well, to all my kids, of course-but this one was . . . I imagine your son’s first trainer felt much the same way about him.”
“I hope so,” said Mother.
The sentimentality was getting so sweet Peter wanted to brush his teeth. He palmed the pad by the entrance and three strips lit up. “Green green brown,” said Dimak. “But soon you won’t be needing this. It’s not as if there’s miles of open country here to get lost in. The stripe system always assumes that you want to go back to your room, except when you touch the pad just outside the door of your room, and then it thinks you want to go to the bathroom-none inside the rooms, I’m afraid, it wasn’t built that way. But if you want to go to the mess hall, just slap the pad twice and it’ll know.”
He showed them to their quarters, which consisted of a single long room with bunks in rows along both sides of a narrow aisle. “I’m afraid you’ll have company for the week we’re loading up the ship, but nobody’ll be here very long, and then you’ll have the place to yourself for three more weeks.”
“You’re doing a launch a month?” said Peter “How, exactly, are you funding a pace like that?”
Dimak looked at him blankly. “I don’t actually know,” he said.
Peter leaned in close and imitated the voice Dimak used for secrets. “I’m the Hegemon,” he said. “Officially, your boss works for me.
Dimak whispered back, “You save the world, we’ll finance the colony program.”
“I could have used a little more money for my operations, I can tell you,” said Peter.
“Every Hegemon feels that way,” said Dimak. “Which is why our funding doesn’t come through you.”
Peter laughed. “Smart move. If you think the colonization program is very very important.”
“It’s the future of the human race, said Dimak simply. “The Buggers-pardon me, the Formics-had the right idea. Spread out as far as you can, so you can’t be wiped out in a single disastrous war. Not that it saved them, but. . . we aren’t hive creatures.”
“Aren’t we?” said Father.
“Well, if we are, then who’s the queen?” asked Dimak.
“In this place,” said Father, “I suspect it’s Graff.”
“And we’re all just his little arms and legs?”
“And mouths and. . . well, yes, of course. A little more independent and a little less obedient than the individual Formics, of course, but that’s how a species comes to dominate a world the way we did, and they did. Because you know how to get a large number of individuals to give up their personal will and subject themselves to a group mind.”
“So this is philosophy we’re doing here,” said Dimak.
“Or very cutting-edge science,” said Father “The behavior of humans in groups. Degrees of allegiance. I think about it a lot.”
“How interesting.”
“I see that you’re not interested at all,” said Father. “And that I’m now in your book as an eccentric who brings up his theories. But I never do, actually. I don’t know why I did just now. I just. . . it’s the first time I’ve been in Graff’s house, so to speak. And meeting you was very much like visiting with him.”
“I’m.. . flattered,” said Dimak.
“John Paul,” said Mother, “I do believe you’re making Mr. Dimak uncomfortable.”
“When people feel great allegiance to their community, they start to take on the mannerisms as well as the morals of their leader,” said Father, refusing to give up.
“If their leader has a personality,” said Peter
“How do you get to be a leader without one?” asked Father.
“Ask Achilles,” said Peter “He’s the opposite. He takes on the mannerisms of the people he wants to have follow him.”
“I don’t remember that one,” said Dimak. “He was only here a few days before he-before we discovered he had a track record of murder back on Earth.”
“Someday you have to tell me how Bean got him to confess. He won’t tell.”
“If he won’t tell, neither will I,” said Dimak.
“How loyal,” said Father.
“Not really,” said Dimak. “I just don’t know myself. I know it had something to do with a ventilation shaft.”
“That confession,” said Peter “The recordings wouldn’t still be here, would they?”
“No, they wouldn’t,” said Dimak. “And even if they were, they’re part of a sealed juvenile record.”
“Of a mass murderer.”
“We only notice laws when they act against our interest,” said Dimak.
“See?” said Father. “We’ve traded philosophies.”
“Like tribesmen swapping at a potlatch,” said Dimak. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to have you talk with Security Chief Uphanad before dinner”
“What about?”
“The colonists aren’t a problem-they have a one-way flow and they can’t easily communicate planetside. But you’re probably going to be recognized here. And even if you’re not, it’s hard to maintain a false story for long.”
“Then let’s not have a false story,” said Peter.
“No. let’s have a really good one,” said Mother.
“Let’s just not talk to anybody,” said Father.
“Those are precisely the issues that Major Uphanad wants to discuss with you.”
Once Dimak had left, they chose bunks at the back of the long room. Peter took a top bunk, of course, but while he was unloading his bags into the locker in the wall behind the bunk, Father discovered that each set of six bunks-three on each side-could be separated from the others by a privacy curtain.
“It has to be a retrofit,” said Father. “I can’t believe they would let the kids seal themselves off from each other.”
“How soundproof is this material?” asked Mother.
Father pulled it around in a circular motion, so it irised shut with him on the other side. They heard nothing from him. Then he dilated it open.
“Well?” he asked.
“Pretty effective sound barrier,” said Mother.
“You did try to talk to us, didn’t you?” asked Peter.
“No, I was listening for you,” said Father.
“Well we were listening for you, John Paul,” said Mother.
“No, I spoke. I didn’t shout, but you couldn’t hear me, right?”
“Peter,” said Mother, “you just got moved to the next compartment over.”
“That won’t work when the colonists come through.”
“You can come back and sleep in Mommy’s and Daddy’s room when the visitors come,” said Mother.
“You’ll have to walk through my room in order to get to the bathroom,” said Peter.
“That’s right,” said Father. “I know you’re Hegemon and should have the best room, but then, we’re not likely to walk in on you making love.”
“Don’t count on it,” said Peter sourly.
“We’ll open the door just a little and say ‘knock knock’ before we come through,” said Mother. “It’ll give you time to smuggle your best pal out of sight.”
It made him faintly nauseated to be having this discussion with his parents. “You two are so cute. I’m really glad to change rooms here, believe me.”
It was good to have solitude, once the door was closed, even if the price of it was moving all his stuff out of the locker he had just loaded and putting it in a locker in the next section. Now he got a lower bunk, for one thing. And for another thing, he didn’t have to put up with listening to his parents try to cheer him up.
He had to have thinking time.
So of course he promptly fell asleep.
Dimak woke him by speaking to him over the intercom. “Mr. Raymond, are you there?”
It took Peter a split second to remember that he was supposed to be Dick Raymond. “Yes. Unless you want my father.”
“Already spoke to him,” said Dimak. “I’ve keyed the guidebars to lead you to the security department.”
It was on the top level, with the lowest gravity-which made sense, because if security action were required, officers dispersing from the main office would have a downhill trip to wherever they were going.
When they stepped inside the office, Major Uphanad was there to greet them. He offered his hand to all of them.
“Are you from India?” asked Mother, “or Pakistan?”
“India,” said Uphanad, not breaking his smile at all.
“I’m so sorry for your country, said Mother.”
“I haven’t been back there since-in a long time.”
“I hope your family is faring welt under the Chinese occupation.”
“Thank you for your concern,” said Uphanad, in a tone of voice that made it clear this topic was finished.
He offered them chairs and sat down himself-behind his desk, taking full advantage of his official position. Peter resented it a little, since he had spent a good while now as the man who was always in the dominant place. He might not have had much actual power, as Hegemon, but protocol always gave him the highest place.
But he was not supposed to be known here. So he could hardly be treated differently from any civilian visitor.
“I know that you are particular guests of the Minister,” said Uphanad, “and that you wish your privacy to be undisturbed. What we need to discuss is the boundary of your privacy. Are your faces likely to be recognized?”
“Possibly,” said Peter. “Especially his.” He pointed to his father. This was a lie, of course, and probably futile, but.
“Ah,” said Uphanad. “And I assume your real names would be recognized.”
“Likely,” said Father.
“Certainly,” said Mother, as if she were proud of the fact and rather miffed that he had cast any doubt on it at all.
“So... should meals be brought to you? Do we need to clear the corridors when you go to the bathroom?”
Sounded like a nightmare to Peter.
“Major Uphanad, we don’t want to advertise our presence here, but I’m sure your staff can be trusted to be discreet.”
“On the contrary,” said Uphanad. “Discreet people make it a point not to take the staff’s loyalty for granted.”
“Including yours?” asked Mother sweetly.
“Since you have already lied to me repeatedly,” said Uphanad. “I think it safe to say that you are taking no one’s loyalty for granted.”
“Nevertheless,” said Peter, “I’m not going to stay cooped up in that tube. I’d like to be able to use your library-I’m assuming you have one-and we can take our meals in the mess hall and use the toilet without inconveniencing others.”
“There, you see?” said Uphanad. “You are simply not security minded.”
“We can’t live here as prisoners,” said Peter.
“He didn’t mean that,” said Father. “He was talking about the way you simply announced the decision for the three of us. So much for me being the one most likely to be recognized.”
Uphanad smiled. “The recognition problem is a real one,” he said. “I knew you at once, from the vids, Mr. Hegemon.”
Peter sighed and leaned back.
“Your face is not as recognizable as if you were an actual politician,” said Uphanad. “They thrive on putting their faces before the public. Your career began, if I remember correctly, in anonymity.”
“But I’ve been on the vids,” said Peter.
“Listen,” said Uphanad. “Few on our staff even watch the vids. I happen to be a news addict, but most people here have rather cut their ties with the gossip of Earth. I think your best way to remain under cover here is to behave as if you had nothing to hide. Be a bit standoffish-don’t get into conversations with people that lead to mutual explanations of what you do and who you are, for instance. But if you’re cheerful and don’t act mysterious, you should be fine. People won’t expect to see the Hegemon living with his parents in one of the bunk rooms here.” Uphanad grinned. “It will be our little secret, the six of us.”
Peter did the count. Him, his parents, Uphanad, Dimak. and... oh, Graff, of course.
“I think there will be no assassination attempt here,” said Uphanad, “because there are very few weapons on board, all are kept under lock and key, and everybody coming up here is scanned for weaponry. So I suggest you not attempt to carry sidearms. You are trained in hand-to-hand combat?”
“No,” said Peter.
“There is a gym on the bottom level, very well equipped. And not just with childsize devices, either. The adults also need to stay fit. You should use the facility to maintain your bone mass, and so forth, but also we can arrange martial arts classes for you, if you’re interested.”
“I’m not interested,” said Peter. “But it sounds like a good idea.”
“Anyone they send against us, though,” said Mother, “will be very much better trained in it than we will.”
“Perhaps so, perhaps not,” said Uphanad. “If your enemies attempt to get to you here, they will have to rely on someone they can get through our screening. People who seem particularly athletic are subjected to special scrutiny. We are, you see, paranoid about one of the anti-colonization groups getting someone up here just to perform an act of sabotage or terrorism.”
“Or assassination.”
“You see?” said Uphanad. “But I assure you I and my staff are very thorough. We never leave anything unchecked.”
“In other words, you knew who we were before we walked in the door.”
“Before your shuttle took off, actually,” said Uphanad. “Or at least I had a fairly good guess.”
They said their good-byes, then settled into the routine of life in a space station.
Day and night were kept on Greenwich time, for no particular reason but that it was at zero longitude and they had to pick some time. Peter found that his parents were not so awfully intrusive as he had feared, and he was relieved that he could not hear their lovemaking or their conversations about him through the divider
What he did, mostly, was go to the library and write.
Essays, of course, on everything, for every conceivable forum. There were plenty of publications that were happy to have pieces from Locke or Demosthenes, especially now that everyone knew these identities belonged to the Hegemon. With most serious work appearing first on the nets, there was no way to target particular audiences. But he still talked about subjects that would have particular interest in various regions.
The aim of everything he wrote was to fan the flames of suspicion of China and Chinese ambitions. As Demosthenes, he wrote quite directly about the danger of allowing the conquest of India and Indochina to stand, with a lot of who’s-next rhetoric. Of course he couldn’t stoop to any serious rabble-rousing, because every word he said would be held against the Hegemon.
Life was so much easier when he was anonymous on the nets.
As Locke, however, he wrote statesmanlike, impartial essays about problems that different nations and regions were facing. “Locke” almost never wrote against China directly, but rather took it for granted that there would be another invasion, and that longterm investments in probable target countries might be unwise, that sort of thing.
It was hard work, because every essay had to be made interesting, original, important, or no one would pay attention to it. He had to make sure he never sounded like someone riding a hobby horse- rather the way Father had sounded when he started spouting off about his theories of group loyalty and character to Dimak. Though, to be fair, he’d never heard Father do that before, it still gave him pause and made him realize how easily Locke and Demosthenes-and therefore Peter Wiggin himself-could become at first an irritant, at last a laughingstock.
Father called this process stassenization and made various suggestions for essay topics, some of which Peter used. As to what Father and Mother did with their days, when they weren’t reading his essays and commenting on them, catching errors, that sort of thing-well, Peter had no idea.
Maybe Mother had found somebody’s room to clean.
Graft stopped in for a brief visit on their first morning there, but then was off again-returned to Earth, in fact, on the shuttle that had brought them. He did not return for three weeks, by which time Peter had written nearly forty essays, all of which had been published in various places. Most of them were Locke’s essays. And, as usual, most of the attention went to Demosthenes.
When Graff returned, he invited them to dine with him in the Minister’s quarters, and they had a convivial dinner during which nothing important was discussed. Whenever the subject seemed to be turning to a matter of real moment, Graff would interrupt with the pouring of water or a joke of some kind-only rarely the funny kind.
This puzzled Peter, because surely Graff could count on his own quarters being secure. But apparently not, because after dinner he invited them on a walk, leading them quickly out of the regular corridors and into some of the service passages. They were lost almost at once, and when Graff finally opened a door and took them onto a wide ledge overlooking a ventilation shaft, they had lost all sense of direction except, of course, where “down” was.
The ventilation shaft led “down” . . . a very long way.
“This is a place of some historical importance,” said Graff. “Though few of us know it.”
“Ah,” said Father knowingly.
And because he had guessed it, Peter realized it should be guessable, and so he guessed. “Achilles was here,” he said.
‘This,” said Graft, “is where Bean and his friends tricked Achilles. Achilles thought he was going to be able to kill Bean here, but instead Bean got him in chains, hanging in the shaft. He could have killed Achilles. His friends recommended it.”
“Who were the friends?” asked Mother.
“He never told me, but that’s not surprising-I never asked. I thought it would be wiser if there were never any kind of record, even inside my head, of which other children were there to witness Achilles’s humiliation and helplessness.”
“It wouldn’t have mattered, if he had simply killed Achilles. There would have been no murders.”
“But, you see,” said Graff, “if Achilles had died, then I would have had to ask those names, and Bean could not have been allowed to remain in Battle School. We might have lost the war because of that, because Ender relied on Bean quite heavily.”
“You let Ender stay after he killed a boy,” said Peter.
“The boy died accidentally,” said Graff, “as Ender defended himself.”
“Defended himself because you left him alone,” said Mother
“I’ve already faced trial on those charges, and I was acquitted.”
“But you were asked to resign your commission,” said Mother.
“But I was then given this much higher position as Minister of Colonization. Let’s not quibble over the past. Bean got Achilles here, not to kill him, but to induce him to confess. He did confess, very convincingly, and because I heard him do it, I’m on his death list, too.”
“Then why are you still alive?” asked Peter.
“Because, contrary to widespread belief, Achilles is not a genius and he makes mistakes. His reach is not infinite and his power can be blocked. He doesn’t know everything. He doesn’t have everything planned. I think half the time he’s winging it, putting himself in the way of opportunity and seizing it when he sees it.”
“If he’s not a genius, then why does he Keep beating geniuses?” asked Peter.
“Because he does the unexpected,” said Graft. “He doesn’t actually do things remarkably well, he simply does things that no one thought he would do. He stays a jump ahead. And our finest minds were not even thinking about him when he brought off his most spectacular successes. They thought they were civilians again when he had them kidnapped. Bean wasn’t trying to oppose Achilles’s plans during the war, he was trying to find and rescue Petra. You see? I have Achilles’s test scores. He’s a champion suckup, and he’s very smart or he wouldn’t have got here. He knew how to ace a psych test, for instance, so that his violent tendencies remained hidden from us when we chose him to come in the last group we brought to Battle School. He’s dangerous, in other words. But he’s never had to face an opponent, not really. What the Formics faced, he’s never had to face.”
“So you’re confident,” said Peter.
“Not at all,” said Graft. “But I’m hopeful.”
“You brought us here just to show us this place?” said Father.
“Actually, no. I brought you here because I came up earlier in the day and swept it personally for eavesdropping devices. Plus, I installed a sound damper here, so that our voices are not carrying down the ventilation shaft.”
“You think MinCol has been penetrated,” said Peter
“I know it has,” said Graft “Uphanad was doing his routine scan of the logs of outgoing messages, and he found an odd one that was sent within hours of your arrival here. The entire message consisted of the single word on. Uphanad’s routine scan, of course, is more thorough than most people’s desperate search. He found this one simply by looking for anomalies in message length, language patterns, etc. To find codes, you see.
“And this was in code?” asked Father.
“Not a cipher, no. And impossible to decode for that reason. It could simply mean ‘affirmative,’ as in ‘the mission is on.’ It might be a foreign word-there are several dozen common languages in which ‘on’ has meaning by itself. It might be ‘no’ backward. You see the problem? What alerted Uphanad, besides its brevity, was the fact that it was sent within hours of your arrival-after your arrival-and both the sender and the receiver of the message were anonymous.”
“How could the sender be anonymous from a secure military0-designed facility?” asked Peter.
“Oh, it’s quite simple, really,” said Graff. “The sender used someone else’s sign-on.”
“Whose?”
“Uphanad was quite embarrassed when he showed me the printout of the message. Because as far as the computer was concerned, it was sent by Uphanad himself.”
“Someone got the log-on of the head of security?” said Father.
“Humiliating, you may be sure,” said Graft.
“You’ve fired him?” asked Mother
“That would not make us more secure, to lose the man who is our best defense against whatever operation that message triggered.”
“So you think it is the English word ‘on’ and it means somebody is preparing to move against us.”
“I think that’s not unlikely. I think the message was sent in the clear. It’s only undecipherable because we don’t know what is ‘on.’”
“And you’ve taken into account,” said Mother, “the possibility that Uphanad actually sent this message himself, and is using the fact that he told you about it as cover for the fact that he’s the perpetrator”
Graft looked at her a long time, blinked, and then smiled. “I was telling myself, ‘suspect everybody,’ but now I know what a truly suspicious person is.”
Peter hadn’t thought of it either. But now it made perfect sense.
“Still, let’s not leap to conclusions, either,” said Graff. “The real sender of the message might have used Major Uphanad’s sign-on precisely so that the chief of security would be our prime suspect.”
“How long ago did he find this message?” asked Father
“A couple of days,” said Graff. “I was already scheduled to come, so I stuck to my schedule.”
“No warnings?”
“No,” said Graff. “Any departure from routine would let the sender know his signal was discovered and perhaps interpreted. It would lead him to change his plans.”
“So what do we do?” asked Peter.
“First,” said Graff, “I apologize for thinking you’d be perfectly safe here. Apparently Achilles’s reach-or perhaps China’s-is longer than we thought.”
“So do we go home?” asked Father
“Second,” said Graff, “we can’t do anything that would play into their hands. Going home right now, before the threat can be identified and neutralized, would expose you to greater danger Our betrayer could give another signal that would tell them when and where you were going to arrive on Earth. What your trajectory of descent is going to be. That sort of thing.”
“Who would risk killing the Hegemon by downing a shuttle?” said Peter. “The world would be outraged, even the people who’d be happy to see me dead.”
“Anything we do that changes our pattern would let the traitor know his signal was intercepted. It might rush the project, whatever it is, before we’re ready. No, I’m sorry to say this, but. . . our best course of action is to wait.”
“And what if we disagree?” said Peter.
“Then I’ll send you home on the shuttle of your choosing, and pray for you all the way down.”
“You’d let us go?”
“You’re my guest,” said Graff. “Not my prisoner.”
“Then let’s test it,” said Peter “We’re leaving on the next shuttle. The one that brought you-when it goes back, we’ll be on it.”
“Too soon,” said Graff. “We have no time to prepare.”
“And neither does he. I suggest,” said Peter, “that you go to Uphanad and make sure he knows that he has to put a complete blanket of secrecy on our imminent departure. He’s not even to tell Dimak.”
“But if he’s the one,” said Mother, “then-”
“Then he can’t send a signal,” said Peter “Unless he can find a way to let the information slip out and become public knowledge on the station. That’s why it’s vital, Minister Graft, that you remain with him at all times after you tell him. So if it’s him, he can’t send the signal.”
“But it’s probably not him,” said Graff, “and now you’ve let everybody know.”
“But now we’ll be watching for the outgoing message.”
“Unless they simply kill you as you’re boarding the shuttle.”
“Then our worries will be over,” said Peter. “But I think they won’t kill us here, because this agent of theirs is too useful to them- or to Achilles, depending on whose man he is-for them to use him up completely on this operation.”
Graff pondered this. “So we watch to see who might be sending the message-”
“And you have agents stationed at the landing point on Earth to see if they can spot a would-be assassin.
“I can do that,” said Graff. “One tiny problem, though.”
“What’s that?” said Peter.
“You can’t go.”
“Why can’t I?” said Peter
“Because your one-man propaganda campaign is working. The people who read your stuff have drifted more strongly into the anti-China camp. It’s still a fairly slight movement, but it’s real.”
“I can write my essays there,” said Peter.
“In danger of being killed at any moment,” said Graff.
“That could happen here, too,” said Peter.
“Well-but you yourself said it was unlikely.”
“Let’s catch the mole who’s working your station,” said Peter, “and send him home. Meanwhile, we’re heading for Earth. It’s been great being here, Minister Graft. But we’ve got to go.”
He looked at his mother and father.
“Absolutely,” said Father
“Do you think,” said Mother, “that when we get back to Earth we can find a place with little tiny beds like these?” She clung more tightly to Father’s arms. “It’s made us so much closer as a family.”
WAR PLANS
From: Demosthenes%Tecumseh@freeamerica.org
To: DropBox%Feijoada@ICameAnon.net
Re: ~ Encrypted using code
Decrypted using code
I spend half my memory capacity just holding on to whatever online identity you’re using from week to week. Why not rely on encryption? Nobody’s broken hyperprime encryption yet.
Here it is, Bean: Those stones in India? Virlomi started it, of course. Got a message from her: Now you are not in cesspool, can communicate again. Have no email here. Stones are mine. Back on bridge soon. War in earnest. Post to me only, this site, pickup name BridgeGirl password not stepstool.
At least I think that’s what “stones are mine” means. And what does “password not stepstool” mean? That the password is “not stepstool”? Or that the password is not “stepstool,” in which case it’s probably not ‘aardvark” either, but how does that help?
Anyway, I think she’s offering to begin war in earnest inside India. She can’t possibly have a nationwide network, but then, maybe she doesn’t need one. She was certainly enough in tune with the Indian people to get them all piling stones in the road. And now the whole stone wall business has taken off. Lots of skirmishes between angry hungry citizens and Chinese soldiers. Trucks hijacked. Sabotage of Chinese offices proceeding apace. What can she do more than is already happening?
Given where you are, you may have more need of her information and/or help than I do. But I’d appreciate your help understanding the parts of the message that are opaque to me.
From: LostlboBoy%Novy?IComeAnon.net
To: Demosthenes%Tecumseh?freeamerica.org
Re: >blank<
Encrypted using code ********
Decrypted using code ***********
Here’s why I keep changing identities. First, they don’t have to decrypt the message to get information if they see patterns in our correspondence-it would be useful for them to know the frequency and timing of our correspondence and the length of our messages. Second, they don’t have to decrypt the whole message, they only hove to guess our encrypt and decrypt codes. Which I bet you have written down somewhere because you don’t actually care whether I get killed because you’re too lazy to memorize. Of course I mean that in the nicest possible way, 0 right honorable Mr. Hegemon.
Here’s what Virlomi meant. Obviously she intended that you not be able to understand the message and correspond with her properly unless you talked to me or Sun. That means she doesn’t trust you completely. My guess is that if you wrote to her and left a message using the password “not stepstool,” she’d know that you hadn’t talked to me. (You don’t know how tempting it was lust to leave you with that guess.)
When we picked her up from that bridge near the Burmese border, she boarded the chopper by stepping on Suriyawong’s back as he lay prostrate before her. The password is not stepstool, it’s the real name of her stepstool. And she’s going to be back at that bridge, which means she’s made her way across India to the Burmese border, where she’ll be in a position to disrupt Chinese supply of their troops in India-or, conversely, Chinese attempts to move their troops out of India and back into China or Indochina.
Of course she’s only going to be a stone bridge. But my guess is that she’s already setting up guerrilla groups that are getting ready to disrupt traffic on the other roads between Burma and India, with a strong possibility that she’s set up something along the Himalayan border as well. I doubt she can seal the borders, but she can slow and harass their passage, tying up troops trying to protect supply lines and making the Chinese less able to mount offensives or keep their troops supplied with ammunition-always a problem for them.
Personally, I think you should tell her not to tip her hand too soon. I may be able to tell you when to post a reply asking her to start in earnest on a particular date. And no, I won’t post myself because I am most certainly watched here, and I don’t wont them to know about her directly. I’ve already caught two snoopware intrusions on my desk, which cost me twenty minutes each time, scrambling them so they send back false information to the snoops. Encrypted email like this I can send, but messages posted to dead drops can be picked up by snoopware on the local net.
And yes these are indeed my friends. But they’d be fools not to keep track of what I’m sending out-if they can.
Bean measured himself in the mirror. He still looked like himself, more or less. But he didn’t like the way his head was growing. Larger in proportion to his body. Growing faster.
I should be getting smarter, shouldn’t I? More brain space and all?
Instead I’m worrying about what will happen when my head gets too big, my skull and brains too heavy for my neck to hold the whole assemblage in a vertical position.
He measured himself against the coat closet, too. Not all that long ago, he had to stand on tiptoe to reach coat hangers. Then it became easy. Now he was reaching a bit downward from shoulder height.
Door frames were not a problem yet. But he was beginning to feel as though he should duck.
Why should his growth be accelerating now? He already hit the puberty rush.
Petra staggered past him, went into the bathroom, and puked up nothing for about five agonizing minutes.
“They should have drugs for that,” he told her afterward.
“They do,” said Petra. “But nobody knows how they might affect the baby.”
“There’ve been no studies? Impossible.”
“No studies on how they might affect your children.”
“Anton’s Key is just a couple of code spots on the genome.”
“Genes often do double and triple duty, or more.”
“And the baby probably doesn’t even have Anton’s Key. And it’s not healthy for the baby if you can’t keep any food down.”
“This won’t last forever,” said Petra. “And I’ll get fed intravenously if I have to. I’m not doing anything to endanger this baby, Bean. Sorry if my puking ruins your appetite for breakfast.”
“Nothing ruins my appetite for breakfast,” said Bean. “I’m a growing boy.”
She retched again.
“Sorry,” said Bean.
“I don’t do this,” she whispered miserably, “because your jokes are so bad.”
“No,” said Bean. “It’s cause my genes are.”
She retched again and he left the room, feeling guilty about leaving, but knowing he’d be useless if he stayed. She wasn’t one of those people who need petting when they’re sick. She preferred to be left alone in her misery. It was one of the ways they were alike. Sort of like injured animals that slink off into the woods to get better-or die-alone.
Alai was waiting for him in the large conference room. Chairs were gathered around a large holo on the floor, where a map was being projected of the terrain and militarily significant roads of India and western China.
By now the others were used to seeing Bean there, though there were some who still didn’t like it. But the Caliph wanted him there, the Caliph trusted him.
They watched as the known locations of Chinese garrison troops were brought up in blue, and then the probable locations of mobile forces and reserves in green. When he first saw this map, Bean made the faux pas of asking where they were getting their information. He was informed, quite coldly, that both Persia and the Israeli-Egyptian consortium had active satellite placement programs, and their spy satellites were the best in orbit. “We can get the blood type of individual enemy soldiers,” said Alai with a smile. An exaggeration, of course. But then Bean wondered-some kind of spectroanalysis of their sweat?
Not possible. Alai was joking, not boasting.
Now, Bean trusted their information as much as they did-because of course he had made discreet inquiries through Peter and through some of his own connections. Putting together what Vlad could tell him from Russian intelligence and what Crazy Tom was giving him from England. plus Peter’s American sources, it was clear that the Muslims-the Crescent League-had everything the others had. And more.
The plan was simple. Massive troop movements along the border between India and Pakistan, bringing Iranian troops up to the front. This should draw a strong Chinese response, with their troops also concentrated along that border
Meanwhile, Turkic forces were already in place on, and sometimes inside, China’s western border, having traveled over the past few months in disguise as nomads. On paper, the western region of China looked like ideal country for tanks and trucks, but in reality, fuel supply lines would be a recurring nightmare. So the first wave of Turks would enter as cavalry, switching to mechanized transport only when they were in a position to steal and use Chinese equipment.
This was the most dangerous aspect of the plan, Bean knew. The Turkic armies, combining forces from the Hellespont to the Aral Sea and the foothills of the Himalayas, were equipped like raiders, yet had to do the job of an invading army. They had a couple of advantages that might compensate for their lack of armor and air support. Having no supply lines meant the Chinese wouldn’t have anything to bomb at first. The native people of the western China province of Xinjiang were Turkic too, and like the Tibetans, they had never stopped seething under the rule of Han China.
Above all, the Turks would have surprise and numbers on their side during the crucial first days. The Chinese garrison troops were all massed on the border with Russia. Until those forces could be moved, the Turks should have an easy time, striking anywhere they wanted, taking out police and supply stations-and, with luck, every airfield in Xinjiang.
By the time Chinese troops moved off the Russian border and into the interior to deal with the Turks, the fully mechanized Turkish troops would be entering China from the west. Now there would be supply lines to attack, but deprived of their forward air bases, and forced to face Turkish fighters which would now be using them, China would not have clear air superiority.
Taking underdefended air bases with cavalry was just the sort of touch Bean would have expected from Alai. They could only hope that Han Tzu would not anticipate Alai having complete authority over the inevitable Muslim move, for the Chinese would have to be crazy not to be planning to defend against a Muslim invasion.
At some point, it was hoped that the Turks would do well enough that the Chinese would be forced to begin shifting troops from India north into Xinjiang. Here the terrain favored Alai’s plan, for awhile some Chinese troops could be airlifted over the Tibetan Himalayas, the Tibetan roads would be disrupted by Turkic demolition teams, and the Chinese troops would all have to be moved eastward from India, around the Himalayas, and into western China from the east rather than the south.
It would take days, and when the Muslims believed that the maximum number of Chinese troops were in transit, where they could not fight anybody, they would launch the massive invasion over the border between Pakistan and India.
So much depended on what the Chinese believed. At first, the Chinese had to believe that the real assault would come from Pakistan, so that the main Chinese force would remain tied up on that frontier. Then, at a crucial point several days into the Turkic operation, the Chinese had to be convinced that the Turkic front was, in fact, the real invasion. They had to be so convinced of this that they would withdraw troops from India, weakening their forces there.
How else does an inexperienced three-million-man army defeat an army of ten million veterans?
They went through contingency plans for the several days following the commitment of Muslim troops in Pakistan, but Bean knew, as did Alai, that nothing that happened after the Muslim troops began crossing the Indian border could be predicted. They had plans in case the invasion failed utterly, and Pakistan had to be protected at fallback positions well inside the Pakistani border They had plans for dealing with a complete rout of the Chinese forces-not likely, as they knew. But in the most likely scenario-a difficult back-and-forth battle across a thousand-mile front-plans would have to be improvised to take advantage of every turn of events.
“So,” said Alai. “That is the plan. Any comments?”
Around the circle, one officer after another voiced his measured confidence. This was not because they were all yes-men, but because Alai had already listened carefully to the objections they raised before and had altered the plans to deal with those he thought were serious problems.
Only one of the Muslims offered any objection today, and it was the one nonmilitary man, Lankowski, whose role, as best Bean could tell, was halfway between minister-without-portfolio and chaplain. “I think it is a shame,” he said, “that our plans are so dependent upon what Russia chooses to do.”
Bean knew what he meant. Russia was completely unpredictable in this situation. On the one hand, the Warsaw Pact had a treaty with China that had secured China’s long northern border with Russia, freeing them to conquer India in the first place. On the other hand, the Russians and Chinese had been rivals in this region for centuries, and each believed the other held territory that was rightfully theirs.
And there were unpredictable personal issues as well. How many loyal servants of Achilles were still in positions of trust and authority in Russia? At the same time, many Russians were furious at how they had been used by him before he went to India and then China.
Yet Achilles brokered the secret treaty between Russia and China, so he couldn’t be all that detested, could he?
But what was that treaty really worth? Every Russian schoolchild knew that the stupidest Russian tsar of them all had been Stalin, because he made a treaty with Hitler’s Germany and then expected it to be kept. Surely the Russians did not really believe China would stay at peace with them forever.
So there was always the chance that Russia, seeing China at a disadvantage, would join the fray. The Russians would see it as a chance to seize territory and to preempt the inevitable Chinese betrayal of them.
That would be a good thing, if the Russians attacked in force but were not terribly successful. It would bleed Chinese troops from the battle against the Muslims. But it would be a very bad thing if Russia did too well or too badly. Too well, and they might slice down through Mongolia and seize Beijing. Then the Muslim victory would become a Russian one. Alai did not want to have Russia in a dominant role in the peace negotiations.
And if Russia entered the war but lost quickly, Chinese troops would not have to watch the Russian border. Free to move, those garrison troops might be hurled against the Turks, or they might be sent through Russian territory to strike into Kazakhstan, threatening to cut off Turkish supply lines.
That was why Alai had expressed his hope that the Russians would be too surprised to do anything at all.
“There’s no helping it,” said Alai. “We have done all we can do.
What Russia does is in the hands of God.”
“May I speak?” said Bean.
Alai nodded. All eyes turned to him. At previous meetings, Bean had said nothing, preferring to talk with Alai in private, where he did not risk committing an error in the way he spoke to the Caliph.
“When you have committed to battle,” said Bean, “I believe I can use my own contacts, and persuade the Hegemon to use his, to urge Russia to pursue whatever course you think most advisable.”
Several of the men shifted uncomfortably in their chairs.
“Please reassure my worried friends here,” said Alai, “that you have not already been in discussion with the Hegemon or anyone else about our plans.”
“The opposite is true,” said Bean. “You are the ones who are preparing to take action. I have been providing you with all the information I learned from them. But I know these people, and what they can do. The Hegemon has no armies, but he does have great influence on world opinion. Of course he will speak in favor of your action. But he also has influence inside Russia, which he could use either to urge intervention, or to argue against it. My friends, also.”
Bean knew that Alai knew that the only friend worth mentioning was Vlad, and Vlad had been the only one of the kidnapped members of Ender’s jeesh to join with Achilles and take his side. Whether that had been because he had truly become a follower of Achilles or because he thought Achilles was acting in the interest of Mother Russia, Bean still had not figured out. Vlad provided him with information sometimes, but Bean always looked for a second source before he fully trusted it.
“Then I will tell you this,” said Alai. “Today I don’t know what would be more useful, for Russia to join in the attack or for Russia to stand by doing nothing. As long as they don’t attack us, I’ll be content. But as events unfold, the picture may become clearer.”
Bean did not need to point out to Alai that Russia would not enter the war to rescue a failing Muslim invasion-only if the Russians scented victory would they put their own forces at risk. So if Alai waited too long to ask for help, it would not come.
They took a break for the noon meal, but it was very brief, and when they returned to the conference room, the map had changed. There was a third part of the plan, and Bean knew that this was the one that Alai was least certain about.
For months now, Arab armies from Egypt, Iraq, and every other Arab nation had been transported on oil tankers from Arab ports to Indonesia. The Indonesian navy was one of the most formidable in the world, and its carrier-based air force was the only one in the region that rivaled the Chinese in equipment and armament. Everyone knew that it was because of the Indonesian umbrella that the Chinese had not taken Singapore or ventured into the Philippines.
Now it was proposed that the Indonesian navy be used to transport a combined Arab-Indonesian army to effect a landing in Thailand or Vietnam. Both nations were filled with people who longed for deliverance from the Chinese conquerors.
When the plans for the two possible landing sites had been fully laid out, Alai did not ask for criticisms-he had his own. “I think in both cases, our plans for the landing are excellent. My misgiving is the same one I’ve had all along. There is no serious military objective there to be achieved. The Chinese can afford to lose battle after battle there, using only their available forces, retreating farther and farther, while waiting to see the outcome of the real war. I think the soldiers we sent there would risk dying for no good purpose. It’s too much like the Italian campaign in World War II. Long, slow, costly, and ineffective, even if we win every battle.”
The Indonesian commander bowed his head. “I am grateful for the Caliph’s concern for the lives of our soldiers. But the Muslims of Indonesia could not bear to stand by while their brothers fight. If these objectives are meaningless, find us something meaningful to do.”
One of the Arab officers added his agreement. “We’ve committed our troops to this operation. Is it too late, then, to bring them back and let them join with the Pakistanis and Iranians in the liberation of India? Their numbers might make a crucial difference there.”
“The time draws close for the weather to be at its best for our purposes,” said Alai. “There’s no time to bring back the Arab armies. But I can see no value in sending soldiers into battle for no better reason than solidarity, or delaying the invasion in order to bring the Arab armies into a different theater of war. If it was a mistake to send them to Indonesia, the mistake is my own.
They murmured their disagreement. They could not agree with blaming the Caliph for any mistakes. At the same time, Bean knew that they appreciated knowing they were led by a man who did not blame others. It was part of the reason they loved him.
Alai spoke over their objections. “I have not decided yet whether to launch the third front. But if we do launch it, then the objective we should plan for is Thailand, not Vietnam. I realize the risks of leaving the fleet exposed for a longer time at sea-we will have to count on the Indonesian pilots to protect their ships. I choose Thailand because it is a more coherent country, with terrain more suitable for a swift conquest. In Vietnam, we would have to fight for every inch of territory, and our progress would look slow on the map-the Chinese would feel safe. In Thailand, our progress will look very quick and dangerous. As long as they forget that Thailand is not important to them in the overall war, it might cause them to send troops there to oppose us.
After a few more niceties, the meeting ended. One thing that no one mentioned was the actual date of the invasion. Bean was sure that one had been chosen and that everyone in the room but him knew what it was. He accepted that-it was the one piece of information which he had no need to know, and the most crucial one to withhold from him if he could not be trusted after all.
Back in their room, Bean found Petra asleep. He sat down and used his desk to access his email and check a few sites on the nets. He was interrupted by a light knock on the door Petra was instantly awake-pregnant or not, she still slept like a soldier-and she was at the door before Bean could shut down his connection and step away from the table.
Lankowski stood there, looking apologetic and regal, a combination that only he could have mastered. “If you will forgive me,” he said, “our mutual friend wishes to speak with you in the garden.”
“Both of us?” asked Petra.
“Please, unless you are too ill.”
Soon they were seated on the bench beside Alai’s garden throne- though of course he never called it that, referring to it only as a chair.
“I’m sorry Petra, that I couldn’t bring you into the meeting. Our Crescent League is not recidivist, but it would make some of them too uncomfortable to have a woman present at such meetings.”
“Alai, do you think I don’t know that?” she said. “You have to deal with the culture around you.”
“I assume that Bean has acquainted you with our plans?”
“I was asleep when he returned to the room,” said Petra, “so anything that’s changed since last time, I don’t know.”
“I’m sorry, then, but perhaps you can pick up what’s happening from the context. Because I know Bean has something to say and he didn’t say it yet.”
“I saw no flaw in your plans,” said Bean. “I think you’ve done everything that could possibly be done, including being smart enough not to think you can plan what will happen once battle has been joined in India.”
“But such praise is not what I saw on your face,” said Alai.
“I didn’t think my face was readable,” said Bean.
“It isn’t,” said Alai. “That’s why I’m asking you.”
“We’ve received an offer that I think you’ll be glad of,” said Bean.
“From?”
“I don’t know if you ever knew Virlomi,” said Bean.
“Battle School?”
“Yes.”
“Before my time, I think. I was a young boy and paid no attention to girls anyway.” He smiled at Petra.
“Weren’t we all,” said Bean. “Virlomi was the one who made it possible for me and Suriyawong to retrieve Petra from Hyderabad and save the Indian Battle School graduates from being slaughtered by Achilles.”
“She has my admiration, then,” said Alai.
“She’s back in India. All that building of stone obstacles, the so called Great Wall of India-apparently she’s the one who started that.”
Now Alai’s interest looked like more than mere politeness.
“Peter received a message from her. She has no idea about you and what you’re doing, and neither does Peter, but she sent the message in language that he couldn’t understand without conferring with me-a very careful and wise thing for her to do, I think.”
They exchanged smiles.
“She is in place in the area of a bridge spanning one of the roads between India and Burma. She may be able to disrupt one, many, or even all of the major roads leading between India and China.”
Alai nodded.
“It would be a disaster, of course.” said Bean, “if she acted on her own and cut the roads before the Chinese are able to move any troops out of India. In other words, if she thinks the real invasion is the Turkish one, then she might think her most helpful role would he to keep Chinese troops in India. Ideally, what she would do is wait until they start trying to move hoops hack into India, and then cut the roads, keeping them out.”
“But if we tell her,” said Alai, “and the message is . . . intercepted, then the Chinese will know that the Turkic operation is not the main effort.”
“Well, that’s why I didn’t want to bring this up in front of the others. I can tell you that I believe communication between her and Peter, and between Peter and me, is secure. I believe that Peter is desperate for your invasion to succeed, and Virlomi will be too, and they will not tell anyone anything that would compromise it. But it’s your call.”
“Peter is desperate for our invasion to succeed?” asked Alai.
“Alai, the man’s not stupid. I didn’t have to tell him about your plans or even that you had plans. He knows that you’re here, in seclusion, and he has satellite reports of the troop movements to the Indian frontier. He hasn’t discussed it with me, but I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he also knew about the Arab presence in Indonesia- that’s the kind of thing he always finds out about because he has contacts everywhere.”
“Sorry to suspect you,” said Alai, “but I’d be remiss if I didn’t.”
“Think about Virlomi, anyway.” said Bean. “It would be tragic if, in her effort to help, she actually hindered your plan.”
“But that’s not all you wanted to say,” said Alai.
“No,” said Bean, and he hesitated.
“Go on.”
“Your reason for not wanting to open the third front was a sound one,” said Bean. “Not wanting to waste lives taking militarily unimportant objectives.”
“So you think I shouldn’t use that force at all,” said Alai.
“No,” said Bean. “I think you need to be bolder with them. I think you need to waste more lives on an even more spectacular nonmilitary objective.”
Alai turned away. “I was afraid you’d see that.”
“I was sure you’d already thought of it.”
“I was hoping one of the Arabs or the Indonesians themselves would propose it,” said Alai.
“Propose what?” asked Petra.
“The military goal,” said Bean, “is to destroy their armies, which is done by attacking them with superior force, achieving surprise, and cutting off their supply and escape routes. Nothing you do with the third front can achieve any of those objectives.”
“I know,” said Alai.
“China isn’t a democracy. The government doesn’t have to win elections. But they need the support of their people all the more because of that.”
Petra sighed her understanding. “Invade China itself.”
“There is no hope of success in such an invasion,” said Alai. “On the other fronts, we will have a citizenry that welcomes us and cooperates with us, while obstructing them. In China, the opposite would be true. Their air force would be working from nearby airfields and could fly sortie after sortie between each wave of our planes. The potential for disaster would be very great.”
“Plan for disaster.” said Bean. “Begin with disaster.”
“You’re too subtle for me,” said Alai.
“What’s disaster in this case? Besides actually getting stopped at the beach-not likely, since China has one of the most inevasible shorelines in the world-a disaster is for your force to be dispersed, cut off from supply, and operating without coordinating central control.”
“Land them,” said Alai, “and have them immediately begin a guerrilla campaign? But they won’t have the support of the people.”
“I thought about this a lot,” said Bean. “The Chinese people are used to oppression-when have they not been oppressed?-but they’ve never become reconciled to it. Think how many peasant revolts there’ve been-and against governments far more benign than this one. Now, if your soldiers go into China like Sherman’s march to the sea, they’ll be opposed at every step.”
“But they have to live off the land, if they’re cut off from supply.” said Alai.
“Strictly disciplined troops can make this work.” said Bean. “But this will be hard for the Indonesians, given the way the Chinese have always been regarded within Indonesia itself.”
“Trust me to control my troops.”
“Then here’s what they do. In every village they come to, they take half the food-but only half. They make a big point of leaving the rest, and you tell them it’s because Allah did not send you to make war against the Chinese people. If you had to kill anybody to get control of the village, apologize to the family or to the whole village, if it was a soldier who died. Be the nicest invaders they’ve ever imagined.”
“Oh,” said Alai. “That’s asking a lot, from mere discipline.”
Petra was getting the vision of this. ”Maybe if you quote to your soldiers that passage from The Elevated Places, where it says, ‘Maybe your Lord will destroy your enemy and make you rulers in the land. Then He will see how you act.’”
Alai looked at her in genuine consternation. “You quote the Q’uran to me?”
“I thought the verse was appropriate,” she said. “Isn’t that why you had them put it in my room? So I’d read it?”
Alai shook his head. “Lankowski gave you the Q’uran.”
“And she read it,” added Bean. “We’re both surprised.”
“It’s a good passage to use,” said Alai. “Maybe God will make us rulers in China. Let’s show from the start that we can do it justly and righteously.”
“The best part of the plan.” said Bean, “is that the Chinese soldiers will come right afterward, and fearing that their own armies will be left without supplies, or in the effort to deprive your army of further provender, they will probably seize all the rest of the food.”
Alai nodded, smiled, then laughed. “Our invading army leaves the Chinese people enough to eat, but the Chinese army makes them starve.”
“The likelihood of a public relations victory is very high,” said Bean.
“And meanwhile,” said Petra, “the Chinese soldiers in India and Xingjian are going crazy because they don’t know what’s going on with their families back home.”
“The invasion fleet doesn’t mass for the attack,” said Bean. “It’s done in Filipino and Indonesian fishing boats, small forces up and down the coast. The Indonesian fleet, with its carriers, waits far offshore, until they’re called in on air strikes against identified military targets. Every time they try to find your army, you melt away. No pitched battles. At first the people will help them; soon enough, the people will help you. You resupply with ammunition and demolition equipment by air drops at night. Food they find for themselves. And all the time they move farther and farther inland, destroying communications, blowing up bridges. No dams, though. Leave the dams alone.”
“Of course,” said Alai darkly. “We remember Aswan.”
“Anyway, that was my suggestion.” said Bean. “Militarily, it does nothing for you during the first weeks. The attrition rate will be high at first, until the teams get in from the coast and get used to this kind of combat. But if even a quarter of your contingents are able to remain free and effective, operating inside China, it will force the Chinese to bring more and more troops home from the Indian front.”
“Until they sue for peace,” said Alai. “We don’t actually want to rule over China. We want to liberate India and Indochina, bring back all the captives taken into China, and restore the rightful governments, but with a treaty allowing complete privileges to Muslims within their borders.”
“So much bloodshed, for such a modest goal,” said Petra.
“And, of course, the liberation of Turkic China,” said Alai.
“They’ll like that,” said Bean.
“And Tibet,” said Alai.
“Humiliate them enough.” said Petra, “and you’ve merely set the stage for the next war.”
“And complete freedom of religion in China as well.”
Petra laughed. “It’s going to be a long war, Alai. The new empire they’d probably give up-they haven’t held it that long, and it’s not as if it brought them great wealth and honor. But they’ve held Tibet and Turkic China for centuries. There are Han Chinese all over both territories.”
“Those are problems to be solved later,” said Alai, “and not by you. Probably not by me, either. But we know what the West keeps forgetting. If you win, win.”
“I think that approach was proven a disaster at Versailles.”
“No”’ said Alai. “It was only proven a disaster after Versailles, when France and England didn’t have the spine, didn’t have the will, to compel obedience to the treaty. After World War II, the Allies were wiser. They left their troops on German soil for nearly a century. In some cases benignly, in some cases brutally, but always definitely there.”
“As you said,” Bean answered, “you and your successors will find out how well this works, and how to solve the new problems that are bound to come up. But I warn you now, that if liberators turn out to be oppressors, the people they liberated will feel even more betrayed and hate them worse.”
“I’m aware of that,” said Alai. “And I know what you’re warning me of.”
“I think,” said Bean, “that you won’t know whether the Muslim people have actually changed from the bad old days of religious intolerance until you put power in their hands.”
“What the Caliph can do,” said Alai, “I will do.”
“I know you will,” said Petra. “I don’t envy you your responsibility.”
Alai smiled. “Your friend Peter does. In fact, he wants more.”
“And your people,” said Bean, “will want more on your behalf. You may not want to rule the world, but if you win in China, they’ll want you to, in their name. And at that point, Alai, how can you tell them no?”
“With these lips,” said Alai. “And this heart.”
TRAPS
To: Locke%erasmus@potnet.gov
From: Sand%Water@ArabNet.net
Re: Invitation to a party
You don’t wont to miss this one. Kemal upstairs thinks he’s the whole show, but when Show and Pock get started in the basement, that’s when the fireworks stop say wait for the downstairs party before you pop any corks.
“John Paul,” said Theresa Wiggin quietly, “I don’t understand what Peter’s doing here.”
John Paul closed his suitcase. “That’s the way he likes it.”
“We’re supposed to be doing this secretly, but he-”
“Asked us not to talk about it in here.” John Paul put his finger to his lips, then picked up her suitcase as well as his and started on the long walk to the bunkroom door.
Theresa could do nothing but sigh and follow him. After all they’d been through with Peter, you’d think he could confide in them. But he still had to play these games where nobody knew everything that was going on but him. It was only a few hours since he had decided they were going to leave on the next shuttle, and supposedly they were supposed to keep it an absolute secret.
So what does Peter do? Asks practically every member of the permanent station crew to do some favor for him, run some errand, “and you’ve got to get it to me by 1800.”
They weren’t idiots. They all knew that 1800 was when everyone going on the next flight had to board for a 1900 departure.
So this great secret had been leaked, by implication, to everybody on the crew.
And yet he still insisted that they not talk about it, and John Paul was going along with him! What kind of madness was this? Peter was clearly not being careless, he was too systematic for it to be an accident. Was he hoping to catch someone in the act of transmitting a warning to Achilles? Well, what if, instead of a warning, they just blew up the shuttle? Maybe that was the operation-to sabotage whatever shuttle they were going home on. Did Peter think of that?
Of course he did. It was in Peter’s nature to think of everything.
Or at least it was in Peter’s nature to think he had thought of everything.
Out in the corridor, John Paul kept walking too quickly for her to converse with him, and when she tried anyway, he put his fingers to his lips.
“It’s OK,” he murmured.
At the elevator to the hub of the station, where the shuttles docked, Dimak was waiting for them. He had to be there, because their palms would not activate the elevator.
“I’m sorry we’ll be losing you so soon,” said Dimak.
“You never did tell us,” said John Paul, “which bunk room was Dragon Army’s.”
“Ender never slept there anyway,” said Dimak. “He had a private room. Commanders always did. Before that he was in several armies, but..
“Too late now, anyway,” said John Paul.
The elevator door opened. Dimak stepped inside, held the door for them, palmed the controls, and entered the code for the right flight deck.
Then he stepped back out of the elevator. “Sorry I can’t see you off, but Colonel-the Minister suggested I shouldn’t know about this.”
John Paul shrugged.
The elevator doors closed and they began their ascent.
“Johnny P.,” said Theresa, “if we’re so worried about being bugged, what was that about, talking so openly with him?”
“He carries a damper,” said John Paul. “His conversations can’t be listened to. Ours can, and this elevator is definitely bugged.”
