What ELSE can I do while I'm sitting around with a belly the size of a barn except type? It's actually hard work, considering the keyboard is at arm's length. And it's not as if anti-Muslim propaganda is harder than breathing. I'm Armenian, O Father of the Balloon I'm Carrying Around Inside My Abdomen. We learn about how Muslims—Turks in particular, of course—have been slaughtering Armenian Christians from time immemorial. How they can never be trusted. And guess what? When I look for evidence, ancient and contemporary, I don't have to get out of my chair.

 

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So I will continue to write the Martel essays and continue to laugh while they accuse Peter of writing them. Of course!

 

 

AM doing it at his request, which is what I understand Valentine did for him when she wrote Demosthenes's essays back when we were all in school. But you know that nobody will listen to his Lincoln stuff unless they're also terrified. Either terrified of Muslims taking over the world (id est, more particularly, their neighborhood) or terrified of the hideous bloodshed that would ensue if nations with Muslim minorities actually started restricting them or expelling them.

 

 

Besides, Bean, I think that what I'm saying is true. Alai means well but he clearly is not in control of his fanatical supporters. They really are murdering people and calling it "executions." They really are trying to rule over India. They really are agitating and rioting and committing the odd atrocity in Europe right now, pushing to have European nations declare for the Caliph and cease trading with China, which really is supplying Virlomi.

 

 

And now this essay will end because the stomach aches I've been having are clearly not stomach aches. This baby thinks it's coming, two months prematurely. Please get back here right away.

 

 

 

Peter waited outside the delivery room with Anton and Ferreira.

 

"Does this premature birth mean anything?" he asked Anton.

 

"They wouldn't let the doctors amnio the baby," said Anton, "so I didn't have any reliable genetic material to work with. But we know that in the early stages, maturity is highly accelerated. It seems possible to me that premature birth is consistent with the key being turned."

 

"My thought," said Peter, "is that this might be the break we need to find the other babies and unravel Volescu's network."

 

"Because the others might be premature too?" asked Ferreira.

 

"I think Volescu had a deadman switch and sometime after he was arrested, a warning went out and all the surrogate mothers bolted. That wouldn't help us before, because we didn't know when the signal went out, and pregnant women may be one of the more stable demographic groups, but they do move around by the hundreds of thousands."

 

Ferreira nodded. "But now we can try to correlate premature births with abrupt moves at the same time as other women with similarly premature births."

 

"And then check funding. They'll have the best possible hospital care, and somebody's paying for it."

 

"Unless," said Anton, "this baby is premature because Petra herself has some kind of problem."

 

"There's no history of premature births in her family," said Peter. "And the baby has been developing quickly. Not in size, mind you—but the parts were all in place before schedule. I think this baby is like Bean. I think the key is turned. So let's use it as a key to finding where Volescu went and where those viruses might be waiting to be released."

 

"Not to mention finding Bean's and Petra's babies," said Anton.

 

"Of course," said Peter. "That's the main purpose." He turned to the managing nurse. "Have someone call me when we know anything about the condition of the mother and baby."

 

 

 

Bean sat down beside Petra's bed. "How do you feel?"

 

"Not as bad as I expected," she said.

 

"That's one good thing about premature delivery," he said. "Smaller baby, easier birth. He's doing fine. They're only keeping him in neonate intensive care because of his size. All his other organs are working."

 

"He's got... he's like you."

 

"Anton is supervising the analysis right now. But that's my guess." He held her hand. "The thing we wanted to avoid."

 

"If he's like you," she said, "then I'm not sorry."

 

"If he's like me," said Bean, "then it means Volescu really didn't have any kind of test. Or he had one, and discarded the babies that were normal. Or maybe they're all like me."

 

"The thing you wanted to avoid," she whispered.

 

"Our little miracles," said Bean.

 

"I hope you're not too disappointed. I hope you.... Think of it as a chance to see what your life might have been like if you had grown up with parents, in a home. Not barely escaping with your life and then scrabbling to survive on the streets of Rotterdam."

 

"At the age of one."

 

"Think what it will be like to raise this baby surrounded by love, teaching him as fast as he wants to learn. All those lost years, recovered for our baby."

 

Bean shook his head. "I hoped the baby would be normal," he said. "I hoped they'd all be normal. So I wouldn't have to consider this."

 

"Consider what?"

 

"Taking the baby with me."

 

"With you where?" asked Petra.

 

"The I.F. has a new starship. Very secret. A messenger ship. It uses a gravity field to offset acceleration. Up to lightspeed in a week. The plan is that once we find the babies, I take the ones like me and we take off and keep traveling until they find the cure for this."

 

"Once you're gone," said Petra, "why do you think the fleet will bother even looking for a cure?"

 

"Because they want to know how to turn Anton's Key without the side effects," said Bean. "They'll keep working on it."

 

Petra nodded. She was taking this better than Bean expected.

 

"All right," she said. "As soon as we find the babies. Then we go."

 

"We?" said Bean.

 

"I'm sure, in your normal legumocentric view of the universe, it didn't cross your mind that there's no reason I shouldn't go along with you."

 

"Petra, it means being cut off from the human race. It's different for me because I'm not human."

 

"That again."

 

"What kind of life is that for the normal babies? Growing up confined to a starship?"

 

"It would only seem like weeks, Bean. How grown up will they be?"

 

"You'd be cut off from everything. Your family. Everybody."

 

"You stupid man," she said. "You are everybody now. You and our babies."

 

"You could raise the normal babies ... normally. With grandparents. A normal life."

 

"A fatherless life. And their siblings off on a starship, so they'll never even meet. I don't think so, Bean. Do you think I'm going to give birth to this little boy and then let somebody take him away from me?"

 

Bean stroked her cheek, her hair. "Petra, there's a whole bunch of rational arguments against what you're saying, but you just gave birth to my son, and I'm not going to argue with you now."

 

"You're right," said Petra. "By all means, let's avoid this discussion until I've nursed the baby for the first time and it becomes even more impossible for me to consider letting you take him away from me. But I'll tell you this right now. I will never change my mind. And if you maneuver things so you sneak off and steal my son from me and leave me a widow without even my child to raise, then you're worse than Volescu. When he stole our children, we knew he was an amoral monster. But you—you're my husband. If you do that to me, I'll pray that God puts you in the deepest part of hell."

 

"Petra, you know I don't believe in hell."

 

"But knowing that I'm praying such a thing, that will be hell for you."

 

"Petra, I won't do anything you don't agree to."

 

"Then I'm coming with you," she said, "because I'll never agree to anything else. So it's decided. There's no discussion to have later when I'm rational. I'm already as rational as I'll ever be. In fact, there's no rational reason why I shouldn't come along if I want to. It's an excellent idea. And being raised on a starship has to be better than being orphaned on the streets of Rotterdam."

 

"No wonder they named you after rock," said Bean.

 

"I don't give up and I don't wear down. I'm not just rock, I'm diamond."

 

Her eyelids were heavy.

 

"Go to sleep now, Petra."

 

"Only if I can hold on to you," she said.

 

He took her hand; she gripped it fiercely. "I got you to give me a baby," she said. "Don't think for a minute I'm not going to get my way in this, too."

 

"I promised you already, Petra," said Bean. "Whatever we do, it'll be because you agree that it's the right thing."

 

"Think you want to leave me. Voyage to... nowhere. Think nowhere's better than living with me...."

 

"That's right, baby," said Bean, stroking her arm with his other hand. "Nowhere is better than living with you."

 

 

 

They had the baby christened by a priest. He came into neonate intensive care; not the first time he'd done it, of course, baptizing distressed newborns before they died. He seemed relieved to learn that this baby was strong and healthy and likely to survive, despite how tiny he was.

 

"Andrew Arkanian Delphiki, I baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost."

 

It was quite a crowd gathered around the neonate incubator to watch. Bean's family, Petra's family, and of course Anton and Ferreira and Peter and the Wiggin parents and Suriyawong and those members of Bean's little army who weren't actually on assignment. They had to wheel the incubator cart out into a waiting room to have space enough to hold everybody.

 

"You're going to call him Ender, aren't you," said Peter.

 

"Until he makes us stop," said Petra.

 

"What a relief," said Theresa Wiggin. "Now you won't have to name a child of your own after your brother, Peter."

 

Peter ignored her, which meant that her words had really stung.

 

"The baby is named for Saint Andrew," said Petra's mother. "Babies are named for saints, not soldiers."

 

"Of course, Mother," said Petra. "Ender and our baby were both named for Saint Andrew."

 

 

 

Anton and his team learned that yes, the baby definitely had Bean's syndrome. The Key was turned. And having two sets of genes to compare confirmed that Bean's genetic modification bred true. "But there's no reason to suppose that all the babies will have the modification," he reported to Bean, Petra, and Peter. "The likelihood is that the trait is dominant, however. So any child who has it should be on the fast track."

 

"Premature birth," said Bean.

 

"And we can guess that statistically, half the eight babies should have the trait. Mendel's law. Not ironclad, because randomness is involved. So there might be only three. Or five. Or more. Or this might be the only one. But the likeliest thing—"

 

"We know how probability works, Professor," said Ferreira.

 

"I wanted to emphasize the uncertainty."

 

"Believe me," said Ferreira, "uncertainty is my life. Right now we've found either two dozen or nearly a hundred groups of women who gave birth within two weeks of Petra, and who moved at the same time as others in their group, since the day Volescu was arrested."

 

"How can you not even know how many groups you have?" asked Bean.

 

"Selection criteria," said Petra.

 

"If we divide them into groups that left within six hours of each other, then we get the higher total. If we divide them into groups that left within two days of each other, the lower total. Plus we can shift the timeframes and the groups also shift."

 

"What about prematurity in the babies?"

 

"That supposes that the doctors are aware that the babies are premature," said Ferreira. "Low birth weight is what we went for. We eliminated any babies that were higher than the low end of normal. Most of them will be premature. But not all."

 

"And all of this," said Petra, "depends on all the babies being on the same clock."

 

"It's all we can go on," said Peter. "If it turns out that Anton's Key doesn't make them all trigger delivery after about the same gestation time... well, it's no more of a problem than the fact that we don't know when the other embryos were implanted."

 

"Some of the embryos might have been implanted much more recently," said Ferreira. "So we're going to keep adding women to the database as they give birth to low-birthweight children and turn out to have moved at about the time Volescu was arrested. You realize how many variables there are that we don't know? How many of the embryos have Anton's Key. When they were implanted. If they were all implanted. If Volescu even had a deadman switch."

 

"I thought you said he did."

 

"He did," said Ferreira. "We just don't know what the switch was about. Maybe it was for release of the virus. Maybe for the mothers to move. Maybe both. Maybe neither."

 

"A lot of things we don't know," said Bean. "Remarkable how little we got from Volescu's computer."

 

"He's a careful man," said Ferreira. "He knew perfectly well that he'd be caught someday, and his computer seized. We learned more than he could have imagined—but less than we had hoped."

 

"Just keep looking," said Petra. "Meanwhile, I have a baby-shaped suction cup to go attach to one of the tenderest parts of my body. Promise me that he won't develop teeth early."

 

"I don't know," said Bean. "I can't remember not having them."

 

"Thanks for the encouragement," said Petra.

 

 

 

Bean got up in the night, as usual, to get little Ender so Petra could nurse him. Tiny as he was, he had a pair of lungs on him. Nothing small about his voice.

 

And, as usual, once the baby started suckling. Bean watched until Petra rolled over to feed the baby on the other side. Then he slept.

 

Until he awoke again. Usually he didn't, so for all he knew it was like this every time. Because Petra was still nursing the baby, but she was also crying.

 

"Baby, what's wrong?" said Bean, touching her shoulder.

 

"Nothing," she said. She wasn't crying anymore.

 

"Don't try to lie to me," said Bean. "You were crying."

 

"I'm so happy," she said.

 

"You were thinking about how old little Ender will be when he dies."

 

"That's silly," she said. "We're going off in a starship until they find a cure. He's going to live to be a hundred."

 

"Petra " said Bean.

 

"What. I'm not lying."

 

"You're crying because in your mind's eye you can already see the death of your baby."

 

She sat up and lifted the now-sleeping baby to her shoulder. "Bean, you really are bad at guessing things like this. I was crying because I thought of you as a little baby, and how you didn't have a father to go and get you when you cried in the night, and you didn't have a mother to hold you and feed you from her own body, and you had no experience of love."

 

"But when I finally found out what it was, I got more of it than any man could hope for."

 

"Damn right," said Petra. "And don't you forget it."

 

She got up and took the baby back to the bassinet.

 

And tears came to Bean's eyes. Not pity for himself as a baby. But remembering Sister Carlotta, who had become his mother and stayed with him long before he learned what love was and was able to give any back to her. And some of his tears were also for Poke, the friend who took him in when he was in the last stages of death by malnutrition in Rotterdam.

 

Petra, don't you know how short life is, even when you don't have some disease like Anton's Key? So many people prematurely in their graves, and some of them I put there. Don't cry for me. Cry for my brothers who were disposed of by Volescu as he destroyed evidence of his crimes. Cry for all the children that no one ever loved.

 

Bean thought he was being subtle, turning his head so Petra couldn't see his tears when she came back to bed. Whether she saw or not, she snuggled close to him and held him.

 

How could he tell this woman who had always been so good to him and loved him more than he knew how to return—how could he tell her that he had lied to her? He didn't believe that there would ever be a cure for Anton's Key.

 

When he got on that starship with the babies that had his same disease, he expected to take off and head outward into the stars. He would live long enough to teach the children how to run the starship. They would explore. They would send reports back by ansible. They would map habitable planets farther away than any other humans would want to travel. In fifteen or twenty years of subjective time they would live a thousand years or more in real time, and the data they collected would be a treasure trove. They would be the pioneers of a hundred colonies or more.

 

And then they would die, having no memory of setting foot on a planet, and having no children to carry on their disease for another generation.

 

And it would all be bearable, for them and for Bean, because they would know that back on Earth, their mother and their healthy siblings were living normal lives, and marrying and having children of their own, so that by the time their thousand-year voyage was over, every living human being would be related to them one way or another.

 

That's how we'll be part of everything.

 

So no matter what I promised, Petra, you're not coming with me, and neither are our healthy children. And someday you'll understand and forgive me for breaking my word to you.

 

 

 

 

9

 

 

PENSION

 

 

 

From: PeterWiggin%personal@hegemon.gov

 

To: Champi%T'it'u@QuechuaNation.Freenet.ne.com

 

Re: The best hope of the Quechua and Aymara peoples

 

 

Dear Champi T'it'u,

 

 

Thank you for consenting to visit with me. Considering that I tried to call you "Dumper" as if you were still a child in Battle School and a friend of my brother, I'm surprised you didn't toss me out on the spot.

 

 

As I promised, I am sending you the current draft of the Constitution of the Free People of Earth. You are the first person outside the innermost circle of Hegemony officials to look at it, and please remember that it is only a draft. I would be grateful for your suggestions.

 

 

My goal is to have a Constitution that would be as attractive to nations that are recognized as states as to peoples that are still stateless. The Constitution will fail if the language is not identical for both. Therefore there are aspirations you would have to give up and claims you would have to relinquish. But I think you will see that the same will be true for the states that now occupy territory you claim for the Quechua and Aymara peoples.

 

 

The principles of majority, viability, contiguity, and compactness would guarantee you a self-governing territory, albeit one much smaller than your present claim

 

 

But your present claim, while historically justifiable, is also unattainable without a bloody war. Your military abilities are sufficient to guarantee that the contest would be far more evenly matched than the governments of Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, and Colombia would anticipate. But even if you won a complete victory, who would be your successor?

 

 

I speak candidly, because I believe that you are not following a delusion but embarking on a specific, attainable enterprise. The route of war might succeed for a time—and the operative word is "might," since nothing is certain in war—but the cost in blood, economic losses, and ill will for generations to come will be steep.

 

 

Ratifying the Hegemony Constitution, on the other hand, will guarantee you a homeland, to which those who insist on being governed only by Quechua and Aymara leaders and raising their children to be Quechua and Aymara speakers may migrate freely, without needing anyone's permission.

 

 

But take note of the irrevocability clause. I can promise you that this will be taken very seriously. Do not ratify this Constitution if you and your people do not intend to abide by it.

 

 

As for the personal question you asked me:

 

 

I don't believe it matters whether I'm the one who unites the world under one government. No individual is irreplaceable. However, I am quite certain that it will need to be a person exactly like me. And at present, the only person who meets that requirement is me:

 

 

Committed to a liberal government with the highest degree of personal freedom. Equally committed to tolerating no breach of the peace or oppression of one people by another. And strong enough to make it happen and make it stick.

 

 

Join with me, Champi T'it'u, and you will not be an insurrectionary hiding out in the Andes. You'll be a head of a state within the Hegemony Constitution. And if you are patient, and wait until I have won the ratification of at least two of the nations at issue, then you and all the world can see how peacefully and equitably the rights of native peoples can be handled.

 

 

It only works if every party is determined to make the sacrifices necessary to ensure the peace and freedom of all other parties. If even one party is determined on a course of war or oppression, then someday that party will find itself bearing the full weight of the pressure the Free Nations can bring to bear. Right now that isn't much. But how long do you think it will take me to make it a considerable force indeed?

 

 

If you are with me, Champi T'it'u, you will need no other ally.

 

 

Sincerely,

 

Peter

 

 

 

Something was bothering Bean, nagging at the back of his mind. He thought at first that it was a feeling caused by his fatigue, getting so little uninterrupted sleep at night. Then he chalked it up to anxiety because his friends—well, Ender's and Petra's friends—were involved in a life-or-death struggle in India, which they couldn't possibly all win.

 

And then, in the middle of changing Ender's diaper, it came to him. Perhaps because of his baby's name. Perhaps, he thought bitterly, because of what he had his hands in.

 

He finished diapering the baby and left him in the bassinet, where Petra, dozing, would hear him if he cried.

 

Then he went in search of Peter.

 

Naturally, it wasn't easy to get in to see him. Not that there was so huge a bureaucracy in Ribeir?o Preto. But it was large enough now that Peter could afford to pay for a few layers of protection. Nobody who just stood there being a guard. But a secretary here, a clerk there, and Bean found he had explained himself three times—at five-thirty in the morning—before he even got to see Theresa Wiggin.

 

And, now that he thought about it, he wanted to see her.

 

"He's on the phone with some European bigwig," she told him. "Either sucking up or getting sucked up to, depending on how big and powerful the country is."

 

"So that's why everybody's up early."

 

"He tries to get up early enough to catch a significant part of the working day in Europe. Which is hard, because it's usually only a few hours in the morning. Their morning."

 

"So I'll talk to you."

 

"Well, that's a puzzler," said Theresa. "Business so important that you'd get up at five-thirty to see Peter, and yet so unimportant that when you find out he's on a phone call, you can actually talk to me about it."

 

She said it with such verve that Bean might have missed the bitter complaint behind her words. "So he still treats you like a ceremonial mother?" asked Bean.

 

"Does the butterfly consult with the cocoon?"

 

"So ... how do your other children treat you?" asked Bean.

 

Her face darkened. "This is your business?"

 

He wasn't sure if the question was pointed irony—as in, that's none of your business—or a simple question—this is what you came for? He took it the first way.

 

"Ender's my friend," said Bean. "More than anybody else except Petra. I miss him. I know there's an ansible on his ship. I just wondered."

 

"I'm forty-six years old," said Theresa. "When Val and Andrew get to their destination, I'll be ... old. Why should they write to me?"

 

"So they haven't."

 

"If they have, the I.F. hasn't seen fit to inform me."

 

"They're bad at mail delivery, as I recall. They seem to think that the best family therapy method is 'out of sight, out of mind.' "

 

"Or Andrew and Valentine can't be bothered." Theresa typed something. "There. Another letter I'll never send."

 

"Who are you writing to?"

 

"Whom. You foreigners are wrecking the English language."

 

"I'm not speaking English. I'm speaking Common. There's no 'whom' in Common."

 

"I'm writing to Virlomi and telling her to wise up to the fact that Suriyawong is still in love with her and she has no business trying to play god in India when she could do it for real by marrying and having babies."

 

"She doesn't love Suri," said Bean.

 

"Someone else, then?"

 

"India. It's way past patriotism with her."

 

"Matriotism. Nobody thinks of India as the fatherland."

 

"And you're the matriarch. Dispensing maternal advice to Battle School grads."

 

"Just the ones from Ender's Jeesh who happen now to be heads of state or insurrectionary leaders or, in this case, fledgling deities."

 

"Just one question for you," said Bean.

 

"Ah. Back to the subject."

 

"Is Ender getting a pension?"

 

"Pension? Yes, I think so. Yes. Of course."

 

"And what is his pension doing while he's puttering along at lightspeed?"

 

"Gathering interest, I imagine."

 

"So you're not administering it?"

 

"Me? I don't think so."

 

"Your husband?"

 

"I'm the one who handles the money," said Theresa. "Such as it is. We don't get a pension. Come to think of it, we don't get a salary, either. We're just hangers-on. Camp followers. We're both on leave of absence at the University because it was too dangerous for potential hostages to be out where enemies could kidnap us. Of course, the main kidnapper is dead, but... here we stay."

 

"So the I.F. is holding on to Ender's money."

 

"What are you getting at?" asked Theresa.

 

"I don't know," said Bean. "I was wiping my little Ender's butt, and I thought, there's an awful lot of shit here."

 

"They drink and drink. The breast doesn't seem to get smaller. And they poop more than they could possibly get from the breast without shriveling it into a raisin."

 

"And then I thought, I know how much I'm getting in my pension, and it's kind of a lot. I don't actually have to work at anything as long as I live. Petra, too. Most of it we simply invest. Roll it back into investments. It's adding up fast. Pretty soon our income from invested pension is going to be greater than the original pension we invested. Of course, that's partly because we have so much inside information. You know, about which wars are about to start and which will fizzle, that sort of thing."

 

"You're saying that somebody ought to be watching over Andrew's money."

 

"I'll tell you what," said Bean. "I'll find out from Graff who's taking care of it."

 

"You want to invest it?" asked Theresa. "Going into brokering or financial management when Peter has finally achieved world peace?"

 

"I won't be here when Peter—"

 

"Oh, Bean, for heaven's sake, don't take me seriously and make me feel bad for acting as if you weren't going to die. I prefer not to think of you dying."

 

"I was only saying that I'm not a good person to manage Ender's ... portfolio."

 

"So ... who?"

 

"Wouldn't that be whom?"

 

She grimaced. "No it would not. Not even if you spoke English."

 

"I don't know. I've got no candidate."

 

"And so you wanted to confer with Peter."

 

Bean shrugged.

 

"But that would make no sense at all. Peter doesn't know anything about investing and ... no, no, no. I see what you're getting at."

 

"How, when I'm not sure myself?"

 

"Oh, you're sure. You think Peter is financing some of this from Andrew's pension. You think he's embezzling from his brother."

 

"I doubt Peter would call it embezzling."

 

"What would he call it, then?"

 

"In Peter's mind, Ender's probably buying government bonds issued by the Hegemony. So when the Hegemon rules the world, Ender will get four percent per year, tax free."

 

"Even I know that would be a lousy investment."

 

"From a financial point of view. Mrs. Wiggin, Peter has the use of more money than the scant dues the few dues-paying nations still pay to the Hegemony."

 

"The dues go up and down," said Theresa.

 

"He tells you?"

 

"John Paul is closer to these things. When the world is worried about war, money flows into the Hegemony. Not a lot, just a little extra."

 

"When I first got here there were Peter, you two, and the soldiers I brought with me. A couple of secretaries. And a lot of debt. Yet Peter always had enough money to send us out in the choppers we brought with us. Money for fuel, money for ammunition."

 

"Bean, what will be gained if you accuse Peter of embezzling Ender's pension? You know Peter isn't making himself rich with it."

 

"No, but he is making himself Hegemon. Ender might need that money someday."

 

"Ender will never come back to Earth, Bean. How valuable will money be on the new world he's going to colonize? What harm is it causing?"

 

"So you're all right with Peter cheating his brother."

 

"If he's doing that. Which I doubt." Theresa's smile was tight and her eyes flashed just a little. Mother bear, guarding cub.

 

"Protect the son who's here, even if he's cheating the son who's gone."

 

"Why don't you go back to your place and take care of your own child instead of meddling with mine?"

 

"And the pioneers circle the wagons to protect from the arrows of the Native Americans."

 

"I like you, Bean. I'm also worried about you. I'll miss you when you die. I'll do my best to help Petra get through the hard times ahead. But keep your hippo-sized hands off my son. He has the weight of the world on his shoulders, in case you didn't notice."

 

"I think maybe I won't have that interview with Peter this morning after all."

 

"Delighted to be of service," said Theresa.

 

"Do avoid telling him I stopped by, will you?"

 

"With pleasure. In fact, I've already forgotten that you're here." She turned back to the computer and typed again. Bean rather hoped she was typing meaningless words and strings of letters because she was too angry to be writing anything intelligible. He even thought of peeking, just to see. But Theresa was a good friend who happened to be protective of her son. No reason to turn her into an enemy.

 

He sauntered away, his long legs carrying him much farther, much faster than a man walking so slowly should have gone. And even though he wasn't moving quickly, he still felt his heart pump faster. Just to walk down a corridor, it's as if he were jogging a little.

 

How much time? Not as much as I had yesterday.

 

 

 

Theresa watched him go and thought: I love that boy for being so loyal to Ender. And he's absolutely right to suspect Peter. It's just the sort of thing he'd do. For all I know, Peter got us back onto full salary at the University, too, only he didn't tell us and he's cashing our checks.

 

Then again, maybe he's secretly getting paid by China or America or some other country that values his services as Hegemon.

 

Unless they value his services as Lincoln. Or... as Martel. If he was really writing the Martel essays. Such a thing smacked of Peter's propaganda methods, but the writing sounded nothing like him, and it could hardly be Valentine this time. Had he found another surrogate writer?

 

Maybe somebody was contributing in a big way to "Martel's" cause and Peter was pocketing the money to advance his own.

 

But no. Word of such contributions would get out. Peter would never be so foolish as to accept money that might compromise him if it were found out.

 

I'll check with Graff, see whether the I.F. is paying out the pension to Peter. And if it is, I'll have to kill the boy. Or at least make my disappointed-in-you face and then curse about him to John Paul when we're alone.

 

 

 

Bean told Petra he was going to train with Suri and the boys. And he did—go where they were training, that is. But he spent his time in one of the choppers, making a scrambled and encrypted call to the old Battle School space station, where Graff was assembling his fleet of colony ships.

 

"Going to come visit me?" said Graff. "Want to take a trip into space?"

 

"Not yet," said Bean. "Not till I've found my lost kids."

 

"So you have other business to discuss?"

 

"Yes. But you'll immediately realize that the business I want to talk about is none of my business."

 

"Can't wait. No, got to wait. Call I can't turn down. Wait just a minute please."

 

The hiss of atmosphere and magnetic fields and radiation between the surface of the Earth and the space station. Bean thought of breaking off the connection and waiting for another time. Or maybe dropping the whole stupid line of inquiry.

 

Just as Bean was going to terminate the call, Graff came back on. "Sorry, I'm in the middle of tricky negotiations with China to let breeding couples emigrate. They want to send us some of their surplus males. I told him we were forming a colony, not fighting a war. But... negotiating with the Chinese. You think you hear yes, but the next day you find out they said no very delicately and then tittered behind their hands."

 

"All those years controlling the size of their population, and now they won't let go of a measly few thousand," said Bean.

 

"So you called me. What is it that's none of your business?"

 

"I get my pension. Petra gets hers. Who get's Ender's?"

 

"My, but you're to the point."

 

"Is it going to Peter?"

 

"What an excellent question."

 

"May I make a suggestion?"

 

"Please. As I recall, you have a history of making interesting suggestions."

 

"Stop sending the pension to anybody."

 

"I'm the Minister of Colonization now," said Graff. "I take my orders from the Hegemon."

 

"You're in bed so deep with the I.F. that Chamrajnagar thinks you're a hemorrhoid and wakes up scratching at you."

 

"You have a vast untapped potential as a poet," said Graff.

 

"My suggestion," said Bean, "is to get the I.F. to turn Ender's money over to a neutral party."

 

"When it comes to money, there are no neutral parties. The I.F. and the colony program both spend money as fast as it comes in. We have no idea where to begin an investment program. And if you think I'm trusting some earthside mutual fund with the entire savings of a war hero who won't even be able to inquire about the money for another thirty years, you're insane."

 

"I was thinking that you could turn it over to a computer program."

 

"You think we didn't think of that? The best investment programs are only two percent better at predicting markets and bringing a positive return on investment than closing your eyes and stabbing the stock listings with a pin."

 

"You mean with all the computer expertise and all the computer facilities of the Fleet, you can't devise a neutral program to handle Ender's money?"

 

"Why are you so set on software doing it?"

 

"Because software doesn't get greedy and try to steal. Even for a noble purpose."

 

"So what if Peter is using Ender's money—that's what you're worried about, right?—if we suddenly cut it off, won't he notice? Won't that set back his efforts?"

 

"Ender saved the world. He's entitled to have his full pension, when and if he ever wants it. There are laws to protect child actors. Why not war heroes traveling at lightspeed?"

 

"Ah," said Graff. "So you are thinking about what will happen when you take off in the scoutship we offered you."

 

"I don't need you to manage my money. Petra will do it just fine. I want her to have the use of the money."

 

"Meaning you think you'll never come back."

 

"You're changing the subject. Software. Managing Ender's investments."

 

"A semi-autonomous program that—"

 

"Not semi. Autonomous."

 

"There are no autonomous programs. Besides which, the stock market is impossible to model. Nothing that depends on crowd behavior can be accurate over time. What computer could possibly deal with it?"

 

"I don't know," said Bean. "Didn't that mind game you had us play predict human behavior?"

 

"It's very specialized educational software."

 

"Come on," said Bean. "It was your shrink. You analyzed the behavior of the kids and—"

 

"That's right. Listen to yourself. We analyzed."

 

"But the game also analyzed. It anticipated our moves. When Ender was playing, it took him places the rest of us never saw. But the game was always ahead of him. That was one cool piece of software. Can't you teach it to play Investment Manager?"

 

Graff looked impatient. "I don't know. What does an ancient piece of software have to do with ... Bean, do you realize how much effort you're asking me to go to in order to protect Ender's pension? I don't even know that it needs protecting."

 

"But you should know that it doesn't."

 

"Guilt. You, the conscienceless wonder, are actually using guilt on me."

 

"I spent a lot of time with Sister Carlotta. And Petra's no slouch, either."

 

"I'll look at the program. I'll look at Ender's money."

 

"Just out of curiosity, what is the program being used for now that you don't have any kids up there?"

 

Graff snorted. "We have nothing but kids here. The adults are playing it now. The Mind Game. Only I promised them never to let the program do analyses on their gameplay."

 

"So the program does analyze."

 

"It does pre-analysis. Looking for anomalies. Surprises."

 

"Wait a minute," said Bean.

 

"You don't want me to have it run Ender's finances?"

 

"I haven't changed my mind about that. I'm just wondering— maybe it could look at a really massive database we've got here and analyze ... well, find some patterns that we're not seeing."

 

"The game was created for a very specific purpose. Pattern finding in databases wasn't—"

 

"Oh, come on," said Bean. "That's all it did. Patterns in our behavior. Just because it assembled the database of our actions on the fly doesn't change the nature of what it was doing. Checking our behavior against the behavior of earlier children. Against our own normal behavior. Seeing just how crazy your educational program was making us."

 

Graff sighed. "Have your computer people contact my computer people."

 

"With your blessing. Not some foot-dragging fob-them-off-with-smoke-and-mirrors 'effort' that deliberately leads nowhere."

 

"You really care about what we do with Ender's money?"

 

"I care about Ender. Someday he may need that money. I once made a promise that I'd keep Peter from hurting Ender. Instead, I did nothing while Peter sent Ender away."

 

"For Ender's own good."

 

"Ender should have had a vote."

 

"He did," said Graff. "If he had insisted on going home to Earth, I would have let him. But once Valentine came up to join him, he was content."

 

"Fine," said Bean. "Has he given consent to have his pension pillaged?"

 

"I'll see about turning the mind game into a financial manager. The program is a complex one. It does a lot of self-programming and self-alteration. So maybe if we ask it to, it can rewrite its own code in order to become whatever you want it to be. It is magic, after all. This computer stuff."

 

"That's what I always thought," said Bean. "Like Santa Claus. You adults pretend he doesn't exist, but we know that he really does."

 

When he ended the conversation with Graff, Bean immediately called Ferreira. It was full daylight now, so Ferreira was actually awake. Bean told him about the plan to have the Mind Game program analyze the impossibly large database of vague and mostly useless information about the movements of pregnant women with low-birth-weight babies and Ferreira said he'd get right on it. He said it without enthusiasm, but Bean knew that Ferreira wasn't the kind of man to say he'd do something and not do it, just because he didn't believe in it. He'd keep his word.

 

How do I know that? Bean wondered. How do I know that I can trust Ferreira to go off on wild goose chases, once he gives his word to do it? While I know without even knowing that I know it, that Peter is partly financing his operations by stealing from Ender. That was bothering me for days before I understood it.

 

Damn, but I'm smart. Smarter than any computer program, even the Mind Game.

 

If only I could control it.

 

I may not have the capacity to consciously deal with a vast database and find patterns in it. But I could deal with the database of stuff I observe in the Hegemony and what I know about Peter and without my even asking the question, out pops an answer.

 

Could I always do that? Or is my growing brain giving me ever-stronger mental powers?

 

I really should look at some of the mathematical conundrums and see if I can find proofs of ... whatever it is they can't prove but want to.

 

Maybe Volescu isn't so wrong after all. Maybe a whole world full of minds like mine...

 

Miserable, lonely, untrusting minds like mine. Minds that see death looming over them all the time. Minds that know they'll never see their children grow up. Minds that let themselves get sidetracked on issues like taking care of a friend's pension that he'll probably never need.

 

Peter is going to be so furious when he finds out that those pension checks aren't going to him anymore. Should I tell him it was my meddling? Or let him think the I.F. did it on their own?

 

And what does it say about my character that I am absolutely going to tell him I did it?

 

 

 

Theresa didn't actually see Peter until noon, when she and John Paul and their illustrious son sat down to a lunch of papaya and cheese and sliced sausage.

 

"Why do you always drink that stuff?" asked John Paul.

 

Peter looked surprised. "Guaraná? It's my duty as an American to never drink Coke or Pepsi in a country that has an indigenous soft drink. Besides which, I like it."

 

"It's a stimulant," said Theresa. "It fuzzes your brain."

 

"It also makes you fart," said John Paul. "Constantly."

 

"Frequently would be the more accurate term," said Peter. "And it's sweet of you to care."

 

"We're just looking out for your image," said Theresa.

 

"I only fart when I'm alone."

 

"Since he does it in front of us," said John Paul to Theresa, "what exactly does that make us?"

 

"I meant 'in private,' " said Peter. "And flatulence from carbonated beverages is odorless."

 

"He thinks it doesn't stink," said John Paul.

 

Peter picked up the glass and drained it. "And you wonder why I don't look forward to these little family get-togethers."

 

"Yes," said Theresa. "Family is so inconvenient for you. Except when you can spend their pension checks."

 

Peter looked back and forth between her and John Paul. "You aren't even on a pension. Either of you. You're not even fifty yet."

 

Theresa just looked at him like he was stupid. She knew that look drove him crazy.

 

But Peter refused to bite. He simply went back to eating his lunch.

 

His very incuriosity was proof enough to Theresa that he knew exactly what she was talking about.

 

"You mind telling me what this is about?" asked John Paul.

 

"Why, Andrew's pension," said Theresa. "Bean thinks that Peter's been stealing it."

 

"So naturally," said Peter with his mouth full, "Mother believes him."

 

"Oh, haven't you, then?" asked Theresa.

 

"There's a difference between investing and stealing."

 

"Not when you invest it in Hegemony bonds. Especially when a circle of huts in Amazonas has a higher bond rating than you."

 

"Investing in the future of world peace is a sound investment."

 

"Investing in your future," said Theresa. "Which is more than you did for Andrew. But now that Bean knows, you can be sure that source of funding will dry up very quickly."

 

"How sad for Bean," said Peter. "Since that was what was paying for his and Petra's search."

 

"It wasn't until you decided it was," said John Paul. "Are you really that petty?"

 

"If Bean decides unilaterally to cut off a funding source, then I have to reduce spending somewhere. Since spending on his personal quest has nothing to do with Hegemony goals, it seems only fair that the meddler's pet project be the first to go. It's all moot anyway. Bean has no claim on Ender's pension. He can't touch it."

 

"He's not going to touch it himself," said Theresa. "He doesn't want the money."

 

"So he'll turn it over to you? What will you do, keep it in an interest-bearing debit account, the way you do with your own money?" Peter laughed.

 

"He seems unrepentant," said John Paul.

 

"That's the problem with Peter," said Theresa.

 

"Only the one?" said Peter.

 

"Either it doesn't matter or it's the end of the world. No in between for him. Absolute confidence or utter despair."

 

"I haven't despaired in years. Well, weeks."

 

"Just tell me, Peter," said Theresa. "Is there no one you won't exploit to accomplish your purposes?"

 

"Since my purpose is saving the human race from itself," said Peter, "the answer is no." He wiped his mouth and dropped his napkin on his plate. "Thanks for the lovely lunch. I do enjoy our little times together."

 

He left.

 

John Paul leaned back in his chair. "Well. I think I'll tell Bean that if he needs any next-of-kin signatures for whatever he's doing with Andrew's pension, I'll be happy to help."

 

"If I know Julian Delphiki, no help will be needed."

 

"Bean saved Peter's whole enterprise by killing Achilles at great personal risk, and our son's memory is so short that he'll stop paying for the effort to rescue Bean's and Petra's children. What gene is it that Peter's missing?"

 

"Gratitude has a very short half-life in most people's hearts," said Theresa. "By now Peter doesn't even remember that he ever felt it toward Bean."

 

"Anything we can do about it?"

 

"Again, my dear, I think we can count on Bean himself. He'll expect retaliation from Peter, and he'll already have a plan."

 

"I hope his plan doesn't require appealing to Peter's conscience."

 

Theresa laughed. So did John Paul. It was the saddest kind of laughter, in that empty room.

 

 

 

 

10

 

 

GRIEF

 

 

 

From: FelixStarman%backdoor@Rwanda.gov.rw

 

To: PeterWiggin%personal@hegemon.gov

 

Re: Only one question remains

 

Dear Peter,

 

 

Your arguments have persuaded me. In principle, I am prepared to ratify the Constitution of the Free People of Earth. But in practice, one key issue remains. I have created in Rwanda the most formidable army and air force north of Pretoria and south of Cairo. That is precisely why you regard Rwanda as the key to uniting Africa. But the primary motivation of my troops is patriotism, which cannot help but be tinged with Tutsi tribalism. The principle of civilian control of the military is, shall we say, not as preeminent in their ethos.

 

 

For me to turn over my troops to a Hegemon who happens to be not only white, but American by birth, would run a grave risk of a coup that would provoke bloodshed in the streets and destabilize the whole region.

 

 

That is why it is essential that you decide in advance who the commander of my forces will be. There is only one plausible candidate. Many of my men got a good look at Julian Delphiki. Word has spread. He is viewed as something of a god. His record of military genius is respected by my officer corps; his enormous size gives him heroic stature; and his partial African ancestry, which is, fortunately, visible in his features and coloring, makes him a man that patriotic Rwandans could follow.

 

 

If you send Bean to me, to stand beside me as the man who will assume command of Rwandan forces as they become part of the Free People's army, then I will ratify and immediately submit the issue to my people in a plebiscite. People who would not vote for a Constitution with you at its head will vote for a Constitution whose face is that of the Giant Julian.

 

 

Sincerely, Felix

 

 

 

Virlomi spoke on the cellphone with her contact. "All clear?" she asked.

 

"It's not a trap. They're gone."

 

"How bad is it?"

 

"I'm so sorry."

 

That bad.

 

Virlomi put away the phone and walked from the shelter of the trees into the village.

 

There were bodies lying in the doorway of every house they passed. But Virlomi did not turn to the right hand or the left. They had to make sure they got the key footage first.

 

In the center of the village, the Muslim soldiers had spitted a cow and roasted it over a fire. The bodies of twenty or so Hindu adults surrounded the roasting pit.

 

"Ten seconds," said Virlomi.

 

Obediently, the vidman framed the shot and ran the camera for ten seconds. During the shot, a crow landed but did not eat anything. It merely walked a couple of steps and then flew again. Virlomi wrote her script in her head: The gods send their messengers to see, and in grief they fly away again.

 

Virlomi walked near the dead and saw that each corpse had a slab of half-cooked, bloody meat in its mouth. No bullets had been spent on the dead. Their throats were split and gaping open.

 

"Close up. These three, each in turn. Five seconds each."

 

The vidman did his work. Virlomi did not touch any of the bodies. "How many minutes left?"

 

"Plenty," said the vidman.

 

"Then take every one of them. Every one."

 

The vidman moved from body to body, taking the digital shots that would soon go out over the nets. Meanwhile, Virlomi now went from house to house. She hoped that there would be at least one person living. Someone they could save. But there was no one.

 

In the doorway of the village's largest house, one of Virlomi's men waited for her. "Please do not go in, Lady," he said.

 

"I must."

 

"You do not want this in your memory."

 

"Then it is exactly the thing that I must never forget."

 

He bowed his head and moved aside.

 

Four nails in a crossbeam had served the family as hooks for clothing. The clothing lay in a sodden mass on the floor. Except for the shirts that had been tied around the necks of four children, the youngest only a toddler, the eldest perhaps nine. They had been hung up on the hooks to strangle slowly.

 

Across the room lay the bodies of a young couple, a middle-aged couple, and an old woman. They had made the adults in the household watch the children die.

 

"When he is finished by the fire," said Virlomi, "bring him here."

 

"Is there enough light inside, Lady?"

 

"Take down a wall."

 

They took it down in minutes, and then light flooded into the dark place. "Start here," she told the vidman, pointing to the adults' bodies. Pan very slowly. And then pan, just a little faster, to what they were forced to watch. Hold on all four children. Then when I enter the frame, stay with me. But not so close that you can't see everything I do with the child."

 

"You cannot touch a dead body," said one of her men.

 

"The dead of India are my children," she said. "They cannot make me unclean. Only the ones who murdered them are made filthy. I will explain this to the people who see the vid."

 

The vidman started, but then Virlomi noticed the shadows of the watching soldiers in the frame and made him start over. "It must be a continuous take," she said. "No one will believe it if it is not smooth and continuous."

 

The vidman started again. Slowly he panned. When he had focused on the children for a solid twenty seconds, Virlomi stepped into the frame and knelt before the body of the oldest child. She reached up and touched the lips with her fingers.

 

The men could not help it. They gasped.

 

Well, let them, thought Virlomi. So would the people of India. So would the people of the whole world.

 

She stood and took the child in her arms, raising him up. With no tension on the shirt, it came away easily from the nail. She carried him across the room and laid him in the arms of the young father.

 

"O Father of India," she said, loudly enough for the camera, "I lay your child, the hope of your heart, in your arms."

 

She got up and walked slowly back to the children. She knew better than to look to see if the camera was with her. She had to act as if she didn't know the camera was there. Not that anyone would be fooled. But looking toward the camera reminded people that there were other observers. As long as she seemed oblivious of the camera, the viewers would forget that there must be a vidman and would feel as if only they and she and the dead were in this place.

 

She knelt before each child in turn, then rose and freed them from the cruel nails on which they once hung shawls or school bags. When she laid the second child, a girl, beside the young mother, she said, "O Mother of the Indian house, here is the daughter who cooked and cleaned beside you. Now your home is permanently washed in the pure blood of the innocent."

 

When she laid the third child, a little girl, across the bodies of the middle-aged couple, she said, "O history of India, have you room for one more small body in your memory? Or are you full of our grief at last? Is this one body at last too many to bear?"

 

When she took the two-year-old boy from his hook, she could not walk with him. She stumbled and fell to her knees and wept and kissed his distorted, blackened face. When she could speak again, she said, "Oh, my child, my child, why did my womb labor to bring you forth, only to hear your silence instead of your laughter?"

 

She did not stand again. It would have been too clumsy and mechanical. Instead, she moved forward on her knees across the rough floor, a slow, stately procession, so that each dip and lurch became part of a dance. She propped the little body on the corpse of the old woman.

 

"Great grandmother!" cried Virlomi. "Great grandmother, can't you save me? Can't you help me? Great grandmother, you are looking at me but you do nothing! I can't breathe, Great grandmother! You are the old one! It is your place to die before me, Great grandmother! It is my place to walk around your body and anoint you with ghi and water of the holy Ganges. In my little hands there should have been a fistful of straw to do pranam for you, for my grandparents, for my mother, for my father!"

 

Thus she gave voice to the child.

 

Then she put her arm around the shoulder of the old woman and partly raised her body, so the camera could see her face.

 

"O little one, now you are in the arms of God, as I am. Now the sun will stream upon your face to warm it. Now the Ganges will wash your body. Now fire will purify, and the ashes will flow out into the sea. Just as your soul goes home to await another turn of the wheel."

 

Virlomi turned to face the camera, then gestured at all the dead. "Here is how I purify myself. In the blood of the martyrs I wash myself. In the stink of death do I find my perfume. I love them beyond the grave, and they love me, and make me whole."

 

Then she reached out toward the camera.

 

"Caliph Alai, we knew you out among the stars and planets. You were one of the noble ones then. You were one of the great heroes, who acted for the good of all humankind. They must have killed you, Alai! You must be dead, before you would let such things happen in your name!"

 

She beckoned, and the vidman zoomed in. She knew from experience with this vidman that only her face would be visible. She held herself almost expressionless, for at this distance any kind of expression would look histrionic.

 

"Once you spoke to me in the corridors of that sterile place. You said only one word. Salaam, you said. Peace, you said. It filled my heart with joy."

 

She shook her head once, slowly.

 

"Come forth from your hiding place, O Caliph Alai, and own your work. Or if it is not your work, then repudiate it. Join me in grieving for the innocent."

 

Because her hand could not be seen, she flicked with her fingers to tell the vidman to zoom away and include the whole scene again.

 

Now she let her emotions run free. She wept on her knees, then wailed, then threw herself across the bodies and howled and sobbed. She let it go on for a full minute. The version for western eyes would have captions over this part, but for Hindus, the whole shocking scene would be allowed to linger, uninterrupted. Virlomi defiling herself upon the bodies of the unwashed dead; but no, no, Virlomi purified by their martyrdom. The people would not be able to look away.

 

Nor would the Muslims who saw it. Some would gloat. But others would be horrified. Mothers would see themselves in her grief. Fathers would see themselves in the corpses of the men who had been unable to save their children.

 

What none of them would hear was the thing she had not said: Not a single threat, not a single curse. Only grief, and a plea to Caliph Alai.

 

To the world at large, the video would excite pity and horror.

 

The Muslim world would be divided, but the portion that rejoiced at this video would be smaller each time it was shown.

 

And to Alai, it would be a personal challenge. She was laying responsibility for this at his door. He would have to come out of Damascus and take command himself. No more hiding indoors. She had forced his hand. Now to see what he would do.

 

 

 

The video swept around the world, first on the nets, then picked up by broadcast media—high-resolution files were conveniently provided for download. Of course there were charges that the whole thing was faked, or that Hindus had committed the atrocities. But no one really believed that. It fit too well with the record that Muslims had created for themselves during the Islamic wars that raged in the century and a half before the Buggers came. And it was unbelievable to imagine Hindus defiling the dead as these had been defiled.

 

Such atrocities were meant to strike terror in the hearts of the enemy. But Virlomi had taken this one and turned it into something else. Grief. Love. Resolve. And, finally, a plea for peace.

 

Never mind that she could have peace whenever she wanted, merely by submitting to Muslim rule. The world would understand that complete submission to Islam would not be peace, but the death of India and its replacement by a land of puppets. She had made this so clear in earlier vids that it did not need to be repeated.

 

They tried to keep the vid from Alai, but he refused to let them block what he saw on his own computer. He watched it over and over again.

 

"Wait until we can investigate and see if it's true," said Ivan Lankowski, the half-Kazakh aide he trusted to be closest to him, to see him when he was not acting the part of Caliph.

 

"I know that it's true," said Alai.

 

"Because you know this Virlomi?"

 

"Because I know the soldiers who claim to be of Islam." He looked at Ivan with tears streaming down his cheeks. "My time in Damascus is done. I am Caliph. I will lead the armies in the field. And men who act this way, I will punish with my own hand."

 

"That is a worthy goal," said Ivan. "But the kind of men who massacred that village in India and nuked Mecca in the last war, they're still out there. That's why your orders are not being obeyed. What makes you think you can reach your armies alive?"

 

"Because I truly am Caliph, and if God wants me to lead his people in righteousness, he will protect me," said Alai.

 

 

 

 

11

 

 

AFRICAN GOD

 

 

 

From: H95Tqw0qdy9@FreeNet.net

 

Posted at site: ShivaDaughter.org

 

Re: Suffering daughter of Shiva, the Dragon grieves at the wounds he caused you.

 

 

May not the Dragon and the Tiger be lovers, and bring forth peace? Or if there is no peace, may not the Tiger and the Dragon fight together?

 

 

 

Bean and Petra were surprised when Peter came to see them in their little house on the grounds of the Hegemony compound. "You honor our humble abode," said Bean.

 

"I do, don't I," said Peter with a smile. "The baby's asleep?"

 

"Sorry, you don't get to watch me nurse him," said Petra.

 

"I have good news and bad news," said Peter.

 

They waited for him to tell them.

 

"I need you to go back to Rwanda, Julian."

 

"I thought the Rwandan government was with us," said Petra.

 

"It's not a raid," said Peter. "I need you to take command of the Rwandan military and incorporate it into the Hegemony forces."

 

Petra laughed. "You're kidding. Felix Starman is going to ratify your Constitution?"

 

"Hard to believe, but yes, Felix is ambitious the way I'm ambitious— he wants to create something that will outlive him. He knows that the best way for Rwanda to be safe and free is for there to be no armies in the world. And the only way for that to happen is to have a world government that will maintain the liberal values he has created in his Rwanda—elections, individual rights, the rule of law, universal education, and no corruption."

 

"We've read your Constitution, Peter," said Bean.

 

"He asked for you in particular," said Peter. "His men saw you when you took Volescu. They call you the African Giant now."

 

"Darling," said Petra to Bean. "You're a god now, like Virlomi."

 

"The question is whether you're woman enough to be married to a god," said Bean.

 

"I shade my eyes and it keeps me from going blind."

 

Bean smiled and turned to Peter. "Does Felix Starman know how long I'm not expected to live?"

 

"No," said Peter. "I regard that as a state secret."

 

"Oh no," said Petra. "Now we can't tell each other."

 

"How long will you expect me to stay?"

 

"Long enough for the Rwandan army to transfer its loyalty to the Free People."

 

"To you?"

 

"To the Free People," said Peter. "I'm not creating a cult of personality here. They have to be committed to the Constitution. And to defending the Free People who have accepted it."

 

"In practical terms, a date, please," said Bean.

 

"Until after the plebiscite, at least," said Peter.

 

"And I can go with him?" asked Petra.

 

"Your choice," said Peter. "It's probably safer there than here, but it's a long flight. You can write the Martel essays from anywhere."

 

"Julian, he's leaving it up to us. We're Free People now too!"

 

"All right, I'll do it," said Bean. "Now what's the good news?"

 

"That was the good news," said Peter. "The bad news is that we've had a sudden and unexpected shortfall in revenue. It will take months, at least, to make up what we abruptly stopped receiving. Therefore we're cutting back on projects that don't contribute directly to the goals of the Hegemony."

 

Petra laughed. "You have the cheek to ask us to help you, when you're cutting off funding for our search?"

 

"You see? You immediately recognized that your search was not contributing."

 

"You're searching, too," said Bean. "To find the virus."

 

"If it exists," said Peter. "In all likelihood, Volescu is teasing us, and the virus doesn't actually work and hasn't been dispersed."

 

"So you're going to bet the future of the human race on that?"

 

"No I'm not," said Peter. "But without a budget for it, it's beyond our reach. However, it is not beyond the reach of the International Fleet."

 

"You're turning it over to them?"

 

"I'm turning Volescu over to them. And they're going to continue the research into the virus he developed and where he might have dispersed it, if he did."

 

"The I.F. can't operate on Earth."

 

"They can if they're acting against an alien threat. If Volescu's virus works, and it's released on Earth, it would create a new species designed to completely replace humanity in a single generation. The Hegemon has issued a secret finding that Volescu's virus constitutes an alien invasion, which the I.F. has kindly agreed to track down and ... repel for us."

 

Bean laughed. "Well, it seems we think alike."

 

"Really?" said Peter. "Oh, you're just flattering me."

 

"I already turned over our search to the Ministry of Colonization. And we both know that Graff is really functioning as a branch of the I.F."

 

Peter regarded him calmly. "So you knew I'd have to cut the budget for your search."

 

"I knew that you didn't have the resources no matter how much budget you have. Ferreira was doing his best, but ColMin has better software."

 

"Well, everything's working out happily for everyone, then," said Peter, standing up to go.

 

"Even for Ender," said Bean.

 

"Your baby's a lucky little boy," said Peter, "to have such attentive parents." And he was out the door.

 

 

 

Volescu looked tired when Bean went to see him. Old. Confinement wasn't good for him. He was not suffering physically, but he seemed to be growing wan as a plant kept in a closet without sun.

 

"Promise me something," said Volescu.

 

"What?" asked Bean.

 

"Something. Anything. Bargain with me."

 

"The one thing you want," said Bean, "you will never have again."

 

"Only because you're vindictive," said Volescu. "Ungrateful—you exist because I made you, and you keep me in this box."

 

"It's a good-sized room. It's air-conditioned. Compared to the way you treated my brothers...."

 

"They were not legally—"

 

"And now you have my babies hidden away. And a virus with the potential to destroy the human race—"

 

"Improve it—"

 

"Erase it. How can you be given your freedom again? You combine grandiosity with amorality."

 

"Rather like Peter Wiggin, whom you serve so faithfully. His little toad."

 

"The word is 'toady,' " said Bean.

 

"Yet here you are, visiting me. Could it be that Julian Delphiki, my dear half-nephew, has a problem I could help him with?"

 

"Same questions as before," said Bean.

 

"Same answer," said Volescu. "I have no idea what happened to your missing embryos."

 

Bean sighed. "I thought you might want a chance to square things with me and Petra before you leave this Earth."

 

"Oh, come on," said Volescu. "You're threatening me with the death penalty?"

 

"No," said Bean. "You're simply ... leaving Earth. Peter is turning you over to the I.F. On the theory that your virus is an alien invasion."

 

"Only if you're an alien invasion," said Volescu.

 

"But I am," said Bean. "I'm the first of a race of short-lived giant geniuses. Think how much larger a population the Earth can sustain when the average age at death is eighteen."

 

"You know, Bean, there's no reason for you to die young."

 

"Really? You have the antidote?"

 

"Nobody needs an antidote to destiny. Death from giantism comes from the strain on your heart, trying to pump so much blood through so many kilometers of arteries and veins. If you get away from gravity, your heart won't be overtaxed and you won't die."

 

"You think I haven't thought of that?" said Bean. "I'll still continue to grow."

 

"So you get large. The I.F. can build you a really big ship. A colony ship. You can gradually fill it up with your protoplasm and bones. You'd live for years, tied to the walls of the ship like a balloon. An enormous Gulliver. Your wife could come visit you. And if you get too big, well, there's always amputation. You could become a being of pure mind. Fed intravenously, what need would you have of belly and bowels? Eventually, all you really need is your brain and spine, and they need never die. A mind eternally growing."

 

Bean stood up. "Is that what you created me for, Volescu? To be a limbless crippled monster out in space?"

 

"Silly boy," said Volescu, "to ordinary humans you already are a monster. Their worst nightmare. The species that will replace them. But to me, you're beautiful. Even tethered to an artificial habitat, even limbless, trunkless, voiceless, you'd be the most beautiful creature alive."

 

"And yet you came within one toilet-tank lid of killing me and burning my body."

 

"I didn't want to go to jail."

 

"Yet here you are," said Bean. "And your next prison is out in space."

 

"I can live like Prospero, refining my arts in solitude."

 

"Prospero had Ariel and Caliban," said Bean.

 

"Don't you understand?" said Volescu. "You're my Caliban. And all your little children—they're my Ariels. I've spread them over the earth. You'll never find them. Their mothers have been taught well. They'll mate, they'll reproduce before their giantism becomes obvious. Whether my virus works or not, your children are my virus."

 

"So that's what Achilles plotted?"

 

"Achilles?" Volescu laughed. "That bloody-handed little moron? I told him your babies were dead. That's all he wanted. Fool."

 

"So they're not dead."

 

"All alive. All implanted. By now, perhaps, some of them born, since those with your abilities will be born two months premature."

 

"You knew that and didn't tell us?"

 

"Why should I? The delivery was safe, wasn't it? The baby was mature enough to breathe and function on its own?"

 

"What else do you know?"

 

"I know that everything will work out. Julian, look at yourself, man! You escaped at the age of one. Which means that seventeen months after conception, you were able to survive without parents. I don't have even the tiniest worry about the health of your babies, and neither should you. They don't need you, because you didn't need anybody. Let them go. Let them replace the old species, bit by bit, over the generations to come."

 

"No," said Bean, "I love the old species. And I hate what you did to me."

 

"Without 'what I did to you,' all you'd be is Nikolai."

 

"My brother is a wonderful person. Kind. And very smart."

 

"Very smart, but not as smart as you. Would you really trade with him? Would you really like to be as dull-witted as he is, compared to you?"

 

Whereupon Bean left, having no answer to Volescu's last question.

 

 

 

 

12

 

 

ALLAHU AKBAR

 

 

 

From: Graff%pilgrimage@colmin.gov

 

To: Borommakot%pinto@IComeAnon.com

 

Forwarded and Posted by IcomeAnon

 

Encrypted using code ********

 

Decrypted using code ***********

 

Re: Investment Counselor

 

 

 

Your idea of converting the Fantasy Game software into an investment counselor is going surprisingly well. We haven't had time to do more than short-term testing, but so far it has outpicked all the experts. We are paying Ender's pension funds to it. As you suggested, we are making sure that all investments are under false identities; we are also making sure the software is hooked widely over the nets in endlessly self-varying forms. It will be effectively untraceable and unkillable unless someone is making a systematic international effort to wipe it out, which is unlikely to happen as long as no one suspects it's there.

 

 

Ender will have no need of this money on his colony, and he'll do a better job if he's not aware that it's there. The first time he enters the nets after his subjective twenty-first birthday, the software will reveal itself to him along with the extent of his investments. Given the amount of time in travel alone, Ender will come of age with a noticeable fortune. Considerably more, I might add, than even the most optimistic projections of the value of Hegemony bonds,

 

 

But Ender's finances are not an emergency, and your children are.

 

 

A different team is tweaking the database your Ferreira sent us so it yields us more useful information. It involves a lot of additional research, not by raw data-seeks, but by individual operators trawling various medical, voting, tax, real estate, moving company, transportation and other databases, some of them not legally available. Instead of getting thousands of positives, of which none is likely to be useful, we are now getting hundreds of positives of which some might actually go somewhere.

 

 

Sorry it takes time, but once we get a decent positive, we have to check it out, often with landside personnel. And for obvious reasons, we don't have many of those to work with.

 

 

Meanwhile, I suggest you keep in mind that our deal depends on your making Peter Hegemon in fact as well as name before you go. You asked me what my standard of success would be. You can go when: Peter has firm control over more than 50% of the world's population, or Peter has sufficient military force that he is assured of victory whether or not any potential opponent is led by Battle School graduates.

 

 

Therefore: Yes, Bean, we expect you to go to Rwanda. We are your best hope for your and your children's survival, and you are our best hope for assuring Peter will prevail and achieve unity and general peace. Your task begins with getting Peter that irresistible military force, and our task begins with finding your babies.

 

 

Like you, I hope both our tasks turn out to be achievable.

 

 

 

Alai had thought that once he took control of the complex in Damascus, he'd be free to rule as Caliph.

 

It didn't take long to learn otherwise.

 

All the men in his palace complex, including his bodyguards, obeyed him implicitly. But as soon as he tried to leave, even to ride around in Damascus, those he trusted most would begin to plead with him. "It's not safe," Ivan Lankowski would say. "When you got rid of the people controlling you here, it panicked their friends. And their friends include those who are commanding our armies everywhere."

 

"They followed my plan in the war," said Alai. "I thought they were loyal to the Caliph."

 

"They were loyal to victory," said Ivan. "Your plan was brilliant. And you ... were in Ender's Jeesh. His closest friend. Of course they followed your plan."

 

"So they believed in me from Battle School, but not as Caliph."

 

"They believe in you as Caliph," said Ivan. "But more as the figurehead kind of Caliph who makes vague religious pronouncements and encouraging speeches, while you have wazirs and warlords to do all the nasty tedious work like making decisions and giving commands."

 

"How far does their control reach?" asked Alai.

 

"It's impossible to know," said Ivan. "Here in Damascus, your loyal servants have caught and eliminated several dozen agents. But I would not let you board an aircraft in Damascus—military or commercial."

 

"So if I can't trust Muslims, drive me over the Golan Heights into Israel, and let me fly on an Israeli jet."

 

"The same group that refuses to obey you in India is also saying that our accommodation with the Zionists was an offense against God."

 

"They want to start that nightmare all over again?"

 

"They long for the good old days."

 

"Yes, when Muslim armies were humiliated left and right, and the world feared Muslims because so many innocents were murdered in the name of God."

 

"You don't have to argue with me," said Ivan pleasantly.

 

"Well, Ivan," said Alai, "if I stay here, then someday my enemies will finish in India—either they'll win or they'll lose. Either way, they'll come here, made mad by victory or by defeat, it doesn't matter which. Either way, I'll be dead, don't you think?"

 

"Oh, definitely, sir. We do have to find a way to get you out of here."

 

"No plan?"

 

"All kinds of plans," said Ivan. "But they all involve saving your life. Not saving the Caliphate."

 

"If I run away, then the Caliphate is lost."

 

"And if you stay, then the Caliphate is yours until the day you die."

 

Alai laughed. "Well, Ivan, you've analyzed it well. So I have no choice. I have to go to my enemies and destroy them."

 

"I suggest you use a magic carpet," said Ivan, "as the most reliable form of transportation."

 

"You think only a genie could get me to India to face General Rajam?"

 

"Alive, yes."

 

"Then I must contact my genie," said Alai.

 

"Is this a good time?" asked Ivan. "With the madwoman's latest vid all over the nets and the media, Rajam is going to be a crazy man."

 

"That's the best time," said Alai. "By the way, Ivan, can you tell me why Rajam's nickname is 'Andariyy'?"

 

"Would it help if I told you that he chose the nickname 'thick rope' himself?"

 

"Ah. So it doesn't refer to his tenacity or strength."

 

"He would say it does. Or at least the tenacity of a particular part of his body."

 

"And yet... rope is limp."

 

"Thick rope isn't."

 

"Thick rope is as limp as any other," said Alai, "unless it's very short."

 

Ivan laughed. "I'll make sure to repeat this joke at Rajam's funeral."

 

"Just don't repeat it at mine."

 

"I will not be at your funeral," said Ivan, "unless it's a mass grave."

 

Alai went to his computer and began to compose a few emails. Within a half hour of sending them, he received a telephone call from Felix Starman of Rwanda.

 

"I'm sorry to tell you," said Felix, "that I cannot allow Muslim teachers into Rwanda."

 

"Fortunately," said Alai, "that isn't why I called."

 

"Excellent," said Felix.

 

"I am calling in the interest of world peace. And I understand you have already made your decision about who is the best hope of humankind for achieving that goal—no, say no names."

 

"Since I have no idea what you're talking about—"

 

"Excellent," said Alai. "A good Muslim always assumes that unbelievers have no idea." They both laughed. "All I ask is that you let it be known that there is a man crossing the Rub' al Khali on foot because his camel won't let him mount and ride."

 

"And you wish someone to help this poor wanderer?"

 

"God watches over all his creatures, but the Caliph cannot always reach out a hand to do God's will."

 

"I hope this poor unfortunate will be helped as soon as possible," said Felix.

 

"Let it be soon. I am ready at any time to hear good news of him."

 

They said their good-byes, and Alai got up and went in search of Ivan.

 

"Pack," he said.

 

Ivan raised his eyebrows. "What will you need?"

 

"Clean underwear. My most flamboyantly Caliph-like costume. Three men who will kill at my command and will not turn their weapons on me. And a loyal man with a video camera with a fully charged battery and plenty of film."

 

"Should the vidman be one of the loyal soldiers? Or a separate person?"

 

"Let all the loyal soldiers be part of the video crew."

 

"And shall I be one of these three?"

 

"That is for you to decide," said Alai. "If I fail, the men who are with me will surely die."

 

"Better to die quickly before the face of God's servant than slowly at the hands of God's enemies," said Ivan.

 

"My favorite Russian," said Alai.

 

"I'm a Kazakh Turk," Ivan reminded him.

 

"God was good to send you to me."

 

"And good when he gave you to all of the faithful."

 

"Will you say so when I have done all that I mean to do?"

 

"Always," said Ivan. "Always I am your faithful servant."

 

"You are a servant only to God," said Alai. "To me, you are a friend."

 

An hour later, Alai received an email that he knew was from Petra, despite the innocent signature. It was a request that he pray for a child that was undergoing an operation at the largest hospital in Beirut at seven o'clock the next morning. "We will begin our own prayers at five in the morning," said the letter, "so that dawn will find us praying."

 

Alai merely answered, "I will pray for your nephew, and for all those who love him, that he may live. Let it be as God wills, and we will rejoice in his wisdom."

 

So he would have to go to Beirut. Well, the drive was easy enough, the problem was doing it without alarming anyone that his enemies had set to spy on him.

 

When he left the palace complex, it was in a garbage truck. Ivan had protested, but Alai told him, "A Caliph who is afraid to be filthied on God's errand is unworthy to rule." He was sure this would be written down and, if he lived, would be included in a book of the wisdom of Caliph Alai. A book he hoped would be long and worth reading, instead of brief and embarrassing.

 

Dressed as a pious old woman, Alai rode in the back seat of a little old sedan driven by a soldier in civilian clothes and a false beard much longer than his real one. If he lost, if he was killed, then the fact that he dressed this way would be taken as proof that he was never worthy to be Caliph. But if he won, it would be part of the legend of his cleverness.

 

The old woman accepted a wheelchair to take her into the hospital, pushed by the bearded man who had driven her to Beirut.

 

On the roof, three men with ordinary, scuffed suitcases were waiting. It was ten minutes to five.

 

If someone in the hospital had noticed the disappearance of the old woman, or looked for the wheelchair, or wondered about the three men who had arrived separately, each carrying clothing for a family member to wear home, then word might already have gone out to Alai's enemies. If someone came to investigate, and they had to kill him, it would be as good as setting off an alarm by Rajam's own bed.

 

Three minutes before five, two young doctors, a man and a woman, came onto the roof, ostensibly to smoke. But soon they withdrew out of the sight of the men waiting with their suitcases.

 

Ivan looked at Alai questioningly. Alai shook his head. "They are here to kiss," he said. "They are afraid of us reporting them, that's all."

 

Ivan, being careful, got up and walked to where he could see them. He came back and sat down. "More than kissing," he whispered.

 

"They should not do that if they aren't married," said Alai. "Why do people always think that the only two choices are either to follow the harshest shari'ah or else discard all the laws of God?"

 

"You have never been in love," said Ivan.

 

"You think not?" said Alai. "Just because I can't meet any women does not mean I haven't loved."

 

"With your mind," said Ivan, "but I happen to know that with your body you have been pure."

 

"Of course I'm pure," said Alai. "I'm not married."

 

A medical chopper approached. It was exactly five o'clock. When it came close enough, Alai could see that it was from an Israeli hospital.

 

"Do Israeli doctors send patients to Beirut?" asked Alai.

 

"Lebanese doctors send patients to Israel," said Ivan.

 

"So must we expect that our friends will wait until this chopper leaves? Or are these our friends?"

 

"You have hidden in garbage and dressed as a woman," said Ivan. "What is riding in a Zionist helicopter compared to that?"

 

The chopper landed. The door opened. Nobody got out.

 

Alai picked up the suitcase that he knew was his because it was light—filled only with clothes instead of weaponry—and walked boldly to the door.

 

"Am I the passenger you came for?"

 

The pilot nodded.

 

Alai turned to look back toward where the couple had gone to kiss. He saw a flurry of motion. They had seen. They would speak of it.

 

He turned back to the pilot. "Can this chopper carry all five of us?"

 

"Easily," said the pilot.

 

"What about seven?"

 

The pilot shrugged. "We fly lower, slower. But we often do."

 

Alai turned to Ivan. "Please invite our young lovers to come with us." Then Alai climbed into the helicopter. In moments, he had the women's clothing off. Underneath, he was wearing a simple western business suit.

 

In moments, a pair of terrified doctors climbed into the helicopter at gunpoint, in various stages of deshabille. Apparently they had been warned to maintain absolute silence, because when they saw Alai and recognized him, the man went white and the woman began to weep while trying to refasten her clothing.

 

Alai came and knelt in front of her. "Daughter of God," he said, "I am not concerned about your immodesty. I am concerned that the man you offered your nakedness to is not your husband."

 

"We will be married," she said.

 

"Then when that happy day comes," said Alai, "your nakedness will bless your husband, and his nakedness will belong to you. Until then, I have this clothing for you." He handed her the costume he had worn. "I do not ask that you dress like this all the time. But today, when God has seen how your heart intended to sin, perhaps you might cover yourself in humility."

 

"Can she wait to dress until we're in the air?" asked the pilot.

 

"Of course," said Alai.

 

"Everybody strap down," said the pilot.

 

There weren't enough seats along the sides; the center was meant to hold a gurney. But Alai's driver grinned and insisted on standing. "I've ridden choppers into battle. If I can't keep my feet in a medical chopper, I deserve some bruises."

 

The chopper tilted as it rose into the air, but soon it found a workable equilibrium, and the woman unstrapped and awkwardly dressed herself. All the men looked away, except her companion, who helped her.

 

Meanwhile, Alai and the pilot conversed, making no attempt to lower their voices.

 

"I don't want these two with us for the main enterprise," said Alai. "But I don't want to kill them either. They need time to find their way back to God."

 

"They can be held in Haifa," said the pilot. "Or I can have them taken on to Malta, if that would suit you better."

 

"Haifa will do."

 

It wasn't a long journey, even flying low and slow. By the time they arrived, the doctors were quiet and looked penitent, holding hands and trying not to look at Alai too much. They landed on the roof of a hospital in Haifa, and the pilot turned off the engine and got out to converse for a moment with a man dressed like a doctor. Then he opened the door. "I have to lift off again," he said, "to make room for your transportation. So you need to come out now. Except those two."

 

The doctors looked at each other, frightened.

 

"They'll be safe?" asked Alai.

 

"Better if they don't see your transportation come and go," said the pilot. "It will soon be dawn and there's a little light. But they'll be safe."

 

Alai touched them both as he left the chopper.

 

He and his men watched as the medical chopper lifted off. Instantly, another chopper arrived, but this time a long-range battlejet, large enough to carry many soldiers into battle, and armed heavily enough to get them past a lot of obstacles.

 

The door opened, and Peter Wiggin stepped out.

 

Alai walked up to him. "Salaam," he said.

 

"And in you, too, let there be peace," said Peter.

 

"You look more like Ender than the public photographs show."

 

"I have them retouched by computer to make me look older and smarter," said Peter.

 

Alai grinned. "It was nice of you to give us a ride."

 

"When Felix told me the sad story of that lonely pedestrian in the Empty Quarter, I couldn't pass up the chance to help."

 

"I thought it would be Bean," said Alai.

 

"It's a whole bunch of men trained by Bean," said Peter. "But Bean himself is on another errand. In Rwanda, as it happens."

 

"So that's happening now?" asked Alai.

 

"Oh, no," said Peter. "We won't make a move until we see how your little adventure turns out."

 

"Then let's go," said Alai.

 

Peter invited Alai to take precedence, but then he himself entered before any of Alai's soldiers. Ivan made as if to protest, but Alai gestured for him to relax. Alai had already bet everything on Peter's being cooperative and trustworthy. Now was not the time to worry about assassination or kidnapping. Even though there were twenty Hegemony soldiers already inside, as well as a sizable amount of equipment. Alai recognized the Thai-looking commander as someone he knew from Battle School. Had to be Suriyawong. Alai nodded to him. Suriyawong nodded back.

 

Once they were under way and on jet power—this time without any embarrassed woman having to be officially rebuked and forgiven and dressed—Peter indicated the men who were with him.

 

"I assumed," said Peter, "that the lone hitchhiker our mutual friend told me about didn't need a large escort."

 

"Only enough to get me to where a certain thick rope is coiled like a snake."

 

Peter nodded. "I have friends currently trying to find his exact location."

 

Alai smiled. "I assume it's far from the front."

 

"If he's in Hyderabad," said Peter, "then he will be under extremely heavy guard. But if he's across the border in Pakistan, security will not be unusually heavy."

 

"Either way," said Alai, "I will not have your men exposed to danger."

 

"Or observed," said Peter. "It wouldn't do for too many people to know you were brought to real power with the help of the Hegemon."

 

"You do seem to be at hand whenever I make a play for power."

 

"This is the last time, if you win," said Peter.

 

"This is the last time either way," said Alai, then grinned. "Either the soldiers will follow me or they won't."

 

"They will," said Peter. "If they get the chance."

 

Alai indicated his small escort. "That's what my camera crew is here to ensure."

 

Ivan smiled and lifted his shirt enough to show that he was wearing a bulletproof vest and carrying grenades and clips and a machine pistol.

 

"Oh," said Peter. "I thought you had gained weight."

 

"We Battle School boys," said Alai, "we always have a plan."

 

"You're not going to fight your way in, then."

 

"We're going to walk in as if we expected to be obeyed," said Alai. "With cameras rolling. It's a simple plan. But it doesn't have to work for very long. That thick rope, it always did love a camera."

 

"A vain and brutal man, my sources say," said Peter. "And not stupid."

 

"We'll see," said Alai.

 

"I think you're going to succeed," said Peter.

 

"So do I."

 

"And when you do," said Peter, "I think you're going to do something about the things Virlomi has been complaining about."

 

"It's because of those things that I could not wait for a more opportune time. I must wash Islam clean of this bloody stain."

 

"I believe that with you as Caliph, the Free People of Earth can coexist with a united Islam," said Peter.

 

"I believe so as well," said Alai. "Though I can never say so."

 

"But what I want," said Peter, "is insurance that I can use in case you don't survive. Either today or at some future point, I want to make sure I don't have to face a Caliph I can't coexist with."

 

Peter handed Alai a couple of sheets of paper. It was a script. Alai began to read.

 

"If you die a natural death and pass on your throne to someone you have chosen, then I'll have no need of this," said Peter. "But if you were murdered or kidnapped or exiled or otherwise dethroned by force, then I want this."

 

"And what if you are killed or otherwise forcibly removed from office?" asked Alai. "What happens to this vid then, assuming I say these things for the camera?"

 

"Try to encourage your followers not to think that killing me would be good for Islam," said Peter, "and my soldiers and doctors will guard against any other possible causes of my untimely death."

 

"In other words, I just have to risk it," said Alai.

 

"Come now," said Peter, "the only way this vid will be useful is if you aren't around to repudiate it. And if I'm dead, it will have no value to my unworthy successor."

 

Alai nodded. "True enough."

 

He stood up, opened his suitcase, and dressed in the flamboyant costume of a Caliph as the Muslim people expected to see him. Meanwhile, Peter's vidman set up his equipment—and the backdrop, so it wouldn't be obvious it was taped on a battlecraft, surrounded by soldiers.

 

 

 

At the gate of the heavily guarded military complex at Hyderabad— once the headquarters of the Indian military, then of the Chinese occupiers, and now of the Pakistani "liberators"—three motorcycles pulled up, two of them carrying two men each, and the third a single rider with a satchel on the seat behind him.

 

They stopped well back from the gate, so no one would suppose it was an attempt at a suicide bombing. They all held up their hands so some trigger happy guard wouldn't take a shot at them while one of the men pulled a video camera out of the satchel and fitted a satellite feed to the top of it.

 

That got the attention of the guards, who immediately phoned for advice from someone in authority.

 

Only when the camera was ready did the man who had been alone on his cycle peel back the traveling coat that had covered him. The guards were almost blinded by the whiteness of his robes, and long before he had his kaffia-cloth and 'agal-rope in place on his head.

 

Even the guards who weren't close enough to recognize him by face guessed from the clothing and from the fact that he was a young black man that their Caliph had come to see them. None of the common soldiers and few of the officers suspected that General Rajam would not be happy to have a visit from the Caliph. So they raised their voices in cheers—some of them in an ululation meant to suggest the cries of Arab warriors riding into battle, though all the soldiers here were Pakistani.

 

The camera rolled as Alai raised his arms to receive the adulation of his people.

 

He strode through the checkpoint unmolested.

 

Someone brought him a jeep, but he refused and kept walking. But the vidman and his crew got into the jeep and rode along beside and then ahead of the Caliph. While the Caliph's aide, Ivan Lankowski, dressed in civilian clothes like the vid crew, explained to the officers who trotted alongside him that the Caliph was here to bestow upon General Rajam the honors he had earned. He expected General Rajam and those men he wished to have share this honor greet the Caliph in the open square before all of the Caliph's soldiers.

 

This word quickly spread, and before long, Alai's progress was accompanied by thousands of uniformed soldiers, cheering and calling his name. They kept a path clear for the vid crew, and those who thought they might be within line of sight of the camera made an especially exuberant show of their love for the Caliph, in case someone from home was watching and might recognize them.

 

Alai was reasonably confident that whatever Rajam might be planning, he wouldn't do it in front of a live satellite feed, with thousands of soldiers looking on. Rajam would have had Alai die in a plane crash on the way, or be assassinated somewhere far from Rajam himself. Now that he was here, Rajam would play a waiting game, to see what Alai was up to, meanwhile looking for some innocent-seeming way for Alai to be gotten rid of—killed, or trundled back to Damascus and kept under closer guard.

 

As Alai expected, Rajam waited for him at the top of the imposing stairs leading up to the finest-looking building in the compound. But Alai walked up only a few steps and stopped, turning his back on Rajam and facing the soldiers ... and the camera. The light was good here.

 

The vid crew took their places at the bottom of the steps.

 

Alai held up his arms for silence and waited. The shouting died down.

 

"Soldiers of God!" he shouted.

 

A huge roar, but it subsided at once.

 

"Where is the general who has led you?"

 

Another cheer... but one that was noticeably less enthusiastic. Alai hoped that Rajam wouldn't be too resentful of the difference in their popularity.

 

Alai did not look—he counted on Ivan to signal him when Rajam was near. He saw Ivan beckoning to Rajam to take his place at Alai's left hand, directly in front of the camera.

 

Ivan signaled. Alai turned and embraced and kissed Rajam.

 

Stab me to death right now, Alai wanted to say. Because this is your last chance, you treasonous, murdering dog.

 

Instead, he spoke softly into Rajam's ear. "As my old friend Ender Wiggin used to say, Rajam, the enemy's gate is down."

 

Then he let go of the embrace, ignoring the puzzled look on Rajam's face, and took his hand, offering him to the cheering of the soldiers.

 

Alai raised his hands for silence and got it.

 

"God has seen all the deeds that have been done in his name here in India!"

 

Cheering. But also, on some faces, uncertainty. They had seen Virlomi's vid, including the most recent one. Some of them, the brightest of them, knew that they could not be sure what Alai meant by this.

 

"And God knows, as you all know, that nothing has been done in India except by the will of General Rajam!"

 

The cheering was definitely half-hearted.

 

"Now is the day God has appointed to pay the debt of honor that is owed!"

 

The cheer had barely started when the camera crew pulled out their machine pistols and filled Rajam's body with bullets.

 

At first many of the soldiers thought it was an assassination attempt on the Caliph, and there was a roar. Alai was glad to see that these were not the Muslim soldiers of history—few fled from the bullets, and many rushed forward. But Alai raised his arms and strode to a higher position, above the body of Rajam. At the same time, as he had instructed them, Ivan and the two men who were not holding the camera bounded up the steps and stood in line with Alai and raised their weapons above their heads.

 

"Allahu akbar!" they cried in unison. "Muhammed is his prophet! And Alai is Caliph!"

 

Again Alai raised his hands, and waited until he had relative silence and the rush toward the steps had ceased. Now there were soldiers all around him.

 

"The crimes of Andariyy Rajam have made a stink throughout the world! The soldiers of Islam came to India as liberators! In the name of God they came, as friends to our brothers and sisters in India! But Andariyy Rajam betrayed God and his Caliph by encouraging some of our people to commit terrible crimes!

 

"God has already declared the penalty for such crimes! Now I have come to cleanse Islam of such evil. Never again will any man or woman or child have reason to fear the army of God! I command all the soldiers of God to arrest any man who committed atrocities against the people we came to liberate! I command the nations of the world to give no shelter to these criminals. I command my soldiers to arrest any man who ordered such atrocities, and any man who knew of the atrocities but did nothing to punish the offenders. Arrest them and bear witness against them, and in the name of God I will judge them.

 

"If they refuse to submit themselves to my authority, then they are in rebellion against God. Bring them to me for judgment; if they do not resist you, and they are innocent, they have nothing to fear. In every city and fortress, in every camp and airfield, let my soldiers arrest the offenders and bring them to the officers who are loyal to God and the Caliph!"

 

Alai held his pose for a long ten seconds while the soldiers cheered. Then he saw the camera lowered, as some soldiers already dragged various men toward him and others ran for nearby buildings, in search of others.

 

It was a very rough kind of justice that was going to go on now, as the Muslim army tore itself apart. And it would be interesting to see where such men as Ghaffar Wahabi, the prime minister of Pakistan, aligned themselves. It would be a shame to have to use this army to subdue a Muslim government.

 

But Alai had to act quickly, even if it was messy. He could not afford to let any of the offenders get away to plot against him.

 

And as he watched the accused men being lined up in front of him, under the direction of Ivan and his men, who seemed unlikely to be killed today after all, Alai spoke inside his mind: There, Hot Soup! See how Alai adapted your trick to his purposes.

 

We still learn from each other, we soldiers of Ender's Jeesh.

 

As for you, Peter, keep your little vid. It will never be needed. For all men are only tools in the hand of God, and I, not you, am the tool God has chosen to unite the world.

 

 

 

 

13

 

 

FOUND

 

 

 

From: Graff%pilgrimage@colmin.gov

 

To:PADelphiki@TutsiNet.rw.net

 

Re: Can you travel?

 

 

Since your husband is busy in Rwanda right now, I wonder if you are able to travel? We expect no physical danger apart from the normal rigors of air travel. But with little Ender still so young, you will probably want to leave him behind. Or not—if you wish to bring him, we will do our best to accommodate you.

 

 

We have confirmed the identity of one of your children. A daughter. Naturally, we are finding the children who share Bean's genetic condition first. We have already accessed blood samples from the child, taken at the hospital because the birth was premature. The genetic match is absolute: She is yours. In all likelihood this will be difficult for the erstwhile parents, especially for the mother, who, like the victim of the proverbial cuckoo, has just borne another female's child. I will understand completely if you prefer not to be present. Your presence, however, might also help them believe in the reality of the true mother of "their" child. Your call.

 

 

 

Petra was furious with Peter—and with Graff. These plotters, so sure they know what's best for everyone. If they were holding off on the announcement of ratification while the turmoil—no, the bloodbath—in the Muslim world continued, then why couldn't Bean come with her to pick up the first of their missing children to be found?

 

No, that was impossible, he needed to cement the allegiance of the Rwandan military, and so on and so on, as if it really mattered. And most maddening of all, why did Bean go along with it? Since when had Bean become obedient? "I have to stay," he said, over and over, without any further explanation, despite her demand for some kind of justification.

 

Was Bean a plotter too? But not against her, surely. Why would he conceal his thinking from her? What secrets would he keep?

 

But when it became clear that Bean would not come with her, Petra packed baby clothes, diapers, and a change of clothes for herself into a single bag, then scooped up little Ender and headed for Kayibanda Airport.

 

She was met there by Mazer Rackham. "You came to Kigali instead of meeting me there?" she said.

 

"Hello to you too," said Rackham. "We're not trusting commercial flights on this matter. We believe Achilles's network has been broken, but we can't risk having your baby kidnapped or you harmed en route."

 

So Achilles still bends us and costs us time and money, even after death. Or else he's just your excuse for making sure you supervise everything directly. Why are Bean's and my children so important to you? How do I know that you, too, don't have some plan to harness our children to the yoke of some noble world-saving project?

 

What she said aloud was, "Thank you."

 

They took off on a private jet that pretended to belong to one of the big solar desalinization companies that were developing the Sahara.

 

Nice to know which companies the I.F. is using as a cover for planetside operations.

 

They overflew the Sahara, and Petra couldn't help but be pleased at the sight of a restored Lake Chad and the vast irrigation project surrounding it. She had read that the desalination on the Libyan coast was now proceeding faster than evaporation, and that Lake Chad was already affecting weather in the surrounding area. But she had not been prepared to see so many kilometers of grassland, or the herds of animals grazing on it. The grass and vines were turning sand and sahel into fertile soil again. And the dazzling surface of Lake Chad was dotted with the sails of fishing boats.

 

They landed in Lisbon and Rackham took her first to a hotel, where she nursed Ender, cleaned herself up, then put the baby into a sling in front of her. Carrying him she went back down to the lobby, where Rackham met her and led her to the limo waiting outside.

 

To her surprise, she felt a sudden stab of fear. It had nothing to do with this car, or their destination today. She remembered the day in Rotterdam when Ender was implanted in her womb. Bean emerged from the hospital with her and the drivers of the first couple of taxis were smoking. So Bean made her get in the third one. He got into the first one himself.

 

The first two cabs had been part of a kidnapping and murder plot, and Bean only narrowly escaped death. The cab she entered was part of an entirely different plot—one to save her life.

 

"You know this driver?" asked Petra.

 

Mazer nodded gravely. "We leave nothing to chance," he said. "The driver is a soldier. One of ours."

 

So the I.F. had trained military personnel on Earth, wearing civilian clothes and driving limousines. Such a scandal.

 

They drove up into the hills, to a large and lovely home with an astonishing view of the city and the bay and, on a clear day, the Atlantic beyond. The Romans saw this place, ruled in this city. The Vandals took it, and then the Visigoths. The Moors got it next, and then the Christians took it back. From this city, sailing ships went out and rounded Africa and colonized in India and China and Africa and, eventually, Brazil.

 

And yet it was nothing more than a human city in a lovely setting. Earthquakes and fires had come and gone, but people still built in the hills and on the flat. Storms and calms and pirates and war had taken ship after ship, and yet people still put out to sea with nets or trade goods or guns. People made love and grew babies, in the mansions just as in the tiny houses of the poor.

 

She had come here from Rwanda, as humans had come out of Africa for fifty thousand years. Not as part of a tribe that climbed down into caves to paint their stories and worship their gods. Not as part of a wave of invaders. But... wasn't she here to take a baby out of a woman's arms? To claim that what came from this stranger's womb would belong to her from now on? Just as so many people had stood on the hills overlooking the bay and said, This is mine now, and it always was mine, regardless of the people who happen to think it belongs to them and have held this place all their lives.

 

Mine mine mine. That was the curse and power of human beings— that what they saw and loved, they had to have. They could share it with other people but only if they conceived of those people as being somehow their own. What we own is ours. What you own should also be ours. In fact, you own nothing, if we want it. Because you are nothing. We are the real people, you are only posing as people in order to try to deprive us of what God means us to have.

 

And now she understood for the first time the magnitude of what Graff and Mazer Rackham and, yes, even Peter were all trying to do.

 

They were trying to get human beings to define themselves as all belonging to one tribe.

 

It had happened briefly when they were threatened by creatures who truly were strangers; then the human race had felt itself to be one people, and united in order to repel an enemy.

 

And the moment victory was achieved, it all fell apart, and long-pent-up resentments erupted into war. First the old rivalry between Russia and the West. And when that was quelled by the I.F., and the old polemarch fell and was replaced by Chamrajnagar, the wars moved to different killing fields.

 

They even looked at the Battle School grads and said, Ours. Not free people, but the property of this nation or that.

 

And now those same children, once property, were at the heads of some of the most powerful nations. Alai, mortaring the bricks of his fragmented empire with the blood of his enemies. Han Tzu, restoring the prosperity of China as quickly as possible in order to emerge from defeat as a power in the world. And Virlomi, out in the open now, refusing to join any party, standing above politics, but Petra knew that she would not release her hold on power.

 

Hadn't Petra sat with Han Tzu and Alai and controlled fleets and squadrons in distant wars? They thought they were only playing a game—all of them thought that, except Bean, the secret-keeper—but they were saving the world together. They loved being together. They loved being one, under the leadership of Ender Wiggin.

 

Virlomi hadn't been with them then, but Petra remembered her as well, as the girl she turned to when she was a captive in Hyderabad. She had given her a message and Virlomi had taken the burden as if Petra were a real person; she had delivered it to Bean and had helped Bean to come and save her. Now Virlomi had created a new India out of the wreckage of the old; she had given them something more powerful than any mere elected government. She had given them a divine queen, a dream and a vision, and India was poised to become, for the first time, a great power commensurate with her great population and her ancient culture.

 

All three of them are making their nations great, in a time when the greatness of nations is the nightmare of humanity.

 

How will Peter ever gain mastery over them? How will he tell them, No, this city, that mountain, these fields, that lake, they do not belong to you or to any group or individual, they are part of Earth, and Earth belongs to all of us, a single tribe. One overgrown troop of baboons that have taken shelter in the shade of this planet's night, that draw their life from the heat of this planet's day.

 

Graff and his ilk did their work too well. They found all of the children best suited to rule; but part of the mix they selected for was ambition. And not just the desire to achieve or even surpass others—it was aggression, the desire to rule and control.

 

The need to have our own way.

 

I certainly have it. If I had not fallen in love with Bean and focused on our children, wouldn't I be one of them? Only I would be hampered by the weakness of my country. Armenia has neither the resources nor the national will to rule over great empires. But Alai and Han Tzu inherit centuries of empire and a sense of entitlement to rule. While Virlomi is making her own myth and teaching her people that their day of destiny has come.

 

Only two of these great children have stepped outside the pattern, the great game of slaughter and domination.

 

Bean was never selected for aggression. He was selected for brilliance alone. His mind far outshone any other. But he was not one of us. He could solve the strategic and tactical problems more easily than anyone—more easily than Ender. But he didn't care whether he ruled; he didn't care whether he won. When he had an army of his own, he never won a battle—all his effort was spent on training his soldiers and trying out his ideas.

 

That's why he was able to be the perfect shadow to Ender Wiggin. He did not need to surpass Ender. All he wanted was to survive. And, without knowing it, to belong. To love and be loved. Ender gave him that. And Sister Carlotta. And me. But he never needed to rule.

 

Peter is the other one. And he does need to rule, to surpass all others. Especially because he wasn't selected for Battle School. So what tames him?

 

Ender Wiggin? Is that it? Peter must be greater than his brother Ender. He can't do it by conquest because he isn't a match for these Battle Schoolers. He can't take the Meld against Han Tzu or Alai—or Bean, or me, for that matter! Yet he must somehow be greater than Ender Wiggin, and Ender Wiggin saved the human race.

 

Petra stood at the edge of the hill, across the street from the house where her second child waited for her—a daughter she intended to take away from the woman who bore her. She looked out over the city and saw herself.

 

I am as ambitious as Hot Soup or Alai or any of them. Yet I fell in love with and determined to marry—against his will—the only Battle Schooler who had no ambition of his own. Why? Because I wanted to have the next generation. I wanted the most brilliant children. Even as I told him that I wanted none of them to have his affliction, in fact I wanted them to have it. To be like him. I wanted to be Eve to a new species. I wanted my genes to be part of the future of humanity. And they will be.

 

But Bean will also die. I knew that all along. I knew that I would be a young widow. In the back of my mind, I thought of that all along. What a terrible thing to realize about myself.

 

That's why I don't want him to take our babies away from me. I must have them all, the way conquerors have had to have this city. I must have them. That is my empire.

 

What kind of life will they have, with me for their mother?

 

"We can't put this off forever," said Mazer Rackham.

 

"I was just thinking."

 

"You're still young enough to believe that will get you somewhere," said Rackham.

 

"No," she said. "No, I'm older than you think. I know that I can't think my way out of being who I am."

 

"Why would you want to?" said Mazer Rackham. "Don't you know that you were always the best of them?"

 

She turned to him, suppressing the rush of pride, refusing to believe it. "That's nonsense. I'm the least. The worst. The one that broke."

 

"The one that Ender pressed hardest, relied on most. He knew. Besides, I didn't mean the best at war. I meant the best, period. The best at being human."

 

The irony of hearing him say that right after she realized just how selfish and ambitious and dangerous she was—she almost laughed. Instead she reached out and touched his shoulder. "You poor man," she said. "You think of us as your children."

 

"No," said Rackham, "that would be Hyrum Graff."

 

"Did you have children? Before your voyage?"

 

Rackham shook his head. But she couldn't tell if he was saying, No, I had no children, or No, I won't talk to you about this. "Let's go inside."

 

Petra turned around, crossed the narrow street, and followed him through the gate of the garden and up to the door of the house. It stood open in the early autumn sunlight. Bees hummed among the flowers of the garden but none came into the house; what business did they have in there, when all they needed was outside?

 

The man and woman waited in the dining room of their house. A woman in civilian clothes—who nevertheless seemed to Petra like a soldier—stood behind them. Perhaps watching to make sure they didn't try to run.

 

The wife sat in an armchair and held their newborn daughter. Her husband leaned on the table. His face was a mask of despair. The woman had been crying. So they already knew.

 

Rackham spoke at once. "I didn't want you to turn your baby over to strangers," he said to the man and woman. "I wanted you to see that the baby is going home to her mother."

 

"But she already has a baby," said the woman. "You didn't tell me that she already—"

 

"Yes he did," said the man.

 

Petra sat down in a chair across from the man, cornerwise from the woman. Ender wriggled a little but stayed asleep. "We meant to save the others, not to have them born all at once," said Petra. "I meant to bear them all myself. My husband is dying. I meant to keep having his children after he was gone."

 

"But don't you have more? Can't you spare this one?" The woman's voice was so piteous that Petra hated herself for saying no.

 

Rackham spoke before she could. "This child is already dying of the same condition that is killing her father. And her brother. That's why they were born prematurely."

 

This only made the woman cling more tightly to the baby.

 

"You'll have children of your own," said Rackham. "You still have the four fertilized embryos you already created."

 

The would-be father looked up at him blandly. "We'll adopt next time," he said.

 

"We're all very sorry," Rackham went on, "that these criminals stole the use of your womb to deliver another woman's child. But the child is truly hers, and if you adopt, you should have children that were willingly given up by their parents."

 

The man nodded. He understood.

 

But the woman had the baby in her arms.

 

Petra spoke up. "Would you like to hold her brother?" She reached down and lifted Ender out of the sling. "His name is Andrew. He's a month old."

 

The woman nodded.

 

Rackham reached down and took her daughter out of her arms. Petra handed Ender to her.

 

"My ... the girl is ... I call her Bella. My little Lourinha." She wept.

 

Lourinha? The baby's hair, such as it was, was brown. But apparently it didn't take much lightness of hair to earn the appellation "blonde."

 

Petra took the girl from Rackham's hands. She was even smaller than Ender, but her eyes were just as intelligent and searching. Ender's hair was as black as Bean's. Bella's hair was more like Petra's. It startled her, how happy it made her that the baby took after her.

 

"Thank you for bearing my daughter," said Petra. "I grieve for your grief, but I hope you can also rejoice at my joy."

 

Weeping, the woman nodded and clung now to Ender. She turned her face to the baby and spoke in a small babytalk voice. "Es tu feliz em ter irminha? Es tu felizinho?" Then she burst into tears and handed Ender to Rackham.

 

Standing, Petra laid Bella into the sling where Ender had been. Then she took Ender from Rackham and held him against her shoulder.

 

"I'm so sorry," said Petra. "Please forgive me for not letting you keep my baby."

 

The man shook his head. "N?o ha de que desculpar," he said.

 

"Nothing to forgive," murmured the stern-looking woman who was apparently not just a guard, but also an interpreter.

 

The woman wailed in grief and leapt to her feet, upsetting the chair. She sobbed and babbled and clutched at Bella and covered her with kisses. But she didn't try to take the baby.

 

Rackham pulled Petra away as the guard and the husband pulled the mother back and held her, still wailing and sobbing, while Petra and Rackham left the house.

 

Back in the car, Rackham sat in back with Petra and took Ender out of her arms for the ride back to the hotel. "They really are small," he said.

 

"Bean calls Ender a toy person," said Petra.

 

"I can see why," said Rackham.

 

"I feel like a really polite kidnapper," said Petra.

 

"Don't," said Rackham. "Even though they were embryos when they were stolen from you, it was a kidnapping, and now you're getting your daughter back."

 

"But these people did nothing wrong."

 

"Think again," said Rackham. "Remember how we found them."

 

They moved, she remembered. When Volescu's deadman switch triggered a message, they moved. "Why would they knowingly—"

 

"The wife doesn't know. Our deal with the husband was that we wouldn't tell. He's completely sterile, you see. Their attempt at in vitro fertilization didn't take. That's why he took Volescu's offer and pretended to his wife that the baby was really theirs. He's the one that got the message and made up a reason for them to move to this house."

 

"He didn't ask where the baby came from?"

 

"He's a rich man," said Rackham. "Rich people tend to take it for granted that things they want simply come to them."

 

"The wife meant no harm, though."

 

"Neither did Bean, and yet he's dying," said Rackham. "Neither did I, and yet I was sent on a voyage that jumped me decades into the future, costing me everyone and everything. And you'll lose Bean, even though you've done nothing wrong. Life is full of grief, to exactly the degree we allow ourselves to love other people."

 

"I see," said Petra. "You're the Ministry of Colonization's resident philosopher."

 

Rackham grinned. "The consolations of philosophy are many, but never enough."

 

"I think you and Graff planned the whole history of the world. I think you chose Bean and Peter for the roles they're playing now."

 

"You're wrong," said Rackham. "Flat wrong. All that Graff and I ever did was choose the children we thought might win the war and try to train than for victory. We failed again and again until we found Ender. And Bean to back him up. And the rest of the Jeesh to help him. And when the last battle ended and we had won, Graff and I had to face the fact that the solution to the one problem was now the cause of another."

 

"The military geniuses you had identified would now tear the world apart with their ambition."

 

"Or be used as pawns to satisfy the ambitions of others, yes."

 

"So you decided to use them as pawns in your own game once again."

 

"No," said Rackham softly. "We decided to find a way to set most of them free to live human lives. We're still working on that."

 

"Most of us?"

 

"There was nothing we could do for Bean," said Rackham.

 

"I guess not," said Petra.

 

"But then something happened that we hadn't planned on," said Rackham. "Hadn't hoped for. He found love. He became a father. The one we could do nothing for, you made him happy. So, I have to admit, we feel a lot of gratitude to you, Petra. You could have been out there playing the game with the others." He chuckled. "We would never have guessed it. You're off the charts when it comes to ambition. Not quite like Peter, but close. Yet somehow you set it all aside."

 

She smiled as beatifically as she could.

 

If only you knew the truth, she thought.

 

Or maybe he does know, but telling her that he admires her is a way of manipulating her...

 

Nobody ever completely means what they say. Even when they think they're telling the truth, there's always something hidden behind their words.

 

It was dark when she got back to her own house in the military headquarters compound just outside Kigali. Mazer Rackham did not come inside with her. So she carried both babies, Ender in the sling again, and Bella at her shoulder.

 

Bean was there, waiting for her. He ran to her and took the new baby from her and pressed his cheek to the baby's cheek.

 

"Don't smother her, oaf," said Petra.

 

He laughed and kissed her. They sat together on the edge of the bed, holding the two children, and then trading, back and forth.

 

"Seven to go," said Petra.

 

"Was it hard?" asked Bean.

 

"I'm glad you weren't there," said Petra. "I'm not sure you would have been tough enough to go through with it."

 

 

 

 

14

 

 

VIRLOMI'S VISITORS

 

 

 

From: lmperialSelf%HotSoup@ForbiddenCity.ch.gov

 

To: Suriyawong@hegemon.gov

 

Re: We have found Paribatra

 

 

Suriyawong, I am relieved to tell you that Paribatra, the former prime minister of Thailand, has been located. His health is not good but with proper attention it is believed that he will recover as well as can be expected for a man his age.

 

 

The former government had nearly perfected the art of making people disappear without actually killing them, but we are still tracking down other Thai exiles. I have great hopes of finding and releasing your family members.

 

 

You know that I opposed all these illegal actions against Thailand, its citizens, and its government. I have now moved at the first opportunity to undo as much of the damage as I can.

 

 

For internal political reasons I cannot release Paribatra directly to Ambul's Free Thai organization at this time, even though I fully expect that his group will be the core of the new government of Thailand and look forward to an early reconciliation.

 

 

As we free Paribatra into the care of the Hegemon, it seems appropriate that you who tried so hard to save Thailand should be the one to receive him.

 

 

 

Virlomi came to Hyderabad, and in front of the gate of the military complex where she once worked in virtual captivity, drawing up plans for wars and invasions she did not believe in, she now built a hut with her own hands.

 

Each day she went to a well and drew water, even though there were few villages in India that did not already have clean running water. Each dawn she buried her night soil even though most villages had working sewer systems.

 

Indians came to her by the hundreds, to ask her questions. When she was tired, she came out and wept for them and begged them to go home. They went, but the next morning others came.

 

No soldiers came near her, so there was no overt provocation to the Muslims inside the military compound. Of course, she was controlling the Indian military, which grew in strength every day, through her encrypted cellphones, which were swapped out daily for freshly charged ones by aides posing as ordinary supplicants.

 

Now and then someone from another land would come to see her. Her aides would whisper to them that she would not speak to anyone who was not barefoot, and if they wore western business suits she would offer them appropriate clothing, which they would not like, so it was better to be clad already in Indian clothing of their own choosing.

 

Three visitors came to her in one week of her vigil.

 

 

 

The first was Tikal Chapekar. Emperor Han had freed him, along with many other Indian captives. If he had expected some kind of ceremony when he returned to India, he was disappointed.

 

He assumed at first that the silence from the media was because the Muslim conquerors would not allow any mention of the return of the imprisoned Prime Minister to India.

 

So he went to Hyderabad to complain to the Caliph himself, who now ruled over his vast Muslim empire from within the walls of the military compound there. He was allowed to enter the compound, though while he waited in line at the checkpoint, he was curious about the hut a few dozen meters away, where a great many more Indians waited in line than waited to see the rulers of the nation.

 

"What is that hut?" he asked. "Do ordinary citizens have to go there first before coming to this gate?"

 

The gate guards laughed at his question. "You're an Indian, and you don't know that's where Virlomi lives?"

 

"Who is Virlomi?"

 

Now the guards grew suspicious. "No Hindu would say that. Who are you?"

 

He explained that he had been in captivity until just a few days ago, and was not aware of the news.

 

"News?" said one guard. "Virlomi isn't on the news. She makes her own news."

 

"Wish they'd just let us shoot her," muttered another.

 

"And then who would protect you as they tore us all limb from limb?" said another, quite cheerfully.

 

"So ... who is she?" asked Chapekar.

 

"The soul of India is a woman," said the one who had wanted to shoot her. He said "woman" with all the contempt he could put into a single word. Then he spat.

 

"What office does she hold?" asked Chapekar.

 

"Hindus don't hold offices anymore," said another guard. "Not even you, former Prime Minister."

 

Chapekar felt a wave of relief. Someone had recognized his name.

 

"Because you forbid the Indian people to elect their own government?"

 

"We allow it," said the guard. "The Caliph declared an election but nobody came."

 

"No one voted?"

 

"No one ran for office."

 

Chapekar laughed. "India has been a democracy for hundreds of years. People run for office. People vote."

 

"Not when Virlomi asks them not to serve in any office until the Muslim overlords leave India."

 

Now Chapekar understood everything. She was a charismatic, like Gandhi, centuries ago. Rather a sad one, since she was imitating a primitive Indian lifestyle that hadn't been the rule through most of India in many lifetimes. Still, there was magic in the old icons, and with so many disasters befalling India, the people would look for someone to capture their imagination.

 

Gandhi never became ruler of India, however. That job was for more practical people. If he could just get the word out that he was back. Surely the Caliph would want a legitimate Indian government restored to help keep order.

 

After a suitable wait, he was ushered into a building. After another wait, he was brought to the anteroom of the Caliph's office. And finally he was brought into the Presence.

 

Except that the person he met with was not the Caliph at all, but his old adversary, Ghaffar Wahabi, who had been prime minister of Pakistan.

 

"I thought to see the Caliph," said Chapekar, "but I'm glad to see you first, my old friend."

 

Wahabi smiled and nodded, but he did not rise and when Chapekar made as if to approach him, hands restrained him. Still, they did not stop him from sitting in an armless chair, which was good, because Chapekar tired easily these days.

 

"I am glad to sec that the Chinese have come to their senses and set their prisoners free. This new emperor they have is weak, a mere boy, but a weak China is better for all of us, don't you think?"

 

Chapekar shook his head. "The Chinese people love him."

 

"Islam has ground the face of China into the dust," said Wahabi.

 

"Has Islam ground the face of India into the dust as well?" asked Chapekar.

 

"There were excesses, under the previous military leadership. But Caliph Alai, may God preserve him, put a stop to that some time ago. Now the leader of the Indian rebels sits outside our gate, and we are untroubled, and she and her followers are unmolested."

 

"So now Muslim rule is benign," said Chapekar. "And yet when the Indian Prime Minister returns, there is not a word on television, not an interview. No car waiting for him. No office."

 

Wahabi shook his head. "My old friend," he said. "Don't you remember? As the Chinese surrounded and swallowed up your armies, as they swept across India, you made a great public pronouncement. You said, if I remember rightly, that there would be no government in exile. That the ruler of India from then on would be ... and I say this with all modesty ... me."

 

"I meant, of course, only until I returned."

 

"No you were very clear," said Wahabi. "I'm sure we can get someone to play you the vid. I can send for someone if you—"

 

"You are going to hold India without a government because—"

 

"India has a government. From the mouth of the Indus to the mouth of the Ganges, from the Himalayas to the waves that lap the shores of Sri Lanka, the flag of Pakistan flies over a united India. Under the divinely inspired leadership of Caliph Alai, may Allah be thanked for him."

 

"Now I understand why you suppress news of my coming," said Chapekar, rising to his feet. "You are afraid of losing what you have."

 

"What I have?" Wahabi laughed. "We are the government, but Virlomi rules India. You think we blacked out the news about you? Virlomi asked the Indian people not to look at television as long as the Muslim invaders retained their unwelcome presence in Mother India."

 

"And they obey her?"

 

"The drop in national power consumption is noticeable. No one interviewed you, old friend, because there are no reporters. And even if there were, why would they care about you? You don't rule India, and I don't rule India, and if you want to have anything to do with India, you'll take off your shoes and get in that line in front of the hut outside the gate."

 

"Yes," said Chapekar. "I'll do that."

 

"Come back and tell me what she says," said Wahabi. "I've been contemplating doing the same thing myself."

 

So Chapekar walked back out of the military compound and joined the line. When the sun set and the sky began to darken, Virlomi came out of the hut and wept with grief that she could not hear and speak to everyone personally. "Go home," she said. "I pray for you, all of you. Whatever is the desire of your heart, let the Gods grant it, if it would bring no harm to another. If you need food or work or shelter, go back to your city or your village and tell them that Virlomi is praying for that city, that village. Tell them that my prayer is this: Let the gods bless the people to exactly the degree that they help the hungry and jobless and homeless. Then help them make this prayer a blessing upon them instead of curse. You try to find someone less fortunate than you, and help him. In helping him, you will also rise."

 

Then she went back inside the hut.

 

The crowd dispersed. Chapekar sat down to wait until the morning.

 

One of the others who had been in the line said, "Don't bother. She never sees anyone who spends the night. She says that if she lets people gain an advantage by doing that, soon the plain will be covered with snoring Indians and she will never get any sleep!"

 

He and several others laughed, but Chapekar did not laugh. Now that he had seen his adversary, he was worried. She was beautiful and gentle-seeming, and moved with unspeakable grace. She had mastered it all—the perfect demagogue for India. Politicians had always shouted to whip an audience into a frenzy. But this woman spoke quietly, and made them hunger for her words, so she hardly had to say anything, and they felt blessed to hear her.

 

Still, she was only a lone woman. Chapekar knew how to command armies. More important, he knew how to get legislation through Congress and keep party members in line. All he needed to do was attach himself to this girl and soon he would be the real ruler of her party.

 

Now all he needed was to find a place to spend the night and come back in the morning to see her.

 

He was leaving when one of Virlomi's aides touched his shoulder. "Sir," said the young man, "the Lady has asked to see you."

 

"Me?"

 

"Aren't you Tikal Chapekar?"

 

"I am."

 

"Then you're the one she asked for." The young man eyed him up and down, then knelt, scooped up some dirt, and flung it at Chapekar's suit and began to rub it in.

 

"What are you doing! How dare you!"

 

"If I don't make you look like your suit is old and you have seen much suffering, then—"

 

"You idiot! My suit is old, and I have suffered in exile!"

 

"The Lady will not care, sir. But do as you wish. It's this or the loincloth. She keeps several in her hut, so she can humble proud men."

 

Chapekar glared at the young man, then squatted, scooped up dirt, and began rubbing it into his own clothing.

 

A few minutes later, he was inside the hut. It was lighted by three small flickering oil lamps. Shadows danced on the dried-mud walls.

 

She greeted him with a smile that seemed warm and friendly. Maybe this would go better than he had feared.

 

"Tikal Chapekar," she said. "I'm glad that our people are returning from captivity."

 

"The new emperor is weak," said Chapekar. "He thinks that he'll appease world opinion by letting his prisoners go."

 

She said nothing.

 

"You've done an excellent job of annoying the Muslims," he said.

 

She said nothing.

 

"I want to help you."

 

"Excellent," she said. "What weapons are you trained to use?"

 

He laughed. "No weapons."

 

"So ... not as a soldier, then. Do you type? I know you can read, so I assume you can handle record keeping on our military computers."

 

"Military?" he asked.

 

"We're a nation at war," she said simply.

 

"But I'm not a soldier of any kind," said Chapekar.

 

"Too bad."

 

"I'm a governor."

 

"The Indian people are doing an excellent job of governing themselves right now. What they need are soldiers to drive out their oppressors."

 

"But you have government right here. Your aides, who tell people what to do. The one who covered me with dirt."

 

"They help people. They don't govern them. They give advice."

 

"And this is how you rule all of India?"

 

"I sometimes make suggestions, and my aides put the vid out over the nets," said Virlomi. "Then the people decide whether to obey me or not."

 

"You can reject government now," said Chapekar. "But someday you'll need it."

 

Virlomi shook her head. "I will never need government. Perhaps someday India will choose to have a government, but I will never need it."

 

"So you wouldn't stop me from urging exactly that course. On the nets."

 

She smiled. "Whoever comes to your site, let them agree or disagree with you as they see fit."

 

"I think you're making a mistake," said Chapekar.

 

"Ah," said Virlomi. "And you find this frustrating?"

 

"India needs better than a lone woman in a hut."

 

"And yet this lone woman in a hut held up the Chinese Army in the passes of the east, long enough for the Muslims to have their victory. And this lone woman led the guerrilla war and the riots against the Muslim occupiers. And this lone woman brought the Caliph from Damascus to Hyderabad in order to seize control of his own army, which was committing atrocities against India."

 

"And you're very proud of your achievements."

 

"I'm pleased that the gods saw fit to give me something useful to do. I've offered you something useful, too, but you refuse."

 

"You've offered me humiliation and futility." He stood to go.

 

"Exactly the gifts I once had from your hand."

 

He turned back to her. "Have we met?"

 

"Have you forgotten? You once came to see the Battle School graduates who were planning your strategy. But you discarded all our plans. You despised them, and followed instead the plans of the traitor Achilles."

 

"I saw all your plans."

 

"No, you saw only the plans Achilles wanted you to see."

 

"Was that my fault? I thought they were from you."

 

"I foresaw the fall of India as Achilles's plans overextended our armies and exposed our supply lines to attack from China. I foresaw that you would do nothing except futile rhetoric—like the monstrous act of appointing Wahabi as ruler of India—as if the rule of India were yours to bequeath to another in your will. I saw—we all saw—how useless and vain and stupid you were in your ambition, and how easily Achilles manipulated you by flattery."

 

"I don't have to listen to this."

 

"Then go," said Virlomi. "I say nothing that doesn't play over and over again in the secret places in your heart."

 

He did not go.

 

"After I left, to notify the Hegemon of what was happening, so that perhaps my friends from Battle School could be saved from Achilles's plan to murder them all—when that errand was done, I set up resistance to Chinese rule in the mountains of the East. But back in Battle School, led by a brilliant and brave and beautiful young man named Sayagi, the Battle Schoolers drew up plans that would have saved India, if you had followed them. At risk of their own lives, they published it on the nets, knowing that Achilles would let none of it get to you if they submitted it through him. Did you see the plans?"

 

"I was not in the habit of getting my war plans from the nets."

 

"No. You got your plans from our enemy."

 

"I didn't know that."

 

"You should have known. It was plain enough what Achilles was. You saw what we saw. The difference is, we hated him, and you admired him—for exactly the same traits."

 

"I never saw the plans."

 

"You never asked the most brilliant minds in India for a shred of advice. Instead, you trusted a Belgian psychopath. And followed his advice to make unprovoked war on Burma and Thailand, pouring out war on nations that had done no harm to us. A man who embraces the voice of evil when it whispers in his ear is no less evil than the whisperer."

 

"I'm not impressed by your ability to coin aphorisms."

 

"Sayagi defied Achilles to his face, and Achilles shot him dead."

 

"Then he was foolish to do it."

 

"Dead as he is, Sayagi has more value to India than you have ever had or will ever have in all the days of your life."

 

"I'm sorry he's dead. But I'm not dead."

 

"You're mistaken. Sayagi lives on in the spirit of India. But you are dead, Tikal Chapekar. You are as dead as a man can be, and still breathe."

 

"So now it comes to threats."

 

"I asked my aides to bring you to me so I could help you understand what will now happen to you. There is nothing for you in India. Sooner or later you will leave and make a life for yourself somewhere else."

 

"I will never leave."

 

"Only on the day you leave will you begin to understand Satyagraha."

 

"Peaceful noncompliance?"

 

"Willingness to suffer, yourself and in person, for a cause you believe is right. Only when you are willing to embrace Satyagraha will you begin to atone for what you have done to India. Now you should go."

 

Chapekar did not realize anyone had been listening. He might have stayed to argue, but the moment she said those words, a man came into the hut and drew him out.

 

He had thought they would let him go, but they didn't, not until they led him into the town and sat him down in the back room of a small office and brought up a notice on the nets.

 

It was his own picture. A short vid taken as the young man tossed dirt onto him.

 

"Tikal Chapekar is back," said a voice.

 

The picture changed to show Chapekar in his glory days. Brief clips and stills.

 

"Tikal Chapekar brought war to India by attacking Burma and Thailand without any provocation, all to try to make himself a great man."

 

Now there were pictures of Indian victims of atrocities. "Instead, he was taken captive by the Chinese. He wasn't here to help us in our hour of need."

 

The picture of him with dirt being flung on him returned to the screen.

 

"Now he's back from captivity, and he wants to rule over India."

 

A picture of Chapekar talking cheerfully with the Muslim guards outside the gates of the compound. "He wants to help our Muslim overlords rule over us forever."

 

Again with the dirt-flinging.

 

"How can we rid ourselves of this man? Let us all pretend he doesn't exist. If no one speaks to him, waits on him, shelters him, feeds him, or helps him in any way, he will have to turn to the foreigners he invited into our land."

 

That was when they ran the footage of Chapekar turning the government of India over to Wahabi.

 

"Even in defeat, he invited evil upon us. But India will not punish him. India will simply ignore him until he goes away."

 

The program ended—with, of course, the dirt-flinging picture.

 

"Clever setup," said Chapekar.

 

They ignored him.

 

"What do you want from me, so you won't publish that piece of trash?"

 

They ignored him.

 

After a while, he began to rage, and tried to fling the computer to the ground. That was when they restrained him and put him out of doors.

 

Chapekar walked down the street, looking for lodging. There were houses with rooms to rent. They opened the door when he called out, but when they saw his face, they closed the doors again.

 

Finally he stood in the street and shouted. "All I want is a place to sleep! And a bite to eat! What you would give a dog!"

 

But no one even told him to shut up.

 

Chapekar went to the train station and tried to buy a ticket out, using some of the money the Chinese had given him to help him make his way home. But no one would sell him a ticket. Whatever window he went to was closed in his face, and the line moved over to the next one, making no room for him.

 

At noon the next day, exhausted, hungry, thirsty, he made his way back to the Muslim military compound and, after being fed and clothed and given a place to bathe and sleep by his enemies, he was flown out of India, then out of Muslim territory. He ended up in the Netherlands, where public charity would support him until he found employment.

 

 

 

The second visitor followed no known road to come to the hut. Virlomi merely opened her eyes in the middle of the night, and despite the complete darkness, she could see Sayagi sitting on the mat near the door.

 

"You're dead," she said to him.

 

"I'm still awaiting rebirth," he said.

 

"You should have lived," Virlomi told him. "I admired you greatly. You would have been such a husband for me and such a father for India."

 

"India is already alive. She does not need you to give birth to her," said Sayagi.

 

"India does not know she's alive, Sayagi. To wake someone from a coma is to bring them to life as surely as a mother brings forth life when she bears a baby."

 

"Always have an answer, don't you? And the way you talk now— like a god. How did it happen, Virlomi? Was it when Petra chose you to confide in?"

 

"It was when I decided to take action."

 

"Your action succeeded," said Sayagi. "Mine failed."

 

"You should not have spoken to Achilles. You should simply have killed him."

 

"He said he had the building wired with explosives."

 

"And you believed him?"

 

"There were other lives besides mine. You escaped in order to save the lives of the Battle Schoolers. Should I then have thrown their lives away?"

 

"You misunderstand me, Sayagi. All I say now is, either you act or you don't act. Either you do the thing that makes a difference, or you do nothing at all. You chose a middle way, and when it comes to war, the middle way is death."

 

"Now you tell me."

 

"Sayagi, why have you come to me?"

 

"I haven't. I'm only a dream. You're awake enough to realize that. You're making up both sides of this conversation."