Petra smiled. "I have plenty to keep me from sleeping."
"But you need your sleep."
"Eventually, my body takes it whether I like it or not."
Mother looked out over the city. "Did you miss us?"
She knew her mother wanted her to say, Every day. But the truth would have to do. "When I have time to think about anything at all, yes. But it's not that I miss you. It's that...I'm glad you're in my life. Glad you're in this world." She turned to face her mother. "I'm not a little girl anymore. I know I'm still very young and I'm sure I don't know anything yet, but I'm part of the cycle of life now. I'm no longer the youngest generation. So I don't cling to my parents as I once would have liked to. I missed a lot up there in Battle School. Children need families."
"And," said Mother sadly, "they make families out of whatever they have at hand."
"That will never happen to my children," said Petra. "The world isn't being invaded by aliens. I can stay with them."
Then she remembered that some people would claim that some of her children were the alien invasion.
She couldn't think that way.
"You carry so much weight in your heart," said Mother, stroking her hair.
"Not as much as Bean. Far less than Peter."
"Is this Peter Wiggin a good man?"
Petra shrugged. "Are great men ever really good? I know they can be, but we judge them by a different standard. Greatness changes them, whatever they were to start with. It's like war--does any war ever settle anything? But we can't judge that way. The test of a war isn't whether it solved things. You have to ask, Was fighting the war better than not fighting it? And I guess the same kind of test ought to be used on great men."
"If Peter Wiggin is great."
"Mother, he was Locke, remember? He stopped a war. Already he was great before I came home from Battle School. And he was still in his teens. Younger than I am now."
"Then I asked the wrong question," said Mother. "Is a world that he rules over going to be a good place to live?"
Petra shrugged again. "I believe he means it to be. I haven't seen him being vindictive. Or corrupt. He's making sure that any nation that joins the FPE does it through the vote of the people, so nothing is being forced on them. That's promising, isn't it?"
"Armenia spent so many centuries yearning to have our own nation. Now we have it, but it seems the price of keeping it is to give it up."
"Armenia will still be Armenia, Mother."
"No, it won't," she said. "If Peter Wiggin wins everything he's trying to win, then Armenia will be...Kansas."
"Hardly!"
"We'll all speak Common and if you go from Yerevan to Rostov or Ankara or Sofia, you won't even know you've gone anywhere."
"We all speak Common now. And there'll never be a time you can't tell Ankara from Yerevan."
"You're so sure."
"I'm sure of a lot of things. And about half the time, I'm right." She grinned at her mother, but her mother's return smile wasn't real.
"How did you do it?" asked Petra. "How did you give up your child?"
"You weren't 'given up,'" said Mother. "You were taken. Most of the time I managed to believe it was all for a good cause. The other times I cried. It wasn't death because you were still alive. I was proud of you. I missed you. You were good company almost from your first word. But so ambitious!"
Petra smiled a little at that.
"You're married now," said Mother. "Ambition for yourself is over. It's now ambition for your children."
"I just want them to be happy."
"That is something you can't do for them. So don't set that as your goal."
"I don't have a goal, Mother."
"That's nice. Then your heart will never break."
Mother looked at her with a deadpan expression.
Petra laughed a little. "You know, when I've been away for a while, I forget that you know everything."
Mother smiled. "Petra, I can't save you from anything. But I want to. I would if I could. Does that help? To know that somebody wants you to be happy?"
"More than you know, Mother."
She nodded. Tears slipped down her cheeks. "Going off into space. It feels like closing yourself in your own coffin. I know! But that's how it feels to me. I just know that I'm going to lose you, as sure as death. You know it too. That's why you're out here saying good-bye to Yerevan?"
"To Earth, Mother. Yerevan's the least of it."
"Well, Yerevan won't miss you. Cities never do. They go on and we don't make any difference to them at all. That's what I hate about cities."
And that's true of the human race, too, thought Petra. "I think it's a good thing, that life goes on. Like water in a pail. Take some out, the rest fills in."
"When it's my child that's gone, nothing fills in," said Mother.
Petra knew that Mother was referring to the years that she spent without Petra, but what flashed into Petra's mind was the six babies they still hadn't found. The two ideas put together made the loss of those babies--if they even existed--too painful to contain. Petra began to cry. She hated crying.
Her mother put her arms around her. "I'm sorry, Pet," she said. "I wasn't even thinking. I was missing one child, and you have so many and you don't even know whether they're alive or dead."
"But they aren't even real to me," said Petra. "I don't know why I'm crying. I've never even met them."
"We're hungry for our children," said Mother. "We need to take care of them, once we bring them into existence."
"I didn't even get to do that," said Petra. "Other women got to bear all but the one. And I'm going to lose him." And suddenly her life felt so terrible it could not be borne. She sobbed as her mother held her.
"Oh, my poor girl," her mother kept murmuring. "Your life breaks my heart."
"How can I complain like this?" said Petra, her voice high with crying. "I've been part of some of the greatest events in history."
"When your babies need you, history doesn't bring much comfort."
And as if on cue, there was a faint sound of a baby crying inside the flat. Mother made as if to go, but Petra stopped her. "Bean will get her." She used the hem of her shirt to dab at her eyes.
"You can tell from the crying which baby it is?"
"Couldn't you?"
"I never had two infants at the same time, let alone three. There aren't many multiple births in our family."
"Well, I've found the perfect way to have nonuplets. Get eight other women to help." She managed a feeble laugh at her own black humor.
The baby cried again.
"It's definitely Bella, she's always more insistent. Bean will change her, and then he'll bring her to me."
"I could do that and he could go back to sleep," Mother offered.
"It's some of our best time together," said Petra. "Caring for the babies."
Mother pecked her on the cheek. "I can take a hint."
"Thanks for talking to me, Mother."
"Thanks for coming home."
Mother went inside. Petra stood at the edge of the balcony. After a while, Bean came padding out in bare feet. Petra pulled her T-shirt up and Bella started slurping noisily. "Good thing your brother Ender got my milk factory started," said Petra. "Or it would have been the bottle for you."
As she stood there, nursing Bella and looking out over the nighttime city, Bean's huge hands held her shoulders and stroked her arms. So gentle. So kind.
Once as tiny as this little girl.
But always a giant, long before his body showed it.
19
ENEMIES
From "Note to Hegemon: You Can't Fight an Epidemic With a Fence"
By "Martel"
Posted on "Early Warning Network"
The presence of Julian Delphiki, the Hegemon's "enforcer," in Armenia might look like a family vacation to some, but some of us remember that Delphiki was in Rwanda before it ratified the FPE Constitution.
When you consider that Delph
iki's wife, Petra Arkanian, also one of Ender's Jeesh, is Armenian, what conclusion can be reached except that Armenia, a Christian enclave nearly surrounded by Muslim nations, is preparing to ratify?
Add to that the close ties between the Hegemon and Thailand, where Wiggin's left-hand man, General Suriyawong, is now "consulting" with General Phet Noi and Prime Minister Paribatra, newly returned from Chinese captivity, and the FPE's position in Nubia--and it looks like the Hegemon is surrounding Caliph Alai's little empire.
Many pundits are saying that the Hegemon's strategy is to "contain" Caliph Alai. But now that the Hindus have gone over to the Muslim bed--er, I meant to say, "camp"--containment is not enough.
When Caliph Alai, our modern Tamerlane, decides he wants a nice big pile of human skulls (it's so hard to get good decorators these days), he can field huge armies and concentrate them wherever he wants on his borders.
If the Hegemon sits passively waiting, trying to "contain" Alai behind a fence of alliances, then he'll find himself facing overwhelming force wherever Alai decides to strike.
Islam, the bloodthirsty "one-way religion," has a track record only slightly less devastating to the human race than the Buggers.
It's time for the Hegemon to live up to his job title and take decisive, preemptive action--preferably in Armenia, where his forces will be able to strike like a knife into the neck of Islam. And when he does, it's time for Europe, China, and America to wake up and join him. We need unity against this threat as surely as we ever needed it against an alien invasion.
From: PeterWiggin%
[email protected] To: PetraDelphiki%
[email protected] Re: Latest Martel essay
Encrypted using code:******
Decrypted using code:*********
"Strike like a knife into the neck of Islam" indeed. Using what enormous army? What vast air force to neutralize the Muslims AND airlift that enormous army over the mountainous terrain between Armenia and the "neck" of Islam?
Fortunately, while Alai and Virlomi will know that Martel is full of kuso, the Muslim press is famous for its paranoia. THEY should believe there's a threat. So now the pressure is on and the game's afoot. You're a natural rabble-rouser, Petra. Promise me you'll never run against me for anything.
Oh, wait. I'm hegemon-for-life, aren't I...
Good work, mommy.
Caliph Alai and Virlomi sat beside each other at the head of a conference table in Chichlam--which the Muslim press still called Hyderabad.
Alai couldn't understand why it bothered Virlomi that he refused to insist that the Muslims call the city by its pre-Muslim name. He had problems enough to worry about without a needlessly humiliating name change. After all, the Indians hadn't won their independence. They had married their way to self-government. Which was a far better method than war--but without having won a victory on the field of battle, it was unseemly for Virlomi to insist on tokens of triumph like making your undefeated conquerors change the name they used to refer to their own seat of government.
In the past few days, Alai and Virlomi had met with several groups.
At a conference of heads of Muslim states they had listened to the woes and suggestions of such widely separated peoples as Indonesians, Algerians, Kazakhs, and Yemenis.
At a much quieter conference of Muslim minorities, they had indulged the revolutionary fantasies of Filipino, French, Spanish, and Thai would-be jihadists.
And in between, they had put on banquets for--and listened to stern counsel from--the French, American, and Russian foreign ministers.
These lords of the ancient, weary empires--hadn't they noticed that their nations had long since retired from the world? Yes, the Russians and Americans still had a formidable military, but where was their will to empire? They thought they could still boss around people like Alai, who had power and knew how to use it.
But it did Caliph Alai no harm to pretend that these nations still mattered in the world. Placate them with wise nods and palliative words, and they would go home and feel good about having helped promote "peace on Earth."
Alai had complained to Virlomi afterward. Wasn't it enough for the Americans that the whole world used their dollar and let them dominate the I.F.? Wasn't it enough for the Russians that Caliph Alai was keeping his armies away from their frontier and was doing nothing to support Muslim rebel groups inside their borders?
And the French--what did they expect Alai to do when he heard what their government's opinion was? Didn't they understand that they were spectators now in the great game, by their own choice? The players were not going to let the fans call the plays, no matter how well they played back in their day.
Virlomi listened benignly and said nothing in all these meetings. Most of the visitors came away with the impression that she was a figurehead, and Caliph Alai was in complete control. This impression did no harm. But as Alai and his closest advisers knew, it was also completely false.
Today's meeting was far more important. Gathered at this table were the men who actually ran the Muslim empire--the men Alai trusted, who made sure that the heads of the various Muslim states did what Alai needed them to do, without chafing at how thoroughly they were under the Caliph's thumb. Since Alai had the ecstatic support of most of the Muslim people, he had enormous leverage in gaining the cooperation of their governments. But Alai did not yet have the clout to set up an independent system of finance. So he was dependent on contributions from the various republics and kingdoms and Islamic states that served him.
The men at this table made sure that the money flowed inward toward Hyderabad, and obedience flowed outward, with the least possible friction.
The most remarkable thing about these men was that they were no richer now than they had been when he appointed them. Despite all their opportunities to take a bribe here or exact a bit of a kickback there, they had remained pure. They were motivated by devotion to the Caliph's cause and pride in their positions of trust and honor.
Instead of one wazir, Alai had a dozen. They were gathered at this table, to counsel him and hear his decisions.
And every single one of them resented Virlomi's presence at the table.
And Virlomi did nothing to help alleviate this. Because even though she spoke softly and briefly, she persisted in using the quiet voice and enigmatic attitude that had played so well among Hindus. But Muslims had no goddess tradition, except perhaps in Indonesia and Malaysia, where they were especially alert to stamp out such tendencies where they found them. Virlomi was like an alien being among them.
There were no cameras here. The role wasn't working for this audience. So why did she persist in acting the goddess here?
Was it possible she believed it? That after years of playing the part in order to keep Indian resistance alive she now believed that she was divinely inspired? Ridiculous to think she actually believed she was divine herself. If the Muslim people ever believed she thought that, they would expect Alai to divorce her and have done with this nonsense. They accepted the idea that the Caliph, like Solomon of old, might marry women from many kingdoms in order to symbolize the submission of those kingdoms to Islam as a wife submits to a husband.
She couldn't believe she was a goddess. Alai was sure of that. Such superstitions would have been stamped out in Battle School.
Then again, Battle School was over years ago, and Virlomi had lived in isolation and adulation during most of that time. Things had happened that would change anybody. She had told him about the campaign of stones in the road, the "Great Wall of India," how she had seen her own actions turn into a vast movement. About how she first became a holy woman and then a goddess in hiding in eastern India.
When she taught him about Satyagraha, he thought he understood. You sacrifice anything and everything in order to stand for what's right without causing harm to another.
And yet she had also killed men with a gun she held in her own hand. There were times when she did not shrink from war. When she t
old him of her band of warriors who had stood off the whole Chinese army, preventing them from flooding back into India, from even resupplying the armies that Alai's Persians and Pakistanis were systematically destroying, he realized how much he owed to her brilliance as a commander, as a leader who could inspire incredible acts of bravery from her soldiers, as a teacher who could train peasants to be brutally efficient soldiers.
Somewhere between Satyagraha and slaughter, there had to be a place where Virlomi--the girl from Battle School--actually lived.
Or perhaps not. Perhaps the cruel contradictions of her own actions had led her to put the responsibility elsewhere. She served the gods. She was a god herself. Therefore it was not wrong for her to live by Satyagraha one day, and wipe out an entire convoy in a landslide the next.
The irony was that the longer he lived with her, the more Alai loved her. She was a sweet and generous lover, and she talked with him openly, girlishly, as if they were friends in school. As if they were still children.
Which we are, aren't we?
No. Alai was a man now, despite being in his teens. And Virlomi was older than he was, not a child at all.
But they had had no childhood. Alone together, their marriage was more like playing at being husband and wife than anything else. It was still fun.
And when they came to a meeting like this, Virlomi could switch off that playfulness, set aside the natural girl and become the irritating Hindu goddess that continued to drive a wedge between Caliph Alai and his most trusted servants.
Naturally, the counsel was worried about Peter Wiggin and Bean and Petra and Suriyawong. That Martel essay was taken very seriously.
So naturally, in order to be irritating, Virlomi dismissed it. "Martel can write what he wants, it means nothing."
Careful not to contradict her, Hadrubet Sasar--"Thorn"--pointed out the obvious. "The Delphikis really are in Armenia and have been for a week."
"They have family there," said Virlomi.
"And they're on vacation taking the babies to visit grandfather and grandmother," said Alamandar. As usual, his irony was so dry you could easily miss the fact that he was utterly scornful of the idea.
"Of course not," said Virlomi--and her scorn was not subtle. "Wiggin wants us to think they're planning something. We withdraw Turkish troops from Xinjiang to invade Armenia. Then Han Tzu strikes in Xinjiang."