Shadow Puppets Part 35

She sighed and clung to him a little. They took the first cab.They went to the Hegemony compound, of course, but instead of going to their house-it indeed, it was their house, since they had given it up when they resigned from the Hegemon's service that day back in the Philippines-Bean took her right to the Hegemon's office.

Peter was waiting there for her, along with Graff and the Wiggins. There were hugs that became kisses and handshakes that became hugs.

Peter told all about what happened up in s.p.a.ce. Then they made Petra tell about Damascus, though she protested that it was nothing at all, just a city happy with victory.

"The war's not over yet," said Peter.

"They're full of Muslim unity," said Petra.

"Next thing you know," said Graff, "the Christians and Jews will get back together. The only thing standing between them, after all, is that business with Jesus."

"It's a good thing," said Theresa, "to have a little less division in the world."

"I think it's going to take a lot of divisions," said John Paul, "to bring about less division."

"I told you they were happy in Damascus, not that I thought they were right to be," said Petra. "There are signs of trouble ahead. There's an imam preaching that India and Pakistan should be reunited under a single government again."

"Let me guess," said Peter. "A Muslim one."

"If they liked what Virlomi did to the Chinese," said Bean, "they'll love what she can get the Hindus to do to get free of the Pakistanis."

"And Peter will love this one," said Petra. "An Iraqi politician made a speech in Baghdad in which he very pointedly said, 'In a world where Allah has chosen a Caliph, why do we need a Hegemon?'"

They laughed, but their faces were serious when the laughing stopped.

"Maybe he's right," said Peter "Maybe when this war is over, the Caliph will be the Hegemon, in fact if not in name. Is that a bad thing? The goal was to unite the world in peace. I volunteered to do it, but if somebody else gets it done, I'm not going to get anybody killed just to take the job away from him."

Theresa took hold of his wrist, and Graff chuckled. "Keep talking like that, and I'll understand why I've been supporting you all these years."

"The Caliph is not going to replace the Hegemon," said Bean, "or erase the need for one."

"No?" asked Peter.

"Because a leader can't take his people to a place where they don't want to go."

"But they want him to rule the world," said Petra.

"But to rule the world, he has to keep the whole world content with his rule," said Bean. "And how can he keep non-Muslims content without making orthodox Muslims extremely discontented? It's what the Chinese found in India. You can't swallow a nation. It finds a way to get itself vomited out. Begging your pardon, Petra."

"So your friend Alai will realize this, and not try to rule over nonMuslim people?" asked Theresa.

"Our friend Alai would have no problem with that idea," said Petra. "The question is whether the Caliph will."

"I hope we won't remember this day," said Graff "as the time when we first started fighting the next war."

Peter spoke up. "As I said before, this war's not over yet."

"Both of the frontline Chinese armies in India have been surrounded and the noose is tightening," said Graff. "I don't think they have a Stalingrad-style defense in them, do you? The Turkic armies have reached the Hw.a.n.g He and Tibet just declared its independence and is slaughtering the Chinese troops there. The Indonesians and Arabs are impossible to catch and they're already making a serious dent in internal communications in China. It's just a matter of time before they realize it's pointless to keep killing people when the outcome is inevitable."

"It takes a lot of dead soldiers before governments ever catch on to that," said Theresa.

"Mother always takes the cheerful view," said Peter, and they laughed.

Finally, though, it was time for Petra to hear the story of what happened inside the compound. Peter ended up telling most of it, because Bean kept skipping all the details and rus.h.i.+ng straight to the end.

"Do you think Achilles believed Suriyawong would really kill Bean for him?" asked Petra.

"I think," said Bean, "that Suriyawong told him that he would."

"You mean he intended to do it, and changed his mind?"

"I think," said Bean, "that Suri planned that moment from the start. He made himself indispensable to Achilles. He won his trust. The cost of it was losing the trust of everyone else."

"Except you," said Petra.

"Well, you see, I know Suri. Even though you can't ever really know anybody-don't throw my own words back up to me, Petra-"

"I didn't! I wasn't!"

"I walked into the compound without a plan, and with only one real advantage. I knew two things that Achilles didn't know. I knew that Suri would never give himself to the service of a man like Achilles, so if he seemed to be doing so, it was a lie. And I knew something about myself. I knew that I could, in fact, kill a man in cold blood if that's what it took to make my wife and children safe."

"Yes," said Peter, "I think that's the one thing he just didn't believe, not even at the end."

"It wasn't cold blood," said Theresa.

"Yes it was," said Bean.

"It was, Mother," said Peter. "It was the right thing to do, and he chose to do it, and it was done. Without having to work himself up into a frenzy to do it."

"That's what heroes do," said Petra. "Whatever's necessary for the good of their people."

"When we start saying words like 'hero,' " said Bean, "it's time to go home."

"Already?" said Theresa. "I mean, Petra just got here. And I have to tell her all my horrible stories about how hard each of my deliveries was. It's my duty to terrify the mother-to-be. It's a tradition."

"Don't worry, Mrs. Wiggin," said Bean. "I'll bring her back every few days, at least. It's not that far."

"Bring me back?" said Petra.

"We left the Hegemon's employ, remember?" said Bean. "We only worked for him so we'd have a legal pretext for fighting Achilles and the Chinese. so there'd be nothing for us to do. We have enough money from our Battle School pensions. So we aren't going to live in Ribeirao Preto."

"But I like it here," said Petra.

"Uh-oh, a fight, a fight," said John Paul.

"Only because you haven't lived in Araraquara yet. It's a better place to raise children."

"I know Araraquara," said Petra. "You lived there with Sister Carlotta, didn't you?"

"I lived everywhere with Sister Carlotta," said Bean. "But it's a good place to raise children."

"You're Greek and I'm Armenian. Of course we need to raise our children to speak Portuguese."The house Bean had rented was small, but it had a second bedroom for the baby, and a lovely little garden, and monkeys that lived in the tall trees on the property behind them. Petra imagined her little girl or boy coming out to play and hearing the chatter of the monkeys and delighting in the show they put on for all comers.

"But there's no furniture," said Petra.

"I knew I was taking my life in my hands picking out the house without you," said Bean. "The furniture is up to you."

"Good," said Petra. "I'll make you sleep in a frilly pink room." "Will you be sleeping there with me?"

"Of course."

"Then frilly pink is fine with me, if that's what it takes."Peter, unsentimental as he was, saw no reason to hold a funeral for Achilles. But Bean insisted on at least a graveside service, and he paid for the carving of the monument. Under the name "Achilles de Flandres," the year of his birth, and the date of his death, the inscription said: Born crippled in body and spirit, He changed the face of the world.

Among all the hearts he broke And lives he ended far too young Were his own heart And his own life.

May he find peace.It was a small group gathered there in the cemetery in Ribeirao Preto. Bean and Petra, the Wiggins, Peter Graff had gone back to s.p.a.ce. Suriyawong had led his little army back to Thailand, to help their homeland drive out the conquerors and restore itself.

No one had anything much to say over Achilles's grave. They could not pretend that they weren't all glad that he was dead. Bean read the inscription he had written, and everyone agreed that it wasn't just fair to Achilles, it was generous.

In the end it was only Peter who had something he could say from the heart.

"Am I the only one here who sees something of himself in the man who's lying in this box?"

No one had an answer for him, either yes or no.Three b.l.o.o.d.y weeks later, the war ended. If the Chinese had accepted the terms the Caliph had offered in the first place, they would have lost only their new conquests, plus Xinjiang and Tibet. Instead, they waited until Canton had fallen, Shanghai was besieged, and the Turkic troops were surrounding Beijing.

So when the Caliph drew the new map, the province of Inner Mongolia was given to the nation of Mongolia, and Manchuria and Taiwan were given their independence. And China had to guarantee the safety of teachers of religion. The door had been opened to Muslim proselytizing.

The Chinese government promptly fell. The new government repudiated the ceasefire terms, and the Caliph declared martial law until new elections could be held.

And somewhere in the rugged terrain of easternmost India, the G.o.ddess of the bridge lived among her wors.h.i.+pers, biding her time, watching to see whether India was going to be free or had merely changed one tyranny for another. In the aftermath of war, while Indians, Thais, Burmese, Vietnamese, Cambodians and Laotians searched their onetime conquerors' land for family members who had been carried off. Bean and Petra also searched as best they could by computer, hoping to find some record of what Volescu and Achilles had done with their lost children.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

In writing this sequel to Ender's Shadow and Shadow of the Hegemon, I faced two new problems. First, I was expanding the roles of several minor characters from earlier books, and ran the serious risk of inventing aspects of their appearance or their past that would contradict some long-forgotten detail in a previous volume. To avoid this as much as possible, I relied on two online communities.

The Philotic Web (http://www.philoticweb.net) carries a timeline combining the story flows of Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow, which proved invaluable to me. It was created by Nathan M. Taylor with the help of Adam Spieckermann.

On my own website, Hatrack River (http://www.hatrack.com), I posted the first five chapters of the ma.n.u.script of this novel, in the hope that readers who had read the other books in the series more recently than I might be able to catch inadvertent inconsistencies and other problems. The Hatrack River community did not disappoint me. Among the many who responded-and I thank them all-I found particular value in the suggestions of Keiko A. Haun ("accio"), .Justin Pollen, Chris Bridges, Josh Galvez ("Zevlag"), David Tayman ("Taalcon"), Alison Purnell ("Eaquae Legit"), Vicki Norris ("CKDexterHaven"), Michael Sloan ("Papa Moose"), and Oliver Withstandley.

In addition, I had the help, chapter by chapter through the whole book, of my regular crew of first readers-Phillip and Em Absher, Kathryn H. Kidd, and my son Geoffrey. My wife, Kristine A. Card, as usual read each chapter while the pages were still warm from the LaserJet. Without them I could not have proceeded with this book.

The second problem posed by this novel was that I wrote it during the war in Afghanistan between the U.S. and its allies and the Taliban and Al Qaeda forces. Since in Shadow Puppets I had to show the future state of relations between the Muslim and Western worlds, and between Israel and its Muslim neighbors, I had to make a prediction about how the current hate-filled situation might someday be resolved. Since I take quite seriously my responsibility to the nations and peoples I write about, I was dependent for much of my understanding of the causes of the present situation on Bernard Lewis's What Went Wrong?: Western Impact and Middle Eastern Response (Oxford University Press, 2001).

This book is dedicated to my wife's parents. Besides the fact that much of the peace and joy in Kristine's and my lives comes from our close and harmonious relations.h.i.+p with both our extended families, I owe an additional debt to James B. Allen, for his excellent work as a historian, yes, but more personally for having taught me to approach history fearlessly, going wherever the evidence leads, a.s.suming neither the best nor the worst about people of the past, and adapting my personal worldview wherever it needs adjustment, but never carelessly throwing out previous ideas that remain valid.

To my a.s.sistants, Kathleen Bellamy and Scott Allen, I owe much more than I pay them. As for my children, Geoffrey, Emily. and Zina, and my wife, Kristine, they are the reason it's worth getting out of bed each day.