Orson Scott Card - Ender 08 - Shadow of the Giant

by Orson Scott Card

  It was time for the next step—for India to reach for the world stage. She needed an ally to free her nation from the foreign occupiers. Even though the atrocities had ended—nothing filmable now—Alai persisted in keeping his Muslim troops all over India. Waiting for Hindu provocations. Knowing that Virlomi couldn't control her people as tightly as Alai now controlled his troops.

  But she wasn't going to bring Han Tzu into the picture. She had fought too hard to get the Chinese out of India to invite them back again. Besides, even though they had no religion to force on people like Alai's Muslims, the Chinese were just as arrogant, just as sure they were entitled to rule the world.

  And these Jeeshboys, they were so sure they could be her masters. Didn't they understand that her whole life was a repudiation of their sense of superiority? They had been chosen to wage war against aliens. The gods fought on their side in that war. But now the gods fought on Virlomi's side.

  She hadn't been a believer when she began. She exploited her knowledge of the folk religion of her people. But over the weeks and months and years of her campaign against China and then against the Muslims, she had seen how everything bent and turned to fit her plans. Everything she thought of worked; and since there were tests proving that Alai and Han Tzu were smarter than she was, it must be that entities wiser than they were providing her with her ideas.

  There was only one person now who could give her the help she needed, and only one man in the world whom it would not demean her to marry. After all, when she married it would be all India marrying; and whatever children she bore would be the children of a god, at least in the eyes of the people. Since parthenogenesis was out of the question, she needed a husband. And that's why she had summoned Peter Wiggin.

  Wiggin, the brother of the great Ender. The older brother. Who then could doubt that her children would carry the best genes available on Earth? They would found a dynasty that could unite the world and rule forever. By marrying her, Peter would be able to add India to his FPE, transforming it from a sideshow into more than half the population of the world. And she—and India—would be raised above any other nation. Instead of being the leader of a single nation, like China, or the head of a brutal and backward religion, like Alai, she would be the wife of the enlightened Locke, the Hegemon of Earth, the man whose vision would bring peace to all the world at last.

  Peter's boat wasn't huge—clearly he wasn't a wasteful man. But it wasn't a primitive fisherman's dhow; Peter's boat had modern lines and it looked as if it was designed to rise up and fairly fly over the waves. Speed. No time to waste in Peter Wiggin's world.

  She had once belonged to that world. For years now she had slowed herself down to the pace of life in India. She had walked slowly when people were watching her. She had to maintain the simple grace they expected of someone in her position. And she had to hold silence while men argued, speaking only as much as was appropriate for her to say. She could not afford to do anything to diminish herself in their eyes.

  But she missed the speed of things. The shuttles that took her to and from Battle School and Tactical School. The clean polished surfaces. The quickness of games in the Battle Room. Even the intensity of life in Hyderabad among other Battle Schoolers before she fled to let Bean know where Petra was. It was closer to her true inclinations than this pose of primitiveness.

  You do what victory requires. Those with armies, train the armies. But when Virlomi started, she had only herself. So she trained and disciplined herself to seem as she needed to seem.

  In the process, she had become what she needed to be.

  But that didn't mean she had lost her ability to admire the sleek, fast vessel that Peter had brought to her.

  The fishermen helped her out of the dhow and into the row boat that would take her between the two vessels. Out in the Gulf of Mannar, there were undoubtedly much heavier waves, but the little islands of Adam's Bridge protected the water here, so it was only slightly choppy.

  Which was just as well. There was a faint nausea that had been with her ever since she got aboard. Vomiting was not something she needed to show these sailors. She hadn't expected seasickness. How could she have known she was susceptible? Helicopters didn't bother her, or cars on winding roads, or even free-fall. Why should a bit of chop on the water nearly do her in?

  The row boat was actually better than the dhow. More frightening, but less nauseating. Fear she could deal with. Fear didn't make her want to throw up. It only made her more determined to win.

  Peter himself was at the side of his boat, and it was his hand that she took to help her climb aboard. That was a good sign. He wasn't trying to play games and force her to come to him.

  Peter had her men tie the dinghy to his craft, and then brought them aboard to rest in relative comfort on the deck while she went inside the main cabin with Peter.

  It was beautifully and comfortably decorated, but not overly large or pretentious. It struck just the right note of restrained opulence. A man of taste.

  "It's not my boat, of course," said Peter. "Why would I waste FPE money on owning a boat? This is a loan."

  She said nothing—after all, saying nothing was part of who she was now. But she was just a little disappointed. Modesty was one thing; but why did he feel compelled to tell her that he didn't own it, that he was frugal? Because he believed her image of seeking traditional Indian simplicity—no poverty—as something she really meant, and not just something she staged in order to hold on to the hearts of the Indian people.

  Well, I could hardly expect him to be as perceptive as me. He wasn't admitted to Battle School, after all.

  "Have a seat," he said. "Are you hungry?"

  "No thank you," she said softly. If only he knew what would happen to any food she tried to eat at sea!

  "Tea?"

  "Nothing," she said.

  He shrugged—with embarrassment? That she had turned him down? Really, was he such a boy as that? Was he taking this personally?

  Well, he was supposed to take it personally. He just didn't understand how or why.

  Of course he didn't. How could he imagine what she came to offer him?

  Time to be Virlomi. Time to let him know what this meeting was about.

  He was standing near a bar with a fridge, and seemed to be trying to choose between inviting her to sit with him at the table or on the soft chairs bolted to the deck.

  She took two steps and she was with him, pressing her body against his, entwining the arms of India under his and around his back. She stood on her toes and kissed his lips. Not with vigour, but softly and warmly. It was not a girl's chaste kiss; it was a promise of love, as best she knew how to show it. She had not had that much experience before Achilles came and made Hyderabad a chaste and terrifying place to work. A few kisses with boys she knew. But she had learned something of what made them excited; and Peter was, after all, scarcely more than a boy, wasn't he?

  And it seemed to work. He certainly returned the kiss.

  It was going as she expected. The gods were with her.

  "Let's sit down," said Peter.

  But to her surprise, what he indicated was the table, not the soft chairs. Not the wide one, where they could have sat together.

  The table, where they would have a slab of wood—something cold and smooth, anyway—between them.

  When they were seated, Peter looked at her quizzically. "Is that really what you came all this way for?"

  "What did you think?" she said.

  "I hoped it had something to do with India ratifying the FPE Constitution."

  "I haven't read it," she said. "But you must know India doesn't surrender its sovereignty easily."

  "It'll be easy enough, if you ask the Indian people to vote for it."

  "But, you see, I need to know what India gets in return."

  "What every nation in the FPE receives. Peace. Protection. Free trade. Human rights and elections."

  "That's what you give to Nigeria," said Virlomi.

&
nbsp; "That's what we give to Vanuatu and Kiribati, too. And the United States and Russia and China and, yes, India, when they choose to join us."

  "India is the most populous nation on Earth. And she's spent the past three years fighting for her survival. She needs more than mere protection. She needs a special place near the centre of power."

  "But I'm not the centre of power," said Peter. "I'm not a king."

  "I know who you are," said Virlomi.

  "Who am I?" He seemed amused.

  "You're Genghis. Washington. Bismarck. A builder of empires. A uniter of peoples. A maker of nations."

  "I'm the breaker of nations, Virlomi," said Peter. "We'll keep the word nation, but it will come to mean what state means in America. An administrative unit, but little more. India will have a great history, but from now on, we'll have human history."

  "How very noble," said Virlomi. This was not going as she intended. "I think you don't understand what I'm offering you."

  "You're offering me something I want very much—India in the FPE. But the price you want me to pay is too high."

  "Price!" Was he really that stupid. "To have me is not a price you pay. It's a sacrifice I make."

  "And who says romance is dead," said Peter. "Virlomi, you're a Battle Schooler. Surely you can see why it's impossible for me to marry my way into having India in the FPE."

  Only then, in the moment of his challenge, did the whole thing become clear. Not the world as she saw it, centred on India, but the world as he saw it, with himself at the centre of everything.

  "So it's all about you," said Virlomi. "You can't share power with another."

  "I can share power with everybody," said Peter, "and I already am. Only a fool thinks he can rule alone. You can only rule by the willing obedience and cooperation of those you supposedly rule over. They have to want you to lead them. And if I married you—attractive as the offer is on every count—I would no longer be seen as an honest broker. Instead of trusting me to lead the FPE's foreign and military policy to the benefit of the whole world, I would be seen as tilting everything toward India."

  "Not everything," she said.

  "More than everything," said Peter. "I would be seen as the tool of India. You can be sure that Caliph Alai would immediately declare war, not just on India, which has his troops all over it, but on the FPE. I'd be faced with bloody war in Sudan and Nubia, which I don't want."

  "Why would you tear it?"

  "Why wouldn't I?" he said.

  "You have Bean" she said. "How can Alai stand against you?"

  "Well," said Peter, "if Bean is so all powerful and irresistible, why do I need you?"

  "Because Bean can never be as fully trusted as a wife. And Bean doesn't bring you a billion people."

  "Virlomi," said Peter, "I'd be a fool to trust you, wife or not. You wouldn't be bringing India into the FPE, you'd be bringing the FPE into India."

  "Why not a partnership?"

  "Because gods don't need mortal partners," said Peter. "You've been a god too long. There's no man you can marry, as long as you think you're elevating him just by letting him touch you."

  "Don't say what you can't unsay," said Virlomi.

  "Don't make me say what's so hard to hear," said Peter. "I'm not going to compromise my leadership of the whole FPE just to get one country to join."

  He meant it. He actually thought his position was above hers. He thought he was greater than India! Greater than a god! That he would diminish himself by taking what she offered.

  But now there was nothing more to say to him. She wouldn't waste time with idle threats. She'd show him what she could do to those who wanted India for an enemy.

  He rose to his feet. "I'm sorry that I didn't anticipate your offer," said Peter. "I wouldn't have wasted your time. I had no desire to embarrass you. I thought you would have understood my situation better."

  "I'm just one woman. India is just one country."

  He winced just a little. He didn't like having his foolish, arrogant words thrown in his face. Well, you'll have more than that thrown at you, Ender's Brother.

  "I brought two others to see you," said Peter. "If you're willing."

  He opened a door and Colonel Graff and a man she didn't know entered the room. "Virlomi, I think you know Minister Graff. And this is Mazer Rackham."

  She inclined her head, showing no surprise.

  They sat down and explained their offer.

  "I already have the love and allegiance of the greatest nation on Earth," said Virlomi. "And I have not been defeated by the most terrible enemies that China and the Muslim world could hurl against me. Why should I wish to run and hide in a colony somewhere?"

  "It's a noble work," said Graff. "It's not hiding, it's building."

  "Termites build," said Virlomi.

  "And hyenas tear," said Graff.

  "I have no need for or interest in the service you offer," said Virlomi.

  "No," said Graff, "you just don't see your need yet. You always were hard to get to change your way of looking at things. It's what held you back in Battle School, Virlomi."

  "You're not my teacher now," said Virlomi.

  "Well, you're certainly wrong about one thing, whether I'm your teacher or not," said Graff.

  She waited.

  "You have not yet faced the most terrible enemies that China and the Muslim world can hurl against you."

  "Do you think Han Tzu can get into India again? I'm not Tikal Chapekar."

  "And he's not the Politburo or Snow Tiger."

  "He's Ender's Jeeshmate," she said in mock awe.

  "He's not caught up in his own mystique," said Rackham, who had not spoken till now. "For your own sake, Virlomi, take a good hard look in the mirror. You're what megalomania looks like in the early stages."

  "I have no ambition for myself," said Virlomi.

  "If you define India as whatever you conceive it to be," said Rackham, "you'll wake up some terrible morning and discover that it is not what you need it to be."

  "And you say this from your vast experience of governing ... what country was it, now, Mr. Rackham?"

  Rackham only smiled. "Pride, when poked, gets petty."

  "Was that already a proverb?" asked Virlomi. "Or should I write it down?"

  "The offer stands," said Graff. "It's irrevocable as long as you live."

  "Why don't you make the same offer to Peter?" asked Virlomi. "He's the one who needs to take the long voyage."

  She decided she wasn't going to get a better exit line than that, so she walked slowly, gracefully, to the door. No one spoke as she departed.

  Her sailors helped her back into the row boat and cast off. Peter did not come to the rail to wave her off; just another discourtesy, not that she would have acknowledged him even if he had. As for Graff and Rackham, they'd soon enough be coming to her for funding—no, for permission to operate their little colony ministry.

  The dhow took her back to a different fishing village from the one she had sailed from—no point in making things easy for Alai, if he had discovered her departure from Hyderabad and followed her.

  She rode a train back to Hyderabad, passing for an ordinary citizen—if any Muslim soldiers should be so bold as to search the train. But the people knew who she was. Whose face was better known in all of India? And not being Muslim, she didn't have to cover her face.

  The first thing I will do, when I rule India, is change the name of Hyderabad. Not back to Bhagnagar—even though it was named for an Indian woman, the name was bestowed by the Muslim prince who destroyed the original Indian village in order to build the Charminar, a monument to his own power, supposedly in honour of his beloved Hindu wife.

  India will never again be obliterated in order to appease the power lust of Muslims. The new name of Hyderabad will be the original name of the village: Chichlam.

  She made her way from the train station to a safe house in the city, and from there her aides helped get her back inside the hut where she had suppose
dly been meditating and praying for India for the three days she had been gone. There she slept for a few hours.

  Then she arose and sent an aide to bring her an elegant but simple sari, one that she knew she could wear with grace and beauty, and which would show off her slim body to best advantage. When she had it arranged to her satisfaction, and her hair was arranged properly, she walked from her hut to the gate of Hyderabad.

  The soldiers at the checkpoint gawped at her. No one had ever expected her to try to enter, and they had no idea what to do.

  While they went through their flurry of asking their superiors inside the city what they should do, Virlomi simply walked inside. They dared not stop her or challenge her—they didn't want to be responsible for starting a war.

  She knew this place as well as anyone, and knew which building housed Caliph Alai's headquarters. Though she walked gracefully, without hurry, it took little time for her to get there.

  Again, she paid no attention to guards or clerks or secretaries or important Muslim officers. They were nothing to her. By now they must have heard Alai's decision; and his decision was obviously to let her pass, for no one obstructed her.

  Wise choice.

  One young officer even trotted along ahead of her, opening doors and indicating which way she should go.

  He led her into a large room where Alai stood waiting for her, with a dozen high officers standing along the walls.

  She walked to the middle of the room. "Why are you afraid of one lone woman, Caliph Alai?"

  Before he had time to answer the obvious truth—that far from being afraid, he had let her pass unmolested and un-inspected through his headquarters complex and into his own presence—Virlomi began to unwrap her sari. It took only a moment or two before she stood naked before him. Then she reached up and loosened her long hair, and then swung it and combed her fingers through it. "You see that I have no weapon hidden here. India stands before you, naked and defenceless. Why do you fear her?"

  Alai had averted his eyes as soon as it became clear that she was undressing. So had the more pious of the other officers. But some apparently thought it was their responsibility to make sure that she was, in fact, weaponless. She enjoyed their consternation, their embarrassment— and, she suspected, their desire. You came here to ravish India, didn't you? And yet I am out of your reach. Because I'm not here for you, underlings. I'm here for your master.