Orson Scott Card - Ender 08 - Shadow of the Giant

by Orson Scott Card

  "Leave us," Alai said to the other men.

  Even the most modest of them could not help but glance at her as they shuffled out of the room, leaving the two of them alone.

  The door closed behind them. She and Alai were alone.

  "Very symbolic, Virlomi," said Alai, still refusing to look at her. "That will get talked about."

  "The offer I make is both symbolic and tangible," she said. "This upstart Peter Wiggin has gone as far as he should go. Why should Muslim and Hindu be enemies, when together we have the power to crush his naked ambition?"

  "His ambition isn't as naked as you are," said Alai. "Please put on clothing so I can look at you."

  "May not a man look at his bride?"

  Alai chuckled. "A dynastic marriage? I thought you already told Han Tzu what he could do with that idea."

  "Han Tzu had nothing to offer me. You are the leader of the Muslims of India. A large portion of my people torn away from mother India in fruitless hostility. And why? Look at me, Alai."

  Either the force of her voice had power over him, or he could not resist his desire, or perhaps he simply decided that since they were alone, he need not keep up the show of perfect rectitude.

  He looked her up and down, casually, without reaction. As he did, she raised her arms above her head and turned around. "Here is India," she said, "no longer resisting you, no longer evading you, but welcoming you, married to you, fertile soil in which to plant a new civilisation of Muslim and Hindu united."

  She faced him again.

  He continued to look at her, not bothering to keep his eyes only on her face. "You do intrigue me," he said.

  I should think so, she answered silently. Muslims never have the virtue they pretend to have.

  "I must consider this," he said.

  "No," she said.

  "You think I'll make up my mind in an instant?"

  "I don't care. But I will leave this room in moments. Either I'll do it dressed in that sari, as your bride, or I'll do it naked, leaving my clothing behind. Naked I'll pass through your compound, and naked I'll return to my people. Let them decide what they think was done to me within these walls."

  "You'd provoke such a war as that?" said Alai.

  "Your presence in India is the provocation, Caliph. I offer you peace and unity between our peoples. I offer you the permanent alliance that will enable us, together, India and Islam, to unite the world in a single government and along the way cast Peter Wiggin aside. He was never worthy of his brother's name; he's wasted enough of the time and attention of the world."

  She walked closer to him, until her knees touched his.

  "You have to deal with him eventually, Caliph Alai. Will you do it with India in your bed and by your side, or will you do it while most of your forces have to remain here to keep us from destroying you from behind? Because I'll do it. Either we're lovers or enemies, and the time to choose is now."

  He made no idle threat to detain her or kill her—he knew that he could no more do that than let her walk out of the compound naked. The real question was whether he would be a grudging husband or an enthusiastic one.

  He reached out and took her hand.

  "You've chosen wisely, Caliph Alai," she said. She leaned down and kissed him. The same kiss she had given Peter Wiggin, and which he had treated as if it were nothing.

  Alai returned it warmly. His hands moved on her body.

  "Marriage first," she said.

  "Let me guess," he said. "You want the wedding now."

  "In this room."

  "Will you dress so we can show video of the ceremony?"

  She laughed and kissed his cheek. "For publicity, I'll dress."

  She started to walk away, but he caught her hand, drew her back, kissed her again, passionately this time. "This is a good idea," he said to her. "It's a bold idea. It's a dangerous idea. But it's a good one."

  "I'll stand beside you in everything," she said.

  "Not ahead," he said. "Not behind, not above, not below."

  She embraced him and kissed his headdress. Then she pulled it off his head and kissed his hair.

  "Now I'll have to go to all the trouble of putting that back on," he said.

  You'll take whatever trouble I want you to take, she thought. I have just had a victory here today, in this room, Caliph Alai. You and your Allah may not realise it, but the gods of India rule in this place, and they have given me victory without another soldier dying in useless war.

  Such fools they were in Battle School, to let so few girls in. It left the boys helpless against a woman when they returned to Earth.

  CHAPTER 18 — YEREVAN

  From: PetraDelphiki@FreePeopleOfEarth.fp.gov

  To: DinkMeeker@colmin.gov

  Re: Can't believe you're at this address

  When Bean told me what happened at that meeting, I thought: I know one guy who's never going to go along with any plan of Graff's.

  Then I got your letter informing me of your change of address. And then I thought some more and realised: There's no place on Earth where Dink Meeker is going to fit in. You have too much ability to be content anywhere that they're likely to let you serve.

  But I think you were wrong to refuse to be the head of the colony you're joining. Partly it's because: Who's going to do it better than you? Don't make me laugh.

  But the main reason is: What kind of living hell will it be for the colony leader to have Mr. Insubordinate in his colony? Especially because everybody will know you were in Ender's Jeesh and they'll wonder why you AREN'T leader...

  I don't care how loyal you think you're going to be, Dink. It's not in you. You're a brat and you always will be. So admit what a lousy follower you are, and go ahead and LEAD.

  And just in case you don't know it, you stupidest of all possible geniuses: I still love you. I've always loved you. But no woman in her right mind would ever marry you and have your babies because NOBODY COULD STAND TO RAISE THEM. You will have the most hellish children. So have them in a colony where there'll be some place for them to go when they run away from home about fifteen times before they're ten.

  Dink, I'm going to be happy, in the long run. And yes, I did set myself up for hard times when I married a man who's going to die and whose children will probably have the same disease. But Dink—nobody ever marries anybody who ISN'T going to die.

  God be with you, my friend. Heaven knows the devil already is.

  Love, Petra

  Bean held two babies and Petra one on the flight from Kiev to Yerevan—whichever one was hungriest got mama. Petra's parents lived there now; by the time Achilles died and they could return to Armenia, the tenants in their old home in Maralik had changed it too much for them to want to return.

  Besides, Stefan, Petra's younger brother, was quite the world traveller now, and Maralik was too small for him. Yerevan, while not what anyone would call one of the great world cities, was still a national capital, and it had a university worth studying at, when he graduated from high school.

  But to Petra, Yerevan was as unfamiliar a city as Volgograd would have been, or any of the cities named San Salvador. Even the Armenian that was still spoken by many on the street sounded strange to her. It made her sad. I have no native land, she thought.

  Bean, however, was drinking it all in. Petra got into the cab first, and he handed her Bella and the newest—but largest—of the babies, Ramon, whom he had picked up in the Philippines. Once Bean was inside the taxi, he held Ender up to the window. And since their first-born son was beginning to show signs that he understood speech, it wasn't just a matter of playfulness.

  "This is your mama's homeland," said Bean. "All these people look just like her." Bean turned back to the two that Petra was holding. "You children all look different, because half your genetic material comes from me. And I'm a mongrel. So in your whole life, there'll be no place you can go where you'll look like the locals."

  "That's right, depress and isolate the children from the start," said
Petra.

  "It's worked so well for me."

  "You weren't depressed as a child," said Petra. "You were desperate and terrified."

  "So we try to make things better for our children."

  "Look, Bella, look, Ramon," said Petra. "This is Yerevan, a city with lots of people that we don't know at all. The whole world is full of strangers."

  The taxi driver spoke up, in Armenian: "Nobody in Yerevan is a stranger to Petra Arkanian."

  "Petra Delphiki," she corrected him mildly.

  "Yes, yes, of course," he said in Common. "I just meaning that if you want a drink in a tavern, nobody let you pay!"

  "Does that go for her husband?" asked Bean.

  "Man big like you?" said the driver. "They don't tell you the price, they ask you what you wanting to give!" He roared with laughter at his own joke. Not realizing, of course, that Bean's size was killing him. "Big man like you, little tiny babies like these." He laughed again.

  Think how amused he'd be if he knew that the largest baby, Ramon, was the youngest.

  "I knew we should have walked from the airport," said Bean in Portuguese.

  Petra grimaced. "That's rude, to speak in a language he doesn't know."

  "Ah. I'm glad to know that the concept of rudeness does exist in Armenia."

  The taxi driver picked up on the mention of Armenia, even though the rest of the sentence, being in Portuguese, was a mystery to him. "You wanting a tour of Armenia? Not a big country, I can take you, special price, meter not running."

  "No time for that," said Petra in Armenian. "But thanks for offering."

  The Arkanian family now lived in a nice apartment building—all balconies and glass, yet upscale enough that there was no hanging laundry visible from the street. Petra had told her family she was coming, but asked them not to meet her at the airport. They had gotten so used to the extraordinary security during the days when Petra and Bean were in hiding from Achilles Flandres that they accepted this unquestioningly.

  The doorman recognised Petra from her pictures, which appeared in the Armenian papers whenever there was a story about Bean. He not only let them go up unannounced, but also insisted on carrying their bags.

  "You two, and three babies, this all the luggage you have?"

  "We hardly ever wear clothes," said Petra, as if this were the most sensible thing in the world.

  They were halfway up in the elevator before the doorman laughed and said, "You joking!"

  Bean smiled and tipped him a hundred-dollar coin. The doorman flipped it in the air and pocketed it with a smile. "Good thing he give me! If Petra Arkanian give, my wife never let me spend!"

  After the elevator doors closed, Bean said, "From now on, in Armenia you tip."

  "They'd keep the tip either way, Bean. It's not like they give it back to us."

  "Oh, eh."

  Petra's mother could have been standing at the door, she opened it so quickly. Maybe she was.

  There were hugs and kisses and a torrent of words in Armenian and Common. Unlike the cabdriver and doorman, Petra's parents were fluent in Common. So was Stefan, who had cut his high school classes today. And young David was obviously being raised with Common as his first language, since that's what he was chattering in almost continuously from the moment Petra entered the flat.

  There was a meal, of course, and neighbours invited in, because it might be the big city, but it was still Armenia. But in only a couple of hours, it was just the nine of them.

  "Nine of us," said Petra. "Our five and the four of you. I've missed you."

  "Already you have as many children as we did," said Father.

  "The laws have changed," said Bean. "Also, we didn't exactly plan to have ours all at once."

  "Sometimes I think," said Mother to Petra, "that you're still in Battle School. I have to remind myself, no, she came home, she got married, she has babies. Now we finally get to see the babies. But so small!"

  "They have a genetic condition," said Bean.

  "Of course, we know that," said Father. "But it's still a surprise, how small they are. And yet so ... mature."

  "The really little ones take after their father," said Petra, with a wry smile.

  "And the normal one takes after his mother," said Bean.

  "Thank you for letting us use your flat for the unofficial meeting tonight," said Bean.

  "It's not a secure site," said Father.

  "The meeting is unofficial, not secret. We expect Turkish and Azerbaijani observers to make their reports."

  "Are you sure they won't try to assassinate you?" asked Stefan.

  "Actually, Stefan, they brainwashed you at an early age," said Bean. "When the trigger word is said, you spring into action and kill everybody at the meeting."

  "No, I'm going to a movie," said Stefan.

  "That's a terrible thing to say," said Petra. "Even as a joke."

  "Alai isn't Achilles," said Bean to Stefan. "We're friends, and he won't let Muslim agents assassinate us."

  "You're friends with your enemy," said Stefan, as if it were too incredible.

  "It happens in some wars," said Father.

  "There is no war yet," Mother reminded them.

  They took the hint, stopped talking about current problems, and reminisced instead. Though since Petra had been sent to Battle School so young, it's not as if she had that much to reminisce about. It was more like they were briefing her about her new identity before an undercover mission. This is what you should remember from your childhood, if you'd had one.

  And then the Prime Minister, the President, and the Foreign Minister showed up. Mother took the babies into her bedroom, while Stefan took David out to see a movie. Father, being Deputy Foreign Minister, was allowed to stay, though he would not speak.

  The conversation was complex but friendly. The Foreign Minister explained how eager Armenia was to join the FPE, and then the President echoed everything he had said, and then the Prime Minister began another repetition.

  Bean held up a hand. "Let's stop hiding from the truth. Armenia is a landlocked country, with Turks and Azerbaijanis almost completely surrounding you. With Georgia refusing to join the FPE at present, you worry that we couldn't even supply you, let alone defend you against the inevitable attack."

  They were obviously relieved that Bean understood.

  "You just want to be left alone," he said.

  They nodded.

  "But here's the truth: If we don't defeat Caliph Alai and break up this strange and sudden union of Muslim nations, then Caliph Alai will eventually conquer all the surrounding nations. Not because Alai himself wants to, but because he can't remain Caliph for long if he isn't aggressively pursuing an expansionist policy. He says that's not his intent, but he'll certainly end up doing it because he'll have no choice."

  They didn't like hearing this, but they kept listening.

  "Armenia will fight Caliph Alai sooner or later. The question is whether you'll do it now, while I still lead the forces of the FPE in your defence, or later, when you stand utterly alone against overwhelming force."

  "Either way, Armenia will pay," said the President grimly.

  "War is unpredictable," said Bean. "And the costs are high. But we didn't put Armenia where it is, surrounded by Muslims."

  "God did," said the President. "So we try not to complain."

  "Why can't Israel be your provocation?" asked the Prime Minister. "They are militarily much stronger than we are."

  "The opposite is true," said Bean. "Geographically their position is and always has been hopeless. And they have integrated so closely with the Muslim nations surrounding them that if they now joined the FPE, the Muslims would feel deeply betrayed. Their fury would be terrible, and we could not defend them. While you—let's just say that over the centuries, Muslims have slaughtered more Armenians than they ever did Jews. They hate you, they regard you as a terrible intrusion into their lands, even though you were here long before any Turks came out of central Asia. There's a burd
en of guilt along with the hatred. And for you to join the FPE would infuriate them, yes, but they wouldn't feel betrayed."

  "These nuances are beyond me," said the President sceptically.

  "They make an enormous difference in the way an army fights. Armenia is vital to forcing Alai to act before he's ready. Right now the union with India is still merely formal, not a fact on the ground. It's a marriage, not a family."

  "You don't need to quote Lincoln to me."

  Petra inwardly winced. The quote about "a marriage, not a family" did not come from Lincoln at all. It came from one of her own Martel essays. It was a bad sign if people were getting Lincoln and Martel confused. But of course it was better not to correct the mis-attribution, lest it appear that she was way too familiar with the works of Martel and Lincoln.

  "We stand where we've stood for weeks," said the President. "Armenia is being asked too much."

  "I agree," said Bean. "But keep in mind that we're asking. When the Muslims finally decide that Armenia shouldn't exist, they won't ask."

  The president pressed his fingers to his forehead. It was a gesture that Petra called "drilling for brains." "How can we hold a plebiscite?" he asked.

  "It's precisely the plebiscite that we need."

  "Why? What does this do for you militarily except overextend your forces and draw off a relatively small part of the Caliph's armies?

  "I know Alai," said Bean. "He won't want to attack Armenia. The terrain here is a nightmare for a serious campaigning. You constitute no serious threat. Attacking Armenia makes no sense at all."