Orson Card - Shadow of the Giant

"I'm not going to encourage war," said Peter. "It would discredit me completely as a peacemaker. I got this job because I'm Locke!"

"If you stop objecting and listen," said Petra, "you'll eventually get Bean's advice."

"I'm the great strategist, after all," said Bean with a wry smile. "And the tallest man in the Hegemony compound."

"I'm listening," said Peter again.

"You're right, you can't encourage war. But you also can't afford to try to stop wars that can't be stopped. If you're seen to try and fail, you're weak. The reason Locke was able to broker a peace between the Warsaw Pact and the West was that neither side wanted war. America wanted to stay home and make money, and Russia didn't want to run the risk of provoking I.F. intervention. You can only negotiate peace when both sides want it—badly enough to give up something in order to get it. Right now, nobody wants to negotiate. The Indians can't— they're occupied, and their occupiers don't believe they pose a threat. The Chinese can't—it's politically impossible for a Chinese ruler to settle for any boundary short of the borders of Han China. And Alai can't because his own people are so flushed with victory that they can't see any reason to give anything up."

"So I do nothing."

"You organize relief efforts for the famine in India," said Petra.

"The famine that Virlomi is going to cause."

Petra shrugged.

"So I wait until everybody's sick of war," said Peter.

"No," said Bean. "You wait until the exact moment when peace is possible. Wait too long, and the bitterness will run too deep for peace."

"How do I know when the time is right?"

"Beats me," said Bean.

"You're the smart ones," said Peter. "Everyone says so."

"Stop the humble act," said Petra. "You understand perfectly what we're saying. Why are you so angry? Any plan we make now will crumble the first time somebody makes a move that isn't on our script."

Peter realized that it wasn't them he was angry at. It was his mother and her ridiculous letter. As if he had the power to "rescue" the Caliph and the Chinese emperor and this brand new Indian goddess and "set them free" when they had all clearly maneuvered themselves into the positions they were in.

"I just don't see," said Peter, "how I can turn any of this to my advantage."

"You just have to watch and keep meddling," said Bean, "until you see a place where you can insert yourself."

"That's what I've been doing for years."

"And very well, too," said Petra. "Can we go now?"

"Go!" said Peter. "Get your evil scientist. I'll save the world while you're out."

"We expect no less," said Bean. "Just remember that you asked for the job. We didn't."

They got up. They started for the door.

"Wait a minute," said Peter.

They waited.

"I just realized something," Peter said.

They waited some more.

"You don't care."

Bean looked at Petra. Petra looked at Bean. "What do you mean we don't care?" said Bean.

"How can you say that?" said Petra. "It's war, it's death, it's the fate of the world."

"You're treating it like ... like I was asking advice about a cruise. Which cruise line to go on. Or ... or a poem, whether the rhymes are good."

Again they looked at each other.

"And when you look at each other like that," said Peter. "It's like you're laughing, only you're too polite to show it."

"We're not polite people," said Petra. "Especially not Julian."

"No, that's right, it's not that you're polite. It's that you're so much wrapped up in each other that you don't have to laugh, it's like you already laughed and only you two know about it."

"This is all so interesting, Peter," said Bean. "Can we go now?"

"He's right," said Petra. "We aren't involved. Like he is, I mean. But it's not that we don't care, Peter. We care even more than you do. We just don't want to get involved in doing anything about it because...."

They looked at each other again and then, without saying another word, they started to leave.

"Because you're married," said Peter. "Because you're pregnant. Because you're going to have a baby."

"Babies," said Bean. "And we'd like to get on with trying to find out what happened to them."

"You've resigned from the human race is what you've done," said Peter. "Because you invented marriage and children, suddenly you don't have to be part of anything."

"Opposite," said Petra. "We've joined the human race. We're like most people. Our life together is everything. Our children are everything. The rest is—we do what we have to. Anything to protect our children. And then beyond that, what we have to. But it doesn't matter to us as much. I'm sorry that bothers you."

"It doesn't bother me," said Peter. "It did before I understood what I was seeing. Now I think ... sure, it's normal. I think my parents are like that. I think that's why I thought they were stupid. Because they didn't seem to care about the outside world. All they cared about was each other and us kids."

"I think the therapy is proceeding nicely," said Bean. "Now say three Hail Marys while we get on with our limited domestic concerns, which involve attack helicopters and getting to Volescu before he makes another change of address and identity."

And they were gone.

Peter seethed. They thought they knew something that nobody else knew. They thought they knew what life was about. But they could only have a life like that because people like Peter—and Han Tzu and Alai and that wacko self-deifying Virlomi—actually concentrated on important matters and tried to make the world a better place.

Then Peter remembered that Bean had said almost exactly what his mother said. That Peter chose to be Hegemon, and now he had to work it out on his own.

Like a kid who tries out for the school play but he doesn't like the part he's been given. Only if he backs out now the show can't go on because he has no understudy. So he's got to stick it out.

Got to figure out how to save the world, now that he's got himself made Hegemon.

Here's what I want to have happen, thought Peter. I want every damn Battle School graduate off Earth. They are the complicating factor in every country. Mother wants them to have a life? Me too—a nice long life on another planet.

But to get them offplanet would require getting the cooperation of Graff. And Peter had the sneaking suspicion that Graff didn't actually want Peter to be an effective, powerful Hegemon. Why should Graff accept the Battle School kids into colony ships? They'd be a disruptive force in any colony they were in.

What about this? A colony of nothing but Battle School grads. If they bred true, they'd be the smartest military minds in the galaxy.

Then they'd come home and take over Earth.

OK, not that.

Still, it was the seed of a good idea. In the eyes of the people, it was the Battle School that won the war against the Buggers. They all wanted their armies to be led by Battle Schoolers. Which was why the Battle Schoolers were virtually the slaves of their nations' military.

So I'll do as Mother suggested. I'll set them free.

Then they can all marry like Bean and Petra and live happily ever after while other people—responsible people—did the hard work of running the world.

In India, the response to Virlomi's message was immediate and fierce. That very night, in a dozen incidents scattered across India, Muslim soldiers committed acts of provocation—or, as they saw it, retaliation or defiance to Virlomi's blasphemous, outrageous accusation. Thereby, of course, proving those accusations in the eyes of many.

But it wasn't riots they faced this time. It was an implacable mob determined to destroy them no matter what the cost. It was Shiva. So yes, the streets were littered with the dead bodies of Hindu civilians. But the Muslim soldiers' bodies could not be found. Or at least, could not be reassembled.