Orson Card - Shadow of the Giant

This park was, perhaps, the reason. There was a lake—no, a pond, a skating pond in winter, Peter was sure, since it was almost perfectly round and over-equipped with benches. Now, in the summer, it was undoubtedly advertised with a "suck blood and lay eggs all in one place" campaign among the mosquitos, which had shown up in profusion.

"Close your eyes," said Vlad.

Peter expected some kind of spy ritual and, sighing, complied. His sigh left his mouth open, however, just enough to get a good taste of the insect repellant that Vlad sprayed in his face.

"Hands," said Vlad. "Tastes bad but doesn't kill. Hands."

Peter held out his hands. They were sprayed, too.

"Don't want you to lose more than a pint during our conversation. Horrible place. Nobody comes here in summer. So it isn't prewired. Lots of clear meadows. We can see if anybody's watching us."

"Are you that closely watched?"

"Russian government not as understanding as Hegemon. Suriyawong stays in your confidence because you believe he always opposed Achilles. But me? Not trusted. So if you think I have influence, very wrong thinking, my friend."

"Not why I'm here."

"Yes, I know, you're here for the trade talks." Vlad grinned.

"Not much point to trade talks when smuggling and bribery make any kind of customs collection a joke anyway," said Peter.

"I'm glad you understand our way of doing things," said Vlad. "Trust no one that you haven't bribed within the last half hour."

"Don't tell me you really have that thick a Russian accent, by the way," said Peter. "You grew up on Battle School. You should speak Common like a native."

"I do," said Vlad—still in a thick Russian accent. "Except when my future depends on giving people no reason to remember how different I am. Accents are hard to learn and hard to hold on to. So I will maintain it now. I am not by nature a good actor."

"May I call you Vlad?"

"May I call you Peter?"

"Yes."

"Then yes also. Lowly strategic planner cannot be more formal than Hegemon of whole world."

"You know just how much of the world I'm Hegemon over," said Peter. "And as I said, that's not why I'm here. Or not directly."

"What then? You want to hire me? Not possible. They may not trust me here, but they certainly don't want me going anywhere else. I'm a hero of the Russian people."

"Vlad, if they trusted you, what do you think you'd be doing right now?"

Vlad laughed. "Leading the armies of Mother Russia, as Alai and Hot Soup and Virlomi and so many others are already doing. So many Alexanders."

"Yes, I've heard that comparison," said Peter. "But I see it another way. I see it as being the arms race that led up to World War I."

Vlad thought for a moment. "And we Battle School brats are the arms race. If one nation has it, then another must have more. Yes, that's what Achilles's little venture in kidnapping was about."

"My point is: Having a Battle School graduate—particularly one of Ender's Jeesh—makes war more, not less, probable."

"I don't think so," said Vlad. "Yes, Hot Soup and Alai are in the thick of things, but Virlomi wasn't in the Jeesh. And the rest of the Jeesh—Bean and Petra are with you, struggling for world peace, yes? Like beauty pageant contestants? Dink is in a joint Anglo-American project which means he has had his balls cut off, militarily speaking. Shen is marking time in some ceremonial position in Tokyo. Dumper is a monk, I think, or whatever they call them. A shaman. In the Andes somewhere. Crazy Tom is at Sandhurst confined to a classroom. Carn Carby is in Australia where they may or may not have a military but nobody cares. And Fly Molo ... well, he's a busy boy in the Philippines. But not their president or even an important general."

"That squares with my tally, though I think Carn would argue with you about the value of the Australian military."

Vlad waved the objection aside. "My point is, most nations that have this 'treasured national resource' are far more concerned to keep us under observation and away from power than to actually use us to make war."

Peter smiled. "Yes. Either they have you up to your elbows in blood, or they have you locked in a box. Anybody happily married?"

"We're none of us even twenty-five yet. Well, maybe Dink. He always lied about his age. Most of us are in our teens or barely out of them."

"They're afraid of you. All the more so now, because the nations that actually used their Jeesh members in war are now governed by them."

"If you can call 'worldwide Islam' a nation. I, personally, call it a riot with scripture."

"Just don't say that in Baghdad or Tehran," said Peter.

"As if I could ever go to those places."

"Vlad," said Peter. "How would you like to be free of all this beauty?"

Vlad hooted with laughter. "So you're here representing Graff ?"

Peter was taken aback. "Graff came to you?"

"Be head of a colony. Get away from it all. All-expenses-paid vacation ... that takes the rest of your life!"

"Not a vacation," said Peter. "Very hard work. But at least you have a life."

"So Peter the Hegemon wants Ender's Jeesh offplanet. Forever."

"Do you want my job?" said Peter. "I'll resign it today if I thought it would go to you. You or any member of Ender's Jeesh. You want it? Think you can hold it? Then it's yours. I only have it because I wrote the Locke essays and stopped a war. But what have I done lately? Vlad, I don't see you as a rival. How could I? What freedom do you have to oppose me?"

Vlad shrugged. "All right, so your motives are pure."

"My motives are realistic," said Peter. "Russia is not using you right now, but they haven't killed you or locked you up. If they ever decide that war is desirable or necessary or unavoidable, how long before you get promoted and put into the thick of things? Especially if the war goes badly for a while. You are their nuclear arsenal."

"Not really," said Vlad. "Since my brain is supposed to be the pay-load of this particular missile, and my brain was defective enough to seem to trust Achilles, then I must not be as good as the other Jeesh members."

"In a war against Han Tzu, how long before you commanded an army? Or at least were put in charge of strategy?"

"Fifteen minutes, give or take."

"So. Is Russia more or less likely to go to war, knowing they have you?"

Vlad smiled a little and ducked his head. "Well, well. So the Hegemon wants me out of Russia so Russia won't be so adventurous."

"Not quite so simple," said Peter. "There'll come a day when much of the world will have merged their sovereignty—"

"By which you mean they will have surrendered it."

"Into one government. It won't be the big nations. Just a bunch of little ones. But unlike the United Nations and the League of Nations and even the Hegemony in its previous form, it will not be designed to keep the central government as powerless as possible. The nations in this league will maintain no separate army or navy or air force. They will not have separate control over their own borders—and they will collect no customs. Nor will they maintain a separate merchant marine. The Hegemony will have power over foreign policy, period, without rival. Why would Russia ever join such a confederacy?"

"It never would."

Peter nodded. And waited.

"It never would unless it thought that it was the only safe thing to do."

"Add the word 'profitable' into that sentence and you'll be closer to right."

"Russians are not Americans like you, Peter Wiggin. We don't do things for profit motive."

"So all those bribes go into charitable causes."

"They keep the bookmakers and prostitutes of Russia from starving," said Vlad. "Altruism at its finest."

"Vlad," said Peter. "All I'm saying is, think about this. Ender Wiggin did two great deeds for humanity. He wiped out the Buggers. And he never returned to Earth."