Enders In Exile

Mr.
Firth?"
    "I hope not," said
Achilles. "But your goddess wants me to be."
    "Oh, she is not a
goddess, Mr. Firth." They laughed as if the idea were absurd.
    As Achilles walked
away, he was already formulating his next move. She was going to use
his father's reputation against him—and he did not believe
she would keep it a secret, since she was right and any link between
him and Achilles the Great would permanently besmirch him.
    If my father is widely
believed to be the worst man in human history, then I must find a worse
one to link
her
with.
    As for the claim that
Mother was only a surrogate, Randall would not let Virlomi's lie come
between him and his mother. It would break her heart for him even to
question her motherhood of him. No, Virlomi, I will not let you turn me
into a weapon to hurt my mother.

CHAPTER
21

    To: AWiggin%[email protected]
From: hgraff%[email protected]
Subj: Welcome back to the human universe
    Of course my
condolences on the passing of your parents. But I understand from them
that you and they corresponded to great mutual satisfaction before they
died. The passing of your brother must have come as more of a surprise.
He was young, but his heart gave out. Pay no attention to the foolish
rumors that always attend the death of the great. I saw the autopsy,
and Peter had a weak heart, despite his healthy lifestyle. It was
quick, a clot that stopped his life while he slept. He died at the peak
of his power and his powers. Not a bad way to go. I hope you'll read
the excellent essay on his life written by supposedly the same author
as The Hive Queen. It's called The Hegemon, and I've attached it here.
    An interesting thing
happened to me while you were in stasis, sailing from Shakespeare to
Ganges. I was fired.
    Here is something I
hadn't foreseen (believe it; I have foreseen very little in my long
life; I survived and accomplished things because I adapted quickly),
though
I should have: When you spend ten months of every year in stasis, there
is a side effect: Your underlings and superiors begin to regard your
awakenings as intrusions. The ones who were fiercely loyal to you
retire, pursue their careers into other avenues, or are maneuvered out
of office. Soon, everyone around you is loyal to themselves, their
careers, or someone who wants your job.
    Everyone put on such a
show of deference to me whenever I awoke. They reported on how all my
decisions from my last awakening had been carried out—or had
explanations as to why they had not.
    For three awakenings, I
should have noticed how unconvincing those explanations had become, and
how ineffectively my orders had been carried out. I should have seen
that the bureaucratic soup through which I had navigated for so many
years had begun to congeal around me; I should have seen that my long
absences were making me powerless.
    Just because I wasn't
having any fun, I didn't realize that my months in stasis were, in
effect, vacations. It was an attempt to prolong my tenure in office by
not attending to business. When has this ever been a good idea?
    It was pure vanity,
Ender. It could not work; it could not last. I awoke to find that my
name was no longer on my office door. I was on the retired list of
IFCom—and at a colonel's pay, to add insult to injury. As for
any kind of pension from ColMin, that was out of the question, since I
had not been retired, I had been dismissed for nonperformance of my
duties. They cited years of missed meetings when I was in stasis; they
cited my failure to seek any kind of leave; they even harked back to
that ancient court martial to show a "pattern of negligent behavior."
So . . . dismissed with cause, to live on a colonel's half pay.
    I think they actually
assumed that I had managed to enrich myself during my tenure in office.
But I was never that kind of politician.
    However, I also care
little for material things. I am returning to Earth, where I still own
a little property—I did make sure the taxes were kept up. I
will be able to live in peaceful retirement on a lovely piece of land
in Ireland that I fell in love with and bought during the years when I
traveled the world in search of children to exploit
and quite possibly destroy in Battle School. No one there will have any
idea of who I am—or, rather, who I was. I have outlived my
infamy.
    One thing about
retirement, however: I will have no more ansible privileges. Even this
letter is going to you with such a low priority that it will be