Enders In Exile

but he was not above allowing something very
unfortunate to happen to him if it served the larger purpose. Hadn't
Graff proved it over and over?
    Well, my dear MinCol,
by the time we get to Shakespeare Colony, you will almost certainly be
either dead or very, very old. I wonder if you'll still be running
everything then?
    Poor Peter. Aspiring to
rule the world, while Graff had already done it. The difference was
that Peter needed to be
known
to rule the world;
all the outward forms of government needed to be seen to lead to
Peter's throne. Whereas Graff only needed to use his control of
whatever he wanted to control in order to accomplish his single, lofty
purpose.
    But aren't they the
same person, apart from that? Manipulators, letting anyone else pay
whatever cost was required to accomplish the end in view. It was a good
end, in Graff's case. Valentine agreed with it, believed in it, happily
cooperated with it. But wasn't Peter's goal also a good one? The end of
war, because the world was united under a single good government. If he
brought it off, wouldn't it be as much a blessing to the human race as
anything Graff accomplished?
    She had to give both
Peter and Graff credit for this: They weren't monsters. They didn't
require that all costs be paid by others, none by themselves. They
would also make whatever personal sacrifices were required. They really
did serve a cause bigger than themselves.
    But couldn't that also
have been said of Hitler? Unlike Stalin and Mao, who wallowed in luxury
while others did all the work and made all the sacrifices, Hitler lived
sparingly and truly believed himself to be living for a cause greater
than himself. That's precisely what made him such a monster. So
Valentine was not quite sure that Peter's and Graff's self-sacrifices
were quite enough to absolve them of monsterhood.
    Well, they would both
be someone else's problem now. Let Rackham watch
out for Graff and kill him if he gets out of hand, which he probably
won't. And let Father and Mother do their pathetic best to keep Peter
from becoming the devil. Do they even realize that Peter's whole
good-son attitude was an act? That Peter had obviously made the
conscious decision several years back to pretend to be just like the
boy Ender had been? All an act, dear parents—do you see it?
Sometimes I think you do, but other times you are so oblivious.
    You will be lost in the
past by the time I get where I'm going, all of you. My present will be
Ender and whatever he's doing. He is my whole flock, and I must
shepherd him without ever letting him see the crook I use to guide him
and protect him.
    What am I thinking?
Who's the megalomaniac here? I think
I
will know
better than Ender what is good for him, where he should go, what he
should do, and what he should be protected from?
    Yet that is exactly
what I think, because it's true.

    Ender was so sleepy he
could hardly stand, yet he stood, through all the pictures, making the
smile as warm and real as he could. These are the pictures Mother and
Father will see. The pictures for Peter's children, if he has any, to
remember that once they had an Uncle Ender who did something very
famous before he was in his teens and then went away. This is how he
looked when he left. See? He's very happy. See, Mom and Dad? You didn't
hurt me when you let them take me. Nothing has hurt me. I'm fine. Look
at my smile. Don't see how tired I am, or how glad I am to go, when
they let me go.
    Then at last the
pictures were done. Ender shook hands with Mazer Rackham and wanted to
say, I wish you were coming. But he could not say he wished that,
because he knew that Mazer did not want to go, and so it would be a
selfish wish. So he said only this: "Thank you for all you taught me,
and for standing by me." He did not add "standing by me at the trial"
because the words might be picked up by some stray microphone.
    Then he shook hands
with Hyrum Graff and said, "I hope this new job works out for you." It
was a joke, and Graff got it, or at least enough to smile a little.
Maybe the thinness of Graff's smile was because he had heard
Ender thank Mazer and wondered why Ender had no thanks for him. But
Graff had not been his teacher, only his master, and it was not the
same. Nor had Graff stood by him, as far as Ender could tell. Hadn't
Graff's whole program of teaching been to get Ender to believe to the
depth of his soul that there would never be anyone standing by him?
    "Thanks for the nap,"
he said to