Shadow of the giant

Ender’s Saga 08
     
     
    Orson Scott Card – Shadow of the Giant
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    CONTENTS
     
    1.   MANDATE OF HEAVEN
    2.   MOTHER
    3.   COUP
    4.   BARGAIN
    5.   SHIVA
    6.   EVOLUTION
    7.   AN OFFER
    8.   ENDER
    9.   PENSION
    10. GRIEF
    11. AFRICAN GOD
    12. ALLAHU AKBAR
    13. FOUND
    14. VIRLOMI'S VISITORS
    15. RATIFICATION
    16. JEESH
    17. BOATS
    18. YEREVAN
    19. ENEMIES
    20. PLANS
    21. PAPERS
    22. RUMORS OF WAR
    23. COLONIST
    24. SACRIFICE
    25. LETTERS
    26. SPEAK FOR ME
    ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    1
     
    MANDATE OF HEAVEN
     
    From: Graff%[email protected]
    To: Soup%[email protected]
    Re: Free Vacation Offer
    Destination of your choice in the known universe. And we
pick you up!
     
     
    Han Tzu waited until the armored car was completely out of
sight before he ventured out into the bicycle-and-pedestrian-packed street.
Crowds could make you invisible, but only if you were moving in the same
direction, and that's the thing Han Tzu had never really been able to do, not
since he came home to China from Battle School.
    He always seemed to be moving, not upstream, but crossways.
As if he had a completely different map of the world from the one everyone
around him was using.
    And here he was again, dodging bikes and forward-pressing
people on their ten thousand errands in order to get from the doorway of his
apartment building to the door of the tiny restaurant across the street.
    But it was not us hard as it would have been for most
people. Han Tzu had mastered the art of using only his peripheral vision, so
his eyes stared straight ahead. Without eye contact, the others on the street
could not face him down, could not insist that he yield the right of way. They
could only dodge him, as if he were a boulder in the stream.
    He put his hand to the door and hesitated. He did not know
why he had not been arrested and killed or sent for retraining already, but if
he was photographed taking this meeting, then it would be easy to prove that he
was a traitor.
    Then again, his enemies didn't need evidence to convict—all
they needed was the inclination. So he opened the door, listened to the tinkle
of the little bell, and walked toward the back of the narrow corridor between
booths.
    He knew he shouldn't expect Graff himself. For the Minister
of Colonization to come to Earth would be news, and Graff avoided news unless
it was useful to him, which this would certainly not be. So whom would Graff
send? Someone from Battle School, undoubtedly. A teacher? Another student?
Someone from Ender's Jeesh? Would this be a reunion?
    To his surprise, the man in the last booth sat with his back
toward the door, so all Han Tzu could see was his curly steel-grey hair. Not
Chinese. And from the color of his ears, not European. The pertinent fact,
though, was that he was not facing the door and could not see Han Tzu's
approach. However, once Han Tzu sat down, he would be facing the door, able to
observe the whole room.
    That was the smart way to do it—after all, Han Tzu was the
one who would recognize trouble if it came in the door, not this foreigner,
this stranger. But few operatives on a mission this dangerous would have the
brass to turn their backs on the door just because the person they were meeting
would be a better observer.
    The man did not turn as Han Tzu approached. Was he
unobservant, or supremely confident?
    "Hello," the man said softly just as Han Tzu came
up beside him. "Please sit down."
    Han Tzu slid into the booth opposite him and knew that he
knew this old man but could not name him.
    "Please don't say my name," said the man softly.
    "Easy," said Han Tzu. "I don't remember
it."
    "Oh, yes you do," said the man. "You just
don't remember my face. You haven't seen me very often. But the leader of the
Jeesh spent a lot of time with me."
    Now Han Tzu remembered. Those last weeks in Command School—
on Eros, when they thought they were in training but were really leading
far-off fleets in the endgame of the war against the Hive Queens. Ender, their
commander, had been kept separate from them, but they learned afterward that an
old half-Maori cargo-ship captain had been working closely with him. Training
him. Goading him. Pretending to be his opponent in simulated games.
    Mazer Rackham. The hero who saved the human race from
certain destruction in the Second Invasion. Everyone thought he died in the
war, but he had