Shadow of the giant

Peter answered. "I have
no idea how things will turn out. I just know that I'm ready to take advantage
of every situation I can think of. And I'm watching very closely so that if
something happens that I haven't foreseen, I can take advantage of it."
    "So here's the key question," said Rackham.
"It's the information I came here to get."
    "I'm dying to hear."
    "How long are you going to need Bean?"
    Peter thought about that one for a while. "I've had to
make my plans knowing that he was going to die. Or, once you made your offer,
leave. So the answer is, as long as I have him, of course I'll use him, either
to intimidate would-be enemies, or to command my forces when we go to war. But
if he dies or leaves, I can make do. My plans don't depend on having Bean."
    "So if he left in three months."
    "Rackham, have you already found his other children? Is
that what you're saying? Have you found them and you aren't telling him and
Petra because you think I need Bean?"
    "Not all of them."
    "You're cold. You're such bastards," said Peter.
"You're still using children as your tools."
    "Yes," said Rackham. "We're bastards. But we
mean well. Just like you."
    "Give Bean and Petra their babies. And save his life,
if you can. He's a good man who deserves better than to have you toy with him
any longer."
     
     
     
     
     
    21
     
    PAPERS
     
     
    From: The Impaled One
    To: HonestAbe%[email protected]/WriteToTheAuthor
    Re: God help me
     
    Sometimes you give advice assuming that no one will take it.
I just hope the man upstairs will forgive me and still find a place for me.
Meanwhile, tell the big guy he's got to do something about the cup I broke.
     
    From: PeterWiggin%[email protected]
    To: Graff%[email protected]
    Fwd: Re: God help me
     
    Dear Hyrum,
     
    As you'll see from below, our Slavic friend has apparently
offered suggestions to his government that they actually took, and he regrets
it. Assuming that you're the guy upstairs, I would guess this open encryption
suggests he wants out. My sources last put him in Florida but if they're
watching him closely, they would have moved him to Idaho.
     
    As for the cup he broke, I think he means that instead of
Russia looking for a chance to attack Alai, they've made a deal with the Muslim
League and while China looks south to fight India, Russia is going to move on
Han Tzu from the north while the Turks move from the west, the Indonesians from
Taiwan, and Virlomi's insane invasion will go on over the mountains. Not so
insane now.
     
    However, on the chance that by "the big guy"
Russian Boy meant somebody other than "the man upstairs," he could
only mean a certain giant we both know. I'll confer with him and Mrs. Giant
about what, if anything, we can do to deal with the situation.
     
    Peter
     
     
    Alai had given his orders, and now he was going to make sure
he was out of Hyderabad when they were carried out. The Caliph could not be
tainted with the arrest of his own wife.
    But the Caliph could not be ruled by her, either. Alai knew
that the wazirs of his council hated her; if he did not have her arrested by
men loyal to him, then she would certainly be killed.
    Later, after things had settled down, after she had regained
her senses and stopped thinking she was unstoppable, he would take her out of
prison. He could not release her in India—that was out of the question. Maybe
Graff would take her. She wasn't one of Ender's Jeesh, but by the same
reasoning Graff had used in his invitation, the world would certainly be a
safer place with her gone from it, while a colony might be lucky to have
someone of such ability and ambition at its head.
    Meanwhile, without Virlomi there was no reason for him to
govern from Hyderabad. He would continue to respect his treaty with India and
withdraw his forces. Let them try to rebuild without Virlomi's madness trying
to throw them prematurely into war. India would not be in shape to mount a
meaningful military campaign against anything more substantial than a flock of
starlings for many years to come.
    Alai would spend the next few years putting Islam's house in
order and trying to forge a real nation out of this mishmash that history had
left for him to deal with. If Syrians and Iraqis and Egyptians couldn't get
along with each other and despised each other the moment they heard the other's
accent, how could anyone expect Moroccans and Persians and Uzbeks and Malays to
see the world in the same way just because a muezzin called them