Shadow of the giant

chamber. Many of them
looked at her as if she were sinning by leaving; many others were looking
toward Caliph Alai with love and longing.
    Your love is misplaced, thought Randi. Only one man was pure
in his embrace of power, and that was my Achilles.
    And to one woman who glared at her with special ferocity,
Randi pointed to baby Achilles's diaper and made a face. The woman at once
relaxed her grimace. Of course, the baby had messed himself, a woman had to
take care of her baby even before she heard the words of the Caliph.
    If the Caliph cannot stand against Peter Wiggin, then there
is nowhere on Earth for me to raise my son.
    She walked the rest of the way to the Metro as the rain came
down harder and harder. Her umbrella did its job, though, and the baby stayed
dry. Then she was in the Metro station and the rain had stopped.
    That's how it will be in space. All the sheltering of this
baby will be needless then. I can put away the umbrella and he will have
nothing to fear. And on the new world, he can walk in the open, in the light of
a new sun, like the free spirit he was born to be.
    When he returns to Earth, he will be a great man, towering
over these moral dwarfs.
    By then, Peter Wiggin will be dead, like Julian Delphiki.
That's the only disappointment—that my son will never be able to face his
father's murderers directly.
     
     
     
    24
     
    SACRIFICE
     
     
    From: Mosca%[email protected]
    To: Graff%[email protected]
    Re: My ticket
     
    Just when things were getting interesting here on Earth, I
keep getting this nagging feeling that you were right. I hate it when that
happens.
     
    They came to me today, excited as babies. Petra took Moscow
with a ragtag army traveling by passenger train! Han Tzu wiped out the entire
Russian Army without taking more than a few dozen casualties! Bean was able to
decoy the Turkish forces toward Armenia and keep them from getting involved in
China! And of course Bean also gets the credit for Suriyawong's victory in
China—everybody wants to assign all glory to the boys and girl of Ender's
Jeesh.
     
    You know what they wanted from me?
     
    I'm supposed to conquer Taiwan. No joke. I'm supposed to
draw up the plans. Because, you see, my poor little ragtag island nation has me,
Jeeshboy, and that makes them a great power! How dare those Muslim troops
remain on Taiwan!
     
    I pointed out that now that Han Tzu had won against the
Russians and the Muslims probably wouldn't dare attack, he'd probably be
looking to put Taiwan back in his fold. And even if he didn't, did they really
think Peter Wiggin would sit idly by while the Philippines committed an act of
unprovoked aggression against Taiwan?
     
    They wouldn't listen. It was: Do as you're told, genius boy.
     
    So what's left for me, Hyrum? (I feel so wicked calling you
by your first name.) Do as Vlad did, and draw up their plans, and let them fall
into their own pit? Do as Alai did and repudiate them openly and call for
revolution? (That is what he did, isn't it?) Or do as Han did and stage an
internal coup and become Emperor of the Philippines and Master of the
Tagalog-Speaking World?
     
    I don't want to leave my home. But there's no peace for me
on Earth. I'm not sure I want the burden of running a colony. But at least I
won't be drawing up blueprints for death and oppression. Just don't put me in
the same colony with Alai. He thinks he's so the man because he's the successor
of the Prophet.
     
     
    Even the tanks had been washed downstream, some of them for
kilometers. Where the Russians had been spreading out for their offensive
against Han Tzu's forces on the high ground, there was nothing, not a sign that
they had been there.
    Not a sign that the villages and fields had been there
either.
    It was a muddy version of the moon. Except for a couple of
deep-rooted trees, there was nothing. It would take a long time and a lot of
work to restore this land.
    But now there was work to do. First, they had to glean the
survivors, if there were any, from the countryside downstream. Second, they had
to clean up the corpses and gather up the tanks and other vehicles— and, most
important, the live armaments.
    And Han Tzu had to swing a large part of his army north, to
retake Beijing and sweep away whatever remnants of the Russian invasion might
be left behind. Meanwhile, the Turks might decide to come back.
    The work of war wasn't over yet.
    But the grinding, bloody campaign he had feared, the one
that would tear China apart