Shadow of the giant

and bleed a generation to death, that had been
averted. Both here in the north and in the south as well.
    And then what? Emperor of China indeed. What would the
people expect? Now that he had won this great victory, was he supposed to go
back and subjugate the Tibetans again? Force the Turkic-speakers of Xinjiang
back under the Chinese heel? Spill Chinese blood on the beaches of Taiwan to
satisfy old claims that the Chinese had some inherent right to rule over the
racially-Malay majority on that island? And then invade any nation that
mistreated its Chinese minorities? Where would it stop? In the jungles of
Papua? Back in India? Or at the old western border of Genghis's empire, the
lands of the Golden Horde on the steppes of Ukraine?
    What frightened him most about these scenarios was that he
knew he could do it. He knew that with China he had a people with the
intelligence, the vigor, the resources, and unified will—everything a ruler
needed to go out into the world and make everything he saw his own. And because
it was possible, there was a part of him that wanted to play it out, see where
this path led.
    I know where it leads, thought Han Tzu. It leads to Virlomi
leading her pathetic army of half-armed volunteers to certain death. It leads
to Julius Caesar bleeding to death on the floor of the Senate, muttering about
how he was betrayed. It leads to Adolf and Eva dead in an underground bunker
while their empire crumbles in explosions above their corpses. Or it leads to
Augustus, casting about him for a successor, only to realize that it all has to
be handed over to his revolting pervert of a ... stepson? What was Tiberius,
really? A sad statement about how empires are inevitably led. Because what
rises to the top in an empire are the bureaucratic infighters, the assassins,
or the warlords.
    Is that what I want for my people? I became Emperor because
that's how I could bring down Snow Tiger and keep him from killing me first.
But China doesn't need an empire. China needs a good government. The Chinese
people need to stay home and make money, or travel through the world and make
even more money. They need to do science and create literature and be part of
the human race.
    They need to have no more of their sons die in battle. They
need to have no more of them cleaning up the bodies of the enemy. They need
peace.
     
     
    The news of Bean's death spread slowly out of Armenia. It
came to Petra, incredibly enough, on her cellphone in Moscow, where she was
still directing her troops in the complete takeover of the city. The news of
Han's devastating victory had reached her, but not the general public. She
needed to be in complete control of the city before the people learned of the
disaster. She needed to make sure they could contain the reaction.
    It was her father on the telephone. His voice was very
husky, and she knew at once what he was calling to tell her.
    "The soldiers who were rescued from Tehran. They came
back by way of Israel. They saw ... Julian didn't come back with them."
    Petra knew perfectly well what had happened. And, more to
the point, what Bean would have made sure people thought they had seen happen.
But she let the scene play out, saying the lines expected of her. "They
left him behind?"
    "There was ... nothing to bring back." A sob. It
was good to know that her father had come to love Bean. Or maybe he only wept
in pity for his daughter, already widowed, and only barely a woman. "He
was caught in the explosion of a building. The whole thing was vaporized. He
could not have lived."
    "Thank you for telling me, Father."
    "I know it's—what about the babies? Come home, Pet,
we—"
    "When I'm through with the war, Father, then I'll come
home and grieve for my husband and care for my babies. They're in good hands
right now. I love you. And Mother. I'll be all right. Good-bye."
    She cut off the connection.
    Several officers around her looked at her questioningly.
What she had said about grieving for her husband. "This is top-secret
information," she said to the officers. "It would only encourage the
enemies of the Free People. But my husband was ... he entered a building in
Tehran and it blew up. No one in that building could possibly have
survived."
    They did not know her, these Finns, Estonians, Lithuanians,
Latvians. Not well enough to say more than a heartfelt but inadequate,
"I'm sorry."
    "We have work to do," she said, relieving them of
the responsibility to care for her. They could not know