Shadow of the giant

I'm going through isn't something so different. How
many women became widows in the war? How many mothers have buried babies that
they hardly had time to hold? I'm just part of the same sentimental comedy as
everyone else, the sad parts always followed by laughter, the laughter always
by tears.
    It wasn't until later, when she was alone in her bed, the
children asleep for the night, Mrs. Delphiki gone next door—or, rather, to the
other wing of the same house—that she was able to bring herself to read Bean's
note again. It was in his handwriting. He had done it in a hurry and in spots
it was barely legible. And the paper was stained— Peter hadn't been joking
about Ramon peeing on the envelope a couple of times.
    She turned the light out and meant to go to sleep.
    And then something occurred to her and she switched on the
light again and fumbled for the paper and her eyes were so bleary she could
hardly read, so maybe she had actually fallen asleep, and this thought had
woken her out of a sound slumber.
    The letter began, "There's one thing we forgot to
decide."
    But when Peter read it, he had started with "I love
you."
    He must have scanned over the letter and realized that Bean
never said it. That it was just a note that Bean had jotted at the last moment,
and Peter worried that she might be hurt by the omission.
    He couldn't have known that Bean just didn't put that kind
of thing in writing. Except obliquely. Because the whole note said "I love
you," didn't it?
    She turned the light off again, but still held the letter.
Bean's last message to her.
    As she drifted off again, the thought passed briefly through
her mind: When Peter said it, he wasn't reading at all.
     
     
     
     
    26
     
    SPEAK FOR ME
     
     
    From: PeterWiggin%[email protected]
    To: ValentineWiggin%[email protected]/AuthorsService
    Re: Congratulations
     
    Dear Valentine,
     
    I read your seventh volume and you're not just a brilliant
writer (which we always knew) but also a thorough researcher and a perceptive
and honest analyst. I knew Hyrum Graff and Mazer Rackham very well before they
died, and you treated them with absolute fairness. I doubt they would dispute a
word of your book, even where they did not come off as perfect; they were
always honest men, even when they lied their zhopas off.
     
    The work of the Hegemon's office is pretty slight these
days. The last actual military ventures that were needed took place more than a
decade ago—the last gasp of tribalism, which we managed to mostly put down with
a show of force. Since then I've tried to retire half a dozen times—no, wait,
I'm talking to a historian—twice, but they don't believe I mean it and they
keep me in office. They even ask my advice sometimes, and to return the favor I
try not to reminisce about how we did things in the early days of the FPE. Only
the good old USA refuses to join the FPE and I have hopes they'll get off their
"don't tread on me" kick and do the right thing. Polls keep saying
that Americans are sick of being the only people in the world who don't get a
chance to vote in the world elections. I may see the whole world formally
united before I die. And even if I don't, we've got peace on earth.
     
    Petra says hi. Wish you could have known her, but that's
star travel. Tell Ender that Petra is more beautiful than ever, he should eat
his heart out, and our grandchildren are so adorable that people applaud when
we take them out for walks.
     
    Speaking of Ender. I read The Hive Queen. I heard about it
before, but never read it till you included it at the end of your last
volume—but before the index, or I would never have seen it.
     
    I know who wrote it. If he can speak for the buggers, surely
he can speak for me.
     
    Peter
     
     
    Not for the first time, Peter wished they made a portable
ansible. Of course it would make no economic sense. Yes, they miniaturized it
as much as possible to put it on starships. But the ansible only made an
important difference in communication across the void of space. It saved hours
for within-system communication; decades, for communication with the colonies
and the ships in flight.
    It just wasn't a technology designed for chatting.
    There were a few privileges that came with the vestiges of
power. Peter might be over seventy—and, as he often pointed out to Petra, an
old seventy, an ancient seventy—but he was still Hegemon, and the title had
once meant enormous power, it once meant attack