Shadow of the giant

you own should also be ours. In fact, you
own nothing, if we want it. Because you are nothing. We are the real people,
you are only posing as people in order to try to deprive us of what God means
us to have.
    And now she understood for the first time the magnitude of
what Graff and Mazer Rackham and, yes, even Peter were all trying to do.
    They were trying to get human beings to define themselves as
all belonging to one tribe.
    It had happened briefly when they were threatened by
creatures who truly were strangers; then the human race had felt itself to be
one people, and united in order to repel an enemy.
    And the moment victory was achieved, it all fell apart, and long-pent-up
resentments erupted into war. First the old rivalry between Russia and the
West. And when that was quelled by the I.F., and the old polemarch fell and was
replaced by Chamrajnagar, the wars moved to different killing fields.
    They even looked at the Battle School grads and said, Ours.
Not free people, but the property of this nation or that.
    And now those same children, once property, were at the
heads of some of the most powerful nations. Alai, mortaring the bricks of his
fragmented empire with the blood of his enemies. Han Tzu, restoring the
prosperity of China as quickly as possible in order to emerge from defeat as a
power in the world. And Virlomi, out in the open now, refusing to join any
party, standing above politics, but Petra knew that she would not release her
hold on power.
    Hadn't Petra sat with Han Tzu and Alai and controlled fleets
and squadrons in distant wars? They thought they were only playing a game—all
of them thought that, except Bean, the secret-keeper—but they were saving the
world together. They loved being together. They loved being one, under the
leadership of Ender Wiggin.
    Virlomi hadn't been with them then, but Petra remembered her
as well, as the girl she turned to when she was a captive in Hyderabad. She had
given her a message and Virlomi had taken the burden as if Petra were a real
person; she had delivered it to Bean and had helped Bean to come and save her.
Now Virlomi had created a new India out of the wreckage of the old; she had
given them something more powerful than any mere elected government. She had
given them a divine queen, a dream and a vision, and India was poised to
become, for the first time, a great power commensurate with her great
population and her ancient culture.
    All three of them are making their nations great, in a time
when the greatness of nations is the nightmare of humanity.
    How will Peter ever gain mastery over them? How will he tell
them, No, this city, that mountain, these fields, that lake, they do not belong
to you or to any group or individual, they are part of Earth, and Earth belongs
to all of us, a single tribe. One overgrown troop of baboons that have taken
shelter in the shade of this planet's night, that draw their life from the heat
of this planet's day.
    Graff and his ilk did their work too well. They found all of
the children best suited to rule; but part of the mix they selected for was
ambition. And not just the desire to achieve or even surpass others—it was
aggression, the desire to rule and control.

    The need to have our own way.
    I certainly have it. If I had not fallen in love with Bean
and focused on our children, wouldn't I be one of them? Only I would be
hampered by the weakness of my country. Armenia has neither the resources nor
the national will to rule over great empires. But Alai and Han Tzu inherit
centuries of empire and a sense of entitlement to rule. While Virlomi is making
her own myth and teaching her people that their day of destiny has come.
    Only two of these great children have stepped outside the
pattern, the great game of slaughter and domination.
    Bean was never selected for aggression. He was selected for
brilliance alone. His mind far outshone any other. But he was not one of us. He
could solve the strategic and tactical problems more easily than anyone—more
easily than Ender. But he didn't care whether he ruled; he didn't care whether
he won. When he had an army of his own, he never won a battle—all his effort
was spent on training his soldiers and trying out his ideas.
    That's why he was able to be the perfect shadow to Ender
Wiggin. He did not need to surpass Ender. All he wanted was to survive. And,
without knowing it, to belong. To love and be loved. Ender gave him that. And
Sister Carlotta. And me. But he never