Shadow of the giant

I was about a year old. But
sixteen is probably close."
    "And all the rest of us must be around twenty, give or
take," said Fly. "What's your point, Colonel Graff?"
    "Call me Hyrum," said Graff. "I'd like to
think we're colleagues now."
    "Colleagues in what," muttered Dink.
    "Back when you last met," said Graff, "when
Achilles arranged for your kidnapping in Russia—you were already held in high
esteem throughout the world. You were regarded as having ... potential. Since
then, however, one of your number has become Caliph, unified the un-unifiable
Muslim world, and masterminded the conquest of China and the ... liberation of
India."
    "Alai's lost his mind, that's what he's done,"
said Carn.
    "And Han Tzu is Emperor of China. Bean is commander of
the undefeated armies of the FPE, plus being known as the man who finally
brought Achilles down. All in all, what once was viewed as potential is now
regarded as a certainty."
    "So what have you assembled here?" said Crazy Tom.
"The losers?"
    "I've assembled the people that national governments
will turn to stop Peter Wiggin from uniting the world."
    They looked around at each other.
    "Nobody's talked to me yet," said Fly Molo.
    "But they turned to you to put down the Muslim
rebellion in the Philippines, didn't they?" said Rackham.
    "We're citizens of our countries," said Crazy Tom.
    "Mine rents me out," said Dink. "Like a
taxi."
    "Because you always get along so well with
authority," said Crazy Tom.
    "Here's what will happen," said Graff. "Some
combination of China, India, and the Muslim world destroy each other. Whichever
one emerges on top, Bean destroys on the battlefield on behalf of the FPE. Does
anyone doubt he can do it?"
    Bean raised his hand.
    No one else did.
    And then Dink did.
    "He's not hungry," he said.
    No one argued with him.
    "Now, what could Dink possibly mean by that?" said
Graff. "Any ideas?"
    No one seemed to have any.
    "You don't want to say it, but I will," said
Graff. "It's well known that Bean scored higher on the Battle School tests
than anyone else in history. No one else was close. Well, Ender, but 'close' is
such a relative term. Let's say Ender scored closest. But we don't know how
close because Bean was off the charts."
    "How?" said Dink. "He answered questions you
didn't ask?"
    "Exactly," said Graff. "That's what Sister
Carlotta showed me. He had time to spare in taking the tests. He commented on
them and mentioned how the test could have been improved. He was unstoppable.
Irresistible. That's what the world knows about Julian Delphiki. And yet when
we put him in charge of all of you on Eros, in Command School, while we were
waiting for Ender to make up his mind about whether to continue his ...
education—how did that go?"
    Again silence.
    "Oh, why must we pretend that things weren't as they
were?" said Graff.
    "We didn't like it," said Dink. "He was
younger than all of us."
    "So was Ender," said Graff.
    "But we knew Ender," said Crazy Tom.
    "We loved Ender," said Shen.
    "Everybody loved Ender," said Fly.
    "I can give you a list of people who hated him. But you
loved him. And you didn't love Bean. Why is that?"
    Bean barked out a laugh. The others looked at him. Except
the ones who were embarrassed and looked away. "I never learned how to be
cuddly," said Bean. "In an orphanage that would have got me adopted,
but on the street, it would have got me killed."
    "Nonsense," said Graff. "Cuddly wouldn't have
cut it with this group anyway."
    "And you actually were cuddly," said Carn.
"No offense, but you were spunky."
    "If that's your word for 'bratty little asshole,'
" said Dink mildly.
    "Now now," said Graff. "You didn't dislike
Bean personally. Most of you. But you didn't like serving under him. And you
can't say that it's because you were too independent to serve under anybody,
because you gladly served under Ender. You gave Ender everything you had."
    "More than we had," said Fly.
    "But not Bean." Graft" said it like it was
proof of something.
    "Is this a therapy group?" asked Dink.
    Vlad spoke up. "Of course it is. He wants us to reach
the same conclusion he's already reached."
    "Do you know what it is?" asked Graff.
    Vlad took a breath. "Hyrum thinks that the reason we
didn't follow Bean the way we followed Ender was because we knew something
about Bean that the rest of the world doesn't know. And because of that, we're
likely to be willing to challenge him in battle, while the rest of the world
would just give up and surrender to him