that's how I want it. That's what I've learned
over the past few years. Whatever I think of, if I decide I want it, if I do
what I know I need to do, then it happens. I'm the lucky girl whose dreams come
true."
She came to him, wrapped her arms around him, kissed him. He
kissed her back, because it would be unwise of him to show her how sad and
frightened he was, and how little he desired her now.
"I love you," she said. "You're my best
dream."
20
PLANS
From: lmperialSelf%
[email protected] To: Weaver%
[email protected],
Caliph%
[email protected] Re: Don't do this
Alai, Virlomi, what are you thinking? Troop movements can't
be hidden. Do you really want this bloodbath? Are you bent on proving that
Graff is right and none of us belong on Earth?
Hot Soup
From: Weaver%
[email protected] To: lmperialSelf%
[email protected] Re: Silly boy
Did you think that Chinese offenses in India would be
forgotten? If you don't want bloodshed, then swear allegiance to Mother India
and Caliph Alai. Disband your armies and offer no resistance. We will be far
more merciful to the Chinese than the Chinese were to India.
From: Caliph%
[email protected] To: lmperialSelf%
[email protected] Re: Look again
Take no precipitate action, my friend. Things will not go as
they appear to be going.
Mazer Rackham sat across from Peter Wiggin in his office in
Rotterdam.
"We're very concerned," said Rackham.
"So am I."
"What have you set in motion here, Peter?"
"Mazer," said Peter, "all I've done is keep
pressing, using what small tools I have. They decide how to respond to that
pressure. I was prepared for an invasion of Armenia or Nubia. I was prepared to
take advantage of a mass expulsion of Muslims from some or all European
nations."
"And war between India and China? Are you prepared for
that?"
"These are your geniuses, Mazer. Yours and Graff's. You
trained them. You explain to me why Alai and Virlomi are doing something so
stupid and suicidal as to throw badly armed Indian troops against Han Tzu's
battle-hardened, fully equipped, revenge-hungry army."
"So that's not something you did."
"I'm not like you and Graff," said Peter,
irritated. "I don't think I'm some master puppeteer. I've got this amount
of power and influence in the world, and it doesn't amount to much. I have a
billion or so citizens who have not yet become a genuine nation, so I have to
keep dancing just to keep the FPE viable. I have a military force which is well
trained and well equipped, has excellent morale, and is so small it wouldn't
even be noticed on a battlefield in China or India. I have my personal
reputation as Locke and my not-so-empty-anymore office as Hegemon. And I have
Bean, both his actual abilities and his extravagant reputation. That's my
arsenal. Do you see anything in that list that would allow me to even think of
starting a war between two major world powers over whom I have no
influence?"
"It just played into your hands so nicely, we couldn't
help but think you had something to do with it."
"No, you did," said Peter. "You made these
kids crazy in Battle School. Now they're all mad kings, using the lives of
their subjects as playing pieces in a tawdry game of one-upmanship."
Rackham sat back, looking a little sick. "We didn't
want this either. And I don't think they're crazy. Somebody must see some
advantage in starting this war, and yet I can't think who. You're the only one
who stands to gain, so we thought..."
"Believe it or not," said Peter, "I would not
start a war like this, even if I thought I could profit from picking up the
pieces. The only people who start wars that are bound to depend on human waves
getting cut down by machine guns are fanatics or idiots. I think we can safely
rule out idiocy. So ... that leaves Virlomi."
"That's what we're afraid of. That she's actually come
to believe her image. God-blessed and irresistible." Rackham raised an
eyebrow. "But you knew that. You met with her."
"She proposed marriage to me," said Peter. "I
turned her down."
"Before she went to Alai."
"I have a feeling that she married Alai on the
rebound."
Rackham laughed. "She offered you India."
"She offered me an entanglement. I turned it into an
opportunity."
"You knew when you turned her down that she'd be angry
and do something stupid."
Peter shrugged. "I knew she'd do something spiteful.
Something to