Shadow of the Hegemon, the - Book 2 (Ender)

India? With India across the Burmese border and Pakistani troops massing in Baluchistan, threatening Iran and the gulf, we need a new way of looking at south Asia. The old models clearly don't work.
    What I want to know is, did IntPolFor drop Locke's column when Peter Wiggin came forward as the author, or did Wiggin resign? Because if it was IPF's decision, it was, to put it bluntly, a stupid one. We never knew who Locke was-we listened to him because he made sense, and time after time he was the only one who made sense out of problematical situations, or at least was the first to see clearly what was going on. What does it matter if he's a teenager, an embryo, or a talking pig?
    For that matter, as the Hegemon's term is near expiration, I am more and more uneasy with the current Hegemon-designate. Whoever suggested Locke almost a year ago had the right idea. only now let's put him in office under his own name. What Ender Wiggin did in the Formic War, Peter Wiggin might be able to do in the conflagration that looms-put an end to it.
    Reply 14, by [email protected]
    I don't mean to be suspicious, but how do we know you're not Peter Wiggin, trying to put his name into play again?
    Reply 14.1, by [email protected]
    I don't mean to get personal, but Turkish Military Network IDs aren't given out to American teenagers doing consultation work in Haiti. I realize that international politics can make paranoids seem sane, but if Peter Wiggin could write under this ID, he must already run the world. But perhaps who I am does make a difference. I'm in my twenties now, but I'm a Battle School grad. So maybe that's why the idea of putting a kid in charge of things doesn't sound so crazy to me.
    Virlomi knew who Petra was the moment she first showed up in Hyderabadthey had met before. Even though she was considerably older, so her time in Battle School overlapped Petra's by only a year, in those days Virlomi took notice of every girl in the place. An easy task, since Petra's arrival brought the total number of girls to ninefive of whom graduated at the same time as Virlomi. It seemed as though having girls in the school were regarded as an experiment that had failed.
    Back in Battle School, Petra had been a tough launchy with a smart mouth, who proudly refused all offers of advice. She seemed determined to make it as a girl among boys, meeting the same standards, taking their guff without help. Virlomi understood. She had had the same attitude herself, at first. She just hoped that Petra would not have to have such painful experiences as those Virlomi had had before finally realizing that the hostility of boys was, in most cases, insuperable, and a girl needed all the friends she could get.
    Petra was memorable enough that of course Virlomi recognized her name when the stories of Ender's jeesh came out after the war. The one girl among them, the Armenian Joan of Arc. Virlomi read the articles and smiled. So Petra had been as tough as she thought she'd be. Good for her.
    Then Ender's jeesh was kidnapped or killed, and when the kidnapped ones were returned from Russia, Virlomi was heartsick to see that the only one whose fate remained unknown was Petra Arkanian.
    Only she didn't have long to grieve. For suddenly the team of Indian Battle School graduates had a new commander, whom they immediately recognized as the same Achilles that Locke had accused of being a psychopathic killer. And soon they found that he was frequently shadowed by a silent, tiredlooking girl whose name was never spoken.
    But Virlomi knew her. Petra Arkanian.
    Whatever Achilles' motive in keeping her name to himself, Virlomi didn't like it and so she made sure that everyone on the strategy team knew that this was the missing member of Ender's jeesh. They said nothing about Petra to Achilles, of course-merely responded to his instructions and reported to him as required. And soon enough Petra's silent presence was treated as if it were ordinary. The others hadn't known her.
    But Virlomi knew that if Petra was silent, it meant something quite dreadful. It meant Achilles had some hold over her. A hostagesome kidnapped family member? Threats? Or something else? Had Achilles somehow overmastered Petra's will, which had once seemed so indomitable?
    Virlomi took great pains to make sure that Achilles did not notice her paying special attention to Petra. But she watched the younger girl, learning all she could. Petra used her desk as the others did, and