Shadow of the Giant (13 page)

Bean and Petra were surprised when Peter came to see them in their little house on the grounds of the Hegemony compound. “You honor our humble abode,” said Bean.

“I do, don’t I,” said Peter with a smile. “The baby’s asleep?”

“Sorry, you don’t get to watch me nurse him,” said Petra.

“I have good news and bad news,” said Peter.

They waited for him to tell them.

“I need you to go back to Rwanda, Julian.”

“I thought the Rwandan government was with us,” said Petra.

“It’s not a raid,” said Peter. “I need you to take command of the Rwandan military and incorporate it into the Hegemony forces.”

Petra laughed. “You’re kidding. Felix Starman is going to ratify your Constitution?”

“Hard to believe, but yes, Felix is ambitious the way I’m ambitious—he wants to create something that will outlive him. He knows that the best way for Rwanda to be safe and free is for there to be no armies in the world. And the only way for that to happen is to have a world government that will maintain the liberal values he has created in his Rwanda—elections, individual rights, the rule of law, universal education, and no corruption.”

“We’ve read your Constitution, Peter,” said Bean.

“He asked for you in particular,” said Peter. “His men saw you when you took Volescu. They call you the African Giant now.”

“Darling,” said Petra to Bean. “You’re a god now, like Virlomi.”

“The question is whether you’re woman enough to be married to a god,” said Bean.

“I shade my eyes and it keeps me from going blind.”

Bean smiled and turned to Peter. “Does Felix Starman know how long I’m not expected to live?”

“No,” said Peter. “I regard that as a state secret.”

“Oh no,” said Petra. “Now we can’t tell each other.”

“How long will you expect me to stay?”

“Long enough for the Rwandan army to transfer its loyalty to the Free People.”

“To you?”

“To the Free People,” said Peter. “I’m not creating a cult of personality here. They have to be committed to the Constitution. And to defending the Free People who have accepted it.”

“In practical terms, a date, please,” said Bean.

“Until after the plebiscite, at least,” said Peter.

“And I can go with him?” asked Petra.

“Your choice,” said Peter. “It’s probably safer there than here, but it’s a long flight. You can write the Martel essays from anywhere.”

“Julian, he’s leaving it up to us. We’re Free People now too!”

“All right, I’ll do it,” said Bean. “Now what’s the good news?”

“That
was
the good news,” said Peter. “The bad news is that we’ve had a sudden and unexpected shortfall in revenue. It will take months, at least, to make up what we abruptly stopped receiving. Therefore we’re cutting back on projects that don’t contribute directly to the goals of the Hegemony.”

Petra laughed. “You have the cheek to ask us to help you, when you’re cutting off funding for our search?”

“You see? You immediately recognized that your search was not contributing.”

“You’re searching, too,” said Bean. “To find the virus.”

“If it exists,” said Peter. “In all likelihood, Volescu is teasing us, and the virus doesn’t actually work and hasn’t been dispersed.”

“So you’re going to bet the future of the human race on that?”

“No I’m not,” said Peter. “But without a budget for it, it’s beyond our reach. However, it is
not
beyond the reach of the International Fleet.”

“You’re turning it over to them?”

“I’m turning Volescu over to them. And they’re going to continue the research into the virus he developed and where he might have dispersed it, if he did.”

“The I.F. can’t operate on Earth.”

“They can if they’re acting against an alien threat. If Volescu’s virus works, and it’s released on Earth, it would create a new species designed to completely replace humanity in a single generation. The Hegemon has issued a secret finding that Volescu’s virus constitutes an alien invasion, which the I.F. has kindly agreed to track down and…repel for us.”

Bean laughed. “Well, it seems we think alike.”

“Really?” said Peter. “Oh, you’re just flattering me.”

“I already turned over our search to the Ministry of Colonization. And we both know that Graff is really functioning as a branch of the I.F.”

Peter regarded him calmly. “So you knew I’d have to cut the budget for your search.”

“I knew that you didn’t have the resources no matter how much budget you have. Ferreira was doing his best, but ColMin has better software.”

“Well, everything’s working out happily for everyone, then,” said Peter, standing up to go.

“Even for Ender,” said Bean.

“Your baby’s a lucky little boy,” said Peter, “to have such attentive parents.” And he was out the door.

Volescu looked tired when Bean went to see him. Old. Confinement wasn’t good for him. He was not suffering physically, but he seemed to be growing wan as a plant kept in a closet without sun.

“Promise me something,” said Volescu.

“What?” asked Bean.

“Something. Anything. Bargain with me.”

“The one thing you want,” said Bean, “you will never have again.”

“Only because you’re vindictive,” said Volescu. “Ungrateful—you exist because I made you, and you keep me in this box.”

“It’s a good-sized room. It’s air-conditioned. Compared to the way you treated my brothers….”

“They were not legally—”

“And now you have my babies hidden away. And a virus with the potential to destroy the human race—”

“Improve it—”

“Erase it. How can you be given your freedom again? You combine grandiosity with amorality.”

“Rather like Peter Wiggin, whom you serve so faithfully. His little toad.”

“The word is ‘toady,’” said Bean.

“Yet here you are, visiting me. Could it be that Julian Delphiki, my dear half-nephew, has a problem I could help him with?”

“Same questions as before,” said Bean.

“Same answer,” said Volescu. “I have no idea what happened to your missing embryos.”

Bean sighed. “I thought you might want a chance to square things with me and Petra before you leave this Earth.”

“Oh, come on,” said Volescu. “You’re threatening me with the death penalty?”

“No,” said Bean. “You’re simply…leaving Earth. Peter is turning you over to the I.F. On the theory that your virus is an alien invasion.”

“Only if
you’re
an alien invasion,” said Volescu.

“But I am,” said Bean. “I’m the first of a race of short-lived giant geniuses. Think how much larger a population the Earth can sustain when the average age at death is eighteen.”

“You know, Bean, there’s no reason for you to die young.”

“Really? You have the antidote?”

“Nobody needs an antidote to destiny. Death from giantism comes from the strain on your heart, trying to pump so much blood through so many kilometers of arteries and veins. If you get away from gravity, your heart won’t be overtaxed and you won’t die.”

“You think I haven’t thought of that?” said Bean. “I’ll still continue to
grow
.”

“So you get large. The I.F. can build you a really big ship. A colony ship. You can gradually fill it up with your protoplasm and bones. You’d live for
years
, tied to the walls of the ship like a balloon. An enormous Gulliver. Your wife could come visit you. And if you get too big, well, there’s always amputation. You could become a being of pure mind. Fed intravenously, what need would you have of belly and bowels? Eventually, all you really need is your brain and spine, and they need never die. A mind eternally growing.”

Bean stood up. “Is that what you created me for, Volescu? To be a limbless crippled monster out in space?”

“Silly boy,” said Volescu, “to ordinary humans you already
are
a monster. Their worst nightmare. The species that will replace them. But to me, you’re beautiful. Even tethered to an artificial habitat, even limbless, trunkless, voiceless, you’d be the most beautiful creature alive.”

“And yet you came within one toilet-tank lid of killing me and burning my body.”

“I didn’t want to go to jail.”

“Yet here you are,” said Bean. “And your next prison is out in space.”

“I can live like Prospero, refining my arts in solitude.”

“Prospero had Ariel and Caliban,” said Bean.

“Don’t you understand?” said Volescu. “
You’re
my Caliban. And all your little children—they’re my Ariels. I’ve spread them over the earth. You’ll never find them. Their mothers have been taught well. They’ll mate, they’ll reproduce before their giantism becomes obvious. Whether my virus works or not, your children are my virus.”

“So that’s what Achilles plotted?”

“Achilles?” Volescu laughed. “That bloody-handed little moron? I told him your babies were dead. That’s all he wanted. Fool.”

“So they’re not dead.”

“All alive. All implanted. By now, perhaps, some of them born, since those with your abilities will be born two months premature.”

“You knew that and didn’t tell us?”

“Why should I? The delivery was safe, wasn’t it? The baby was mature enough to breathe and function on its own?”

“What else do you know?”

“I know that everything will work out. Julian, look at yourself, man! You escaped at the age of
one
. Which means that seventeen months after conception, you were able to survive without parents. I don’t have even the tiniest worry about the health of your babies, and neither should you. They don’t need you, because you didn’t need anybody. Let them go. Let them replace the old species, bit by bit, over the generations to come.”

“No,” said Bean, “I love the old species. And I hate what you did to me.”

“Without ‘what I did to you,’ all you’d be is Nikolai.”

“My brother is a wonderful person. Kind. And very smart.”

“Very smart, but not as smart as you. Would you
really
trade with him? Would you really like to be as dull-witted as he is, compared to you?”

Whereupon Bean left, having no answer to Volescu’s last question.

Alai had thought that once he took control of the complex in Damascus, he’d be free to rule as Caliph.

It didn’t take long to learn otherwise.

All the men in his palace complex, including his bodyguards, obeyed him implicitly. But as soon as he tried to leave, even to ride around in Damascus, those he trusted most would begin to plead with him. “It’s not safe,” Ivan Lankowski would say. “When you got rid of the people controlling you here, it panicked their friends. And their friends include those who are commanding our armies everywhere.”

“They followed my plan in the war,” said Alai. “I thought they were loyal to the Caliph.”

“They were loyal to victory,” said Ivan. “Your plan was brilliant. And you…were in Ender’s Jeesh. His closest friend. Of course they followed your plan.”

“So they believed in me from Battle School, but not as Caliph.”

“They believe in you as Caliph,” said Ivan. “But more as the figurehead kind of Caliph who makes vague religious pronouncements and encouraging speeches, while you have wazirs and warlords to do all the nasty tedious work like making decisions and giving commands.”

“How far does their control reach?” asked Alai.

“It’s impossible to know,” said Ivan. “Here in Damascus, your loyal servants have caught and eliminated several dozen agents. But I would not let you board an aircraft in Damascus—military or commercial.”

“So if I can’t trust Muslims, drive me over the Golan Heights into Israel, and let me fly on an Israeli jet.”

“The same group that refuses to obey you in India is also saying that our accommodation with the Zionists was an offense against God.”

“They want to start
that
nightmare all over again?”

“They long for the good old days.”

“Yes, when Muslim armies were humiliated left and right, and the world feared Muslims because so many innocents were murdered in the name of God.”

“You don’t have to argue with
me
,” said Ivan pleasantly.

“Well, Ivan,” said Alai, “if I stay here, then someday my enemies will finish in India—either they’ll win or they’ll lose. Either way, they’ll come here, made mad by victory or by defeat, it doesn’t matter which. Either way, I’ll be dead, don’t you think?”

“Oh, definitely, sir. We do have to find a way to get you out of here.”

“No plan?”

“All kinds of plans,” said Ivan. “But they all involve saving your life. Not saving the Caliphate.”

“If I run away, then the Caliphate is lost.”

“And if you stay, then the Caliphate is yours until the day you die.”

Alai laughed. “Well, Ivan, you’ve analyzed it well. So I have no choice. I have to go to my enemies and destroy them.”

“I suggest you use a magic carpet,” said Ivan, “as the most reliable form of transportation.”

“You think only a genie could get me to India to face General Rajam?”

“Alive, yes.”

“Then I must contact my genie,” said Alai.

“Is this a good time?” asked Ivan. “With the madwoman’s latest vid all over the nets and the media, Rajam is going to be a crazy man.”

“That’s the best time,” said Alai. “By the way, Ivan, can you tell me why Rajam’s nickname is ‘Andariyy’?”

“Would it help if I told you that he chose the nickname ‘thick rope’ himself?”

“Ah. So it doesn’t refer to his tenacity or strength.”

“He would say it does. Or at least the tenacity of a particular part of his body.”

“And yet…rope is limp.”

“Thick rope isn’t.”

“Thick rope is as limp as any other,” said Alai, “unless it’s very short.”

Ivan laughed. “I’ll make sure to repeat this joke at Rajam’s funeral.”

“Just don’t repeat it at mine.”

“I will not be at your funeral,” said Ivan, “unless it’s a mass grave.”

Alai went to his computer and began to compose a few emails. Within a half hour of sending them, he received a telephone call from Felix Starman of Rwanda.

“I’m sorry to tell you,” said Felix, “that I cannot allow Muslim teachers into Rwanda.”

“Fortunately,” said Alai, “that isn’t why I called.”

“Excellent,” said Felix.

“I am calling in the interest of world peace. And I understand you have already made your decision about who is the best hope of humankind for achieving that goal—no, say no names.”

“Since I have no idea what you’re talking about—”

“Excellent,” said Alai. “A good Muslim always assumes that unbelievers have no idea.” They both laughed. “All I ask is that you let it be known that there is a man crossing the Rub’al Khali on foot because his camel won’t let him mount and ride.”

“And you wish someone to help this poor wanderer?”

“God watches over all his creatures, but the Caliph cannot always reach out a hand to do God’s will.”

“I hope this poor unfortunate will be helped as soon as possible,” said Felix.

“Let it be soon. I am ready at any time to hear good news of him.”

They said their good-byes, and Alai got up and went in search of Ivan.

“Pack,” he said.

Ivan raised his eyebrows. “What will you need?”

“Clean underwear. My most flamboyantly Caliph-like costume. Three men who will kill at my command and will not turn their weapons on me. And a loyal man with a video camera with a fully charged battery and plenty of film.”

“Should the vidman be one of the loyal soldiers? Or a separate person?”

“Let all the loyal soldiers be part of the video crew.”

“And shall I be one of these three?”

“That is for you to decide,” said Alai. “If I fail, the men who are with me will surely die.”

“Better to die quickly before the face of God’s servant than slowly at the hands of God’s enemies,” said Ivan.

“My favorite Russian,” said Alai.

“I’m a Kazakh Turk,” Ivan reminded him.

“God was good to send you to me.”

“And good when he gave you to all of the faithful.”

“Will you say so when I have done all that I mean to do?”

“Always,” said Ivan. “Always I am your faithful servant.”

“You are a servant only to God,” said Alai. “To me, you are a friend.”

An hour later, Alai received an email that he knew was from Petra, despite the innocent signature. It was a request that he pray for a child that was undergoing an operation at the largest hospital in Beirut at seven o’clock the next morning. “We will begin our own prayers at five in the morning,” said the letter, “so that dawn will find us praying.”

Alai merely answered, “I will pray for your nephew, and for all those who love him, that he may live. Let it be as God wills, and we will rejoice in his wisdom.”

So he would have to go to Beirut. Well, the drive was easy enough. The problem was doing it without alarming anyone that his enemies had set to spy on him.

When he left the palace complex, it was in a garbage truck. Ivan had protested, but Alai told him, “A Caliph who is afraid to be filthied on God’s errand is unworthy to rule.” He was sure this would be written down and, if he lived, would be included in a book of the wisdom of Caliph Alai. A book he hoped would be long and worth reading, instead of brief and embarrassing.

Dressed as a pious old woman, Alai rode in the back seat of a little old sedan driven by a soldier in civilian clothes and a false beard much longer than his real one. If he lost, if he was killed, then the fact that he dressed this way would be taken as proof that he was never worthy to be Caliph. But if he won, it would be part of the legend of his cleverness.

The old woman accepted a wheelchair to take her into the hospital, pushed by the bearded man who had driven her to Beirut.

On the roof, three men with ordinary, scuffed suitcases were waiting. It was ten minutes to five.

If someone in the hospital had noticed the disappearance of the old woman, or looked for the wheelchair, or wondered about the three men who had arrived separately, each carrying clothing for a family member to wear home, then word might already have gone out to Alai’s enemies. If someone came to investigate, and they had to kill him, it would be as good as setting off an alarm by Rajam’s own bed.

Three minutes before five, two young doctors, a man and a woman, came onto the roof, ostensibly to smoke. But soon they withdrew out of the sight of the men waiting with their suitcases.

Ivan looked at Alai questioningly. Alai shook his head. “They are here to kiss,” he said. “They are afraid of us reporting them, that’s all.”

Ivan, being careful, got up and walked to where he could see them. He came back and sat down. “More than kissing,” he whispered.

“They should not do that if they aren’t married,” said Alai. “Why do people always think that the only two choices are either to follow the harshest shari’ah or else discard all the laws of God?”

“You have never been in love,” said Ivan.

“You think not?” said Alai. “Just because I can’t meet any women does not mean I haven’t loved.”

“With your mind,” said Ivan, “but I happen to know that with your body you have been pure.”

“Of course I’m pure,” said Alai. “I’m not married.”

A medical chopper approached. It was exactly five o’clock. When it came close enough, Alai could see that it was from an Israeli hospital.

“Do Israeli doctors send patients to Beirut?” asked Alai.

“Lebanese doctors send patients to Israel,” said Ivan.

“So must we expect that our friends will wait until this chopper leaves? Or are these our friends?”

“You have hidden in garbage and dressed as a woman,” said Ivan. “What is riding in a Zionist helicopter compared to that?”

The chopper landed. The door opened. Nobody got out.

Alai picked up the suitcase that he knew was his because it was light—filled only with clothes instead of weaponry—and walked boldly to the door.

“Am I the passenger you came for?”

The pilot nodded.

Alai turned to look back toward where the couple had gone to kiss. He saw a flurry of motion. They had seen. They would speak of it.

He turned back to the pilot. “Can this chopper carry all five of us?”

“Easily,” said the pilot.

“What about seven?”

The pilot shrugged. “We fly lower, slower. But we often do.”

Alai turned to Ivan. “Please invite our young lovers to come with us.” Then Alai climbed into the helicopter. In moments, he had the women’s clothing off. Underneath, he was wearing a simple western business suit.

In moments, a pair of terrified doctors climbed into the helicopter at gunpoint, in various stages of deshabille. Apparently they had been warned to maintain absolute silence, because when they saw Alai and recognized him, the man went white and the woman began to weep while trying to refasten her clothing.

Alai came and knelt in front of her. “Daughter of God,” he said, “I am not concerned about your immodesty. I am concerned that the man you offered your nakedness to is not your husband.”

“We
will
be married,” she said.

“Then when that happy day comes,” said Alai, “your nakedness will bless your husband, and his nakedness will belong to you. Until then, I have this clothing for you.” He handed her the costume he had worn. “I do not ask that you dress like this all the time. But today, when God has seen how your heart intended to sin, perhaps you might cover yourself in humility.”

“Can she wait to dress until we’re in the air?” asked the pilot.