Was it possible that Alai was with them?

  “Virlomi.”

  Not Alai. But she knew the voice.

  “This is Suri.”

  Suriyawong. Were these FPE troops? Or Thai? How could Thai troops get across Burma and all the way up here?

  Not Chinese troops at all. Why was it suddenly so clear now? Why hadn’t it been clear before, when Alai was warning her? In their private talks, Alamandar said it would all work because the Russians would have the Chinese army fully involved in the north. Whichever attack Han Tzu defended against, the other side would be able to rampage through China. Or if he tried to fight both, then each would destroy that part of his army in turn.

  What neither of them had realized was that Han Tzu was just as capable of finding allies as they were.

  Suriyawong, whose love she had spurned. It felt like so many years ago. When they were children. Was this his vengeance, because she had married Alai instead of him?

  “Can you hear me, Vir?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “I would rather capture these men,” he said. “I don’t want to spend the rest of the day killing them all.”

  “Then stop.”

  “They won’t surrender while you’re still fighting. They worship you. They’re dying for you. Tell them to surrender, and let the survivors go home to their families when the war is over.”

  “Tell Indians to surrender to Siamese?”

  As soon as she said it, she regretted it. Once she had cared first for the lives of her men. Now, suddenly, she found herself speaking out of injured pride.

  “Vir,” said Suri. “They’re dying for nothing. Save their lives.”

  She broke the connection. She looked at the men around her, the ones that were alive, crouching behind piles of their comrades’ bodies, searching for some kind of target out in the trees, up the slopes…and seeing nothing.

  “They’ve stopped shooting,” said one of her surviving officers.

  “Enough men have died for my pride,” said Virlomi. “May the dead forgive me. I will live a thousand lives to make up for this one vain, stupid day.” She raised her voice. “Lay down your weapons. Virlomi says: Lay down your weapons and stand up with your hands in the air. Take no more lives! Lay down your weapons!”

  “We will die for you, Mother India!” cried one of the men.

  “Satyagraha!” shouted Virlomi. “Bear what must be borne! Today what you must bear is surrender! Mother India commands you to live so you can go home and comfort your wives and make babies to heal the great wounds that have been torn in the heart of India today!”

  Some of her words and all of the meaning of her message were passed up and down the highway of corpses.

  She set the example by raising her hands and walking out beyond the wall of bodies, into the open. Of course no one shot at her, because no one had during the whole battle. But soon others joined her. They lined up on the same side of the corpse wall that she had chosen, leaving their weapons behind them.

  From out of the trees on both sides of the highway, wary Thai soldiers emerged, guns still at the ready. They were covered with sweat and the frenzy of killing was only just leaving them.

  Virlomi turned and looked behind her. Emerging from the trees on the other side of the road was Suriyawong. She walked back over the walls of corpses to meet him in the grass on the other side. They stopped when they were three paces apart.

  She gestured up and down the road. “So. This is your work.”

  “No, Virlomi,” he said sadly. “It’s yours.”

  “Yes,” she said. “I know.”

  “Will you come with me to tell the other two armies to stop fighting? They’ll only give up when you tell them to.”

  “Yes,” she said. “Now?”

  “Phone them and see if they obey. If I try to lead you away right now, these soldiers will take up arms again to stop me. For some reason they still worship you.”

  “In India we worship the Destroyer along with Vishnu and Brahma.”

  “But I never knew that you served Shiva,” said Suriyawong.

  She had no answer for him. She used her cellphone and made the calls. “They’re trying to stop the men from fighting.”

  Then there was silence between them for a while. She could hear the barked commands of the Thai soldiers, forming her men into small groups and beginning their march down the valley.

  “Aren’t you going to ask about your husband?” said Suri.

  “What about him?”

  “Are you so sure your Muslim co-conspirators killed him, then?”

  “Nobody was going to kill him,” she said. “They were only going to confine him until after the victory.”

  Suri laughed bitterly. “You spent this long fighting the Muslims, Vir, and you still don’t understand them any better than that? This isn’t a chess game. The person of the king is not sacred.”

  “I never sought his death.”

  “You took away his power,” said Suri. “He tried to stop you from doing this and you plotted against your own husband. He was a better friend to India than you ever were.” His voice cracked with passion.

  “You cannot say anything to me that’s crueller than what I am now saying to myself.”

  “The girl Virlomi, so brave, so wise,” said Suri. “Does she still exist? Or has the goddess destroyed her too?”

  “The goddess is gone,” said Virlomi. “Only the fool, only the murderer remains.”

  A field radio crackled at his waist. Something was said in Thai.

  “Please come with me now, Virlomi. One army is surrendering, but the other shot the officer you telephoned when he tried to give the order.”

  A chopper approached them. Landed. They got on.

  In the air, Suriyawong asked her, “What will you do now?”

  “I’m your prisoner. What will you do?”

  “You’re Peter Wiggin’s prisoner. Thailand has joined the Free People.”

  She knew what that would mean to Suriyawong. Thailand—even the name meant “land of the free.” Peter’s new “nation” had coopted the name of Suriyawong’s homeland. And now, his homeland would no longer be sovereign. They had given up their independence. Peter Wiggin would be master of all.

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “Sorry? Because my people will be free within their borders, and there’ll be no more wars?”

  “What about my people?” she asked.

  “You’re not going back to them,” said Suri.

  “How could I, even if you let me? How could I possibly face them?”

  “I was hoping that you would face them. By vid. To help undo some of the damage you’ve done today.”

  “What could I possibly say or do?”

  “They still worship you. If you disappear now, if they never hear of you again, India will be ungovernable for a hundred years.”

  Virlomi answered truthfully: “India has always been ungovernable.”

  “Less governable than ever,” said Suri. “But if you speak to them. If you tell them—”

  “I will not tell them to surrender to yet another foreign power, not after they’ve been conquered and occupied by Chinese and then Muslims!”

  “If you ask them to vote. To freely decide whether to live in peace, within the Free People—”

  “And give Peter Wiggin the victory?”

  “Why are you angry with Peter? What did he ever do but help you win your nation’s freedom in every way that was possible to him?”

  It was true. Why was she so angry?

  Because he had beaten her.

  “Peter Wiggin,” said Suriyawong, “has the right of conquest. His troops destroyed your army in combat. He showed mercy he didn’t have to show.”

  “You showed mercy.”

  “I followed Peter’s instructions,” said Suriyawong. “He does not want any foreign occupiers in India. He wants the Muslims out. He wants only Indians to govern Indians. Joining the FPE means exactly that. A free India. But an India that doesn’t need, and therefore doesn’t have, a military.”

  “A nation without an army is nothing,” said Virlomi. “Any enemy can destroy them.”

  “That’s the Hegemon’s work in the world. He destroys the aggressors, so peaceful nations can remain free. India was the aggressor. Under your leadership, India was the invader. Now, instead of punishing your people, he offers them freedom and protection, if they only give up their weapons. Isn’t that Satyagraha, Vir? To give up what you once valued, because now you serve a greater good?”

  “Now you teach me about Satyagraha?”

  “Hear the arrogance in your voice, Vir.”

  Abashed, she looked away from him.

  “I teach you about Satyagraha because I lived it for years. Hiding myself utterly so that I would be the one Achilles trusted in the moment when I could betray him and save the world from him. I had no pride at the end of that. I had lived in filth and shame for…forever. But Bean took me back and trusted me. And Peter Wiggin acted as if he had known all along who I really was. They accepted my sacrifice.

  “Now I ask you, Vir, for your sacrifice. Your Satyagraha. Once you put everything on the altar of India. Then your pride nearly undid what you had accomplished. I ask you now, will you help your people live in peace, the only way that peace can be had in this world? By joining with the Free People of Earth?”

  She felt the tears streaming down her face.

  Like that day when she was making the video of the atrocities.

  Only today she was the one who had caused the deaths of all these Indian boys. They came here to die because they loved and served her. She owed their families something.

  “Whatever will help my people live in peace,” she said, “I’ll do.”

  25

  LETTERS

  From: Bean@Whereverthehelliam

  To: Graff%pilgrimage@colmin.gov

  Re: Did we actually do it?

  I can’t believe you still have me hooked up to the nets. This continues by ansible after we’re moving at relativistic speeds?

  The babies are fine here. There’s room enough for them to crawl. A library big enough I think they won’t lack for interesting reading or viewing material for…weeks. It will only be weeks, right?

  What I’m wondering is: did we do it? Did I fulfil your goal? I look at the map, and there’s still nothing inevitable about it. Han Tzu gave his farewell speech, just like Vlad and Alai and Virlomi. Makes me feel cheated. They got to bid the world farewell before they disappeared into this good night. Then again, they had nations to try to sway. I never really had anybody who followed me. Never wanted them. That’s the thing, I guess, that set me apart from the rest of the Jeesh—I was the only one who didn’t wish I were Ender.

  So look at the map, Hyrum. Will they buy Han Tzu’s plan of dividing China into six nations and all of them joining the Free Peoples? Or will they stay unified and still join? Or look for another Emperor? Will India recover from the humiliation of Virlomi’s defeat? Will they follow her advice and embrace the FPE? Nothing’s assured, and I have to go.

  I know, you’ll tell me by ansible when anything interesting happens. And in a way, I don’t care. I’m not going to be there, I’m not going to have any effect on it.

  In another way, I care even less than that. Because I never did care.

  Yet I also care with my whole heart. Because Petra is there with the only babies I actually wanted—the ones that don’t have my defects. With me I have only the cripples. And my only fear is that I’ll die before I’ve taught them anything.

  Don’t be ashamed when you see your life coming to an end and you haven’t found a cure for me yet. I never believed in the cure. I thought there was enough of a chance to take this leap into the night, and cure or not, I knew that I didn’t want my defective children to live long enough to make my mistake and reproduce, and keep this valuable, terrible curse going on, generation after generation. Whatever happens, it’s all right.

  And then it occurs to me. What if Sister Carlotta was right? What if God is waiting for me with open arms? Then all I’m doing is postponing my reunion. I think of meeting God. Will it be like when I met my father and mother? (I almost wrote: Nikolai’s parents.) I liked them. I wanted to love them. But I knew that Nikolai was the child she bore, the child they raised. And I was…from nowhere. And for me, my father was a little girl named Poke, and my mother was Sister Carlotta, and they were dead. Who were these other people really?

  Will meeting God be like that? Will I be disappointed with the real thing, because I prefer the substitute I made do with?

  Like it or not, Hyrum, you were God in my life. I didn’t invite you, I didn’t even like you, but you kept MEDDLING. And now you’ve sent me into outer darkness with a promise to save me. A promise I don’t believe you can keep. But at least YOU aren’t a stranger. I know you. And I think that you honestly meant well. If I have to choose between an omnipotent God who leaves the world in this condition, and a God who has only a little bit of power but really cares and tries to make things better, I’ll take you every time. Go on playing God, Hyrum. You’re not bad at it. Sometimes you kind of get it right.

  Why am I writing like this? We can email whenever we want. The thing is, nothing’s going to happen here, so I’ll have nothing to tell you. And nothing you have to tell me is going to matter to me all that much, the farther I get from Earth. So this is the right time for these valedictories.

  I hope Peter succeeds in uniting the world in peace. I believe he’s still got a couple of big wars ahead of him.

  I hope Petra remarries. When she asks you what you think, tell her I said this: I want my children to have a father in their lives. Not some absent legend of a father—a real one. So as long as she chooses somebody who’ll love them and tell them they’ve done ok, then do it. Be happy.

  I hope you live to see colonies established and the human race thriving on other worlds. It’s a good dream.

  I hope these crippled children I have with me find something interesting to do with their lives after I’m dead.

  I hope Sister Carlotta and Poke are there to meet me when I die. Sister Carlotta can tell me I told you so. And I can tell them both how sorry I am that I couldn’t save their lives, after all the trouble they went to to save mine.

  Enough. Time to switch on the gravity regulator and get this boat out to sea.

  From: Graff%pilgrimage@colmin.gov

  To: Bean@Whereverthehelliam

  Re: You did enough

  You did enough, Bean. You only had a little time, and you sacrificed so much of it to helping Peter and me and Mazer. All that time that could have belonged to Petra and you and your babies. You did enough. Peter can take it from here.

  As for all that God business—I don’t think the real God has as bad a track record as you think. Sure, a lot of people have terrible lives, by some measure. But I can’t think of anybody who’s had it tougher than you. And look what you’ve become. You don’t want to give God the credit because you don’t think he exists. But if you’re going to blame him for all the crap, kid, you got to give him credit for what grows from that fertilized soil.

  What you said about Petra getting a real father for your kids. I know you weren’t talking about yourself. But I have to say it, because it’s true, and you deserve to hear it.

  Bean, I’m proud of you. I’m proud of myself because I actually got to know you. I remember sitting there after you figured out what was really going on in the war against the Buggers. What do I do with this kid? We can’t keep a secret from him.

  What I decided was: I’ll trust him.

  You lived up to my trust. You exceeded it. You’re a great soul. I looked up to you long before you got so tall.

  You did ok.

  The plebiscite was over in Russia and it joined the FPE. The Muslim League was broken up and the most belligerent nations had been subdued, for now. Armenia was safe.

  Petra sent her army home on the same civilian trains that had brought them to Moscow.

  It had taken a year.

  During that time she missed her babies. But she couldn’t bear to see them. She refused to let them be brought to her. She refused to take even a brief leave to see them.

  Because she knew that when she came home, there would only be five of them. And the two she knew the best and therefore loved the best would not be there.

  Because she knew that she would have to face the rest of her life without Bean.

  So she kept herself busy—and there was no shortage of important work to do. She told herself—next week I’ll take a leave and go home.

  Then her father came to her and bulled his way past the aides and clerks that fenced her off from the outside world. Truth to tell, they were probably glad to see him and let him through. Because Petra was hell on wheels and terrified everybody around her.

  Father came to her with an attitude of steel. “Get out of here,” he said.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Your mother and I lost half your childhood because they took you away. You’re cheating yourself out of some of the sweetest time in the lives of your children. Why? What are you afraid of? The great soldier, and babies terrify you?”

  “I don’t want this conversation,” she said. “I’m an adult. I make my own decisions.”

  “You don’t grow out of being my daughter.” Father said. Then he loomed over her, and for a moment she had a childish fear that he was going to…to…spank her.

  All he did was put his arms around her and hug her. Tight.

  “You’re suffocating me, Papa.”

  “Then it’s working.”

  “I mean it.”

  “If you have breath to argue with me, then I’m not done.”

  She laughed.

  He let her out of the hug but still held her shoulders. “You wanted these children more than anything, and you were right. Now you want to avoid them because you think you can’t bear the grief of the ones that aren’t there. And I tell you, you’re wrong. And I know. Because I was there for Stefan, during all the years you were gone. I didn’t hide from him because I didn’t have you.”