Zeck tried to go see Colonel Graff, but he was stopped by a Marine in the corridor. “Do you have an appointment with the commandant of Battle School?”

  “No, sir,” said Zeck.

  “Then whatever you have to say, say it to your counselor. Or one of the teachers.”

  The teachers were no help. Few of them would talk to him anymore. They’d say, “Is this about algebra? No? Then tell it to somebody else, Zeck.” The words of Christ had long since worn out their welcome in this place.

  The counselor did listen—or at least sat in a room with him while he talked. But it came to nothing.

  “So what you’re telling me is that the other students are being kind to each other, and you want it stopped.”

  “They’re doing it in the name of Santa Claus.”

  “What, exactly, has anyone done to you—in the name of Santa Claus?”

  “Nothing to me, personally, but—”

  “So you’re complaining because they’re being kind to other people and not to you?”

  “Because it’s in the name of—”

  “Santa Claus, I see. Do you believe in Santa Claus, Zeck?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Believe in Santa Claus. Do you think there’s really a jolly fat guy in a red suit who brings gifts?”

  “No.”

  “So Santa Claus isn’t part of your religion.”

  “That’s exactly my point. It’s part of their religion.”

  “I’ve asked. They say it isn’t religion at all. That Santa Claus is merely a cultural figure shared by many of the cultures of Earth.”

  “It’s part of Christmas,” insisted Zeck.

  “And you don’t believe in Christmas.”

  “Not the way most people celebrate it, no.”

  “What do you believe in?”

  “I believe Jesus Christ was born, probably not in December at all anyway, and he grew up to be the Savior of the world.”

  “No Santa Claus.”

  “No.”

  “So Santa Claus isn’t part of Christmas.”

  “Of course he’s part of Christmas,” said Zeck. “For most people.”

  “Just not for you.”

  Zeck nodded.

  “All right, I’ll talk about this to my superiors,” said the counselor. “Do you want to know what I think? I think they’re going to tell me it’s just a fad, and they’re going to let it run itself out.”

  “In other words, they’re going to let them keep doing it as long as they want.”

  “They’re children, Zeck. Not many of them are as tenacious as you. They’ll lose interest in it and it will go away. Have patience. Patience isn’t against your religion, is it?”

  “I refuse to take offense at your sarcasm.”

  “I wasn’t being sarcastic.”

  “I can see that you also are a true son to the Father of Lies.” And Zeck got up and left.

  “I’m glad you didn’t take offense,” the counselor called after him.

  There would be no recourse to authority, obviously. Not directly, anyway.

  Instead, Zeck went to several of the Arab students, pointing out that the authorities were allowing a Christian custom to be openly practiced. From the first few, he heard the standard litany: “Islam has renounced rivalry between religions. What they do is their business.”

  But Zeck was finally able to get a rise out of a Pakistani kid in Bee Army. Not that Ahmed said anything positive. In fact, he looked completely uninterested, even hostile. Yet Zeck knew that he had struck a nerve. “They say Santa Claus isn’t religious. He’s national. But in your country, is there any difference? Is Muhammad—”

  Ahmed held up one hand and looked away. “It is not for you to say the prophet’s name.”

  “I’m not comparing him to Santa Claus, of course,” said Zeck. Though in fact Zeck had heard his father call Muhammad “Satan’s imitation of a prophet,” which would make Santa and Muhammad pretty well parallel.

  “You have said enough,” said Ahmed. “I’m done with you.”

  Zeck knew that Ahmed had gotten along well enough in Battle School. Their home countries were powerless to insist on religious privileges, so the children in Battle School had been granted exemptions from the obligations of Muslims to pray. But what would he do now that the Christians were getting their Santa Claus? Pakistan had been formed as a Muslim country. There was no distinction between what was national and what was Muslim.

  It apparently took Ahmed two days to organize things, especially because it was impossible to ascertain at any given time which earthside time zone they were in—or directly above—and therefore what times they should pray. They couldn’t even find out what time it was in Mecca and use that schedule.

  So Ahmed and other Muslim students apparently worked it out so that they would pray during times when they were not in class, and would continue to use the exemption for those students who were in an actual battle at a prayer time.

  The result was a demonstration of piety at breakfast. At first it seemed only a half-dozen Muslims were involved, the students prostrating themselves and facing—not Mecca, which would have been impossible—but to portside, which faced the sun.

  But once the praying began, other Muslim students took note and at first a few, then more and more, joined in the praying. Zeck sat at the table, eating without conversation with his supposed comrades in Rat Army. He pretended not to notice or care, but he was delighted. Because Dink grasped the meaning almost at once. The prayer was a Muslim response to Dink’s Santa Claus campaign. There was no way the commandant could ignore this.

  “So maybe it’s a good thing,” Dink murmured to Flip, who was sitting next to him.

  Zeck knew it was not a good thing. Muslims had renounced terrorism many years ago, after the disastrous Sunni–Shiite war, and had even reconciled with Israel and made common economic cause. But everyone knew how much resentment still seethed within the Muslim world, with many Muslims believing they were treated unfairly by the Hegemony. Everyone knew of the imams and ayatollahs who claimed, loudly, that what was needed was not a secular Hegemony, but a Caliph to unify the world in worship of God. “When we live by Sharia, God will protect us from these monsters. When God sends a warning, we are wise to listen. Instead, we do the opposite, and God will not protect us when we are in rebellion against him.”

  It was language Zeck understood. Apart from their religious delusions, they had the courage of their faith. They were not afraid to speak up. And they had numbers enough to force people to listen to them. They would be heard by those who had long since stopped even pretending to listen to Zeck.

  The next prayer time was at the end of lunch. The Muslims had spread the word, and all those who intended to pray lingered in the mess hall. Zeck had already heard that the same thing happened in the commanders’ mess at breakfast, but now most of the Muslim commanders had come into the main mess hall to join their soldiers in prayer.

  Colonel Graff came into the mess hall just before the announced time of prayer.

  “Religious observance in Battle School is forbidden,” he said loudly. “Muslims have been granted an exemption from the requirement of daily prayers. So any Muslim student who insists on a public display of religious rituals will be disciplined, and any commanders or toon leaders who take part will immediately and permanently lose their rank.”

  Graff had already turned to leave when Ahmed called out, “What about Santa Claus?”

  “As far as I know,” said Graff, “there is no religious ritual associated with Santa Claus, and Santa Claus has not been sighted here in Battle School.”

  “Double standard!” shouted Ahmed, and several others echoed him.

  Graff ignored him and left the mess hall.

  The door had not closed when two dozen Marines came through the door and stationed themselves around the room.

  When the time for prayer came, Ahmed and several others immediately prostrated themselves. Marines came to them, forced them to their feet, and handcuffed them. The Marine lieutenant looked around the room. “Anyone else?”

  One more soldier lay down to pray; he was also handcuffed. No one else defied them. Five Muslims were taken from the room. Not roughly, but not all that gently, either.

  Zeck turned his attention back to his food.

  “This makes you happy, doesn’t it?” whispered Dink.

  Zeck turned a blank face toward him.

  “You did this,” said Dink softly.

  “I’m a Christian. I don’t tell Muslims when to pray.” Zeck regretted speaking as soon as he finished. He should have remained silent.

  “You’re not a good liar, Zeck,” said Dink. And now he was talking loud enough that the rest of the table could hear. “Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s one of your best points—you’re used to telling the truth, so you never learned the skill of telling lies.”

  “I don’t lie,” said Zeck.

  “Your words were literally true, I’m sure. Our Muslim friends did not consult you on the timetable. But as an answer to my accusation that you did this, it was such a pathetically obvious lie. A dodge. If you really had nothing to do with it, you wouldn’t have needed a dodge. You answered like someone with something to hide.”

  This time Zeck said nothing.

  “You think this will help your chances of getting out of Battle School. Maybe you even think it will disrupt Battle School and hurt the war effort—which makes you a traitor, from one point of view, or a hero of Christianity, from another. But you won’t stop this war, and you won’t hurt Battle School in the long run. You want to know what you really accomplished? Someday this war will end. If we win, then we’ll all go home. The kids in this school are the brightest military minds of our generation. They’ll be running things in country after country. Ahmed—someday he’ll be Pakistan. And you just guaranteed that he will hate the idea of trying to live with non-Muslims in peace. In other words, you just started a war thirty or forty years from now.”

  “Or ten,” said Wiggin.

  “Ahmed will still be pretty young in ten years,” said Flip, chuckling a little.

  Zeck hadn’t thought of what this might lead to back on Earth. But what did Dink know? He couldn’t predict the future. “I didn’t start promoting Santa Claus,” said Zeck, meeting Dink’s gaze.

  “No, you just reported a little private joke between two Dutch kids and made a big deal out of it,” said Dink.

  “You made a big deal out of it,” said Zeck. “You made it into a cause. You.”

  Zeck waited.

  Dink sighed. “É. I did.” He got up from the table.

  So did everyone else.

  Zeck started to get up too.

  Two hands on his shoulders pushed him back down. Hands from two different kids from Rat Army. They weren’t rough. They were just firm. Stay here for a while. You’re not one of us. Don’t come with us.

  8

  PEACE

  The Santa Claus thing was over. Dink didn’t imagine that he controlled it anymore—it had grown way past him now. But when the Muslim kids were arrested in the mess hall, it stopped being a game. It stopped being just a way to tweak the nose of authority. There were real consequences, and as Zeck had pointed out, they were more Dink’s fault than anyone else’s.

  So Dink asked all his friends to ask everybody they knew to stop doing the stocking thing. To stop giving gifts that had anything to do with Santa Claus.

  And, within a day, it stopped.

  He thought that would be the end of it.

  But it wasn’t the end. Because of Zeck.

  Nothing Zeck did, of course. Zeck was Zeck, completely unchanged. Zeck didn’t do anything in practice except fly around, and he didn’t do anything in battle except take up space. But he went to class, he did his schoolwork, he turned in his assignments.

  And everybody ignored him. They always had. But not like this.

  Before, they had ignored him in a kind of tolerant, almost grudgingly respectful way: He’s an idiot, but at least he’s consistent.

  Now they ignored him in a pointed way. They didn’t even bother teasing him or jostling him. He just didn’t exist. If he tried to speak to anybody, they turned away. Dink saw it, and it made him feel bad. But Zeck had brought it on himself. It’s one thing to be an outsider because you’re different. It’s another thing to get other people in trouble for your own selfish reasons. And that’s what Zeck had done. He didn’t care about the no-religion rule—he violated it all the time himself. He just used Dink’s Sinterklaas present to Flip as a means of making a lame point with the commandant.

  So I was childish too, thought Dink. I knew when to stop. He didn’t.

  Not my fault.

  And yet Dink couldn’t stop observing him. Just glances. Just . . . noticing. He had read a little bit about primate behavior, as part of the theory of group loyalties. He knew how chimps and baboons that were shut out of their troop behaved, what happened to them. Depression. Self-destruction. Before, Zeck had seemed to thrive on isolation. Now that the isolation was complete, he wasn’t thriving anymore.

  He looked drawn. He would start walking in some direction and then just stop. Then go again, but slowly. He didn’t eat much. Things weren’t going well for him.

  And if there was one thing Dink knew, it was that the counselors and teachers weren’t worth a bucket of hog snot when it came to actually helping a kid with real problems. They had their agenda—what they wanted to make each kid do. But if it was clear the kid wouldn’t do it, then they lost interest. The way they had lost interest in Dink. Even if Zeck asked for help, they wouldn’t give it. And Zeck wouldn’t ask.

  Despite knowing how futile it was, Dink tried anyway. He went to Graff and tried to explain what was happening to Zeck.

  “Interesting theory,” said Graff. “He’s being shunned, you think.”

  “I know.”

  “But not by you?”

  “I’ve tried to talk to him a couple of times, he shuts me out.”

  “So he’s shunning you.”

  “But everybody else is shunning him.”

  “Dink,” said Graff, “ego te absolvo.”

  “Whatever you might think,” said Dink, “that wasn’t Dutch.”

  “It was Latin. From the Catholic confessional. I absolve you of your sin.”

  “I’m not Catholic.”

  “I’m not a priest.”

  “You don’t have the power to absolve anybody from anything.”

  “But it was worth a try. Go back to your barracks, Dink. Zeck is not your problem.”

  “Why don’t you just send him back home?” asked Dink. “He’s never going to be anything in this army. He’s a Christian, not a soldier. Why can’t you let him go home and be a Christian?”

  Graff leaned back in his chair.

  “Okay, I know what you’re going to say,” said Dink.

  “You do?”

  “The same thing everybody always says. If I let him do it, then I have to let everybody else do it.”

  “Really?”

  “If Zeck’s noncompliance or whatever it is gets him sent home, then pretty soon you’ll have a lot more kids being noncompliant. So they can go home, too.”

  “Would you be one of those?” asked Graff.

  “I think your school is a waste of time,” said Dink. “But I believe in the war. I’m not a pacifist, I’m just anti-incompetence.”

  “But you see, I wasn’t going to make that argument,” said Graff. “Because I already know the answer. If the only way a kid can go home is acting like Zeck and being treated like Zeck, there’s not a kid in this school who’d do it.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “But I do,” said Graff. “Remember, you were all tested and observed. Not just for logic, memory, spatial relationships, verbal ability, but also character attributes. Quick decision-making. Ability to grasp the whole of a situation. The ability to get along well with other people.”

  “So how the hell did Zeck get here in the first place?”

  “Zeck is brilliant at getting along with people,” said Graff. “When he wants to.”

  Dink didn’t believe it.

  “Zeck can handle even megalomaniacal sociopaths and keep them from harming other people. He’s a natural peacemaker in a human community, Dink. It’s his best gift.”

  “That’s just kuso,” said Dink. “Everybody hated him right from the start.”

  “Because he wanted you to. He’s getting exactly what he wants, right now. Including you coming here to talk to me. All exactly what he wants.”

  “I don’t think so,” said Dink.

  “That’s because you don’t know the thing that I was debating with myself about telling you.”

  “So tell me.”

  “No,” said Graff. “The side arguing for discretion won, and I won’t tell.”

  Dink ignored the obfuscation. Graff wanted him to beg. Instead, Dink thought about what Graff had said about Zeck’s abilities. Had Zeck somehow been playing him? Him and everybody else?

  “Why?” asked Dink. “Why would he deliberately alienate everybody?”

  “Because nobody hated him enough,” said Graff. “He needed to be so hated that we gave up on him and sent him home.”

  “I think you give him credit for more plans than he actually has,” said Dink. “He didn’t know what would happen.”

  “I didn’t say his plan was conscious. He just wants to go home. He believes he has to go home.”

  “Why?”

  “I can’t tell you.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I can’t trust you.”

  “If I say I won’t repeat a story, I won’t repeat it.”

  “Oh, I know you can be discreet. I just don’t think I can trust you to do the job that needs doing.”

  “And what job is that?”

  “Healing Zeck Morgan.”

  “I tried. He won’t let me near him.”

  “I know,” said Graff. “So the thing you want to know, I’m going to tell to someone else. Someone who is also discreet. Someone who can heal him.”