They did not have to prove who they were. And when they got inside, they realized that this was not the meeting either of them expected.
It was a reunion, apparently, of Ender's Jeesh—those that were available. Dink, Shen, Vlad on one side of a long table. Crazy Tom, Carn Carby, and Dumper—Champi T'it'u—on the other. And at the head of the table, Graff and Rackham.
"Now all are here that were invited," said Graff. "Please, Fly, Bean, take your seats. Bean, I trust that you will tell Petra all that goes on here. As for Han Tzu and Caliph Alai, they're now heads of state and don't travel easily or surreptitiously. However, everything we say to you will be said to them."
"I know some people who'd like to bomb this room," said Vlad.
"There's still someone unaccounted for," said Shen.
"Ender is voyaging safely. His ship is functioning perfectly. His ansible works well. Remember, though, that for him it has been scarcely a year since this group destroyed the Hive Queens. Even if you could talk to him, he would seem ... young. The world has changed, and so have you." Graff glanced back at Rackham. "Mazer and I are deeply concerned, about you and about the world as a whole."
"We're doing all right," said Carn Carby.
"And thanks to Bean and Ender's big brother, maybe the world is, too," said Dumper. He said it a little defiantly, as if he expected to be argued with.
"I don't give a rat's ass about the world," said Bean. "I'm being blackmailed into helping Peter. And not by Peter."
"Bean is referring to a bargain he entered into with me of his own free will," said Graff.
"What's this meeting about?" asked Dink. "You're not our teacher any more." He glanced up at Rackham. "You're not our commander, either. We haven't forgotten how you both lied to us continually."
"We never could convince you of our sincere devotion to your welfare back in school, Dink," said Graff. "So as Dink requests, I won't waste time on preliminaries. Look around this table. How old are you?"
"Old enough to know better," muttered Carn.
"What are you, Bean, sixteen?" asked Fly.
"I was never actually born," said Bean, "and the records of my decanting were destroyed when I was about a year old. But sixteen is probably close."
"And all the rest of us must be around twenty, give or take," said Fly. "What's your point, Colonel Graff?"
"Call me Hyrum," said Graff. "I'd like to think we're colleagues now."
"Colleagues in what," muttered Dink.
"Back when you last met," said Graff, "when Achilles arranged for your kidnapping in Russia—you were already held in high esteem throughout the world. You were regarded as having ... potential. Since then, however, one of your number has become Caliph, unified the un-unifiable Muslim world, and masterminded the conquest of China and the ... liberation of India."
"Alai's lost his mind, that's what he's done," said Carn.
"And Han Tzu is Emperor of China. Bean is commander of the undefeated armies of the FPE, plus being known as the man who finally brought Achilles down. All in all, what once was viewed as potential is now regarded as a certainty."
"So what have you assembled here?" said Crazy Tom. "The losers?"
"I've assembled the people that national governments will turn to stop Peter Wiggin from uniting the world."
They looked around at each other.
"Nobody's talked to me yet," said Fly Molo.
"But they turned to you to put down the Muslim rebellion in the Philippines, didn't they?" said Rackham.
"We're citizens of our countries," said Crazy Tom.
"Mine rents me out," said Dink. "Like a taxi."
"Because you always get along so well with authority," said Crazy Tom.
"Here's what will happen," said Graff. "Some combination of China, India, and the Muslim world destroy each other. Whichever one emerges on top, Bean destroys on the battlefield on behalf of the FPE. Does anyone doubt he can do it?"
Bean raised his hand.
No one else did.
And then Dink did.
"He's not hungry," he said.
No one argued with him.
"Now, what could Dink possibly mean by that?" said Graff. "Any ideas?"
No one seemed to have any.
"You don't want to say it, but I will," said Graff. "It's well known that Bean scored higher on the Battle School tests than anyone else in history. No one else was close. Well, Ender, but 'close' is such a relative term. Let's say Ender scored closest. But we don't know how close because Bean was off the charts."
"How?" said Dink. "He answered questions you didn't ask?"
"Exactly," said Graff. "That's what Sister Carlotta showed me. He had time to spare in taking the tests. He commented on them and mentioned how the test could have been improved. He was unstoppable. Irresistible. That's what the world knows about Julian Delphiki. And yet when we put him in charge of all of you on Eros, in Command School, while we were waiting for Ender to make up his mind about whether to continue his ... education—how did that go?"
Again silence.
"Oh, why must we pretend that things weren't as they were?" said Graff.
"We didn't like it," said Dink. "He was younger than all of us."
"So was Ender," said Graff.
"But we knew Ender," said Crazy Tom.
"We loved Ender," said Shen.
"Everybody loved Ender," said Fly.
"I can give you a list of people who hated him. But you loved him. And you didn't love Bean. Why is that?"
Bean barked out a laugh. The others looked at him. Except the ones who were embarrassed and looked away. "I never learned how to be cuddly," said Bean. "In an orphanage that would have got me adopted, but on the street, it would have got me killed."
"Nonsense," said Graff. "Cuddly wouldn't have cut it with this group anyway."
"And you actually were cuddly," said Carn. "No offense, but you were spunky."
"If that's your word for 'bratty little asshole,' " said Dink mildly.
"Now now," said Graff. "You didn't dislike Bean personally. Most of you. But you didn't like serving under him. And you can't say that it's because you were too independent to serve under anybody, because you gladly served under Ender. You gave Ender everything you had."
"More than we had," said Fly.
"But not Bean." Graft" said it like it was proof of something.
"Is this a therapy group?" asked Dink.
Vlad spoke up. "Of course it is. He wants us to reach the same conclusion he's already reached."
"Do you know what it is?" asked Graff.
Vlad took a breath. "Hyrum thinks that the reason we didn't follow Bean the way we followed Ender was because we knew something about Bean that the rest of the world doesn't know. And because of that, we're likely to be willing to challenge him in battle, while the rest of the world would just give up and surrender to him because of his reputation. Isn't that about it?"
Graff smiled benignly.
"But that's stupid," said Dumper. "Bean really is a good commander. I've seen him. Commanding his Rwandans in our campaign in Peru. It's true that the Peruvian Army wasn't well led or well trained, but those Rwandans—they worshipped Bean. They would have marched off a cliff if he asked them to. When he twitched, they sprang into action."
"And your point is?" asked Dink.