From: Champi%T'it'u@Runa.gov.qu
To: WallabyWannabe%BoyGenius@stratplan/mil.gov.au
Re: "Good Idea"
Of course Graff's "offer" sounded like a good idea to YOU. You live in Australia.
—Dumper
From: WallabyWannabe%BoyGenius@stratplan/mil.gov.au
To: Champi%T'it'u@Runa.gov.qu
Re: Ha ha
People who live on the moon—pardon me, the Andes— shouldn't joke about Australia.
—Carn
From: Champi%T'it'u@Runa.gov.qu
To: WallabyWannabe%BoyGenius@stratplan/mil.gov.au
Re: "Who was joking?"
I've seen Australia and I've lived on an asteroid and I'd take the asteroid.
—Dumper
From: WallabyWannabe%BoyGenius@stratplan/mil.gov.au
To: Champi%T'it'u@Runa.gov.qu
Re: Asteroid
Australia doesn't need life support like an asteroid or coca like the Andes to be livable. Besides, you only liked the asteroid because it was named Eros and that's as close to sex as you've ever gotten.
—Carn
From: Champi%T'it'u@Runa.gov.qu
To: WallabyWannabe%BoyGenius@stratplan/mil.gov.au
Re: At least
At least I have a sex. Male, by the way. Open your fly and check to see what you are. (You grip the handle of the zipper and pull downward.) (Oh, wait, you're in Australia. Upward, then.)
—Dumper
From: WallabyWannabe%BoyGenius@stratplan/mil.gov.au
To: Champi%T'it'u@Runa.gov.qu
Re: Let's see ... zipper ... fly ... pull...
Ouch! Ow! Oweeee!
—Carn
The sailors were so nervous to have The Lady aboard their dhow that it was a wonder they didn't swamp the boat just getting out to sea. And sailing was slow, with lots of tacking; even turning the ship seemed to require as much work as the reinvention of navigation. Virlomi showed none of her impatience, though.
It was time for the next step—for India to reach for the world stage. She needed an ally to free her nation from the foreign occupiers. Even though the atrocities had ended—nothing filmable now—Alai persisted in keeping his Muslim troops all over India. Waiting for Hindu provocations. Knowing that Virlomi couldn't control her people as tightly as Alai now controlled his troops.
But she wasn't going to bring Han Tzu into the picture. She had fought too hard to get the Chinese out of India to invite them back again. Besides, even though they had no religion to force on people like Alai's Muslims, the Chinese were just as arrogant, just as sure they were entitled to rule the world.
And these Jeeshboys, they were so sure they could be her masters. Didn't they understand that her whole life was a repudiation of their sense of superiority? They had been chosen to wage war against aliens. The gods fought on their side in that war. But now the gods fought on Virlomi's side.
She hadn't been a believer when she began. She exploited her knowledge of the folk religion of her people. But over the weeks and months and years of her campaign against China and then against the Muslims, she had seen how everything bent and turned to lit her plans. Everything she thought of worked; and since there were tests proving that Alai and Han Tzu were smarter than she was, it must be that entities wiser than they were providing her with her ideas.
There was only one person now who could give her the help she needed, and only one man in the world whom it would not demean her to marry. After all, when she married it would be all India marrying; and whatever children she bore would be the children of a god, at least in the eyes of the people. Since parthenogenesis was out of the question, she needed a husband. And that's why she had summoned Peter Wiggin.
Wiggin, the brother of the great Ender. The older brother. Who then could doubt that her children would carry the best genes available on Earth? They would found a dynasty that could unite the world and rule forever. By marrying her, Peter would be able to add India to his FPE, transforming it from a sideshow into more than half the population of the world. And she—and India—would be raised above any other nation. Instead of being the leader of a single nation, like China, or the head of a brutal and backward religion, like Alai, she would be the wife of the enlightened Locke, the Hegemon of Earth, the man whose vision would bring peace to all the world at last.
Peter's boat wasn't huge—clearly he wasn't a wasteful man. But it wasn't a primitive fisherman's dhow; Peter's boat had modern lines and it looked as if it was designed to rise up and fairly fly over the waves. Speed. No time to waste in Peter Wiggin's world.
She had once belonged to that world. For years now she had slowed herself down to the pace of life in India. She had walked slowly when people were watching her. She had to maintain the simple grace they expected of someone in her position. And she had to hold silence while men argued, speaking only as much as was appropriate for her to say. She could not afford to do anything to diminish herself in their eyes.
But she missed the speed of things. The shuttles that took her to and from Battle School and Tactical School. The clean polished surfaces. The quickness of games in the Battle Room. Even the intensity of life in Hyderabad among other Battle Schoolers before she fled to let Bean know where Petra was. It was closer to her true inclinations than this pose of primitiveness.
You do what victory requires. Those with armies, train the armies. But when Virlomi started, she had only herself. So she trained and disciplined herself to seem as she needed to seem.
In the process, she had become what she needed to be.
But that didn't mean she had lost her ability to admire the sleek, fast vessel that Peter had brought to her.
The fishermen helped her out of the dhow and into the rowboat that would take her between the two vessels. Out in the Gulf of Mannar, there were undoubtedly much heavier waves, but the little islands of Adam's Bridge protected the water here, so it was only slightly choppy.
Which was just as well. There was a faint nausea that had been with her ever since she got aboard. Vomiting was not something she needed to show these sailors. She hadn't expected seasickness. How could she have known she was susceptible? Helicopters didn't bother her, or cars on winding roads, or even freefall. Why should a bit of chop on the water nearly do her in?
The rowboat was actually better than the dhow. More frightening, but less nauseating. Fear she could deal with. Fear didn't make her want to throw up. It only made her more determined to win.
Peter himself was at the side of his boat, and it was his hand that she took to help her climb aboard. That was a good sign. He wasn't trying to play games and force her to come to him.
Peter had her men tie the dinghy to his craft, and then brought them aboard to rest in relative comfort on the deck while she went inside the main cabin with Peter.
It was beautifully and comfortably decorated, but not overly large or pretentious. It struck just the right note of restrained opulence. A man of taste.
"It's not my boat, of course," said Peter. "Why would I waste FPE money on owning a boat? This is a loan."
She said nothing—after all, saying nothing was part of who she was now. But she was just a little disappointed. Modesty was one thing; but why did he feel compelled to tell her that he didn't own it, that he was frugal? Because he believed her image of seeking traditional Indian simplicity—no poverty—as something she really meant, and not just something she staged in order to hold on to the hearts of the Indian people.
Well, I could hardly expect him to be as perceptive as me. He wasn't admitted to Battle School, after all.
"Have a seat," he said. "Are you hungry?"
"No thank you," she said softly. If only he knew what would happen to any food she tried to eat at sea!