"I know Alai," said Bean. "He won't want to attack Armenia. The terrain here is a nightmare for a serious campaigning. You constitute no serious threat. Attacking Armenia makes no sense at all."
"So we won't be attacked?"
"You will absolutely be attacked."
"You're too subtle for us," said the Prime Minister.
Petra smiled. "My husband is not subtle. The point is so obvious that you think it couldn't be this that he means. Alai will not attack. But Muslims will attack. It will force his hand. If he refuses to attack, but other Muslims do attack, then the leadership of the jihad moves away from him to someone else. Whether he strikes down these freelance attackers or not, the Muslim world is divided and two leaders compete."
The President was no fool. "You have higher hopes than this," he said.
"All warriors are filled with hope," said Bean. "But I understand your lack of trust in me. For me it's the great game. But for you, it's your homes, your families. That's why we wanted to meet here. To assure you that it is our home and our family as well."
"To sit and wait for the enemy to act is the decision to die," said Petra. "We ask Armenia to make this sacrifice and take this risk because if you don't, then Armenia is doomed. But if you join the Free People of Earth, then Armenia will have the most powerful defense."
"And what will that defense consist of?"
"Me," said Petra.
"A nursing mother?" asked the Prime Minister.
"The Armenian member of Ender's Jeesh," she answered. "I will command the Armenian forces."
"Our mountain goddess versus the goddess of India," said the Foreign Minister.
"This is a Christian nation," said Father. "And my daughter is no goddess."
"I was joking," said Father's boss.
"But the truth that underlies the joke," said Bean, "is that Petra herself is a match for Alai. So am I. And Virlomi is no match for any of us."
Petra hoped that this was true. Virlomi now had years of experience in the field—if not in the logistics of moving huge armies, then in exactly the kind of small operations that would be most effective in Armenia.
"We have to think about it," said the President.
"Then we're where we were before," said the Foreign Minister. "Thinking."
Bean rose to his feet—a formidable sight, these days—and bowed to them. "Thank you for meeting with us."
"Wouldn't it be better," said the Prime Minister, "if you could get this new Hindu-Muslim ... thing ... to go to war against China?"
"Oh, that would eventually happen," said Bean. "But when? The FPE wants to break the back of Caliph Alai's Muslim League now. Before it grows any stronger."
And Petra knew they were all thinking: Before Bean dies. Because Bean is the most important weapon.
The President rose from his seat, but then laid a restraining hand on the other two. "We have Petra Arkanian here. And Julian Delphiki. Couldn't we ask them to consult with our military on our preparations for war?"
"I notice there are no military men here," said Petra. "I don't want them to feel that we've been thrust on them."
"They won't feel that way," said the Foreign Minister blandly. But Petra knew that the military was not represented here because they were eager to join the FPE, precisely because they did not feel adequate, by themselves, to defend Armenia. There would be no problems with a tour of inspection.
After the top leadership of Armenia left the Arkanian flat, Father and Petra flung themselves down on the furniture and Bean stretched out on the floor, and at once began discussing what had just happened and what they thought would happen.
Mother came in as the conversation was winding down. "All asleep, the little darlings," she said. "Stefan will drop David off after the movie, but we have a little while, just us grown-ups."
"Well, good," said Father.
"We were just discussing," said Petra, "whether it was a waste of time for us to come here."
Mother rolled her eyes. "How can it be a waste of time?" And then, to everyone's surprise, she burst into tears.
"What is it?" At once she was enveloped in the concern of her husband and daughter.
"Nothing," she said. "I just ... you didn't come here and bring these babies because you had negotiations. Nothing happened here that couldn't have happened by teleconference."
"Then why do you think we're here?" asked Petra.
"You came to say good-bye."
Petra looked at Bean and, for the first time, realized that this might be true. "If we are," she said, "it wasn't our plan."
"But it's what you're doing," said Mother. "You came in person because you might not see us again. Because of the war!"
"No," said Bean. "Not because of the war."
"Mother, you know Bean's condition."
"I'm not blind! I can see that he's giraffed up so he can hardly get into houses!"
"And so are Ender and Bella. They have Bean's same condition. So once we get all our other children, we're going out into space. At light-speed. So we can take advantage of relativistic effects. So that Bean will be alive when they finally find a cure."
Father shook his head.
"Then we'll be dead before you come home," said Mother.
"Pretend I'm away at Battle School again," said Petra.
"I get these grandchildren, but... then I don't get them." Mother cried again.
"I won't leave," said Bean, "until we've got Peter Wiggin safely in control of things."
"Which is why you're in such a hurry to get this war started," said Father. "Why not just tell them?"
"We need them to have confidence in me," said Bean. "Telling them that I might die in mid-campaign won't reassure them about joining the FPE."
"So these babies will grow up on a starship?" asked Mother, skeptically.
"Our joy," said Petra, "will be to see them grow old—without any of them growing as big as their father."
Bean raised one enormous foot. "These are tough shoes to fill."
"It really is true," said Petra, "that this war—in Armenia—is the one we want to fight. All these hills. It will go slowly."
"Slowly?" asked Father. "Isn't that the opposite of what you want?"
"What we want," said Bean, "is for the war to end as soon as possible. But this is one case where going slow will speed us up."
"You're the brilliant strategists," said Father, heading for the kitchen. "Anybody else want something to eat?"
That night, Petra couldn't sleep. She went out onto the balcony and looked out over the city.
Is there anything in this world that I can't leave?
I've lived apart from my family for so much of my life. Does that mean I'll miss them more or less?
But then she realized that this had nothing to do with her melancholy. She couldn't sleep because she knew that war was coming. Their plan was to keep the conflict in the mountains, to make the Turks pay for every meter. But there was no reason to think that Alai's forces—or whatever Muslim forces they were—would shrink from bombing the big population centers. Precision bombing had been the rule for so long—ever since Mecca was nuked—that a sudden reversion to anti-population, saturation bombing would come as a demoralizing shock.
Everything depends on our being able to get and keep control of the air. And the FPE doesn't have as many planes as the Muslim League.