"I don't indulge in hypotheticals," said Achilles.
"Except the hypothetical charge that I plan to kill you in your sleep during the voyage back to Earth."
"Not my accusation," said Achilles. "I was quoted in your defense."
"Your 'defense' is the only reason anyone heard of the accusation," said Ender. "Please don't think that I'm fooled."
"Who would hope to fool a genius like you?"
"Well, we've sparred long enough. I just wanted to look at you."
Achilles made a flamboyant turn, so Ender could inspect him from all sides. "Is that enough?"
Suddenly tears came into Ender's eyes.
What game was he playing now?
"Thank you," Ender said. Then he turned away to rejoin his sister and the governor.
"Wait," said Achilles. He didn't understand what that teary-eyed thing meant, and it disconcerted him.
But Wiggin didn't wait, or turn back. He simply walked to the others and they turned away from the river, walking back into the city.
Achilles had meant this confrontation—which was being recorded by zoom lens and microphone—for a propaganda vid. He had expected to be able to goad Ender into some rash statement or absurd denial. Even a clip of Ender angry would have done the job. But he was unflappable, he had fallen into no traps, and with that last bit of maudlin emotion he may well have set or sprung one, though Achilles could not think of what the trap might be.
An unsatisfactory encounter in every way. And yet he could not explain to his followers why he didn't want to use the vid they had so painstakingly created. So he allowed them to post it, then waited for the other shoe to drop.
No one on Earth knew what to make of it, either. Commentators noticed the tears in Ender's eyes, of course, and speculated about it. Some Nativists proclaimed it to be crocodile tears—the weeping of the predator at the coming fate of his victim. But some saw something else. "Ender Wiggin did not look the part he's been cast in—the killer, the monster. Instead, he seemed to be a gentle young man, bemused at the obviously planned confrontation. At the end, those infamous tears seemed to me to be a kind of compassion. Perhaps even love for his challenger. Who is trying to pick the fight here?"
That was terrible—but it was only one voice among many. And Achilles' supporters on Earth quickly replied: Who would dare to pick a fight with Ender the Xenocide? It always turns out so badly for those who do.
All his life, Achilles had been able to control things. Even when unexpected things happened, he had adapted, analyzed, and learned. This time he had no idea what to learn.
"I don't know what he's doing, Mother," said Achilles.
She stroked his head. "Oh, my poor darling," she said. "Of course you don't, you're such an innocent. Just like your father. He never saw their plots. He trusted that Suriyawong monster."
Achilles didn't actually like it when she talked that way. "It's not our place to pity him, Mother."
"But I do. He had such great gifts, but in the end, his trusting nature betrayed him. It was his tragic flaw, that he was too kind and good."
Achilles had studied his father's life and had seen strength and hardness, the willingness to do whatever was necessary. Compassion and a trusting nature were not obvious attributes of Achilles the Great, however.
Let Mother sentimentalize him as she wished. After all, didn't she now "remember" that Achilles the Great had actually visited her and slept with her in order to conceive a son? Yet when he was little she had made no such claim, and had talked of the messenger who arranged to have her ova fertilized with Achilles' precious sperm. From that—and many other examples of shifting memory—he knew that she was no longer a reliable witness.
Yet she was the only one who knew his true name. And she loved him with perfect devotion. He could talk to her without fear of censure.
"This Ender Wiggin," he said. "I can't read him."
"I'm glad you can't understand the mind of a devil."
But she had not called him a devil until Achilles' own propaganda campaign against him. She had ignored Ender Wiggin, because he had never actually fought against her precious Achilles Flandres, even if his brother had.
"I don't know what to do with him now, Mother."
"Well, you'll avenge your father, of course."
"Ender didn't kill him."
"He's a killer. He deserves to die."
"Not at my hands, Mother."
"The son of Achilles the Great slays the monster," said Mother. "No better hands than yours."
"They would call me a murderer."
"They called your father by that name as well," she said. "Are you better than him?"
"No, Mother."
She seemed to think that closed the discussion. He was disconcerted. Was she saying she wanted him to murder a man?
"Let the Hegemon's nearest blood pay for the murder of my Achilles," she said. "Let all the Wiggins be extinguished. All that vicious tribe."
Oh, no, she was in her bloody vengeance mood. Well, he had brought it on, hadn't he? He knew better. Now he'd have to hear her out.
On and on she went, about how great crimes could only be expunged by the shedding of blood. "Peter Wiggin outsmarted us by dying of his heart attack while we were on the voyage," she said. "But now his brother and sister have come to us. How can you pass up what fate has brought into your hands?"
"I'm not a murderer, Mother."
"Vengeance for your father's death is not murder. Who do you think you are, Hamlet?"
And on and on she went.
Usually when she went off like this, Achilles only half-listened. But now the words dug at him. It really did feel like some kind of portentous fate that brought Wiggin to him at this very time. It was irrational—but only mathematics was rational, and not always at that. In the real world, irrational things happened, impossible coincidences happened, because probability required that coincidences rarely, but not never, occur.
So instead of ignoring her, he found himself wondering: How could I arrange for Ender Wiggin to die without having to kill him myself?
And from there, he went on to a more subtle plan: I have already half destroyed Ender Wiggin—how could I complete the process?
To murder him would make a martyr of him. But if Wiggin could be provoked into killing again—killing another child—he would be destroyed forever. It was his pattern. He sensed a rival; he goaded him into making an attack; then he killed him in self-defense. Twice he had done it and been exonerated. But his protectors weren't here—they were almost certainly all dead. Only the facts remained.
Could I get him to follow the pattern again?
He told his idea to his mother.
"What are you talking about?" she said.
"If he murders again—this time a sixteen-year-old, but still a child, no matter how tall—then his reputation will be destroyed forever. They'll put him on trial, they'll convict him this time—they can't believe he just happened to kill in 'self-defense' three times!—and that will be a far more thorough destruction than a merely ending the life of his body. I'll destroy his name forever."