"Not bloodthirsty, realistic. I see our true enemy and I'm going to fight him."
"Our rival is Peter Wiggin," said Alai. "He has a plan for uniting the world, but his depends on the Caliphate collapsing into chaos and Islam ceasing to be a force in the world. That's what the Martel essay was designed to do—provoke us into doing something stupid in Armenia. Or Nubia."
"Well, at least you see through that."
"I see through all of it," said Alai. "And you don't see the most obvious thing of all. The longer we wait, the closer we come to the day when Bean will die. It's a cruel and terrible fact, but when he's gone, then Peter Wiggin loses his greatest tool."
Virlomi looked at him with withering scorn. "Back to the Battle School test scores."
"All the kids in Battle School were tested," said Alai. "Including you."
"Yes, and what did that get any of them? They sat here in Hyderabad like passive slaves while Achilles bullied them. I escaped. Me. Somehow I was different. But did that show up on any of their tests in Battle School? There are things they didn't test for."
Alai did not tell her the obvious: She was different only because Petra asked her for help, and not someone else. She would not have escaped without Petra's request.
"Ender's Jeesh didn't come from the tests," said Alai. "We were chosen because of what we did."
"Because of what you did that Graff thought was important. There were qualities that he didn't know were important, so he didn't watch for them."
Alai laughed. "What, you're jealous because you weren't in Ender's Jeesh?"
"I'm disgusted that you still believe that Bean is irresistible because he's so 'smart.' "
"You haven't seen him in action," said Alai. "He's scary."
"No, you're just scared."
"Virlomi," said Alai, "don't do this."
"Don't do what?"
"Don't force my hand."
"I'm not forcing anything. We're equals, right? You'll tell your armies what to do, and I'll tell mine."
"If you send your troops on a suicide attack against China, then China will be at war with me, too. That's what our marriage means. So you're committing me to war whether I like it or not."
"I can win without you."
"Don't believe your own propaganda, my beloved," said Alai. "You aren't a god. You aren't infallible. And right now, you're so irrational that it scares me."
"Not irrational," said Virlomi. "Confident. And determined."
"You studied where I did. You already know all the reasons why an attack against China is insane."
"That's why we'll achieve surprise. That's why we'll win. Besides," said Virlomi, "our battle plans will be drawn up by the great Caliph Alai. And he was a member of Ender's Jeesh!"
"What happened to the idea of our being equals?" said Alai.
"We are equals."
"I never forced you to do anything."
"And I'm not forcing you, either."
"Saying that over and over won't make it true."
"I'm doing what I choose, and you're doing what you choose. The only thing I want from you is—I want your baby inside me before I lead my troops to war."
"What do you think this is, the middle ages? You don't lead your troops to war."
"I do," said Virlomi.
"You do if you're a squad commander. There's no point when you have an army of a million men. They can't see you so it doesn't help."
"You reminded me a minute ago that you aren't Alexander of Macedon. Well, Alai, I am Jeanne d'Arc."
"When I said I'm not Alexander," said Alai, "I wasn't referring to his military prowess. I was referring to his marriage to a Persian princess."
She looked irritated. "I studied his campaigns."
"He returned to Babylon and married a daughter of the old Persian Emperor. He made his officers marry Persians, too. He was trying to unite the Greeks with the Persians and form them into one nation, by making the Persians a little more Greek, and the Greeks a little more Persian."
"Your point?"
"The Greeks said, We conquered the world by being Greek. The Persians lost their empire by being Persian."
"So you aren't trying to make your Muslims more Hindu or my Hindus more Muslim. Very good."
"He tried to combine soldiers of Persia and soldiers of Greece into one army. It didn't work. It fell apart."
"We're not making those mistakes."
"Exactly," said Alai. "I'm not going to make mistakes that destroy my Caliphate."
Virlomi laughed. "All right, then. If you think invading China is such a mistake, what are you going to do? Divorce me? Void our treaty? What then? You'll have to retreat from India and you'll look like even more of a zhopa. Or you'll try to stay and then I'll go to war against you. It all comes crashing down, Alai. So you're not going to get rid of me. You're going to stay my husband and you're going to love me and we'll have babies together and we'll conquer the world and govern it together and do you know why?"
"Why?" he said sadly.
"Because that's how I want it. That's what I've learned over the past few years. Whatever I think of, if I decide I want it, if I do what I know I need to do, then it happens. I'm the lucky girl whose dreams come true."
She came to him, wrapped her arms around him, kissed him. He kissed her back, because it would be unwise of him to show her how sad and frightened he was, and how little he desired her now.
"I love you," she said. "You're my best dream."
20
PLANS
From: lmperialSelf%HotSoup@ForbiddenCity.ch.gov
To: Weaver%Virlomi@Motherlndia.in.net, Caliph%Salaam@caliph.gov
Re: Don't do this
Alai, Virlomi, what are you thinking? Troop movements can't be hidden. Do you really want this bloodbath? Are you bent on proving that Graff is right and none of us belong on Earth?
Hot Soup
From: Weaver%Virlomi@Motherlndia.in.net
To: lmperialSelf%HotSoup@ForbiddenCity.ch.gov
Re: Silly boy
Did you think that Chinese offenses in India would be forgotten? If you don't want bloodshed, then swear allegiance to Mother India and Caliph Alai. Disband your armies and offer no resistance. We will be far more merciful to the Chinese than the Chinese were to India.
From: Caliph%Jeeshman@caliph.gov
To: lmperialSelf%HotSoup@ForbiddenCity.ch.gov
Re: Look again
Take no precipitate action, my friend. Things will not go as they appear to be going.
Mazer Rackham sat across from Peter Wiggin in his office in Rotterdam.
"We're very concerned," said Rackham.
"So am I."
"What have you set in motion here, Peter?"
"Mazer," said Peter, "all I've done is keep pressing, using what small tools I have. They decide how to respond to that pressure. I was prepared for an invasion of Armenia or Nubia. I was prepared to take advantage of a mass expulsion of Muslims from some or all European nations."
"And war between India and China? Are you prepared for that?"
"These are your geniuses, Mazer. Yours and Graff's. You trained them. You explain to me why Alai and Virlomi are doing something so stupid and suicidal as to throw badly armed Indian troops against Han Tzu's battle-hardened, fully equipped, revenge-hungry army."