Rackham nodded.
"Don't worry," said Peter.
"Don't worry?"
"All right," said Peter. "Worry if you want. But your offer to Ender's Jeesh, to take them all off planet, to give them colonies—now I understand what it's about. You care about these kids whose lives you coopted. You want to get them off to worlds where there's no rival. They can use their talents to help a community triumph over a new world."
"Yes."
"But the most important thing is, they won't be on Earth."
Rackham shrugged.
"You knew that nobody could ever unite the world as you need it to be united while those highly trained, highly aggressive, publicly certified geniuses are still in it."
"We didn't see a way it could happen."
"Well, that's a lie," said Peter. "You saw the way it would happen, because it's obvious. One of them would be the ruler of Earth, and all the others would be dead."
"Yes, we saw that, but it wasn't an option."
"Why not? It's the human way of settling things."
"We love these kids, Peter."
"But love them or not, they'll all die eventually. No, I think you would have been content to let them work it out, if you thought it would work. If you thought one of them would emerge triumphant. What you couldn't stand was the knowledge that they were so evenly matched that none of them would win. They'd use up the resources of Earth, all that surplus population, and still there'd be no clear winner."
"That wouldn't help anything," said Rackham.
"So if you could have found a cure for Bean's condition, you wouldn't need me. Because Bean could do it. He could defeat the others. He could unite the world. Because he's so much better than they are."
"But he's going to die," said Rackham.
"And you love him," said Peter. "So you're going to try to save his life."
"We want him to help you win first."
"That's not possible," said Peter. "Not in the time he has left."
"By 'win,' " said Rackham, "I mean, we want him to help you get into a position where your victory is inevitable, given your abilities. Right now, you could be stopped by all kinds of chance events. Having Bean increases your power and influence. Another thing that would help is if we could get the rest of the Jeesh off this planet. If we've removed from the board all the pieces that could challenge you—if, in effect, you're the queen in a game of knights and bishops—then you won't need Bean anymore."
"I'll need somebody," said Peter. "I'm not trained for war the way these Battle School kids were. And as you said, I'm not the kind of guy that soldiers want to die for."
Rackham leaned forward. "Peter, tell us what you're planning."
"I'm not planning anything," said Peter. "I'm simply waiting. When I met Virlomi, I realized that she was the key to everything. She's volatile, she's powerful, and she's drunk. I knew that she'd do something destabilizing. Something that would break things apart."
"So you think the war between India and China will happen? And that Alai's Muslim League will be drawn into it?"
"That's possible," said Peter. "I hope it won't happen."
"But if it does, you'll be poised to attack Alai when his forces are tied up fighting China."
"No," said Peter.
"No?"
"We're not going to attack anybody," he said.
"Then ... what?" said Rackham. "Whoever emerges from that war—"
"I don't think that war's going to amount to much," said Peter, "if it happens at all. But if it does happen, then both sides will be weakened by it. There's no shortage of ambitious nations ready to step in and pick up the pieces."
"So what do you think is going to happen?"
"I don't know," said Peter. "I wish you'd believe me. There's only one thing I'm sure of. Alai's and Virlomi's marriage is doomed. And if you want either or both of them to command any of your precious colonies, you'd better make sure you're ready to get them off planet fast."
"Are you planning something?" asked Rackham.
"No! Aren't you listening? I'm watching the whole damn thing just like you are! I've already played my cards—making the Muslim leadership suspicious of my intentions. Provoking them. Plus a little quiet diplomacy."
"With whom?"
"With Russia," said Peter.
"You're trying to get them to join with you in attacking Alai? Or China?"
"No, no, no," said Peter. "If I tried anything like that, word would get out, and then what Muslim nation would ever, ever join the FPE?"
"So what are you doing with your diplomacy?"
"Begging the Russians to stay out of it."
"In other words, pointing out the opportunity and telling them that you're not going to interfere in any way."
"Yes," said Peter.
"Politics is so ... indirect."
"That's why conquerors rarely make great rulers."
"And great rulers are rarely conquerors."
"You closed the door on my becoming a conqueror," said Peter. "So if I'm to be the ruler of the world—a good one—then I have to win that position in such a way as not to have to keep killing people in order to stay in power. It does the world no good if everything depends on me, if it all collapses when I die. I need to build this thing piece by piece, bit by bit, with powerful institutions that have their own momentum, so that it will make very little difference who's at the head. It's what I learned from growing up in America. It was a nation created out of nothing—nothing but a set of ideals that they never measured up to. Now and then they had great leaders, but usually nothing but political hacks, and I mean right from the start. Washington was great, but Adams was paranoid and lazy, and Jefferson was as vile a scheming politician as a nation has ever been cursed with. I learned a lot from him about destroying your enemies with demagoguery conducted under pseudonyms."
"So you were praising him."
"I'm saying that America shaped itself with institutions so strong that it could survive corruption, stupidity, vanity, ambition, recklessness, and even insanity in its chief executive. I'm trying to do the same thing with the Free People of Earth. Base it on some simple but workable ideals. Bring nations into it because they freely choose to join. Unite them with a language and a system of laws, and give them a stake in institutions that take on a life of their own. And I can't do any of that if I conquer a single country and force it to join. That's a rule I can never violate. My forces will defeat enemies who attack the FPE, and we'll carry war into their territory to do it. But when it comes to joining the FPE, they can only do it if a majority of the people want to. If they choose to be subject to our laws and take part in our institutions."
"But you're not above getting other nations to do your conquering for you."
"Islam," said Peter, "has never learned how to be a religion. It's a tyranny by its very nature. Until it learns to let the door swing both ways, and permit Muslims to decide not to be Muslim without penalty, then the world has no choice but to fight against it in order to remain free. As long as Muslim nations remained divided, working against each other, they weren't going to be a problem for me, because I could pick them up one by one, especially after the FPE becomes large enough for them to see how the people within my borders prosper."
"But united under Alai—"
"Alai is a decent guy," said Peter. "I think he has some idea of liberalizing Islam from the top. But it can't be done. He's simply wrong. He's a general, not a politician. As long as ordinary Muslims believe it's their duty to kill any Muslim who tries to quit being a Muslim, as long as they think they have a holy duty to resort to arms to compel unbelievers to obey Islamic law—you can't liberalize that, you can't make it a decent system for anybody. Not even for Muslims. Because the cruelest, narrowest, most evil people will always rise to power because they'll always be the ones most willing to wrap themselves in the crescent flag and murder people in God's name."