Shadow of the Hegemon

(v1.00)

THE SHADOW OF THE HEGEMON

To: Chamrajnagar%sacredriver@ifcom.gov

From: Locke%espinoza@polnet.gov

Re: What are you doing to protect the children?

Dear Admiral Chamrajnagar,

I was given your idname by a mutual friend who once worked for you butnow is a glorified dispatcher -- I'm sure you know whom I mean. I realize thatyour primary responsibility now is not so much military as logistical, and yourthoughts are turned to space rather than the political situation on Earth.After all, you decisively defeated the nationalist forces led by yourpredecessor in the League War, and that issue seems settled. The IF remainsindependent and for that we are all grateful.

What no one seems to understand is that peace on Earth is merely atemporary illusion. Not only is Russia's long-pent expansionism still a drivingforce, but also many other nations have aggressive designs on their neighbors.The forces of the Strategos are being disbanded, the Hegemony is rapidly losingall authority, and Earth is poised on the edge of cataclysm.

The most powerful resource of any nation in the wars to come will bethe children trained in Battle, Tactical, and Command School. While it isperfectly appropriate for these children to serve their native countries infuture wars, it is inevitable that at least some nations that lack suchIF-certified geniuses or who believe that rivals have more-gifted commanderswill inevitably take preemptive action, either to secure that enemy resourcefor their own use or, in any event, to deny the enemy the use of that resource.In short, these children are in grave danger of being kidnapped or killed.

I recognize that you have a hands-off policy toward events on Earth,but it was the IF that identified these children and trained them, thus makingthem targets. Whatever happens to these children, the IF has ultimateresponsibility. It would go a long way toward protecting them if you were toissue an order placing these children under Fleet protection, warning anynation or group attempting to harm or interfere with them that they would faceswift and harsh military retribution. Far from regarding this as interferencein Earthside affairs, most nations would welcome this action, and, for whateverit is worth, you would have my complete support in all public forums.

I hope you will act immediately. There is no time to waste.

Respectfully,

Locke

Nothing looked right in Armenia when Petra Arkanian returned home. Themountains were dramatic, of course, but they had not really been part of herchildhood experience. It was not until she got to Maralik that she began to seethings that should mean something to her. Her father had met her in Terevanwhile her mother remained at home with her eleven-year-old brother and the newbaby -- obviously conceived even before the population restrictions wererelaxed when the war ended. They had no doubt watched Petra on television. Now,as the flivver took Petra and her father along the narrow streets, he beganapologizing. "It won't seem much to you, Pet, after seeing theworld."

"They didn't show us the world much, Papa. There were no windowsin Battle School."

"I mean, the spaceport, and the capital, all the important peopleand wonderful buildings ..."

"I'm not disappointed, Papa." She had to lie in order toreassure him. It was as if he had given her Maralik as a gift, and now wasunsure whether she liked it. She didn't know yet whether she would like it ornot. She hadn't liked Battle School, but she got used to it. There was nogetting used to Eros, but she had endured it. How could she dislike a placelike this, with open sky and people wandering wherever they wanted?

Yet she was disappointed. For all her memories of Maralik were thememories of a five-year-old, looking up at tall buildings, across wide streetswhere large vehicles loomed and fled at alarming speeds. Now she was mucholder, beginning to come into her womanly height, and the cars were smaller,the streets downright narrow, and the buildings -- designed to survive the nextearthquake, as the old buildings had not -- were squat. Not ugly -- there wasgrace in them, given the eclectic styles that were somehow blended here,Turkish and Russian, Spanish and Riviera, and, most incredibly, Japanese -- itwas a marvel to see how they were still unified by the choice of colors, thecloseness to the street, the almost uniform height as all strained against thelegal maximums.

She knew of all this because she had read about it on Eros as she andthe other children sat out the League War. She had seen pictures on the nets.But nothing had prepared her for the fact that she had left here as afive-year-old and now was returning at fourteen.

"What?" she said. For Father had spoken and she hadn'tunderstood him.

"I asked if you wanted to stop for a candy before we went home,the way we used to."

Candy. How could she have forgotten the word for candy?

Easily, that's how. The only other Armenian in Battle School had beenthree years ahead of her and graduated to Tactical School so they overlappedonly for a few months. She had been seven when she got from Ground School toBattle School, and he was ten, leaving without ever having commanded an army.Was it any wonder that he didn't want to jabber in Armenian to a little kidfrom home? So in effect she had gone without speaking Armenian for nine years.And the Armenian she had spoken then was a five-year-old's language. It was sohard to speak it now, and harder still to understand it.

How could she tell Father that it would help her greatly if he wouldspeak to her in Fleet Common -- English, in effect? He spoke it, of course --he and Mother had made a point of speaking English at home when she was little,so she would not be handicapped linguistically if she was taken into BattleSchool. In fact, as she thought about it, that was part of her problem. Howoften had Father actually called candy by the Armenian word? Whenever he lether walk with him through town and they stopped for candy, he would make herask for it in English, and call each piece by its English name. It was absurd,really -- why would she need to know, in Battle School, the English names ofArmenian candies?

"What are you laughing for?"

"I seem to have lost my taste for candy while I was in space,Father. Though for old time's sake, I hope you'll have time to walk throughtown with me again. You won't be as tall as you were the last time."

"No, nor will your hand be as small in mine." He laughed,too. "We've been robbed of years that would be precious now, to have inmemory."

"Yes," said Petra. "But I was where I needed tobe."

Or was I? I'm the one who broke first. I passed all the tests, untilthe test that mattered, and there I broke first. Ender comforted me by tellingme he relied on me most and pushed me hardest, but he pushed us all and reliedupon us all and I'm the one who broke. No one ever spoke of it; perhaps here onEarth not one living soul knew of it. But the others who had fought with herknew it. Until that moment when she fell asleep in the midst of combat, she hadbeen one of the best. After that, though she never broke again, Ender alsonever trusted her again. The others watched over her, so that if she suddenlystopped commanding her ships, they could step in. She was sure that one of themhad been designated, but never asked who. Dink? Bean? Bean, yes -- whetherEnder assigned him to do it or not, she knew Bean would be watching, ready totake over. She was not reliable. They did not trust her. She did not trustherself.

Yet she would keep that secret from her family, as she kept it intalking to the prime minister and the press, to the Armenian military and theschoolchildren who had been assembled to meet the great Armenian hero of theFormic War. Armenia needed a hero. She was the only candidate out of this war.They had shown her how the online textbooks already listed her among the tengreatest Armenians of all time. Her picture, her biography, and quotations fromColonel Graff, from Major Anderson, from Mazer Rackham.