"I might be, if I found somebody I respected enough."
"The only person you ever respected that much is on a colony ship right now and you'll never see him again."
"I could never have followed Ender."
"No, you never could. But he's the only person you respected enough. The trouble was, he was your younger brother. You couldn't have lived with the shame."
"Well, all this analysis is nice, but how does it help us now?"
"We don't have a plan either, Peter," said Rackham. "We're also just moving useful pieces into place. Taking others out of play. We have some assets, just as you do. We have our arsenal."
"You have the whole I.F. You could put a stop to all of this."
"No," said Rackham. "Polemarch Chamrajnagar is adamant about it, and he's right. We could force the world's armies to come to a halt. They would all obey us or pay a terrible price. But who would be ruling the world then?"
"The fleet."
"And who is the fleet? It's volunteers from Earth. And from that moment on, who would be our volunteers? People who love the idea of going out into space? Or people who want to control the government of Earth? It would turn us into an Earth-centered institution. It would destroy the colonization project. And the Fleet would be hated, because it would soon be dominated by people who loved power."
"Makes you sound like a bunch of nervous virgins."
"We are," said Rackham. "And that's a strange line, coming from
a nervous virgin like you."
Peter didn't bother responding to that. "So you and Graff won't do anything that would compromise the purity of the I.F."
"Unless somebody brings out the nukes again. We won't let that happen. Two nuclear wars were enough."
"We never had a nuclear war."
"World War II was a nuclear war," said Rackham. "Even if only two bombs were dropped. And the bomb that destroyed Mecca was the end of a civil war within Islam being fought out through surrogates and terrorism. Ever since then, nobody has even considered using nukes. But wars that are ended by nukes are nuclear wars."
"Fine. Definitions."
"Hyrum and I are doing everything we can," said Rackham. "So is the Polemarch. And believe it or not, we're trying to help you. We want you to succeed."
"And now you're pretending that you've been rooting for me all along?"
"Not at all," said Rackham. "We had no idea whether you'd be a tyrant or a wise ruler. No idea of what method you'd use or what your world government would be like. We knew you couldn't do it by charisma because you don't have much. And I'll admit you emerged with greater clarity after we got a good look at Achilles."
"So you didn't really get behind me until you realized I was better than Achilles."
"Your achievements were so extraordinary that we were still wary of you. Then Achilles showed us that you were actually cautious and self-restrained, compared to what could have been done by somebody who was truly ruthless. We saw a tyrant on the make, and we realized you weren't one."
"Depending on how you define 'tyrant.'"
"Peter, we're trying to help you. We want you to unite the world under civilian government. Without any advice from us, you've determined to do it by persuasion and plebiscite instead of using armies and terror."
"I use armies."
"You know what I mean," said Rackham.
"I just didn't want you to have any illusions."
"So tell me what you're thinking. What you're planning. So we won't interfere with our meddling."
"Because you're on my side," Peter said scornfully.