Shadow of the Giant (The Shadow 4)

Like that day when she was making the video of the atrocities.

Only today she was the one who had caused the deaths of all these Indian boys. They came here to die because they loved and served her. She owed their families something.

"Whatever will help my people live in peace," she said, "I'll do."

25

LETTERS

From: [email protected]

To: Graff%[email protected]

Re: Did we actually do it?

I can't believe you still have me hooked up to the nets. This continues by ansible after we're moving at relativistic speeds?

The babies are fine here. There's room enough for them to crawl. A library big enough I think they won't lack for interesting reading or viewing material for...weeks. It will only be weeks, right?

What I'm wondering is: did we do it? Did I fulfil your goal? I look at the map, and there's still nothing inevitable about it. Han Tzu gave his farewell speech, just like Vlad and Alai and Virlomi. Makes me feel cheated. They got to bid the world farewell before they disappeared into this good night. Then again, they had nations to try to sway. I never really had anybody who followed me. Never wanted them. That's the thing, I guess, that set me apart from the rest of the Jeesh--I was the only one who didn't wish I were Ender.

So look at the map, Hyrum. Will they buy Han Tzu's plan of dividing China into six nations and all of them joining the Free Peoples? Or will they stay unified and still join? Or look for another Emperor? Will India recover from the humiliation of Virlomi's defeat? Will they follow her advice and embrace the FPE? Nothing's assured, and I have to go.

I know, you'll tell me by ansible when anything interesting happens. And in a way, I don't care. I'm not going to be there, I'm not going to have any effect on it.

In another way, I care even less than that. Because I never did care.

Yet I also care with my whole heart. Because Petra is there with the only babies I actually wanted--the ones that don't have my defects. With me I have only the cripples. And my only fear is that I'll die before I've taught them anything.

Don't be ashamed when you see your life coming to an end and you haven't found a cure for me yet. I never believed in the cure. I thought there was enough of a chance to take this leap into the night, and cure or not, I knew that I didn't want my defective children to live long enough to make my mistake and reproduce, and keep this valuable, terrible curse going on, generation after generation. Whatever happens, it's all right.

And then it occurs to me. What if Sister Carlotta was right? What if God is waiting for me with open arms? Then all I'm doing is postponing my reunion. I think of meeting God. Will it be like when I met my father and mother? (I almost wrote: Nikolai's parents.) I liked them. I wanted to love them. But I knew that Nikolai was the child she bore, the child they raised. And I was...from nowhere. And for me, my father was a little girl named Poke, and my mother was Sister Carlotta, and they were dead. Who were these other people really?

Will meeting God be like that? Will I be disappointed with the real thing, because I prefer the substitute I made do with?

Like it or not, Hyrum, you were God in my life. I didn't invite you, I didn't even like you, but you kept MEDDLING. And now you've sent me into outer darkness with a promise to save me. A promise I don't believe you can keep. But at least YOU aren't a stranger. I know you. And I think that you honestly meant well. If I have to choose between an omnipotent God who leaves the world in this condition, and a God who has only a little bit of power but really cares and tries to make things better, I'll take you every time. Go on playing God, Hyrum. You're not bad at it. Sometimes you kind of get it right.

Why am I writing like this? We can email whenever we want. The thing is, nothing's going to happen here, so I'll have nothing to tell you. And nothing you have to tell me is going to matter to me all that much, the farther I get from Earth. So this is the right time for these valedictories.

I hope Peter succeeds in uniting the world in peace. I believe he's still got a couple of big wars ahead of him.

I hope Petra remarries. When she asks you what you think, tell her I said this: I want my children to have a father in their lives. Not some absent legend of a father--a real one. So as long as she chooses somebody who'll love them and tell them they've done ok, then do it. Be happy.

I hope you live to see colonies established and the human race thriving on other worlds. It's a good dream.

I hope these crippled children I have with me find something interesting to do with their lives after I'm dead.

I hope Sister Carlotta and Poke are there to meet me when I die. Sister Carlotta can tell me I told you so. And I can tell them both how sorry I am that I couldn't save their lives, after all the trouble they went to to save mine.

Enough. Time to switch on the gravity regulator and get this boat out to sea.

From: Graff%[email protected]

To: [email protected]

Re: You did enough

You did enough, Bean. You only had a little time, and you sacrificed so much of it to helping Peter and me and Mazer. All that time that could have belonged to Petra and you and your babies. You did enough. Peter can take it from here.