Bean thought he was being subtle, turning his head so Petra couldn't see his tears when she came back to bed. Whether she saw or not, she snuggled close to him and held him.
How could he tell this woman who had always been so good to him and loved him more than he knew how to return--how could he tell her that he had lied to her? He didn't believe that there would ever be a cure for Anton's Key.
When he got on that starship with the babies that had his same disease, he expected to take off and head outward into the stars. He would live long enough to teach the children how to run the starship. They would explore. They would send reports back by ansible. They would map habitable planets farther away than any other humans would want to travel. In fifteen or twenty years of subjective time they would live a thousand years or more in real time, and the data they collected would be a treasure trove. They would be the pioneers of a hundred colonies or more.
And then they would die, having no memory of setting foot on a planet, and having no children to carry on their disease for another generation.
And it would all be bearable, for them and for Bean, because they would know that back on Earth, their mother and their healthy siblings were living normal lives, and marrying and having children of their own, so that by the time their thousand-year voyage was over, every living human being would be related to them one way or another.
That's how we'll be part of everything.
So no matter what I promised, Petra, you're not coming with me, and neither are our healthy children. And someday you'll understand and forgive me for breaking my word to you.
9
PENSION
From: PeterWiggin%[email protected]
To: Champi%T'it'[email protected]
Re: The best hope of the Quechua and Aymara peoples
Dear Champi T'it'u,
Thank you for consenting to visit with me. Considering that I tried to call you "Dumper" as if you were still a child in Battle School and a friend of my brother, I'm surprised you didn't toss me out on the spot.
As I promised, I am sending you the current draft of the Constitution of the Free People of Earth. You are the first person outside the innermost circle of Hegemony officials to look at it, and please remember that it is only a draft. I would be grateful for your suggestions.
My goal is to have a Constitution that would be as attractive to nations that are recognized as states as to peoples that are still stateless. The Constitution will fail if the language is not identical for both. Therefore there are aspirations you would have to give up and claims you would have to relinquish. But I think you will see that the same will be true for the states that now occupy territory you claim for the Quechua and Aymara peoples.
The principles of majority, viability, contiguity, and compactness would guarantee you a self-governing territory, albeit one much smaller than your present claim.
But your present claim, while historically justifiable, is also unattainable without a bloody war. Your military abilities are sufficient to guarantee that the contest would be far more evenly matched than the governments of Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, and Colombia would anticipate. But even if you won a complete victory, who would be your successor?
I speak candidly, because I believe that you are not following a delusion but embarking on a specific, attainable enterprise. The route of war might succeed for a time--and the operative word is "might," since nothing is certain in war--but the cost in blood, economic losses, and ill will for generations to come will be steep.
Ratifying the Hegemony Constitution, on the other hand, will guarantee you a homeland, to which those who insist on being governed only by Quechua and Aymara leaders and raising their children to be Quechua and Aymara speakers may migrate freely, without needing anyone's permission.
But take note of the irrevocability clause. I can promise you that this will be taken very seriously. Do not ratify this Constitution if you and your people do not intend to abide by it.
As for the personal question you asked me:
I don't believe it matters whether I'm the one who unites the world under one government. No individual is irreplaceable. However, I am quite certain that it will need to be a person exactly like me. And at present, the only person who meets that requirement is me:
Committed to a liberal government with the highest degree of personal freedom. Equally committed to tolerating no breach of the peace or oppression of one people by another. And strong enough to make it happen and make it stick.
Join with me, Champi T'it'u, and you will not be an insurrectionary hiding out in the Andes. You'll be a head of a state within the Hegemony Constitution. And if you are patient, and wait until I have won the ratification of at least two of the nations at issue, then you and all the world can see how peacefully and equitably the rights of native peoples can be handled.
It only works if every party is determined to make the sacrifices necessary to ensure the peace and freedom of all other parties. If even one party is determined on a course of war or oppression, then someday that party will find itself bearing the full weight of the pressure the Free Nations can bring to bear. Right now that isn't much. But how long do you think it will take me to make it a considerable force indeed?
If you are with me, Champi T'it'u, you will need no other ally.
Sincerely,
Peter
Something was bothering Bean, nagging at the back of his mind. He thought at first that it was a feeling caused by his fatigue, getting so little uninterrupted sleep at night. Then he chalked it up to anxiety because his friends--well, Ender's and Petra's friends--were involved in a life-or-death struggle in India, which they couldn't possibly all win.