#0042: Ender Series #8: Shadow of the Giant, by Orson Scott Card

[orbitaldiamonds]

Ender Series #8
Shadow of the Giant
by Orson Scott Card
p.11-12 Han Tzu waited until the armored car was completely out of sight before he ventured out into the bicycle-and-pedestrian-packed street. Crowds could make you invisible, but only if you were moving in the same direction, and that's the thing Han Tzu had never really been able to do, not since he came home to China from Battle School.
     He always seemed to be moving, not upstream, but crossways. As if he had a completely different map of the world from the one everyone around him was using.
     And here he was again, dodging bikes and forward-pressing people on their ten thousand errands in order to get away from the doorway of his apartment building to the door of the tiny restaurant across the street.
     But it was not as hard as it would have been for most people. Han Tzu had mastered the art of using only his peripheral vision, so his eyes stared straight ahead. Without eye contact, the others on the street could not face him down, could not insist that he yield the right of way. They could only dodge him, as if he were a boulder in the stream.

p.21 The irony was that the "great men" who were now humiliated and writing reports on their own mistakes were never the source of those errors. They only believed they were. And the underlings who had really originated the problems saw themselves as merely instruments of their commanders' will. But it was the nature of underlings to use power recklessly, since blame could always be passed either upward or downward.
     Unlike credit, which, like hot air, always rose.

p.22 My hands are clean, but not because I wasn't prepared to bloody them.

p.31 Peter Wiggin had brought Petra Arkanian with him because she knew Caliph Alai. They had both been in Ender's Jeesh together. And it was Alai who had sheltered her and Bean in the months before the Muslim invasion of China--or the liberation of Asia, depending on which propaganda mill you shopped at.

p.39 As the old dead United Nations found out long ago, religion always has more warriors than some vague national abstraction."

p.47 Any God worth believing in could make up a better plan than the mess the world was in now.

p.59 Bean knew. It was America. Big sleepy do-nothing America. Burned out from trying to police the world back in the twenty-first century, disgusted at t he way their efforts had earned them nothing but hatred and resentment, they declared victory and went home. They kept the strongest military in the world and closed their doors to immigration.
     And when the Buggers came, it was the American military might that finally blew up the first exploratory ships that scoured the surface of some of the best agricultural land in China, killing millions. It was America that had mostly funded and directed the construction of interplanetary warships that resisted the Second Invasion long enough for New Zealander Mazer Rackham to find the Hive Queen's vulnerability and destroy the enemy.

p.72 "Because you invented marriage and children, suddenly you don't have to be part of anything."
     "Opposite," said Petra. "We've joined the human race. We're like most people. Our life together is everything. Our children are everything. The rest is--we do what we have to do. Anything to protect our children. And beyond that, what we have to. But that doesn't matter to us as much. I'm sorry that bothers you."
     "It doesn't bother me," said Peter. "It did before I understood what I was seeing. I think my parents are like that. I think that's why I thought they were stupid. Because they didn't seem to care about the outside world. All they cared about was each other and us kids."
     "I think the therapy is proceeding nicely," said Bean. "Now say three Hail Marys while we get on with our limited domestic concerns, which involve attack helicopters and getting to Volescu before he makes another change of address and identity."

p.72 Peter Seethed. They thought they knew something that nobody else knew. They thought they knew what life was about. But they could only have a life because people like Peter--and Han Tzu and Alai and that wacko self-deifying Virlomi--actually concentrated on important matters and tried to make the world a better place.
     Then Peter remembered that Bean had said almost exactly what his mother said. That Peter chose to be Hegemon, and now he had to work it out on his own.
     Like a kid who tries out for the school play but he doesn't like the part he's been given. Only if he backs out now the show can't go on because he has no understudy. So he's got to stick it out.
     Go figure out how to save the world, now he's got himself made Hegemon.

p.76 He's asked me for an assessment of European willingness to surrender soverignty to a world government. Given that the whole history of the past two hundred years consists of Europe flirting with a real European government, and always backing away, I wonder if the question comes from an idiot child or a deep thinker who knows more than I do.

But if you think his question is a legitimate one, then let me say that surrendering soverignty to any existing world or regional body is laughable. Only little countries like Benelux or Denmark or Slovenia are eager to join. It's like communes--people with nothing are always eager to share.

p.94-95 "There are no fools in this park today," said Peter. "Unless you count the spies lying underwater breathing through straws in order to overhear our conversation."
     "It's the best the Estonians can do," said Vlad.
     "I'm glad to know that Russians haven't forgotten their sense of humor."
     "Everyone knows a few dozen Estonian jokes."
     "Who do the Estonians tell jokes about?" asked Peter.
     "Estonians, of course. Only they don't realize that they're jokes."
     Laughing, they left the park and headed back, Peter to his chauffeured car, Vlad to the train back to St. Petersburg.

p.97 Beloved husband,

What ELSE can I do while I'm sitting around with a belly the size of a barn except type? It's actually hard work, considering the keyboard is at arm's length. And it's not as if Anti-Muslim propaganda is harder than breathing. I'm Armenian, O Father of the Balloon I'm Carrying Around Inside My Abdomen.

p.101-102 "Then I'm coming with you," she said, "because I'll never agree to anything else. So it's decided. There's no discussion to have later when I'm rational. I'm already as rational as I'll ever be. In fact, there's no rational reason why I shouldn't come along if I want to. It's an excellent idea. And being raised on a starship has to be better than being orphaned on the streets of Rotterdam."
     "No wonder they named you after rock," said Bean.
     "I don't give up and I don't wear down. I'm not just rock, I'm diamond."

p.103 "The baby is named for Saint Andrew," said Petra's mother. "Babies are named for saints, not soldiers."
     "Of course, Mother," said Petra. "Ender and our baby were both named after Saint Andrew."

p.104 "Just keep looking," said Petra. "Meanwhile, I have a baby-shaped suction cup to go attach to one of the tenderest parts of my body. Promise me he won't develop teeth early."
     "I don't know," said Bean. "I can't remember not having them."
     "Thanks for the encouragement," said Petra.

p.105 She sat up and lifted the now-sleeping baby to her shoulder. "Bean, you really are bad at guessing things like this. I was crying because I thought of you as a little baby, and how you didn't have a father to go and get you when you cried in the night, and you didn't have a mother to hold you and feed you from her own body, and you havd no experience of love."
     "But when I finally found out what it was, I got more of it than any man could hope for."
     "Damn right," said Petra. "And don't you forget it."

p.111 "I'm writing to Virlomi and telling her to wise up to the fact that Suriyawong is still in love with her and she has no business trying to play god in India when she could do it for real by marrying and having babies."
     "But she doesn't love Suri," said Bean.
     "Someone else, then?"
     "India. It's way past patriotism with her."
     "Matriotism. Nobody thinks of India as the fatherland."

p.116 Just as Bean was going to terminate the call, Graff came back on. "Sorry, I'm in the middle of tricky negotiations with China to let breeding couples emigrate. They want to send us some of their surplus males. I told him we were forming a colony, not fighting a war. But... negotiating with the Chinese. You think you hear yes, but the next day you find out they said no very delicately and then tittered behind their hands."

p.132 Bean and Petra were surprised when Peter came to see them in their little house on the grounds of the Hegemony compound. "You honor our humble abode," said Bean.
     "I do, don't I," said Peter with a smile.

p.133 "He asked for you in particular," said Peter. "His men saw you when you took Volescu. They call you the African Giant now."
     "Darling," said Petra to Bean. "You're a god now, like Virlomi."
     "The question is whether you're woman enough to be married to a god," said Bean.
     "I shade my eyes and it keeps me from going blind."

p.158-159 They drove up into the hills, to a large and lovely home with an astonishing view of the city and the bay and, on a clear day, the Atlantic beyond. The Romans saw this place, ruled in this city. The Vandals took it, and then the Visigoths. The Moors got it next, and then the Christians took it back. From this city, sailing ships went out and rounded Africa and colonized in India and China and Africa and, eventually, Brazil.
     And yet it was nothing more than a human city in a lovely setting. Earthquakes and fires had come and gone, but people still built in the hills and on the flat. Storms and calms and pirates and war had taken ship after ship, and yet people still put out to sea with nets or trade goods or guns. People made love and grew babies, in the mansions just as in the tiny houses of the poor.

p.173 "You don't rule India, and I don't rule India, and if you want to have anything to do with India, you'll take off your shoes and get in that line in front of the hut outside the gate."
     "Yes," said Chapekar. "I'll do that."
     "Come back and tell me what she says," said Wahabi. "I've been contemplating doing the same thing myself."
     So Chapekar walked back out of the military compound and joined the line. When the sun set and the sky began to darken, Virlomi came out of the hut and wept with grief that she could not hear and speak to everyone personally. "Go home," she said. "I pray for you, all of you. Whatever is the desire of your heart, God grants, if it would bring no harm to another. If you need food or work or shelter, go back to your city or your village and tell them that Virlomi is praying for that city, that village. Tell them that my prayer is this: Let the gods bless the people exactly to the degree that they help the hungry and jobless and homeless. Then help them make this prayer a blessing upon them instead of a curse. You try to find someone less fortunate than you, and help him. In helping him, you will also rise."
     Then she went back inside the hut.
     The crowd dispersed. Chapekar sat down to wait until the morning.
     One of the others who had been in the line had said, "Don't bother. She never sees anyone who spends the night. She says if she lets people gain an advantage by doing that, soon the plain will be covered with snoring Indians and she will never get any sleep!"

p.177 "Only when you leave will you begin to understand Satyagraha."
     "Peaceful noncompliance?"
     "Willingness to suffer, yourself and in person, for a cause you believe is right. Only when you are willing to embrace Satyagraha will you begin to atone for what you have done to India. Now you should go."

p.182 "I came to ask you to marry me," said Han.
     "I'm older than you," said Virlomi. "And you're the emperor of China."
     "I thought that was one of my best features," said Han.

p.206 "It's an offer," said Rackham, "which you can accept or decline."
     "I decline," said Dink.
     "Hear the officer," said Rackham.
     "Hear this," said Dink, with a gesture.

p.207 "Dispersal didn't work for the Hive Queens."
     "Because they didn't disperse," said Graff. "They had Buggers on all the planets, but when you boys blew up their home world, all the Hive Queens were there. They put all their eggs in one basket. We're not going to do that. Partly because the human race isn't just a handful of queens and a whole bunch of workers and drones, every damn one of us is a Hive Queen and has the seeds of recapitulating the whole of human history. So dispersing humanity will work."
"Like coughing in a crowd spreads the flu," said Crazy Tom cheerfully.

p.207 "So we make your colonies work," said Carn, "and you get us off Earth too, so Peter can end all war and bring the millennial reign of Christ."
     "Whether Christ comes or not isn't my business," said Graff. "All I care about is saving human beings. Collectively and individually."
     "Aren't you the noble one."
     "No," said Graff. "I created you. Not individually--"
     "Good thing you said that," said Carn, "because my dad would have had to kill you for that aspersion on my mother."

p.210-211 From: Champi%T'it'u@Runa.gov.qu
     To: WallabyWannabe%BoyGenius@stratplan/mil.gov.au

     Re: "Good Idea"
Of course Graff's "offer" sounded like a good idea to YOU. You live in Australia.
--Dumper

     From: WallabyWannabe%BoyGenius@stratplan/mil.gov.au
     To: Chamip%T'it'u@Runa.gov.qu
     Re: Ha ha

People who live on the moon--pardon me, the Andes--shouldn't joke about Alaska.
--Carn

     From: Champi%T'it'u@Runa.gov.qu
     To: WallabyWannabe%BoyGenius@stratplan/mil.gov.au
     Re: "Who was joking?"

I've seen Australia and I've lived on an asteroid and I'd take the asteroid.
--Dumper

     From: WallabyWannabe%BoyGenius@stratplan/mil.gov.au
     To: Chamip%T'it'u@Runa.gov.qu
     Re: Asteroid

Australia doesn't need life support like an asteroid or coca like the Andes to be livable. Besides, you only liked the asteroid because it was named Eros and that's as close to sex as you've ever gotten.
--Carn

     From: Champi%T'it'u@Runa.gov.qu
     To: WallabyWannabe%BoyGenius@stratplan/mil.gov.au
     Re: At least

At least I have a sex. Male, by the way. Open your fly and check to see what you are. (You grip the handle of the zipper and pull downward.) (Oh, wait, you're in Australia. Upward, then.)
--Dumper

p.226 I don't care how loyal you think you're going to be, Dink. It's not in you. You're a brat and always will be. So admit what a lousy follower you are, and go ahead and LEAD.
     And just in case you don't know it, you stupidest of all possible geniuses: I still love you. I've always loved you. But no woman in her right mind would ever marry you and have your babies because NOBODY COULD STAND TO RAISE THEM. You will have the most hellish children. So have them in a colony where there'll be someplace for them to go when they run away from home about fifteen times before they're ten.

p.230 "There is no war yet," Mother reminded them.
     They took the hint, stopped talking about current problems, and reminisced instead. Though since Petra had been sent to Battle School so young, it's not as if she had that much to reminisce about. It was more like they were briefing her about her new identity before an undercover mission. This is what you should remember from your childhood, if you'd had one.

p.232 The president pressed his fingers to his forehead. It was a gesture that Petra called "drilling for brains."

p.251 "I see that this counsel prefers to send Muslims to die in cosmetic wars, while the real enemy is allowed to gather strength unmolested, solely because he has not attacked us yet." She turned directly to Thorn. "My husband's good friend Thorn is like the man in a leaky boat, surrounded by sharks. He has a rifle, and his fellow passenger says, 'Why don't you shoot those sharks! Once the boat sinks and we're in the water, you won't be able to use the rifle!'
     "'You fool,' says the man. 'Why should I provoke the sharks? None of them has bit me yet.'"
     Thorn seemed determined to press his luck. "The way I heard the story, the boat was surrounded by dolphins, and the man shot at them until he ran out ammunition. 'Why did you do that?' his friend asked, and the man said, 'because one of them was a shark in disguise.'
     "'Which one?' said his companion.
     "'You fool,' says the man. 'I told you he's in disguise.' Then the blood in the water drew many sharks. But the man's gun was empty."

p.263 "Ruling the world isn't a chess game," said Peter. "Or, if it is, it's a game with a thousand powerful pieces and eight billion pawns, and the pieces keep changing their capabilities, and the gameboard never stays the same."

p.301 It was what he had learned from Ender. If you give orders and explain nothing, you might get obedience, but you'll get no creativity. If you tell them your purpose, then when your original plan is shown to be faulty, then they'll find another way to achieve your goal. Explaining to your men doesn't weaken their respect for you, it proves your respect for them.

p.341 Thank you for coming, Papa. I'm demobilizing my troops tomorrow and sending them home across borders where they won't need passports because it's all part of the Free People of Earth. I did something while I was here. But now I'm done. I was going home anyway. But now I'll do it because you told me to. See? I'm willing to be obedient, as long as you order me to do something I was going to do anyway." --Petra