"Are you all right, Peter?" asked Valentine.
"Oh, is something wrong?" asked Mother. "Let me look at you, dear."
"I'm not taking my shirt off or letting you use a rectal thermometer on me, Mother, because Val is hallucinating and I look just fine."
"I'll have you know that if and when I start hallucinating," said Val, "I can think of something better than seeing your face looking pukish."
"What a great commercial idea," said Peter, almost by reflex now. "Choose Your Own Hallucination! Oh, wait, they have that one--they call it 'illegal drugs.'"
"Don't sneer at us needy ones," said Val. "Those who are addicted to ego don't need drugs."
"Children," said Mother. "Is this what Ender will find when he comes home?"
"Yes," said Val and Peter simultaneously.
Father spoke up. "I'd like to think he might find you a bit more mature."
But by now Peter and Val were laughing uproariously. They couldn't stop, so Father sent them from the table.
Peter glanced through Val's essay on Russian nukes. "This is so boring."
"I don't think so," said Valentine. "They have the nukes and that keeps other countries from slapping them down when they need it--which is often."
"What's this thing you've got against Russia?"
"It's Demosthenes who has something against Russia," said Val with fake nonchalance.
"Good," said Peter. "So Demosthenes will not be worried about Russian nuclear weapons, he'll be worried about Russia getting its hands on the most valuable weapon of them all."
"The Molecular Disruption Device?" asked Val. "The I.F. will never bring it within firing range of Earth."
"Not the M.D. Device, you poor sap. I'm referring to our brother. Our civilization-destroying junior sib."
"Don't you dare talk about him with scorn!"
Peter's expression turned into a mocking simper. But behind his visage there was anger and hurt. She still had the power to get to him, just by making it clear how much more she loved Ender.
"Demosthenes is going to write an essay pointing out that America must get Andrew Wiggin back to Earth immediately. No more delays. The world is too dangerous a place for America not to have the immediate services of the greatest military leader the world has ever known."
Immediately a fresh wave of hatred for Peter swept over Valentine. Partly because she realized his approach would work far better than the essay she had already written. She hadn't internalized Demosthenes as well as she thought. Demosthenes would absolutely call for Ender's immediate return and enlistment in the American military.
And that would be as destabilizing, in its own way, as a call for forward deployment of nukes. Demosthenes' essays were watched very carefully by the rivals and enemies of the United States. If he called for Ender to come home at once, they would all start maneuvering to keep Ender in space; and some, at least, would openly accuse America of having aggressive intentions.
It would then be Locke's place, in a few days or weeks, to come up with a compromise, a statesmanlike solution: Leave the kid in space.
Valentine knew exactly why Peter had changed his mind. It was that stupid remark of Father's at dinner--his reminder that Peter would be in Ender's shadow, no matter what he did.
Well, even political sheep sometimes said something that had a good result. Now Val wouldn't even have to persuade Peter of the need to keep Ender away from Earth. It would be all his idea instead of hers.
Theresa once again sat on the bed, crying. Strewn about her were printouts of the Demosthenes and Locke essays that she knew would keep Ender from returning home.
"I can't help it," she said to her husband. "I know it's the right thing--just as Graff wanted us to understand it. But I thought I'd see him again. I really did."
John Paul sat beside her on the bed and put his arms around her. "It's the hardest thing we ever did."
"Not giving him up in the first place?"
"That was hard," said John Paul, "but we didn't have a choice. They were going to take him anyway. This time, though. You know that if we went on the nets and put up vids of us pleading for our son to come home--we'd have a pretty good chance."