"If you were in his place, wouldn't you do the same?"
"Ender, I would never let myself get in the position of trying to control you against your will."
"You just spent the last six years doing that."
"And got court-martialed for it, you'll notice."
"And your punishment was to get the job you've wanted all along. Let me see. Minister of Colonization doesn't go to Earth to be under the thumb of the Hegemon. He stays in space, nicely ensconced with the International Fleet. So even if they change hegemons, it won't involve you. And if they fire you—"
"They won't," said Graff.
"You're so sure of that."
"It's not a prediction, it's an intention."
"You, sir, are a piece of work," said Ender.
"Oh, speaking of pieces of work," said Graff, "did you hear that Demosthenes has retired?"
"The guy on the nets?" asked Ender.
"I don't mean the Greek author of the Philippics."
"I don't actually care," said Ender. "It's just the nets."
"The nets, and this rabble-rouser's screeds in particular, are where the battle was played out and you lost," said Graff.
"Who says I lost?" asked Ender.
"Touché," said Graff. "My point is that the person behind the online identity is actually younger than most people imagined. So the retirement isn't about age, it's about leaving home. Leaving Earth."
"Demosthenes is becoming a colonist?"
"Isn't that an odd choice," said Graff, sounding as if it weren't odd to him at all.
"Please don't tell me he's coming on my ship."
"Technically, it's Admiral Quincy Morgan's ship. You don't take over till you set foot on the ground in your colony. That's the law."
"Dodging the question as usual."
"Yes, you'll have Demosthenes on your ship. But of course no one will be using that name."
"You've been avoiding the use of the masculine pronoun—of any pronoun," said Ender. "So Demosthenes is a woman."
"And she's eager to see you."
Ender sagged in his chair. "Oh, sir, please."
"Not your normal hero-worshiper, Ender. And since she's also going to be awake through your whole voyage, I think you'll want to be prepared by seeing her in advance."
"When is she coming?"
"She's here."
"On Eros?"
"In my cozy little antechamber," said Graff.
"You're going to make me meet her now? Colonel Graff, I don't like anything she wrote. Or the result."
"Give her credit. She was warning the world about the Warsaw Pact's attempt to take over the fleet long before anybody else took the threat seriously."
"She was also crowing about how America could conquer the world once it had me."
"You can ask her about that."
"I have no such intention."
"Let me tell you one pure and simple truth. In everything she wrote about you, Ender, her only concern was to protect you from the terrible things people would have done to exploit you or destroy you if you ever set foot on Earth."
"I could have dealt with it."
"We'll never know, will we?"
"If I know you, sir, what you just told me is that you were behind this. Keeping me off Earth."
"Not really," said Graff. "I went along with it, yes."
Ender wanted to cry. From sheer moral exhaustion. "Because you know better than me what's in my best interest."
"In this case, Ender, I think you could have dealt with any challenge that came to you. Except one. Your brother, Peter, is determined to rule the world. You would have been either his tool or his enemy. Which would you have chosen?"
"Peter?" asked Ender. "Do you think he really has a chance of it?"
"He's done incredibly well so far—for a teenager."
"Isn't he twenty by now? No, I guess he'd still be seventeen. Or eighteen."
"I don't keep track of your family's birthdays," said Graff.
"If he's doing such a great job," said Ender, "why haven't I heard of him?"
"Oh, you have."
That meant Peter was using a pseudonym. Ender quickly thought through all the online personalities that might be considered close to some kind of world domination and when he got it, he sighed. "Peter is Locke."
"So, clever boy, who is Demosthenes?"
Ender rose to his feet and to his own chagrin he was crying, just like that. He didn't even know he was crying till his cheeks were wet and he couldn't see for the blur. "Valentine," he whispered.
"I'm going to leave my office now and let the two of you talk," said Graff.
When he left, the door stayed open. And then she came in.
To: imo%testadmin@colmin.gov
From: hgraff%mincol@heg.gov
Subj: What are we screening for?
Dear Imo,
I've been giving our conversation a great deal of thought, and I think you may be right. I had the foolish idea that we should test for desirable and useful traits so that we could assemble ideally balanced teams to the colonies. But we're not getting such a flood of volunteers that we can afford to be really choosy. And as history shows us, when colonization is voluntary, people will self-select better than any testing system.
