Room 318, Monday Morning then Monday Evening
It had taken a couple of days to get the story right. Peter had tried it first as a column by Demosthenes, but he soon realized that since Demosthenes was constantly putting out warnings about Russian plots, he might not be taken very seriously. It had to be Locke who published this. And that would be dangerous, because up to now Locke had been scrupulous about not seeming to take sides against Russia.
That would now make it more likely that his exposure of Achilles would be taken seriously - but it ran a grave risk of costing Locke some of his best contacts in Russia. No matter how much a Russian might despise what his government was doing, the devotion to Mother Russia ran deep. There was a line you couldn't cross. For more than a few of his contacts there, publishing this piece would cross that line.
Until he hit upon the obvious solution. Before submitting the piece to International Aspects, he would send copies to his Russian contacts to give a heads-up on what was coming. Of course the expose would fly through the Russian military. It was possible that the repercussions would begin even before his column officially appeared. And his contacts would know he wasn't trying to hurt Russia-he was giving them a chance to clean house, or at least put a spin on the story before it ran.
It wasn't a long story, but it named names and opened doors that other reporters could follow up on. And they would follow up. From the first paragraph, it was dynamite.
The mastermind behind the kidnapping of Ender's "jeesh" is a serial killer named Achilles. He was taken from a mental institution during the League War in order to bring his dark genius to bear on Russian military strategy. He has repeatedly murdered with his own hands, and now ten brilliant children who once saved the world are completely at his mercy. What were the Russians thinking when they gave power to this psychopath? Or was Achilles' bloody record concealed even from them?
There it was - in the first paragraph, right along with the accusation, Locke was generously providing the spin that would allow the Russian government and military to extricate themselves from this mess.
It took twenty minutes to send the individual messages to all his Russian contacts. In each message, he warned them that they had only about six hours before he had to turn in his column to the editor at International Aspects. IA's fact-checkers would add another hour or two to the delay, but they would find complete confirmation of his statements.
Peter pushed SEND, SEND, SEND.
Then he settled down. Thanks to Ben's interference, he had quickly gotten to the truth of the identity of his correspondent: Julian Delphiki, AKA Bean, not nearly as dead as advertised. He had even gotten back... vague confirmation from his source in the Vatican about it - and about the fact that if he wanted to, he could easily contact the Jesuit nun the boy had been close with.
The one thing that did not happen as he thought out his plan was any kind of response from any of his Russian friends. If the story had been wrong, or if the Russian military had already known about Achilles' history and wanted to cover it up, he would have been getting constant emails urging him not to run the story, then demanding, and finally threatening him. So the fact that no one wrote him at all served as all the confirmation he needed from the Russian end.
As Demosthenes, he was anti-Russian. As Locke, he was reasonable and fair to all nations. As Peter, though, he was envious of the Russian sense of national identity, the cohesiveness of Russians when they felt their country was in danger. If Americans had ever had such powerful bonds, they had expired long before Peter was born. To be Russian was the most powerful part of a person's identity. To be American was about as important as being a Rotarian - very important if you were elected to high office, but barely noticeable in most citizens' sense of who they were.
That was why Peter never planned his future with America in mind. Americans expected to get their way, but they had no passion for anything. Demosthenes could stir up anger and resentment, but it amounted to spitefulness, not purpose. Peter would have to root himself elsewhere. Too bad Russia wasn't available to him. It was a nation that had a vast will to greatness, coupled with the most extraordinary run of stupid leadership in history, with the possible exception of the kings of Spain. And Achilles had got there first.
Maybe he could use Kenzi to get an in, he thought, sarcastically. She and her clan of Russian scoundrels, hiding out in Canada... probably because one of them had gotten in trouble with the law at some point. But she still identified herself as Russian, which... was another example of that strange dedication to being-Russian that those people held.
Six hours after sending the article to his Russian contacts, he pushed SEND once more, submitting it to his editor. As he expected, three minutes later he got a response.
You're sure?
To which Peter replied, "Check it. My sources confirm."
Then he went to bed.
And woke up almost before he had gone to sleep. He couldn't have closed his book, and then his eyes, for more than a couple of minutes before he realized the truth of what his next step should be.
Peter got out of bed and padded back to his desk, where he called up his mailbox again.
Peter composed his message to Bean and sent it - to Sister Carlotta. If anyone knew how to reach Julian Delphiki in hiding, it would be the nun who had first found him. It was the only possible solution to the challenge his informant had given him.
To: Carlotta%agape@vatican.net/orders/sisters/ind
From: Locke%erasmus@polnet.gov
Re: An answer for your dead friend
If you know who I really am, and you have contact with a certain person purported to be dead, please inform that person that I have done my best to fulfill expectations. I believe further collaboration is possible, but not through intermediaries. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, then please inform me of that, as well, so I can begin my search again.
Finally he went back to bed, knowing that he wouldn't sleep long - he'd undoubtedly keep waking through the night and checking the nets to see the reaction to his column.
What if no one cared? What if nothing happened? What if he had fatally compromised the Locke persona, and for no gain?
As he lay in bed, pretending to himself that he might sleep, he could hear other students snoring in their room across the hall. It was both strange and comforting to hear them. Strange that he could be worrying about whether something he had written might not cause an international incident, and yet he was here, living in a boarding school dorm, surrounded by the strange and the bizarre and the utterly normal.
Comforting because it was a sound he had known since infancy, that breathing that indicated there were other human beings, they were alive, the world had not yet ended, they were close by, and the fact that he could hear them meant that when monsters leapt from the dark comers of the room, they would hear him screaming.
Peter wasn't sure why, but he knew that the letter he had just sent to Julian Delphiki, via Sister Carlotta, via his friend in the Vatican, would put an end to his long idyll, playing at world affairs while taking his lunches in the school cafeteria and his lunch money from his parents.
He was finally putting himself into play, not as the cool and distant commentator Locke or the hotblooded demagogue Demosthenes, both of them electronic constructs, but as Peter Wiggin, a young man of flesh and blood, who could be caught, who could be harmed, who could be killed.
After five minutes, he got right back on up again. No, sleep wasn't coming tonight.
[[ details NFB, Peter being generally restless and unable to sleep is perfectly FB. Taken from Shadow of the Hegemon, and post is open, even if door is not. ]]
That would now make it more likely that his exposure of Achilles would be taken seriously - but it ran a grave risk of costing Locke some of his best contacts in Russia. No matter how much a Russian might despise what his government was doing, the devotion to Mother Russia ran deep. There was a line you couldn't cross. For more than a few of his contacts there, publishing this piece would cross that line.
Until he hit upon the obvious solution. Before submitting the piece to International Aspects, he would send copies to his Russian contacts to give a heads-up on what was coming. Of course the expose would fly through the Russian military. It was possible that the repercussions would begin even before his column officially appeared. And his contacts would know he wasn't trying to hurt Russia-he was giving them a chance to clean house, or at least put a spin on the story before it ran.
It wasn't a long story, but it named names and opened doors that other reporters could follow up on. And they would follow up. From the first paragraph, it was dynamite.
The mastermind behind the kidnapping of Ender's "jeesh" is a serial killer named Achilles. He was taken from a mental institution during the League War in order to bring his dark genius to bear on Russian military strategy. He has repeatedly murdered with his own hands, and now ten brilliant children who once saved the world are completely at his mercy. What were the Russians thinking when they gave power to this psychopath? Or was Achilles' bloody record concealed even from them?
There it was - in the first paragraph, right along with the accusation, Locke was generously providing the spin that would allow the Russian government and military to extricate themselves from this mess.
It took twenty minutes to send the individual messages to all his Russian contacts. In each message, he warned them that they had only about six hours before he had to turn in his column to the editor at International Aspects. IA's fact-checkers would add another hour or two to the delay, but they would find complete confirmation of his statements.
Peter pushed SEND, SEND, SEND.
Then he settled down. Thanks to Ben's interference, he had quickly gotten to the truth of the identity of his correspondent: Julian Delphiki, AKA Bean, not nearly as dead as advertised. He had even gotten back... vague confirmation from his source in the Vatican about it - and about the fact that if he wanted to, he could easily contact the Jesuit nun the boy had been close with.
The one thing that did not happen as he thought out his plan was any kind of response from any of his Russian friends. If the story had been wrong, or if the Russian military had already known about Achilles' history and wanted to cover it up, he would have been getting constant emails urging him not to run the story, then demanding, and finally threatening him. So the fact that no one wrote him at all served as all the confirmation he needed from the Russian end.
As Demosthenes, he was anti-Russian. As Locke, he was reasonable and fair to all nations. As Peter, though, he was envious of the Russian sense of national identity, the cohesiveness of Russians when they felt their country was in danger. If Americans had ever had such powerful bonds, they had expired long before Peter was born. To be Russian was the most powerful part of a person's identity. To be American was about as important as being a Rotarian - very important if you were elected to high office, but barely noticeable in most citizens' sense of who they were.
That was why Peter never planned his future with America in mind. Americans expected to get their way, but they had no passion for anything. Demosthenes could stir up anger and resentment, but it amounted to spitefulness, not purpose. Peter would have to root himself elsewhere. Too bad Russia wasn't available to him. It was a nation that had a vast will to greatness, coupled with the most extraordinary run of stupid leadership in history, with the possible exception of the kings of Spain. And Achilles had got there first.
Maybe he could use Kenzi to get an in, he thought, sarcastically. She and her clan of Russian scoundrels, hiding out in Canada... probably because one of them had gotten in trouble with the law at some point. But she still identified herself as Russian, which... was another example of that strange dedication to being-Russian that those people held.
Six hours after sending the article to his Russian contacts, he pushed SEND once more, submitting it to his editor. As he expected, three minutes later he got a response.
You're sure?
To which Peter replied, "Check it. My sources confirm."
Then he went to bed.
And woke up almost before he had gone to sleep. He couldn't have closed his book, and then his eyes, for more than a couple of minutes before he realized the truth of what his next step should be.
Peter got out of bed and padded back to his desk, where he called up his mailbox again.
Peter composed his message to Bean and sent it - to Sister Carlotta. If anyone knew how to reach Julian Delphiki in hiding, it would be the nun who had first found him. It was the only possible solution to the challenge his informant had given him.
To: Carlotta%agape@vatican.net/orders/sisters/ind
From: Locke%erasmus@polnet.gov
Re: An answer for your dead friend
If you know who I really am, and you have contact with a certain person purported to be dead, please inform that person that I have done my best to fulfill expectations. I believe further collaboration is possible, but not through intermediaries. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, then please inform me of that, as well, so I can begin my search again.
Finally he went back to bed, knowing that he wouldn't sleep long - he'd undoubtedly keep waking through the night and checking the nets to see the reaction to his column.
What if no one cared? What if nothing happened? What if he had fatally compromised the Locke persona, and for no gain?
As he lay in bed, pretending to himself that he might sleep, he could hear other students snoring in their room across the hall. It was both strange and comforting to hear them. Strange that he could be worrying about whether something he had written might not cause an international incident, and yet he was here, living in a boarding school dorm, surrounded by the strange and the bizarre and the utterly normal.
Comforting because it was a sound he had known since infancy, that breathing that indicated there were other human beings, they were alive, the world had not yet ended, they were close by, and the fact that he could hear them meant that when monsters leapt from the dark comers of the room, they would hear him screaming.
Peter wasn't sure why, but he knew that the letter he had just sent to Julian Delphiki, via Sister Carlotta, via his friend in the Vatican, would put an end to his long idyll, playing at world affairs while taking his lunches in the school cafeteria and his lunch money from his parents.
He was finally putting himself into play, not as the cool and distant commentator Locke or the hotblooded demagogue Demosthenes, both of them electronic constructs, but as Peter Wiggin, a young man of flesh and blood, who could be caught, who could be harmed, who could be killed.
After five minutes, he got right back on up again. No, sleep wasn't coming tonight.
[[ details NFB, Peter being generally restless and unable to sleep is perfectly FB. Taken from Shadow of the Hegemon, and post is open, even if door is not. ]]