Manila, Phillipines, Tuesday
Peter's first official act had been to reconfirm the appointment of Polemarch Chamrajnagar - an action which China officially protested as illegal because the office of Hegemon no longer existed, and while they would do nothing to interfere with Chamrajnagar's continued leadership of the Fleet, they would no longer contribute financially either to the Hegemony or the Fleet. Peter had then confirmed Graff as Hegemony Minister of Colonization-and, again, because his work was offworld, China could do nothing more than cut off its contribution of funds.
But the lack of money forced Peter's next decision. He moved the Hegemony capital out of the former Netherlands and returned the Low Countries to self-government, which immediately put a stop to unrestricted immigration into those nations. He closed down most Hegemony services worldwide except for medical and agricultural research and assistance programs. He moved the main Hegemony offices to Brazil, which had several important assets:
First, it was a large enough and powerful enough country that the enemies of the Hegemony would not be quick to provoke it by assassinating the Hegemon within its borders.
Second, it was in the southern hemisphere, with strong economic ties to Africa, the Americas, and the Pacific, so that being there kept Peter within the mainstream of international commerce and politics.
And third, Brazil invited Peter Wiggin to come there. No one else did.
Peter had no delusions about what the office of Hegemon had become. He did not expect anyone to come to him. He went to them.
Which is why he left Haiti and crossed the Pacific to Manila, where Bean and his Thai army and the Indians they rescued had found temporary refuge. Peter knew that Bean was still angry at him, so he was relieved that Bean not only agreed to see him, but treated him with open respect when he arrived. His two hundred soldiers were crisply turned out to greet him, and when Bean introduced him to Petra, Suriyawong, and Virlomi and the other Indian Battle Schoolers, he phrased everything as if he were presenting his friends to a man of higher rank.
In front of all of them, Bean then made a little speech. "To His Excellency the Hegemon, I offer the service of this band of soldiers - veterans of war, former opponents, and now, because of treachery, exiles from their homeland and brothers- and sisters-at-arms. This was not my decision, nor the decision of the majority. Each individual here was given the choice, and chose to make this offer of our service. We are few, but nations have found our service valuable before. We hope that we now can serve a cause that is higher than any nation, and whose end will be the establishment of a new and honorable order in the world."
Peter was surprised only by the formality of the offer, and the fact that it was made without any sort of negotiation beforehand. He also noticed that Bean had arranged to have cameras present. This would be news. So Peter made a brief, soundbite-oriented reply accepting their offer, praising their achievements, and expressing regret at the suffering of their people. It would play well-twenty seconds on the vids, and in full on the nets.
When the ceremonies were done, there was an inspection of their inventory-all the equipment they had been able to rescue from Thailand. Even their fighter pilots and patrol boat crews had managed to make their way from southern Thailand to the Philippines, so the Hegemon had an air force and a fleet. Peter nodded and commented gravely as he saw each item in the inventory - the cameras were still running.
It lasted for as long as the cameras did. Then he retreated, motioning only for Bean and Natalie to follow.
Peter
Once they were alone in his office, Peter finally allowed himself a rueful, self-mocking laugh. "If it weren't for you I'd have nothing at all," he said. "But to compare this to the vast fleets and air forces and armies that the Hegemon once commanded..."
Bean
Bean looked at him coldly. "The office had to be greatly diminished," he said, "before they'd have given it to you."
Natalie
"Better than nothing," Natalie said mildly, eyeing Bean as she brushed her bangs to the side with a precise flick of her hand. "And not unexpected."
Peter
The honeymoon, at least with Bean, was apparently over. "Yes," Peter agreed. He fixed his eyes on Bean. "All true. I know that, Nat knows that, you know that. So why are you the only one who's so upset about it?"
Bean
"That's because, apart from the not-trivial matter of Achilles' penchant for killing people now and then, I fail to see much difference between you and him. You're both content to let any number of people suffer needlessly in order to advance your personal ambitions."
Natalie
"You do realize that shunting the 'not-trivial' bit under an 'apart from', you're making it sound trivial, don't you?"
Natalie didn't think Peter needed her to stand up for him - and really, she wasn't. If Bean really thought that was the only real difference, then that reflected poorly on her, as well.
"Pretty sure the nature of the personal ambitions in question is a fairly important difference."
Bean
"Only a trivial person counters an argument with a linguistic criticism first, instead of getting to their argument," Bean said, shooting Natalie a look that came just short of an eyeroll. "I see other differences, of course. But they're matters of degree, not of kind. Achilles makes treaties he never intends to keep. Peter merely write essays that might have saved nations, but he delays publishing them so that those nations will fall, putting the world in a position desperate enough that they would make him Hegemon."
Peter
"Your statement is true," said Peter, "only if you believe that earlier publication would have saved India and Thailand. But if I had published early in the war. India and Thailand would not have seen their peril, and they wouldn't have believed me. After all, the Thai government didn't believe you, and you warned them of everything."
Bean
"You're Locke," Bean pointed out - a statement that gained him an actual eyeroll-and-glance-towards-Natalie from Peter.
Natalie
Natalie held back her own eyeroll. Somehow. Just like she'd swallowed her 'rhetoric, not linguistics' retort just a moment prior.
But it was safe to say her answering glance echoed Peter's sentiment.
"And a teenager who's repeatedly had to prove his worth after going public with that detail."
Peter
After she finished speaking, Peter nodded. "I was still trying to prove in Haiti that I could actually govern. I might have had the prestige left to be taken seriously in India and Thailand, but I might not. And if I published too soon, before China was ready to act, China would simply have denied everything to both sides, the war would have proceeded, and then there would have been no shock value at all to my publication. I wouldn't have been able to trigger the invasion at exactly the moment you needed me to."
Bean
"Don't pretend that this was your plan all along." Bean's jaw set.
Peter
"It was my plan," said Peter, "to withhold publication until it could be an act of power instead of an act of futility. Yes, I was thinking of my prestige, because right now the only power I have is that prestige and the influence it gives me with the governments of the world. It's a coin that is minted very slowly, and if spent ineffectively, disappears. So yes, I protect that power very carefully, and use it sparingly, so that later, when I need to have it, it will still exist."
Bean didn't seem to have an answer to that.
Natalie
Natalie was going to give him a mild, expectant look anyway.
She didn't have anything she felt like adding at the current moment.
Peter
Peter heaved a sigh when it became clear neither of them was going to break the silence.
"You hate what happened in the war," he finally continued. "So do I. It's possible - not likely, but possible - that if I had published earlier, India might have been able to mount a real resistance. They might still have been fighting now. Millions of soldiers might have been dying even as we speak. Instead, there was a clean, almost bloodless victory for China. And now the Chinese have to govern a population almost twice the size of their own, with a culture every bit as old and all-absorbing as their own. The snake has swallowed a crocodile, and the question is going to arise again and again - who is digesting whom? Thailand and Vietnam will be just as hard to govern, and even the Burmese have never managed to govern Burma.
"What I did saved lives. It left the world with a clear moral picture of who did the stabbing in the back, and who was stabbed. And it leaves China victorious and Russia triumphant - but with captive, angry populations to govern who will not stand with them when the final struggle comes. Why do you think China made a quick peace with Pakistan? Because they knew they could not fight a war against the Muslim world with Indian revolt and sabotage a constant threat. And that alliance between China and Russia-what a joke! Within a year they'll be quarreling, and they'll be back to weakening each other across that long Siberian border. To people who think superficially, China and Russia look triumphant. But I never thought you were a superficial thinker."
Another long stretch of silence. This was starting to become a pain in the ass.
"You know all that," he said. "But you don't care. You're still angry at me. Why is that?"
Yet more silence. The immature part of Peter wanted to leap up and start doing shadow puppet theater just to liven things up.
Natalie
At least Natalie merely felt like it wasn't for her to interfere with much. Besides, she liked being a silent observer, even when she was getting as little off of people as she was from Bean.
But this total silence was getting a little annoying even for a quiet observer.
"Personal," she said, after just a beat longer of that, "more than political, right?"
Peter
"That's what I think," Peter said, grateful that he wasn't just monologuing to himself here. He studied Bean's face with a hard look.
"Yes, Bean. I'm arrogant. I think I'm the only person who understands what to do and has what it takes to do it. I think the world needs me. In fact, I'm even more arrogant than you. Is that what this comes down to? I should have been humbler? Only you are allowed to assess your own abilities candidly and decide that you're the best man for a particular job?"
Bean
Bean's eyes darted briefly to Natalie. Finally, he spoke. "I don't want the job."
Peter
"I don't want this job, either," said Peter. "What I want is the job where the Hegemon speaks, and wars stop, where the Hegemon can redraw borders and strike down bad laws and break up international cartels and bring all of humanity a chance for a decent life in peace and whatever freedom their culture will allow. And I'm going to get that job, by creating it step by step. Not only that, I'm going to do it with your help, because you want somebody to do that job, and you know, just as surely as I do, that I'm the only one who can do it."
More silence. Jesus christ.
"But Natalie's even more right than that, isn't she? You know all of that, and you still hate me, and it's very, very personal."
Bean
"I'm angry with Achilles," said Bean, finally. "I'm angry with the stupidity of those who refused to listen to me. But you're here, and they're not."
Natalie
Oh, Natalie was pretty sure where this was going, really.
"Isn't that always the case?" she asked, half under her breath. Half contributing, half not.
Peter
"It's more than that," said Peter. "If that's all it was, you would have talked yourself out of your wrath long before we had this conversation."
Bean
"I know," said Bean. "But you don't want to hear it."
Peter
Peter snorted. There was only one person in this room - one person in his life - who didn't share Bean's feelings on some level. He'd heard it often enough from his parents; getting it from Bean didn't hurt him now.
"Because it will hurt my feelings? Let me make a stab at it, then. You're angry because every word from my mouth, every gesture, every expression on my face reminds you of Ender Wiggin. Only I'm not Ender, I'll never be Ender, you think Ender should be doing what I'm doing, and you hate me for being the one who made sure Ender got sent away."
Natalie
Natalie's freshest mental image of Ender - apart from a bunch of philosophy lessons she hadn't participated in much - was from when an alternate version of him had tried to kill her.
She really didn't share Bean's views on him, no.
Her voice was measured and mild. "It's an understandable anger. If unoriginal and pointless."
Bean
Bean shot her a mild look. "Nobody's feelings are strictly original, and I know it's irrational. I know that. I know that by sending him away Peter saved his life. The people who helped Achilles try to kill me would have worked day and night to kill Ender without any prompting from Achilles at all. They would have feared him far more than they feared any of us. I know that. But Pe-- you look and talk so much like him. And I keep thinking, if Ender had been here, he wouldn't have botched things the way I did."
There. Honesty in front of a stranger. Maybe that would punch the chip off of Peter's shoulder.
Peter
"The way I read it, it's the other way around. If you hadn't been there with Ender, he would have botched it at the end. No, don't argue, it doesn't matter. What does matter is, the world's the way it is right now, and we're in a position where, if we move carefully, if we think through and plan everything just right, we can fix this. We can make it better."
Peter sat back. His glance towards Natalie was... well, there were some things Bean didn't know about her - a lot of things - and he did. "No regrets. No wishing we could undo the past. We just look to the future and work our zhupas off."
Natalie
The expression on Natalie's face was her usual mask of calm. Of course it was.
"I don't even know what that word means, but the context clues suggest it's a fine plan."
Bean
"I'll look to the future," said Bean with a shake of his head, "and I'll help you all I can. But I'll regret whatever I want to regret."
Peter
"Fair enough," said Peter. "Now that we've agreed on that, I think you should know. I've decided to revive the office of Strategos. That's why you're here."
Bean
Bean gave one hoot of derision. "You're putting that title on the commander of a force of two hundred soldiers, a couple of planes, a couple of boats, and an overheated company of strategic planners?"
Peter
Peter shrugged. "Hey, if Natalie here is in a position to call herself Chief of Staff to the Hegemon, I don't see why you can't call yourself Strategos."
Natalie
"The words are what they are," Natalie agreed with just the slightest incline of her head. "Pretty sure we already covered things aren't as grand as they would've been in the past. No reason to give up all prestige."
Bean
"And yet I don't see Peter giving me this title in public," Bean said.
Peter
Another shrug from Peter. "Prestige again. I don't want people to hear the news while looking at vids of a kid. I want them to learn of your appointment as Strategos while seeing stock footage of the victory over the Formics and hearing voice-overs about your rescue of the Indian Battle Schoolers."
He folded his fingers together. "That's all I got."
Natalie
"I swear everything's even more of an image game when all our ages put together barely make it to comfortable middle age," Natalie remarked. Without a sigh although the thought was there. "But it is what it is."
Those were the rules to play by.
Peter
Peter watched Bean go, then shook his head.
He exhaled and sank back into his seat again. "That went well."
Natalie
"About as expected," Natalie replied, shrugging a shoulder. "No one was overly dramatic about anything, so I'm satisfied."
Peter
Peter snorted. "No, instead he just gave me the silent treatment," he said. "He really is about ten, isn't he?"
Yes. Yes, he was.
And he was being immature about it now because at least around Natalie he still could be.
Natalie
"Mm hmmm," came Natalie's tolerant, faintly wry response. She shifted her weight onto her other foot and swiped her bangs aside again. A little more body language, that was her equivalent to his immaturity now that they were alone.
"Well, he's pissy. He'll get over it. Maybe."
Peter
"He needs me," Peter said. "He'll have to."
Natalie
"And you need him too," she replied, with another shrug. "It all balances itself out."
Peter
Peter shook his head again. "Crazy situation we're in," he decided. "Ah, well. Are you ready to move out of Haiti?"
Natalie
"Just after it started feeling like home?"
Well, in the same way that her old dorm room had been a home for her. Close enough but not really the real thing.
"Yeah. I'm not that attached."
Peter
"If it's any consolation, I'm hoping this is the last time I have to move my home base for quite some time," Peter said, tapping his fingers on the desk. "We're going to Brazil. Ribeirão Preto."
Natalie
"I've liked what I've seen of Brazil so far," Natalie offered. "Will be a good excuse to get back to my attempts at learning Portuguese."
Because God forbid she ever use what little designated free time she had on anything that wasn't productive.
Peter
But that was one of the things Peter liked about her!
"There you go," Peter granted. "At least we'll have a little more space than we used to. We're getting our own compound."
Natalie
"Fancy."
It actually was, but that still came out all mild and slightly drawled. Her style.
"Good thing I strategically gave Mox to Jim last week to keep in Fandom for a while."
Peter
Peter shrugged. "There'll be more space where we're moving next," he said. "You can keep the fuzzball. Hell, you could add another one, for all we'll care." A beat. "I'll finally be out of the dorm room. Now that'll be a relief."
Natalie
Natalie rolled her eyes. "I was always going to keep the fuzzball. He's just with Jim because I knew I'd be busy, and now he'll stay there until we're moved in at the new place in the new country."
[[ taken and adapted from Shadow of the Hegemon. NFB, NFI, ooc-okay et al. preplayed with the marvelous whenshewasnice.]]
But the lack of money forced Peter's next decision. He moved the Hegemony capital out of the former Netherlands and returned the Low Countries to self-government, which immediately put a stop to unrestricted immigration into those nations. He closed down most Hegemony services worldwide except for medical and agricultural research and assistance programs. He moved the main Hegemony offices to Brazil, which had several important assets:
First, it was a large enough and powerful enough country that the enemies of the Hegemony would not be quick to provoke it by assassinating the Hegemon within its borders.
Second, it was in the southern hemisphere, with strong economic ties to Africa, the Americas, and the Pacific, so that being there kept Peter within the mainstream of international commerce and politics.
And third, Brazil invited Peter Wiggin to come there. No one else did.
Peter had no delusions about what the office of Hegemon had become. He did not expect anyone to come to him. He went to them.
Which is why he left Haiti and crossed the Pacific to Manila, where Bean and his Thai army and the Indians they rescued had found temporary refuge. Peter knew that Bean was still angry at him, so he was relieved that Bean not only agreed to see him, but treated him with open respect when he arrived. His two hundred soldiers were crisply turned out to greet him, and when Bean introduced him to Petra, Suriyawong, and Virlomi and the other Indian Battle Schoolers, he phrased everything as if he were presenting his friends to a man of higher rank.
In front of all of them, Bean then made a little speech. "To His Excellency the Hegemon, I offer the service of this band of soldiers - veterans of war, former opponents, and now, because of treachery, exiles from their homeland and brothers- and sisters-at-arms. This was not my decision, nor the decision of the majority. Each individual here was given the choice, and chose to make this offer of our service. We are few, but nations have found our service valuable before. We hope that we now can serve a cause that is higher than any nation, and whose end will be the establishment of a new and honorable order in the world."
Peter was surprised only by the formality of the offer, and the fact that it was made without any sort of negotiation beforehand. He also noticed that Bean had arranged to have cameras present. This would be news. So Peter made a brief, soundbite-oriented reply accepting their offer, praising their achievements, and expressing regret at the suffering of their people. It would play well-twenty seconds on the vids, and in full on the nets.
When the ceremonies were done, there was an inspection of their inventory-all the equipment they had been able to rescue from Thailand. Even their fighter pilots and patrol boat crews had managed to make their way from southern Thailand to the Philippines, so the Hegemon had an air force and a fleet. Peter nodded and commented gravely as he saw each item in the inventory - the cameras were still running.
It lasted for as long as the cameras did. Then he retreated, motioning only for Bean and Natalie to follow.
Peter
Once they were alone in his office, Peter finally allowed himself a rueful, self-mocking laugh. "If it weren't for you I'd have nothing at all," he said. "But to compare this to the vast fleets and air forces and armies that the Hegemon once commanded..."
Bean
Bean looked at him coldly. "The office had to be greatly diminished," he said, "before they'd have given it to you."
Natalie
"Better than nothing," Natalie said mildly, eyeing Bean as she brushed her bangs to the side with a precise flick of her hand. "And not unexpected."
Peter
The honeymoon, at least with Bean, was apparently over. "Yes," Peter agreed. He fixed his eyes on Bean. "All true. I know that, Nat knows that, you know that. So why are you the only one who's so upset about it?"
Bean
"That's because, apart from the not-trivial matter of Achilles' penchant for killing people now and then, I fail to see much difference between you and him. You're both content to let any number of people suffer needlessly in order to advance your personal ambitions."
Natalie
"You do realize that shunting the 'not-trivial' bit under an 'apart from', you're making it sound trivial, don't you?"
Natalie didn't think Peter needed her to stand up for him - and really, she wasn't. If Bean really thought that was the only real difference, then that reflected poorly on her, as well.
"Pretty sure the nature of the personal ambitions in question is a fairly important difference."
Bean
"Only a trivial person counters an argument with a linguistic criticism first, instead of getting to their argument," Bean said, shooting Natalie a look that came just short of an eyeroll. "I see other differences, of course. But they're matters of degree, not of kind. Achilles makes treaties he never intends to keep. Peter merely write essays that might have saved nations, but he delays publishing them so that those nations will fall, putting the world in a position desperate enough that they would make him Hegemon."
Peter
"Your statement is true," said Peter, "only if you believe that earlier publication would have saved India and Thailand. But if I had published early in the war. India and Thailand would not have seen their peril, and they wouldn't have believed me. After all, the Thai government didn't believe you, and you warned them of everything."
Bean
"You're Locke," Bean pointed out - a statement that gained him an actual eyeroll-and-glance-towards-Natalie from Peter.
Natalie
Natalie held back her own eyeroll. Somehow. Just like she'd swallowed her 'rhetoric, not linguistics' retort just a moment prior.
But it was safe to say her answering glance echoed Peter's sentiment.
"And a teenager who's repeatedly had to prove his worth after going public with that detail."
Peter
After she finished speaking, Peter nodded. "I was still trying to prove in Haiti that I could actually govern. I might have had the prestige left to be taken seriously in India and Thailand, but I might not. And if I published too soon, before China was ready to act, China would simply have denied everything to both sides, the war would have proceeded, and then there would have been no shock value at all to my publication. I wouldn't have been able to trigger the invasion at exactly the moment you needed me to."
Bean
"Don't pretend that this was your plan all along." Bean's jaw set.
Peter
"It was my plan," said Peter, "to withhold publication until it could be an act of power instead of an act of futility. Yes, I was thinking of my prestige, because right now the only power I have is that prestige and the influence it gives me with the governments of the world. It's a coin that is minted very slowly, and if spent ineffectively, disappears. So yes, I protect that power very carefully, and use it sparingly, so that later, when I need to have it, it will still exist."
Bean didn't seem to have an answer to that.
Natalie
Natalie was going to give him a mild, expectant look anyway.
She didn't have anything she felt like adding at the current moment.
Peter
Peter heaved a sigh when it became clear neither of them was going to break the silence.
"You hate what happened in the war," he finally continued. "So do I. It's possible - not likely, but possible - that if I had published earlier, India might have been able to mount a real resistance. They might still have been fighting now. Millions of soldiers might have been dying even as we speak. Instead, there was a clean, almost bloodless victory for China. And now the Chinese have to govern a population almost twice the size of their own, with a culture every bit as old and all-absorbing as their own. The snake has swallowed a crocodile, and the question is going to arise again and again - who is digesting whom? Thailand and Vietnam will be just as hard to govern, and even the Burmese have never managed to govern Burma.
"What I did saved lives. It left the world with a clear moral picture of who did the stabbing in the back, and who was stabbed. And it leaves China victorious and Russia triumphant - but with captive, angry populations to govern who will not stand with them when the final struggle comes. Why do you think China made a quick peace with Pakistan? Because they knew they could not fight a war against the Muslim world with Indian revolt and sabotage a constant threat. And that alliance between China and Russia-what a joke! Within a year they'll be quarreling, and they'll be back to weakening each other across that long Siberian border. To people who think superficially, China and Russia look triumphant. But I never thought you were a superficial thinker."
Another long stretch of silence. This was starting to become a pain in the ass.
"You know all that," he said. "But you don't care. You're still angry at me. Why is that?"
Yet more silence. The immature part of Peter wanted to leap up and start doing shadow puppet theater just to liven things up.
Natalie
At least Natalie merely felt like it wasn't for her to interfere with much. Besides, she liked being a silent observer, even when she was getting as little off of people as she was from Bean.
But this total silence was getting a little annoying even for a quiet observer.
"Personal," she said, after just a beat longer of that, "more than political, right?"
Peter
"That's what I think," Peter said, grateful that he wasn't just monologuing to himself here. He studied Bean's face with a hard look.
"Yes, Bean. I'm arrogant. I think I'm the only person who understands what to do and has what it takes to do it. I think the world needs me. In fact, I'm even more arrogant than you. Is that what this comes down to? I should have been humbler? Only you are allowed to assess your own abilities candidly and decide that you're the best man for a particular job?"
Bean
Bean's eyes darted briefly to Natalie. Finally, he spoke. "I don't want the job."
Peter
"I don't want this job, either," said Peter. "What I want is the job where the Hegemon speaks, and wars stop, where the Hegemon can redraw borders and strike down bad laws and break up international cartels and bring all of humanity a chance for a decent life in peace and whatever freedom their culture will allow. And I'm going to get that job, by creating it step by step. Not only that, I'm going to do it with your help, because you want somebody to do that job, and you know, just as surely as I do, that I'm the only one who can do it."
More silence. Jesus christ.
"But Natalie's even more right than that, isn't she? You know all of that, and you still hate me, and it's very, very personal."
Bean
"I'm angry with Achilles," said Bean, finally. "I'm angry with the stupidity of those who refused to listen to me. But you're here, and they're not."
Natalie
Oh, Natalie was pretty sure where this was going, really.
"Isn't that always the case?" she asked, half under her breath. Half contributing, half not.
Peter
"It's more than that," said Peter. "If that's all it was, you would have talked yourself out of your wrath long before we had this conversation."
Bean
"I know," said Bean. "But you don't want to hear it."
Peter
Peter snorted. There was only one person in this room - one person in his life - who didn't share Bean's feelings on some level. He'd heard it often enough from his parents; getting it from Bean didn't hurt him now.
"Because it will hurt my feelings? Let me make a stab at it, then. You're angry because every word from my mouth, every gesture, every expression on my face reminds you of Ender Wiggin. Only I'm not Ender, I'll never be Ender, you think Ender should be doing what I'm doing, and you hate me for being the one who made sure Ender got sent away."
Natalie
Natalie's freshest mental image of Ender - apart from a bunch of philosophy lessons she hadn't participated in much - was from when an alternate version of him had tried to kill her.
She really didn't share Bean's views on him, no.
Her voice was measured and mild. "It's an understandable anger. If unoriginal and pointless."
Bean
Bean shot her a mild look. "Nobody's feelings are strictly original, and I know it's irrational. I know that. I know that by sending him away Peter saved his life. The people who helped Achilles try to kill me would have worked day and night to kill Ender without any prompting from Achilles at all. They would have feared him far more than they feared any of us. I know that. But Pe-- you look and talk so much like him. And I keep thinking, if Ender had been here, he wouldn't have botched things the way I did."
There. Honesty in front of a stranger. Maybe that would punch the chip off of Peter's shoulder.
Peter
"The way I read it, it's the other way around. If you hadn't been there with Ender, he would have botched it at the end. No, don't argue, it doesn't matter. What does matter is, the world's the way it is right now, and we're in a position where, if we move carefully, if we think through and plan everything just right, we can fix this. We can make it better."
Peter sat back. His glance towards Natalie was... well, there were some things Bean didn't know about her - a lot of things - and he did. "No regrets. No wishing we could undo the past. We just look to the future and work our zhupas off."
Natalie
The expression on Natalie's face was her usual mask of calm. Of course it was.
"I don't even know what that word means, but the context clues suggest it's a fine plan."
Bean
"I'll look to the future," said Bean with a shake of his head, "and I'll help you all I can. But I'll regret whatever I want to regret."
Peter
"Fair enough," said Peter. "Now that we've agreed on that, I think you should know. I've decided to revive the office of Strategos. That's why you're here."
Bean
Bean gave one hoot of derision. "You're putting that title on the commander of a force of two hundred soldiers, a couple of planes, a couple of boats, and an overheated company of strategic planners?"
Peter
Peter shrugged. "Hey, if Natalie here is in a position to call herself Chief of Staff to the Hegemon, I don't see why you can't call yourself Strategos."
Natalie
"The words are what they are," Natalie agreed with just the slightest incline of her head. "Pretty sure we already covered things aren't as grand as they would've been in the past. No reason to give up all prestige."
Bean
"And yet I don't see Peter giving me this title in public," Bean said.
Peter
Another shrug from Peter. "Prestige again. I don't want people to hear the news while looking at vids of a kid. I want them to learn of your appointment as Strategos while seeing stock footage of the victory over the Formics and hearing voice-overs about your rescue of the Indian Battle Schoolers."
He folded his fingers together. "That's all I got."
Natalie
"I swear everything's even more of an image game when all our ages put together barely make it to comfortable middle age," Natalie remarked. Without a sigh although the thought was there. "But it is what it is."
Those were the rules to play by.
Peter
Peter watched Bean go, then shook his head.
He exhaled and sank back into his seat again. "That went well."
Natalie
"About as expected," Natalie replied, shrugging a shoulder. "No one was overly dramatic about anything, so I'm satisfied."
Peter
Peter snorted. "No, instead he just gave me the silent treatment," he said. "He really is about ten, isn't he?"
Yes. Yes, he was.
And he was being immature about it now because at least around Natalie he still could be.
Natalie
"Mm hmmm," came Natalie's tolerant, faintly wry response. She shifted her weight onto her other foot and swiped her bangs aside again. A little more body language, that was her equivalent to his immaturity now that they were alone.
"Well, he's pissy. He'll get over it. Maybe."
Peter
"He needs me," Peter said. "He'll have to."
Natalie
"And you need him too," she replied, with another shrug. "It all balances itself out."
Peter
Peter shook his head again. "Crazy situation we're in," he decided. "Ah, well. Are you ready to move out of Haiti?"
Natalie
"Just after it started feeling like home?"
Well, in the same way that her old dorm room had been a home for her. Close enough but not really the real thing.
"Yeah. I'm not that attached."
Peter
"If it's any consolation, I'm hoping this is the last time I have to move my home base for quite some time," Peter said, tapping his fingers on the desk. "We're going to Brazil. Ribeirão Preto."
Natalie
"I've liked what I've seen of Brazil so far," Natalie offered. "Will be a good excuse to get back to my attempts at learning Portuguese."
Because God forbid she ever use what little designated free time she had on anything that wasn't productive.
Peter
But that was one of the things Peter liked about her!
"There you go," Peter granted. "At least we'll have a little more space than we used to. We're getting our own compound."
Natalie
"Fancy."
It actually was, but that still came out all mild and slightly drawled. Her style.
"Good thing I strategically gave Mox to Jim last week to keep in Fandom for a while."
Peter
Peter shrugged. "There'll be more space where we're moving next," he said. "You can keep the fuzzball. Hell, you could add another one, for all we'll care." A beat. "I'll finally be out of the dorm room. Now that'll be a relief."
Natalie
Natalie rolled her eyes. "I was always going to keep the fuzzball. He's just with Jim because I knew I'd be busy, and now he'll stay there until we're moved in at the new place in the new country."
[[ taken and adapted from Shadow of the Hegemon. NFB, NFI, ooc-okay et al. preplayed with the marvelous whenshewasnice.]]