Shadow Puppets Page 0,24

of thing was only effective if the subject was susceptible to such human emotions as fear or gratitude. It would be wasted on Achilles.

So as soon as Achilles had had a chance to clean up after his flights across the Pacific and over the Andes, Peter invited him to lunch.

Achilles came, of course, and rather surprised Peter by not seeming to do anything at all. He thanked him for rescuing him and for lunch in virtually the same tone-sincerely but not extravagantly grateful. His conversation was informal, pleasant, sometimes funny but never seeming to try for humor. He did not bring up anything about world affairs, the recent wars, why he had been arrested in China, or even a single question about why Peter had rescued him or what he planned to do with him now.

He did not ask Peter if there was going to be a war crimes trial.

And yet he did not seem to be evading anything at all. It seemed as though Peter had only to ask what it had been like, betraying India and subverting Thailand so all of south Asia dropped into his hands like a ripe papaya, and Achilles would tell several interesting anecdotes about it and then move on to discuss the kidnapping of the children from Ender's group at Command School.

But because Peter did not bring it up, Achilles modestly refrained from talking about his achievements.

"I wondered," said Peter, "if you wanted to take a break from working for world peace, or if you'd like to lend a hand around here."

Achilles did not bat an eye at the bitter irony, but instead he seemed to take Peter's words at face value. "I don't know that I'd be much use," he said. "I've been something of an orientalist lately, but I'd have to say that the position your soldiers found me in shows that I wasn't a very good one."

"Nonsense," said Peter, "everyone makes an error now and then. I suspect your only error was too much success. Is it Buddhism, Taoism, or Confucianism that teaches that it is a mistake to do something perfectly? Because it would provoke resentment, and therefore wouldn't be perfect after all?"

"I think it was the Greeks," said Achilles~."Perfection arouses the envy of the gods."

"Or the Communists," said Peter. "Snick off the heads of any blades of grass that rise higher than the rest of the lawn."

"If you think I have any value," said Achilles, "I'd be glad to do whatever is within my abilities."

"Thank you for not saying 'my poor abilities,'" said Peter. "We both know you're a master of the great game, and I, for one, never intend to try to play head-to-head against you."

"I'm sure you'd win handily," said Achilles.

"Why would you think that?" said Peter, disappointed at what seemed, for the first time, like flattery.

"Because," said Achilles, "it's hard to win when your opponent holds all the cards."

Not flattery, then, but a realistic assessment of the situation.

Or... maybe flattery after all, because of course Peter did not hold all the cards. Achilles almost certainly had plenty of them left, once he was in a position to get to them.

Peter found that Achilles could be very charming. He had a sort of reticence about him. He walked rather slowly-perhaps a habit that originated before the surgery that fixed his gimp leg-and made no effort to dominate a conversation, though he was not uncomfortably silent, either He was almost nondescript. Charmingly nondescript- was such a thing possible?

Peter had lunch with him three times a week and each time gave him various assignments. Peter gave him letterhead and a net identity that anointed him "Assistant to the Hegemon," but of course that only meant that, in a world where the Hegemon's power consisted of the fading remnants of the unity that had been forced on the world during the Formic Wars, Achilles had been granted the shadow of a shadow of power

"Our authority," Peter remarked to him at their second lunch, "lies very lightly on the reins of world government."

"The horses seem so comfortable it's almost as though they were not being guided at all," said Achilles, entering into the joke without a smile.

"We govern so skillfully that we never need to use spurs."

"Which is a good thing," said Achilles. "Spurs being in short supply around here these days."

But just because the Hegemony was very nearly an empty shell in terms of actual power did not mean there was no real work to do. Quite the contrary.