Shadow Puppets Page 0,36

Achilles, there was no chance of that. The Beast, as Theresa and John Paul called him, was as methodical as Peter wasn't. He seemed to leave nothing to chance. So if John Paul simply left him alone, he would accomplish everything he wanted.

"Peter, you're not in a position to see what the Beast is doing," John Paul said to him.

"Father, I know what I'm doing."

"He's got time for everybody," said John Paul. "He's friends with every clerk, every janitor, every secretary, every bureaucrat. People you breeze past with a wave or with nothing at all, he sits and chats with them, makes them feel important."

"Yes, he's a charmer, all right."

"Peter-"

"It's not a popularity contest, Father."

"No, it's a loyalty contest. You accomplish exactly as much as the people who serve you decide you'll accomplish, and nothing more. They are your power, these public servants you employ, and he's winning their loyalty away from you.

"Superficially, perhaps," said Peter.

"For most people, the superficial is all there is. They act on the feelings of the moment. They like him better than you."

"There's always somebody that people like better," said Peter with a vicious little smile.

John Paul restrained himself from making the obvious one-word retort, because it would devastate Peter The single crushing word would have been "yes."

"Peter," said John Paul, "when the Beast leaves here, who knows how many people he'll leave behind who like him well enough to slip him a bit of gossip now and then? Or a secret document?"

"Father, I appreciate your concern. And once again, I can only tell you that I have things under control."

"You seem to think that anything you don't know isn't worth knowing," said John Paul, not for the first time.

"And you seem to think that anything I'm doing is not being done well enough," said Peter for at least the hundredth time.

That's how these discussions always went. John Paul did not push it farther than that-he knew that if he became too annoying, if Peter felt too oppressed by having his parents around, they'd be moved out of any position of influence.

That would be unbearable. It would mean losing the last of their children.

"We really ought to have another child or two," said Theresa one day. "I'm still young enough, and we always meant to have more than the three the government allotted us."

"Not likely," said John Paul.

"Why not? Aren't you still a good Catholic, or did that last only as long as being a Catholic meant being a rebel?"

John Paul didn't like the implications of that, particularly because it might have some truth in it. "No, Theresa, darling. We can't have more children because they'd never let us keep them."

"Who? The government doesn't care how many children we have now. They're all future taxpayers or baby makers or cannon fodder to them."

"We're the parents of Ender Wiggin, of Demosthenes, of Locke. Our having another child would be international news. I feared it even before Andrew's battle companions were all kidnapped, but after that there was no doubt."

"Do you seriously think people would assume that because our first three children were so-" "Darling." said John Paul-knowing that she hated it when he called her darling because he couldn't keep the sarcasm out of the term, "they'd have the babies out of the cradle, that's how fast they'd strike. They'd be targets from the moment of conception, just waiting for somebody to come along and turn them into puppets of one regime or another. And even if we were able to protect them, every moment of their lives would be deformed by the press of public curiosity. If we thought Peter was messed up by being in Andrew's shadow, think what it would be like for them."

"It might be easier for them," said Theresa. "They would never remember not being in the shadow of their brothers."

"That only makes it worse," said John Paul. "They'll have no idea of who they are, apart from being somebody's sib."[?]

"It was just a thought."

"I wish we could do it," said John Paul. It was easy to be generous after she had given in.

"I just... miss having children around."

"So do I. And if I thought they could be children...

"None of our kids was ever really a child," said Theresa sadly. "Never really carefree."

John Paul laughed. "The only people who think children are carefree are the ones who've forgotten their own childhood."

Theresa thought for a moment and then laughed. "You're right. Everything is either heaven on earth or the end of the