Shadow Puppets Page 0,65

protect their neighbors from those who don't want peace. I'm only one of those people. I'm probably not the best of them, and I hope to God I'm not the smartest. But I happen to be the one who was entrusted with the office of Hegemon. Until my term expires or I am lawfully replaced by the nations that have supported the Hegemony, I will continue to serve in that office."

More applause-and this time he allowed himself to believe that there might be some real enthusiasm in it. He came back to his room exhausted.

Mother and Father were there, waiting. They had refused to go downstairs with him. "If your mother and father are with you," Father had said, "then this better be the press conference where you resign. But if you intend to stay in office, then you go down there alone. Just you. No staff. No parents. No friends. No notes. Just you."

Father had been right. Mother had been right, too. Ender, bless his little heart, was the example he had to follow. If you lose, you lose, but you don't give up.

"How did it go?" asked Mother

"Well enough, I think," said Peter "I took questions for fifteen minutes, but they were starting to repeat themselves or get off on wild tangents so I told them to email me any further questions. Was it carried on the vid?"

"We polled thirty news stations," said Father, "and the top twenty or so newswebs, and most of them had it live."

"So you watched?" said Peter

"No, we flipped through," said Mother "But what we saw looked and sounded good. You didn't bat an eye. I think you brought it off."

"We'll see."

"Long term," said Father "You're going to have a bumpy couple of months. Especially because you can count on it that Achilles hasn't emptied his quiver yet."

"Bow and arrow analogies?" said Peter "You are so old."

They chuckled at his joke.

"Mom. Dad. Thanks."

"All we did," said Father, "was what we knew that tomorrow you would have wished we had done today."

Peter nodded. Then he sat down on the edge of the bed. "Man, I can't believe I was so dumb. I can't believe I didn't listen to Bean and Petra and Suri and-"

"And us," said Mother helpfully.

"And you and Graff" said Peter

"You trusted your own judgment," said Father, "and that's exactly what you have to do. You were wrong this time, but you haven't been wrong often, and I doubt you'll ever be this wrong again."

"For heaven's sake don't start taking a vote on your decisions," said Mother. "Or looking at opinion polls or trying to guess how your actions will play with the press."

"I won't," said Peter.

"Because, you see, you're Locke," said Mother. "You already ended one war. After a few days or weeks, the press will start remembering that. And you're Demosthenes-you have quite a fervent following."

"Had," said Peter.

"They saw what they expected from Demosthenes," said Mother. "You didn't weasel, you didn't make excuses, you took the blame you deserved and refused the accusations that were false. You put out your evidence-"

"That was good advice, Dad, thanks," said Peter

"And," said Mother, "you showed courage.

"By running away from Ribeirao Preto before anyone so much as glared at me?"

"By getting out of bed," she answered.

Peter shook his head. "Then my courage is nothing but borrowed courage.

"Not borrowed," said Mother "Stored up. In us. Like a bank. We've seen your courage and we saved some for you when you temporarily ran out and needed some of it back."

"Cash flow problem, that's all it was," said Father

"How many times are you two going to have to save me from myself before this whole drama runs its course?" asked Peter.

"I think... six times," said Father

"No, eight," said Mother.

"You two think you're so cute," said Peter

"Mm-hm."

A knock at the door "Room service!" called a voice from outside.

Father was at the door in two quick strides. "Three tomato juices?" he asked.

"No, no, nothing like that. Lunch. Sandwiches. Bowl of ice cream."

Even with that reassurance, Father stepped to the side of the door and pulled it open as far as the lock bar allowed. Nobody fired a weapon, and the guy with the food laughed. "Oh, everybody forgets to undo that thing, happens all the time."

Father opened the door and stepped outside long enough to make sure nobody else was in the hall waiting to follow room service inside.

When the waiter was coming through the door Peter turned around to get out of his way, just in time to