kids."
"So you have other business to discuss?"
"Yes. But you'll immediately realize that the business I want to talk about is none of my business."
"Can't wait. No, got to wait. Call I can't turn down. Wait just a minute please."
The hiss of atmosphere and magnetic fields and radiation between the surface of the Earth and the space station. Bean thought of breaking off the connection and waiting for another time. Or maybe dropping the whole stupid line of inquiry.
Just as Bean was going to terminate the call, Graff came back on. "Sorry, I'm in the middle of tricky negotiations with China to let breeding couples emigrate. They want to send us some of their surplus males. I told him we were forming a colony, not fighting a war. But... negotiating with the Chinese. You think you hear yes, but the next day you find out they said no very delicately and then tittered behind their hands."
"All those years controlling the size of their population, and now they won't let go of a measly few thousand," said Bean.
"So you called me. What is it that's none of your business?"
"I get my pension. Petra gets hers. Who get's Ender's?"
"My, but you're to the point."
"Is it going to Peter?"
"What an excellent question."
"May I make a suggestion?"
"Please. As I recall, you have a history of making interesting suggestions."
"Stop sending the pension to anybody."
"I'm the Minister of Colonization now," said Graff. "I take my orders from the Hegemon."
"You're in bed so deep with the I.F. that Chamrajnagar thinks you're a hemorrhoid and wakes up scratching at you."
"You have a vast untapped potential as a poet," said Graff.
"My suggestion," said Bean, "is to get the I.F. to turn Ender's money over to a neutral party."
"When it comes to money, there are no neutral parties. The I.F. and the colony program both spend money as fast as it comes in. We have no idea where to begin an investment program. And if you think I'm trusting some earthside mutual fund with the entire savings of a war hero who won't even be able to inquire about the money for another thirty years, you're insane."
"I was thinking that you could turn it over to a computer program."
"You think we didn't think of that? The best investment programs are only two percent better at predicting markets and bringing a positive return on investment than closing your eyes and stabbing the stock listings with a pin."
"You mean with all the computer expertise and all the computer facilities of the Fleet, you can't devise a neutral program to handle Ender's money?"
"Why are you so set on software doing it?"
"Because software doesn't get greedy and try to steal. Even for a noble purpose."
"So what if Peter is using Ender's money - that's what you're worried about, right? - if we suddenly cut it off, won't he notice? Won't that set back his efforts?"
"Ender saved the world. He's entitled to have his full pension, when and if he ever wants it. There are laws to protect child actors. Why not war heroes traveling at lightspeed?"
"Ah," said Graff. "So you are thinking about what will happen when you take off in the scoutship we offered you."
"I don't need you to manage my money. Petra will do it just fine. I want her to have the use of the money."
"Meaning you think you'll never come back."
"You're changing the subject. Software. Managing Ender's investments."
"A semi-autonomous program that - "
"Not semi. Autonomous."
"There are no autonomous programs. Besides which, the stock market is impossible to model. Nothing that depends on crowd behavior can be accurate over time. What computer could possibly deal with it?"
"I don't know," said Bean. "Didn't that mind game you had us play predict human behavior?"
"It's very specialized educational software."
"Come on," said Bean. "It was your shrink. You analyzed the behavior of the kids and - "
"That's right. Listen to yourself. We analyzed."
"But the game also analyzed. It anticipated our moves. When Ender was playing, it took him places the rest of us never saw. But the game was always ahead of him. That was one cool piece of software. Can't you teach it to play Investment Manager?"
Graff looked impatient. "I don't know. What does an ancient piece of software have to do with ... Bean, do you realize how much effort you're asking me to go to in order to protect Ender's pension? I don't even know that it needs protecting."
"But you should know that it doesn't."
"Guilt. You, the conscienceless wonder, are actually using guilt