Card, Orson Scott - Ender's Saga 7 - Shadow Puppets

by Orson Scott Card

  “Oh,” said Peter. “Of course they ran a press conference opposite mine.”

  “But almost everybody carried yours live and his was just excerpted. And they all followed the Ferreira clip with a repeat of you announcing that you were posting the Hegemony financial records on the nets.”

  “Bet we crash the server.”

  “No, all the news organisations cloned it first thing.”

  Father had finished signing off on the meal and the waiter was gone, the door relocked.

  “Let’s eat,” said Father “If I recall, this place always has great lunches.”

  “It’s good to be home,” said Mother “Well, not home, but in town, anyway.

  Peter took a bite and it was good.

  They had ordered exactly the sandwich he would have ordered, that’s how well they knew him. Their lives really were focused on their children. He couldn’t have ordered their sandwiches. Three place settings on the little rolling cart the waiter had wheeled in. There should have been five. “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “For what?” asked Father, his mouth full.

  “That I’m the only kid you’ve got on Earth.”

  “Could be worse,” said Father “Could have been none.” And Mother reached over and patted his hand.

  CHAPTER 13 — CALIPH

  From: Graff%pilgrimage@colmin.gov

  To: Locke%erasmus@polnet.gov

  Re: The better part of valour

  I know you don’t want to hear from me. But given that you are no longer in a secure situation, and our mutual foe is playing again on the world stage, I offer you and your parents sanctuary. I am not suggesting that you go into the colony program. Quite the contrary-I regard you as the only hope of rallying worldwide opposition to our foe. That is why your physical protection is of the utmost importance to us.

  For that reason, I have been authorised to invite you to a facility off planet for a few days, a few weeks, a few months. It has full connections to the nets and you will be returned to Earth within forty-eight hours of your request. No one will even know you are gone. But it will put you out of reach of any attempt either to kill or capture you or your parents.

  Please take this seriously. Now that we know our enemy has not severed his connections with his previous host, certain intelligence already obtained now makes a different kind of sense. Our best interpretation of this data is that an attempt on your life is imminent.

  A temporary disappearance from the surface of the Earth would be very useful to you right now. Think of it as the equivalent of Lincoln’s secret journey through Baltimore in order to assume the presidency. Or, if you prefer a less lofty precedent, Lenin’s journey to Russia in a sealed railroad car.

  Petra assumed that she had been taken to Damascus because Ambul had succeeded in making contact with Alai, but neither of them met her at the airport. Nor was there anyone waiting for her at the security gates. Not that she wanted someone carrying a sign that said “Petra Arkanian”-she might as well send Achilles an email telling him where she was.

  She had felt nauseated through the entire flight, but she knew it could not possibly be from pregnancy, not this quickly. It took at least a few hours for the hormones to start to flow, It had to be the stark fear that started when she realised that if Alai’s people could find exactly where she was, and have a cab waiting for her, so could Achilles’s.

  How did Bean know to choose the cab he chose for her? Was it some predilection for Indonesians? Did he reason from evidence she didn’t even notice? Or did he choose the third cab simply because he didn’t trust the concept of “next in line”?

  What cab had he got into, and who was driving it?

  Someone bumped into her from behind, and for a moment she had a rush of adrenaline as she thought: This is it! I’m being killed by an assassin who approached me from behind because I was too stupid to look around!

  After the momentary panic-and the momentary self-blame-she realised that of course it was not an assassin, it was simply a passenger from her flight, hurrying to get out of the airport, while she, uncertain and lost in her own thoughts, had been walking too slowly and obstructing traffic.

  I’ll go to a hotel, she thought. But not one that Europeans always go to. But wait, if I go to a hotel where everybody but me is Arab looking, I’ll stand out. Too obvious. Bean would tease me for not having developed any useful survival habits. Though at least I thought twice before checking into an Arab hotel.

  The only luggage she had was the bag she was carrying over her shoulder, and at customs she went through the usual questions. “This is all your luggage?” “Yes.” “How long do you plan to stay?” “A couple of weeks, I expect.” “Two weeks, and no more clothing than this?” “I plan to shop.”

  It always aroused suspicions to enter a country with too little luggage, but as Bean said, it’s better to have a few more questions at customs or passport control than to have to go to the baggage claim area and stand round where bad people have plenty of time to find you.

  The only thing worse, in Bean’s view, was to use the first restroom in the airline terminal. “Everybody knows women have to pee incessantly,” said Bean.

  “Actually, it’s not incessant, and most men don’t notice even if it is,” said Petra. But considering that Bean seemed never to need to pee at all, she supposed that her normal human needs seemed excessive to him.

  She was well trained now, however. She didn’t even glance at the first restroom she passed, or the second. She probably wouldn’t use a bathroom until she got to her hotel room.

  Bean, when are you coming? Did they get you onto the next flight? How will we find each other in this city?

  She knew he would be furious, however, if she lingered in the airport hoping to meet his flight. For one thing, she would have no idea where his flight would be coming from-he was wont to choose very odd itineraries, so that he could very easily be on a flight from Cairo, Moscow, Algiers, Rome, or Jerusalem. No, it was better to go to a hotel, check in under an alias that he knew about, and- “Mrs. Delphiki?”

  She turned at once at the sound of Bean’s mother’s name, and then realised that the tall, white-haired gentleman was addressing her.

  “Yes.” She laughed. “I’m still not used to the idea of being called by my husband’s name.”

  “Forgive me,” said the man. “Do you prefer your birth name?”

  “I haven’t used my own name in many months,” said Petra. “Who sent you to meet me?”

  “Your host,” said the man.

  “I have had many hosts in my life,” said Petra. “Some of whom I do not wish to visit again.”’

  “But such people as that would not live in Damascus.” There was a twinkle in his eye. Then he leaned in close. “There are names that it is not good to say aloud.”

  “Mine apparently not being one of them,” she said with a smile.

  “In this time and place,” he said, “you are safe while others might not be.”

  “I’m safe because you’re with me?”

  “You are safe because I and my. . . what is your Battle School slang?.. . my jeesh and I are here watching over you.”

  “I didn’t see anybody watching over me.”

  “You didn’t even see me,” said the man. “This is because we’re very good at what we do.”

  “I did see you. I just didn’t realise you had taken any notice of me.

  “As I said.”

  She smiled. “Very well, I will not name our host. And since you won’t either, I’m afraid I can’t go with you anywhere.”

  “Oh, so suspicious,” he said with a rueful smile. “Very well, then. Perhaps I can facilitate matters by placing you under arrest.” He showed her a very official-looking badge inside a wallet. Though she had no idea what organisation had issued the badge, since she had never learned the Arabic alphabet, let alone the language itself.

  But Bean had taught her: Listen to your fear, and listen to your trust. She trusted this man,
and so she believed his badge without being able to read it. “So you’re with Syrian law enforcement,” she said.

  “As often as not,” he replied, smiling again as he put his wallet away.

  “Let’s walk outside,” she said.

  “Let’s not,” he said. “Let’s go into a little room here at the airport.”

  “A toilet stall?” she asked. “Or an interrogation room?”

  “My office,” he said.

  If it was an office, it was certainly well disguised. They got to it by stepping behind the El Al ticket counter and going into the employees’ back room.

  “El Al?” she asked. “You’re Israeli?”

  “Israel and Syria are very close friends for the past hundred years. You should keep up on your history.”

  They walked down a corridor lined with employee lockers, a drinking fountain, and a couple of restroom doors.

  “I didn’t think the friendship was close enough to allow Syrian law enforcement to use Israel’s national airline,” said Petra.

  “I lied about being with Syrian law enforcement,” he said.

  “And did they lie out front about being El Al?”

  He palmed open an unmarked door, but when she made as if to follow him through it, he shook his head. “No no, first you must place the palm of your hand..

  She complied, but wondered how they could possibly have her palm print and sweat signature here in Syria.

  No. They didn’t, of course. They were getting them right now, so that wherever else she went, she would be recognised by their computer security systems.

  The door led to a stairway that went down.

  And farther down, and farther yet, until they had to be well underground.

  “I don’t think this complies with international handicapped access regulations,” said Petra.

  “What the regulators don’t see won’t hurt us,” said the man.

  “A theory that has gotten so many people into so much trouble,” said Petra.

  They came to an underground tunnel, where a small electric car was waiting for them. No driver. Apparently her companion was going to drive.

  Not so. He got into the back seat beside her, and the car took off by itself.

  “Let me guess,” said Petra. “You don’t take most of your VIPs through the El Al ticket counter.”

  “There are other ways to get to this little street,” said the man. “But the people looking for you would not have staked out El Al.”

  “You’d be surprised at how often my enemy is two steps ahead.”

  “But what if your friends are three steps ahead?” Then he laughed as if it had been a joke, and not a boast.

  “We’re alone in a car,” said Petra. “Let’s have some names now.

  “I am Ivan Lankowski,” he said.

  She laughed in spite of herself. But when he did not smile, she stopped. “I’m sorry,” she said. “You don’t look Russian, and this is Damascus.”

  “My paternal grandfather was ethnic Russian, my grandmother was ethnic Kazakh, both were Muslims. My mother’s parents are still living, thanks be to Allah, and they are both Jordanian.”

  “And you never changed the name?”

  “It is the heart that makes the Muslim. The heart and the life. My name contains part of my genealogy. Since Allah willed me to be born in this family, who am I to try to deny his gift?”

  “Ivan Lankowski,” said Petra. “The name I’d like to hear is the name of the one who sent you.”

  “One’s superior officer is never named. It is a basic rule. of security.”

  Petra sighed. “I suppose this proves I’m not in Kansas any more.”

  “I don’t believe,” said Lankowski, “that you have ever been in Kansas, Mrs. Delphiki.”

  “It was a reference to-”

  “I have seen The Wizard of Oz,” said Lankowski. “I am, after all, an educated man. And... I have been in Kansas.”

  “Then you have found wisdom I can only dream of.”

  He chuckled. “It is an unforgettable place. Just like Jordan was right after the Ice Age, covered with tall grasses, stretching forever in every direction, with the sky everywhere, instead of being confined to a small patch above the trees.”

  “You are a poet,” said Petra. “And also a very old man, to remember the Ice Age.”

  “The Ice Age was my father’s time. I only remember the rainy times right after it.”

  “I had no idea there were tunnels under Damascus.”

  “In our wars with the west,” said Lankowski, “we learned to bury everything that we did not want blown up. Individually-targeted bombs were first tested on Arabs, did you know that? The archives are full of pictures of exploding Arabs.”

  “I’ve seen some of the pictures,” said Petra. “I also recall that during those wars, some of the individuals targeted themselves by strapping on their own bombs and blowing them up in public places.”

  “Yes, we did not have guided missiles, but we did have feet.”

  “And the bitterness remains?”

  “No, no bitterness,” said Lankowski. “We once ruled the known world, from Spain to India. Muslims ruled in Moscow. and our soldiers reached into France, and to the gates of Vienna. Our dogs were better educated than the scholars of the West. Then one day we woke up and we were poor and ignorant, and somebody else had all the guns. We knew this could not be the will of Allah, so we fought.”

  “And discovered that the will of Allah was . . . 7”

  “The will of Allah was for many of our people to die, and for the West to occupy our countries again and again until we stopped fighting. We learned our lesson. We are very well behaved now. We abide by all the treaty terms. We have freedom of the press, freedom of religion, liberated women, and democratic elections.”

  “And tunnels under Damascus.”

  “And memories.” He smiled at her “And cars without drivers.”

  “Israeli technology, I believe.”

  “For a long time we thought of Israel as the enemy’s toehold in our holy land. Then one day we remembered that Israel was a member of our family who had gone away into exile, learned everything our enemies knew, and then came home again. We stopped fighting our brother, and our brother gave us all the gifts of the West, but without destroying our souls. How sad it would have been if we had killed all the Jews and driven them out. Who would have taught us then? The Armenians?”

  She laughed at his joke, but also listened to his lecture. So this was how they lived with their history-they assigned meanings to everything that allowed them to see God’s hand in everything. Purpose. Even power and hope.

  But they also still remembered that Muslims had once ruled the world. And they still regarded democracy as something they adopted in order to placate the West.

  I really should read the Q’uran. she thought. To see what lies underneath the façade of western-style sophistication.

  This man was sent to meet me, she thought, because this is the face they want visitors to Syria to see. He told me these stories, because this is the attitude they want me to believe that they have.