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

by Orson Scott Card

  Bean knew that Alai knew that the only friend worth mentioning was Vlad, and Vlad had been the only one of the kidnapped members of Ender’s jeesh to join with Achilles and take his side. Whether that had been because he had truly become a follower of Achilles or because he thought Achilles was acting in the interest of Mother Russia, Bean still had not figured out. Vlad provided him with information sometimes, but Bean always looked for a second source before he fully trusted it.

  “Then I will tell you this,” said Alai. “Today I don’t know what would be more useful, for Russia to join in the attack or for Russia to stand by doing nothing. As long as they don’t attack us, I’ll be content. But as events unfold, the picture may become clearer.”

  Bean did not need to point out to Alai that Russia would not enter the war to rescue a failing Muslim invasion-only if the Russians scented victory would they put their own forces at risk. So if Alai waited too long to ask for help, it would not come.

  They took a break for the noon meal, but it was very brief, and when they returned to the conference room, the map had changed. There was a third part of the plan, and Bean knew that this was the one that Alai was least certain about.

  For months now, Arab armies from Egypt, Iraq, and every other Arab nation had been transported on oil tankers from Arab ports to Indonesia. The Indonesian navy was one of the most formidable in the world, and its carrier-based air force was the only one in the region that rivalled the Chinese in equipment and armament. Everyone knew that it was because of the Indonesian umbrella that the Chinese had not taken Singapore or ventured into the Philippines.

  Now it was proposed that the Indonesian navy be used to transport a combined Arab-Indonesian army to effect a landing in Thailand or Vietnam. Both nations were filled with people who longed for deliverance from the Chinese conquerors.

  When the plans for the two possible landing sites had been fully laid out, Alai did not ask for criticisms-he had his own. “I think in both cases, our plans for the landing are excellent. My misgiving is the same one I’ve had all along. There is no serious military objective there to be achieved. The Chinese can afford to lose battle after battle there, using only their available forces, retreating farther and farther, while waiting to see the outcome of the real war. I think the soldiers we sent there would risk dying for no good purpose. It’s too much like the Italian campaign in World War II. Long, slow, costly, and ineffective, even if we win every battle.”

  The Indonesian commander bowed his head. “I am grateful for the Caliph’s concern for the lives of our soldiers. But the Muslims of Indonesia could not bear to stand by while their brothers fight. If these objectives are meaningless, find us something meaningful to do.”

  One of the Arab officers added his agreement. “We’ve committed our troops to this operation. Is it too late, then, to bring them back and let them join with the Pakistanis and Iranians in the liberation of India? Their numbers might make a crucial difference there.”

  “The time draws close for the weather to be at its best for our purposes,” said Alai. “There’s no time to bring back the Arab armies. But I can see no value in sending soldiers into battle for no better reason than solidarity, or delaying the invasion in order to bring the Arab armies into a different theatre of war. If it was a mistake to send them to Indonesia, the mistake is my own.

  They murmured their disagreement. They could not agree with blaming the Caliph for any mistakes. At the same time, Bean knew that they appreciated knowing they were led by a man who did not blame others. It was part of the reason they loved him.

  Alai spoke over their objections. “I have not decided yet whether to launch the third front. But if we do launch it, then the objective we should plan for is Thailand, not Vietnam. I realise the risks of leaving the fleet exposed for a longer time at sea-we will have to count on the Indonesian pilots to protect their ships. I choose Thailand because it is a more coherent country, with terrain more suitable for a swift conquest. In Vietnam, we would have to fight for every inch of territory, and our progress would look slow on the map-the Chinese would feel safe. In Thailand, our progress will look very quick and dangerous. As long as they forget that Thailand is not important to them in the overall war, it might cause them to send troops there to oppose us.

  After a few more niceties, the meeting ended. One thing that no one mentioned was the actual date of the invasion. Bean was sure that one had been chosen and that everyone in the room but him knew what it was. He accepted that-it was the one piece of information which he had no need to know, and the most crucial one to withhold from him if he could not be trusted after all.

  Back in their room, Bean found Petra asleep. He sat down and used his desk to access his email and check a few sites on the nets. He was interrupted by a light knock on the door. Petra was instantly awake-pregnant or not, she still slept like a soldier-and she was at the door before Bean could shut down his connection and step away from the table.

  Lankowski stood there, looking apologetic and regal, a combination that only he could have mastered. “If you will forgive me,” he said, “our mutual friend wishes to speak with you in the garden.”

  “Both of us?” asked Petra.

  “Please, unless you are too ill.”

  Soon they were seated on the bench beside Alai’s garden throne- though of course he never called it that, referring to it only as a chair.

  “I’m sorry, Petra, that I couldn’t bring you into the meeting. Our Crescent League is not recidivist, but it would make some of them too uncomfortable to have a woman present at such meetings.”

  “Alai, do you think I don’t know that?” she said. “You have to deal with the culture around you.”

  “I assume that Bean has acquainted you with our plans?”

  “I was asleep when he returned to the room,” said Petra, “so anything that’s changed since last time, I don’t know.”

  “I’m sorry, then, but perhaps you can pick up what’s happening from the context. Because I know Bean has something to say and he didn’t say it yet.”

  “I saw no flaw in your plans,” said Bean. “I think you’ve done everything that could possibly be done, including being smart enough not to think you can plan what will happen once battle has been joined in India.”

  “But such praise is not what I saw on your face,” said Alai.

  “I didn’t think my face was readable,” said Bean.

  “It isn’t,” said Alai. “That’s why I’m asking you.”

  “We’ve received an offer that I think you’ll be glad of,” said Bean.

  “From?”

  “I don’t know if you ever knew Virlomi,” said Bean.

  “Battle School?”

  “Yes.”

  “Before my time, I think. I was a young boy and paid no attention to girls anyway.” He smiled at Petra.

  “Weren’t we all,” said Bean. “Virlomi was the one who made it possible for me and Suriyawong to retrieve Petra from Hyderabad and save the Indian Battle School graduates from being slaughtered by Achilles.”

  “She has my admiration, then,” said Alai.

  “She’s back in India. All that building of stone obstacles, the so called Great Wall of India-apparently she’s the one who started that.”

  Now Alai’s interest looked like more than mere politeness.

  “Peter received a message from her. She has no idea about you and what you’re doing, and neither does Peter, but she sent the message in language that he couldn’t understand without conferring with me-a very careful and wise thing for her to do, I think.”

  They exchanged smiles.

  “She is in place in the area of a bridge spanning one of the roads between India and Burma. She may be able to disrupt one, many, or even all of the major roads leading between India and China.”

  Alai nodded.

  “It would be a disaster, of course.” said Bean, “if she acted on her own and cut the roads before the Chinese are able to move any troops out o
f India. In other words, if she thinks the real invasion is the Turkish one, then she might think her most helpful role would he to keep Chinese troops in India. Ideally, what she would do is wait until they start trying to move troops hack into India, and then cut the roads, keeping them out.”

  “But if we tell her,” said Alai, “and the message is... intercepted, then the Chinese will know that the Turkic operation is not the main effort.”

  “Well, that’s why I didn’t want to bring this up in front of the others. I can tell you that I believe communication between her and Peter, and between Peter and me, is secure. I believe that Peter is desperate for your invasion to succeed, and Virlomi will be too, and they will not tell anyone anything that would compromise it. But it’s your call.”

  “Peter is desperate for our invasion to succeed?” asked Alai.

  “Alai, the man’s not stupid. I didn’t have to tell him about your plans or even that you had plans. He knows that you’re here, in seclusion, and he has satellite reports of the troop movements to the Indian frontier. He hasn’t discussed it with me, but I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he also knew about the Arab presence in Indonesia- that’s the kind of thing he always finds out about because he has contacts everywhere.”

  “Sorry to suspect you,” said Alai, “but I’d be remiss if I didn’t.”

  “Think about Virlomi, anyway.” said Bean. “It would be tragic if, in her effort to help, she actually hindered your plan.”

  “But that’s not all you wanted to say,” said Alai.

  “No,” said Bean, and he hesitated.

  “Go on.”

  “Your reason for not wanting to open the third front was a sound one,” said Bean. “Not wanting to waste lives taking militarily unimportant objectives.”

  “So you think I shouldn’t use that force at all,” said Alai.

  “No,” said Bean. “I think you need to be bolder with them. I think you need to waste more lives on an even more spectacular non-military objective.”

  Alai turned away. “I was afraid you’d see that.”

  “I was sure you’d already thought of it.”

  “I was hoping one of the Arabs or the Indonesians themselves would propose it,” said Alai.

  “Propose what?” asked Petra.

  “The military goal,” said Bean, “is to destroy their armies, which is done by attacking them with superior force, achieving surprise, and cutting off their supply and escape routes. Nothing you do with the third front can achieve any of those objectives.”

  “I know,” said Alai.

  “China isn’t a democracy. The government doesn’t have to win elections. But they need the support of their people all the more because of that.”

  Petra sighed her understanding. “Invade China itself.”

  “There is no hope of success in such an invasion,” said Alai. “On the other fronts, we will have a citizenry that welcomes us and cooperates with us, while obstructing them. In China, the opposite would be true. Their air force would be working from nearby airfields and could fly sortie after sortie between each wave of our planes. The potential for disaster would be very great.”

  “Plan for disaster.” said Bean. “Begin with disaster.”

  “You’re too subtle for me,” said Alai.

  “What’s disaster in this case? Besides actually getting stopped at the beach-not likely, since China has one of the most inevasible shorelines in the world-a disaster is for your force to be dispersed, cut off from supply, and operating without coordinating central control.”

  “Land them,” said Alai, “and have them immediately begin a guerrilla campaign? But they won’t have the support of the people.”

  “I thought about this a lot,” said Bean. “The Chinese people are used to oppression-when have they not been oppressed?-but they’ve never become reconciled to it. Think how many peasant revolts there’ve been-and against governments far more benign than this one. Now, if your soldiers go into China like Sherman’s march to the sea, they’ll be opposed at every step.”

  “But they have to live off the land, if they’re cut off from supply.” said Alai.

  “Strictly disciplined troops can make this work.” said Bean. “But this will be hard for the Indonesians, given the way the Chinese have always been regarded within Indonesia itself.”

  “Trust me to control my troops.”

  “Then here’s what they do. In every village they come to, they take half the food-but only half. They make a big point of leaving the rest, and you tell them it’s because Allah did not send you to make war against the Chinese people. If you had to kill anybody to get control of the village, apologise to the family or to the whole village, if it was a soldier who died. Be the nicest invaders they’ve ever imagined.”

  “Oh,” said Alai. “That’s asking a lot, from mere discipline.”

  Petra was getting the vision of this. ”Maybe if you quote to your soldiers that passage from The Elevated Places, where it says, ‘Maybe your Lord will destroy your enemy and make you rulers in the land. Then He will see how you act.’”

  Alai looked at her in genuine consternation. “You quote the Q’uran to me?”

  “I thought the verse was appropriate,” she said. “Isn’t that why you had them put it in my room? So I’d read it?”

  Alai shook his head. “Lankowski gave you the Q’uran.”

  “And she read it,” added Bean. “We’re both surprised.”

  “It’s a good passage to use,” said Alai. “Maybe God will make us rulers in China. Let’s show from the start that we can do it justly and righteously.”

  “The best part of the plan.” said Bean, “is that the Chinese soldiers will come right afterward, and fearing that their own armies will be left without supplies, or in the effort to deprive your army of further provender, they will probably seize all the rest of the food.”

  Alai nodded, smiled, then laughed. “Our invading army leaves the Chinese people enough to eat, but the Chinese army makes them starve.”

  “The likelihood of a public relations victory is very high,” said Bean.

  “And meanwhile,” said Petra, “the Chinese soldiers in India and Xinjiang are going crazy because they don’t know what’s going on with their families back home.”

  “The invasion fleet doesn’t mass for the attack,” said Bean. “It’s done in Filipino and Indonesian fishing boats, small forces up and down the coast. The Indonesian fleet, with its carriers, waits far offshore, until they’re called in on air strikes against identified military targets. Every time they try to find your army, you melt away. No pitched battles. At first the people will help them; soon enough, the people will help you. You resupply with ammunition and demolition equipment by air drops at night. Food they find for themselves. And all the time they move farther and farther inland, destroying communications, blowing up bridges. No dams, though. Leave the dams alone.”

  “Of course,” said Alai darkly. “We remember Aswan.”

  “Anyway, that was my suggestion.” said Bean. “Militarily, it does nothing for you during the first weeks. The attrition rate will be high at first, until the teams get in from the coast and get used to this kind of combat. But if even a quarter of your contingents are able to remain free and effective, operating inside China, it will force the Chinese to bring more and more troops home from the Indian front.”

  “Until they sue for peace,” said Alai. “We don’t actually want to rule over China. We want to liberate India and Indochina, bring back all the captives taken into China, and restore the rightful governments, but with a treaty allowing complete privileges to Muslims within their borders.”