"Look at Lee," said Graff.

"Which one?" said Shen. "The Chinese or the American?"

"Lee L-E-E the Virginian," said Graff. "When the enemy was on Virginia soil, he won. He took the chances he needed to take. He sent Stonewall Jackson out on a forest path at Chancellorsville, dividing his forces and exposing himself dangerously against Hooker, exactly the sort of reckless commander who could have exploited the opportunity if he'd realized it."

"Hooker was an idiot."

"We say that because he lost," said Graff. "But would he have lost if Lee had not taken the dangerous move he took? My point isn't to re-fight Chancellorsville. My point is—"

"Antietam and Gettysburg," said Bean.

"Exactly. As soon as Lee left Virginia and entered Northern territory, he wasn't hungry anymore. He believed in the cause of defending Virginia, but he did not believe in the cause of slavery, and he knew that's what the war was about. He didn't want to see his state defeated, but he didn't want to see the southern cause win. All unconsciously. He didn't know this about himself. But it was true."

"It had nothing to do with the North's overwhelming force?"

"Lee lost at Antietam against the second stupidest and most timid commander the North had, McClellan. And Meade at Gettysburg wasn't terribly imaginative. Meade saw the high ground and he took it. And what did Lee do? Based on how Lee acted in all his Virginia campaigns, what would you have expected Lee to do?"

"Refuse to fight on that ground," said Fly. "Maneuver. Slide right. Steal a march. Get between Meade and Washington. Find a battlefield where the Unions would have to try to force his position."

"He was low on supplies," said Dink. "And he didn't have the information from his cavalry."

"Excuses," said Vlad. "No excuses in war. Graff is right. Lee didn't act like Lee, once he left Virginia. But that's Lee. What does that have to do with Bean?"

"He thinks," said Bean, "that when I don't believe in a cause, I can be beaten. That I would beat myself. The trouble is that I do believe in the cause. I think Peter Wiggin is a decent man. Ruthless, but I've seen how he uses power, and he doesn't use it to hurt anybody. He really is trying to create a world order that leads to peace. I want him to win. I want him to win quickly. And if any of you think you can stop me."

"We don't have to stop you," said Crazy Tom. "We just have to hold out till you're dead."

Utter silence.

"There it is," said Graff. "There's the whole point of this meeting. Bean only has a little while. So while he lives, the Hegemon is perceived as unbeatable. But the moment he's gone, what then? Dumper or Fly would probably be appointed commander after him, since they're already inside the FPE. But every one of you at this table would feel perfectly free to take on either of them, am I right?"

"Hell, Hyrum" said Dink, "we'd take on Bean."

"And so the world would be torn apart, and the FPE, even if it was victorious, would stand on the bodies of millions of soldiers who died because of your competitive ambition." He looked fiercely around the table.

"Hey," said Fly, "we haven't killed anybody yet. Talk to Hot Soup and Alai about that."

"Look at Alai," said Graff. "It took him two purges to get real control over the Islamic forces, but now he has it, and what has he done? Has he left India? Has he withdrawn from Xinjiang or Tibet? Have the Indonesian Muslims left Taiwan? He remains face to face with Han Tzu. Why is that? It makes no sense. He can't hold India. He couldn't rule over China. But he has Genghis dreams."

"It always comes back to Genghis," said Vlad.

"You all want the world united," said Graff. "But you want to do it yourselves, because you can't stand the thought of anyone else standing on top of the hill."

"Come on," said Dink. "In our hearts we're all Cincinnatus. We can hardly wait to get back to the farm."

They laughed.

"At this table sits fifty years of bloody war," said Graff.

"What about it?" said Dink. "We didn't invent war. We're just good at it."

"War gets invented every time there's somebody so hungry for domination that he can't leave peaceful nations alone. It is precisely people like you that invent war. Even if you have a cause, like Lee did, would the South have struggled on for all those bloody years of Civil War if they hadn't had the firm belief that no matter what happened, 'Marse Robert' would save them? Even if you don't make the decision for war, nations will enter into wars only because they have you!'

"So what's your solution, Hyrum?" said Dink. "You have little-cyanide pills for us all to swallow so we can save the world from ourselves?"

"It wouldn't help," said Vlad. "Even if what you're saying is true, there are other Battle School graduates. Look at Virlomi—she's outmaneuvered everybody."

"She hasn't outmaneuvered Alai yet," said Crazy Tom. "Or Hot Soup."

Vlad insisted on his point. "Look at Suriyawong. That's who Peter will turn to after Bean ... retires. We weren't the only kids at Battle School."

"Ender's Jeesh," said Graff. "You're the ones who saved the world. You're the ones with the magic. And there are hundreds and hundreds of Battle School grads on Earth. Nobody is going to think that just because they happen to have one or two or five, they can conquer the world. Which one of them would it be?"

"So you want to be rid of us all," said Dink. "And that's why you brought us here. We're not leaving here alive, are we?"

"Lighten up, Dink," said Graff. "You can all go home as soon as this meeting is over. ColMin doesn't assassinate people."

"Now, that's an interesting point," said Crazy Tom. "What does ColMin do? It packs people into starships like sardines, and then it sends them off to colony worlds. And they'll never come back, not to the world they left. Fifty years out, fifty years back. The world would have forgotten all of us by then, even if we went to a colony and came right home. Which of course he wouldn't let us do."

"So this isn't an assassination," said Dink, "it's another damn kidnapping."

"It's an offer," said Rackham, "which you can accept or decline."

"I decline," said Dink.

"Hear the offer," said Rackham.

"Hear this," said Dink, with a gesture.

"I offer you command of a colony. Each one of you. No rivals. We don't know of any enemy armies for you to face, but there will be worlds full of danger and uncertainty, and your abilities will be highly adaptable. People will follow you—people older than you—partly because you are Ender's Jeesh, and partly because—mostly because—of your own abilities. They'll see how quickly to grasp important information, rank it by priority, foresee consequences, and make correct decisions. You'll be the founders of new human worlds."

Crazy Tom put on a babytalk voice. "Wiw dey name da pwanets aftew us?"

"Don't be such a dullbob," said Carn.

"Sowwy."

"Look, gents," said Graff. "We saw what happened to the Hive Queens. They bunched up on one planet and they got wiped out in a single blow. Any weapon we can invent, an enemy can also invent and use against us."

"Come on," said Dink. "The Hive Queens spread out and colonized as many planets as you're colonizing—in fact, all you're doing is sending ships to colonize the worlds they already settled because they're the only ones you know about that have an atmosphere we can breathe and flora and fauna we can eat."

"Actually, we're taking our own flora and fauna with us," said Graff.

"Dink's right," said Shen. "Dispersal didn't work for the Hive Queens."

"Because they didn't disperse," said Graff. "They had Buggers on all the planets, but when you boys blew up their home world, all the Hive Queens were there. They put all their eggs in one basket. We're not going to do that. Partly because the human race isn't just a handful of queens and a whole bunch of workers and drones, every damn one of us is a Hive Queen and has the seeds of recapitulating the whole of human history. So dispersing humanity will work."