It was entertaining for Valentine to see how the men and boys who were cast in the many other parts focused on Dorabella. The woman had an incredible laugh, rich and throaty and contagious. To earn a laugh from her in this comedy was a fine thing, and the men all vied to please her. It made Valentine wonder if getting Ender and Alessandra together was really Dorabella's agenda? Perhaps it's what she thought she was doing, but in fact Dorabella held the center of the stage herself, and seemed to love having all eyes on her. She flirted with them all, fell in love with them all, and yet always seemed to be in a world of her own, too.

Has Kate the Shrew ever been played like this before?

Does every woman have what this Dorabella has? Valentine searched in her heart to find that kind of ebullience. I know how to have fun, Valentine insisted to herself. I know how to be playful.

But she knew there was always irony in her wit, a kind of snottiness in her banter. Alessandra's timidity covered everything she did — she was bold in what she said, but it was as if her own words surprised and embarrassed her after the fact. Dorabella, however, was neither ironic nor frightened. Here was a woman who had faced all her dragons and slain them; now she was ready for the accolades of the admiring throng. She cried out Kate's dialogue from the heart, her rage, her passion, her petulance, her frustration, and finally her love. The final monologue, in which she submits to her husband's will, was so beautiful it made Valentine cry a little, and she thought: I wonder what it would be like to love and trust a man so much that I'd be willing to abase myself as Kate did. Is there something in women that makes us long to be humbled? Or is it something in human beings, that when we are overmastered, we rejoice in our subjection? That would explain a lot of history.

Since everyone who was interested in the play was already in it, and attending the rehearsals, it wasn't as if the actual performance was going to surprise anyone. Valentine almost asked the whole group, at the last rehearsal, "Why bother to put it on? We just did it, and it was wonderful."

But there was still a kind of excitement throughout the ship about the coming performance, and Valentine realized that rehearsal was not performance, no matter how well it went. And there would be others there after all, who had not been at the last rehearsal: Dorabella was going around inviting members of the crew, many of whom promised to come. And passengers who weren't in the play seemed excited about coming, and some were openly rueful about having declined to take part. "Next time," they said.

When they got to the theater at the appointed time, they found Jarrko standing at the door, a stiff, formal expression on his face. No, the theater would not be opened; by order of the admiral, the play reading had been canceled.

"Ah, Governor Wiggin," said Jarrko.

A bad sign, if the title was back, thought Valentine.

"Admiral Morgan would like to see you at once, if you please, sir."

Ender nodded and smiled. "Of course," he said.

So Ender had expected this? Or was he really that perfectly poised, so it seemed that nothing surprised him?

Valentine started to go with him, but Jarrko touched her shoulder. "Please, Val," he whispered. "Alone."

Ender grinned at her and took off with real bounce in his step, as if he was truly excited to be going to see the admiral.

"What's this about?" Valentine asked Jarrko quietly.

"I can't say," he said. "Truly. Just have my orders. No play, theater closed for the night, would the governor please come see the admiral immediately."

So Valentine stayed with Jarrko, helping soothe the players and other colonists, whose reactions ranged from disappointment to outrage to revolutionary fervor. Some of them even started reciting lines there in the corridor, until Valentine asked them not to. "Poor Colonel Kitunen will be in trouble if you keep this up, and he's too nice to stop you himself."

The result was that everyone was quite angry with Admiral Morgan for his arbitrary cancellation of a completely harmless event. And Valentine herself couldn't help but wonder: What was the man thinking? Hadn't he ever heard of morale? Maybe he'd heard of it, but was against it.

Something was going on here, and Valentine began to wonder if somehow Ender was behind it. Could it be that in his own way, Ender was just as sneaky and snaky as Peter?

No. Not possible. Especially because Valentine could always see through Peter. Ender wasn't devious at all. He always said what he meant and meant what he said.

What is the boy doing?

To: demosthenes@LastBestHopeOfEarth.pol

From: PeterWiggin@hegemony.gov/hegemon

Re: While you were out

I had one of my staff run a set of calculations about how long it has been for you since you began your relativistic voyage into the future. At best he could give me only a range of possible subjective durations — a few weeks, anyway. For me, a couple of years. So I am fairly safe in saying that I miss you a great deal more than you miss me. At present you probably still think that you will never miss me at all. The world is full of people who are convinced of the same thing. They vaguely remember that I was elected to the office of Hegemon. They just can't remember what that office does. They think my name is Locke when they think of me at all.

Yet I am at war. My force is tiny, commanded by — of all people — Ender's old friend Bean. The other children from Ender's jeesh — Battle School slang for "army," but it's caught on here and that's what they're called — were all kidnapped by the Russians, inspired by a conniving little bastard named Achilles, who was kicked out of Battle School. It appears that Achilles chose his main enemy better than Bonito de Madrid did — it was Bean who confronted him in a dark air vent, or so the story goes, and instead of killing him, turned him over to the authorities. Have you ever heard that tale? Did Ender know about it when it happened? Achilles is Hitler with stealth, Stalin with brains, Mao with energy, Pol Pot with subtlety — name your monster, and Achilles has all the inconvenient virtues to make him very hard to stop and even harder to kill. Bean swears he will do it, but he had the chance before and blew it, so I'm skeptical.

I wish you were here.

More than that, I actually wish Ender were here. I'm waging war with the help of an army of a few hundred men — very loyal, brilliantly trained, but only two hundred of them! Bean is not the most reliable of commanders. He always wins, but he doesn't always do what he's told or go where I want him to. He picks and chooses among his assignments. To his credit, he doesn't argue with me in front of his (supposedly "my") men.

The trouble is that these Battle School kids are all so cynical. They don't believe in anything. Certainly they don't believe in ME. Just because Achilles keeps trying to assassinate Bean and has all the Battle School kids terrified, they think they don't owe Ender Wiggin's big brother their lifelong personal service. (That was a joke. They owe me nothing.)

Wars here and there around the world, shifting alliances — it's what I predicted would happen after the Battle School kids came home. They're such excellent weapons — potentially devastating, but no fallout, no mushroom clouds. Somehow, though, I always saw myself riding the crest of the wave. Now I find myself sucked down to the bottom of the wave so I can barely tell which way is up and I'm constantly running out of air. I get to the top, gasp, and then a new wave crashes me back down.

A few privileges inhere to this office, for the time being, anyway. Minister of Colonization Graff tells me I have unlimited access to the ansible — I can talk to you whenever I want. Congratulate me for not abusing it. I know you're writing a history of Battle School, and I thought you could use some information about the careers of the more prominent Battle School grads, for an epilogue, perhaps. Ender's jeesh fought the formics and won; but all the others are now involved, one way or another, as captives or servants or leaders or figureheads or victims, in the military planning and action of every nation lucky enough to have a single graduate and strong enough to hold on to him.