Virlomi answered them in fluent Telugu — she had learned it because she could not have fully united India if she spoke only Hindi and English — and told them that she would do what the colonists allowed her to do.

It was the first test of her leadership. She went among the people and asked them, dormitory by dormitory, whether they would accept naming the village they would build in the new world "Andhra," after the province whose capital was Hyderabad.

Everyone agreed with her proposal instantly. The world would be named Ganges, but the first village would be Andhra.

"Our language must be Common," she said. "This breaks my heart, to submerge the beautiful languages of India, but we must all be able to speak to each other with one voice, one language. Your children must learn Common in their homes, as the first language. You may also teach them Hindi or Telugu or any other language, but Common first."

"The language of the Raj," said one old man. Immediately the other colonists shouted at him to be respectful to Virlomi.

But Virlomi only laughed. "Yes," she said. "The language of the Raj. Conquered once by the British, and again by the Hegemony. But it is the language we all have in common. We of India because the British ruled us for so long, and then we did so much business with America; the non-Indians because it is a requirement to speak Common or you cannot come on this voyage."

The old man laughed with her. "So you remember," he said. "We have a longer history with this so-called 'Common' than anyone but the English and the Americans themselves."

"We have always been able to learn the languages of our conquerors and then make them our own. Our literature becomes their literature, and theirs becomes ours. We speak it our own way, and think our own thoughts behind their words. We are who we are. Nothing changes."

This was how she spoke to the Indian colonists. But there were others, about a fifth of the colonists, who were not from India. Some had chosen her because she was famous, and her struggle for freedom had captured their imagination. She was the creator of the Great Wall of India, after all, and so they thought of her as a celebrity and sought after her for that reason.

But there were others who were assigned to Ganges Colony by the luck of the draw. It was Graff's decision, to allow no more than four-fifths of the colonists to come from India. His memo had been concise: "There may come a day when colonies can be founded by one group alone. But the law of these first colonies is that all humans are equal citizens. We are taking a risk letting you have so many Indians. Only the political realities in India made me bend from the normal policy of no more than one-fifth from any one nation. As it is, we have now demands from Kenyans and Darfurians and Kurds and Quechua speakers and Mayans and other groups that feel the need for a homeland that is exclusively their own. Since we're giving one to Virlomi's Indians, why not to them? Do they need to fight a bloody war in order to. etc., etc. That is why I have to be able to point to the twenty percent who are not Indian, and why I need to know that you will in fact make them equal citizens."

Yes, yes, Colonel Graff, you will have it all your way. Even after we arrive on Ganges and you are lightyears away and can no longer influence what we do, I will keep my word to you and encourage intermarriage and equal treatment and will insist on English — pardon me, Common — as the language of all.

But despite my best efforts, the twenty percent will be swallowed up. In six generations, five generations, three perhaps, visitors will come to Ganges and find blond and redheaded Indians, freckled white skins and ebony black skins, African faces and Chinese faces and yet they will all say, "I am Indian," and treat you with scorn if you insist that they are not.

Indian culture is too strong for anyone to control. I ruled India by bowing to Indian ways, by fulfilling Indian dreams. Now I will lead Ganges Colony — the village of Andhra — by teaching the Indians to pretend to be tolerant of the others, even as they befriend them and bring them inside our ways. They will soon realize that on this strange new world, we Indians will be the natives, and the others the interlopers, until they "go native" and become part of us. It can't be helped. This is human nature combined with Indian stubbornness and patience.

Still, Virlomi made it a point of reaching out to the non-Indians here in Battle School — here on the Way Station.

They accepted her well enough. Now her fluency in Battle School Common and its slang stood her in good stead. After the war, Battle School slang had caught on with children all over the world, and she was fluent in it. It intrigued the children and young people, and amused the adults. It made her more approachable to them, not so much of a celebrity.

In the barracks — no, the dormitory — that used to be for newly arrived students — launchies, as they were called — there was one woman with a babe in arms who remained steadfastly aloof. Virlomi was content with that — she didn't have to be everyone's favorite person — but soon it became clear, as she visited that barracks more and more, that Nichelle Firth was not just shy or aloof, she was actively hostile.

Virlomi became fascinated by her and tried to find out more about her. But the biography in her file was so sparse that it made Virlomi suspect it was bogus; there were several like that, belonging to people who were joining the colony specifically to leave all their past, even their identity, behind them.

There was no talking to the woman directly, however. Her face became a pleasant blank and she answered succinctly or not at all; when she chose not to answer, she smiled with a set jaw, so that despite the toothy grin Virlomi was aware of the anger behind it. She did not push the matter further.

But she did watch for Nichelle's reactions to things Virlomi and others said when Nichelle was within earshot, but not part of the group. What seemed to set her off, what made her huffy in her body language, was any mention of the Hegemony or Peter Wiggin or the wars on Earth or the Free People of Earth or the Ministry of Colonization. Also the names of Ender Wiggin, Graff, Suriyawong, and, above all, Julian Delphiki — «Bean» — seemed to make her hold tightly to her baby and start to whisper some sort of incantation to the child.

Virlomi introduced some of these names herself, as a test. Nichelle Firth was certainly not someone who had taken part in the war in any way — her picture got no response from Peter's staff when she sent an inquiry. Yet she seemed to take the events of recent history quite personally.

Only toward the end of the preparation period did it occur to her to try one other name. She worked it into a conversation with a pair of Belgians, but made sure they were near enough to Nichelle that she could hear them. "Achilles Flandres," she said, referring to him as the most famous Belgian in recent history. Of course they were offended and denied that he was really Belgian, but while she was smoothing things over with them, she was also watching Nichelle.

Her reaction was strong, yes, and at first glance seemed to be the same as always — hold the baby close, nuzzle it, speak to it.

But then Virlomi realized: She was not stiff. She was not huffy. Instead she was tender with the child. She was gentle and seemed happy. She was smiling.

And she was whispering the name "Achilles Flandres" over and over.

This was so disturbing that Virlomi wanted to go over to her and scream at her: How dare you venerate the name of that monster!

But she was too keenly aware of her own monstrous deeds. There were differences between her and Achilles, yes, but there were similarities, too, and it was not wise of her to condemn him too vehemently. So the woman felt some affinity for him. What of that?