And from there, he went on to a more subtle plan: I have already half destroyed Ender Wiggin — how could I complete the process?
To murder him would make a martyr of him. But if Wiggin could be provoked into killing again — killing another child — he would be destroyed forever. It was his pattern. He sensed a rival; he goaded him into making an attack; then he killed him in self-defense. Twice he had done it and been exonerated. But his protectors weren't here — they were almost certainly all dead. Only the facts remained.
Could I get him to follow the pattern again?
He told his idea to his mother.
'What are you talking about?' she said.
'If he murders again — this time a sixteen-year-old, but still a child, no matter how tall — then his reputation will be destroyed forever. They'll put him on trial, they'll convict him this time — they can't believe he just happened to kill in 'self-defense' three times! — and that will be a far more thorough destruction than a merely ending the life of his body. I'll destroy his name forever.'
'You're talking about letting him kill you?'
'Mother, people don't have to let Ender Wiggin kill them. They just have to provide him with the pretext, and he does the rest quite nicely by himself.'
'But — you? Die?'
'As you said, Mother. To destroy Father's enemies is worth any sacrifice.'
She leapt to her feet. 'I didn't give birth to you just so you could throw your life away! You're half a head taller than him — he's a dwarf compared to you. How could he possibly kill you?'
'He was trained as a soldier. And not that long ago, Mother. What have I been trained as? A farmer. A mechanic. Whatever odd jobs have been required of a teenager who happens to be preternaturally large and clever and strong. Not war. Not fighting. I haven't fought anyone since I was so tiny and had to battle constantly to keep them from picking on me.'
'Your father and I did not conceive you so that you could die at the hands of a Wiggin, like your father did!'
'Technically, Father died at the hands of a Delphiki. Julian to be precise.'
'Delphiki, Wiggin — sides of the same coin. I forbid you to let him kill you.'
'I told you, Mother. He'll find a way. It's what he does. He's a warrior.'
'No!'
It took two hours to calm her down, and before that he had to put up with crying and screaming — he knew the neighbors had to be listening and trying to make sense of it. But finally she was asleep.
He went to the stock control office and used the computer there to send Wiggin a message:
I believe that I've misjudged you. How can we end this?
He did not expect an answer until the next day. But it came before he could log off.
When and where would you like to meet?
Was it really going to be this easy?
The time and place didn't matter much. It had to be a time and place where they couldn't be stopped by Virlomi and her minions; but there had to be enough light to make a vid. What good would it be to die for his father's sake, only to have the deed unrecorded, so that Wiggin could spin it however he wanted, and thus get away with yet another murder?
They made the appointment. Achilles logged off.
And then he sat there, trembling. What have I done? This really is Ender Wiggin. I really have set up my own death. I'm bigger and stronger than he is — but so were the two boys he already killed. The hive queens were stronger, too, and look what that got them. Ender Wiggin did not lose.
This is what I was born for. This is what Mother has instilled in me from infancy. I exist to vindicate my father. To destroy the Hegemony, to bring down all the works of Peter Wiggin. Well, maybe that's not possible. But bringing down Ender Wiggin — I can do that merely by getting him to kill me and letting the world see how it happened. Mother will grieve — but grief is her lifeblood anyway.
If he's so smart, he must know what I'm planning. He can't believe that I'd suddenly change my mind. How could I fool Ender Wiggin with such an obvious plan? He must guess that I'll be having everything recorded.
But maybe he doesn't think he'll have to kill me. Maybe he thinks I'm such an easy opponent that he can defeat me without killing me. Maybe he thinks I'm such a giant oaf that I'll never even land a blow.
Or maybe I'm overestimating his cleverness. After all, he went through a whole war against an alien enemy and never once suspected that it wasn't a computer or his teachers playing a simulation with him. How dumb is that?
I'll go. I'll see what happens. I'm ready to die, but only if it will bring him down.
They met two days later, at first light, behind the composting bins. No one would come here — the smell made people avoid it when they didn't have to go there, and vegetative waste was dumped only at the end of a day's work.
His friends had rigged the cameras to cover the whole area. Every word would be recorded. Ender probably guessed that this would be the case — hadn't Achilles done all his work with propaganda on the nets? — but even if Ender walked away, the confrontation would probably be rancorous and work against him. And if he didn't, Achilles simply wouldn't use it.
Several times during the previous day, Achilles had thought of the possibility of dying and each time it was like a different person was hearing the news. Sometimes it seemed almost funny — Achilles was so strong, so much taller, with so much greater a mass and reach. Other times it seemed inevitable but pointless, and he thought: How stupid am I, to throw my life away on an empty gesture toward the dead.
But by the end of the day, he realized: I'm not doing this for my father. I'm not doing it because my mother raised me for vengeance. I'm doing it for the sake of the human race as a whole. The great monsters of history were almost never held accountable. They died of old age, or lived out their lives in pampered exile, or — faced with defeat — they killed themselves.
Being Ender Wiggin's last victim is worth it, not for some private family quarrel, but because the world must see that great criminals like Ender Wiggin did not go unpunished. Eventually they committed one crime too many and they were brought to account.
And I will be the last victim, the one whose death brought down Ender the Xenocide.
Another part of him said, Don't believe your own propaganda.
Another part of him said, Live!
But he answered them: If there's one true thing about Ender Wiggin, it's that he cannot bear to lose. That's how I will tempt him — I will make him stare defeat in the face, and he will lash out to avoid it — and when he kills me, then he really will be defeated. It is his fatal flaw — that he can be manipulated by facing him with defeat.
Deep inside him, a question tried to surface where he would have to deal with it: Doesn't this mean that it's not his fault, because he really had no choice but to destroy his enemies?
But Achilles immediately tamped down that quibble. We're all just the product of our genes and upbringing, combined with the random events of our lifetime. «Fault» and «blame» are childish concepts. What matters is that Ender's actions have been monstrous, and will continue to be monstrous unless he is stopped. As it is, he might live forever, surfacing here and there to stir up trouble. But I will put an end to it. Not vengeance, but prevention. And because he will be an example, perhaps other monsters will be stopped before they have killed so often, and so many.
Ender stepped out of the shadows. 'Ho, Achilles.'
It took half a second — half a step — for Achilles to realize what name Ender had addressed him by.
'The name you call yourself in private,' said Ender. 'In your dreams.'
How could he know? What was he?
'You have no access to my dreams,' said Achilles.
'I want you to know,' said Ender, 'that I've been pleading with Virlomi to commute your sentence. Because I have to leave on this ship, when it goes, and I don't want to go back to Earth.'
'I would think not,' said Achilles. 'They're howling for your blood there.'
'For the moment,' said Ender. 'These things come and go.'
