“So using Ender as an example –”
“That’s right. Ender’s own actions are being used to justify repeating them against another harmless species.”
“The descolada wasn’t harmless.”
“No,” said Peter. “But Ender and Ela found another way, didn’t they? They struck a blow against the descolada itself. But there’s no way now to convince Congress to withdraw the fleet. Because Jane already interfered with Congress’s ansible communications with the fleet, they believe they face a formidable widespread secret conspiracy. Any argument we make will be seen as disinformation. Besides, who would believe the farfetched tale of that first trip Outside, where Ela created the anti-descolada, Miro recreated himself, and Ender made my dear sister and me?”
“So the Necessarians in Congress –”
“They don’t call themselves that. But the influence is very strong. It is Jane’s and my opinion that if we can get some prominent Necessarians to declare against the Lusitania Fleet — with convincing reasoning, of course — the solidarity of the pro-fleet majority in Congress will be broken up. It’s a thin majority — there are plenty of people horrified by such devastating use of force against a colony world, and others who are even more horrified at the idea that Congress would destroy the pequeninos, the first sentient species found since the destruction of the buggers. They would love to stop the fleet, or at worst use it to impose a permanent quarantine.”
“Why aren’t we meeting with a Necessarian, then?”
“Because why would they listen to us? If we identify ourselves as supporters of the Lusitanian cause, we’ll be jailed and questioned. And if we don’t, who will take our ideas seriously?”
“This Aimaina Hikari, then. What is he?”
“Some people call him the Yamato philosopher. All the Necessarians of Divine Wind are, naturally, Japanese, and the philosophy has become most influential among the Japanese, both on their home worlds and wherever they have a substantial population. So even though Hikari isn’t a Necessarian, he is honored as the keeper of the Japanese soul.”
“If he tells them that it’s un-Japanese to destroy Lusitania –”
“But he won’t. Not easily, anyway. His seminal work, which won him his reputation as the Yamato philosopher, included the idea that the Japanese people were born as rebellious puppets. First it was Chinese culture that pulled the strings. But Hikari says, Japan learned all the wrong lessons from the attempted Chinese invasion of Japan — which, by the way, was defeated by a great storm, called kamikaze, which means ‘Divine Wind.’ So you can be sure everyone on this world, at least, remembers that ancient story. Anyway, Japan locked itself away on an island, and at first refused to deal with Europeans when they came. But then an American fleet forcibly opened Japan to foreign trade, and then the Japanese made up for lost time. The Meiji Restoration led to Japan trying to industrialize and Westernize itself — and once again a new set of strings made the puppet dance, says Hikari. Only once again, the wrong lessons were learned. Since the Europeans at the time were imperialists, dividing up Africa and Asia among them, Japan decided it wanted a piece of the imperial pie. There was China, the old puppetmaster. So there was an invasion –”
“We were taught of this invasion on Path,” said Wang-mu.
“I’m surprised they taught any history more recent than the Mongol invasion,” said Peter.
“The Japanese were finally stopped when the Americans dropped the first nuclear weapons on two Japanese cities.”
“The equivalent, in those days, of the Little Doctor. The irresistible, total weapon. The Japanese soon came to regard these nuclear weapons as a kind of badge of pride: We were the first people ever to have been attacked by nuclear weapons. It had become a kind of permanent grievance, which wasn’t a bad thing, really, because that was part of their impetus to found and populate many colonies, so that they would never be a helpless island nation again. But then along comes Aimaina Hikari, and he says — by the way, his name is self-chosen, it’s the name he used to sign his first book. It means ‘Ambiguous Light.'”
“How gnomic,” said Wang-mu.