And all this time, that assessment of him was a lie.

“I’m not too aggressive.”

“It’s impossible to be too aggressive for Battle School,” said Rackham. “Reckless—now, that would be dangerous. But nobody has ever called you reckless, have they? And your parents would have known that was a lie, because they could have seen what a calculating little bastard you were, even at the age of seven.”

“Why thanks.”

“No, Graff looked at your tests and watched what the monitor showed us, and then he talked to me and showed me, and we realized: You weren’t what we wanted as commander of the army, because people don’t love you. Sorry, but it’s true. You’re not warm. You don’t inspire devotion. You would have been a good commander under someone like Ender. But you could never have held the whole thing together the way he did.”

“I’m doing fine now, thanks.”

“You’re not commanding soldiers. Peter, do Bean or Suri love you? Would they die for you? Or do they serve you because they believe in your cause?”

“They think the world united under me as Hegemon would be better than the world united under anyone else, or not united at all.”

“A simple calculation.”

“A calculation based on trust that I’ve damn well earned.”

“But not personal devotion,” said Rackham. “Even Valentine—she was never devoted to you, and she knew you better than anyone.”

“She pretty much hated me.”

“Too strong, Peter. Too strong a word. She didn’t trust you. She feared you. She saw your mind like clockwork. Very smart. She always figured you were six steps ahead of her.”

Peter shrugged.

“But you weren’t, were you?”

“Ruling the world isn’t a chess game,” said Peter. “Or if it is, it’s a game with a thousand powerful pieces and eight billion pawns, and the pieces keep changing their capabilities, and the gameboard never stays the same. So just how far ahead can you possibly see? All I could do was put myself into a position with the most possible influence, and then exploit whatever opportunities came.”

Rackham nodded. “But one thing was certain. Your off-the-charts aggressiveness, your passion to control events, we knew that you would place yourself in the center of everything.”

It was Peter’s turn to laugh. “So you left me home from Battle School so I would be what I am now.”

“As I said, you weren’t suited for military life. You don’t take orders very well. People aren’t devoted to you, and you aren’t devoted to anyone else.”

“I might be, if I found somebody I respected enough.”

“The only person you ever respected that much is on a colony ship right now and you’ll never see him again.”

“I could never have followed Ender.”

“No, you never could. But he’s the only person you respected enough. The trouble was, he was your younger brother. You couldn’t have lived with the shame.”

“Well, all this analysis is nice, but how does it help us now?”