“You’ve resigned from the human race is what you’ve done,” said Peter. “Because you invented marriage and children, suddenly you don’t have to be part of anything.”

“Opposite,” said Petra. “We’ve joined the human race. We’re like most people. Our life together is everything. Our children are everything. The rest is—we do what we have to. Anything to protect our children. And then beyond that, what we have to. But it doesn’t matter to us as much. I’m sorry that bothers you.”

“It doesn’t bother me,” said Peter. “It did before I understood what I was seeing. Now I think…sure, it’s normal. I think my parents are like that. I think that’s why I thought they were stupid. Because they didn’t seem to care about the outside world. All they cared about was each other and us kids.”

“I think the therapy is proceeding nicely,” said Bean. “Now say three Hail Marys while we get on with our limited domestic concerns, which involve attack helicopters and getting to Volescu before he makes another change of address and identity.”

And they were gone.

Peter seethed. They thought they knew something that nobody else knew. They thought they knew what life was about. But they could only have a life like that because people like Peter—and Han Tzu and Alai and that wacko self-deifying Virlomi—actually concentrated on important matters and tried to make the world a better place.

Then Peter remembered that Bean had said almost exactly what his mother said. That Peter chose to be Hegemon, and now he had to work it out on his own.

Like a kid who tries out for the school play but he doesn’t like the part he’s been given. Only if he backs out now the show can’t go on because he has no understudy. So he’s got to stick it out.

Got to figure out how to save the world, now that he’s got himself made Hegemon.

Here’s what I want to have happen, thought Peter. I want every damn Battle School graduate off Earth. They are the complicating factor in every country. Mother wants them to have a life? Me too—a nice long life on another planet.

But to get them offplanet would require getting the cooperation of Graff. And Peter had the sneaking suspicion that Graff didn’t actually want Peter to be an effective, powerful Hegemon. Why should Graff accept the Battle School kids into colony ships? They’d be a disruptive force in any colony they were in.

What about this? A colony of nothing but Battle School grads. If they bred true, they’d be the smartest military minds in the galaxy.

Then they’d come home and take over Earth.

OK, not that.

Still, it was the seed of a good idea. In the eyes of the people, it was the Battle School that won the war against the Buggers. They all wanted their armies to be led by Battle Schoolers. Which was why the Battle Schoolers were virtually the slaves of their nations’ military.