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I did it, didn't I? I doh I was not the best strategist (that was Bean) I led ly, ain at a crucial h I areat for reat for any of the other children, butthe best from everyone

But when the victory on, I could not go home There was Graff's court martial There was the international situation, with nations fearing what reat war hero to command their Earthbound troops

But I confess that there was so else I beca essays whose deliberate effect was to keep uess at; they were an outgrowth of our relationship as young children Peter cannot live in the same world with me Or at least he could not then

Here was theto Earth My siblings were siding with those anted me kept away And not once on any of the newsvids did I see a quotation or a state with the powers-that-be to let their boy come home Nor did I hear of any effort on your part to coo to you

Instead, once Valentine showed up, I got hints, ranging from the blunt to the oblique, that for soh the two years of our voyage--forty years to you--Valentine reported to me on her correspondence with you, and told h all of this, knowing that you could easily obtain h to h to Valentine, I never heard from you

I have waited

Now you are getting rather old Peter is nearly sixty years of age and he rules the world--all his dreahtather that you have been at his side al for him and his cause You have made statements to the press in support of him, and at times of crisis you stood by him quite bravely You have been admirable parents You kno the job is done

And still I waited

Recently, having learned the answers to a set of questions unrelated to you, I determined that because half of this silence between us has been er to write to you Still, I do not understand how it becaation to open this door How did I skip directly from the irresponsibility of a six-year-old to the complete responsibility that seemed to devolve on ain?

I thought: You were asha with the scandal of s; you wanted to put nizein your house You cannot blame the Battle School for that Why didn't you stand up and take responsibility for creatingme those first six years?

I thought: You were so in awe of reat achievement that you felt unworthy to insist on a relationship, and as with royalty, you waited for h, the fact that you are not too h his achievereater--peace on Earth, after all!--tells me that awe is not a powerful motive in your lives

Then I thought: They have divided the faned to ned the me to save the world; but ould train Peter, ould watch out for him, ould pull him up short if he over-reached or became a tyrant? That here you were needed; that was your life's work Valentine would give her life to ive yours to Peter

But if that was your thinking, then I think you ood as I remembered her to be, and as smart But she cannot understand h to trust me, and it drives her crazy She is not my mother or father, she is only ned herself--to take on a motherly role She does her best I hope she is not too unhappy with the bargain she e The sacrifice she reat I fear she thinks the results in me have amounted to little of worth

I do not know you, aman and woman in their early thirties, busy with their own extraordinary careers, raising extraordinary children who, for a time, each wore the monitor of the IF at the base of their skulls There was always soed to someone else You never felt that I was fully your son

Yet I am your son There is in me, in the abilities I have, in the choices that I s about the religions that you believed in secretly, which I have studied when I could, there is in all these things a trace of you You are the