There. That wasn't what a kid would say. That wasn't even what adult politicians usually said.

      "Against the advice of my military commander and others, I brought the notorious Achilles Flandres, at his own request and with his assurances of loyalty to me, into my compound. I was warned that he could not be trusted, and I believed those warnings.

      "However, I thought I was clever enough and careful enough to detect any betrayal on his part in plenty of time. That was a miscalculation on my part. Thanks to the help of others, it was not a fatal one.

      "The disinformation now coming from Achilles Flandres in the former Hegemony compound about my alleged embezzlement is, of course, false. I have always maintained the financial records of the Hegemony in public. The broad categories of income and disbursement have been published every year on the nets, and this morning I have opened up the entire set of financial records of the Hegemony, and my own personal records, on a secure site with the address 'Hegemon Financial Disclosure.' Except for a few secret items in the budget, which any military analyst can tell you is barely enough to account for the very few military actions of my office over the past few years, every dollar is accounted for And, yes, we do keep those records in dollars, since the Hegemony currency has fluctuated widely in value, but with a distinctly downward trend, in recent years."

      Another laugh. But everyone was writing like crazy, too, and he could see that this policy of full disclosure was working.

      "Besides seeing that nothing has been embezzled from the Hegemony," Peter went on, "you will also see that the Hegemony has been working with extremely limited funds. It has been a challenge, with so little money, to marshal the nations of the world to oppose the imperialistic designs of the so-called 'Universal People's State' otherwise known as the Chinese Empire. We have been extremely grateful to those nations who have continued to support the Hegemony at one level or another In deference to some of them who prefer their contribution remain secret, we have withheld some twenty names. You are free to speculate about their identity but I will say neither yes or no, except to tell you candidly that China is not one of them."

      The biggest laugh yet, and a couple of people even clapped their hands a few times.

      "I am outraged that the usurper Achilles Flandres has called into question the credentials of the Minister of Colonization. But if there were any doubts about Flandres's plans, the fact that this was his first act should tell you a great deal about the future he plans for us all. Achilles Flandres will not rest until every human being is under his complete control. Or, of course, dead."

      Peter paused, looked down at the rostrum as if he had notes there, though of course he didn't.

      "One thing I do not regret, however, about bringing Achilles Handres to Ribeirao Preto, is that I have had a chance now to take his measure as a human being-though it is only by the broadest definition that I include him in that category. Achilles Flandres has achieved his power in the world, not by his own intelligence or courage, but by exploiting the intelligence and courage of others. He engineered the kidnapping of the children who helped my brother, Ender Wiggin, save humanity from the alien invaders. Why? Because he knew that he himself did not have any hope of ruling the world if any of them were working against him.

      "Achilles Flandres's power comes from the willingness of others to believe his lies. But his lies will no longer bring him new allies as they have in the past. He has hitched his little wagon to China and drives China like an ox. But I have heard him laughing at the poor fools in the Chinese government who believed him, mocking them for their petty ambitions, as he told me how unworthy they were to have him guiding their affairs.

      "No doubt much of this was merely part of his attempt to convince me that he was no longer working with them. But his ridicule was by name and very specific. His contempt for them was genuine. I almost feel sorry for them-because if his power is ever solidified and he has no further use for them, then they will see what I saw.

      "Of course, he has scorn for me as well, and if he's laughing at me right now, I can only agree with him. I was snookered, ladies and gentlemen. In that, I join a distinguished company, some of whom fell from power in Russia after the kidnappings, some of whom are now suffering as political prisoners after China's conquest of India, and some of whom even now are arresting people in India for... carrying stones.

      "I only hope that I will turn out to be the last person so vain and foolish as to think that Achilles Flandres can be controlled or exploited to serve some higher purpose. Achilles Flandres serves only one purpose-his own pleasure. And what pleases him... would be to rule over every man, woman, and child in the human race.

      "I was not a fool when I committed the Hegemony to opposing the imperialistic acts of the Chinese government. Now, because of my own mistakes, the prestige of the Hegemony is temporarily diminished. But my opposition to the Chinese Empire's oppression of more than half the people of the world is not diminished. I am the implacable enemy of emperors."

      That was as good a stopping point as any.

      Peter bowed his head briefly to acknowledge their polite applause. Some in the crowd applauded more than politely-but he was also aware of those who did not clap at all.

      The questions began then, but because he had accused himself from the start, he fielded them easily. Two questioners tried to get more information on the source who tipped him off and what it was he tipped Peter off about, but Peter only said, "If I say anything more on this subject, someone who has been kind to me will certainly die. I am surprised you would even ask." After the second time he said this-word for word-no one asked such a question again.

      As to those whose questions were merely veiled accusations, he agreed with all those who implied that he had been foolish. When he was asked if he had proven himself too foolish to hold the office of Hegemon, his first reply was a joke: "I was told when I took the job in the first place that accepting it proved I was too dimwitted to serve." Laughter, of course. And then he said, "But I have tried to use that office to serve the cause of peace and self-government for all of humanity, and I challenge anyone to show that I did anything other than advance that cause as much as was possible with the resources I had."

      Fifteen minutes later, he apologized for having no further time. "But please email me any further questions you might have, and my staff and I will try to get answers back to you in time for your deadlines. One final word before I go."

      They fell silent, waiting.

      "The future happiness of the human race depends on good people who want to live at peace with their neighbors, and who are willing to protect their neighbors from those who don't want peace. I'm only one of those people. I'm probably not the best of them, and I hope to God I'm not the smartest. But I happen to be the one who was entrusted with the office of Hegemon. Until my term expires or I am lawfully replaced by the nations that have supported the Hegemony, I will continue to serve in that office."

      More applause-and this time he allowed himself to believe that there might be some real enthusiasm in it. He came back to his room exhausted.

      Mother and Father were there, waiting. They had refused to go downstairs with him. "If your mother and father are with you," Father had said, "then this better be the press conference where you resign. But if you intend to stay in office, then you go down there alone. Just you. No staff. No parents. No friends. No notes. Just you."

      Father had been right. Mother had been right, too. Ender, bless his little heart, was the example he had to follow. If you lose, you lose, but you don't give up.

      "How did it go?" asked Mother

      "Well enough, I think," said Peter "I took questions for fifteen minutes, but they were starting to repeat themselves or get off on wild tangents so I told them to email me any further questions. Was it carried on the vid?"

      "We polled thirty news stations," said Father, "and the top twenty or so newswebs, and most of them had it live."

      "So you watched?" said Peter

      "No, we flipped through," said Mother "But what we saw looked and sounded good. You didn't bat an eye. I think you brought it off."

      "We'll see."

      "Long term," said Father "You're going to have a bumpy couple of months. Especially because you can count on it that Achilles hasn't emptied his quiver yet."

      "Bow and arrow analogies?" said Peter "You are so old."

      They chuckled at his joke.

      "Mom. Dad. Thanks."

      "All we did," said Father, "was what we knew that tomorrow you would have wished we had done today."

      Peter nodded. Then he sat down on the edge of the bed. "Man, I can't believe I was so dumb. I can't believe I didn't listen to Bean and Petra and Suri and-"

      "And us," said Mother helpfully.

      "And you and Graff" said Peter

      "You trusted your own judgment," said Father, "and that's exactly what you have to do. You were wrong this time, but you haven't been wrong often, and I doubt you'll ever be this wrong again."

      "For heaven's sake don't start taking a vote on your decisions," said Mother. "Or looking at opinion polls or trying to guess how your actions will play with the press."

      "I won't," said Peter.

      "Because, you see, you're Locke," said Mother. "You already ended one war. After a few days or weeks, the press will start remembering that. And you're Demosthenes-you have quite a fervent following."

      "Had," said Peter.

      "They saw what they expected from Demosthenes," said Mother. "You didn't weasel, you didn't make excuses, you took the blame you deserved and refused the accusations that were false. You put out your evidence-"

      "That was good advice, Dad, thanks," said Peter

      "And," said Mother, "you showed courage.

      "By running away from Ribeirao Preto before anyone so much as glared at me?"

      "By getting out of bed," she answered.

      Peter shook his head. "Then my courage is nothing but borrowed courage.

      "Not borrowed," said Mother "Stored up. In us. Like a bank. We've seen your courage and we saved some for you when you temporarily ran out and needed some of it back."

      "Cash flow problem, that's all it was," said Father

      "How many times are you two going to have to save me from myself before this whole drama runs its course?" asked Peter.

      "I think... six times," said Father

      "No, eight," said Mother.

      "You two think you're so cute," said Peter

      "Mm-hm."

      A knock at the door "Room service!" called a voice from outside.

      Father was at the door in two quick strides. "Three tomato juices?" he asked.

      "No, no, nothing like that. Lunch. Sandwiches. Bowl of ice cream."

      Even with that reassurance, Father stepped to the side of the door and pulled it open as far as the lock bar allowed. Nobody fired a weapon, and the guy with the food laughed. "Oh, everybody forgets to undo that thing, happens all the time."

      Father opened the door and stepped outside long enough to make sure nobody else was in the hall waiting to follow room service inside.

      When the waiter was coming through the door Peter turned around to get out of his way, just in time to see Mother slipping a pistol back into her purse.

      "Since when did you start packing?" he asked her

      "Since your chief of computer security turned out to be Achilles's good friend," she said.

      "Ferreira?" asked Peter

      "He's been telling the press that he installed snoopware to find out who was embezzling funds, and was shocked to discover it was you.

      "Oh," said Peter. "Of course they ran a press conference opposite mine."

      "But almost everybody carried yours live and his was just excerpted. And they all followed the Ferreira clip with a repeat of you announcing that you were posting the Hegemony financial records on the nets."

      "Bet we crash the server

      "No, all the news organizations cloned it first thing."

      Father had finished signing off on the meal and the waiter was gone, the door relocked.

      "Let's eat," said Father "If I recall, this place always has great lunches."

      "It's good to be home," said Mother "Well, not home, but in town, anyway.

      Peter took a bite and it was good.

      They had ordered exactly the sandwich he would have ordered, that's how well they knew him. Their lives really were focused on their children. He couldn't have ordered their sandwiches. Three place settings on the little rolling cart the waiter had wheeled in. There should have been five. "I'm sorry," he said.

      "For what?" asked Father, his mouth full.

      "That I'm the only kid you've got on Earth."

      "Could be worse," said Father "Could have been none." And Mother reached over and patted his hand.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CALIPH

From: Graff%pilgrimage@colmin.gov

To:   Locke%erasmus@polnet.gov

Re:   The better part of valor

I know you don't want to hear from me. But given that you are no longer in a secure situation, and our mutual foe is playing again on the world stage, I offer you and your parents sanctuary. I am not suggesting that you go into the colony program. Quite the contrary-I regard you as the only hope of rallying worldwide opposition to our foe. That is why your physical protection is of the utmost importance to us.

For that reason, I have been authorized to invite you to a facility off planet for a few days, a few weeks, a few months. It has full connections to the nets and you will be returned to Earth within forty-eight hours of your request. No one will even know you are gone. But it will put you out of reach of any attempt either to kill or capture you or your parents.

Please take this seriously. Now that we know our enemy has not severed his connections with his previous host, certain intelligence already obtained now makes a different kind of sense. Our best interpretation of this data is that an attempt on your life is imminent.

A temporary disappearance from the surface of the Earth would be very useful to you right now. Think of it as the equivalent of Lincoln's secret journey through Baltimore in order to assume the presidency. Or, if you prefer a less lofty precedent, Lenin's journey to Russia in a sealed railroad car.

      Petra assumed that she had been taken to Damascus because Ambul had succeeded in making contact with Alai, but neither of them met her at the airport. Nor was there anyone waiting for her at the security gates. Not that she wanted someone carrying a sign that said "Petra Arkanian"-she might as well send Achilles an email telling him where she was.

      She had felt nauseated through the entire flight, but she knew it could not possibly be from pregnancy, not this quickly. It took at least a few hours for the hormones to start to flow, It had to be the stark fear that started when she realized that if Alai's people could find exactly where she was, and have a cab waiting for her, so could Achilles's.

      How did Bean know to choose the cab he chose for her? Was it some predilection for Indonesians? Did he reason from evidence she didn't even notice? Or did he choose the third cab simply because he didn't trust the concept of "next in line"?

      What cab had he got into, and who was driving it?

      Someone bumped into her from behind, and for a moment she had a rush of adrenaline as she thought: This is it! I'm being killed by an assassin who approached me from behind because I was too stupid to look around!

      After the momentary panic-and the momentary self-blame-she realized that of course it was not an assassin, it was simply a passenger from her flight, hurrying to get out of the airport, while she, uncertain and lost in her own thoughts, had been walking too slowly and obstructing traffic.

      I'll go to a hotel, she thought. But not one that Europeans always go to. But wait, if I go to a hotel where everybody but me is Arablooking, I'll stand out. Too obvious. Bean would tease me for not having developed any useful survival habits. Though at least I thought twice before checking into an Arab hotel.

      The only luggage she had was the bag she was carrying over her shoulder, and at customs she went through the usual questions. "This is all your luggage?" "Yes." "How long do you plan to stay?" "A couple of weeks, I expect." "Two weeks, and no more clothing than this?" "I plan to shop."

      It always aroused suspicions to enter a country with too little luggage, but as Bean said, it's better to have a few more questions at customs or passport control than to have to go to the baggage claim area and stand round where bad people have plenty of time to find you.

      The only thing worse, in Bean's view, was to use the first restroom in the airline terminal. "Everybody knows women have to pee incessantly," said Bean.

      "Actually, it's not incessant, and most men don't notice even if it is," said Petra. But considering that Bean seemed never to need to pee at all, she supposed that her normal human needs seemed excessive to him.

      She was well trained now, however She didn't even glance at the first restroom she passed, or the second. She probably wouldn't use a bathroom until she got to her hotel room.

      Bean, when are you coming? Did they get you onto the next flight? How will we find each other in this city?

      She knew he would be furious, however, if she lingered in the airport hoping to meet his flight. For one thing, she would have no idea where his flight would be coming from-he was wont to choose very odd itineraries, so that he could very easily be on a flight from Cairo, Moscow, Algiers, Rome, or Jerusalem. No, it was better to go to a hotel, check in under an alias that he knew about, and- "Mrs. Delphiki?"

      She turned at once at the sound of Bean's mother's name, and then realized that the tall, white-haired gentleman was addressing her.

      "Yes." She laughed. "I'm still not used to the idea of being called by my husband's name."

      "Forgive me," said the man. "Do you prefer your birth name?"

      "I haven't used my own name in many months," said Petra. "Who sent you to meet me?"

      "Your host," said the man.

      "I have had many hosts in my life," said Petra. "Some of whom I do not wish to visit again.

      "But such people as that would not live in Damascus." There was a twinkle in his eye. Then he leaned in close. "There are names that it is not good to say aloud."

      "Mine apparently not being one of them," she said with a smile.

      "In this time and place," he said, "you are safe while others might not be."

      "I'm safe because you're with me?"

      "You are safe because I and my... what is your Battle School slang?... my jeesh and I are here watching over you."

      "I didn't see anybody watching over me.

      "You didn't even see me," said the man. "This is because we're very good at what we do."

      "I did see you. I just didn't realize you had taken any notice of me.

      "As I said."

      She smiled. "Very well, I will not name our host. And since you won't either, I'm afraid I can't go with you anywhere."

      "Oh, so suspicious," he said with a rueful smile. "Very well, then. Perhaps I can facilitate matters by placing you under arrest." He showed her a very official-looking badge inside a wallet. Though she had no idea what organization had issued the badge, since she had never learned the Arabic alphabet, let alone the language itself.

      But Bean had taught her: Listen to your fear, and listen to your trust. She trusted this man, and so she believed his badge without being able to read it. "So you're with Syrian law enforcement," she said.

      "As often as not," he replied, smiling again as he put his wallet away.

      "Let's walk outside," she said.

      "Let's not," he said. "Let's go into a little room here at the airport."

      "A toilet stall?" she asked. "Or an interrogation room?"

      "My office," he said.

      If it was an office, it was certainly well disguised. They got to it by stepping behind the El Al ticket counter and going into the employees' back room.

      "El Al?" she asked. "You're Israeli?"

      "Israel and Syria are very close friends for the past hundred years. You should keep up on your history."

      They walked down a corridor lined with employee lockers, a drinking fountain, and a couple of restroom doors.

      "I didn't think the friendship was close enough to allow Syrian law enforcement to use Israel's national airline," said Petra.

      "I lied about being with Syrian law enforcement," he said.

      "And did they lie out front about being El Al?"

      He palmed open an unmarked door, but when she made as if to follow him through it, he shook his head. "No no, first you must place the palm of your hand."

      She complied, but wondered how they could possibly have her palm print and sweat signature here in Syria.

      No. They didn't, of course. They were getting them right now, so that wherever else she went, she would be recognized by their computer security systems.

      The door led to a stairway that went down.

      And farther down, and farther yet, until they had to be well underground.

      "I don't think this complies with international handicapped access regulations," said Petra.

      "What the regulators don't see won't hurt us," said the man.

      "A theory that has gotten so many people into so much trouble," said Petra.

      They came to an underground tunnel, where a small electric car was waiting for them. No driver. Apparently her companion was going to drive.

      Not so. He got into the backseat beside her, and the car took off by itself.

      "Let me guess," said Petra. "You don't take most of your VIPs through the El Al ticket counter."

      "There are other ways to get to this little street," said the man. "But the people looking for you would not have staked out El Al."

      "You'd be surprised at how often my enemy is two steps ahead."

      "But what if your friends are three steps ahead?" Then he laughed as if it had been a joke, and not a boast.

      "We're alone in a car," said Petra. "Let's have some names now.

      "I am Ivan Lankowski," he said.

      She laughed in spite of herself. But when he did not smile, she stopped. "I'm sorry," she said. "You don't look Russian, and this is Damascus."

      "My paternal grandfather was ethnic Russian, my grandmother was ethnic Kazakh, both were Muslims. My mother's parents are still living, thanks be to Allah, and they are both Jordanian."

      "And you never changed the name?"

      "It is the heart that makes the Muslim. The heart and the life. My name contains part of my genealogy. Since Allah willed me to be born in this family, who am I to try to deny his gift?"

      "Ivan Lankowski," said Petra. "The name I'd like to hear is the name of the one who sent you."

      "One's superior officer is never named. It is a basic rule. of security."

      Petra sighed. "I suppose this proves I'm not in Kansas anymore.

      "I don't believe," said Lankowski, "that you have ever been in Kansas, Mrs. Delphiki."

      "It was a reference to-"

      "I have seen The Wizard of Oz," said Lankowski. "I am, after all, an educated man. And... I have been in Kansas."

      "Then you have found wisdom I can only dream of."

      He chuckled. "It is an unforgettable place. Just like Jordan was right after the Ice Age, covered with tall grasses, stretching forever in every direction, with the sky everywhere, instead of being confined to a small patch above the trees."

      "You are a poet," said Petra. "And also a very old man, to remember the Ice Age."

      "The Ice Age was my father's time. I only remember the rainy times right after it."

      "I had no idea there were tunnels under Damascus."

      "In our wars with the west," said Lankowski, "we learned to bury everything that we did not want blown up. Individually-targeted bombs were first tested on Arabs, did you know that? The archives are full of pictures of exploding Arabs."

      "I've seen some of the pictures," said Petra. "I also recall that during those wars, some of the individuals targeted themselves by strapping on their own bombs and blowing them up in public places."

      "Yes, we did not have guided missiles, but we did have feet."

      "And the bitterness remains?"

      "No, no bitterness," said Lankowski. "We once ruled the known world, from Spain to India. Muslims ruled in Moscow and our soldiers reached into France, and to the gates of Vienna. Our dogs were better educated than the scholars of the West. Then one day we woke up and we were poor and ignorant, and somebody else had all the guns. We knew this could not be the will of Allah, so we fought."

      "And discovered that the will of Allah was... "

      "The will of Allah was for many of our people to die, and for the West to occupy our countries again and again until we stopped fighting. We learned our lesson. We are very well behaved now. We abide by all the treaty terms. We have freedom of the press, freedom of religion, liberated women, and democratic elections."

      "And tunnels under Damascus."

      "And memories." He smiled at her "And cars without drivers."

      "Israeli technology, I believe."

      "For a long time we thought of Israel as the enemy's toehold in our holy land. Then one day we remembered that israel was a member of our family who had gone away into exile, learned everything our enemies knew, and then came home again. We stopped fighting our brother, and our brother gave us all the gifts of the West, but without destroying our souls. How sad it would have been if we had killed all the Jews and driven them out. Who would have taught us then? The Armenians?"

      She laughed at his joke, but also listened to his lecture. So this was how they lived with their history-they assigned meanings to everything that allowed them to see God's hand in everything. Purpose. Even power and hope.

      But they also still remembered that Muslims had once ruled the world. And they still regarded democracy as something they adopted in order to placate the West.

      I really should read the Q'uran. she thought. To see what lies underneath the façade of western-style sophistication.

      This man was sent to meet me, she thought, because this is the face they want visitors to Syria to see. He told me these stories, because this is the attitude they want me to believe that they have.

      But this is the pretty version. The one that has been tailored to fit Western ears. The bones of the stories, the blood and the sinews of it, were defeat, humiliation, incomprehension of the will of God, loss of greatness as a people, and a sense of ongoing defeat. These are people with something to prove and with lost status to retrieve. A people who want, not vengeance, but vindication.

      Very dangerous people.

      Perhaps also very useful people, to a point.

      She took her observations to the next step, but couched her words in the same kind of euphemistic story that he had told. "From what you tell me," said Petra, "the Muslim world sees this dangerous time in world history as the moment Allah has prepared you for. You were humbled before, so you would be submissive to Allah and ready for him to lead you to victory."

      He said nothing at all for a long time.

      "I did not say that."

      "Of course you did," said Petra. "It was the premise underlying everything else you said. But you don't seem to realize that you have told this, not to an enemy, but to a friend."

      "If you are a friend of God," said Lankowski, "why do you not obey his law?"

      "But I did not say I was a friend of God," said Petra. "Only that I was a friend of yours. Some of us cannot live your law, but we can still admire those who do, and wish them well, and help them when we can."

      "And come to us for safety because in our world there is safety to be had, while in your world there is none.

      "Fair enough," said Petra.

      "You are an interesting girl," said Lankowski.

      "I've commanded soldiers in war," said Petra, "and I'm married, and I might very well be pregnant. When do I stop being just a girl? Under Islamic law, I mean."

      "You are a girl because you are at least forty years younger than I am. It has nothing to do with Islamic law. When you are sixty and I am a hundred, inshallah, you will still be a girl to me."

      "Bean is dead, isn't he?" asked Petra.

      Lankowski looked startled. "No," he said at once. It was a blurt, unprepared for, and Petra believed him.

      "Then something terrible has happened that you can't bear to tell me. My parents-have they been hurt?"

      "Why do you think such a thing?"

      "Because you're a courteous man. Because your people changed my ticket and brought me here and promised I'd be reunited with my husband. And in all this time we've been walking and riding together, you have never so much as hinted about when or whether I would see Bean."

      "I apologize for being remiss," said Lankowski. "Your husband boarded a later flight that came by a different route, but he is coming. And your family is fine, or at least we have no reason to think they're not."

      "And yet you are still hesitant," said Petra.

      "There was an incident," said Lankowski. "Your husband is safe. Uninjured. But there was an attempt to kill him. We think if you had been the one who got into the first cab, it would not have been a murder attempt. It would have been a kidnapping."

      "And why do you think that? The one who wants my husband dead wants me dead as well."

      "Ah, but he wants what you have inside you even more," said Lankowski.

      It took only a moment for her to make the logical assumption about why he would know that. "They've taken the embryos," she said.

      "The security guard received a rise in salary from a third party, and in return he allowed someone to remove your frozen embryos."

      Petra had known Volescu was lying about being able to tell which babies had Anton's Key. But now Bean would know it, too. They both knew the value of Bean's babies on the open market, and that the highest price would come if the babies had Anton's Key in their DNA, or the would-be buyers believed they did.

      She found herself breathing too rapidly. It would do no good to hyperventilate. She forced herself to calm down.

      Lankowski reached out and patted her hand lightly. Yes, he sees that I'm upset. I don't yet have Bean's skill at hiding what I feel. Though of course his skill might be the simple result of not feeling anything.

      Bean would know that Volescu had deceived them. For all they knew, the baby in her womb might be afflicted with Bean's condition. And Bean had vowed that he would never have children with Anton's Key.

      "Have there been any ransom demands?" she asked Lankowski.

      "Alas, no," he replied. "We do not think they wish to trouble themselves with the near impossibility of trying to obtain money from you. The risk of being outsmarted and arrested in the process of trying to exchange items of value is too high, perhaps, when compared with the risk involved in selling your babies to third parties."

      "I think the risks involved in that are very nearly zero," said Petra.

      "Then we agree on the assessment. Your babies will be safe, if that's any consolation."

      "Safe to be raised by monsters," said Petra.

      "Perhaps they don't see themselves that way."

      "Are you confessing that you people are in the market for one of them to raise to be your boy or girl genius?"

      "We do not traffic in stolen flesh," said Lankowski. "We long had a problem with a slave trade that would not die. Now if someone is caught owning or selling or buying or transporting a slave, or being in an official position and tolerating slavery, the penalty is death. And the trials are swift, the appeals never granted. No, Mrs. Delphiki, we are not a good place for someone to bring stolen embryos to try to sell them."

      Even in her concern about her children-her potential children- she realized what he had just confessed: That the "we" he spoke of was not Syria, but rather some kind of pan-Islamic shadow government that did not, officially at least, exist. An authority that transcended nations.

      That was what Lankowski meant when he said that he worked for the Syrian government "as often as not." Because as often as not he worked for a government higher than that of Syria.

      They already have their own rival to the Hegemon.

      "Perhaps someday," she said, "my children will be trained and used to help defend some nation from Muslim conquest."

      "Since Muslims do not invade other nations anymore, I wonder how such a thing could happen?"

      "You have Alai sequestered here somewhere. What is he doing, making baskets or pottery to sell at the fair?"

      "Are those the only choices you see? Pottery-making or aggressive war?"

      But his denials did not interest her. She knew her analysis was as correct as it could be without more data-his denial was not a disproof, it was more likely to be an inadvertent confirmation.

      What interested her now was Bean. Where was he? When would he get to Damascus? What would he do about the missing embryos?

      Or at least that was what she tried to pretend to herself that she was interested in.

      Because all she could really think, in an undercurrent monologue that kept shouting at her from deep inside her mind, was: He has my babies. Not the Pied Piper, prancing them away from town. Not Baba Yaga, luring them into her house on chicken legs. Not the witch in the gingerbread cottage, keeping them in cages and fattening them up. None of those grey fantasies. Nothing of fog and mist. Only the absolute black of a place where no light shines, where light is not even remembered.

      That's where her babies were.

      In the belly of the Beast.

      The car came to a stop at a simple platform. The underground road went on, to destinations Petra did not bother trying to guess. For all she knew, the tunnel ran to Baghdad, to Amman, under the mountains to Ankara, maybe even under the radioactive desert to arise in the place where the ancient stone waits for the half-life of the half-life of the half-life of death to pass, so pilgrims can come again on haj[?].

      Lankowski reached out a hand and helped her from the car, though she was young and he was old. His attitude toward her was strange, as if he had to treat her very carefully. As if she was not robust, as if she could easily break.

      And it was true. She was the one who could break. Who broke.

      Only I can't break now. Because maybe I still have one child. Maybe putting this one inside me did not kill it, but gave it life. Maybe it has taken root in my garden and will blossom and bear fruit, a baby on a short twisted stem. And when the fruit is plucked, out will come stem and root as well, leaving the garden empty. And where will the others be then? They have been taken to grow in someone else's plot. Yet I will not break now, because I have this one, perhaps this one.

      "Thank you," she said to Lankowski. "But I'm not so fragile as to need help getting out of a car."

      He smiled at her, but said nothing. She followed him into the elevator and they rose up into...

      A garden. As lush as the Philippine jungle clearing where Peter gave the order that would bring the Beast into their house, driving them out.

      She saw that the courtyard was glassed over. That's why it was so humid here. That's how it stayed so moist. Nothing was given up to the dry desert air.

      Sitting quietly on a stone chair in the middle of the garden was a tall, slender man, his skin the deep cacao brown of the upper Niger where he had been born.

      She did not walk up to him at once, but stood admiring what she saw. The long legs, clad not in the business suit that had been the uniform of westerners for centuries now, but in the robes of a sheik. His head was not covered, however And there was no beard on his chin. Still young, and yet also now a man.

      "Alai," she murmured. So softly that she doubted he could hear.

      And perhaps he did not hear, but chose that moment only by coincidence, to turn and see her. His brooding expression softened into a smile. But it was not the boyish grin that she had known when he bounded along the low-gravity inner corridors of Battle School. This smile had weariness in it, and old fears long mastered but still present. It was the smile of wisdom.

      She realized then why Alai had disappeared from view.

      He is Caliph. They have chosen a Caliph again, all the Muslim world under the authority of one man, and it is Alai.

      She could not know this, not just from his place here in a garden. Yet she knew from the way he sat in it that this was a throne. She knew from the way she was brought here, with no trappings of power, no guards, no passwords, just a simple man of elegant courtesy leading her to the boy-man seated on the ancient throne. Alai's power was spiritual. In all of Damascus there was no safer place than here. No one would bother him. Millions would die before letting an uninvited stranger set foot here.

      He beckoned to her, and it was the gentle invitation of a holy man. She did not have to obey him, and he would not mind if she did not come. But she came.

      "Salaam," said Alai.

      "Salaam," said Petra.

      "Stone girl," he said.

      "Hi," she said. The old joke between them, him punning on the meaning of her name in the original Greek, her punning on the jai of jai chat.

      "I'm glad you're safe," he said.

      "Your life has changed since you regained your freedom."

      "And yours, too," said Alai. "Married now.

      "A good Catholic wedding."

      "You should have invited me," he said.

      "You couldn't have come," she said.

      "No," he agreed. "But I would have wished you well."

      "Instead you have done well by us when we needed it most."

      "I'm sorry that I did nothing to protect the other... children. But I didn't know about them in time. And I assumed that Bean and you would have had enough security... no, no, please, I'm sorry, I'm reminding you of pain instead of soothing you.

      She sank down and sat on the ground before his throne, and he leaned over to gather her into his arms. She rested her head and arms on his lap, and he stroked her hair "When we were children, playing the greatest computer game in the world, we had no idea."

      "We were saving the world."

      "And now we're creating the world we saved."

      "Not me," said Petra. "I'm no longer a player."

      "Are any of us players?" said Alai. "Or are we only the pieces moved in someone else's game?"

      "Inshallah," said Petra.

      She had rather expected Alai to chuckle, but he only nodded. "Yes, that is our belief, that all that happens comes from the will of God. But I think it is not your belief."

      "No. we Christians have to guess the will of God and try to bring it to pass.

      "It feels the same, when things are happening," said Alai. "Sometimes you think that you're in control, because you make things change by your own choices. And then something happens that sweeps all your plans away as if they were nothing, just pieces on a chessboard."

      "Shadows that children make on the wall," said Petra, "and someone turns the light off."

      "Or turns a brighter one on," said Alai, "and the shadows disappear.

      "Alai," said Petra, "will you let us go again? I know your secret."

      "Yes, I'll let you go," said Alai. "The secret can't be kept for long. Too many people know it already."

      "We would never tell."

      "I know," said Alai. "Because we were once in Ender's jeesh. But I'm in another jeesh now. I stand at the head of it, because they asked me to do it, because they said God had chosen me. I don't know about that. I don't hear the voice of God, I don't feel his power inside me. But they come to me with their plans, their questions, the conflicts between nations, and I offer suggestions. And they take them. And things work out. So far at least, they've always worked. So perhaps I am chosen by God."

      "Or you're very clever"

      "Or very lucky." Alai looked at his hands. "Still, it's better to believe that some high purpose guides our steps than to think that nothing matters except our own small miseries and happinesses."

      "Unless our happiness is the high purpose."

      "If our happiness is the purpose of God," said Alai, "why are so few of us happy?"

      "Perhaps he wants us to have the happiness that we can only find for ourselves."

      Alai nodded and chuckled. "We Battle School brats, we all have a bit of the imam in us, don't you think?"

      "The Jesuit. The rabbi. The lama."

      "Do you know how I find my answers? Sometimes, when it's very hard? I ask myself 'What would Ender do?'"

      Petra shook her head. "It's the old joke. 'I ask myself What would a person smarter than me do in this circumstance, and then I do it.'"

      "But Ender isn't imaginary. He was with us, and we knew him. We saw how he built us into an army, how he knew us all, found the best in us, pushed us as hard as we could bear, and sometimes harder, but himself hardest of all."

      Petra felt once again the old sting, that she was the only one he had pushed harder than she could bear.

      It made her sad and angry, and even though she knew that Alai had not even been thinking of her when he said it, she wanted to lash back at him.

      But he had been kind to her and Bean. Had saved them, and brought them here, even though he did not need or want non-Muslims helping him, since his new role as the leader of the world's Muslims required a certain purity, if not in his soul, then certainly in his companionship.

      Still, she had to offer

      "We'll help you if you let us," said Petra.

      "Help me what?" asked Alai.

      "Help you make war against China," she said.

      "But we have no plans to make war against China," said Alai. "We have renounced military jihad. The only purification and redemption we attempt is of the soul."

      "Do all wars have to be holy wars?"

      "No, but unholy wars damn all those who take part in them."

      "Who else but you can stand against China?"

      "The Europeans. The North Americans."

      "It's hard to stand when you have no spine."

      "They're an old and tired civilization. We were, too, once. It took centuries of decline and a series of bitter defeats and humiliations before we made the changes that would allow us to serve Allah in unity and hope."

      "And yet you maintain armies. You have a network of operatives who shoot their guns when they need to."

      Alai nodded gravely. "We're prepared to use force to defend ourselves if we're attacked."

      Petra shook her head. For a moment she had felt frustrated because the world needed rescuing, and it sounded as though Alai and his people were renouncing war Now she was just as disappointed to realize that nothing had really changed. Alai was planning war-but intended to wait until some attack made his war "defensive." Not that she disagreed with the justness of defensive war. It was the falseness of pretending that he had renounced war when he was in fact planning for it.

      Or maybe he meant exactly what he said.

      It seemed so unlikely.

      "You're tired," said Alai. "Even though the jet lag from the Netherlands is not so bad, you should rest. I understand you were ill on your flight."

      She laughed. "You had someone on the plane, watching me?"

      "Of course," he said. "You're a very important person."

      Why should she be important to the Muslims? They didn't want to use her military talents, and she had no political influence in the world. It had to be her baby that made her valuable-but how would her child, if she even had one, have any value to the Islamic world?

      "My child," she said, "will not be raised to be a soldier."

      Alai raised a hand. "You leap to conclusions, Petra," he said. "We are led, we hope, by Allah. We have no wish to take your child, and while we hope that there will someday be a world in which all children will be raised to know Allah and serve him, we have no desire to take your child from you or keep him here with us."

      "Or her," said Petra, unreassured. "If you don't want our baby, why am I an important person?"

      "Think like a soldier," said Alai. "You have in your womb what our worst enemy wants most. And, even if you don't have a baby, your death is something that he has to have, for reasons deep in the evil of his heart. His need to reach for you makes you important to those of us who fear him and want to block his path."

      Petra shook her head. "Alai," she said, "I and my child could die and it would be a mere blip on the rangeflnder[?] to you and your people."

      "It's useful for us to keep you alive," said Alai.

      "How pragmatic of you. But there's more to it than that."

      "Yes," said Alai. "There is."

      "Are you going to tell me?"

      "it will sound very mystical to you," said Alai.

      "But that's hardly a surprise, coming from the Caliph."

      "Allah has brought something new into the world-I speak of Bean, the genetic difference between him and the rest of humanity. There are imams who declare him to be an abomination, conceived in evil. There are others who say he is an innocent victim, a child who was conceived as a normal embryo but was altered by evil and can't help what was done to him. But there are others-and the number is by far larger-who say that this could not have been done except by the will of Allah. That Bean's abilities were a key part of our victory over the Formics, so it must have been God's will that brought him into existence at the time we needed him. And since God has chosen to bring this new thing into the world, now we must watch and see whether God allows this genetic change to breed true."

      "He's dying, Alai," said Petra.

      "I know," said Alai. "But aren't we all?"

      "He didn't want to have children at all."

      "And yet he changed his mind," said Alai. "The will of God blossoms in all hearts."

      "So maybe if the Beast kills us, that's the will of God as well. Why did you bother to prevent it?"

      "Because my friends asked me to," said Alai. "Why are you making this so complicated? The things I want are simple. To do good wherever it's within my power, and where I can't do good, at least do no harm."

      "How... Hippocratic of you."

      "Petra, go to bed, sleep, you're becoming bitchy."

      It was true. She was out of sorts, fretting about things she could do nothing to change, wanting Bean to be with her, wanting Alai not to have changed into this regal figure, this holy man.

      "You're not happy with what I've become," said Alai.

      "You can read minds?" asked Petra.

      "Faces," said Alai. "Unlike Achilles and Peter Wiggin, I didn't seek this. I came home from space with no ambition other than to lead a normal life and perhaps serve my country or my God in one way or another Nor did some party or faction choose me and set me in my place."

      "How could you end up in this garden, on that chair, if neither you nor anyone else put you there?" asked Petra. It annoyed her when people lied-even to themselves-about things that simply didn't need to be lied about.

      "I came home from my Russian captivity and was put to work planning joint military maneuvers of a pan-Arab force that was being trained to join in the defense of Pakistan."

      Petra knew that this pan-Arab force probably began as an army designed to help defend against Pakistan, since right up to the moment of the Chinese invasion of India, the Pakistani government had been planning to launch a war against other Muslim nations to unite the Muslim world under their rule.

      "Or whatever," said Alai, laughing at her consternation when, once again, he had seemed to read her mind. "It became a force for the defense of Pakistan. It put me in contact with military planners from a dozen nations, and more and more they began to come to me with questions well beyond those of military strategy. It was nobody's plan, least of all mine. I didn't think my answers were particularly wise, I simply said whatever seemed obvious to me, or when nothing was clear, I asked questions until clarity emerged."

      "And they became dependent on you.

      "I don't think so," said Alai. "They simply... respected me. They began to want me in meetings with the politicians and diplomats, not just the soldiers. And the politicians and diplomats began asking me questions, seeking my support for their views or plans, and finally choosing me as the mediator between the parties in various disputes."

      "A judge," said Petra.

      "A Battle School graduate," said Alai, "at a time when my people wanted more than a judge. They wanted to be great again, and to do that they needed a leader that they believed had the favor of Allah. I try to live and act in such a way as to give them the leader they need. Petra, I am still the same boy I was in Battle School. And, like Ender, I may be a leader, but I am also the tool my people created to accomplish their collective purpose."

      "Maybe," said Petra, "I'm just jealous. Because Armenia has no great purpose, except to stay alive and free. And no power to accomplish that without the help of great nations."

      "Armenia is in no danger from us," said Alai.

      "Unless, of course, we provoke the Azerbaijanis," said Petra. "Which we do by breathing, I must point out."

      "We will not conquer our way to greatness, Petra," said Alai.

      "What, then, you'll wait for the whole world to convert to Islam and beg to be admitted to your new world order?"

      "Yes" said Alai. "That's just what we'll do."

      "As plans go," said Petra, "that's about the most self-delusional one I've ever heard of."

      He laughed. "Definitely you need a nap, my beloved sister You don't want that to be the mouth Bean has to listen to when he arrives."

      "When will he arrive?"

      "Well after dark," said Alai. "Now you see Mr. Lankowski waiting for you at that gate. He'll lead you to your room.

      "I sleep in the palace of the Caliph tonight?" asked Petra.

      "It's not much, as palaces go," said Alai. "Most of the rooms are public spaces, offices, things like that. I have a very simple bedroom and... this garden. Your room will also be very simple-but perhaps it will make it seem luxurious if you think of it as being identical with the one where the Caliph sleeps."

      "I feel as if I've been swept away into one of Scheherazade's stories."

      "We keep a sturdy roof. You have nothing to fear from rocs."

      "You think of everything," said Petra.

      "We have an excellent doctor on call, should you wish for medical attention of any kind."

      "It's still too soon for a pregnancy test to mean anything," said Petra. "If that's what you meant."

      "I meant," said Alai, "that we have an excellent doctor on call, should you wish for medical attention of any kind."

      "In that case," said Petra, "my answer is, 'You think of everything.'"

      She thought she couldn't sleep, but she had nothing better to do than lie on the bed in a room that was downright spartan-with no television and no book but an Armenian translation of the Q'uran. She knew what the presence of this book in her room implied. For many centuries, translations of the Q'uran were regarded as false by definition, since only the original Arabic actually conveyed the words of the Prophet. But in the great opening of Islam that followed their abject defeat in a series of desperate wars with the West, this was one of the first things that was changed.

      Every translated copy of the Q'uran contained, on the title page, a quotation from the great imam Zuqaq-the very one who brought about the reconciliation of Israel and the Muslim world. "Allah is above language. Even in Arabic, the Q'uran is translated from the mind of God into the words of men. Everyone should be able to hear the words of God in the language he speaks in his own heart."

      So the presence of the Q'uran in Armenian told her, first, that in the palace of the Caliph, there was no recidivism, no return to the days of fanatical Islam, when foreigners were forced to live by Islamic law, women were veiled and barred from the schools and the roads, and young Muslim soldiers strapped bombs to their bodies to blow up the children of their enemies.

      And it also told her that her coming was anticipated and someone had taken great pains to prepare this room for her, simple as it seemed. To have the Q'uran in Common Speech, the more-or-less phonetically spelled English that had been adopted as the language of the International Fleet, would have been sufficient. They wanted to make the point, though, that here in the heart-no, the head-of the Muslim world, they had regard for all nations, all languages. They knew who she was, and they had the holy words for her in the language she spoke in her heart.

      She appreciated the gesture and was annoyed by it, both at once. She did not open the book. She rummaged through her bag, then unpacked everything. She showered to clear the must of travel from her hair and skin, and then lay down on the bed because in this room there was nowhere else to sit.

      No wonder he spends his time in the garden, she thought. He has to go out there just to turn around.

      She woke because someone was at the door. Not knocking. Just standing there, pressing a palm against the reader. What could she possibly have heard that woke her? Footsteps in the corridor?

      "I'm not dressed," she called out as the door opened.

      "That's what I was hoping," said Bean.

      He came in carrying his own bag and set it down beside the one dresser.

      "Did you meet Alai?" asked Petra.

      "Yes, but we'll talk of that later," said Bean.

      "You know he's Caliph," she insisted.

      "Later," he said. He pulled his shoes off.

      "I think they're planning a war, but pretending that they're not," said Petra.

      "They can plan what they like," said Bean. "You're safe here, that's what I care about."

      Still in his traveling clothes, Bean lay down on the bed beside her, snaking one arm under her, drawing her close to him. He stroked her back, kissed her forehead.

      "They told me about the other embryos," she said. "How Achilles stole them."

      He kissed her again and said, "Shhhh."

      "I don't know if I'm pregnant yet," said Petra.

      "You will be," said Bean.

      "I knew that he hadn't checked for Anton's Key," said Petra. "I knew he was lying about that."

      "All right," said Bean.

      "I knew but I didn't tell you," said Petra.

      "Now you've told me."

      "I want your child, no matter what."

      "Well," said Bean, "in that case we can start the next one the regular way."

      She kissed him. "I love you," she said.

      "I'm glad to hear that."

      "We have to get the others back," said Petra. "They're our children and I don't want somebody else to raise them."

      "We'll get them back," said Bean. "That's one thing I know."

      "He'll destroy them before he lets us have them."

      "Not so," said Bean. "He wants them alive more than he wants us dead."

      "How can you possibly know what the Beast is thinking?"

      Bean rolled onto his back and lay there facing the ceiling. "On the plane I did a lot of thinking. About something Ender said. How he thought. You have to know your enemy, he said. That's why he studied the Formics constantly. All the footage of the First War, the anatomies of the corpses of the dead Bugger soldiers, and what he couldn't find in the books and vids, he imagined. Extrapolated. Tried to think of who they were."

      "You're nothing like Achilles," said Petra. "You're the opposite of him. If you want to know him, think of whatever you're not, and that'll be him."

      "Not true," said Bean. "In his sad, twisted way, he loves you, and so, in my own sad twisted way, do I."

      "Not the same twists, and that makes all the difference."

      "Ender said that you can't defeat a powerful enemy unless you understand him completely, and you can't understand him unless you know the desires of his heart, and you can't know the desires of his heart until you truly love him."

      "Please don't tell me that you've decided to love the Beast," said Petra.

      "I think," said Bean, "that I always have."

      "No, no, no," said Petra in revulsion and she rolled away from him, turned her back on him.

      "Ever since I saw him limping up to us, the one bully we thought we could overpower, we little children. His twisted foot, the dangerous hate he felt toward anyone who saw his weakness. The genuine kindness and love he showed to everyone but me and Poke-Petra, that's what nobody understands about Achilles, they see him as a murderer, and a monster-"

      "Because he is one."

      "A monster who keeps winning the love and trust of people who should know better. I know that man, the one whose eyes look into your soul and judge you and find you worthy. I saw how the other children loved him, turned their loyalty from Poke to Achilles, made him their father, truly, in their hearts. And even though he always kept me at a distance, the fact is... I loved him too."

      "I didn't," said Petra. The memory of Achilles's arms around her as he kissed her-it was unbearable to her, and she wept.

      She felt Bean's hand on her shoulder, then stroking her side, gently soothing her "I'm going to destroy him, Petra," said Bean. "But I'll never do it the way I've been going about it up till now. I've been avoiding him, reacting to him. Peter had the right idea after all. He was dumb about it, but the idea was right, to get close to him. You can't treat him as something faraway and unintelligible. A force of nature, like a storm or earthquake, where you have no hope but to run for shelter. You have to understand him. Get inside his head."

      "I've been there," said Petra. "It's a filthy place."

      "Yes, I know," said Bean. "A place of fear and fire. But remember-he lives there all the time."

      "Don't tell me I'm supposed to pity him because he has to live with himself!"

      "Petra, I spent the whole flight trying to be Achilles, trying to think of what he yearns for, what he hopes for, to think of how he thinks."

      "And you threw up? Because I did, twice on my flight, and I didn't have to get inside the Beast to do it."

      "Maybe because you have a little beast inside you.

      She shuddered. "Don't call him that. Her. It. I'm not even pregnant yet, probably. It was only this morning. My baby is not a beast."

      "Bad joke, I'm sorry." said Bean. "But listen, Petra, on the flight I realized something. Achilles is not a mysterious force. I know exactly what he wants."

      "What does he want? Besides us, dead?"

      "He wants us to know that the babies are alive. He won't even implant them yet. He'll leave little clues for us to follow-nothing too obvious, because he wants us to think we discovered something he's trying to keep hidden. But we'll find out where they are because he wants us to. They'll all be in one place. Because he wants us to come for them."

      "Bait," she said.

      "No, not just bait," said Bean. "He could send us a note right now if he wanted that. No, it's more than that. He wants us to think we're very smart to have found out where they are. He wants us to be full of hope that we might rescue them. To be excited, so we'll hurtle into a situation completely unprepared for the fact that he's waiting for us. That way he can see us fall from triumphant hope to utter despair. Before he kills us."

      Bean was right, she knew it. "But how can you even pretend to love someone so evil?"

      "No, you still don't understand," said Bean. "It's not our despair he wants. It's our hope. He has none. He doesn't understand it."

      "Oh. please," said Petra. "An ambitious person lives on hope."

      "He has no hope. No dream. He tries everything to find one. He goes through the motions of love and kindness, or anything else that might work, and still nothing means anything. Each new conquest only leaves him hungry for another. He's hungry to find something that really matters in life. He knows we have it. Both of us, before we even found each other, we had it."

      "I thought you were famous for having no faith," said Petra.

      "But you see," said Bean, "Achilles knew me better than I knew myself. He saw it in me. The same thing Sister Carlotta saw."

      "Intelligence?" asked Petra.

      "Hope," said Bean. "Relentless hope. It never crosses my mind that there's no solution, no chance of survival. Oh, I can conceive of that intellectually, but never are my actions based on despair, because I never really believe it. Achilles knows that I have a reason to live. That's why he wants me so badly. And you, Petra. You more than me."

      "And our babies-they are our hope. A completely insane kind of hope, yes, but we made them, didn't we?"

      "So," said Petra, grasping the picture now, "he doesn't just want us to die, the way he was perfectly content to let Sister Carlotta die in an airplane, when he was far away. He wants us to see him with our babies."

      "And when we realize we can't have them back, that we're going to die after all, the hope that drains out of us, he thinks it'll become his own. He thinks that because he has our babies, he has our hope."

      "And he does," said Petra.

      "But the hope can never be his. He's incapable of it."

      "This is all very interesting," said Petra, "but completely useless."

      "But don't you see?" said Bean. "This is how we can destroy him."

      "What do you mean?"

      "He's going to fall into the pit he dug for us."

      "We don't have his babies."

      "He hopes we'll come and give him what he wants. But instead, we'll come prepared to destroy him."

      "He's going to be laying an ambush for us. If we come in force, he'll either slip away or-as soon as it's clear he's doomed-he'll kill our babies."

      "No, no, we'll let him spring his trap. We'll walk right into it. So that when we face him, we see him in his moment of triumph. Which is always the moment when somebody is at their stupidest."

      "You don't have to be smart when you have all the guns."

      "Relax, Petra," said Bean. "I'm going to get our babies back. And kill Achilles while I'm at it. And I'll do it soon, my love. Before I die."

      "That's good," said Petra. "It will be so much harder for you to do it afterward."

      And then she wept, because, contrary to what Bean had just said, she had no hope. She was going to lose her husband, her children were going to lose their father No victory over Achilles could change the fact that in the end, she was going to lose him.

      He reached out for her again, held her close, kissed her brow, her cheek. "Have our baby," he said. "I'll bring home its brothers and sisters before it's born."

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

SPACE STATION

To:   Locke%erasmus@polnet.gov

From: SitePostAlert

Re:   Girl on bridge

Now you are not in cesspool can communicate again. Have no e-mail here, Stones ore mine. Back on bridge soon. War in earnest. Post to me only, this site, pickup nome BridgeGiri password not stepstool.

      Peter found spaceflight boring, just as he'd suspected he would. Like air travel, only longer and with less scenery.

      Thank heaven Mother and Father had the good sense not to get all sentimental about the shuttle flight to the Ministry of Colonization. After all, it was the same space station that had been Battle School. They were going to set foot at last where precious little Ender had had his first triumphs-and, oh yes, killed a boy.

      But there were no footprints here. Nothing to tell them what it was like for Ender to ride a shuttle to this place. They were not small children taken away from their homes. They were adults, and the fate of the world just might rest in their hands.

      Come to think of it, that was like Ender, wasn't it.

      The whole human race was united when Ender came here. The enemy was clear, the danger real, and Ender didn't even have to know what he was doing to win the war.

      By comparison, Peter's task was much more difficult. It might seem simpler-find a really good assassin and kill Achilles.

      But it wasn't that simple. First, Achilles, being an assassin and a user of assassins, would be ready for such a plot. Second, it wasn't enough to kill Achilles. He was not the army that conquered India and Indochina. He was not the government that ruled more than half the people of the world. Destroy Achilles, and you still have to roll back all the things he did.

      It was like Hitler back in World War II. Without Hitler, Germany would never have had the nerve to conquer France and sweep to the gates of Moscow. But if Hitler had been assassinated just before the invasion of Russia, then in all likelihood the common language of the International Fleet would have been German. Because it was Hitler's mistakes, his weaknesses, his fears, his hatreds, that lost the back half of the war, just as it was his drive, his decisions, that won the front half.

      Killing Achilles might do nothing more than guarantee a world governed by China.

      Still, with him out of the way, Peter would face a rational enemy. And his own assets would not be so superstitiously terrified. The way Bean and Petra and Virlomi fled at the mere thought of Achilles coming to Ribeirao Preto... though of course in the long run they weren't wrong, still, it complicated things enormously that he kept having to work alone, unless you counted Mother and Father.

      And since they were the only assets he had that he could rely on to serve his interests, he definitely counted them.

      Counted them, but was angry at them all the same. He knew it was irrational, but the whole way up to MinCol, he kept coming back to the same seething memory of the way his parents had always judged him as a child and found him wanting, while Ender and Valentine could do no wrong. Being a fundamentally reasonable person, he took due notice of the fact that since Val and Ender left in a colony ship, his parents had been completely supportive of him. Had saved him more than once. He could not have asked any more from them even if they had actually loved him. They did their duty as parents, and more than their duty.

      But it didn't erase the pain of those earlier years when everything he did seemed to be wrong, every natural instinct an offense against one of their versions of God or the other. Well, in all your judging, remember this-it was Ender who turned out to be Cain, wasn't it! And you always thought it was going to be me.

      Stupid stupid stupid, Peter told himself Ender didn't kill his brother, Ender defended himself against his enemies. As I have done.

      I have to get over this, he told himself again and again during the voyage.

      I wish there were something to look at besides the stupid vids. Or Dad snoring. Or Mother looking at me now and then, sizing me up, and then winking. Does she have any idea how awful that is? How demeaning? To wink at me! What about smiling? What about looking at me with that dreamy fond expression she used to have for Val and Ender? Of course she liked them.

      Stop it. Think about what you have to do, fool.

      Think about what you have to write and publish, as Locke and as Demosthenes, to rouse the people in the free countries, to goad the governments of the nations ruled from above. There could be no business as usual, he couldn't allow that. But it was hard to keep the people's attention on a war in which no shots were being fired. A war that took place in a faraway land. What did they care, in Argentina, that the people of India had a government not of their choosing? Why should it matter to a light farmer tending his photovoltaic screens in the Kalahari Desert whether the people of Thailand were having dirt kicked in their faces?

      China had no designs on Namibia or Argentina. The war was over, Why wouldn't people just shut up about it and go back to making money?

      That was Peter's enemy. Not Achilles, ultimately. Not even China. It was the apathy of the rest of the world that played into their hands.

      And here I am in space, no longer free to move about, far more dependent than I've ever been before. Because if Graff decides not to send me back to Earth, then I can't go. There's no alternative transport. He seems to be entirely on my side. But it's his former Battle School brats that have his true loyalty. He thinks he can use me as I thought I could use Achilles. I was wrong. But probably he is right.

      After all the voyaging, it was so frustrating to be there and still have to wait while the shuttle did its little dance of lining up with the station dock. There was nothing to watch. They blanked the "windows" because it was too nauseating in zero-G to watch the Earth spin madly as the shuttle matched the rotation of the great wheel.

      My career might already be over. I might already have earned whatever mention I'll have in history. I might already be nothing but a footnote in other people's biographies, a paragraph in the history books.

      Really, at this point my best strategy for beefing up my reputation is probably to be assassinated in some colorful way.

      But the way things are going, I'll probably die in some tragic airlock accident while doing a routine docking at the MinCol space station.

      "Stop wallowing," said Mother.

      He looked at her sharply. "I'm not," he said.

      "Good," she said. "Be angry at me. That's better than feeling sorry for yourself."

      He wanted to snap back angrily, but he realized the futility of denying what they all knew was true. He was depressed, definitely, and yet he still had to work. Like the day of his press conference when they dragged him out of bed. He didn't want a repeat of that humiliation. He'd do his work without having to have his parents prod him like some adolescent. And he wouldn't get snippy at them when they merely told him the truth.

      So he smiled at her. "Come on, Mother, you know that if I were on fire, nobody would so much as pee on me to put it out."

      "Be honest, son," said his father. "There are hundreds of thousands of people back on Earth who have only to be asked. And some dozens who would do it without waiting for an invitation, if they saw an opportunity."

      "There are some good points about fame," Peter observed. "And those with empty bladders would probably chip in with a little spit."

      "This is getting quite disgusting," said Mother

      "You say that because it's your job to say it," said Peter.

      "I'm underpaid, then," said Mother "Because it's nearly a fulltime position."

      "Your role in life. So womanly. Men need civilizing, and you're just the one to do it."

      "I'm obviously not very good at it."

      At that moment the IF sergeant who was their flight steward came into the main cabin and told them it was time to go.

      Because they docked at the center of the station, there was no gravity. They floated along, gripping handrails as the steward flipped their bags so they sailed through the airlock just under them. They were caught by a couple of orderlies who had obviously done this a hundred times, and were not the least bit impressed by having the Hegemon himself come to MinCol.

      Though in all probability nobody knew who they were. They were traveling under false papers, of course, but Graff had undoubtedly let someone in the station know who they really were.

      Probably not the orderlies, though.

      Not until they were down one spoke of the wheel to a level where there was a definite floor to walk on did they meet anyone of real status in the station. A man in the grey suit that served MinCol as a uniform waited at the foot of the elevator, his hand outstretched. "Mr. and Mrs. Raymond," he said. "I'm Underminister Dimak. And this must be your son, Dick."

      Peter smiled wanly at the faint humor in the pseudonym Graff had arbitrarily assigned to him.

      "Please tell me that you know who we really are so we don't have to keep up this charade," said Peter.

      "I know," said Dimak softly, "but nobody else on this station does, and I'd like to keep it that way for now.

      "Graff isn't here?"

      "The Minister of Colonization is returning from his inspection of the outfitting of the newest colony ship. We're two weeks away from first leg on that one, and starting next week you won't believe the traffic that'll come through here, sixteen shuttles a day, and that's just for the colonists. The freighters go directly to the dry dock."

      "Is there," said Father innocently, "a wet dock?"

      Dimak grinned. "Nautical terminology dies hard."

      Dimak led them along a corridor to a down tube. They slid down the pole after him. The gravity wasn't so intense yet as to make this a problem, even for Peter's parents, who were, after all, in their forties. He helped them step out of the shaft into a lower-and therefore "heavier"-corridor.

      There were old-fashioned directional stripes along the walls. "Your palm prints have already been keyed," said Dimak. "Just touch here, and it will lead you to your room."

      "This is left over from the old days, isn't it?" said Father "Though I don't imagine you were here when this was still-"

      "But I was here," said Dimak. "I was mother to groups of new kids. Not your son, I'm afraid. But an acquaintance of yours, I believe."

      Peter did not want to put himself in the pathetic position of naming off Battle School graduates he knew. Mother had no such qualms.

      "Petra?" she said. "Suriyawong?"

      Dimak leaned in close, so his voice would not have to be pitched loud enough that it might be overheard. "Bean," he said.

      "He must have been a remarkable boy," said Mother.

      "Looked like a three-year-old when he got here," said Dimak. "Nobody could believe he was old enough for this place."

      "He doesn't look like that now," said Peter dryly.

      "No, I ... I know about his condition. It's not public knowledge, but Colonel Graff-the minister, I mean-he knows that I still care what happens to-well, to all my kids, of course-but this one was ... I imagine your son's first trainer felt much the same way about him."

      "I hope so," said Mother.

      The sentimentality was getting so sweet Peter wanted to brush his teeth. He palmed the pad by the entrance and three strips lit up. "Green green brown," said Dimak. "But soon you won't be needing this. It's not as if there's miles of open country here to get lost in. The stripe system always assumes that you want to go back to your room, except when you touch the pad just outside the door of your room, and then it thinks you want to go to the bathroom-none inside the rooms, I'm afraid, it wasn't built that way. But if you want to go to the mess hall, just slap the pad twice and it'll know."

      He showed them to their quarters, which consisted of a single long room with bunks in rows along both sides of a narrow aisle. "I'm afraid you'll have company for the week we're loading up the ship, but nobody'll be here very long, and then you'll have the place to yourself for three more weeks."

      "You're doing a launch a month?" said Peter "How, exactly, are you funding a pace like that?"

      Dimak looked at him blankly. "I don't actually know," he said.

      Peter leaned in close and imitated the voice Dimak used for secrets. "I'm the Hegemon," he said. "Officially, your boss works for me.

      Dimak whispered back, "You save the world, we'll finance the colony program."

      "I could have used a little more money for my operations, I can tell you," said Peter.

      "Every Hegemon feels that way," said Dimak. "Which is why our funding doesn't come through you."

      Peter laughed. "Smart move. If you think the colonization program is very very important."

      "It's the future of the human race, said Dimak simply. "The Buggers-pardon me, the Formics-had the right idea. Spread out as far as you can, so you can't be wiped out in a single disastrous war. Not that it saved them, but... we aren't hive creatures."

      "Aren't we?" said Father.

      "Well, if we are, then who's the queen?" asked Dimak.

      "In this place," said Father, "I suspect it's Graff."

      "And we're all just his little arms and legs?"

      "And mouths and... well, yes, of course. A little more independent and a little less obedient than the individual Formics, of course, but that's how a species comes to dominate a world the way we did, and they did. Because you know how to get a large number of individuals to give up their personal will and subject themselves to a group mind."

      "So this is philosophy we're doing here," said Dimak.

      "Or very cutting-edge science," said Father "The behavior of humars in groups. Degrees of allegiance. I think about it a lot."

      "How interesting."

      "I see that you're not interested at all," said Father. "And that I'm now in your book as an eccentric who brings up his theories. But I never do, actually. I don't know why I did just now. I just... it's the first time I've been in Graff's house, so to speak. And meeting you was very much like visiting with him."

      "I'm... flattered," said Dimak.

      "John Paul," said Mother, "I do believe you're making Mr Dimak uncomfortable."

      "When people feel great allegiance to their community, they start to take on the mannerisms as well as the morals of their leader," said Father, refusing to give up.

      "If their leader has a personality," said Peter

      "How do you get to be a leader without one?" asked Father.

      "Ask Achilles," said Peter "He's the opposite. He takes on the mannerisms of the people he wants to have follow him."

      "I don't remember that one," said Dimak. "He was only here a few days before he-before we discovered he had a track record of murder back on Earth."

      "Someday you have to tell me how Bean got him to confess. He won't tell."

      "If he won't tell, neither will I," said Dimak.

      "How loyal," said Father.

      "Not really," said Dimak. "I just don't know myself. I know it had something to do with a ventilation shaft."

      "That confession," said Peter "The recordings wouldn't still be here, would they?"

      "No, they wouldn't," said Dimak. "And even if they were, they're part of a sealed juvenile record."

      "Of a mass murderer"

      "We only notice laws when they act against our interest," said Dimak.

      "See?" said Father. "We've traded philosophies."

      "Like tribesmen swapping at a potlatch," said Dimak. "If you don't mind, I'd like to have you talk with Security Chief Uphanad before dinner"

      "What about?"

      "The colonists aren't a problem-they have a one-way flow and they can't easily communicate planetside. But you're probably going to be recognized here. And even if you're not, it's hard to maintain a false story for long."

      "Then let's not have a false story," said Peter.

      "No. let's have a really good one," said Mother.

      "Let's just not talk to anybody," said Father.

      "Those are precisely the issues that Major Uphanad wants to discuss with you."

      Once Dimak had left, they chose bunks at the back of the long room. Peter took a top bunk, of course, but while he was unloading his bags into the locker in the wall behind the bunk, Father discovered that each set of six bunks-three on each side-could be separated from the others by a privacy curtain.

      "It has to be a retrofit," said Father. "I can't believe they would let the kids seal themselves off from each other."

      "How soundproof is this material?" asked Mother.

      Father pulled it around in a circular motion, so it irised shut with him on the other side. They heard nothing from him. Then he dilated it open.

      "Well?" he asked.

      "Pretty effective sound barrier," said Mother.

      "You did try to talk to us, didn't you?" asked Peter.

      "No, I was listening for you," said Father.

      "Well we were listening for you, John Paul," said Mother.

      "No, I spoke. I didn't shout, but you couldn't hear me, right?"

      "Peter," said Mother, "you just got moved to the next compartment over."

      "That won't work when the colonists come through."

      "You can come back and sleep in Mommy's and Daddy's room when the visitors come," said Mother.

      "You'll have to walk through my room in order to get to the bathroom," said Peter.

      "That's right," said Father. "I know you're Hegemon and should have the best room, but then, we're not likely to walk in on you making love."

      "Don't count on it," said Peter sourly.

      "We'll open the door just a little and say 'knock knock' before we come through," said Mother. "It'll give you time to smuggle your best pal out of sight."

      It made him faintly nauseated to be having this discussion with his parents. "You two are so cute. I'm really glad to change rooms here, believe me."

      It was good to have solitude, once the door was closed, even if the price of it was moving all his stuff out of the locker he had just loaded and putting it in a locker in the next section. Now he got a lower bunk, for one thing. And for another thing, he didn't have to put up with listening to his parents try to cheer him up.

      He had to have thinking time.

      So of course he promptly fell asleep.

      Dimak woke him by speaking to him over the intercom. "Mr. Raymond, are you there?"

      It took Peter a split second to remember that he was supposed to be Dick Raymond. "Yes. Unless you want my father."

      "Already spoke to him," said Dimak. "I've keyed the guidebars to lead you to the security department."

      It was on the top level, with the lowest gravity-which made sense, because if security action were required, officers dispersing from the main office would have a downhill trip to wherever they were going.

      When they stepped inside the office, Major Uphanad was there to greet them. He offered his hand to all of them.

      "Are you from India?" asked Mother, "or Pakistan?"

      "India," said Uphanad, not breaking his smile at all.

      "I'm so sorry for your country, said Mother.

      "I haven't been back there since-in a long time."

      "I hope your family is faring welt under the Chinese occupation."

      "Thank you for your concern," said Uphanad, in a tone of voice that made it clear this topic was finished.

      He offered them chairs and sat down himself-behind his desk, taking full advantage of his official position. Peter resented it a little, since he had spent a good while now as the man who was always in the dominant place. He might not have had much actual power, as Hegemon, but protocol always gave him the highest place.

      But he was not supposed to be known here. So he could hardly be treated differently from any civilian visitor.

      "I know that you are particular guests of the Minister," said Uphanad, "and that you wish your privacy to be undisturbed. What we need to discuss is the boundary of your privacy. Are your faces likely to be recognized?"

      "Possibly," said Peter. "Especially his." He pointed to his father. This was a lie, of course, and probably futile, but.

      "Ah," said Uphanad. "And I assume your real names would be recognized."

      "Likely," said Father.

      "Certainly," said Mother, as if she were proud of the fact and rather miffed that he had cast any doubt on it at all.

      "So... should meals be brought to you? Do we need to clear the corridors when you go to the bathroom?"

      Sounded like a nightmare to Peter.

      "Major Uphanad, we don't want to advertise our presence here, but I'm sure your staff can be trusted to be discreet."

      "On the contrary," said Uphanad. "Discreet people make it a point not to take the staff's loyalty for granted."

      "Including yours?" asked Mother sweetly.

      "Since you have already lied to me repeatedly," said Uphanad. "I think it safe to say that you are taking no one's loyalty for granted."

      "Nevertheless," said Peter, "I'm not going to stay cooped up in that tube. I'd like to be able to use your library-I'm assuming you have one-and we can take our meals in the mess hall and use the toilet without inconveniencing others."

      "There, you see?" said Uphanad. "You are simply not security minded."

      "We can't live here as prisoners," said Peter.

      "He didn't mean that," said Father. "He was talking about the way you simply announced the decision for the three of us. So much for me being the one most likely to be recognized."

      Uphanad smiled. "The recognition problem is a real one," he said. "I knew you at once, from the vids, Mr Hegemon."

      Peter sighed and leaned back.

      "Your face is not as recognizable as if you were an actual politician," said Uphanad. "They thrive on putting their faces before the public. Your career began, if I remember correctly, in anonymity."

      "But I've been on the vids," said Peter.

      "Listen," said Uphanad. "Few on our staff even watch the vids. I happen to be a news addict, but most people here have rather cut their ties with the gossip of Earth. I think your best way to remain under cover here is to behave as if you had nothing to hide. Be a bit standoffish-don't get into conversations with people that lead to mutual explanations of what you do and who you are, for instance. But if you're cheerful and don't act mysterious, you should be fine. People won't expect to see the Hegemon living with his parents in one of the bunk rooms here." Uphanad grinned. "It will be our little secret, the six of us."

      Peter did the count. Him, his parents, Uphanad, Dimak. and... oh, Graff, of course.

      "I think there will be no assassination attempt here," said Uphanad, "because there are very few weapons on board, all are kept under lock and key, and everybody coming up here is scanned for weaponry. So I suggest you not attempt to carry sidearms. You are trained in hand-to-hand combat?"

      "No," said Peter.

      "There is a gym on the bottom level, very well equipped. And not just with childsize devices, either. The adults also need to stay fit. You should use the facility to maintain your bone mass, and so forth, but also we can arrange martial arts classes for you, if you're interested."

      "I'm not interested," said Peter. "But it sounds like a good idea."

      "Anyone they send against us, though," said Mother, "will be very much better trained in it than we will."

      "Perhaps so, perhaps not," said Uphanad. "If your enemies attempt to get to you here, they will have to rely on someone they can get through our screening. People who seem particularly athletic are subjected to special scrutiny. We are, you see, paranoid about one of the anti-colonization groups getting someone up here just to perform an act of sabotage or terrorism."

      "Or assassination."

      "You see?" said Uphanad. "But I assure you I and my staff are very thorough. We never leave anything unchecked."

      "In other words, you knew who we were before we walked in the door."

      "Before your shuttle took off, actually," said Uphanad. "Or at least I had a fairly good guess."

      They said their good-byes, then settled into the routine of life in a space station.

      Day and night were kept on Greenwich time, for no particular reason but that it was at zero longitude and they had to pick some time. Peter found that his parents were not so awfully intrusive as he had feared, and he was relieved that he could not hear their lovemaking or their conversations about him through the divider

      What he did, mostly, was go to the library and write.

      Essays, of course, on everything, for every conceivable forum. There were plenty of publications that were happy to have pieces from Locke or Demosthenes, especially now that everyone knew these identities belonged to the Hegemon. With most serious work appearing first on the nets, there was no way to target particular audiences. But he still talked about subjects that would have particular interest in various regions.

      The aim of everything he wrote was to fan the flames of suspicion of China and Chinese ambitions. As Demosthenes, he wrote quite directly about the danger of allowing the conquest of India and Indochina to stand, with a lot of who's-next rhetoric. Of course he couldn't stoop to any serious rabble-rousing, because every word he said would be held against the Hegemon.

      Life was so much easier when he was anonymous on the nets.

      As Locke, however, he wrote statesmanlike, impartial essays about problems that different nations and regions were facing. "Locke" almost never wrote against China directly, but rather took it for granted that there would be another invasion, and that longterm investments in probable target countries might be unwise, that sort of thing.

      It was hard work, because every essay had to be made interesting, original, important, or no one would pay attention to it. He had to make sure he never sounded like someone riding a hobby horse- rather the way Father had sounded when he started spouting off about his theories of group loyalty and character to Dimak. Though, to be fair, he'd never heard Father do that before, it still gave him pause and made him realize how easily Locke and Demosthenes-and therefore Peter Wiggin himself-could become at first an irritant, at last a laughingstock.

      Father called this process stassenization and made various suggestions for essay topics, some of which Peter used. As to what Father and Mother did with their days, when they weren't reading his essays and commenting on them, catching errors, that sort of thing-well, Peter had no idea.

      Maybe Mother had found somebody's room to clean.

      Graff stopped in for a brief visit on their first morning there, but then was off again-returned to Earth, in fact, on the shuttle that had brought them. He did not return for three weeks, by which time Peter had written nearly forty essays, all of which had been published in various places. Most of them were Locke's essays. And, as usual, most of the attention went to Demosthenes.

      When Graff returned, he invited them to dine with him in the Minister's quarters, and they had a convivial dinner during which nothing important was discussed. Whenever the subject seemed to be turning to a matter of real moment, Graff would interrupt with the pouring of water or a joke of some kind-only rarely the funny kind.

      This puzzled Peter, because surely Graff could count on his own quarters being secure. But apparently not, because after dinner he invited them on a walk, leading them quickly out of the regular corridors and into some of the service passages. They were lost almost at once, and when Graff finally opened a door and took them onto a wide ledge overlooking a ventilation shaft, they had lost all sense of direction except, of course, where "down" was.

      The ventilation shaft led "down" ... a very long way.

      "This is a place of some historical importance," said Graff. "Though few of us know it."

      "Ah," said Father knowingly.

      And because he had guessed it, Peter realized it should be guessable, and so he guessed. "Achilles was here," he said.

      "This," said Graff, "is where Bean and his friends tricked Achilles. Achilles thought he was going to be able to kill Bean here, but instead Bean got him in chains, hanging in the shaft. He could have killed Achilles. His friends recommended it."

      "Who were the friends?" asked Mother.

      "He never told me, but that's not surprising-I never asked. I thought it would be wiser if there were never any kind of record, even inside my head, of which other children were there to witness Achilles's humiliation and helplessness."

      "It wouldn't have mattered, if he had simply killed Achilles. There would have been no murders."

      "But, you see," said Graff, "if Achilles had died, then I would have had to ask those names, and Bean could not have been allowed to remain in Battle School. We might have lost the war because of that, because Ender relied on Bean quite heavily."

      "You let Ender stay after he killed a boy," said Peter.

      "The boy died accidentally," said Graff, "as Ender defended himself."

      "Defended himself because you left him alone," said Mother

      "I've already faced trial on those charges, and I was acquitted."

      "But you were asked to resign your commission," said Mother.

      "But I was then given this much higher position as Minister of Colonization. Let's not quibble over the past. Bean got Achilles here, not to kill him, but to induce him to confess. He did confess, very convincingly, and because I heard him do it, I'm on his death list, too."

      "Then why are you still alive?" asked Peter.

      "Because, contrary to widespread belief, Achilles is not a genius and he makes mistakes. His reach is not infinite and his power can be blocked. He doesn't know everything. He doesn't have everything planned. I think half the time he's winging it, putting himself in the way of opportunity and seizing it when he sees it."

      "If he's not a genius, then why does he Keep beating geniuses?" asked Peter.

      "Because he does the unexpected," said Graff. "He doesn't actually do things remarkably well, he simply does things that no one thought he would do. He stays a jump ahead. And our finest minds were not even thinking about him when he brought off his most spectacular successes. They thought they were civilians again when he had them kidnapped. Bean wasn't trying to oppose Achilles's plans during the war, he was trying to find and rescue Petra. You see? I have Achilles's test scores. He's a champion suckup, and he's very smart or he wouldn't have got here. He knew how to ace a psych test, for instance, so that his violent tendencies remained hidden from us when we chose him to come in the last group we brought to Battle School. He's dangerous, in other words. But he's never had to face an opponent, not really. What the Formics faced, he's never had to face."

      "So you're confident," said Peter.

      "Not at all," said Graff. "But I'm hopeful."

      "You brought us here just to show us this place?" said Father.

      "Actually, no. I brought you here because I came up earlier in the day and swept it personally for eavesdropping devices. Plus, I installed a sound damper here, so that our voices are not carrying down the ventilation shaft."

      "You think MinCol has been penetrated," said Peter

      "I know it has," said Graff "Uphanad was doing his routine scan of the logs of outgoing messages, and he found an odd one that was sent within hours of your arrival here. The entire message consisted of the single word 'on'. Uphanad's routine scan, of course, is more thorough than most people's desperate search. He found this one simply by looking for anomalies in message length, language patterns, etc. To find codes, you see."

      "And this was in code?" asked Father.

      "Not a cipher, no. And impossible to decode for that reason. It could simply mean 'affirmative,' as in 'the mission is on.' It might be a foreign word-there are several dozen common languages in which 'on' has meaning by itself. It might be 'no' backward. You see the problem? What alerted Uphanad, besides its brevity, was the fact that it was sent within hours of your arrival-after your arrival-and both the sender and the receiver of the message were anonymous."

      "How could the sender be anonymous from a secure militarydesigned facility?" asked Peter.

      "Oh, it's quite simple, really," said Graff. "The sender used someone else's sign-on."

      "Whose?"

      "Uphanad was quite embarrassed when he showed me the printout of the message. Because as far as the computer was concerned, it was sent by Uphanad himself."

      "Someone got the log-on of the head of security?" said Father.

      "Humiliating, you may be sure," said Graff.

      "You've fired him?" asked Mother

      "That would not make us more secure, to lose the man who is our best defense against whatever operation that message triggered."

      "So you think it is the English word 'on' and it means somebody is preparing to move against us."

      "I think that's not unlikely. I think the message was sent in the clear. It's only undecipherable because we don't know what is 'on.'"

      "And you've taken into account," said Mother, "the possibility that Uphanad actually sent this message himself, and is using the fact that he told you about it as cover for the fact that he's the perpetrator"

      Graff looked at her a long time, blinked, and then smiled. "I was telling myself, 'suspect everybody,' but now I know what a truly suspicious person is."

      Peter hadn't thought of it either But now it made perfect sense.

      "Still, let's not leap to conclusions, either," said Graff. "The real sender of the message might have used Major Uphanad's sign-on precisely so that the chief of security would be our prime suspect."

      "How long ago did he find this message?" asked Father

      "A couple of days," said Graff. "I was already scheduled to come, so I stuck to my schedule."

      "No warnings?"

      "No," said Graff. "Any departure from routine would let the sender know his signal was discovered and perhaps interpreted. It would lead him to change his plans."

      "So what do we do?" asked Peter.

      "First," said Graff, "I apologize for thinking you'd be perfectly safe here. Apparently Achilles's reach-or perhaps China's-is longer than we thought."

      "So do we go home?" asked Father

      "Second," said Graff, "we can't do anything that would play into their hands. Going home right now, before the threat can be identified and neutralized, would expose you to greater danger Our betrayer could give another signal that would tell them when and where you were going to arrive on Earth. What your trajectory of descent is going to be. That sort of thing."

      "Who would risk killing the Hegemon by downing a shuttle?" said Peter. "The world would be outraged, even the people who'd be happy to see me dead."

      "Anything we do that changes our pattern would let the traitor know his signal was intercepted. It might rush the project, whatever it is, before we're ready. No, I'm sorry to say this, but... our best course of action is to wait."

      "And what if we disagree?" said Peter.

      "Then I'll send you home on the shuttle of your choosing, and pray for you all the way down."

      "You'd let us go?"

      "You're my guest," said Graff. "Not my prisoner"

      "Then let's test it," said Peter "We're leaving on the next shuttle. The one that brought you-when it goes back, we'll be on it."

      "Too soon," said Graff. "We have no time to prepare."

      "And neither does he. I suggest," said Peter, "that you go to Uphanad and make sure he knows that he has to put a complete blanket of secrecy on our imminent departure. He's not even to tell Dimak."

      "But if he's the one," said Mother, "then-"

      "Then he can't send a signal," said Peter "Unless he can find a way to let the information slip out and become public knowledge on the station. That's why it's vital, Minister Graff, that you remain with him at all times after you tell him. So if it's him, he can't send the signal."

      "But it's probably not him," said Graff, "and now you've let everybody know."

      "But now we'll be watching for the outgoing message.

      "Unless they simply kill you as you're boarding the shuttle."

      "Then our worries will be over," said Peter. "But I think they won't kill us here, because this agent of theirs is too useful to them- or to Achilles, depending on whose man he is-for them to use him up completely on this operation."

      Graff pondered this. "So we watch to see who might be sending the message-"

      "And you have agents stationed at the landing point on Earth to see if they can spot a would-be assassin.

      "I can do that," said Graff. "One tiny problem, though."

      "What's that?" said Peter.

      "You can't go."

      "Why can't I?" said Peter

      "Because your one-man propaganda campaign is working. The people who read your stuff have drifted more strongly into the antiChina camp. It's still a fairly slight movement, but it's real."

      "I can write my essays there," said Peter.

      "In danger of being killed at any moment," said Graff.

      "That could happen here, too," said Peter

      "Well-but you yourself said it was unlikely."

      "Let's catch the mole who's working your station," said Peter, "and send him home. Meanwhile, we're heading for Earth. It's been great being here, Minister Graff. But we've got to go."

      He looked at his mother and father

      "Absolutely," said Father

      "Do you think," said Mother, "that when we get back to Earth we can find a place with little tiny beds like these?" She clung more tightly to Father's arms. "It's made us so much closer as a family."

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

WAR PLANS

From: Demosthenes%Tecumseh@freeamerica.org

To:   DropBox%Feijoada@ICameAnon.net

Re:

Encrypted using code ***********

Decrypted using code ********

I spend half my memory capacity just holding on to whatever online identity you're using from week to week. Why not rely on encryption? Nobody's broken hyperprime encryption yet.

Here it is, Bean: Those stones in india? Virlomi started it, of course. Got a message from her:

>Now you are not in cesspool, can communicate again. Have no email here. Stones are

>mine. Back on bridge soon. War in earnest. Post to me only, this site, pickup name

>BridgeGirl password not stepstool.

At least I think that's what "stones are mine" means. And what does "password not stepstool" mean? That the password is "not stepstool"? Or that the password is not "stepstool," in which case it's probably not 'aardvark" either, but how does that help?

Anyhow, I think she's offering to begin war in earnest inside India. She can't possibly have a nationwide network, but then, maybe she doesn't need one. She was certainly enough in tune with the Indian people to get them all piling stones in the road. And now the whole stone wall business has taken off. Lots of skirmishes between angry hungry citizens and Chinese soldiers. Trucks hijacked. Sabotage of Chinese offices proceeding [?]apace. What can she do more than is already happening?

Given where you are, you may have more need of her information and/or help than I do. But I'd appreciate your help understanding the parts of the message that are opaque to me.

From: LostlboBoy%Novy@IComeAnon.nef

To:   Demosthenes%Tecumseh@freeamerica.org

Re:   >blank<

Encrypted using code ********

Decrypted using code ***********

Here's why I keep changing identities. First, they don't have to decrypt the message to get information if they see patterns in our correspondence-it would be useful for them to know the frequency and timing of our correspondence and the length of our messages. Second, they don't have to decrypt the whole message, they only have to guess our encrypt and decrypt codes. Which I bet you have written down somewhere because you don't actually core whether I get killed because you're too lazy to memorize. Of course I mean that in the nicest possible way, 0 right honorable Mr. Hegemon.

Here's what Virlomi meant. Obviously she intended that you not be able to understand the message and correspond with her properly unless you talked to me or Suri. That means she doesn't trust you completely. My guess is that if you wrote to her and left a message using the password "not stepstool," she'd know that you hadn't talked to me. (You don't know how tempting it was lust to leave you with that guess.)

When we picked her up from that bridge near the Burmese border, she boarded the chopper by stepping on Suriyawang's bock as he lay prostrate before her. The password is not stepstool, it's the real name of her stepstaal. And she's going to be bock at that bridge, which means she's made her way across India to the Burmese border, where she'll be in a position to disrupt Chinese supply of their troops in India-or, conversely, Chinese attempts to move their troops out of India and back into China or Indochina.

Of course she's only going to be atone bridge. But my guess is that she's already setting up guerrilla groups that are gefting ready to disrupt traffic on the other roads between Burma and India, with a strong possibility that she's set up something along the Himalayan border as well. I doubt she can seal the borders, but she can slow and harass their passage, tying up troops trying to protect supply lines and making the Chinese less able to mount offensives or keep their troops supplied with ammunition-always a problem for them.

Personally, I think you should tell her not to tip her hand too soon. I may be able to tell you when to post a reply asking her to start in earnest on a particular date. And no, I won't post myself because I am most certainly watched here, and I don't wont them to know about her directly. I've already caught two snoopware intrusions on my desk, which cost me twenty minutes each time, scrambling them so they send back false information to the snoops. Encrypted email like this I can send, but messages posted to dead drops can be picked up by snoopware on the local net.

And yes these are indeed my friends. But they'd be fools not to keep track of what I'm sending out-if they can.

      Bean measured himself in the mirror. He still looked like himself, more or less. But he didn't like the way his head was growing. Larger in proportion to his body. Growing faster.

      I should be getting smarter, shouldn't I? More brain space and all?

      Instead I'm worrying about what will happen when my head gets too big, my skull and brains too heavy for my neck to hold the whole assemblage in a vertical position.

      He measured himself against the coat closet, too. Not all that long ago, he had to stand on tiptoe to reach coat hangers. Then it became easy. Now he was reaching a bit downward from shoulder height.

      Door frames were not a problem yet. But he was beginning to feel as though he should duck.

      Why should his growth be accelerating now? He already hit the puberty rush.

      Petra staggered past him, went into the bathroom, and puked up nothing for about five agonizing minutes.

      "They should have drugs for that," he told her afterward.

      "They do," said Petra. "But nobody knows how they might affect the baby."

      "There've been no studies? Impossible."

      "No studies on how they might affect your children."

      "Anton's Key is just a couple of code spots on the genome."

      "Genes often do double and triple duty, or more."

      "And the baby probably doesn't even have Anton's Key. And it's not healthy for the baby if you can't keep any food down."

      "This won't last forever," said Petra. "And I'll get fed intravenously if I have to. I'm not doing anything to endanger this baby, Bean. Sorry if my puking ruins your appetite for breakfast."

      "Nothing ruins my appetite for breakfast," said Bean. "I'm a growing boy."

      She retched again.

      "Sorry," said Bean.

      "I don't do this," she whispered miserably, "because your jokes are so bad."

      "No," said Bean. "It's cause my genes are.

      She retched again and he left the room, feeling guilty about leaving, but knowing he'd be useless if he stayed. She wasn't one of those people who need petting when they're sick. She preferred to be left alone in her misery. It was one of the ways they were alike. Sort of like injured animals that slink off into the woods to get better-or die-alone.

      Alai was waiting for him in the large conference room. Chairs were gathered around a large holo on the floor, where a map was being projected of the terrain and militarily significant roads of India and western China.

      By now the others were used to seeing Bean there, though there were some who still didn't like it. But the Caliph wanted him there, the Caliph trusted him.

      They watched as the known locations of Chinese garrison troops were brought up in blue, and then the probable locations of mobile forces and reserves in green. When he first saw this map, Bean made the faux pas of asking where they were getting their information. He was informed, quite coldly, that both Persia and the Israeli-Egyptian consortium had active satellite placement programs, and their spy satellites were the best in orbit. "We can get the blood type of individual enemy soldiers," said Alai with a smile. An exaggeration, of course. But then Bean wondered-some kind of spectroanalysis of their sweat?

      Not possible. Alai was joking, not boasting.

      Now, Bean trusted their information as much as they did-because of course he had made discreet inquiries through Peter and through some of his own connections. Putting together what Vlad could tell him from Russian intelligence and what Crazy Tom was giving him from England plus Peter's American sources, it was clear that the Muslims-the Crescent League-had everything the others had. And more.

      The plan was simple. Massive troop movements along the border between India and Pakistan, bringing Iranian troops up to the front. This should draw a strong Chinese response, with their troops also concentrated along that border

      Meanwhile, Turkic forces were already in place on, and sometimes inside, China's western border, having traveled over the past few months in disguise as nomads. On paper, the western region of China looked like ideal country for tanks and trucks, but in reality, fuel supply lines would be a recurring nightmare. So the first wave of Turks would enter as cavalry, switching to mechanized transport only when they were in a position to steal and use Chinese equipment.

      This was the most dangerous aspect of the plan, Bean knew. The Turkic armies, combining forces from the Hellespont to the Aral Sea and the foothills of the Himalayas, were equipped like raiders, yet had to do the job of an invading army. They had a couple of advantages that might compensate for their lack of armor and air support. Having no supply lines meant the Chinese wouldn't have anything to bomb at first. The native people of the western China province of Xinjiang were Turkic too, and like the Tibetans, they had never stopped seething under the rule of Han China.

      Above all, the Turks would have surprise and numbers on their side during the crucial first days. The Chinese garrison troops were all massed on the border with Russia. Until those forces could be moved, the Turks should have an easy time, striking anywhere they wanted, taking out police and supply stations-and, with luck, every airfield in Xinjiang.

      By the time Chinese troops moved off the Russian border and into the interior to deal with the Turks, the fully mechanized Turkish troops would be entering China from the west. Now there would be supply lines to attack, but deprived of their forward air bases, and forced to face Turkish fighters which would now be using them, China would not have clear air superiority.

      Taking underdefended air bases with cavalry was just the sort of touch Bean would have expected from Alai. They could only hope that Han Tzu would not anticipate Alai having complete authority over the inevitable Muslim move, for the Chinese would have to be crazy not to be planning to defend against a Muslim invasion.

      At some point, it was hoped that the Turks would do well enough that the Chinese would be forced to begin shifting troops from India north into Xinjiang. Here the terrain favored Alai's plan, for while some Chinese troops could be airlifted over the Tibetan Himalayas, the Tibetan roads would be disrupted by Turkic demolition teams, and the Chinese troops would all have to be moved eastward from India, around the Himalayas, and into western China from the east rather than the south.

      It would take days, and when the Muslims believed that the maximum number of Chinese troops were in transit, where they could not fight anybody, they would launch the massive invasion over the border between Pakistan and India.

      So much depended on what the Chinese believed. At first, the Chinese had to believe that the real assault would come from Pakistan, so that the main Chinese force would remain tied up on that frontier. Then, at a crucial point several days into the Turkic operation, the Chinese had to be convinced that the Turkic front was, in fact, the real invasion. They had to be so convinced of this that they would withdraw troops from India, weakening their forces there.

      How else does an inexperienced three-million-man army defeat an army of ten million veterans?

      They went through contingency plans for the several days following the commitment of Muslim troops in Pakistan, but Bean knew, as did Alai, that nothing that happened after the Muslim troops began crossing the Indian border could be predicted. They had plans in case the invasion failed utterly, and Pakistan had to be protected at fallback positions well inside the Pakistani border They had plans for dealing with a complete rout of the Chinese forces-not likely, as they knew. But in the most likely scenario-a difficult back-and-forth battle across a thousand-mile front-plans would have to be improvised to take advantage of every turn of events.

      "So," said Alai. "That is the plan. Any comments?"

      Around the circle, one officer after another voiced his measured confidence. This was not because they were all yes-men, but because Alai had already listened carefully to the objections they raised before and had altered the plans to deal with those he thought were serious problems.

      Only one of the Muslims offered any objection today, and it was the one nonmilitary man, Lankowski, whose role, as best Bean could tell, was halfway between minister-without-portfolio and chaplain. "I think it is a shame," he said, "that our plans are so dependent upon what Russia chooses to do."

      Bean knew what he meant. Russia was completely unpredictable in this situation. On the one hand, the Warsaw Pact had a treaty with China that had secured China's long northern border with Russia, freeing them to conquer India in the first place. On the other hand, the Russians and Chinese had been rivals in this region for centuries, and each believed the other held territory that was rightfully theirs.

      And there were unpredictable personal issues as well. How many loyal servants of Achilles were still in positions of trust and authority in Russia? At the same time, many Russians were furious at how they had been used by him before he went to India and then China.

      Yet Achilles brokered the secret treaty between Russia and China, so he couldn't be all that detested, could he?

      But what was that treaty really worth? Every Russian schoolchild knew that the stupidest Russian tsar of them all had been Stalin, because he made a treaty with Hitler's Germany and then expected it to be kept. Surely the Russians did not really believe China would stay at peace with them forever.

      So there was always the chance that Russia, seeing China at a disadvantage, would join the fray. The Russians would see it as a chance to seize territory and to preempt the inevitable Chinese betrayal of them.

      That would be a good thing, if the Russians attacked in force but were not terribly successful. It would bleed Chinese troops from the battle against the Muslims. But it would be a very bad thing if Russia did too well or too badly. Too well, and they might slice down through Mongolia and seize Beijing. Then the Muslim victory would become a Russian one. Alai did not want to have Russia in a dominant role in the peace negotiations.

      And if Russia entered the war but lost quickly, Chinese troops would not have to watch the Russian border Free to move, those garrison troops might be hurled against the Turks, or they might be sent through Russian territory to strike into Kazakhstan, threatening to cut off Turkish supply lines.

      That was why Alai had expressed his hope that the Russians would be too surprised to do anything at all.

      "There's no helping it," said Alai. "We have done all we can do. What Russia does is in the hands of God."

      "May I speak?" said Bean.

      Alai nodded. All eyes turned to him. At previous meetings, Bean had said nothing, preferring to talk with Alai in private, where he did not risk committing an error in the way he spoke to the Caliph.

      "When you have committed to battle," said Bean, "I believe I can use my own contacts, and persuade the Hegemon to use his, to urge Russia to pursue whatever course you think most advisable."

      Several of the men shifted uncomfortably in their chairs.

      "Please reassure my worried friends here," said Alai, "that you have not already been in discussion with the Hegemon or anyone else about our plans."

      "The opposite is true," said Bean. "You are the ones who are preparing to take action. I have been providing you with all the information I learned from them. But I know these people, and what they can do. The Hegemon has no armies, but he does have great influence on world opinion. Of course he will speak in favor of your action. But he also has influence inside Russia, which he could use either to urge intervention, or to argue against it. My friends, also."

      Bean knew that Alai knew that the only friend worth mentioning was Vlad, and Vlad had been the only one of the kidnapped members of Ender's jeesh to join with Achilles and take his side. Whether that had been because he had truly become a follower of Achilles or because he thought Achilles was acting in the interest of Mother Russia, Bean still had not figured out. Vlad provided him with information sometimes, but Bean always looked for a second source before he fully trusted it.

      "Then I will tell you this," said Alai. "Today I don't know what would be more useful, for Russia to join in the attack or for Russia to stand by doing nothing. As long as they don't attack us, I'll be content. But as events unfold, the picture may become clearer"

      Bean did not need to point out to Alai that Russia would not enter the war to rescue a failing Muslim invasion-only if the Russians scented victory would they put their own forces at risk. So if Alai waited too long to ask for help, it would not come.

      They took a break for the noon meal, but it was very brief, and when they returned to the conference room, the map had changed. There was a third part of the plan, and Bean knew that this was the one that Alai was least certain about.

      For months now, Arab armies from Egypt, Iraq, and every other Arab nation had been transported on oil tankers from Arab ports to Indonesia. The Indonesian navy was one of the most formidable in the world, and its carrier-based air force was the only one in the region that rivaled the Chinese in equipment and armament. Everyone knew that it was because of the Indonesian umbrella that the Chinese had not taken Singapore or ventured into the Philippines.

      Now it was proposed that the Indonesian navy be used to transport a combined Arab-Indonesian army to effect a landing in Thailand or Vietnam. Both nations were filled with people who longed for deliverance from the Chinese conquerors.

      When the plans for the two possible landing sites had been fully laid out, Alai did not ask for criticisms-he had his own. "I think in both cases, our plans for the landing are excellent. My misgiving is the same one I've had all along. There is no serious military objective there to be achieved. The Chinese can afford to lose battle after battle there, using only their available forces, retreating farther and farther, while waiting to see the outcome of the real war. I think the soldiers we sent there would risk dying for no good purpose. It's too much like the Italian campaign in World War II. Long, slow, costly, and ineffective, even if we win every battle."

      The Indonesian commander bowed his head. "I am grateful for the Caliph's concern for the lives of our soldiers. But the Muslims of Indonesia could not bear to stand by while their brothers fight. If these objectives are meaningless, find us something meaningful to do."

      One of the Arab officers added his agreement. "We've committed our troops to this operation. Is it too late, then, to bring them back and let them join with the Pakistanis and Iranians in the liberation of India? Their numbers might make a crucial difference there."

      "The time draws close for the weather to be at its best for our purposes," said Alai. "There's no time to bring back the Arab armies. But I can see no value in sending soldiers into battle for no better reason than solidarity, or delaying the invasion in order to bring the Arab armies into a different theater of war. If it was a mistake to send them to Indonesia, the mistake is my own."

      They murmured their disagreement. They could not agree with blaming the Caliph for any mistakes. At the same time, Bean knew that they appreciated knowing they were led by a man who did not blame others. It was part of the reason they loved him.

      Alai spoke over their objections. "I have not decided yet whether to launch the third front. But if we do launch it, then the objective we should plan for is Thailand, not Vietnam. I realize the risks of leaving the fleet exposed for a longer time at sea-we will have to count on the Indonesian pilots to protect their ships. I choose Thailand because it is a more coherent country, with terrain more suitable for a swift conquest. In Vietnam, we would have to fight for every inch of territory, and our progress would look slow on the map-the Chinese would feel safe. In Thailand, our progress will look very quick and dangerous. As long as they forget that Thailand is not important to them in the overall war, it might cause them to send troops there to oppose us."

      After a few more niceties, the meeting ended. One thing that no one mentioned was the actual date of the invasion. Bean was sure that one had been chosen and that everyone in the room but him knew what it was. He accepted that-it was the one piece of information which he had no need to know, and the most crucial one to withhold from him if he could not be trusted after all.

      Back in their room, Bean found Petra asleep. He sat down and used his desk to access his email and check a few sites on the nets. He was interrupted by a light knock on the door Petra was instantly awake-pregnant or not, she still slept like a soldier-and she was at the door before Bean could shut down his connection and step away from the table.

      Lankowski stood there, looking apologetic and regal, a combination that only he could have mastered. "If you will forgive me," he said, "our mutual friend wishes to speak with you in the garden."

      "Both of us?" asked Petra.

      "Please, unless you are too ill."

      Soon they were seated on the bench beside Alai's garden throne- though of course he never called it that, referring to it only as a chair

      "I'm sorry. Petra, that I couldn't bring you into the meeting. Our Crescent League is not recidivist, but it would make some of them too uncomfortable to have a woman present at such meetings."

      "Alai, do you think I don't know that?" she said. "You have to deal with the culture around you."

      "I assume that Bean has acquainted you with our plans?"

      "I was asleep when he returned to the room," said Petra, "so anything that's changed since last time, I don't know."

      "I'm sorry, then, but perhaps you can pick up what's happening from the context. Because I know Bean has something to say and he didn't say it yet."

      "I saw no flaw in your plans," said Bean. "I think you've done everything that could possibly be done, including being smart enough not to think you can plan what will happen once battle has been joined in India."

      "But such praise is not what I saw on your face," said Alai.

      "I didn't think my face was readable," said Bean.

      "It isn't," said Alai. "That's why I'm asking you."

      "We've received an offer that I think you'll be glad of," said Bean.

      "From?"

      "I don't know if you ever knew Virlomi," said Bean.

      "Battle School?"

      "Yes."

      "Before my time, I think. I was a young boy and paid no attention to girls anyway." He smiled at Petra.

      "Weren't we all," said Bean. "Virlomi was the one who made it possible for me and Suriyawong to retrieve Petra from Hyderabad and save the Indian Battle School graduates from being slaughtered by Achilles."

      "She has my admiration, then," said Alai.

      "She's back in India. All that building of stone obstacles, the socalled Great Wall of India-apparently she's the one who started that."

      Now Alai's interest looked like more than mere politeness.

      "Peter received a message from her She has no idea about you and what you're doing, and neither does Peter, but she sent the message in language that he couldn't understand without conferring with me-a very careful and wise thing for her to do, I think."

      They exchanged smiles.

      "She is in place in the area of a bridge spanning one of the roads between India and Burma. She may be able to disrupt one, many, or even all of the major roads leading between India and China."

      Alai nodded.

      "It would be a disaster, of course." said Bean, "if she acted on her own and cut the roads before the Chinese are able to move any troops out of India. In other words, if she thinks the real invasion is the Turkish one, then she might think her most helpful role would he to keep Chinese troops in India. Ideally, what she would do is wait until they start trying to move troops hack into India, and then cut the roads, keeping them out."

      "But if we tell her," said Alai, "and the message is ... intercepted, then the Chinese will know that the Turkic operation is not the main effort."

      "Well, that's why I didn't want to bring this up in front of the others. I can tell you that I believe communication between her and Peter, and between Peter and me, is secure. I believe that Peter is desperate for your invasion to succeed, and Virlomi will be too, and they will not tell anyone anything that would compromise it. But it's your call."

      "Peter is desperate for our invasion to succeed?" asked Alai.

      "Alai, the man's not stupid. I didn't have to tell him about your plans or even that you had plans. He knows that you're here, in seclusion, and he has satellite reports of the troop movements to the Indian frontier He hasn't discussed it with me, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if he also knew about the Arab presence in Indonesia- that's the kind of thing he always finds out about because he has contacts everywhere."

      "Sorry to suspect you," said Alai, "but I'd be remiss if I didn't."

      "Think about Virlomi, anyway." said Bean. "It would be tragic if, in her effort to help, she actually hindered your plan."

      "But that's not all you wanted to say," said Alai.

      "No," said Bean, and he hesitated.

      "Go on."

      "Your reason for not wanting to open the third front was a sound one," said Bean. "Not wanting to waste lives taking militarily ummportant objectives."

      "So you think I shouldn't use that force at all," said Alai.

      "No" said Bean. "I think you need to be bolder with them. I think you need to waste more lives on an even more spectacular nonmilitary objective."

      Alai turned away. "I was afraid you'd see that."

      "I was sure you'd already thought of it."

      "I was hoping one of the Arabs or the Indonesians themselves would propose it," said Alai.

      "Propose what?" asked Petra.

      "The military goal," said Bean, "is to destroy their armies, which is done by attacking them with superior force, achieving surprise, and cutting off their supply and escape routes. Nothing you do with the third front can achieve any of those objectives."

      "I know," said Alai.

      "China isn't a democracy. The government doesn't have to win elections. But they need the support of their people all the more because of that."

      Petra sighed her understanding. "Invade China itself."

      "There is no hope of success in such an invasion," said Alai. "On the other fronts, we will have a citizenry that welcomes us and cooperates with us, while obstructing them. In China, the opposite would be true. Their air force would be working from nearby airfields and could fly sortie after sortie between each wave of our planes. The potential for disaster would be very great."

      "Plan for disaster." said Bean. "Begin with disaster"

      "You're too subtle for me," said Alai.

      "What's disaster in this case? Besides actually getting stopped at the beach-not likely, since China has one of the most invasible shorelines in the world-a disaster is for your force to be dispersed, cut off from supply, and operating without coordinating central control."

      "Land them," said Alai, "and have them immediately begin a guerrilla campaign? But they won't have the support of the people."

      "I thought about this a lot," said Bean. "The Chinese people are used to oppression-when have they not been oppressed?-but they've never become reconciled to it. Think how many peasant revolts there've been-and against governments far more benign than this one. Now, if your soldiers go into China like Sherman's march to the sea, they'll be opposed at every step."

      "But they have to live off the land, if they're cut off from supply." said Alai.

      "Strictly disciplined troops can make this work." said Bean. "But this will be hard for the Indonesians, given the way the Chinese have always been regarded within Indonesia itself."

      "Trust me to control my troops."

      "Then here's what they do. In every village they come to, they take half the food-but only half. They make a big point of leaving the rest, and you tell them it's because Allah did not send you to make war against the Chinese people. If you had to kill anybody to get control of the village, apologize to the family or to the whole village, if it was a soldier who died. Be the nicest invaders they've ever imagined."

      "Oh," said Alai. "That's asking a lot, from mere discipline."

      Petra was getting the vision of this..."Maybe if you quote to your soldiers that passage from The Elevated Places, where it says, 'Maybe your Lord will destroy your enemy and make you rulers in the land. Then He will see how you act.'"

      Alai looked at her in genuine consternation. "You quote the Q'uran to me?"

      "I thought the verse was appropriate," she said. "Isn't that why you had them put it in my room? So I'd read it?"

      Alai shook his head. "Lankowski gave you the Q'uran."

      "And she read it," added Bean. "We're both surprised."

      "It's a good passage to use," said Alai. "Maybe God will make us rulers in China. Let's show from the start that we can do it justly and righteously."

      "The best part of the plan." said Bean, "is that the Chinese soldiers will come right afterward, and fearing that their own armies will be left without supplies, or in the effort to deprive your army of further provender, they will probably seize all the rest of the food."

      Alai nodded, smiled, then laughed. "Our invading army leaves the Chinese people enough to eat, but the Chinese army makes them starve."

      "The likelihood of a public relations victory is very high," said Bean.

      "And meanwhile," said Petra, "the Chinese soldiers in India and Xinjiang are going crazy because they don't know what's going on with their families back home."

      "The invasion fleet doesn't mass for the attack," said Bean. "It's done in Filipino and Indonesian fishing boats, small forces up and down the coast. The Indonesian fleet, with its carriers, waits far offshore, until they're called in on air strikes against identified military targets. Every time they try to find your army, you melt away. No pitched battles. At first the people will help them; soon enough, the people will help you. You resupply with ammunition and demolition equipment by air drops at night. Food they find for themselves. And all the time they move farther and farther inland, destroying communications, blowing up bridges. No dams, though. Leave the dams alone."

      "Of course," said Alai darkly. "We remember Aswan."

      "Anyway, that was my suggestion." said Bean. "Militarily, it does nothing for you during the first weeks. The attrition rate will be high at first, until the teams get in from the coast and get used to this kind of combat. But if even a quarter of your contingents are able to remain free and effective, operating inside China, it will force the Chinese to bring more and more troops home from the Indian front."

      "Until they sue for peace," said Alai. "We don't actually want to rule over China. We want to liberate India and Indochina, bring back all the captives taken into China, and restore the rightful governments, but with a treaty allowing complete privileges to Muslims within their borders."

      "So much bloodshed, for such a modest goal," said Petra.

      "And, of course, the liberation of Turkic China," said Alai.

      "They'll like that," said Bean.

      "And Tibet," said Alai.

      "Humiliate them enough." said Petra, "and you've merely set the stage for the next war."

      "And complete freedom of religion in China as well."

      Petra laughed. "It's going to be a long war, Alai. The new empire they'd probably give up-they haven't held it that long, and it's not as if it brought them great wealth and honor. But they've held Tibet and Turkic China for centuries. There are Han Chinese all over both territories."

      "Those are problems to be solved later," said Alai, "and not by you. Probably not by me, either. But we know what the West keeps forgetting. If you win, win."

      "I think that approach was proven a disaster at Versailles."

      "No"' said Alai. "It was only proven a disaster after Versailles, when France and England didn't have the spine, didn't have the will, to compel obedience to the treaty. After World War II, the Allies were wiser They left their troops on German soil for nearly a century. In some cases benignly, in some cases brutally, but always definitely there."

      "As you said," Bean answered, "you and your successors will find out how well this works, and how to solve the new problems that are bound to come up. But I warn you now, that if liberators turn out to be oppressors, the people they liberated will feel even more betrayed and hate them worse."

      "I'm aware of that," said Alai. "And I know what you're warning me of."

      "I think," said Bean, "that you won't know whether the Muslim people have actually changed from the bad old days of religious intolerance until you put power in their hands."

      "What the Caliph can do," said Alai, "I will do."

      "I know you will," said Petra. "I don't envy you your responsibility."

      Alai smiled. "Your friend Peter does. In fact, he wants more."

      "And your people," said Bean, "will want more on your behalf. You may not want to rule the world, but if you win in China, they'll want you to, in their name. And at that point. Alai, how can you tell them no?"

      "With these lips," said Alai. "And this heart."

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

TRAPS

To:   Locke%erasmus@polnet.gov

From: Sand%Water@ArabNet.net

Re:   Invitation to a party

You don't want to miss this one. Kemal upstairs thinks he's the whole show, but when Show and Pock get started in the basement, that's when the fireworks stop, say wait for the downstairs party before you pop any corks.

      "John Paul," said Theresa Wiggin quietly, "I don't understand what Peter's doing here."

      John Paul closed his suitcase. "That's the way he likes it."

      "We're supposed to be doing this secretly, but he-"

      "Asked us not to talk about it in here." John Paul put his finger to his lips, then picked up her suitcase as well as his and started on the long walk to the bunkroom door.

      Theresa could do nothing but sigh and follow him. After all they'd been through with Peter, you'd think he could confide in them. But he still had to play these games where nobody knew everything that was going on but him. It was only a few hours since he had decided they were going to leave on the next shuttle, and supposedly they were supposed to keep it an absolute secret.

      So what does Peter do? Asks practically every member of the permanent station crew to do some favor for him, run some errand, "and you've got to get it to me by 1800."

      They weren't idiots. They all knew that 1800 was when everyone going on the next flight had to board for a 1900 departure.

      So this great secret had been leaked, by implication, to everybody on the crew.

      And yet he still insisted that they not talk about it, and John Paul was going along with him! What kind of madness was this? Peter was clearly not being careless, he was too systematic for it to be an accident. Was he hoping to catch someone in the act of transmitting a warning to Achilles? Well, what if, instead of a warning, they just blew up the shuttle? Maybe that was the operation-to sabotage whatever shuttle they were going home on. Did Peter think of that?

      Of course he did. It was in Peter's nature to think of everything.

      Or at least it was in Peter's nature to think he had thought of everything.

      Out in the corridor, John Paul kept walking too quickly for her to converse with him, and when she tried anyway, he put his fingers to his lips.

      "It's OK," he murmured.

      At the elevator to the hub of the station, where the shuttles docked, Dimak was waiting for them. He had to be there, because their palms would not activate the elevator.

      "I'm sorry we'll be losing you so soon," said Dimak.

      "You never did tell us," said John Paul, "which bunk room was Dragon Army's."

      "Ender never slept there anyway," said Dimak. "He had a private room. Commanders always did. Before that he was in several armies, but..."

      "Too late now, anyway," said John Paul.

      The elevator door opened. Dimak stepped inside, held the door for them, palmed the controls, and entered the code for the right flight deck.

      Then he stepped back out of the elevator. "Sorry I can't see you off, but Colonel-the Minister suggested I shouldn't know about this."

      John Paul shrugged.

      The elevator doors closed and they began their ascent.

      "Johnny P.," said Theresa, "if we're so worded about being bugged, what was that about, talking so openly with him?"

      "He carries a damper," said John Paul. "His conversations can't be listened to. Ours can, and this elevator is definitely bugged."

      "What, Uphanad told you that?"

      "It would be insane to set up security in a tube like this station without bugging the tunnel through which everybody has to pass to get inside."

      "Well excuse me for not thinking like a paranoid spy."

      "I think that's one of your best traits."

      She realized that she couldn't say anything she was thinking. And not just because it might be overheard by Uphanad's security system. "I hate it when you 'deal' with me."