"Only he didn't have the foresight to push Achilles out an airlock without a suit," said Bean. "Which 1 think shows a shameful lack of initiative on his part."

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"Bean notified me as soon as he found out Achilles was on the loose. He figured there was no chance I wasn't on Achilles's hit list. Saved my life."

 

 

"So Achilles made a try?" asked Bean.

 

 

They were away from the path now, out in the open, standing on the broad lawn stretching away from the lake where the pianist played. Only the faintest sound of the amplified Chopin reached them here.

 

 

"Let's just say that I've had to keep moving," said Ambul.

 

 

"Is that why you weren't in Thailand when the Chinese invaded?" asked Petra.

 

 

"No," said Ambul. "No, I left Thailand almost as soon as I came home. You see, I was not like most Battle School graduates. I was in the worst army in the history of the battle room."

 

 

"My army," said Bean.

 

 

"Oh, come on," said Petra. "You only played, what, five games?"

 

 

"We never won a single one," said Bean. "I was working on training my men and experimenting with combat techniques and-oh, yes, staying alive with Achilles in Battle School with us."

 

 

"So they discontinued Battle School, Bean got promoted to Ender's jeesh, and his soldiers got sent back to Earth with the only perfect no-win record in the history of Battle School. All the other Thais from Battle School were given important places in the military establishment. But, oddly enough, they just couldn't find a thing for me to do except go to public school."

 

 

"But that's simply stupid," said Petra. "What were they thinking?"

 

 

"It kept me nice and obscure," said Ambul. "It gave my family the freedom to travel out of the country and take me with them- there are advantages to not being perceived as a valuable national resource.

 

 

"So you weren’t in Thailand when it fell."

 

 

"Studying in London," said Ambul. "Which made it almost convenient to hop over the North Sea and zip over to Warsaw for a clandestine meeting."

 

 

"Sorry," said Bean. "I offered to pay your way."

 

 

"The letter might not have been from you," said Ambul. "And whoever sent it, if I let them buy my tickets, they'd know which planes I was on.

 

 

"He sounds as paranoid as we are," said Petra.

 

 

"Same enemy, said Ambul. "So, Bean, sir; you sent for me, and here I am. Need a witness for your wedding? Or an adult to sign permission forms for you?"

 

 

"What I need," said Bean, "is a secure base of operations, independent of any nation or bloc or alliance."

 

 

"I suggest you find a nice asteroid somewhere," said Ambul. "The world is pretty well divvied up these days."

 

 

"I need people I can trust absolutely," said Bean. "Because at any time we may find ourselves fighting against the Hegemony."

 

 

Ambul looked at him in surprise. "I thought you were commander of Peter Wiggin's little army."

 

 

"I was. Now I don't even command a decent hand of pinochle," said Bean.

 

 

"He does have a first-rate executive officer," said Petra. "Me."

 

 

"Ah," said Ambul. "Now I understand why you called on me. You two officers need somebody who'll salute you."

 

 

Bean sighed. "I'd appoint you king of Caledonia if I could, but the only position I can actually offer anybody is friend. And I'm a dangerous friend to have, these days."

 

 

"So the rumors are true," said Ambul. Petra figured it was about time he put together the information he was gleaning from this conversation. "Achilles is with the Hegemony."

 

 

"Peter hoisted him out of China, on his way to prison camp." said Bean.

 

 

"Got to give the Chinese credit, they're no eemos, they knew when to get rid of him."

 

 

"Not really," said Petra. "They were only sending him into internal exile, and in a low-security caravan at that. Practically invited rescue.

 

 

"And you wouldn't do it,' asked Ambul. "That's how you got fired?"

 

 

"No," said Bean. "Wiggin pulled me off the mission at the last minute. Gave sealed orders to Suriyawong and didn't tell me what they were till he had already left. Whereupon I resigned and went into hiding."

 

 

"Taking your girl toy with you." said Ambul.

 

 

"Actually, Peter sent me along to keep him under very close surveillance," said Petra.

 

 

"You seem to be the right person for the job," said Ambul.

 

 

"She's not that good," said Bean. "I've come close to noticing her several times."

 

 

"So," said Ambul. "Sun went ahead and hoisted Achilles out of China."

 

 

"Of all the missions to execute flawlessly," said Bean, "Sun had to pick that one."

 

 

"I, on the other hand," said Ambul, "was never one to obey an order if I thought it was stupid."

 

 

"That's why I want you to join my completely hopeless operation," said Bean. "If you get killed, I'll know it's your own fault, and not because you were obeying my orders."

 

 

"I'll need fedda," said Ambul. "My family isn't rich. And technically I'm still a kid. Speaking of which, how the hell did you get so much taller than me?"

 

 

"Steroids," said Bean.

 

 

"And I stretch him on a rack every night," said Petra.

 

 

"For his own good, I'm sure," said Ambul.

 

 

"My mother told me," said Petra, "that Bean is the kind of boy who has to grow on you."

 

 

Bean playfully covered her mouth. "Pay no attention to the girl, she's besotted with love."

 

 

"You two should get married," said Ambul.

 

 

"When I turn thirty," said Bean.

 

 

Which, Petra knew, meant never.

 

 

They had already been out in the open longer than Bean had ever allowed since they'd gone into hiding. As Bean started telling Ambul what he wanted him to do, they began to walk toward the nearest exit from the park.

 

 

It was a simple enough assignment-go to Damascus, the headquarters of the Muslim League, and get a meeting with Alai, one of Ender's closest friends and a member of Ender's jeesh.

 

 

"Oh," said Ambul. "I thought you wanted me to do something possible."

 

 

"I can't get any email to him," said Bean.

 

 

"Because as far as I know he's been completely incommunicado ever since the Russians released him, that time when Achilles kidnapped everybody," said Ambul.

 

 

Bean seemed surprised. "You know this because…”

 

 

"Since my parents took me into hiding," said Ambul, "I've been tapping every connection I could get, trying to get information about what was happening. I'm good at networking, bean. Making and keeping friends. I would have been a good commander, if they hadn't canceled Battle School out from under me.

 

 

"So you already know Alai?" said Petra. "Toguro."

 

 

"But like I said," Ambul repeated, "he's completely incommunicado."

 

 

"Ambul, I need his help," said Bean. "1 need the shelter of the Muslim League. It's one of the few places on Earth that isn't susceptible to either Chinese pressure or Hegemony wheedling."

 

 

"I," said Ambul, "and they achieve that by not letting any non-Muslims within the circle."

 

 

"I don't want to be in the circle. I don't want to know their secrets."

 

 

"Yes you do," said Ambul. "Because if you aren't, if you don't have their complete trust, you'll have no power to do anything at all within their borders. Non-Muslims are officially completely free, but in practical terms, they can't do anything but shop and play tourist."

 

 

"Then I'll convert," said Bean.

 

 

"Don't even joke about it," said Ambul. "They take their religion very seriously, and to speak of converting as a joke-"

 

 

"Ambul, we know that," said Petra. "I'm a friend of Alai's, too, but you notice Bean didn't send me."

 

 

Ambul laughed. "You can't mean that the Muslims would lose respect for Alai if he let a woman influence him! The full equality of the sexes is one of the six points that ended the Third Great Jihad."

 

 

"You mean the Fifth World War?" asked Bean.

 

 

"The War for Universal Liberty," said Petra. "That's what they called it in Armenian schools."

 

 

"That's because Armenia is bigoted against Muslims," said Ambul.

 

 

"The only nation of bigots left on Earth," said Petra ruefully.

 

 

"Listen, Ambul, if it's impossible to get to Alai," said Bean, "I'll just find something else."

 

 

"I didn't say it was impossible," said Ambul.

 

 

"Actually, that's exactly what you said," Petra said.

 

 

"But I'm a Battle Schooler," said Ambul. "We had classes in doing the impossible. I got A's."

 

 

Bean grinned. "Yes, but you didn't graduate from Battle School, did you, so what chance do you have?"

 

 

"Who knew that being assigned to your army in school would ruin my entire life?" said Ambul.

 

 

"Oh, stop whining," said Petra. "If you'd been a top graduate, now you’d be in a Chinese reeducation camp.

 

 

"See?" said Ambul. "I'm missing out on all the character-building experiences."

 

 

Bean handed him a slip of paper. "Go there and you'll find the identity stuff you need."

 

 

"Complete with holographic ID?" asked Ambul doubtfully.

 

 

"It'll adjust to you the first time you use it. Instructions are with it. I've used these before."

 

 

"Who does stuff like that?" asked Ambul. "The Hegemony?"

 

 

"The Vatican," said Bean. "These are leftovers from my days with one of their operatives."

 

 

"All right," said Ambul.

 

 

"It'll get you to Damascus, but it won't get you to Alai. You'll need your real identity for that."

 

 

"No, I'll need an angel walking before me and a letter of introduction from Mohammed himself."

 

 

"The Vatican has those," said Petra. "But they only give them to their top people."

 

 

Ambul laughed, and so did Bean, but the air was thick with tension.

 

 

"I'm asking you for a lot," said Bean.

 

 

"And I don't owe you much," said Ambul.

 

 

"You don't owe me anything," said Bean, "and if you did, I wouldn't try to collect it. You know why I asked you, and I know why you're doing it."

 

 

Petra knew, too. Bean asked him because he knew Ambul could do it if anyone could. And Ambul was doing it because he knew that if there was to be any hope of stopping Achilles from uniting the world under his rule, it would probably depend on Bean.

 

 

"I'm so glad we came to this park," said Petra to Bean. "So romantic."

 

 

"Bean knows how to show a girl a good time," said Ambul. He spread his arms wide. "Take a good look. I'm it."

 

 

And then he was gone.

 

 

Petra reached out and took Bean's hand again.

 

 

"Satisfied?" asked Bean.

 

 

"More or less," said Petra. "At least you did something."

 

 

"I've been doing something all along."

 

 

"I know," said Petra.

 

 

"In fact," said Bean, "you're the one who just goes online to shop."

 

 

She chuckled. "Here we are in this beautiful park. Where they keep alive the memory of a great man. A man who gave unforgettable music to the world. What will your memorial be?"

 

 

"Maybe two statues. Before and after. Little Bean who fought in Ender's jeesh. Big Julian who brought down Achilles."

 

 

"I like that," said Petra. "But I have a better idea."

 

 

"Name a colony planet after me?"

 

 

"How about this-they have a whole planet populated by your descendants."

 

 

Bean's expression soured and he shook his head. "Why? To make war against them? A race of brilliant people who breed as fast as they can because they're going to die before they're twenty. And every one of them curses the name of their ancestor because he didn't end this travesty with his own death."

 

 

"It's not a travesty," said Petra. "And what makes you think your... difference will breed true?"

 

 

"You're right," said Bean, "if I marry a long-lived stupid short girl like you, my progeny should average out to a bunch of average minds who live to be seventy and grow to be six feet tall."

 

 

"Do you want to know what I've been doing?" said Petra.

 

 

"Not shopping."

 

 

"I've been talking to Sister Carlotta."

 

 

He stiffened, looked away from her.

 

 

"I've been walking down the paths of her life," said Petra. "Talking to people she knew. Seeing what she saw. Learning what she learned."

 

 

"I don't want to know," said Bean.

 

 

"Why not? She loved you. Once she found you, she lived for you.

 

 

"I know that," said Bean. "And she died for me. Because I was stupid and careless. I didn't even need her to come, I just thought I did for a little while and by the time I found out 1 didn't, she was already in the air, already heading for the missile that killed her."

 

 

"There's somewhere I want us to go," said Petra. "While we're waiting for Ambul to pull off his miracle."

 

 

"Listen," said Bean, "Sister Carlotta already told me how to get in touch with the scientists who were studying me. Every now and then I write to them and they tell me how soon they estimate my death will come and how exciting it is, all the progress they're making in understanding human development and all kinds of other kuso because of my body and all the little cultures they've got, keeping my tissues alive. Petra. when you think about it, I'm immortal. Those tissues will be alive in labs all over the world for a thousand years after I'm dead. That's one of the benefits of being completely weird."

 

 

"I'm not talking about them," said Petra.

 

 

"What, then? Where do you want to go?"

 

 

"Anton," she said. "The one who found the key, Anton's Key. The genetic change that resulted in you."

 

 

"He's still alive?"

 

 

"He's not only alive, he's free. War's over. Not that he's able to do serious research now. The psychological blocks aren't really removable. He has a hard time talking about. . . well, at least writing about what happened to you."

 

 

"So why bother him?"

 

 

"Got anything better to do?"

 

 

"I've always got something better to do than go to Romania."

 

 

"But he doesn't live there," said Petra. "He's in Catalunya."

 

 

"You're kidding."

 

 

"Sister Carlotta's homeland. The town of Matard."

 

 

"Why did he go there?" asked Bean.

 

 

"Excellent weather," said Petra. "Nights on the rambla. Tapas with friends. The gentle sea lapping the shore. The hot African wind. The breakers of the winter sea. The memory of Columbus coming to visit the king of Aragon."

 

 

"That was Barcelona."

 

 

"Well, he talked about seeing the place. And a garden designed by Gaudi. Things he loves to look at. I think he goes from place to place. I think he's very curious about you."

 

 

"So is Achilles," said Bean.

 

 

"I think that even though he's no longer on the cuffing edge of science, there are things he knows that he was never able to tell."

 

 

"And still can't."

 

 

"It hurts him to say it. But that doesn't mean he couldn't say it, once, to the person who most needs to know."

 

 

"And that is?"

 

 

"Me," said Petra.

 

 

Bean laughed. "Not me?"

 

 

"You don't need to know," said Petra. "You've decided to die. But I need to know, because I want our children to live."

 

 

"Petra," said Bean. "I'm not going to have any children. Ever."

 

 

"Fortunately," said Petra, "the man never does."

 

 

She doubted she could ever persuade Bean to change his mind. With luck, though, the uncontrollable desires of the adolescent male might accomplish what reasonable discussion never could. Despite what he thought, Bean was human; and no matter what species he belonged to, he was definitely a mammal. His mind might say no, but his body would shout yes much louder

 

 

Of course, if there was any adolescent male who could resist his need to mate, it was Bean. It was one of the reasons she loved him, because he was the strongest man she had ever known. With the possible exception of Ender Wiggin, and Ender Wiggin was gone forever.

 

 

She kissed Bean again, and this time they were both somewhat better at it.

 

 

 

STONES IN THE ROAD

 

 

 

From: PW

 

To: TV'!

 

Re: What are you doing?

 

 

What is this housekeeper thing about? I'm not letting you take a job in the Hegemony, certainly not as a housekeeper. Are you tying to shame me, making it look like I have my mother on the payroll and (b) I have my mother working for me as a menial? You already refused the opportunity I wanted you to take.

 

 

From: TV'!

 

To: PW

 

Re: a serpent's tooth

 

 

You are always so thoughtful, giving me such interesting things to do. Touring the colony worlds. Staring at the walls of my nicely air-conditioned apartment. You do remember that your birth was not parthenogenetic. You are the only person on God's green earth who thinks I'm too stupid to be anything but a burden around your neck. But please don't imagine that I'm criticizing you. I am the image of a perfect, dating mother. I know how well that plays on the vids. When Virlomi got Suriyawong's message, she understood at once the danger she was in. But she was almost glad of having a reason to leave the Hegemon's compound.

 

 

She had been thinking about going for some time, and Suriyawong himself was the reason. His infatuation with her had become too sad for her to stay much longer.

 

 

She liked him, of course, and was grateful to him-he was the one who had truly understood, without being told, how to play the scene so that she could escape from India under the guns of soldiers who would most certainly have shot down the Hegemony helicopters. He was smart and funny and good, and she admired the way he worked with Bean in commanding their fiercely loyal troops, conducting raid after raid with few casualties and, so far, no loss of life.

 

 

Suriyawong had everything Battle School was designed to give its students. He was bold, resourceful, quick, brave, smart, ruthless and yet compassionate. And he saw the world through similar eyes, compared to the westerners who otherwise seemed to have the Hegemon's ear.

 

 

But somehow he had also fallen in love with her. She liked him too well to shame him by rebuffing advances he had never made, yet she could not love him. He was too young for her, too ... what? Too intense about his tasks. Too eager to please. Too Annoying.

 

 

There it was. His devotion irritated her. His constant attention. His eyes on her every move. His praise for her mostly trivial achievements.

 

 

No, she had to be fair. She was annoyed at everyone, and not because they did anything wrong, but because she was out of her place. She was not a soldier. A strategist, yes, even a leader, but not in combat. There was no one in Ribeiro Preto who was likely to follow her, and nowhere that she wanted to lead them.

 

 

How could she fall in love with Suriyawong? He was happy in the life he had, and she was miserable. Anything that made her happier would make him less happy. What future was there in that?

 

 

He loved her, and so he thought of her on the way back from China with Achilles and warned her to be gone before he returned. It was a noble gesture on his part, and so she was grateful to him all over again. Grateful that he had quite possibly saved her life.

 

 

And grateful that she wouldn't have to see him again.

 

 

By the time Graff arrived to pull people out of Ribeiro Preto, she was gone. She never heard the offer to go into the protection of the Ministry of Colonization. But even if she had, she would not have gone.

 

 

There was, in fact, only one place she would even think of going. It was where she had been longing to go for months. The Hegemony was fighting China from the outside, but had no use for her. So she would go to India, and do what she could from inside her occupied country.

 

 

Her path was a fairly direct one. From Brazil to Indonesia, where she connected with Indian expatriates and obtained a new identity and Sri Lankan papers. Then to Sri Lanka itself where she persuaded a fishing boat captain to put her ashore on the southeastern coast of India. The Chinese simply didn't have enough of a fleet to patrol the shores of India, so the coasts leaked in both directions.

 

 

Virlomi was of Dravidian ancestry, darker-skinned than the Aryans of the north. She fit in well in this countryside. She wore clothing that was simple and poor, because everyone's was; but she also kept it clean, so she would not look like a vagabond or beggar. In fact, however, she was a beggar, for she had no vast reserves of funds and they would not have helped her anyway. In the great cities of India there were millions of connections to the nets, thousands of kiosks where bank accounts could be accessed. But in the countryside, in the villages-in other words, in India-such things were rare. For this simple-looking girl to use them would call attention to her, and soon there would be Chinese soldiers looking for her, full of questions.

 

 

So she went to the well or the market of each village she entered, struck up conversations with other women, and soon found herself befriended and taken in. In the cities, she would have had to be wary of quislings and informers, but she freely trusted the common people, for they knew noting of strategic importance, and therefore the Chinese did not bother to scatter bribes among them.

 

 

Nor, however, did they have the kind of hatred of the Chinese that Virlomi had expected. Here in the south of India, at least, the Chinese ruled lightly over the common people. It was not like Tibet, where the Chinese had tried to expunge a national identity and the persecutions had reached down to every level of society. India was simply too large to digest all at once, and like the British before them, the Chinese found it easier to rule India by dominating the bureaucratic class and leaving the common folk alone.

 

 

Within a few days, Virlomi realized that this was precisely the situation she had to change.

 

 

In Thailand, in Burma, in Vietnam, the Chinese were dealing ruthlessly with insurgent groups, and still the guerrilla warfare continued. But India slumbered, as if the people didn't care who ruled them. In fact, of course, the Chinese were even more ruthless in India than elsewhere-but since all their victims were of the urban elite, the rural areas felt only the ordinary pain of corrupt government, unreliable weather, untrustworthy markets, and too much labor for too little reward.

 

 

There were guerrillas and insurgents, of course, and the people did not betray them. But they also did not join them, and did not willingly feed them out of their scant food supply, and the insurgents remained timid and ineffective. And those that resorted to brigandage found that the people grew instantly hostile and turned them in to the Chinese at once.

 

 

There was no solidarity. As always before, the conquerors were able to rule India because most Indians did not know what it meant to live in "India." They thought they lived in this village or that one, and cared little about the great issues that kept the cities in turmoil.

 

 

I have no army, thought Virlomi. But I had no army when I fled Hyderabad to escape Achilles and wandered eastward. I had no plan, except a need to get word to Petra's friends about where Petra was. Yet when I came to a place where there was an opportunity, I saw it, I took it, and I won. That is the plan I have now. To watch, to notice, to act.

 

 

For days, for weeks she wandered, watching everything, loving the people in every village she stopped at, for they were kind to this stranger, generous with the next-to-nothing that they had. How can I plot to bring the war to their level, to disrupt their lives? Is it not enough that they're content? If the Chinese are leaving them alone, why can't I?

 

 

Because she knew the Chinese would not leave them alone forever. The Middle Kingdom did not believe in tolerance. Whatever they possessed, they made it Chinese or they destroyed it. Right now they were too busy to bother with the common people. But if the Chinese were victorious everywhere, then they would be free to turn their attention to India. Then the boot would press heavily upon the necks of the common folk. Then there would be revolt after revolt, riot after riot, but none of them would succeed. Gandhi's peaceful resistance only worked against an oppressor with a free press. No, India would revolt with blood and terror, and with blood and horror China would suppress the revolts, one at a time.

 

 

The Indian people had to be roused from their slumber now, while there were still allies outside their borders who might help them, while the Chinese were still overextended and dared not devote too many resources to the occupation.

 

 

I will bring war down on their heads to save them as a nation, as a people, as a culture. I will bring war upon them while there is a chance of victory, to save them from war when there is no possible outcome but despair.

 

 

It was pointless, though, to wonder about the morality of what she intended to do, when she had not yet thought of a way to do it.

 

 

It was a child who gave her the idea.

 

 

She saw him with a bunch of other children, playing at dusk in the bed of a dry stream. During monsoon season, this stream would be a torrent; now it was just a streak of stones in a ditch.

 

 

This one child, this boy of perhaps seven or eight, though he might have been older, his growth stunted by hunger, was not like the other children. He did not join them in running and shouting, shoving and chasing, and tossing back and forth whatever came to hand. Virlomi thought at first he must be crippled, but no, his staggering gait was because he was walking right among the stones of the streambed, and had to adjust his steps to keep his footing.

 

 

Every now and then he bent over and picked up something. A little later, he would set it back down.

 

 

She came closer, and saw that what he picked up was a stone, and when he set it back down it was only a stone among stones.

 

 

What was the meaning of his task, on which he worked so intently, and which had so little result?

 

 

She walked to the stream, but well behind his path, and watched his back as he receded into the gathering gloom, bending and rising, bending and rising.

 

 

He is acting out my life, she thought. He works at his task, concentrating, giving his all, missing out on the games of his playmates. And yet he makes no difference in the world at all.

 

 

Then, as she looked at the streambed where he had already walked, she saw that she could easily find his path, not because he left footprints, but because the stones he picked up were lighter than the others, and by leaving them on the top, he was marking a wavering line of light through the middle of the streambed.

 

 

It did not really change her view of his work as meaningless-if anything, it was further proof. What could such a line possibly accomplish? The fact that there was a visible result made his labor all the more pathetic, because when the rains came it would all be swept away, the stones re-tumbled upon each other, and what difference would it make that for a while, at least, there was a dotted line of lighter stones along the middle of the streambed?

 

 

Then, suddenly, her view of it changed. He was not marking a line. He was building a stone wall.

 

 

No, that was absurd. A wall whose stones were as much as a meter apart? A wall that was never more than one stone high?

 

 

A wall, made of the stones of India. Picked up and set down almost where they had been found. But the stream was different because the wall had been built.

 

 

Is this how the Great Wall of China had begun? A child marking off the boundaries of his world?

 

 

She walked back to the village and returned to the house where she had been fed and where she would be spending the night. She did not speak of the child and the stones to anyone; indeed, she soon thought of other things and did not think to ask anyone about the strange boy. Nor did she dream of stones that night.

 

 

But in the morning, when she awoke with the mother and took her two water pitchers to the public spigot, so she did not have to do that task today, she saw the stones that had been brushed to the sides of the road and remembered the boy.

 

 

She set down the pitchers at the side of the road, picked up a few stones, and carried them to the middle of the road. There she set them and returned for more, arranging them in broken a line right across the road.

 

 

Only a few dozen stones, when she was done. Not a barrier of any kind. And yet it was a wall. It was as obvious as a monument. She picked up her pitchers and walked on to the spigot.

 

 

As she waited her turn, she talked with the other women, and a few men, who had come for the day's water. "1 added to your wall," she said after a while.

 

 

"What wall?" they asked her

 

 

"Across the road," she said.

 

 

"Who would build a wall across a road?" they asked.

 

 

"Like the ones I've seen in other towns. Not a real wall. Just a line of stones. Haven't you seen it?"

 

 

"I saw you putting stones out into the road. Do you know how hard we work to keep it clear?" said one of the men.

 

 

"Of course. If you didn't keep it clear everywhere else," said Virlomi, "no one would see where the wall was." She spoke as though what she said were obvious, as though he had surely had this explained to him before.

 

 

"Walls keep things out," said a woman. "Or they keep things in. Roads let things pass. If you build a wall across, it isn't a road anymore.

 

 

"Yes, you at least understand," said Virlomi, though she knew perfectly well that the woman understood nothing. Virlomi barely understood it herself, though she knew that it felt right to her, that at some level below sense it made perfect sense.

 

 

"I do?" said the woman.

 

 

Virlomi looked around at the others. "It's what they told me in the other towns that had a wall. It's the Great Wall of India. Too late to keep the barbarian invaders out. But in every village, they drop stones, one or two at a time, to make the wall that says, We don't want you here, this is our land, we are free. Because we can still build our wall."

 

 

"But ...it' s only a few stones!" cried the exasperated man who had seen her building it. "I kicked a few out of my way, but even if I hadn't, the wall wouldn't have stopped a beetle, let alone one of the Chinese trucks!"

 

 

"It's not the wall," said Virlomi. "It's not the stones. It's who dropped them, who built it, and why. It's a message. It's ...it's the new flag of India."

 

 

She was seeing comprehension in some of the eyes around her

 

 

"Who can build such a wall?" asked one of the women.

 

 

"Don't all of you add to it? It's built a stone or two at a time. Every time you pass, you bring a stone, you drop it there." She was filling her pitchers now. "Before I carry these pitchers back, I pick up a small stone in each hand. When I pass over the wall, I drop the stones. That's how I've seen it done in the other villages with walls."

 

 

"Which other villages?" demanded the man.

 

 

"I don't remember their names," said Virlomi. "I only know that they had Walls of India. But I can see that none of you knew about it, so perhaps it was only some child playing a prank, and not a wall after all."

 

 

"No," said one of the women. "I've seen people add to it before." She nodded firmly. Even though Virlomi had made up this wall only this morning, and no one but her had ever added to one, she understood what the woman meant by the lie. She wanted to be part of it. She wanted to help create this new flag of India.

 

 

"It's all right, then, for women to do it?" asked one of the women doubtfully.

 

 

"Oh. of course," said Virlomi. "Men are fighters. Women build the walls."

 

 

She picked up her stones and gripped them between her palms and the jar handles. She did not look back to see if any of the others also picked up stones. She knew, from their footfalls, that many of them-perhaps all-were following her, but she did not look back. When she reached what was left of her wall, she did not try to restore any of the stones the man had kicked away. Instead she simply dropped her two stones in the middle of the largest gap in the line. Then she walked on, still without looking back.

 

 

But she heard a few plunks of stones being dropped into the dusty road.

 

 

She found occasion twice more during the day to walk back for more water, and each time found more women at the well, and went through the same little drama.

 

 

The next day, when she left the town, she saw that the wall was no longer a few stones making a broken line. It crossed the road solidly from side to side, and it was as much as two hands high in places. People made a point of stepping over it, never walking around, never kicking it. And most dropped a stone or two as they passed.

 

 

Virlomi went from village to village, each time pretending that she was only passing along a custom she had seen in other places. In a few places, angry men swept away the stones, too proud of their well-kept road to catch the vision she offered. But in those places she simply made, not a wall, hut a pile of stones on both sides of the road, and soon the village women began to add to her piles so they grew into sizable heaps of stone, narrowing the road, the stones too numerous to be kicked or swept out of the way. Eventually they, too, would become walls.

 

 

In the third week she came for the first time to a village that really did already have a wall. She did not explain anything to them, for they already knew-the word was spreading without her intervention. She only added to the wall and moved quickly on.

 

 

It was still only one small corner of southern India, she knew. But it was spreading. It had a life of its own. Soon the Chinese would notice. Soon they would begin tearing down the walls, sending bulldozers to clear the road-or conscripting Indians to move the stones themselves.

 

 

And when their walls were torn down, or the people were forced to remove their walls, the real struggle would begin. For now the Chinese would be reaching down into every village, destroying something that the people wanted to have. Something that meant "India" to them. That's what the secret meaning of the wall had been from the moment she started dropping stones to make the first one.

 

 

The wall existed precisely so that the Chinese would tear it down. And she named the wall the "flag of India" precisely so that when the people saw their walls destroyed, they would See and feel the destruction of India. Their nation. A nation of wall-builders.

 

 

And so, as soon as the Chinese turned their backs, the Indians walking from place to place would carry stones and drop them in the road, and the wall would grow again.

 

 

What would the Chinese do about it? Arrest everyone who carried stones? Make stones illegal? Stones were not a riot. Stones did not threaten soldiers. Stones were not sabotage. Stones were not a boycott. The walls were easily bypassed or pushed aside. It caused the Chinese no harm at all.

 

 

Yet it would provoke them into making the Indian people feel the boot of the oppressor.

 

 

The walls were like a mosquito bite, making the Chinese itch but never bleed. Not an injury, just an annoyance. But it infected the new Chinese Empire with a disease. A fatal one, Virlomi hoped.

 

 

On she walked through the heat of the dry season, working her way back and forth, avoiding big cities and major highways, zigzagging her way northward. Nowhere did anyone identify her as the inventor of the walls. She did not even hear rumors of her existence. All the stoles spoke of the wall-building as having begun somewhere else.

 

 

They were called by many names, these walls. The Flag of India. The Great Indian Wall. The Wall of Women. Even names that Virlomi had never imagined. The Wall of Peace. Thc Taj Mahal. The Children of India. The Indian Harvest.

 

 

All the names were poetry to her. All the names said freedom.

 

 

 

HOSPITALITY

 

 

From: Ftandres%A-Heg@idl.gov

 

To: mpp%administrator@prison . hs. ru

 

Re: Funds for HI prisoners

 

 

The office of the Hegemon appreciates your continuing to hold prisoners for crimes against the International Defense League, despite the lack of funding. Dangerous persons need to continue in detention for the full term of their sentences. Since IDE policy was to allocate prisoners according to the size and means of the guardian countries, as well as the national origin of the prisoners, you may be sure that Romania does not have more than its fair share of such prisoners. As funds become available, the costs incurred in prisoner maintenance will be reimbursed on a pro rata basis.

 

 

However, given that the original international emergency is over, each guardian nation’s courts or prison supervisors may determine whether the international laws which each IDE prisoner violated is still in force and conforms with local laws. Prisoners should not be held for crimes which are no longer crimes, even if the original sentence has not been fully served.

 

 

Categories of laws that may not apply include research restrictions whose purpose was political rather than defensive. In particular, the restriction against genetic modification of human embryos was devised to hold the league together in the face of opposition from Muslim, Catholic, and other “respect-for-life’ nations, and as quid pro quo for accepting the restrictions on family size. Prisoners convicted under such laws should be released without prejudice. However, they are not entitled to compensation for time served, since they were lawfully found guilty of crimes and their conviction is not being overturned.

 

 

If you have any questions, feel free to ask.

 

 

Sincerely,

 

Achilles de Flandres, Assistant to the Hegemon

 

 

When Suriyawong brought Achilles out of China, Peter knew exactly what he meant to do with Achilles.

 

 

He would study him for as long as he considered him harmless, and then turn him over to, say, Pakistan for trial.

 

 

Peter had prepared very carefully for Achilles’s arrival. Every computer terminal in the Hegemony already had shepherds installed, recording every keystroke and taking snapshots of every text page and picture displayed. Most of this was discarded after a fairly short time, but anything Achilles did would be kept and studied, as a way of tracing all his connections and identifying his networks.

 

 

Meanwhile, Peter would offer him assignments and see what he did with them. There was no chance that Achilles would, even for a moment, act in the interest of the Hegemony, but he might be useful if Peter kept him on a short enough tether. The trick would be to get as much use out of him as possible, learn as much as possible, but then neutralize him before he could dish up the betrayal he would, without question, be cooking up.

 

 

Peter had toyed with the idea of keeping Achilles locked up for a while before actually letting him take part in the operations of the Hegemony. But that sort of thing was only effective if the subject was susceptible to such human emotions as fear or gratitude. It would be wasted on Achilles.

 

 

So as soon as Achilles had had a chance to clean up after his flights across the Pacific and over the Andes, Peter invited him to lunch.

 

 

Achilles came, of course, and rather surprised Peter by not seeming to do anything at all. He thanked him for rescuing him and for lunch in virtually the same tone-sincerely but not extravagantly grateful. His conversation was informal, pleasant, sometimes funny but never seeming to try for humor. He did not bring up anything about world affairs, the recent wars, why he had been arrested in China, or even a single question about why Peter had rescued him or what he planned to do with him now.

 

 

He did not ask Peter if there was going to be a war crimes trial.

 

 

And yet he did not seem to be evading anything at all. It seemed as though Peter had only to ask what it had been like, betraying India and subverting Thailand so all of south Asia dropped into his hands like a ripe papaya, and Achilles would tell several interesting anecdotes about it and then move on to discuss the kidnapping of the children from Ender’s group at Command School.

 

 

But because Peter did not bring it up, Achilles modestly refrained from talking about his achievements.

 

 

“I wondered,” said Peter, “if you wanted to take a break from working for world peace, or if you’d like to lend a hand around here.”

 

 

Achilles did not bat an eye at the bitter irony, but instead he seemed to take Peter’s words at face value. “I don’t know that I’d be much use,” he said. “I’ve been something of an orientalist lately, but I’d have to say that the position your soldiers found me in shows that I wasn’t a very good one.”

 

 

“Nonsense,” said Peter, “everyone makes an error now and then. I suspect your only error was too much success. Is it Buddhism, Taoism, or Confucianism that teaches that it is a mistake to do something perfectly? Because it would provoke resentment, and therefore wouldn’t be perfect after all?”

 

 

“I think it was the Greeks,” said Achilles. ”Perfection arouses the envy of the gods.”

 

 

“Or the Communists,” said Peter. “Snick off the heads of any blades of grass that rise higher than the rest of the lawn.”

 

 

“If you think I have any value,” said Achilles, “I’d be glad to do whatever is within my abilities.”

 

 

“Thank you for not saying ‘my poor abilities,’” said Peter. “We both know you’re a master of the great game, and I, for one, never intend to try to play head-to-head against you.”

 

 

“I’m sure you’d win handily,” said Achilles.

 

 

“Why would you think that?” said Peter, disappointed at what seemed, for the first time, like flattery.

 

 

“Because,” said Achilles, “it’s hard to win when your opponent holds all the cards.”

 

 

Not flattery, then, but a realistic assessment of the situation.

 

 

Or. . . maybe flattery after all, because of course Peter did not hold all the cards. Achilles almost certainly had plenty of them left, once he was in a position to get to them.

 

 

Peter found that Achilles could be very charming. He had a sort of reticence about him. He walked rather slowly-perhaps a habit that originated before the surgery that fixed his gimp leg-and made no effort to dominate a conversation, though he was not uncomfortably silent, either. He was almost nondescript. Charmingly nondescript- was such a thing possible?

 

 

Peter had lunch with him three times a week and each time gave him various assignments. Peter gave him letterhead and a net identity that anointed him “Assistant to the Hegemon,” but of course that only meant that, in a world where the Hegemon’s power consisted of the fading remnants of the unity that had been forced on the world during the Formic Wars, Achilles had been granted the shadow of a shadow of power

 

 

“Our authority,” Peter remarked to him at their second lunch, “lies very lightly on the reins of world government.”

 

 

“The horses seem so comfortable it’s almost as though they were not being guided at all,” said Achilles, entering into the joke without a smile.

 

 

“We govern so skillfully that we never need to use spurs.”

 

 

“Which is a good thing,” said Achilles. “Spurs being in short supply around here these days.”

 

 

But just because the Hegemony was very nearly an empty shell in terms of actual power did not mean there was no real work to do. Quite the contrary. When one has no power, Peter knew, then the only influence one has comes, not from fear, but from the perception that one has useful favors to offer. There were plenty of institutions and customs left over from the decades when the Triumvirate of Hegemon, Polemarch, and Strategos had governed the human race.

 

 

Newly formed governments in various countries were formed on shaky legal ground; a visit from Peter was often quite helpful in giving the illusion of legitimacy. There were countries that owed money to the Hegemony, and since there was no chance of collecting it, the Hegemon could win favor by making a big deal of forgiving the accruing interest because of various noble actions on the part of a government. Thus when Slovenia, Croatia, and Bosnia rushed aid to Italy, sending a fleet when Venice was plagued with a flood and an earthquake at the same time, they were all given amnesty on interest. “Your generous assistance helps bind the world together, which is all that the Hegemony hopes to achieve.” It was a chance for the heads of government to get their positive coverage and face time in the vids.

 

 

And they also knew that as long as it didn’t cost them much, keeping the Hegemony in play was a good idea, since it and the Muslims were the only groups openly opposing China’s expansionism. What if China turned out to have ambitions beyond the empire it had already conquered? What if the world beyond the Great Wall suddenly had to unite just to survive? Wouldn’t it be good to have a viable Hegemon ready to assume leadership? And the Hegemon, young as he might be, was the brother of the great Ender Wiggin, wasn’t he?

 

 

There were lesser tasks to be accomplished, too. Hegemony libraries that needed to try to secure local funding. Hegemony police stations all over the world whose archives from the old days needed to stay under Hegemony control even though all the funding came from local sources. Some nasty things had been done as part of the war effort, and there were still plenty of people alive who wanted those archives sealed. Yet there were also powerful people who wanted to make sure the archives were not destroyed. Peter was very careful not to let anything uncomfortable come to light from any of the archives-but was not above letting an uncooperative government know that even if they seized the archive within their own boundaries, there were other archives with duplicate records that were under the control of rival nations.

 

 

Ah, the balancing act. And each negotiation, each trade-off, each favor done and favor asked for, Peter treated very carefully, for it was vital that he always get more than he gave, creating the illusion in other nations of more influence and power than he actually had.

 

 

For the more influence and power they believed he had, the more influence and power he actually had. The reality lagged far behind the illusion, but that’s why it became all the more important to maintain the illusion perfectly.

 

 

Achilles could be very helpful at that.

 

 

And because he would almost certainly use his opportunities for his own advantage, letting him have a broad range of action would invite him to expose his plans in ways that Peter’s spy systems would surely catch. “You won’t catch a fish if you hold the hook in one hand and the bait in the other. You need to put them together, and give them a lot of string.” Peter’s father had said this, and more than once, too, which implied that the poor fellow thought it was clever rather than obvious. But it was obvious because it was true. To get Achilles to reveal his secrets, Peter had to give him the ability to communicate with the outside world at will.

 

 

But he couldn’t make it too easy, either, or Achilles would guess what Peter really wanted. Therefore Peter, with a great show of embarrassment, put severe restrictions on Achilles’s access to the nets. “I hope you realize that there’s too much history for me simply to give you carte blanche,” he explained. “In time, of course, these restrictions might be lifted, but for now you may write only messages that pertain directly to your assigned tasks, and all your requests to send emails will need to he cleared by my office.”

 

 

Achilles smiled. “I’m sure your added sense of safety will more than compensate for the delays in what I accomplish.”

 

 

“I hope we’ll all stay safe,” said Peter.

 

 

This was about as close as Peter and Achilles came to admitting that their relationship was that of jailer to prisoner, or perhaps that of a monarch to a thrice-traitorous courtier.

 

 

But to Peter’s chagrin, his spy systems turned up. . . nothing. If Achilles sent coded messages to old confederates, Peter could not detect how. The Hegemony compound was in a broadcast bubble, so that no electronic transmissions could enter or leave except through the instruments controlled and monitored by Peter.

 

 

Was it possible that Achilles was not even attempting to contact the network of contacts he had been using during his astonishing (and, with luck, permanently terminated) career?

 

 

Maybe all his contacts had been burned by one betrayal or another. Certainly Achilles’s Russian network had to have given up on him in disgust. His Indian and Thai contacts were obviously useless now. But wouldn’t he still have some kind of network in place in Europe and the Americas?

 

 

Did he already have someone within the Hegemony who was his ally? Someone who was sending messages for him, bringing him information, carrying out his errands?

 

 

At that point Peter could not help but remember his mother’s actions back when Achilles first arrived. It began during Peter’s first meeting with him, when the head custodian of all the compound buildings reported to him that Mrs. Wiggin had attempted at first simply to take a key to Achilles’s room, and when she was caught at it, to ask for and finally demand it. Her excuse, she said, was that she had to make sure the empregadas had done a better job cleaning the room of such an important guest than they did on her house.

 

 

When Peter emailed her a query about her behavior, she got snippy. Mother had long been frustrated by the fact that she was unable to do any meaningful work. In vain did he point out that she could continue her researches and writing, and consult with colleagues by email, as many in her field did by preference. She kept insisting that she wanted to be involved in Hegemony affairs. “Everyone else is,” she said. Peter had interpreted this housekeeping venture as more of the same.

 

 

Now her actions offered a different possible meaning. Was she trying to leave a message for Achilles? Was she on a more definite errand, like sweeping the room for bugs? That was absurd-what did Mother know of electronic surveillance?

 

 

Peter watched the vid of Mother’s attempt to steal the key, and her attitude during the confrontation with the empregada who caught her and, after a short time, the housekeeper. Mother was imperious, demanding, impatient.

 

 

He had never seen this side of her.

 

 

The second time he watched the scene, though, he realized that from the beginning she was tense. Upset. Whatever she was doing, she wasn’t used to it. Was reluctant to do it. And when she was confronted, she was not reacting honestly, as Mother normally would. She instead seemed to become someone else. The cliché of the mother of a ruler, vain about her close association with his power.

 

 

She was acting.

 

 

And acting quite well, since the housekeeper and empregada believed the performance, and Peter had believed it, too, on the first viewing.

 

 

It had never occurred to him that Mother might be good at acting.

 

 

So good that the only way he knew that it was an act was because she had never shown him the slightest sign of being impressed by his power, or of enjoying it in any way. She had always been irritated by the things that his position required her and Father to do.

 

 

What if the Theresa Wiggin on this vid was the real Theresa Wiggin, and the one he had seen at home for all these years was the act- the performance, literally, of a lifetime?

 

 

Was it possible that Mother was somehow involved with Achilles? Had he corrupted her somehow? It might have happened a year ago, or even earlier. It certainly wouldn’t have been a bribe. But perhaps it was extortion that turned her. A threat from Achilles: I can kill your son at any time, so you’d better cooperate with me.

 

 

But that was absurd, too. Now that Achilles was in Peter’s power, why would she continue to fear such a threat? It was something else.

 

 

Or nothing else. It was unthinkable that Mother could be betraying him for any reason. She would have told him. Mother was like a child that way, showing everything-excitement, dismay, anger, disappointment, surprise-the moment she felt it, saying whatever came to mind. She could never sustain a secret like that. Peter and Valentine used to laugh about how obvious Mother was in everything she did-they had never yet been surprised by their birthday and Christmas gifts, not by the main gift, anyway, because Mother just couldn’t keep a secret, she kept letting hints slip out.

 

 

Or was that, too, an act?

 

 

No, no, that would be madness, that would imply that Mother had been acting his whole life, and why would she do that?

 

 

It made no sense, and he had to make sense of it. So he invited his father to his office.

 

 

“What did you want to see me about, Peter?” asked Father, standing near the door.

 

 

“Sit down, Dad, for heaven’s sake, you’re standing there like a junior employee expecting to be sacked.”

 

 

“Laid off, anyway,” said Father with a thin smile. “Your budget shrinks month by month.”

 

 

“I thought we’d solve that by printing our own money,” said Peter.

 

 

“Good idea,” said Father. “A sort of international money that could be equally worthless in every country, so that it becomes the benchmark against which all other currencies are weighed. The dollar is worth a hundred billion ‘hedges’-that’s a good name for it, don’t you think? The ‘hedge’?-and the yen is worth twenty trillion, and so on.”

 

 

“That’s assuming that we could keep the value just above zero, said Peter. “The computers would all crash if it ever became truly worthless.”

 

 

“But here’s the danger,” said Father. “What if it accidentally became worth something? It might cause a depression as other currencies actually fell against the hedge.”

 

 

Peter laughed.

 

 

“We’re both busy,” said Father. “What did you want to see me about?”

 

 

Peter showed him the vid.

 

 

Father shook his head through most of it. “Theresa, Theresa,” he murmured at the end.

 

 

“What is she trying to do?” asked Peter.

 

 

“Well, obviously, she’s figured out a way to kill Achilles and it requires getting into his room. Now she’ll have to think of another way.”

 

 

Peter was astounded. “Kill Achilles? You can’t be serious.”

 

 

“Well, I can’t think of any other reason for her to be doing this. You don’t think she actually cares if his room is clean, do you? More likely she’d carry a basketful of roaches and disease-carrying lice into the room.”

 

 

“She hates him? She never said anything about that.”

 

 

“To you,” said Father

 

 

“So she’s told you she wants to kill him?”

 

 

“Of course not. If she had, I wouldn’t have mentioned it to you. I don’t betray her confidences. But since she hasn’t seen fit to tell me what’s going on, I’m perfectly free to give you my best guess, and my best guess is that Theresa has decided that Achilles poses a danger to you-not to mention the whole human race-and so she’s decided to kill him. It really makes sense, once you know how your mother thinks.”

 

 

“Mother doesn’t even kill spiders.”

 

 

“Oh, she kills them just fine when you and I aren’t there. You don’t think she stands in the middle of the room and goes eek-eekeek until we come home, do you?”

 

 

“You’re telling me that my mother is capable of murder?”

 

 

“Preemptive assassination,” said Father. “And no, I don’t think she’s capable of it. But I think she thinks she’s capable of it.” He thought for a moment. “And she might be right. The female of the species is more deadly than the male, as they say.”

 

 

“That makes no sense,” said Peter.

 

 

“Well, then, I guess you wasted your time and mine bringing me down here. I’m probably wrong anyway. There’s probably a much more rational explanation. Like.., she really cares how well the maids do their work. Or... she’s hoping to have a love affair with a serial killer who wants to rule the world.”

 

 

“Thanks, Father,” said Peter. “You’ve been very helpful. Now I know that I was raised by an insane woman and I never knew it.”

 

 

“Peter, my boy, you don’t know either of us.”

 

 

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

 

 

“You study everybody else, but your mother and I are like air to you: you just breathe us without noticing we’re there. But that’s all right, that’s how parents are supposed to be in their children’s lives. Unconditional love, right? Don’t you suppose that’s the difference between Achilles and you? That you had parents who loved you, and he didn’t?”

 

 

“You loved Ender and Valentine,” said Peter. It slipped out before he realized what he was saying.

 

 

“And not you?” said Father. “Oh. My mistake. I guess there is no difference between your upbringing and Achilles’s. Too bad, really. Have a nice day, son!”

 

 

Peter tried to call him back, but Father pretended not to have heard him and went on his way, whistling the Marseillaise, of all things.

 

 

All right, so his suspicions of Mother were absurd, though Father had a twisted way of saying so. What a clever family he had, everybody always making a puzzle or a drama out of everything. Or a comedy. That’s what he’d just played out with his father, wasn’t it? A farce. An absurdity.

 

 

If Achilles had a collaborator here, it was probably not Peter’s parents. Who else, then? Should he make something of the way Achilles and Suriyawong consulted? But he’d watched the vids of their occasional lunches and they said nothing beyond ordinary chat about the things they were working on. If there was a code it was a very subtle one. It’s not even like they were friends-the conversation was always rather stiff and formal, and if anything bothered Peter about them, it was the way Suriyawong always seemed to phrase things in a subservient way.

 

 

He certainly never acted subservient to Bean or to Peter.

 

 

That was something to think about, too. What had really passed between Sun and Achilles during the rescue and the return to Brazil?

 

 

What silliness, Peter told himself. If Achilles has a confederate, they doubtless communicate through dead drops and coded messages in emails or something like that. Spy stuff.

 

 

Not dumb attempts to break into Achilles’s room-Achilles surely would not stake his life on confederates as dumb as that. And Suriyawong how could Achilles possibly hope to corrupt him? It’s not as if Achilles had influence in the Chinese empire now, so he could use Sun’s family as hostages.

 

 

No, Peter would have to keep looking, keep the electronic surveillance going, until he found out what Achilles was doing to subvert Peter’s work-or take it over.

 

 

What was not possible was that Achilles had simply given up on his ambitions and was now trying to make a place for himself in the bright future of a world united under the rule of Peter Wiggin.

 

 

But wouldn’t it be nice if he had.

 

 

Maybe it was time to give up on learning anything from Achilles, and start setting him up for destruction.

 

 

 

THE HUMAN RACE

 

 

 

 

From: unreody%cincinnotus@anon.set

 

To: Demosthenes%Tecumseh@freeamerica org

 

Re: Ill help you

 

 

 

So, Mr. Wonderboy Hegemon, now that you’re no longer Demosthenes of “freeamerica.org”, is there any good reason why my telling you what I see from the sky wouldn’t be treason?

 

 

From: Demosthenes%Tecumseh@freeamerica.org

 

To: unready%cincinnatus@anon.set

 

Re: Because . .

 

 

Because only the Hegemony is actually doing anything about China, or actively trying to get Russia and the Warsaw Pact out of bed with Beijing.

 

 

From: unready%cincinnatus@anon.set

 

To: Demosthenes%Tecumseh@freeamerica org

 

Re: Bullshit

 

 

We saw your little army pull somebody out of a prisoner convoy on a highway in China. If that was who we think it was no way are you ever seeing anything from me again. My info doesn’t go to psycho megalomaniacs. Except you, of course.

 

 

 

From Demosthenes%Tecumseb@freeamerica .org

 

To: unready%cincinnatus@anon.set

 

Re: Good call

 

 

 

Good call. Not safe. Here’s what. If there’s something you should know because you can’t act and I can, deaddrop it to my former cinc at a weblink that will come to you from IComeAnon. He’ll know what to do with it. He isn’t working for me any more for the same reason you’re not helping. But he’s still on our side-and, fyi, I’M still on our side, too.

 

 

 

Professor Anton had no laboratory and no library. There was no professional journal in his house, nothing to show he had ever been a scientist. Bean was not surprised. Back when the DL was hunting down anyone doing research into altering the human genome, Anton was considered the most dangerous of men. He had been served with an order of inhibition, which meant that for many years he bore within his brain a device that, when he tried to concentrate on his area of study, he would have a panic attack. He had the strength, once, to hint to Sister Carlotta more than he should have about Bean’s condition. But otherwise, he had been shut down in the prime of his career.

 

 

Now the order of inhibition had been lifted, but too late. His brain had been trained to avoid thinking deeply about his area of specialization. There was no going back for him.

 

 

“Not a problem,” said Anton. “Science goes on without me. For instance, there’s a new bacterium in my lung that undoes my cancer, bit by bit. I can’t smoke any more, or the cancer grows faster than the bacteria can undo it. But I’m getting better, and they didn’t have to take out my lungs to do it. Walk with me-I actually enjoy walking now.”

 

 

They followed him through the garden to the front gate. In Brazil, the gardens were in the front of the house, so passersby could see over the front wall and the greenery and flowers could decorate the street. In Catalunya, as in Italy. the gardens were hidden away in a central courtyard, and the street got no gift but plaster walls and heavy wooden doors. Bean had not realized how much he had come to regard Ribeirao Preto as his home, but he missed it now, walking down the charming yet unrelentingly lifeless street.

 

 

Soon they reached the rambla, the broad central avenue that in all the coastal towns led down the slope of the city toward the sea. It was nearing noon, and the rambla was busy with people on errands. Anton pointed out shops and other buildings, telling them about the people who owned them or who worked there or lived there.

 

 

“I see you’ve become quite involved in the life of this city,” said Petra.

 

 

“Superficially,” said Anton. “An old Russian, long exited in Romania, I’m a curiosity. They talk to me, but not about things that matter in their soul.”

 

 

“So why not go back to Russia?” asked Bean.

 

 

“Ah, Russia. So many things about Russia. Just to remember them brings back the glorious days of my career, when I was gambling about inside the nucleus of the human cell like a happy little lamb. But you see, those thoughts make me start to panic a little. So. . . I don’t go where I get reminded.”

 

 

“You’re thinking about it now,” said Bean.

 

 

“No, I’m saying words about it,” said Anton. “And besides, if I didn’t intend to think about it, I wouldn’t have consented to see you.”

 

 

“And yet,” said Bean, “you seem unwilling to look at me.”

 

 

“Ah, well,” said Anton. “If I keep you in my peripheral vision, if I don’t think about thinking about you. . you are the one fruit that my tree of theory bore.”

 

 

“There were more than a score of us,” said Bean. “But the others were murdered.”

 

 

“You survived,” said Anton. “The others didn’t. Why was that, do you think?”

 

 

“I hid in a toilet tank.”

 

 

“Yes, yes,” said Anton, “so I gleaned from Sister Carlotta, God rest her soul. But why did you, and you alone, sneak out of your bed and go into the bathroom and hide in such a dangerous and difficult place? Scarcely a year old, too. So precocious. So desperate to survive. Yet genetically identical to all your brothers, da?”

 

 

“Cloned,” said Bean, “so . . . Yes.”

 

 

“It is not all genetics, is it?” said Anton. “It is not all anything. So much left to learn. And you are the only teacher”

 

 

“I don’t know anything about that. I’m a soldier.”

 

 

“It is your body that would teach us. And every cell inside it.”

 

 

“Sorry, but I’m still using them,” said Bean.

 

 

“As I’m still using my mind,” said Anton, “even though it won’t go where I most want it to take me.”

 

 

Bean turned to Petra. “Is that why you brought me here? So Professor Anton could see what a big boy I’ve become?”

 

 

“No,” said Petra.

 

 

“She brought you here,” said Anton, “so I can persuade you that you are human.”

 

 

Bean sighed, though what he wanted to do was walk away, get a cab to the airport, fly to another country, and be alone. Be away from Petra and her demands on him.

 

 

“Professor Anton,” said Bean, “I’m quite aware that the genetic alteration that produced my talents and my defects is well within the range of normal variation of the human species. I know that there is no reason to suppose that I could not produce viable offspring if I mated with a human woman. Nor is my trait necessarily dominant-I might have children with it, I might have children without. Now can we simply enjoy our walk down to the sea?”

 

 

“Ignorance is not a tragedy,” said Anton, “merely an opportunity. But to know and refuse to know what you know, that is foolishness.”

 

 

Bean looked at Petra. She was not meeting his gaze. Yes, she certainly knew how annoyed he was, and yet she refused to cooperate with him in exiting the situation.

 

 

I must love her, thought Bean. Otherwise I would have nothing to do with her, the way she thinks she knows better than I do what’s good for me. We have it on record-I’m the smartest person in the world. So why are so many other people eager to give me advice?

 

 

“Your life is going to be short,” said Anton. “And at the end, there will be pain, physical and emotional. You will grow too large for this world, too large for your heart. But you have always been too large of mind for an ordinary life, da? You have always been apart. A stranger. Human by name, but not truly a member of the species, excluded from all clubs.”

 

 

Till now, Anton’s words had been mere irritants, floating past him like falling leaves. Now they struck him hard, with a sudden rush of grief and regret that left him almost gasping. He could not help the hesitation, the change of stride that showed the others that these words had suddenly begun to affect him. What line had Anton crossed? Yet he had crossed it.

 

 

“You are lonely,” said Anton. “And humans are not designed to be alone. It’s in our genes. We’re social beings. Even the most introverted person alive is constantly hungry for human association. You are no exception Bean.”

 

 

There were tears in his eyes, but Bean refused to acknowledge them. He hated emotions. They took control of him, weakened him.

 

 

“Let me tell you what I know,” said Anton. “Not as a scientist- that road may not be utterly closed to me, but it’s mostly washed out, and full of ruts, and I don’t use it. But my life as a man, that door is still open.”

 

 

“I’m listening,” said Bean.

 

 

“I have always been as lonely as you,” he said. “Never as intelligent, but not a fool, either. I followed my mind into my work, and let it be my life. I was content with that, partly because I was so successful that my work brought great satisfaction, and partly because I was of a disposition not to look upon women with desire.” He smiled wanly. “In that era, of my youth, the governments of most countries were actively encouraging those of us whose mating instinct had been short-circuited to indulge those desires and take no mate, have no children. Part of the effort to funnel all of human endeavor into the great struggle with the alien enemy. So it was almost patriotic of me to indulge myself in fleeting affairs that meant nothing, that led nowhere. Where could they lead?”

 

 

This is more than I want to know about you, thought Bean. It has nothing to do with me.

 

 

“I tell you this,” said Anton, “so you understand that I know something of loneliness, too. Because all of a sudden my work was taken away from me. From my mind, not just from my daily activities. I could not even think about it. And I quickly discovered that my friendships were not. . . transcendent. They were all tied to my work, and when my work went away, so did these friends. They were not unkind, they still inquired after me, they made overtures, but there was nothing to say, our minds and hearts did not really touch at any point. I discovered that I did not know anybody, and nobody knew me.

 

 

Again, that stab of anguish in Bean’s heart. This time, though, he was not unprepared, and he breathed a little more deeply and took it in stride.

 

 

“I was angry, of course, as who would not be?” said Anton. “And do you know what I wanted?”

 

 

Bean did not want to say what he immediately thought of: death.

 

 

“Not suicide, never that. My life wish is too strong, and I was not depressed. I was furious. Well, no, I was depressed, but I knew that killing myself would only help my enemies-the government-accomplish their real purpose without having had to dirty their hands. No, I did not wish to die. What I wanted, with all my heart, was. . . to begin to live.”

 

 

“Why do I feel a song coming on?” said Bean. The sarcastic words slipped out of him unbidden.

 

 

To his surprise, Anton laughed. “Yes, yes, it’s such a cliché that it should be followed by a love song, shouldn’t it? A sentimental tune that tells of how I was not alive until I met my beloved, and now the moon is new, the sea is blue, the month is June, our love is true.”

 

 

Petra burst out laughing. “You missed your calling. The Russian Cole Porter”

 

 

“But my point was serious,” said Anton. “When a man’s life is bent so that his desire is not toward women, it does not change his longing for meaning in his life. A man searches for something that will outlast his life. For immortality of a kind. For a way to change the world, to have his life matter. But it is all in vain. I was swept away until I existed only in footnotes in other men’s articles. It all came down to this, as it always does. You can change the world-as you have, Bean, Julian Delphiki-you and Petra Arkanian, both of you, all those children who fought, and the ones who did not fight, all of you-you changed the world. You saved the world. All of humanity is your progeny. And yet. .. it is empty, isn’t it? They didn’t take it away from you the way they took my work from me. But time has taken it away. It’s in the past, and yet you are still alive, so what is your life for?”

 

 

They were at the stone steps leading down into the water Bean wanted simply to keep going, to walk into the Mediterranean, down and down, until he found old Poseidon at the bottom of the sea, and deeper, to the throne of Hades. What is my life for?

 

 

“You found purpose in Thailand,” said Anton. “And then saving Petra, that was a purpose. But what did you save her for? You have gone to the lair of the dragon and carried off the dragon’s daughter- for that is what the myth always means, when it doesn’t mean the dragon’s wife-and now you have her, and. . you refuse to see what you must do, not to her, but with her”

 

 

Bean turned to Petra with weary resignation. “Petra, how many letters did it take to make clear to Anton precisely what you wanted him to say to me?”

 

 

“Don’t leap to conclusions, foolish boy,” said Anton. “She only wanted to find out if there was any way to correct your genetic problem. She did not speak to me of your personal dilemma. Some of it I learned from my old friend Hyrum Graff. Some of it I knew from Sister Carlotta. And some of it I saw simply by looking at the two of you together. You both give off enough pheromones to fertilize the eggs of passing birds.”

 

 

“I really don’t tell our business to others,” said Petra.

 

 

“Listen to me, both of you. Here is the meaning of life: for a man to find a woman, for a woman to find a man, the creature most unlike you, and then to make babies with her, with him, or to find them some other way, but then to raise them up, and watch them do the same thing, generation after generation, so that when you die you know you are permanently a part of the great web of life. That you are not a loose thread, snipped off.”

 

 

“That’s not the only meaning of life,” said Petra. sounding a little annoyed. Well, thought Bean, you brought us here, so take your medicine, too.

 

 

“Yes it is,” said Anton. “Do you think I haven’t had time to think about this? I am the same man, with the same mind, I am the man who found Anton’s Key, I have found many other keys as well, but they took away my work, and I had to find another. Well, here it is. I give it to you, the result of all my. . . study. Shallow as it had to be, it is still the truest thing I ever found. Even men who do not desire women, even women who do not desire men, this does not exempt them from the deepest desire of all, the desire to be an inextricable part of the human race.”

 

 

“We’re all part of it no matter what we do,” said Bean. “Even those of us who aren’t actually human.”

 

 

“It’s hardwired into all of us. Not just sexual desire-that can be twisted any which way, and it often is. And not just a desire to have children, because many people never get that, and yet they can still he woven into the fabric. No, it’s a deep hunger to find a person from that strange, terrifyingly other sex and make a life together. Even old people beyond mating, even people who know they can’t have children, there’s still a hunger for this. For actual marriage, two unlike creatures becoming, as best they can, one.”

 

 

“I know a few exceptions,” said Petra wryly. “I’ve known a few people of the ‘never-again’ persuasion.”

 

 

“I’m not talking about politics or hurt feelings,” said Anton. “I’m talking about a trait that the human race absolutely needed to succeed. The thing that makes us neither herd animals nor solitaries, but something in between. The thing that makes us civilized or at least civilizable. And those who are cut off from it by their own desires, by those twists and bends that turn them in another way-like you, Bean, so determined are you that no more children will be born with your defect, and that there will be no children orphaned by your death- those who are cut off because they think they want to be cut off, they are still hungry for it, hungrier than ever, especially if they deny it. It makes them angry, bitter, sad, and they don’t know why, or if they know, they can’t bear to face the knowledge.”

 

 

Bean did not know or care whether Anton was right, that this desire was inescapable for all human beings, though he suspected that he was-that this life wish had to be present in all living things for any species to continue as they all desperately struggled to do. It isn’t a will to survive-that is selfish, and such selfishness would be meaningless, would lead to nothing. It is a will for the species to survive with the self inside it, part of it, tied to it, forever one of the strands in the web-Bean could see that now.

 

 

“Even if you’re right,” Bean said, “that only makes me more determined to overcome that desire and never have a child. For the reasons you just named. I grew up among orphans. I’m not going to leave any behind me.

 

 

“They wouldn’t be orphans,” said Petra. “They’d still have me.”

 

 

“And when Achilles finds you and kills you?” said Bean harshly. “Are you counting on him being merciful enough to do what Volescu did for my brothers? What I cheated myself out of by being so damned smart?”

 

 

Tears leapt to Petra’s eyes and she turned away.

 

 

“You’re a liar when you speak like that,” said Anton softly. “And a cruel one, to say such things to her.”

 

 

“I told the truth,” said Bean.

 

 

“You’re a liar,” said Anton, “but you think you need the lie so you won’t let go of it. I know what these lies are-I kept my sanity by fencing myself about with lies, and believing them. But you know the truth. If you leave this world without your children in it, without having made that bond with such an alien creature as a woman, then your life will have meant nothing to you, and you’ll die in bitterness and alone.”

 

 

“Like you,” said Bean.

 

 

“No,” said Anton. “Not like me.”

 

 

“What, you’re not going to die? Just because they reversed the cancer doesn’t mean something else won’t get you in the end.”

 

 

“No, you mistake me,” he said. “I’m getting married.”

 

 

Bean laughed. “Oh, I see. You’re so happy that you want everyone to share your happiness.”

 

 

“The woman I’m going to marry is a good woman, a kind one. With small children who have no father. I have a pension now-a generous one-and with my help these children will have a home. My proclivities have not changed, but she is still young enough, and perhaps we will find a way for her to bear a child that is truly my own. But if not, then I will adopt her children into my heart. I will rejoin the web. My loose thread will he woven in, knotted to the human race. I will not die alone.”

 

 

“I’m happy for you,” said Bean, surprised at how bitter and insincere he sounded.

 

 

“Yes” said Anton, “I’m happy for myself. This will make me miserable, of course. I will be worried about the children all the time-I already am. And getting along with a woman is hard even for men who desire them. Or perhaps especially for them. But you see, it will all mean something.”

 

 

“I have work of my own to do,” said Bean. “The human race faces an enemy almost as terrible, in his own way, as the Formics ever were. And I don’t think Peter Wiggin is up to stopping him. In fact it looks to me as if Peter Wiggin is on the verge of losing everything to him, and then who will be left to oppose him? That’s my work. And if I were selfish and stupid enough to marry my widow and father orphans on her, it would only distract me from that work. If I fail, welt, how many millions of humans have already been born and died as loose threads with their lives snipped off? Given the historical rates of infant mortality, it might be as many as halt certainly at least a quarter of all humans born. All those meaningless lives. I’ll be one of them. I’ll just be one who did his best to save the world before he died.”

 

 

To Bean’s surprise-and horror-Anton flung his arms around him in one of those terrifying Russian hugs from which the unsuspecting westerner thinks he may never emerge alive. “My boy, you are so noble!” Anton let go of him, laughing. “Listen to yourself! So full of the romance of youth! You will save the world!”

 

 

“I didn’t mock your dream,” said Bean.

 

 

“But I’m not mocking you!” cried Anton. “I celebrate you! Because you are, in a way, a small way, my son. Or at least my nephew. And look at you! Living a life entirely for others!”

 

 

“I’m completely selfish!” cried Bean in protest.

 

 

“Then sleep with this girl, you know she’ll let you! Or marry her and then sleep with anybody else, father children or not, why should you care? Nothing that happens outside your body matters. Your children don’t matter to you! You’re completely selfish!”

 

 

Bean was left with nothing to say.

 

 

“Self-delusion dies hard,” said Petra softly, slipping her hand into his.

 

 

“I don’t love anybody,” said Bean.

 

 

“You keep breaking your heart with the people you love,” said Petra. “You just can’t ever admit it until they’re dead.”

 

 

Bean thought of Poke. Of Sister Carlotta.

 

 

He thought of the children he never meant to have. The children that he would make with Petra, this girl who had been such a wise and loyal friend to him, this woman whom, when he thought he might lose her to Achilles, he realized that he loved more than anyone else on Earth. The children he kept denying, refusing to let them exist because ...

 

 

Because he loved them too much, even now, when they did not exist, he loved them too much to cause them the pain of losing their father, to risk them suffering the pain of dying young when there was no one who could save them.

 

 

The pain he could bear himself he refused to let them bear, he loved them so much.

 

And now he had to stare the truth in the face: What good would it do to love his children as much as he already did, if he never had those children?