“What about Volescu?” asked Petra. “Can we drug him?”

  “Why not torture?” said Rackham. “No, Petra. We can’t. Because we need him.”

  “For what? His virus?”

  “We already have his virus. And it doesn’t work. It’s a bust. Failure. Dead end. Volescu knew it, too. He just enjoyed tormenting us with the thought that he had endangered the entire world.”

  “So what do you need him for?” demanded Petra.

  “We need him to work on the cure for Bean and the babies.”

  “Oh, right,” said Bean. “You’re going to turn him loose in a lab.”

  “No,” said Rackham. “We’re going to put him in space, on an asteroid-based research station, closely supervised. He’s been tried and is under sentence of death for terrorism, kidnapping, and murder—the murders of your brothers, Bean.”

  “There’s no death sentence,” said Bean.

  “There is in military court in space,” said Rackham. “He knows he’s alive as long as he’s making progress on finding a legitimate cure for you and the babies. Eventually, our team of co-researchers will know everything he knows. When we don’t need him anymore…”

  “I don’t want him killed,” said Bean.

  “No,” said Petra. “I want him killed slowly.”

  “He might be evil,” said Bean, “but I wouldn’t exist if not for him.”

  “There was a day,” said Rackham, “when that would be the biggest crime you charged him with.”

  “I’ve had a good life,” said Bean. “Strange and hard sometimes. But I’ve had a lot of happiness.” He squeezed Petra’s knee. “I don’t want you to kill him.”

  “You saved your own life—from him,” said Petra. “You owe him nothing.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” said Rackham. “We have no intention of killing him. When he’s no longer useful, he goes into a colony ship. He’s not a violent man. He’s very smart. He could be useful in understanding alien biota. It would be a waste of a resource to kill him. And there’s no colony that will have equipment he could adapt to create anything…biologically destructive.”

  “You’ve thought of everything,” said Petra.

  “Again,” said Bean, “you could have told us this over the telephone.”

  “I didn’t want to,” said Rackham.

  “The I.F. doesn’t send a team like this or a man like you on an errand like this just because you didn’t want to use the phone.”

  “We want to send you now,” said Rackham.

  “In case you haven’t been listening to yourself,” said Petra, “there’s a war on.”

  Bean and Rackham ignored her. They just looked at each other for a long time.

  And then Petra saw that Bean’s eyes were welling up with tears. That didn’t happen very often.

  “What’s happening, Bean?”

  Bean shook his head. To Rackham he said, “Do you have them?”

  Rackham took an envelope out of his inside jacket pocket and handed it to Bean. He opened the envelope, removed a thin sheaf of papers, and handed them to Petra.

  “It’s our divorce decree,” said Bean.

  Petra understood at once. He wasn’t taking her with him. He was leaving her behind with the normal children. He was going to take the three children with the syndrome out into space with him. He wanted her to be free to remarry.

  “You are my husband,” she said. She tore the papers in half.

  “Those are copies,” said Bean. “The divorce has legal force whether you like it or not, whether you sign them or not. You’re no longer a married woman.”

  “Why? Because you think I’m going to remarry?”

  Bean ignored her. “But all the children have been certified as legitimately ours. They aren’t bastards, they aren’t orphans, they aren’t adopted. They’re the children of divorced parents, and you have custody of five of them, and I have custody of three. If the ninth one is ever found, then you’ll have custody.”

  “That ninth one is the only reason I’m listening to this,” said Petra. “Because if you stay you’ll die, and if we both go, then there might be a child who…”

  But she was too angry to finish. Because when Bean planned this, he couldn’t have known there’d be one child missing. He’d already done this and kept it secret from her for…for…

  “How long have you been planning this?” asked Petra. Tears were streaming down her face, but she kept her voice steady enough to speak.

  “Since we found Ramón and we knew there were normal children,” said Bean.

  “It’s more complicated than that,” said Rackham. “Petra, I know how hard this is for you—”

  “No you don’t.”

  “Yes I damn well do,” said Rackham. “I left a family behind when I went out into space on the same kind of relativistic turnaround voyage that Bean’s embarking on. I divorced my wife before I went. I have her letters to me. All the anger and bitterness. And then the reconciliation. And then a long letter near the end of her life. Telling me about how she and her second husband were happy. And the children turned out well. And she still loved me. I wanted to kill myself. But I did what I had to do. So don’t tell me I don’t know how hard this is.”

  “You had no choice,” said Petra. “But I could go with him. We could take all the children and—”

  “Petra,” said Bean. “If we had conjoined twins, we’d separate them. Even if one of them was sure to die, we’d separate them, so that at least one of them could lead a normal life.”

  Petra’s tears were out of control now. Yes, she understood his reasoning. The children without the syndrome could have a normal life on Earth. Why should they spend their childhood confined to a starship, when they could have the normal chance of happiness?

  “Why couldn’t you at least let me be part of the decision?” said Petra, when she finally got control of her voice. “Why did you cut me out? Did you think I wouldn’t understand?”

  “I was selfish,” said Bean. “I didn’t want to spend our last months together arguing about it. I didn’t want you to be grieving for me and Ender and Bella the whole time you were with us. I wanted to take these past few months with me when I go. It was my last wish, and I knew you’d grant it to me, but the only way I could have that wish is if you didn’t know. So now, Petra, I ask you. Let me have these months without you knowing what was going to happen.”

  “You already have them. You stole them!”

  “Yes, so now I ask you. Please. Let me have them. Let me know that you forgive me for it. That you give them to me freely, now, after the fact.”

  Petra couldn’t forgive him. Not now. Not yet.

  But there was no later.

  She buried her face in his chest and held him and wept.

  While she cried, Rackham spoke on, calmly. “Only a handful of us know what’s really happening. And on Earth, outside of the I.F., only Peter will know. Is that clear? So this divorce document is absolutely secret. As far as anyone else will know, Bean is not in space, he died in the raid on Tehran. And he took no babies with him. There were never more than five. And two of the normal babies that we’ve recovered are also named Andrew and Bella. As far as anyone knows, you will still have all the children you ever did.”

  Petra pulled back from her embrace of Bean and glared savagely at Rackham. “You mean you’re not even going to let me grieve for my babies? No one will know what I’ve lost except you and Peter Wiggin?”

  “Your parents,” said Rackham, “have seen Ender and Bella. It’s your choice whether to tell them the truth, or to stay away from them until enough time has passed that they can’t tell that there’s been a change.”

  “Then I’ll tell them.”

  “Think about it first,” said Rackham. “It’s a heavy burden.”

  “Don’t presume to teach me how to love my parents,” said Petra. “You know and I know that at every point in this you’ve decided solely on the basis of what’s good for the Ministry of Colonization and the International Fleet.”

  “We’d like to think we’ve found the solution that’s best for everyone.”

  “I’m supposed to have a funeral for my husband, when I know he’s not dead, and that’s best for me?”

  “I will be dead,” said Bean, “for all intents and purposes. Gone and never coming back. And you’ll have children to raise.”

  “And yes, Petra,” said Rackham, “there is a wider consideration. Your husband is already a legendary figure. If it’s known that he’s still alive, then everything Peter does will be ascribed to him. There’ll be legends about how he’s going to return. About how the most brilliant graduate of Battle School really planned out everything Peter did.”

  “This is about Peter?”

  “This is about trying to get the world put together peacefully, permanently. This is about abolishing nations and the wars that just won’t stop as long as people can pin their hopes on great heroes.”

  “Then you should send me away, too, or tell people I’m dead. I was in Ender’s Jeesh.”

  “Petra, you chose your path. You married. You had children. Bean’s children. You decided that’s what you wanted more than anything else. We’ve respected that. You have Bean’s children. And you’ve had Bean almost as long as you would have had him if we had never intervened. Because he’s dying. Our best guess is that he wouldn’t make it another six months without going out into space and living weightlessly. We’ve done everything according to your choice.”

  “It’s true that they didn’t actually requisition our babies,” Bean said.

  “So live with your choices, Petra,” said Rackham. “Raise these babies. And help us do what we can to help Peter save the world from itself. The story of Bean’s heroic death in the service of the FPE will help with that.”

  “There’ll be legends anyway,” said Petra. “Plenty of dead heroes have legends.”

  “Yes, but if they know we put him in a starship and trundled him off into space, it won’t be just a legend, will it? Serious people would believe in it, not just the normal lunatics.”

  “So how will you even keep up the research project?” demanded Petra. “If everybody thinks the only people who need the cure are dead or never existed, why will it continue?”

  “Because a few people in the I.F. and ColMin will know. And they’ll be in contact with Bean by ansible. He’ll be called home when the cure is found.”

  They flew on then, as Petra tried to deal with what they’d told her. Bean held her most of the time, even when her anger surged now and then and she was furious with him.

  Terrible scenarios kept playing themselves out in her mind, and at the risk of giving Bean ideas, she said to him, “Don’t give up, Julian Delphiki. Don’t decide that there’s never going to be a cure and end the voyage. Even if you think your life is worthless, you have my babies out there too. Even if the voyage goes on so long that you really are dying, remember that these children are like you. Survivors. As long as somebody doesn’t actually kill them.”

  “Don’t worry,” said Bean. “If I had the slightest tendency toward suicide, we would never have met. And I would never do anything to endanger my own children. I’m only taking this voyage for them. Otherwise, I’d be content to die in your arms here on Earth.”

  She wept again for a while after that, and then she had to feed Ramón again, and then she insisted on feeding Ender and Bella herself, spooning the food into their mouths because when would she ever get a chance to do it again? She tried to memorize every moment of it, even though she knew she couldn’t. Knew that memory would fade. That these babies would become only a distant dream to her. That her arms would remember best the babies she held the longest—the children she would keep with her.

  The only one she had borne from her own body would be gone.

  But she didn’t cry while she was feeding them. That would have been a waste. Instead she played with them and talked to them and teased them to talk back to her. “I know your first word isn’t going to be too long from now. How about a little ‘mama’ right now, you lazy baby?”

  It was only after the plane had landed in Rotterdam, and Bean was supervising the nurses as they carried the babies down onto the tarmac, that Petra stayed back in the plane with Rackham, long enough to put her worst nightmare into words.

  “Don’t think that I’m not aware of how easy it would be, Mazer Rackham, for this fake death of Bean’s not to be a fake at all. For all we know there is no ship, there is no project to find a cure, and Volescu is going to be executed. The threat of this new species replacing your precious human race would be gone then. And even the widow would be silent about what you’ve done to her husband and children, because she’ll think he’s off in space somewhere, traveling at lightspeed, instead of dead on a battlefield in Iran.”

  Rackham looked as if she had slapped him. “Petra,” he said. “What do you think we are?”

  “What you are,” said Petra, “is not denying it.”

  “I deny it,” said Rackham. “There is a ship. We are seeking a cure. We will call him home.”

  Then she saw the tears streaming down his cheeks.

  “Petra,” said Rackham, “don’t you understand that we love you children? All of you? We already had to send Ender away. We’re sending them all away, except for you. Because we love you. Because we don’t want any harm to you.”

  “So why are you leaving me here?”

  “Because of your babies, Petra. Because even though they don’t have the syndrome, they’re also Bean’s babies. He’s the only one who had no hope of a normal life. But thanks to you, he had one. However briefly, he got to be a husband and a father and have a family. Don’t you know how much we love you for giving him that? As God is my witness, Petra, we would never harm Bean, not for any cause and certainly not for our convenience. Whatever you think we are, you’re wrong. Because you children are the only children we have.”

  She wasn’t going to feel sorry for him. It was her turn right now. So she pushed past him and went down the stairs and took the hand of her husband and followed the nurses that were carrying her children toward a closed van.

  There were five new children that she hadn’t met yet, waiting for her and Bean. Her life hadn’t ended yet, even though it felt like she was dying with every breath she took.

  22

  RUMORS OF WAR

  From: Graff%pilgrimage@colmin.gov

  To: PeterWiggin%private@FreePeopleOfEarth.fp.gov

  Re: debriefing

  Attached are the data to the division level, including names of commanders. But the gist is simple enough: Russia is gambling everything on the quiescence of eastern Europe. They’re all supposed to be terrified of a newly aggressive Russia. This is the move they thought they were going to be able to make when they had Achilles with them and kidnapped all of Ender’s Jeesh.

  What you can tell them, with authority, is this: Russia IS newly aggressive, they ARE bent on proving they’re a world power again. They’re dangerous. But:

  1. They don’t have Vlad. They have his plan, but can’t adapt to any changes.

  2. We have Vlad’s plan, so we can anticipate every move they make while they follow it, and the generals in command are going to follow it with religious devotion. Expect no flexibility, even after they know we have it. Vlad knows the men in command. In the Russian military these days, any leaders with the imagination to improvise don’t rise to the level where it will matter.

  3. Han Tzu is being provided with their plan, so their main army will meet with disaster in the East.

  4. They stripped their western defenses. A fast-moving army, competently led, should take St. Petersburg in a walk and Moscow in a week. That’s Vlad’s opinion. Bean has been over this information and concurs. He suggests you take Petra out of Armenia and put her in charge of the campaign in Russia.

  When Suriyawong got the word from Peter, he was ready. Prime Minister Paribatra and Minister of Defense Ambul had kept their affiliation with the FPE secret for just this occasion. Now, armed with Burmese and Chinese permission to pass through their territory, the Thai army was going to have the chance to face the Indians who had begun all this nonsense with their vicious, unprovoked invasion of Burma and Thailand.

  The troops went by train all the way into Chinese territory; Chinese trucks with Chinese drivers ferried them the rest of the way to the spots that Suriyawong had mapped out as soon as Peter suggested it as a contingency. At the time, Peter had said, “It’s a remote possibility, because it requires incredible stupidity on the part of some nonstupid people, but be ready.”

  Ready to defend China. That was the irony.

  But Han Tzu’s China was not the China that had embraced Achilles’s treacherous plan and crushed everyone, carrying away the entire Thai leadership and Suriyawong’s parents. Han Tzu promised friendship, and Bean vouched for him. So Suriyawong had been able to persuade his top leadership, and they had persuaded his men, that defending China was nothing more or less than a forward defense of Thailand.

  “China has changed,” Suriyawong told the officers, “but India has not. Once again, they’re pouring over the border of a nation that believes itself to be at peace with them. This goddess they follow, Virlomi—she’s just another Battle School graduate, like me. But we have what she doesn’t have. We have Julian Delphiki’s plan. And we will win.”

  Bean’s plan, however, was simple enough. “The only way to end this once and for all is to make it a disaster. Like Varus’s legions in the Teutoburger Wald. No guerrilla action. No chance of retreat. Virlomi alive if possible, but if she insists on dying, oblige her.”

  That was the plan. But Suriyawong needed no more than that. The mountainous country of southwestern China and northern Burma was ambush country. Virlomi’s ill-trained troops were advancing on foot—ridiculously slowly—in three main columns, following three river valleys with three inadequate roads. Suriyawong’s own plans called for a simple, classical ambush on all three routes. He hid relatively small but heavily armed contingents at the heads of the valleys, where they would be passed by the Indian troops. Then far, far down the valley, he had far larger contingents with plenty of transport to move up the valley upon command.