“Julian Delphiki,” said Mrs. Wiggin, “I knew when I saw you out on the front sidewalk that I not only could, I must tell you things that I have spoken of to no one but my husband, and I’ve even said things that I’ve never said to him. I’ve told you things that Peter never imagined that I knew or thought or saw or felt. If you have a low opinion of my mothering, please keep in mind that whatever you know, you know because I told you, and I told you because I think that someday Peter’s future may depend on your knowing what he’s going to do, or how to help him. Or—Peter’s future as a decent human being might depend on his helping you. So I bared my heart to you. For Peter’s sake. And I face your scorn, Julian Delphiki, for Peter’s sake as well. So don’t fault my love for my son. Whether he thinks he cares or not, he grew up with parents who love him and have done everything we could for him. Including lie to him about what we believe, what we know, so that he can move through his world like Alexander, boldly reaching for the ends of the earth, with the complete freedom that comes from having parents who are too stupid to stop you. Until you’ve had a child of your own and sacrificed for that child and twisted your life into a pretzel, into a knot for him, don’t you dare to judge me and what I’ve done.”

  “I’m not judging you,” said Bean. “Truly I’m not. As you said, I’m just trying to understand Peter.”

  “Well, do you know what I think?” said Mrs. Wiggin. “I think you’ve been asking all the wrong questions. ‘Can I trust him?’ ” She mimicked him scornfully. “Whether you trust somebody or distrust him has a lot more to do with the kind of person you are than the kind of person he is. The real question you ought to be asking is, Do you really want Peter Wiggin to rule the world? Because if you help him, and he somehow lives through all this, that’s where it will lead. He won’t stop until he achieves that. And he’ll burn up your future along with anybody else’s, if it will help him reach that goal. So ask yourself, will the world be a better place with Peter Wiggin as Hegemon? And not some benign ceremonial figurehead like the ineffectual toad who holds that office now. I mean Peter Wiggin as the Hegemon who reshapes this world into whatever form he wants it to have.”

  “But you’re assuming that I care whether the world is a better place,” said Bean. “What if all I care about is my own survival or advancement? Then the only question that would matter is, Can I use Peter to advance my own plans?”

  She laughed and shook her head. “Do you believe that about yourself? Well, you are a child.”

  “Pardon me, but did I ever pretend to be anything else?”

  “You pretend,” said Mrs. Wiggin, “to be a person of such enormous value that you can speak of ‘allying’ with Peter Wiggin as if you brought armies with you.”

  “I don’t bring armies,” said Bean, “but I bring victory for whatever army he gives me.”

  “Would Ender have been like you, if he had come home? Arrogant? Aloof?”

  “Not at all,” said Bean. “But I never killed anybody.”

  “Except buggers,” said Mrs. Wiggin.

  “Why are we at war with each other?” said Bean.

  “I’ve told you everything about my son, about my family, and you’ve given me nothing back. Except your . . . sneer.”

  “I’m not sneering,” said Bean. “I like you.”

  “Oh, thank you very much.”

  “I can see in you the mother of Ender Wiggin,” said Bean. “You understand Peter the way Ender understood his soldiers. The way Ender understood his enemies. And you’re bold enough to act instantly when the opportunity presents itself. I show up on your doorstep, and you give me all this. No, ma’am, I don’t despise you at all. And you know what I think? I think that, perhaps without even realizing it yourself, you believe in Peter completely. You want him to succeed. You think he should rule the world. And you’ve told me all this, not because I’m such a nice little boy, but because you think that by telling me, you’ll help Peter move that much closer toward ultimate victory.”

  She shook her head. “Not everybody thinks like a soldier.”

  “Hardly anyone does,” said Bean. “Precious few soldiers, for that matter.”

  “Let me tell you something, Julian Delphiki. You didn’t have a mother and father, so you need to be told. You know what I dread most? That Peter will pursue these ambitions of his so relentlessly that he’ll never have a life.”

  “Conquering the world isn’t a life?” asked Bean.

  “Alexander the Great,” said Mrs. Wiggin. “He haunts my nightmares for Peter. All his conquests, his victories, his grand achievements—they were the acts of an adolescent boy. By the time he got around to marrying, to having a child, it was too late. He died in the midst of it. And he probably wouldn’t have done a very good job of it either. He was already too powerful before he even tried to find love. That’s what I fear for Peter.”

  “Love? That’s what this all comes down to?”

  “No, not just love. I’m talking about the cycle of life. I’m talking about finding some alien creature and deciding to marry her and stay with her forever, no matter whether you even like each other or not a few years down the road. And why will you do this? So you can make babies together, and try to keep them alive and teach them what they need to know so that someday they’ll have babies, and keep the whole thing going. And you’ll never draw a secure breath until you have grandchildren, a double handful of them, because then you know that your line won’t die out, your influence will continue. Selfish, isn’t it? Only it’s not selfish, it’s what life is for. It’s the only thing that brings happiness, ever, to anyone. All the other things—victories, achievements, honors, causes—they bring only momentary flashes of pleasure. But binding yourself to another person and to the children you make together, that’s life. And you can’t do it if your life is centered on your ambitions. You’ll never be happy. It will never be enough, even if you rule the world.”

  “Are you telling me? Or telling Peter?” asked Bean.

  “I’m telling you what I truly want for Peter,” said Mrs. Wiggin. “But if you’re a tenth as smart as you think you are, you’ll get that for yourself. Or you’ll never have real joy in this life.”

  “Excuse me if I’m missing something here,” said Bean, “but as far as I can tell, marrying and having children has brought you nothing but grief. You’ve lost Ender, you’ve lost Valentine, and you spent your life pissed off at Peter or fretting about him.”

  “Yes,” she said. “Now you’re getting it.”

  “Where’s the joy? That’s what I’m not getting.”

  “The grief is the joy,” said Mrs. Wiggin. “I have someone to grieve for. Whom do you have?”

  Such was the intensity of their conversation that Bean had no barrier in place to block what she said. It stirred something inside him. All the memories of people that he’d loved—despite the fact that he refused to love anyone. Poke. Nikolai. Sister Carlotta. Ender. His parents, when he finally met them. “I have someone to grieve for,” said Bean.

  “You think you do,” said Mrs. Wiggin. “Everyone thinks they do, until they take a child into their heart. Only then do you know what it is to be a hostage to love. To have someone else’s life matter more than your own.”

  “Maybe I know more than you think,” said Bean.

  “Maybe you know nothing at all,” said Mrs. Wiggin.

  They faced each other across the table, a loud silence between them. Bean wasn’t even sure they’d been quarreling. Despite the heat of their exchange, he couldn’t help but feel that he’d just been given a strong dose of the faith that she and her husband shared with each other.

  Or maybe it really was objective truth, and he simply couldn’t grasp it because he wasn’t married.

  And never would be. If there was ever anyone whose life virtually guaranteed that he’d be a terrible father, it was Bean. Without ever exactly saying it aloud, he’d always known that he would never marry, never have children.

  But her words had this much effect: For the first time in his life, he found himself almost wishing that it were not so.

  In that silence, Bean heard the front door open, and Peter’s and Sister Carlotta’s voices. At once Bean and Mrs. Wiggin rose to their feet, feeling and looking guilty, as if they had been caught in some kind of clandestine rendezvous. Which, in a way, they had.

  “Mother, I’ve met a traveler,” said Peter when he came into the room.

  Bean heard the beginning of Peter’s lie like a blow to the face—for Bean knew that the person Peter was lying to knew his story was false, and yet would lie in return by pretending to believe.

  This time, though, the lie could be nipped in the bud.

  “Sister Carlotta,” said Mrs. Wiggin. “I’ve heard so much about you from young Julian here. He says you are the world’s only Jesuit nun.”

  Peter and Sister Carlotta looked at Bean in bafflement. What was he doing there? He almost laughed at their consternation, in part because he couldn’t have answered that question himself.

  “He came here like a pilgrim to a shrine,” said Mrs. Wiggin. “And he very bravely told me who he really is. Peter, you must be very careful not to tell anyone that this is one of Ender’s companions. Julian Delphiki. He wasn’t killed in that explosion, after all. Isn’t that wonderful? We must make him welcome here, for Ender’s sake, but he’s still in danger, so it has to be our secret who he is.”

  “Of course, Mother,” said Peter. He looked at Bean, but his eyes betrayed nothing of what he was feeling. Like the cold eyes of a rhinoceros, unreadable, yet with enormous danger behind them all the same.

  Sister Carlotta, though, was obviously appalled. “After all our security precautions,” she said, “and you just blurt it out? And this house is bound to be watched.”

  “We had a good conversation,” said Bean. “That’s not possible in the midst of lies.”

  “It’s my life you were risking here, too, you know,” said Carlotta.

  Mrs. Wiggin touched her arm. “Do stay here with us, won’t you? We have room in our house for visitors.”

  “We can’t,” said Bean. “She’s right. Coming here at all has compromised us both. We’ll probably want to fly out of Greensboro first thing in the morning.”

  He glanced at Sister Carlotta, knowing that she would understand that he was really saying they should leave by train that night. Or by bus the day after tomorrow. Or rent an apartment under assumed names and stay here for a week. The lying had begun again, for safety’s sake.

  “At least stay for dinner?” asked Mrs. Wiggin. “And meet my husband? I think he’ll be just as intrigued as I was to meet a boy who is so famously dead.”

  Bean saw Peter’s eyes glaze over. He understood why—to Peter, a dinner with his parents would be an excruciating social exercise during which nothing important could be said. Wouldn’t all your lives be simpler if you could all just tell each other the truth? But Mrs. Wiggin had said that Peter needed to feel that he was on his own. If he knew that his parents knew of his secret activities, that would infantilize him, apparently. Though if he were really the sort of man that could rule the world, surely he could deal with knowing that his parents were in on his secrets.

  Not my decision. I gave my word.

  “We’d be glad to,” said Bean. “Though there’s a danger of having your house blown up because we’re in it.”

  “Then we’ll eat out,” said Mrs. Wiggin. “See how simple things can be? If something’s going to be blown up, let it be a restaurant. They carry insurance for that sort of thing.”

  Bean laughed. But Peter didn’t. Because, Bean realized, Peter doesn’t know how much she knows, and therefore he thinks her comment was idiocy instead of irony.

  “Not Italian food,” said Sister Carlotta.

  “Oh, of course not,” said Mrs. Wiggin. “There’s never been a decent Italian restaurant in Greensboro.”

  With that, the conversation turned to safe and meaningless topics. Bean took a certain relish in watching how Peter squirmed at the utter waste of time that such chitchat represented. I know more about your mother than you do, thought Bean. I have more respect for her.

  But you’re the one she loves.

  Bean was annoyed to notice the envy in his own heart. Nobody’s immune from those petty human emotions, he knew that. But somehow he had to learn how to distinguish between true observations and what his envy told him. Peter had to learn the same. The trust that Bean had given so easily to Mrs. Wiggin would have to be earned step by step between him and Peter. Why?

  Because he and Peter were so alike. Because he and Peter were natural rivals. Because he and Peter could so easily be deadly enemies.

  As I am a second Ender in his eyes, is he a second Achilles in mine? If there were no Achilles in the world, would I think of Peter as the evil I must destroy?

  And if we do defeat Achilles together, will we then have to turn and fight each other, undoing all our triumphs, destroying everything we’ve built?

  10

  BROTHERS IN ARMS

  To: RusFriend%BabaYaga@MosPub.net

  From: VladDragon%slavnet.com

  Re: allegiance

  Let’s make one thing clear. I never “joined” with Achilles. From all I could see, Achilles was speaking for Mother Russia. It was Mother Russia that I agreed to serve, and that is a decision I did not and do not regret. I believe the artificial divisions among the peoples of Greater Slavia serve only to keep any of us from achieving our potential in the world. In the chaos that has resulted from the exposure of Achilles’ true nature, I would be glad of any opportunity to serve. The things I learned in Battle School could well make a difference to the future of our people. If my link with Achilles makes it impossible for me to be of service, so be it. But it would be a shame if we all suffered from that last act of sabotage by a psychopath. It is precisely now that I am most needed. Mother Russia will find no more loyal son than this one.

  For Peter, the dinner at Leblon with his parents and Bean and Carlotta consisted of long periods of excruciating boredom interrupted by short passages of sheer panic. Nothing that anyone was saying mattered in the slightest. Because Bean was passing himself off as little more than a tourist visiting Ender’s shrine, all anyone could talk about was Ender Ender Ender. But inevitably the conversation would skirt topics that were highly sensitive, things that might give away what Peter was really doing and the role that Bean might end up playing.

  The worst was when Sister Carlotta—who, nun or not, clearly knew how to be a malicious bitch when she wanted to—began probing Peter about his studies at UNCG, even though she knew perfectly well that his schoolwork there was merely a cover for far more important matters. “I’m just surprised, I suppose, that you spend your time on a regular course of study when clearly you have abilities that should be used on a broader stage,” she said.

  “I need the degree, just like anyone else,” said Peter, writhing inside.

  “But why not study things that will prepare you to play a role on the great stage of world affairs?”

  Ironically, it was Bean who rescued him. “Come now, Grandmother,” he said. “A man of Peter Wiggin’s ability is ready to do anything he wants, whenever he wants. Formal study is just busywork to him anyway. He’s only doing it to prove to other people that he’s able to live by the rules when he needs to. Right, Peter?”

  “Close enough,” Peter said. “I’m even less interested in my studies than you all are, and you shouldn’t be interested in them at all.”

  “Well, if you hate it so much, why are we paying for tuition?” asked Father.

  “We’re not,” Mother reminded him. “Peter has such a nice scholarship that they’re paying him to attend there.”

  “Not getting their money’s worth, though, are they?” said Father.

  “They’re getting what they want,” said Bean. “For the rest of his life, whatever Peter here accomplishes, it will be mentioned that he studied at UNCG. He’ll be a walking advertisement for them. I’d call that a pretty good return on investment, wouldn’t you?”

  The kid had mastered the kind of language Father understood—Peter had to credit Bean with knowing his audience when he spoke. Still, it annoyed Peter that Bean had so easily sussed what kind of idiots his parents were, and how easily they could be pandered to. It was as if, by pulling Peter’s conversational irons out of the fire, Bean was rubbing it in about Peter’s still being a child living at home, while Bean was out dealing with life more directly. It made Peter chafe all the more.

  Only at the end of the dinner, as they left the Brazilian restaurant and headed for the Market/Holden station, did Bean drop his bombshell. “You know that since we’ve compromised ourselves here, we have to go back into hiding at once.” Peter’s parents made little noises of sympathy, and then Bean said, “What I was wondering was, why doesn’t Peter go with us? Get out of Greensboro for a while? Would you like to, Peter? Do you have a passport?”

  “No, he doesn’t,” said Mother, at exactly the same moment that Peter said, “Of course I do.”

  “You do?” asked Mother.

  “Just in case,” said Peter. He didn’t add: I have six passports from four countries, as a matter of fact, and ten different bank identities with funds from my writing gigs socked away.

  “But you’re in the middle of a semester,” said Father.

  “I can take a leave whenever I want,” said Peter. “It sounds interesting. Where are you going?”

  “We don’t know,” said Bean. “We don’t decide until the last minute. But we can email you and tell you where we are.”

  “Campus email addresses aren’t secure,” said Father helpfully.

  “No email is really secure, is it?” asked Mother.

  “It will be a coded message,” said Bean. “Of course.”

  “It doesn’t sound very sensible to me,” said Father. “Peter may think his studies are just busywork, but in fact you have to have that degree just to get started in life. You need to stick to something long term and finish it, Peter. If your transcript shows that you did your education in fits and starts, that won’t look good to the best companies.”