“What career do you think I’m going to pursue?” Peter asked, annoyed. “Some kind of corporate dull bob?”

  “I really hate it when you use that ersatz Battle School slang,” said Father. “You didn’t go there, and it makes you sound like some kind of teenage wannabe.”

  “I don’t know about that,” said Bean, before Peter could blow up. “I was there, and I think that stuff is just part of the language. I mean, the word ‘wannabe’ was once slang, wasn’t it? It can grow into the language just by people using it.”

  “It makes him sound like a kid,” said Father, but it was just a parting shot, Father’s pathetic need to have the last word.

  Peter said nothing. But he wasn’t grateful to Bean for taking his side. On the contrary, the kid really pissed him off. It’s like Bean thought he could come into Peter’s life and intervene between him and his parents like some kind of savior. It diminished Peter in his own eyes. None of the people who wrote to him or read his work as Locke or Demosthenes ever condescended to him, because they didn’t know he was a kid. But the way Bean was acting was a warning of things to come. If Peter did come out under his real name, he would immediately have to start dealing with condescension. People who had once trembled at the idea of coming under Demosthenes’ scrutiny, people who had once eagerly sought Locke’s imprimatur, would now pooh-pooh anything Peter wrote, saying, Of course a child would think that way, or, more kindly but no less devastatingly, When he has more experience, he’ll come to see that. . . . Adults were always saying things like that. As if experience actually had some correlation with increased wisdom; as if most of the stupidity in the world were not propounded by adults.

  Besides, Peter couldn’t help but feel that Bean was enjoying it, that he loved having Peter at such a disadvantage. Why had the little weasel gone to his house? Oh, pardon, to Ender’s house, naturally. But he knew it was Peter’s house, and to come home and find Bean sitting there talking to his mother, that was like catching a burglar in the act. He hadn’t liked Bean from the beginning—especially not after the petulant way he walked off just because Peter didn’t immediately answer the question he was asking. Admittedly, Peter had been teasing him a little, and there was an element of condescension about it—toying with the little kid before telling him what he wanted to know. But Bean’s retaliation had gone way overboard. Especially this miserable dinner.

  And yet . . .

  Bean was the real thing. The best that Battle School had produced. Peter could use him. Peter might actually even need him, precisely because he could not yet afford to come out publicly as himself. Bean had the credibility despite his size and age, because he’d fought the fight. He could actually do things instead of having to pull strings in the background or try to manipulate government decisions by influencing public opinion. If Peter could secure some kind of working alliance with him, it might go a long way toward compensating for his impotence. If only Bean weren’t so insufferably smug.

  Can’t let my personal feelings interfere with the work at hand.

  “Tell you what,” Peter said. “Mom and Dad, you’ve got stuff to do tomorrow, but my first class isn’t till noon. Why don’t I go with these two wherever they’re spending the night and talk through the possibility of maybe taking a field trip with them.”

  “I don’t want you just taking off and leaving your mother to worry about what’s happening to you,” said Father. “I think it’s very clear to all of us that young Mr. Delphiki here is a trouble magnet, and I think your mother has lost enough children without having to worry about something even worse happening to you.”

  It made Peter cringe the way Father always talked as if it were only Mother who would be worried, only Mother who cared what happened to him. And if it was true—who could tell, with Father?—that was even worse. Either Father didn’t care what happened to Peter, or he did care but was such a git that he couldn’t admit it.

  “I won’t leave town without checking in with Mommy,” said Peter.

  “You don’t need to be sarcastic,” said Father.

  “Dear,” said Mother, “Peter isn’t five, to be rebuked in front of company.” Which, of course, made him seem to be maybe six years old. Thanks so much for helping, Mom.

  “Aren’t families complicated?” said Sister Carlotta.

  Oh, thanks, thou holy bitch, said Peter silently. You and Bean are the ones who complicated the situation, and now you make smug little comments about how much better it is for unconnected people like you. Well, these parents are my cover. I didn’t pick them, but I have to use them. And for you to mock my situation only shows your ignorance. And, probably, your envy, seeing how you are never going to have children or even get laid in your whole life, Mrs. Jesus.

  “Poor Peter has the worst of both worlds,” said Mother. “He’s the oldest, so he was always held to a higher standard, and yet he’s the last of our children left at home, which means he also gets babied more than he can bear. It’s so awful, the fact that parents are mere human beings and constantly make mistakes. I think sometimes Peter wishes he had been raised by robots.”

  Which made Peter want to slide right down into the sidewalk and spend the rest of his life as an invisible patch of concrete. I converse with spies and military officers, with political leaders and power brokers—and my mother still has the power to humiliate me at will!

  “Do what you want,” said Father. “It’s not like you’re a minor. We can’t stop you.”

  “We could never stop him from doing what he wanted even when he was a minor,” said Mother.

  Damn right, thought Peter.

  “The curse of having children who are smarter than you,” said Father, “is that they think their superior rational process is enough to compensate for their lack of experience.”

  If I were a little brat like Bean, that comment would have been the last straw. I would have walked away and not come home for a week, if ever. But I’m not a child and I can control my personal resentments and do what’s expedient. I’m not going to throw off my camouflage out of pique.

  At the same time, I can’t be faulted, can I, for wondering if there’s any chance that my father might have a stroke and go permanently mute.

  They were at the station. With a round of good-byes, Father and Mother took the bus north toward home, and Peter got on an east-bound bus with Bean and Carlotta.

  And, as Peter expected, they got off at the first stop and crossed over to catch the westbound bus. They really made a religion out of paranoia.

  Even when they got back to the airport hotel, they did not enter the building. Instead they walked through the shopping mall that had once been a parking garage back when people drove cars to the airport. “Even if they bug the mall,” said Bean, “I doubt they can afford the manpower to listen to everything people say.”

  “If they’re bugging your room,” said Peter, “that means they’re already on to you.”

  “Hotels routinely bug their rooms,” said Bean. “To catch vandals and criminals in the act. It’s a computer scan, but nothing stops the employees from listening in.”

  “This is America,” said Peter.

  “You spend way too much time thinking about global affairs,” said Bean. “If you ever do have to go underground, you won’t have a clue how to survive.”

  “You’re the one who invited me to join you in hiding,” said Peter. “What was that nonsense about? I’m not going anywhere. I have too much work to do.”

  “Ah, yes,” said Bean. “Pulling the world’s strings from behind a curtain. The trouble is, the world is about to move from politics to war, and your strings are going to be snipped.”

  “It’s still politics.”

  “But the decisions are made on the battlefield, not in the conference rooms.”

  “I know,” said Peter. “That’s why we should work together.”

  “I can’t think why,” said Bean. “The one thing I asked you for—information about where Petra is—you tried to sell me instead of just giving it to me. Doesn’t sound like you want an ally. Sounds like you want a customer.”

  “Boys,” said Sister Carlotta. “Bickering isn’t how this is going to work.”

  “If it’s going to work,” said Peter, “it’s going to work however Bean and I make it work. Between us.”

  Sister Carlotta stopped cold, grabbed Peter’s shoulder, and drew him close. “Get this straight right now, you arrogant twit. You’re not the only brilliant person in the world, and you’re far from being the only one who thinks he pulls all the strings. Until you have the courage to come out from behind the veil of these ersatz personalities, you don’t have much to offer those of us who are working in the real world.”

  “Don’t ever touch me like that again,” said Peter.

  “Oh, the personage is sacred?” said Sister Carlotta. “You really do live on Planet Peter, don’t you?”

  Bean interrupted before Peter could answer the bitch. “Look, we gave you everything we had on Ender’s jeesh, no strings attached.”

  “And I used it. I got most of them out, and pretty damn fast, too.”

  “But not the one who sent the message,” said Bean. “I want Petra.”

  “And I want world peace,” said Peter. “You think too small.”

  “I may think too small for you,” said Bean, “but you think too small for me. Playing your little computer games, juggling stories back and forth—well, my friend trusted me and asked me for help. She was trapped with a psychopathic killer and she doesn’t have anyone but me who cares a rat’s ass what happens to her.”

  “She has her family,” murmured Sister Carlotta. Peter was pleased to learn that she corrected Bean, too. An all-purpose bitch.

  “You want to save the world, but you’re going to have to do it one battle at a time, one country at a time. And you need people like me, who get our hands dirty,” said Bean.

  “Oh, spare me your delusions,” said Peter. “You’re a little boy in hiding.”

  “I’m a general who’s between armies,” said Bean. “If I weren’t, you wouldn’t be talking to me.”

  “And you want an army so you can go rescue Petra,” said Peter.

  “So she’s alive?”

  “How would I know?”

  “I don’t know how you’d know. But you know more than you’re telling me, and if you don’t give me what you have, right now, you arrogant oomay, I’m done with you, I’ll leave you here playing your little net games, and go find somebody who’s not afraid to come out of Mama’s house and take some risks.”

  Peter was almost blind with rage.

  For a moment.

  And then he calmed himself, forced himself to stand outside the situation. What was Bean showing him? That he cared more for personal loyalty than for longterm strategy. That was dangerous, but not fatal. And it gave Peter leverage, knowing what Bean cared about more than personal advancement.

  “What I know about Petra,” said Peter, “is that when Achilles disappeared, so did she. My sources inside Russia tell me that the only liberation team that was interfered with was the one rescuing her. The driver, a bodyguard, and the team leader were shot dead. There was no evidence that Petra was injured, though they know she was present for one of the killings.”

  “How do they know?” asked Bean.

  “The spatter pattern from a head shot had been blocked in a silhouette about her size on the inside wall of the van. She was covered with the man’s blood. But there was no blood from her body.”

  “They know more than that.”

  “A small private jet, which once belonged to a crimelord but was confiscated and used by the intelligence service that sponsored Achilles, took off from a nearby airfield and flew, after a refueling stop, to India. One of the airport maintenance personnel said that it looked to him like a honeymoon trip. Just the pilot and the young couple. But no luggage.”

  “So he has her with him,” said Bean.

  “In India,” said Sister Carlotta.

  “And my sources in India have gone silent,” said Peter.

  “Dead?” asked Bean.

  “No, just careful,” said Peter. “The most populous country on Earth. Ancient enmities. A chip on the national shoulder from being treated like a second-class country by everyone.”

  “The Polemarch is an Indian,” said Bean.

  “And there’s reason to believe he’s been passing I.F. data to the Indian military,” said Peter. “Nothing that can be proved, but Chamrajnagar is not as disinterested as he pretends to be.”

  “So you think Achilles may be just what India wants to help them launch a war.”

  “No,” said Peter. “I think India may be just what Achilles wants to help him launch an empire. Petra is what they want to help them launch a war.”

  “So Petra is the passport Achilles used to get into a position of power in India.”

  “That would be my guess,” said Peter. “That’s all I know, and all I guess. But I can also tell you that your chance of getting in and rescuing her is nil.”

  “Pardon me,” said Bean, “but you don’t know what I’m capable of doing.”

  “When it comes to intelligence-gathering,” said Peter, “the Indians aren’t in the same league as the Russians. I don’t think your paranoia is needed anymore. Achilles isn’t in a position to do anything to you right now.”

  “Just because Achilles is in India,” said Bean, “doesn’t mean that he’s limited to knowing only what the Indian intelligence service can find out for him.”

  “The agency that’s been helping him in Russia is being taken over and probably will be shut down,” said Peter.

  “I know Achilles,” said Bean, “and I can promise you—if he really is in India, working for them, then it is absolutely certain that he has already betrayed them and has connections and fallback positions in at least three other places. And at least one of them will have an intelligence service with excellent worldwide reach. If you make the mistake of thinking Achilles is limited by borders and loyalties, he’ll destroy you.”

  Peter looked down at Bean. He wanted to say, I already knew all that. But it would be a lie if he said that. He hadn’t known that about Achilles, except in the abstract sense that he tried never to underestimate an opponent. Bean’s knowledge of Achilles was better than his. “Thank you,” said Peter. “I wasn’t taking that into account.”

  “I know,” said Bean ungraciously. “It’s one of the reasons I think you’re headed for failure. You think you know more than you actually know.”

  “But I listen,” said Peter. “And I learn. Do you?”

  Sister Carlotta laughed. “I do believe that the two most arrogant boys in the world have finally met, and they don’t much like what they see.”

  Peter did not even glance at her, and neither did Bean. “Actually,” said Peter, “I do like what I see.”

  “I wish I could say the same,” said Bean.

  “Let’s keep walking,” said Peter. “We’ve been standing in one place too long.”

  “At least he’s picking up on our paranoia,” said Sister Carlotta.

  “Where will India make its move?” asked Peter. “The obvious thing would be war with Pakistan.”

  “Again?” said Bean. “Pakistan would be an indigestible lump. It would block India from further expansion, just trying to get the Muslims under control. A terrorist war that would make the old struggle with the Sikhs look like a child’s birthday party.”

  “But they can’t move anywhere else as long as they have Pakistan poised to plunge a dagger in their back,” said Peter.

  Bean grinned. “Burma? But is it worth taking?”

  “It’s on the way to more valuable prizes, if China doesn’t object,” said Peter. “But are you just ignoring the Pakistan problem?”

  “Molotov and Ribbentrop,” said Bean.

  The men who negotiated the nonaggression pact between Russia and Germany in the 1930s that divided Poland between them and freed Germany to launch World War II. “I think it will have to be deeper than that,” said Peter. “I think, at some level, an alliance.”

  “What if India offers Pakistan a free hand against Iran? It can go for the oil. India is free to move east. To scoop up the countries that have long been under her cultural influence. Burma. Thailand. Not Muslim countries, so Pakistan’s conscience is clear.”

  “Is China going to sit and watch?” asked Peter.

  “They might if India tosses them Vietnam,” said Bean. “The world is ripe to be divided up among the great powers. India wants to be one. With Achilles directing their strategy, with Chamrajnagar feeding them information, with Petra to command their armies, they can play on the big stage. And then, when Pakistan has exhausted itself fighting Iran . . .”

  The inevitable betrayal. If Pakistan didn’t strike first. “That’s too far down the line to predict now,” said Peter.

  “But it’s the way Achilles thinks,” said Bean. “Two betrayals ahead. He was using Russia, but maybe he already had this deal with India in place. Why not? In the long run, the whole world is the tail, and India is the dog.”

  More important than Bean’s particular conclusions was the fact that Bean had a good eye. He lacked detailed intelligence, of course—how would he get that?—but he saw the big picture. He thought the way a global strategist had to think.

  He was worth talking to.

  “Well, Bean,” said Peter, “here’s my problem. I think I can get you in position to help block Achilles. But I can’t trust you not to do something stupid.”

  “I won’t mount a rescue operation for Petra until I know it will succeed.”

  “That’s a foolish thing to say. You never know a military operation will succeed. And that’s not what worries me. I’m sure if you mounted a rescue, it would be a well-planned and well-executed one.”