“Oh, paradoxes within paradoxes.”

  But Petra turned it from superficial philosophy to something else entirely. “I am trying,” she said, “to achieve satyagraha.”

  And in the silence that followed, she knew that some, at least, understood. She was alive right now because she had not achieved satyagraha, because she had not always done the right thing, but had done only what was necessary to survive. And she was preparing to change that. To do the right thing regardless of whether she lived through it or not. And for whatever reason—respect for her, uncomfortableness with the intensity of it, or serious contemplation—they remained silent until the meal ended and they spoke again of quotidian things.

  Now the war had been going for a month, and Achilles was giving them daily pep talks about how victory was imminent even as they wrestled privately with the growing problems of extricating the army. There had been some victories, and at two points the Indian Army was now in Thai territory—but that only lengthened the supply lines and put the army into mountainous country again, where their large numbers could not be brought to bear against the enemy, yet still had to be supplied. And these offensives had chewed through fuel and munitions. In a few days, they would have to choose between fueling tanks and fueling supply trucks. They were about to become a very hungry all-infantry army.

  As soon as Achilles left, Sayagi stood up. “It is time to write down our plan for withdrawal and submit it. We must declare victory and withdraw.”

  There was no dissent. Even though the vids and the nets were full of stories of the great Indian victories, the advance into Thailand, these plans had to be written down, the orders drawn up, while there was still time and fuel enough to carry them out.

  So they spent that morning writing each component of the plan. Sayagi, as their de facto leader, assembled them into a single, fairly coherent set of documents. In the meantime, Petra browsed the net and worked on the project she had been assigned by Achilles, taking no part in what they were doing. They didn’t need her for this, and it was her desk that was most closely monitored by Achilles. As long as she was being obedient, Achilles might not notice that the others were not.

  When they were almost done, she spoke up, even though she knew that Achilles would be notified quickly of what she said—that he might even be listening through that hearing aid in his ear. “Before you email it,” she said, “post it.”

  At first they probably thought she meant the internal posting, where they could all read it. But then they saw that, using her fingernail on a piece of rough tan toilet paper, she had scratched a net address and was now holding it out.

  It was Peter Wiggin’s “Locke” forum.

  They looked at her like she was crazy. To post military plans in a public place?

  But then Sayagi began to nod. “They intercept all our emails,” he said. “This is the only way it will get to Chapekar himself.”

  “To make military secrets public,” someone said. He did not need to finish. They knew the penalty.

  “Satyagraha,” said Sayagi. He took the toilet paper with the address and sat down to go to that netsite. “I am the one doing this, and no one else,” he said. “The rest of you warned me not to. There is no reason for more than one person to risk the consequences.” Moments later, the data was flowing to Peter Wiggin’s forum.

  Only then did he send it as email to the general command—which would be routed through Achilles’ computer.

  “Sayagi,” someone said. “Did you see what else is posted here? On this netsite?”

  Petra also moved to the Locke forum and discovered that the lead essay on Locke’s site was headed, “Chinese treachery and the fall of India.” The subhead said, “Will China, too, fall victim to a psychopath’s twisted plans?”

  Even as they were reading Locke’s essay detailing how China had made promises to both Thailand and India, and would attack now that both armies were fully exposed and, in India’s case, overextended, they received emails that contained the same essay, pushed into the system on an urgent basis. That meant it had already been cleared at the top—Chapekar knew what Locke was alleging.

  Therefore, their emailed plans for immediate withdrawal of Indian troops from Burma had reached Chapekar at exactly the time when he knew they would be necessary.

  “Toguro,” breathed Sayagi. “We look like geniuses.”

  “We are geniuses,” someone grumbled, and everyone laughed.

  “Does anyone think,” asked the Tamil, “we’ll hear another pep talk from our Belgian friend about how well the war is going?”

  Almost as an answer, they heard gunfire outside.

  Petra felt a thrill of hope run through her: Achilles tried to make a run for it, and he was shot.

  But then a more practical idea replaced her hope: Achilles foresaw this possibility, and has his own forces already in place to cover his escape.

  And finally, despair: When he comes for me, will it be to kill me, or take me with him?

  More gunfire.

  “Maybe,” said Sayagi, “we ought to disperse.”

  He was walking toward the door when it opened and Achilles came in, followed by six Sikhs carrying automatic weapons. “Have a seat, Sayagi,” said Achilles. “I’m afraid we have a hostage situation here. Someone made some libelous assertions about me on the nets, and when I declined to be detained during the inquiry, shooting began. Fortunately, I have some friends, and while we’re waiting for them to provide me with transportation to a neutral location, you are my guarantors of safety.”

  Immediately, the two Battle School grads who were Sikhs stood up and said, to Achilles’ soldiers, “Are we under threat of death from you?”

  “As long as you serve the oppressor,” one of them answered.

  “He is the oppressor!” one of the Sikh Battle Schoolers said, pointing to Achilles.

  “Do you think the Chinese will be any kinder to our people than New Delhi has?” said the other.

  “Remember how the Chinese treated Tibet and Taiwan! That is our future, because of him!’

  The Sikh soldiers were obviously wavering.

  Achilles drew a pistol from his back and shot the soldiers dead, one after another. The last two had time to try to rush at him, but every shot he fired struck home.

  The pistol shots still rang in the room when Sayagi said, “Why didn’t they shoot you?”

  “I had them unload their weapons before entering the room,” Achilles said. “I told them we didn’t want any accidents. But don’t think you can overpower me because I’m alone with a half-empty clip. This room has long been wired with explosives, and they go off when my heart stops beating or when I activate the controller implanted under the skin of my chest.”

  A pocket phone beeped and, without lowering his gun, Achilles answered it. “No, I’m afraid one of my soldiers went out of control, and in order to keep the children safe, I had to shoot some of my own men. The situation is unchanged. I am monitoring the perimeter. Keep back, and these children will be safe.”

  Petra wanted to laugh. Most of the Battle Schoolers here were older than Achilles himself.

  Achilles clicked off the phone and pocketed it. “I’m afraid I told them that I had you as my hostages before it was actually true.”

  “Caught you with your pants down, né?” said Sayagi. “You had no way of knowing you’d need hostages, or that we’d all be here. There are no explosives in this room.”

  Achilles turned to him and calmly shot him in the head. Sayagi crumpled and fell. Several of the others cried out. Achilles calmly changed clips.

  No one charged him while he was reloading.

  Not even, thought Petra, me.

  There’s nothing like casual murder to turn the onlookers into vegetables.

  “Satyagraha,” said Petra.

  Achilles whirled on her. “What was that? What language?”

  “Hindi,” she said. “It means, ‘One bears what one must.’ ”

  “No more Hindi,” said Achilles. “From anyone. Or any other language but Common. And if you talk, it had better be to me, and it had better not be something stupid and defiant like the words that got Sayagi killed. If all goes well, my relief should be here in only a few hours. And then Petra and I will go away and leave you to your new government. A Chinese government.”

  Many of them looked at Petra then. She smiled at Achilles. “So your tent door is still open?”

  He smiled back. Warmly. Lovingly. Like a kiss.

  But she knew that he was taking her away solely in order to relish the time in which she would have false hopes, before he pushed her from a helicopter or strangled her on the tarmac or, if he grew too impatient, simply shot her as she prepared to follow him out of this room. His time with her was over. His triumph was near—the architect of China’s conquest of India, returning to China as a hero. Already plotting how he would take control of the Chinese government and then set out to conquer the other half of the world’s population.

  For now, though, she was alive, and so were the other Battle Schoolers, except Sayagi. The reason Sayagi died, of course, was not what he said to Achilles. He died because he was the one who posted the withdrawal plans on Locke’s forum. Being plans for a retreat under unpredictable fire, they were still usable even with Chinese troops pouring down into Burma, even with Chinese planes bombing the retreating soldiers. The Indian commanders would be able to make a stand. The Chinese would have to fight hard before they won.

  But they would win. The Indian defense could last no more than a few days, no matter how bravely they fought. That was when the trucks would stop rolling and food and munitions would run out. The war was already lost. There was only a little time for the Indian elite to attempt to flee before the Chinese swept in, unresisted, with their behead-the-society method of controlling an occupied country.

  While these events unfolded, the Battle School graduates who would have kept India out of this dangerous situation in the first place, and whose planning was the only thing keeping the Chinese temporarily at bay, sat in a large room with seven corpses, one gun, and the young man who had betrayed them all.

  More than three hours later, gunfire began again, in the distance. The booming sound of anti-aircraft guns.

  Achilles was on the phone in an instant. “Don’t fire at the incoming aircraft,” he said, “or these geniuses start dying.”

  He clicked off before they could say anything in reply.

  The shooting stopped.

  They heard the rotors—choppers landing on the roof.

  What a stupid place for them to land, thought Petra. Just because the roof is marked as a heliport doesn’t mean they have to obey the signs. Up there, the Indian soldiers surrounding this place will have an easy target, and they’ll see everything that happens. They’ll know when Achilles is on the roof. They’ll know which chopper to shoot down first, because he’s in it. If this is the best plan the Chinese can come up with, Achilles is going to have a harder time using China as a base to take over the world than he thinks.

  More choppers. Now that the roof was full, a few of them were landing on the grounds.

  The door burst open, and a dozen Chinese soldiers fanned out through the room. A Chinese officer followed them in and saluted Achilles. “We came at once, sir.”

  “Good work,” said Achilles. “Let’s get them all up on the roof.”

  “You said you’d let us go!” said one of the Battle Schoolers.

  “One way or another,” said Achilles, “you’re all going to end up in China anyway. Now get up and form into a line against that wall.”

  More choppers. And then the whoosh, whump of an explosion.

  “Those stupid eemos,” said the Tamil, “they’re going to get us all killed.”

  “Such a shame,” said Achilles, pointing his pistol at the Tamil’s head.

  The Chinese officer was already talking into his satrad. “Wait,” he said. “It’s not the Indians. They’ve got Thai markings.”

  Bean, thought Petra. You’ve come at last. Either that or death. Because if Bean wasn’t running this Thai raid, the Thai could have no other objective than to kill everything that moved in Hyderabad.

  Another whoosh-whump. Another. “They’ve taken out everything on the roof,” the Chinese officer said. “The building’s on fire, we’ve got to get out.”

  “Whose stupid idea was it to land up there anyway?” asked Achilles.

  “It was the closest point to evacuate them from!” answered the officer angrily. “There aren’t enough choppers left to take all these.”

  “They’re coming,” said Achilles, “even if we have to leave soldiers behind.”

  “We’ll get them in a few days anyway. I don’t leave my men behind!”

  Not a bad commander, even if he’s a little dim about tactics, thought Petra.

  “They won’t let us take off unless we’ve got their Indian geniuses with us.”

  “The Thai won’t let us take off at all!”

  “Of course they will,” said Achilles. “They’re here to kill me and rescue her.” He pointed at Petra.

  So Achilles knew it was Bean that was coming.

  Petra showed nothing on her face.

  If Achilles decided to leave without the hostages, there was a good chance he would kill them all. Deprive the enemy of a resource. And, more important, take away their hope.

  “Achilles,” she said, walking toward him. “Let’s leave these others and get out. We’ll be taking off from the ground. They won’t know who’s in what chopper. As long as we go now.”

  As she approached him, he swung his pistol to point at her chest. She did not even pause, merely walked toward him, past him, to the door. She opened it. “Now, Achilles. You don’t have to die in flames today, but that’s where you’re headed, the longer you wait.”

  “She’s right,” said the Chinese officer.

  Achilles grinned and looked from Petra to the officer and back again. We’ve shamed you in front of the others, thought Petra. We’ve shown that we knew what to do, and you didn’t. Now you have to kill us both. This officer doesn’t know he’s dead, but I do. Then again, I was dead anyway. So now let’s get out of here without killing anybody else.

  “Nothing in this room matters but you,” said Petra. She grinned back at him. “Soak a noky, boy.”

  Achilles turned back to point the gun, first at one Battle Schooler, then another. They recoiled or flinched, but he did not fire. He dropped his gun hand to his side and walked from the room, grabbing Petra by the arm as he passed her. “Come on, Pet,” he said. “The future is calling.”

  Bean is coming, thought Petra, and Achilles is not going to let me get even a meter away from him. He knows Bean is here for me, so I’m the one person he’ll make sure Bean never rescues.

  Maybe we’ll all kill each other today.

  She thought back to the airplane ride that brought her and Achilles to India. The two of them standing at the open door. Maybe there would be another chance today—to die, taking Achilles with her. She wondered if Bean would understand that it was more important for Achilles to die than for her to live. More important, would he know that she understood that? It was the right thing to do, and now that she really knew Achilles, the kind of man he was, she would gladly pay that price and call it cheap.

  19

  RESCUE

  To: Wahabi%inshallah@Pakistan.gov

  From: Chapekar%hope@India.gov

  Re: For the Indian people

  My Dear Friend Ghaffar,

  I honor you because when I came to you with an offer of peace between our two families within the Indian people, you accepted and kept your word in every particular.

  I honor you because you have lived a life that places the good of your people above your own ambition.

  I honor you because in you rests the hope for my people’s future.

  I make this letter public even as I send it to you, not knowing what your response will be, for my people must know now, while I can still speak to them all, what I am asking of you and giving to you.

  As the treacherous Chinese violate their promises and threaten to destroy our army, which has been weakened by the treachery of the one called Achilles, whom we treated as a guest and a friend, it is clear to me that without a miracle, the vast expanse of the nation of India will be defenseless against the invaders pouring into our country from the north. Soon the ruthless conqueror will work his will from Bengal to Punjab. Of all the Indian people, only those in Pakistan, led by you, will be free.

  I ask you now to take upon yourself all the hopes of the Indian people. Our struggle over the next few days will give you time, I hope, to bring your armies back to our border, where you will be prepared to stand against the Chinese enemy.

  I now give you permission to cross that border at any point where it is necessary, so you can establish stronger defensive positions. I order all Indian soldiers remaining at the Pakistani border to offer no resistance whatsoever to Pakistani forces entering our country, and to cooperate by providing full maps of all our defenses, and all codes and codebooks. All our matériel at the border is to be turned over to Pakistan as well.

  I ask you that any citizens of India who come under the rule of the Pakistani government be treated as generously as you would wish us, were our situations reversed, to treat your people. Whatever past offenses have been committed between our families, let us forgive each other and commit no new offenses, but treat each other as brothers and sisters who have been faithful to different faces of the same God, and who must now stand shoulder to shoulder to defend India against the invader whose only god is power and whose worship is cruelty.