Peter shook his head.

  “You are,” Theresa insisted. “And do you know how I know you are? Because you were smart enough to listen to us and get out in time.”

  “I was just thinking,” said Peter quietly.

  “What?” prompted Theresa, before John Paul could give his standard joking reply: It’s about time. It would be the wrong joke for this moment, but John Paul was never very good about knowing when it was the wrong time for his standard jokes. They came out by reflex, without being processed through his brain first.

  “I’ve underestimated you two,” he said.

  “Well, yes,” said Theresa.

  “In fact, I’ve been a little shit to you for a long time.”

  “Not so little,” said John Paul.

  Theresa cocked a warning eyebrow at him.

  “But I still never did anything as dumb as trying to get into his bedroom to kill him,” said Peter.

  Theresa looked at him sharply. He was grinning at her.

  John Paul laughed. She couldn’t blame him. He couldn’t help retaliating. After all, she had just given him the dreaded eyebrow.

  “OK, well, you’re right,” said Theresa. “That was pretty stupid. But I didn’t know what else to do to save you.”

  “Maybe saving me isn’t such a great idea.”

  “You’re the only copy of our DNA left on Earth,” said John Paul. “We really don’t want to have to start all over, making babies. That’s for younger people now.”

  “Besides,” said Theresa. “Saving you means saving the world.”

  “Right,” said Peter derisively.

  “You’re the only hope,” said Theresa.

  “Then good luck, world.”

  “I do believe,” said John Paul, “that that was almost a prayer. Don’t you think so, Theresa? I think Peter said a prayer.”

  Peter chuckled. “Yeah, why not. Good luck, world. Amen.”

  They got to the gate well before the ten minutes were up. There was a cab driver asleep at a cab stand in front of the biggest hotel outside the compound. John Paul woke him and handed him a very large sum of money.

  “Take us to the airport,” said Theresa.

  “But not this one,” said John Paul. “I think we want to fly out of Araraquara.”

  “That’s an hour away,” said Theresa.

  “And we have an hour till the earliest flight anywhere,” said John Paul. “Do you want to spend that hour just sitting in an airport that’s fifteen minutes away from the compound?”

  Peter laughed. “That is so paranoid,” he said. “Just like Bean.”

  “Bean’s alive,” said John Paul.

  “I’m OK with that,” said Peter. “Being alive is good.”

  Peter had his press release out from one of the computers in the Araraquara airport. But Achilles didn’t waste any time, either.

  Peter’s story was all true, though he left a few things out. He admitted that he had been fooled into thinking that he was rescuing Achilles when in fact he was bringing the Trojan Horse inside the walls of Troy. It was a terrible mistake because Achilles was serving the Chinese Empire all along, and Hegemony headquarters was completely compromised. Peter declared that he was moving Hegemony headquarters to another location and urged all Hegemony employees who were still loyal to him to wait for word about where to reassemble.

  Achilles’s press release declared that he, General Suriyawong, and Ferreira, the head of Hegemony computer security, had discovered that Peter was embezzling Hegemony funds and hiding them in secret accounts—money that should have gone to paying Hegemony debts and feeding the poor and trying to achieve world peace. He declared that the office of the Hegemon would continue to function under the control of Suriyawong as the ranking military leader of Hegemony forces, and that he would help Suriyawong only if he was asked. Meanwhile, a warrant had been issued for Peter Wiggin’s arrest to answer charges of embezzlement, malfeasance in office, and high treason against the International Defense League.

  In a press release later that day he announced that Hyrum Graff had been removed as Minister of Colonization and was to be arrested for complicity with Peter Wiggin in the conspiracy to defraud the Hegemony.

  “The son of a bitch,” said John Paul.

  “Graff won’t obey him,” said Theresa. “He’ll simply declare that you’re still Hegemon and that he answers only to you and Admiral Chamrajnagar.”

  “But it’ll dry up a lot of his funds,” said Peter. “He’ll have a lot less freedom of movement. Because now there’s a price on his head, and in some countries they’d just love to arrest him and turn him over to the Chinese.”

  “Do you really think Achilles is serving the Chinese interest?” asked Theresa.

  “Every bit as loyally as he served mine,” said Peter.

  Before the plane landed in Miami, Peter had his safe haven. In, of all places, the USA.

  “I thought America was determined not to get involved,” said John Paul.

  “It’s just temporary,” said Peter.

  “But it puts them clearly on our team,” said Theresa.

  “‘Them’?” said Peter. “You’re Americans. So am I. The U.S. isn’t ‘them,’ it’s us.”

  “Wrong,” said Theresa. “You’re the Hegemon. You’re above nationality. And so, I might add, are we.”

  11

  BABIES

  From: Chamrajnagar%sacredriver@ifcom.gov

  To: Flandres%A-Heg@idl.gov

  Re: MinCol

  Mr. Flandres:

  The position of Hegemon is not and never was vacant. Peter Wiggin continues to hold that office. Therefore your dismissal of the Hon. Hyrum Graff as Minister of Colonization is void. Graff continues to exercise all previous authority in regard to MinCol affairs off the surface of Earth.

  Furthermore, IFCom will regard any interference with his operations on Earth, or with his person as he carries out his duties, as obstruction of a vital operation of the International Fleet, and we will take all appropriate steps.

  From: Flandres%A-Heg@idl.gov

  To: Chamrajnagar%sacredriver@ifcom.gov

  Re: MinCol

  Admiral Chamrajnagar, sir:

  I cannot imagine why you would write to me about this matter. I am not acting Hegemon, I am Assistant Hegemon. I have forwarded your letter to General Suriyawong, and I hope all future correspondence about such matters will be directed to him.

  Your humble servant,

  Achilles Flandres

  From: Chamrajnagar%sacredriver@ifcom.gov

  To: Flandres%A-Heg@idl.gov

  Re: MinCol

  Forward my letters wherever you like. I know the game you are playing. I am playing a different one. In my game, I hold all the cards. Your game, on the other hand, will only last until people notice that you have no actual cards at all.

  The events in Brazil were already all over the nets and the vids when the implantation procedure was complete and Petra was wheeled out into the waiting room of the fertility clinic at Women’s Hospital. Bean was waiting for her. With balloons.

  They wheeled her out into the reception area. At first she didn’t notice him, because she was busy talking with the doctor. Which was fine with him. He wanted to look at her, this woman who might be carrying his child now.

  She looked so small.

  He remembered looking up at her when they first met in Battle School. This girl—rare in a place that tested for aggressiveness and a certain degree of ruthlessness. To him, a newcomer, the youngest child ever admitted to the school, she seemed so cool, so tough, like the quintessential bullyboy, smart-mouthed and belligerent. It was all an act, but a necessary one.

  Bean had seen at once that she noticed things. Noticed him, for starters, not with amusement or amazement like the other kids, who could only see how small he was. No, she clearly gave him some thought, found him intriguing. Realized, perhaps, that his presence at Battle School when he was clearly underage implied something interesting about him.

  It was partly that trait of hers that led Bean to turn to her—that and the fact that as a girl she was almost as much of a misfit as he was bound to be.

  She had grown since those days, of course, but Bean had grown far more, and was now quite a bit taller than her. It wasn’t just height, either. He had felt her rib cage under his hands, so small and brittle, or so it seemed. He felt as though he always had to be gentle with her, or he might inadvertently break her between his hands.

  Did all men feel this way? Probably not. For one thing, most women were not as light-bodied as Petra, and for another thing, most men stopped growing when they reached a certain point. But Bean’s hands and feet were still misproportioned to his body, like an adolescent’s, so that even though he was a tallish man, it was clear his body meant to grow taller still. His hands felt like paws. Hers seemed as lost within his as a baby’s.

  How, then, will the baby she carries inside her now seem to me when it is born? Will I be able to cradle the child in one hand? Will there be a genuine danger of my hurting the baby? I’m not so good with my hands these days.

  And by the time the baby is big enough, robust enough for me to handle safely, I’ll be dead.

  Why did I consent to do this?

  Oh, yes. Because I love Petra. Because she wants my child so badly. Because Anton had some cock-and-bull story about how all men crave marriage and family even if they don’t care about sex.

  Now she noticed him, and noticed the balloons, and laughed.

  He laughed back and went to her, handed her the balloons.

  “Husbands don’t usually give their wives balloons,” she said.

  “I thought having a baby implanted was a special occasion.”

  “I suppose so,” she said, “when it’s professionally done. Most babies are implanted at home by amateurs, and the wives don’t get balloons.”

  “I’ll remember that and try always to have a few on hand.”

  He walked beside her as an attendant pushed her wheelchair down the hallway toward the entrance.

  “So where is my ticket to?” she asked.

  “I got you two,” said Bean. “Different airlines, different destinations. Plus this train ticket. If either of the flights gives you a bad feeling, even if you can’t decide why you have misgivings, don’t get on it. Just go to the other airline. Or leave the airport and take the train. The train ticket is an EU pass so you can go anywhere.”

  “You spoil me,” said Petra.

  “What do you think?” asked Bean. “Did the baby hook itself onto the uterine wall?”

  “I’m not equipped with an internal camera,” said Petra, “and I lack the pertinent nerves to be able to feel microscopically small fetuses implant and start to grow a placenta.”

  “That’s a very poor design,” said Bean. “When I’m dead, I’ll have a few words with God about that.”

  Petra winced. “Please don’t joke about death.”

  “Please don’t ask me to be somber about it.”

  “I’m pregnant. Or might be. I’m supposed to get my way about everything.”

  The attendant pushing Petra’s wheelchair started to take her toward the front cab in a line of three. Bean stopped him.

  “The driver’s smoking,” said Bean.

  “He’ll put it out,” said the attendant.

  “My wife will not get into a car with a driver whose clothing is giving off cigarette smoke residue.”

  Petra looked at him oddly. He raised an eyebrow, hoping she’d realize that this was not about tobacco.

  “He’s the first taxi in line,” said the attendant, as if it were an incontrovertible law of physics that the first cab in line had to be the one to get the next passengers.

  Bean looked at the other two cabs. The second driver looked at him impassively. The third driver smiled. He looked Indonesian or Malay, and Bean knew that in their culture, a smile was pure reflex when facing someone bigger or richer than you.

  Yet for some reason he did not feel the mistrust about the Indonesian driver that he felt about the two Dutch drivers ahead of him.

  So he pushed her wheelchair toward the third cab. Bean asked, and the driver said yes, he was from Jakarta. The attendant, truly irritated at this breach of protocol, insisted on helping Petra into the cab. Bean had her bag and put it in the back seat beside her—he never put anything in the trunks of cabs, in case he had to run for it.

  Then he had to stand there as she drove off. No time for elaborate good-byes. He had just put everything that mattered in his life into a cab driven by a smiling stranger, and he had to let it drive away.

  Then he went to the first cab in line. The driver was showing his outrage at the way Bean had violated the line. The Netherlands was back to being a civilized place, now that it was self-governing again, and lines were respected. Apparently the Dutch now prided themselves on being better at queues than the English, which was absurd, because standing cheerfully in line was the English national sport.

  Bean handed the driver a twenty-five-dollar coin, which he looked at with disdain. “It’s stronger than the Euro right now,” said Bean. “And I’m paying you a fare, so you didn’t lose anything because I put my wife in another cab.”

  “What is your destination?” said the driver curtly, his English laced with a prim BBC accent. The Dutch really needed to have better programming in their own language so their citizens didn’t have to watch English vids and listen to English radio all the time.

  Bean did not answer him until he was inside the cab, the door closed.

  “Drive me to Amsterdam,” said Bean.

  “What?”

  “You heard me,” said Bean.

  “That’s eight hundred dollars,” said the driver.

  Bean peeled a thousand-dollar bill off his roll and gave it to him. “Does the video unit in this car actually work?” he asked.

  The driver made a show of scanning the bill to see if it was counterfeit. Bean wish he had used a Hegemony note. You don’t like dollars? Well see how you like this! But it was unlikely that anybody would take Hegemony money for any purpose these days, what with Achilles’s and Peter’s faces on every vid in the city and all the talk about how Peter had embezzled Hegemony funds.

  Their faces were on the video in the cab, too, when the driver finally got it working. Poor Peter, thought Bean. Now he knows how the popes and anti-popes felt when there were two with a claim to St. Peter’s throne. What a lovely taste of history for him. What a mess for the world.

  And to Bean’s surprise, he found that he didn’t actually care that much whether the world was in a mess—not when the messiness wasn’t going to affect his own little family.

  I’m actually a civilian now, he realized. All I care about is how these world events will affect my family.

  Then he remembered: I used to care about world events only insofar as they affected me. I used to laugh at Sister Carlotta because she was so concerned.

  But he did care. He kept track. He paid attention. He told himself it was so he’d know where he’d be safe. Now, though, with far more reason to worry about safety, he found the whole business of Peter and Achilles fundamentally boring. Peter was a fool to think he could control Achilles, a fool to trust a Chinese source on such a matter. How well Achilles must understand Peter, to know that he would rescue Achilles instead of killing him. But why shouldn’t Achilles understand Peter? All he had to do was think of what he would do, if he were in Peter’s position, but dumber.

  Still, even though he was bored, the story from the newspeople began to make sense, when combined with the things Bean knew. The embezzling story was ludicrous, of course, obviously disinformation from Achilles, though all the predictable nations were in an uproar about it, demanding inquiries: China, Russia, France. What seemed to be true was that Peter and his parents slipped out of the Hegemon’s compound in Ribeirão Preto just before dawn this morning, drove to Araraquara, then flew to Montevideo, where they got official permission to fly to the United States as guests of the U.S. government.

  It was possible, of course, that their sudden flight was precipitated by something Achilles did or some information they learned about Achilles’s immediate plans. But Bean was reasonably sure that these events were triggered by the emails he and Petra had sent early this morning when they got Han Tzu’s message.

  Apparently the Wiggins had been up either very late or very early, because they must have got the letters almost as soon as they were sent. Got them, deciphered the message, realized the implication of Han Tzu’s tip, and then, incredibly enough, persuaded Peter to pay attention and get out without a moment’s delay.

  Bean had assumed it would take days before Peter would realize the significance of what he had been told. Part of the problem would be his relationship with his parents. Bean and Petra knew how smart the Wiggins were, but most people in the Hegemony didn’t have a clue, least of all Peter. Bean tried to imagine the scene when they explained to him that he had been fooled by Achilles. Peter, believing his parents when they told him he had made a mistake? Unthinkable.

  And yet he must have believed them right away.

  Or they drugged him.

  Bean laughed a little at the thought, and then looked up from the vid because the cab was turning sharply.

  They were pulling off the main road into a side street. They shouldn’t be.

  By reflex Bean had the door open and was flinging himself out the door by the time the cab driver could get his gun up from the seat and aim it at him. The bullet zipped over his head as Bean hit the ground and rolled. The cab came to a stop and the driver leapt out to finish the job. Abandoning his bag, Bean scrambled to get around the corner. But he’d never get far enough down the street—which had no pedestrians on it, here in the warehouse district—to get out of the range of a bullet once the cabbie followed him onto the main street.

  Another shot came just as he made it past the edge of the building. He thought of pressing himself against the side of the building, in the hopes that the gunman was really stupid and would barrel around the corner without looking.