"Or he might have killed you, too."
"He couldn't kill us both at once. Not with that gimp leg. Whichever one he went for, the other would scream bloody murder and go for help."
"Or hit him over the head with a cinderblock."
"Yes, well, Poke could have done that, but I couldn't have lifted it higher than his head. And I don't think dropping a stone on his toe would have done the job."
They stayed by the dock for a little longer, and then made the walk back to the hospital.
The security guard was on duty. All was right with the world.
All. Bean had gone back to his childhood range and he hadn't cried much, hadn't turned away, hadn't fled back to some safe place.
Or so she thought, until they left the hospital, returned to their hotel, and he lay in the bed, gasping for breath until she realized that he was sobbing. Great dry wracking sobs that shook his whole body.
She lay beside him and held him until he slept.
Volescu's fakery was so good that for a few moments Petra wondered if he might really have the ability to test the embryos. But no, it was flimflam--he was simply smart enough, scientist enough, to find convincing flimflam that was realistic enough to fool extremely intelligent laypeople like them, and even the fertility doctor they brought with them. He must have made it look like the tests these doctors performed to test for a child's sex or for major genetic defects.
Or else the doctor knew perfectly well it was a scam, but said nothing because all the baby-fixers played the same game, pretending to check for defects that couldn't actually be checked for, knowing that by the time the fakery was discovered, the parents would already have bonded with the child--and even if they hadn't, how could they sue for failing to perform an illegal procedure like sorting for athletic prowess or intellect? Maybe all these baby boutiques were fakers.
The only reason Petra wasn't fooled is that she didn't watch the procedure, she watched Volescu, and by the end of the procedure she knew that he was way too relaxed. He knew that nothing he was doing would make the slightest difference. There was nothing at stake. The test meant nothing.
There were nine embryos. He pretended to identify three of them as having Anton's Key. He tried to hand the containers to one of his assistants to dispose of, but Bean insisted that he give them to their doctor for disposal.
"I don't want any of these embryos to accidentally become a baby," said Bean with a smile.
But to Petra, they already were babies, and it hurt her to watch as Bean supervised the pouring out of the three embryos into a sink, the scouring of the containers to make sure an embryo hadn't managed to thrive in some remaining droplet.
I'm imagining this, thought Petra. For all she knew, the containers he flushed had never contained embryos at all. Why would Volescu sacrifice any of them, when all he had to do was lie and merely say that these three had contained embryos with Anton's Key?
So, self-persuaded that no actual harm to a child of hers was being done, she thanked Volescu for his help and they waited for him to leave before anything else was done. Volescu carried nothing from the room that he hadn't come in with.
Then Bean and Petra both watched as the six remaining embryos were frozen, their containers tagged, and all of them secured against tampering.
The morning of the implantation, they both awoke almost at first light, too excited, too nervous to sleep. She lay in bed reading, trying to calm herself; he sat at the table in the hotel room, working on email, scanning the nets.
But his mind was obviously on the morning's procedure. "It's going to be expensive," he said. "Keeping guard over the ones we don't implant."
She knew what he was driving at. "You know we've got to keep them frozen until we know if the first implant works. They don't always take."
Bean nodded. "But I'm not an idiot, you know. I'm perfectly aware that you intend to keep all the embryos and implant them one by one until you have as many of my children as possible."
"Well of course," said Petra. "What if our firstborn is as nasty as Peter Wiggin?"
"Impossible," said Bean. "How could a child of mine have any but the sweetest disposition?"
"Unthinkable, I know," said Petra. "And yet somehow I thought of it."
"So this security, it has to continue for years."
"Why?" said Petra. "No one wants the babies that are left. We destroyed the ones with Anton's Key."
"We know that," said Bean. "But they're still the children of two members of Ender's jeesh. Even without my particular curse, they'll still be worth stealing."
"But they won't be old enough to be of any value for years and years," said Petra.
"Not all that many years," said Bean. "How old were we? How old are we even now? There are plenty of people willing to take the children and invest not that many years of training and then put them to work. Playing games and winning wars."
"I'll never let any of them anywhere near military training," said Petra.
"You won't be able to stop them," said Bean.
"We have plenty of money, thanks to the pensions Graff got for us," said Petra. "I'll make sure the security is intense."
"No, I mean you'll never be able to stop the children. From seeking out military service."
He was right, of course. The testing for Battle School included a child's predilection for military command, for the contest of battle. For war. Bean and Petra had proven how strong that passion was in them. It would be unlikely that any child of theirs would be happy without ever having a taste of the military life.
"At least," said Petra, "they won't have to destroy an alien invader before they turn fifteen."
But Bean wasn't listening. His body had suddenly grown alert as he scanned a message on his desk.
"What is it?" she asked.
"I think it's from Hot Soup," said Bean.
She got up and came over to look.
It was an email through one of the anonymous services, this one an Asian-based company called Mysterious East. The subject line was "definitely not vichyssoise." Not cold soup, then. Hot Soup. The Battle School nickname of Han Tzu, who had been in Ender's jeesh and was now assumed to be deeply involved in the highest levels of strategy in China.
A message from him to Bean, until recently the military commander of the Hegemon's forces, would be high treason. This message had been handed to a stranger on a street in China. Probably a European-or African-looking tourist. And the message wasn't hard to understand:
He thinks I told him where Caligula would be but I did not.
"Caligula" could only refer to Achilles. "He" had to refer to Peter.
Han Tzu was saying that Peter thought he was the source of the information about where the prison convoy would be on the day Suriyawong liberated Achilles.
No wonder Peter was sure his source was reliable--Han Tzu himself! Since Han Tzu had been one of the group Achilles kidnapped, he would have plenty of reason to hate him. Motive enough for Peter to believe that Han Tzu would tell him where Achilles would be.
But it wasn't Han Tzu.
And if it wasn't Han Tzu, then who else would send such a message, pretending that it came from him? A message that turned out to be correct?
"We should have known it wasn't from Han Tzu all along," said Bean.
"We didn't know Han Tzu was supposed to be the source," said Petra reasonably.
"Han Tzu would never give information that would lead to innocent Chinese soldiers getting killed. Peter should have known that."
"We would have known it," said Petra, "but Peter doesn't know Hot Soup. And he didn't tell us Hot Soup was his source."
"So of course we know who the source was," said Bean.
"We've got to get word to him at once," said Petra.
Bean was already typing.
"Only this has to mean that Achilles went in there completely prepared," said Petra. "I'd be surprised if he hasn't found a way to read Peter's mail."
"I'm not writing to Peter,
" said Bean.
"Who, then?"
"Mr. and Mrs. Wiggin," said Bean. "Two separate messages. Pieces of a puzzle. Chances are that Achilles won't be watching their mail, or at least not closely enough to realize he should put these together."
"No," said Petra. "No puzzles. Whether he's watching or not, there's no time to lose. He's been there for months now."
"If he sees an open message it might precipitate action on his part. It might be Peter's death warrant."
"Then notify Graff, send him in."
"Achilles undoubtedly knows Graff already came once to get our parents out," said Bean. "Again, his arrival might trigger things."
"OK," said Petra, thinking. "OK. Here's what. Suriyawong."
"No," said Bean.
"He'll get a coded message instantly. He thinks that way."
"But I don't know if he can be trusted," said Bean.
"Of course he can," said Petra. "He's only pretending to be Achilles's man."
"Of course he is," said Bean. "But what if he isn't just pretending?"
"But he's Suriyawong!"
"I know," said Bean. "But I can't be sure."
"All right," said Petra. "Peter's parents, then. Only don't be too subtle."
"They're not stupid," said Bean. "I don't know Mr. Wiggin that well, but Mrs. Wiggin is--well, she's very subtle. She knows more than she lets on."
"That doesn't mean she's wary. That doesn't mean she'll get the code or talk it over with her husband right away so they can put the messages together."
"Trust me," said Bean.
"No, I'll proofread before you send it," said Petra. "First rule of survival, right? Just because you trust someone's motives doesn't mean you can trust them to do it right."
"You're a cold, cold woman," said Bean.
"It's one of my best features."
A half hour later, they both agreed that the messages should work. Bean sent them. It was a few hours earlier in Ribeirao Preto. Nothing would happen till the Wiggins woke up.
"We'll have to be ready to leave immediately after the implantation," said Petra. If Achilles had been in control of things from the start, then chances were good that his whole network was still in place and he knew exactly where they were and what they were doing.
"I won't be with you," said Bean. "I'll be getting our tickets. Have the guards right in the room with you."
"No," said Petra. "But just outside."
Petra showered first, and she was completely packed when Bean came out of the bathroom. "One thing," said Petra.
"What?" asked Bean as he put his few belongings into the one bag he carried.
"Our tickets--should be to separate destinations."
He stopped packing and looked at her. "I see," he said. "You get what you want from me, and then you walk away."
She laughed nervously. "Well, yes," she said. "You've been telling me this whole time that it's more dangerous for us to travel together."
"And now that you'll have my baby in you, you don't need to be with me any more," said Bean. He was still smiling, but she knew that beneath the jest there was true suspicion.
"Whatever the Wiggins do, all hell is going to break loose," said Petra. "I've memorized all your dead drops and you've memorized all of mine."
"I gave you all of yours," said Bean.
"Let's get back together in a week or so," said Petra. "If I'm like my mother, I'll be puking my guts out by then."
"If the implantation is successful."
"I'll miss you every moment," said Petra.
"God help me, but I'll miss you too."
She knew what a painful, frightening thing that was for Bean. To allow himself to love someone so much that he would actually miss her, that was no small matter for him. And the two other women he had allowed himself to love with all his heart had been murdered.
"I won't let anybody hurt our baby," she said.
He thought for a moment, and then his face softened. "That baby is probably the best protection you could have."
She understood and smiled. "No, they won't kill me till they see what our baby turns out like," she said. "But that's no protection from being kidnapped and held until the child is born."
"As long as you and the baby are alive, I'll come and get you."
"That's the thing that frightens me," said Petra. "That we might be the bait they use to set a trap for you."
"We're looking too far ahead," said Bean. "They aren't going to catch us. You or me. And if they do, well, we'll deal with that."
They were packed. They both went over the room one more time to make sure they were leaving nothing behind, no sign they had ever been there. Then they left for Women's Hospital and the child who waited for them there, a bundle of genes wrapped in a few undifferentiated cells, eager to implant themselves in a womb, to start to draw nutrients from a mother's blood, to begin to divide and distinguish themselves into heart and bowel, hands and feet, eyes and ears, mouth and brain.
10
LEFT AND RIGHT
From: PW
To: TW, JPW
Re: Reconciliation of keyboard logs
You'll be happy to learn that we were able to sort out all the logs. We have tracked every computer entry by the person in question. All his entries dealt with official business and assignments he was carrying out for me. Nothing that was in any way improper was done.
Personally, I find this disturbing. Either he found a way to fool both our programs (not likely), or he is actually doing nothing but what he should (even less likely), or he is playing a very deep game about which we have no idea (extremely likely).
Let's talk tomorrow.
Theresa woke up when John Paul got out of bed to pee at four A.M. It worried her that he couldn't make it through the night anymore. He was still a little young to be having prostate problems.
But it wasn't her husband's slackening bladder capacity that kept her awake. It was the memo from Peter informing them that Achilles had done absolutely nothing but what he was supposed to do.
This was impossible. Nobody does exactly what they're supposed to and nothing else. Achilles should have had some friend, some ally, some contact whom he needed to notify that he was out of China and safe. He had a network of informants and agents, and as he showed when he hopped from Russia to India to China, he was always one step ahead of everybody. The Chinese finally wised up to his pattern and short-circuited it, but that didn't mean Achilles didn't have his next move planned. So why hadn't he done anything to set it in motion?
There were more possibilities than the ones Peter listed, of course. Maybe Achilles had a means of bypassing the electromagnetic shield that surrounded the Ribeirao Preto compound. Of course, he couldn't have brought such a device with him when he was rescued, or it would have shown up in the search that was conducted during his first bath in Ribeirao. So someone would have to have brought it to him. And Peter was convinced that no such device could exist. Maybe he was right.
Maybe Achilles's next move was something he planned to do entirely alone.
Maybe there was something he had that he was able to smuggle into Brazil inside his body. Did the surveillance cameras show him, perhaps, combing through his bowel movements? Peter must surely have checked for that.
While she lay there thinking, John Paul had come back from the bathroom. But now she noticed that he had not resumed snoring.
"You're awake?" she asked.
"Sorry I woke you."
"I can't sleep anyway," she said.
"The Beast?"
"We're missing something," said Theresa. "He hasn't suddenly become a loyal servant of the Hegemony."
"I'm not going to get back to sleep either," said John Paul. He got up and padded in bare feet to his computer. She heard him typing and knew that he was checking his mail first.
Busy work, but it was better than lying here staring at the dark ceiling. She got up also, took her desk from the table, and brought it back to bed, where she began checki
ng her own email.
One of the benefits of being the mother of the Hegemon was that she didn't actually have to answer the tedious mail--she could forward it on to one of Peter's secretaries to deal with, since it consisted mostly of tedious attempts of people trying to get her to use her supposed influence with Peter to get him to do something that was not within his power to do, was illegal even if he could do it, and which he would certainly not do even if it were legal.
It left her with very few pieces of mail that she needed to deal with personally.
Most of it could be answered with a few sentences and she dealt with it quickly, if a bit sleepily.
She was about to shut down her desk and try again to get back to sleep when a new piece of mail came in.
To: T%[email protected]
From: Rock%[email protected]
Re: And when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth.
What was this? Some religious fanatic? But the address was her most private one, used only by John Paul, Peter, and a handful of people she actually liked and knew well.
So who sent it?
She skipped to the bottom. No signature. The message was short.
You'll never guess. There I was at a party--the boring but dangerous kind, with fine china that you know you're going to break, and a tablecloth you're bound to spill India ink on--and do you know what happens? Along comes the very man with whom I wanted to tie the knot. He thinks he's rescuing me from the party! But in fact, he was the very reason I came to the party in the first place. Not that I'll ever tell him! He would BLOW UP if he knew. And then, of course, I'm so nervous I bump into the tureen and hot soup spills all over everything. But...you know me! Just a big oaf.
That was the complete text of the message. It was really annoying, because it didn't sound like anyone she knew. She didn't have friends who sent letters as empty and pointless as this one. Gossip about a party. Somebody hoping to marry somebody else.
But before she could make any progress on figuring it out, another piece of mail came in.
To: T%[email protected]
From: Sheep%[email protected]
Re: Even as ye have done it unto the least of these...
Another biblical quote. Same person? Bound to be.
Shadow Puppets Page 12
