The Shadow of the Hegemon - Orson Scott Card

by Orson Scott Card

  Probably not. Achilles was not a sadist. He killed with his own hands when he needed to, but would never put himself at risk. Killing from a distance would actually be preferable. Using other hands to do his work.

  Who else would want Bean dead? Any other enemy would seek to capture him. His test scores from Battle School were a matter of public record since Graff's trial. The military in every nation knew that he was the kid who in many ways had topped Ender himself. He would be the one most desired. He would also be the one most feared, if he were on the other side in a war. Any of them might kill him if they knew they couldn't take him. But they would try to take him first. Only Achilles would prefer his death.

  But he said nothing of this to his family. His fears about Achilles would sound too paranoid. He wasn't sure whether he believed them himself. And yet, as he ran along the beach with his family, he grew more certain with every step that whoever had kidnapped Petra was in some way under Achilles' influence.

  They heard the rotors of helicopters before they saw them, and Nikolai's reaction was instantaneous. "Inland now!" he shouted. They scrambled for the nearest wooden stairway leading up the cliff from the beach.

  They were only halfway up before the choppers came into view. There was no point in trying to hide. One of the choppers set down on the beach below them, the other on the bluff above.

  "Down is easier than up," said Father. "And the choppers do have Greek military insignia."

  What Bean didn't point out, because everyone knew it, was that Greece was part of the New Warsaw Pact, and it was quite possible that Greek military craft might be acting under Russian command.

  In silence they walked back down the stairs. Hope and despair and fear tugged at them by turns.

  The soldiers who spilled out of the chopper were wearing Greek Army uniforms.

  "At least they're not trying to pretend they're Turks," said Nikolai.

  "But how would the Greek Army know to come rescue us?" said Mother. "The explosion was only a few minutes ago."

  The answer came quickly enough, once they got to the beach. A colonel that Father knew slightly came to meet them, saluting them. No, saluting Bean, with the respect due to a veteran of the Formic War.

  "I bring you greetings from General Thrakos," said the colonel. "He would have come himself, but there was no time to waste when the warning came."

  "Colonel Dekanos, we think our sons might be in danger," said Father.

  "We realised that the moment word came of the kidnapping of Petra Arkanian," said Dekanos. "But you weren't at home and it took a few hours to find out where you were."

  "We heard an explosion," said Mother.

  "If you had been inside the house," said Dekanos, "you'd be as dead as the people in the surrounding houses. The army is securing the area. Fifteen choppers were sent up to search for you—we hoped—or, if you were dead, the perpetrators. I have already reported to Athens that you are alive and well."

  "They were jamming the cellphone," said Father.

  "Whoever did this has a very effective organisation," said Dekanos. "Nine other children, it turns out, were taken within hours of Petra Arkanian."

  "Who?" demanded Bean.

  "I don't know the names yet," said Dekanos. "Only the count."

  "Were any of the others simply killed?" asked Bean.

  "No," said Dekanos. "Not that I've heard, anyway."

  "Then why did they blow up our house?" Mother demanded.

  "If we knew why," said Dekanos, "we'd know who. And vice-versa."

  They were belted into their seats. The chopper rose from the beach—but not very high. By now the other choppers were ranged around them and above them. Flying escort.

  "Ground troops are continuing the search for the perpetrators," said Dekanos. "But your survival is our highest priority."

  "We appreciate that," said Mother.

  But Bean was not all that appreciative. The Greek military would, of course, put them in hiding and protect them carefully. But no matter what they did, the one thing they could not do was conceal the knowledge of his location from the Greek government itself. And the Greek government had been part of the Russia-dominated Warsaw Pact for generations now, since before the Formic War. Therefore Achilles—if it was Achilles, if it was Russia he worked for, if, if—would be able to find out where they were. Bean knew that it was not enough for him to be in protection. He had to be in true concealment, where no government could find him, where no one but himself would know who he was.

  The trouble was, he was not only still a child, he was a famous child. Between his youth and his celebrity, it would be almost impossible for him to move unnoticed through the world. He would have to have help. So for the time being, he had to remain in military custody and simply hope that it would take him less time to get away than it would take Achilles to get to him.

  If it was Achilles.

  CHAPTER 2 — MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE

  To: Carlotta%agape@vatican.net/orders/sisters/ind

  From: Graff%pilgrimage@colmin.gov

  Re: Danger

  I have no idea where you are and that's good, because I believe you are in grave danger, and the harder it is to find you, the better.

  Since I'm no longer with the IF, I'm not kept abreast of things there. But the news is full of the kidnapping of most of the children who served with Ender in Command School. That could have been done by anybody, there is no shortage of nations or groups that might conceive and carry out such a project. What you may not know is that there was no attempt to kidnap one of them. From a friend of mine I have learned that the beach house in Ithaca where Bean and his family were vacationing was simply blown up—with so much force that the neighbouring houses were also flattened and everyone in them killed. Bean and his family had already escaped and are under the protection of the Greek military. Supposedly this is a secret, in hopes that the assassins will think they succeeded, but in fact, like most governments, Greece leaks like a colander, and the assassins probably already know more than I do about where Bean is.

  There is only one person on Earth who would prefer Bean dead.

  That means that the people who got Achilles out of that mental hospital are not just using him—he is making, or at least influencing, their decisions to fit his private agenda. The danger to you is grave. The danger to Bean, more so. He must go into deep hiding, and he cannot go alone. To save his life and yours, the only thing I can think of is to get both of you off planet. We are within months of launching our first colony ships. If I am the only one to know your real identities, we can keep you safe until launch. But we must get Bean out of Greece as quickly as possible. Are you with me?

  Do not tell me where you are. We will work out how to meet.

  How stupid did they think she was?

  It took Petra only about half an hour to realise that these people weren't Turkish. Not that she was some kind of expert on language, but they'd be babbling along and every now and then out would pop a word of Russian. She didn't understand Russian either, except for a few loan words in Armenian, and Azerbaijani had loan words like that, too, but the thing is, when you say a Russian loan word in Armenian, you give it an Armenian pronunciation. These clowns would switch to an easy, native-sounding Russian accent when they hit those words. She would have to have been a gibbon in the slow-learner class not to realise that the Turkish pose was just that, a pose.

  So when she decided she'd learned all she could with her eyes closed, listening, she spoke up in Fleet Common. "Aren't we across the Caucasus yet? When do I get to pee?"

  Someone said an expletive.

  "No, pee," she answered. She opened her eyes and blinked. She was on the floor of some ground vehicle. She started to sit up.

  A man pushed her back down with his foot.

  "Oh, that's clever. Keep me out of sight as we coast along the tarmac, but how will you get me into the air plane without anyone seeing? You want me to come out walking and acting normal so nobody gets all exc
ited, right?"

  "You'll act that way when we tell you to or we'll kill you," said the man with the heavy foot.

  "If you had the authority to kill me, I'd be dead back in Maralik." She started to rise again. Again the foot pushed her back down.

  "Listen carefully," she said. "I've been kidnapped because somebody wants me to plan a war for them. That means I'm going to be meeting with the top brass. They're not stupid enough to think they'll get anything decent from me without my willing cooperation. That's why they wouldn't let you kill my mother. So when I tell them that I won't do anything for them until I have your balls in a paper bag, how long do you think it will take them to decide what's more important to them? My brain or your balls?"

  "We do have the authority to kill you."

  It took her only moments to decide why such authority might have been given to morons like these. "Only if I'm in imminent danger of being rescued. Then they'd rather have me dead than let somebody else get the use of me. Let's see you make a case for that here on the runway at the Gyuniri airport."

  A different rude word this time.

  Somebody spurted out a sentence of Russian. She caught the gist of it from the intonation and the bitter laughter afterward. "They warned you she was a genius."

  Genius, hell. If she was so smart, why hadn't she anticipated the possibility that somebody would make a grab for the kids who won the war? And it had to be kids, not just her, because she was too far down the list for somebody outside Armenia to make her their only choice. When the front door was locked, she should have run for the cops instead of puttering around to the back door. And that was another stupid thing they did, locking the front door. In Russia you had to lock your doors, they probably thought that was normal. They should have done better research. Not that it helped her now, of course. Except that she knew they weren't all that careful and they weren't all that bright. Anybody can kidnap someone who's taking no precautions.

  "So Russia makes her play for world domination, is that it?" she asked.

  "Shut up," said the man in the seat in front of her.

  "I don't speak Russian you know, and I won't learn."

  "You don't have to," said a woman.

  "Isn't that ironic?" said Petra. "Russia plans to take over the world, but they have to speak English to do it."

  The foot on her belly pressed down harder.

  "Remember your balls in a bag," she said.

  A moment, and then the foot let up.

  She sat up, and this time no one pushed her down.

  "Un-tape me so I can get myself up on the seat. Come on! My arms hurt in this position! Haven't you learned anything since the days of the KGB? Unconscious people don't have to have their circulation cut off. Fourteen-year-old Armenian girls can probably be overpowered quite easily by big strong Russian goons."

  By now the tape was off and she was sitting beside Heavy-foot and a guy who never looked at her, just kept watching out the left window, then the right, then the left again. "So this is Gyuniri airport?"

  "What, you don't recognise it?"

  "I've never been here before. When would I? I've only taken two air plane trips in my life, one out of Terevan when I was five, and the other coming back, nine years later."

  "She knew it was Gyuniri because it's the closest airport that doesn't fly commercial jets," said the woman. She spoke without any tone in her voice—not contempt, not deference. Just… flat.

  "Whose bright idea was this? Because captive generals don't strategise all that well."

  "First, why in the world do you think anyone would tell us?" said the woman. "Second, why don't you shut up and find things out when they matter?"

  "Because I'm a cheerful, talkative extrovert who likes to make friends," said Petra.

  "You're a bossy, nosy introvert who likes to piss people off," said the woman.

  "Oh, you actually did some research."

  "No, just observation." So she did have a sense of humour. Maybe.

  "You'd better just pray you can get over the Caucasus before you have to answer to the Armenian Air Force."

  Heavy-foot made a derisory noise, proving that he didn't recognise irony when he heard it.

  "Of course, you'll probably have only a small plane, and we'll probably fly out over the Black Sea. Which means that IF satellites will know exactly where I am."

  "You're not IF personnel any more," said the woman.

  "Meaning they don't care what happens to you," said Heavy-foot.

  By now they had pulled to a stop beside a small plane. "A jet, I'm impressed," said Petra. "Does it have any weaponry? Or is it just wired with explosives so that if the Armenian Air Force does start to force you down, you can blow me up and the whole plane with me?"

  "Do we have to tie you again?" asked the woman.

  "That would look really good to the people in the control tower."

  "Get her out," said the woman.

  Stupidly, the men on both sides of her opened their doors and got out, leaving her a choice of exits. So she chose Heavy-foot because she knew he was stupid, whereas the other man was anyone's guess. And, yes, he truly was stupid, because he held her by only one arm as he used his other hand to close the door. So she lurched to one side as if she had stumbled, drawing him off balance, and then, still using his grip to support her weight, she did a double kick, one in the groin and one in the knee. She landed solidly both times, and he let go of her very nicely before falling to the ground, writhing, one hand clutching his crotch and the other trying to slide his kneecap back around to the front of his knee,

  Did they think she'd forgotten all her hand-to-hand unarmed combat training? Hadn't she warned him that she'd have his balls in a bag?

  She made a good run for it, and she was feeling pretty good about how much speed she had picked up during her months of running at school, until she realised that they weren't following her. And that meant they knew they didn't have to.

  No sooner had she noticed this than she felt something sharp pierce the skin over her right shoulder blade. She had time to slow down but not to stop before she collapsed into unconsciousness again.

  This time they kept her drugged until they reached their destination, and since she never saw any scenery except the walls of what seemed to be an underground bunker, she had no guesses about where they might have taken her. Somewhere in Russia, that's all. And from the soreness of the bruises on her arms and legs and neck and the scrapes on her knees and palms and nose, she guessed that they hadn't been too careful with her. The price she paid for being a bossy, nosy introvert. Or maybe it was the part about pissing people off.

  She lay on her bunk until a doctor came in and treated her scrapes with a special no-anaesthetic blend of alcohol and acid, or so it seemed. "Was that just in case it didn't hurt enough?" she asked.

  The doctor didn't answer. Apparently they had warned the woman what happened to those who spoke to her.

  "The guy I kicked in the balls, did they have to amputate them?"

  Still no answer. Not even a trace of amusement. Could this possibly be the one educated person in Russia who didn't speak Common?

  Meals were brought to her, lights went on and off, but no one came to speak to her and she was not allowed out of her room. She heard nothing through the heavy doors, and it became clear that her punishment for her misbehaviour on the trip was going to be solitary confinement for a while.

  She resolved not to beg for mercy. Indeed, once it became clear to her that she was in isolation, she accepted it and isolated herself still further, neither speaking nor responding to the people who came and went. They never tried to speak to her, either, so the silence of her world was complete.

  They did not understand how self-contained she was. How her mind could show her more than mere reality ever could. She could recall memories by the sheaf, by the bale. Whole conversations. And then new versions of those conversations, in which she was actually able to say the clever things that she only really thought
of later.

  She could even relive every moment of the battles on Eros. Especially the battle where she fell asleep in the middle. How tired she was. How she struggled frantically to stay awake. How she could feel her mind being so sluggish that she began to forget where she was, and why, and even who she was.

  To escape from this endlessly repeating scene, she tried to think of other things. Her parents, her little brother. She could remember everything they had said and done since she returned, but after a while the only memories that mattered to her were the early ones from before Battle School. Memories she had suppressed for nine years, as best she could. All the promises of the family life that was lost to her. The good-bye when her mother wept and let her go. Her father's hand as he led her to the car. That hand had always meant that she was safe, before. But this time that hand led her to a place where she never felt safe again. She knew she had chosen to go—but she was only a child, and she knew that this was what was expected of her. That she should not succumb to the temptation to run to her weeping mother and cling to her and say no, I won't do it, let someone else become a soldier, I want to stay here and bake with Mama and play mother to my own little dolls. Not go off into space where I can learn how to kill strange and terrible creatures—and, by the way, humans as well, who trusted me and then I fell… a… sleep.

  Being alone with her memories was not all that happy for her.

  She tried fasting, simply ignoring the food they brought her, the liquids too, nothing by mouth. She expected someone to speak to her then, to cajole. But no. The doctor came in, slapped an injection into her arm, and when she woke up her hand was sore where the I.V. had been and she realised that there was no point in refusing to eat.

  She hadn't thought to keep a calendar at first, but after the I.V. she did keep a calendar on her own body, pressing a fingernail into her wrist until it bled. Seven days on the left wrist, then switch to the right, and all she had to remember in her head was the number of weeks.

  Except she didn't bother going for three. She realised that they were going to out wait her because, after all, they had the others they had kidnapped, and no doubt some of them were cooperating, so it was perfectly all right with them if she stayed in her cell and got farther and farther behind so that when she finally did emerge, she'd be the worst of them at whatever it was they were doing.