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Conversation as Bean and Petra go into hiding.
"First thing we need to do," said Bean, "is split up."
"No," said Petra.
"I've done this before, Petra. Going into hiding. Keeping from getting caught."
"And if we're together we're too identifiable, la la la," she said.
"Saying 'la la la' doesn't mean it isn't true."
"But I don't care," said Petra. "That's the part you're leaving out of your calculations."
"And I do care," said Bean, "which is the part you're leaving out of yours."
"Let me put it this way," said Petra. "If we separate, and Achilles finds me and kills me first, then you'll just have one more female you love deeply who is dead because you didn't protect her."
"You fight dirty."
"I fight like a girl."
"And if you stay with me, we'll probably end up dying together."
"No we won't," said Petra.
"I'm not immortal, as you well know."
"But you are smarter than Achilles. And luckier. And taller. And nicer."
"The new improved human."
She looked at him thoughtfully. "You know, now that you're tall, we could probably travel as man and wife."
Bean sighed. "I'm not going to marry you."
"Just as camouflage."
Petra and Bean are joined by a fellow Battle School grad.
"I didn't think you were coming," said Bean.
"I don't answer emails," said Ambul. "Except by showing up and seeing if the email was really from the person it's supposed to be from."
"Oh," said Petra, putting things together. "You must be the soldier in Bean's army who was assigned to show Achilles around."
"Only he didn't have the foresight to push Achilles out an airlock without a suit," said Bean.
"Which I think shows a shameful lack of initiative on his part."
"Bean notified me as soon as he found out Achilles was on the loose. He figured there was no chance I wasn't on Achilles's hit list. Saved my life."
"So Achilles made a try?" asked Bean.
They were away from the path now, out in the open, standing on the broad lawn stretching away from the lake where the pianist played. Only the faintest sound of the amplified Chopin reached them here.
"Let's just say that I've had to keep moving," said Ambul.
"Is that why you weren't in Thailand when the Chinese invaded?" asked Petra.
"No," said Ambul. "No, I left Thailand almost as soon as I came home. You see, I was not like most Battle School graduates. I was in the worst army in the history of the battle room."
"My army," said Bean.
Bean and Petra converse with Professor Anton, whose theory "created" him.
"There were more than a score of us," said Bean. "But the others were murdered."
"You survived," said Anton. "The others didn't. Why was that, do you think?"
"I hid in a toilet tank."
"Yes, yes," said Anton, "so I gleaned from Sister Carlotta, God rest her soul. But why did you, and you alone, sneak out of your bed and go into the bathroom and hide in such a dangerous and difficult place? Scarcely a year old, too. So precocious. So desperate to survive. Yet genetically identical to all your brothers, da?"
"Cloned," said Bean, "so ... yes."
"It is not all genetics, is it?" said Anton. "It is not all anything. So much left to learn. And you are the only teacher."
"I don't know anything about that. I'm a soldier."
"It is your body that would teach us. And every cell inside it."
"Sorry, but I'm still using them," said Bean.
"As I'm still using my mind," said Anton, "even though it won't go where I most want it to take me."
Bean turned to Petra. "Is that why you brought me here? So Professor Anton could see what a big boy I've become?"
"No," said Petra.
"She brought you here," said Anton, "so I can persuade you that you are human."
Peter Wiggin's father tries to warn him of the danger of keeping Achilles in the Hegemony headquarters.
"It's not a popularity contest, Father."
"No, it's a loyalty contest. You accomplish exactly as much as the people who serve you decide you'll accomplish, and nothing more. They are your power, these public servants you employ, and he's winning their loyalty away from you."
"Superficially, perhaps," said Peter.
"For most people, the superficial is all there is. They act on the feelings of the moment. They like him better than you."
"There's always somebody that people like better," said Peter with a vicious little smile. He referred, of course, to Ender.
John Paul restrained himself from making the obvious one-word retort, because it would devastate Peter. The single crushing word would have been "yes."
"Peter," said John Paul, "when the Beast leaves here, who knows how many people he'll leave behind who like him well enough to slip him a bit of gossip now and then? Or a secret document?"
"Father, I appreciate your concern. And once again, I can only tell you that I have things under control."
"You seem to think that anything you don't know isn't worth knowing," said John Paul, not for the first time.
"And you seem to think that anything I'm doing is not being done well enough," said Peter for at least the hundredth time.
Bean and Petra are about to visit the man who stole Bean as an embryo and genetically altered him.
Volescu's offices, in an old but lovely building in the heart of the city, were modestly labeled, in Common, "Reproductive Safety Services."
"Safety," said Petra. "An odd name, considering how many babies he killed."
"Not babies," said Bean mildly. "Illegal experiments were terminated, but no actual legal babies were ever involved."
"That really slops your hogs, doesn't it," she said.
"You watch too many vids. You're beginning to pick up American slang."
"What else can I do, with you spending all your time online, saving the world?"
"I'm about to meet my maker," said Bean. "And you're complaining to me about my spending too much time on pure altruism."
"He's not your maker," said Petra.
"Who is, then? My biological parents? They made Nikolai. I was leftovers in the fridge."
"I was referring to God," said Petra.
"I know you were," said Bean, smiling. "Me, I can't help but think that I exist because God blinked. If he'd been paying attention, I could never have happened."
"Don't goad me about religion," said Petra. "I won't play."
"You started it," said Bean.
"I'm not Sister Carlotta."
"I couldn't have married you if you were. Was that your choice? Me or the nunnery?"
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