"We can't," said Bean. "She's right. Coming here at all has compromised us both. We'll probably want to fly out of Greensboro first thing in the morning."
He glanced at Sister Carlotta, knowing that she would understand that he was really saying they should leave by train that night. Or by bus the day after tomorrow. Or rent an apartment under assumed names and stay here for a week. The lying had begun again, for safety's sake.
"At least stay for dinner?" asked Mrs. Wiggin. "And meet my husband? I think he'll be just as intrigued as I was to meet a boy who is so famously dead."
Bean saw Peter's eyes glaze over. He understood why--to Peter, a dinner with his parents would be an excruciating social exercise during which nothing important could be said. Wouldn't all your lives be simpler if you could all just tell each other the truth? But Mrs. Wiggin had said that Peter needed to feel that he was on his own. If he knew that his parents knew of his secret activities, that would infantilize him, apparently. Though if he were really the sort of man that could rule the world, surely he could deal with knowing that his parents were in on his secrets.
Not my decision. I gave my word.
"We'd be glad to," said Bean. "Though there's a danger of having your house blown up because we're in it."
"Then we'll eat out," said Mrs. Wiggin. "See how simple things can be? If something's going to be blown up, let it be a restaurant. They carry insurance for that sort of thing."
Bean laughed. But Peter didn't. Because, Bean realized, Peter doesn't know how much she knows, and therefore he thinks her comment was idiocy instead of irony.
"Not Italian food," said Sister Carlotta.
"Oh, of course not," said Mrs. Wiggin. "There's never been a decent Italian restaurant in Greensboro."
With that, the conversation turned to safe and meaningless topics. Bean took a certain relish in watching how Peter squirmed at the utter waste of time that such chitchat represented. I know more about your mother than you do, thought Bean. I have more respect for her.
But you're the one she loves.
Bean was annoyed to notice the envy in his own heart. Nobody's immune from those petty human emotions, he knew that. But somehow he had to learn how to distinguish between true observations and what his envy told him. Peter had to learn the same. The trust that Bean had given so easily to Mrs. Wiggin would have to be earned step by step between him and Peter. Why?
Because he and Peter were so alike. Because he and Peter were natural rivals. Because he and Peter could so easily be deadly enemies.
As I am a second Ender in his eyes, is he a second Achilles in mine? If there were no Achilles in the world, would I think of Peter as the evil I must destroy?
And if we do defeat Achilles together, will we then have to turn and fight each other, undoing all our triumphs, destroying everything we've built?
10
BROTHERS IN ARMS
To: RusFriend%
[email protected] From: VladDragon%slavnet.com
Re: allegiance
Let's make one thing clear. I never "joined" with Achilles. From all I could see, Achilles was speaking for Mother Russia. It was Mother Russia that I agreed to serve, and that is a decision I did not and do not regret. I believe the artificial divisions among the peoples of Greater Slavia serve only to keep any of us from achieving our potential in the world. In the chaos that has resulted from the exposure of Achilles' true nature, I would be glad of any opportunity to serve. The things I learned in Battle School could well make a difference to the future of our people. If my link with Achilles makes it impossible for me to be of service, so be it. But it would be a shame if we all suffered from that last act of sabotage by a psychopath. It is precisely now that I am most needed. Mother Russia will find no more loyal son than this one.
For Peter, the dinner at Leblon with his parents and Bean and Carlotta consisted of long periods of excruciating boredom interrupted by short passages of sheer panic. Nothing that anyone was saying mattered in the slightest. Because Bean was passing himself off as little more than a tourist visiting Ender's shrine, all anyone could talk about was Ender Ender Ender. But inevitably the conversation would skirt topics that were highly sensitive, things that might give away what Peter was really doing and the role that Bean might end up playing.
The worst was when Sister Carlotta--who, nun or not, clearly knew how to be a malicious bitch when she wanted to--began probing Peter about his studies at UNCG, even though she knew perfectly well that his schoolwork there was merely a cover for far more important matters. "I'm just surprised, I suppose, that you spend your time on a regular course of study when clearly you have abilities that should be used on a broader stage," she said.
"I need the degree, just like anyone else," said Peter, writhing inside.
"But why not study things that will prepare you to play a role on the great stage of world affairs?"
Ironically, it was Bean who rescued him. "Come now, Grandmother," he said. "A man of Peter Wiggin's ability is ready to do anything he wants, whenever he wants. Formal study is just busywork to him anyway. He's only doing it to prove to other people that he's able to live by the rules when he needs to. Right, Peter?"
"Close enough," Peter said. "I'm even less interested in my studies than you all are, and you shouldn't be interested in them at all."
"Well, if you hate it so much, why are we paying for tuition?" asked Father.
"We're not," Mother reminded him. "Peter has such a nice scholarship that they're paying him to attend there."
"Not getting their money's worth, though, are they?" said Father.
"They're getting what they want," said Bean. "For the rest of his life, whatever Peter here accomplishes, it will be mentioned that he studied at UNCG. He'll be a walking advertisement for them. I'd call that a pretty good return on investment, wouldn't you?"
The kid had mastered the kind of language Father understood--Peter had to credit Bean with knowing his audience when he spoke. Still, it annoyed Peter that Bean had so easily sussed what kind of idiots his parents were, and how easily they could be pandered to. It was as if, by pulling Peter's conversational irons out of the fire, Bean was rubbing it in about Peter's still being a child living at home, while Bean was out dealing with life more directly. It made Peter chafe all the more.
Only at the end of the dinner, as they left the Brazilian restaurant and headed for the Market/Holden station, did Bean drop his bombshell. "You know that since we've compromised ourselves here, we have to go back into hiding at once." Peter's parents made little noises of sympathy, and then Bean said, "What I was wondering was, why doesn't Peter go with us? Get out of Greensboro for a while? Would you like to, Peter? Do you have a passport?"
"No, he doesn't," said Mother, at exactly the same moment that Peter said, "Of course I do."
"You do?" asked Mother.
"Just in case," said Peter. He didn't add: I have six passports from four countries, as a matter of fact, and ten different bank identities with funds from my writing gigs socked away.
"But you're in the middle of a semester," said Father.
"I can take a leave whenever I want," said Peter. "It sounds interesting. Where are you going?"
"We don't know," said Bean. "We don't decide until the last minute. But we can email you and tell you where we are."
"Campus email addresses aren't secure," said Father helpfully.
"No email is really secure, is it?" asked Mother.
"It will be a coded message," said Bean. "Of course."
"It doesn't sound very sensible to me," said Father. "Peter may think his studies are just busywork, but in fact you have to have that degree just to get started in life. You need to stick to something long term and finish it, Peter. If your transcript shows that you did your education in fits and starts, that won't look good to the best companies."
"What career do you think I'm going to pursue?" Peter asked, annoyed. "Some kind of corporate dull bob?"
"I really hate it
when you use that ersatz Battle School slang," said Father. "You didn't go there, and it makes you sound like some kind of teenage wannabe."
"I don't know about that," said Bean, before Peter could blow up. "I was there, and I think that stuff is just part of the language. I mean, the word 'wannabe' was once slang, wasn't it? It can grow into the language just by people using it."
"It makes him sound like a kid," said Father, but it was just a parting shot, Father's pathetic need to have the last word.
Peter said nothing. But he wasn't grateful to Bean for taking his side. On the contrary, the kid really pissed him off. It's like Bean thought he could come into Peter's life and intervene between him and his parents like some kind of savior. It diminished Peter in his own eyes. None of the people who wrote to him or read his work as Locke or Demosthenes ever condescended to him, because they didn't know he was a kid. But the way Bean was acting was a warning of things to come. If Peter did come out under his real name, he would immediately have to start dealing with condescension. People who had once trembled at the idea of coming under Demosthenes' scrutiny, people who had once eagerly sought Locke's imprimatur, would now pooh-pooh anything Peter wrote, saying, Of course a child would think that way, or, more kindly but no less devastatingly, When he has more experience, he'll come to see that. . . . Adults were always saying things like that. As if experience actually had some correlation with increased wisdom; as if most of the stupidity in the world were not propounded by adults.
Besides, Peter couldn't help but feel that Bean was enjoying it, that he loved having Peter at such a disadvantage. Why had the little weasel gone to his house? Oh, pardon, to Ender's house, naturally. But he knew it was Peter's house, and to come home and find Bean sitting there talking to his mother, that was like catching a burglar in the act. He hadn't liked Bean from the beginning--especially not after the petulant way he walked off just because Peter didn't immediately answer the question he was asking. Admittedly, Peter had been teasing him a little, and there was an element of condescension about it--toying with the little kid before telling him what he wanted to know. But Bean's retaliation had gone way overboard. Especially this miserable dinner.
And yet . . .
Bean was the real thing. The best that Battle School had produced. Peter could use him. Peter might actually even need him, precisely because he could not yet afford to come out publicly as himself. Bean had the credibility despite his size and age, because he'd fought the fight. He could actually do things instead of having to pull strings in the background or try to manipulate government decisions by influencing public opinion. If Peter could secure some kind of working alliance with him, it might go a long way toward compensating for his impotence. If only Bean weren't so insufferably smug.
Can't let my personal feelings interfere with the work at hand.
"Tell you what," Peter said. "Mom and Dad, you've got stuff to do tomorrow, but my first class isn't till noon. Why don't I go with these two wherever they're spending the night and talk through the possibility of maybe taking a field trip with them."
"I don't want you just taking off and leaving your mother to worry about what's happening to you," said Father. "I think it's very clear to all of us that young Mr. Delphiki here is a trouble magnet, and I think your mother has lost enough children without having to worry about something even worse happening to you."
It made Peter cringe the way Father always talked as if it were only Mother who would be worried, only Mother who cared what happened to him. And if it was true--who could tell, with Father?--that was even worse. Either Father didn't care what happened to Peter, or he did care but was such a git that he couldn't admit it.
"I won't leave town without checking in with Mommy," said Peter.
"You don't need to be sarcastic," said Father.
"Dear," said Mother, "Peter isn't five, to be rebuked in front of company." Which, of course, made him seem to be maybe six years old. Thanks so much for helping, Mom.
"Aren't families complicated?" said Sister Carlotta.
Oh, thanks, thou holy bitch, said Peter silently. You and Bean are the ones who complicated the situation, and now you make smug little comments about how much better it is for unconnected people like you. Well, these parents are my cover. I didn't pick them, but I have to use them. And for you to mock my situation only shows your ignorance. And, probably, your envy, seeing how you are never going to have children or even get laid in your whole life, Mrs. Jesus.
"Poor Peter has the worst of both worlds," said Mother. "He's the oldest, so he was always held to a higher standard, and yet he's the last of our children left at home, which means he also gets babied more than he can bear. It's so awful, the fact that parents are mere human beings and constantly make mistakes. I think sometimes Peter wishes he had been raised by robots."
Which made Peter want to slide right down into the sidewalk and spend the rest of his life as an invisible patch of concrete. I converse with spies and military officers, with political leaders and power brokers--and my mother still has the power to humiliate me at will!
"Do what you want," said Father. "It's not like you're a minor. We can't stop you."
"We could never stop him from doing what he wanted even when he was a minor," said Mother.
Damn right, thought Peter.
"The curse of having children who are smarter than you," said Father, "is that they think their superior rational process is enough to compensate for their lack of experience."
If I were a little brat like Bean, that comment would have been the last straw. I would have walked away and not come home for a week, if ever. But I'm not a child and I can control my personal resentments and do what's expedient. I'm not going to throw off my camouflage out of pique.
At the same time, I can't be faulted, can I, for wondering if there's any chance that my father might have a stroke and go permanently mute.
They were at the station. With a round of good-byes, Father and Mother took the bus north toward home, and Peter got on an east-bound bus with Bean and Carlotta.
And, as Peter expected, they got off at the first stop and crossed over to catch the westbound bus. They really made a religion out of paranoia.
Even when they got back to the airport hotel, they did not enter the building. Instead they walked through the shopping mall that had once been a parking garage back when people drove cars to the airport. "Even if they bug the mall," said Bean, "I doubt they can afford the manpower to listen to everything people say."
"If they're bugging your room," said Peter, "that means they're already on to you."
"Hotels routinely bug their rooms," said Bean. "To catch vandals and criminals in the act. It's a computer scan, but nothing stops the employees from listening in."
"This is America," said Peter.
"You spend way too much time thinking about global affairs," said Bean. "If you ever do have to go underground, you won't have a clue how to survive."
"You're the one who invited me to join you in hiding," said Peter. "What was that nonsense about? I'm not going anywhere. I have too much work to do."
"Ah, yes," said Bean. "Pulling the world's strings from behind a curtain. The trouble is, the world is about to move from politics to war, and your strings are going to be snipped."
"It's still politics."
"But the decisions are made on the battlefield, not in the conference rooms."
"I know," said Peter. "That's why we should work together."
"I can't think why," said Bean. "The one thing I asked you for--information about where Petra is--you tried to sell me instead of just giving it to me. Doesn't sound like you want an ally. Sounds like you want a customer."
"Boys," said Sister Carlotta. "Bickering isn't how this is going to work."
"If it's going to work," said Peter, "it's going to work however Bean and I make it work. Between us."
Sister Carlotta stopped cold, grabbed Peter's shoulder, and drew him close. "Get this straight right
now, you arrogant twit. You're not the only brilliant person in the world, and you're far from being the only one who thinks he pulls all the strings. Until you have the courage to come out from behind the veil of these ersatz personalities, you don't have much to offer those of us who are working in the real world."
"Don't ever touch me like that again," said Peter.
"Oh, the personage is sacred?" said Sister Carlotta. "You really do live on Planet Peter, don't you?"
Bean interrupted before Peter could answer the bitch. "Look, we gave you everything we had on Ender's jeesh, no strings attached."
"And I used it. I got most of them out, and pretty damn fast, too."
"But not the one who sent the message," said Bean. "I want Petra."
"And I want world peace," said Peter. "You think too small."
"I may think too small for you," said Bean, "but you think too small for me. Playing your little computer games, juggling stories back and forth--well, my friend trusted me and asked me for help. She was trapped with a psychopathic killer and she doesn't have anyone but me who cares a rat's ass what happens to her."
"She has her family," murmured Sister Carlotta. Peter was pleased to learn that she corrected Bean, too. An all-purpose bitch.
"You want to save the world, but you're going to have to do it one battle at a time, one country at a time. And you need people like me, who get our hands dirty," said Bean.
"Oh, spare me your delusions," said Peter. "You're a little boy in hiding."
"I'm a general who's between armies," said Bean. "If I weren't, you wouldn't be talking to me."
"And you want an army so you can go rescue Petra," said Peter.
"So she's alive?"
"How would I know?"
"I don't know how you'd know. But you know more than you're telling me, and if you don't give me what you have, right now, you arrogant oomay, I'm done with you, I'll leave you here playing your little net games, and go find somebody who's not afraid to come out of Mama's house and take some risks."
Peter was almost blind with rage.
For a moment.
And then he calmed himself, forced himself to stand outside the situation. What was Bean showing him? That he cared more for personal loyalty than for longterm strategy. That was dangerous, but not fatal. And it gave Peter leverage, knowing what Bean cared about more than personal advancement.