Shadow Puppets

CHAPTER NINETEEN

FAREWELLS

To: Porto%Aberto@BateRopo.org

From: Locke%erasmus@polnet.gov

Re: Ripe

Encryption seed:[?]

Decryption key:

Is this Bean or Petra? Or both?

After all his subtle strategies and big surprises, it was a petty murder attempt that tagged him. I don't know if the news of the shooting down of an IF shuffle even penetrated the war coverage where you are, but he thought I was aboard. I wasn't, but the Chinese named him as the smoke, and suddenly the IF has legal basis for an Earthside operation. The Brazilian government is cooperating, has the compound on lockdown,

The only trouble is, the compound seems to be defended by your little army. We want to do this without loss of life, but you trained your soldiers very well, and Suri doesn't respond to my feeble attempts to contact him. Before left, he seemed to be in Achilles's pocket. That might have been protective coloration, but who knows what happened on that return trip from China?

Achilles has a way of getting to people. An Indian officer at MinCol who had known Graff for years was the one who fingered me for the shuttle, because the fact that his family was in a camp in China was used to control him, Does Achilles have a way to control Suri? If Suri commands the soldiers to protect Achilles, will they?

Would it make a difference if you were there? I will be there, but I'm afraid I never quite trusted your assurance that the soldiers would absolutely obey me. I have a feeling that I lost face when I fled the compound. But you know them, I don't.

Your advice would be appreciated. Your presence would be very helpful. I will understand if you choose to provide neither. You owe nothing to me-you were right when I was wrong, and I jeopardized everybody. But at this point, I'd like to do this without killing any of your soldiers, and especially without being killed myself-I wouldn't want to pretend my motives are entirely altruistic. I have no choice but to be there myself. If I'm not on the ground for the penetration of the compound, I can kiss my future as Hegemon good-bye.

Meanwhile, the Chinese don't seem to be doing so well, do they? My congratulations to the Caliph. I hope he will be more generous to his conquered foes than the Chinese were.

Petra found it hard to concentrate on her search of the nets. It was too tempting to switch to the news stories about the war. It was the genetic disease that the doctors had found in her as a child, the disease that sent her into space to spend her formative years in Battle School. She just couldn't leave war alone. Appalling as it was, combat still held irresistible allure. The contest of two armies, each striving for mastery, with no rules except those forced on them by the limitations of their forces and their fear of reprisal in kind.

Bean had insisted that they search for some signal from Achilles. It seemed absurd to her, but Bean was positive that Achilles wanted them to come to him.

"He's on his last legs," said Bean. "Everything's turned against him. He thought he'd positioned himself to take my place. Then he reached too far in shooting down that shuttle, just at the moment that the Crescent League pulled China out from under him. He can't go back there, can't even leave Ribeirao. So he's going to make whatever plays he has left to make. We're loose ends. He doesn't want to leave us dangling. So... he's going to call us in."

"Let's not go," Petra had said then, but Bean only laughed. "If I thought you meant that," he said, "I might consider it. But I know you don't. He has our babies. He knows we'll come."

Maybe they would and maybe they wouldn't. What good would it do those embryos if their parents walked into a trap and died?

And it would be a trap. Not a fair trade, not a bargain, my freedom for your babies. No, Achilles was not capable of that, not even to save his own life. Bean had trapped him once before, forced a confession out of him, which led to his being put in a mental institution. He'd never go back there again. Like Napoleon, he'd escaped from one captivity, but from the next there'd be no more escaping. So he wouldn't go. That much both Bean and Petra agreed on. He would only summon them to kill them.

Yet still she searched, wondering how they'd even know when they found what they were looking for.

And while she searched, the war kept drawing her The campaign in Xinjiang had already moved eastward into the fringes of Han China. The Persians and Pakistanis were on the verge of encircling both halves of the Chinese army in western India.

The news about the Indonesians and Arabs operating inside China was a little more oblique. The Chinese were complaining loudly about Muslim paratroopers performing terrorist attacks inside China, and threatening that they would be treated as spies and war criminals when they were caught. The caliph responded immediately by declaring that these were regular troops, in uniform, and the only thing that bothered the Chinese was that the war they had been so willing to inflict on others had finally come home. "We will hold every level of the Chinese military and the Chinese government personally and individually responsible for each crime against our captured soldiers."

That was the language that only the presumed victors could afford to use, but the Chinese clearly took it to heart, immediately announcing that they had been completely misunderstood, and any soldiers found to be in uniform would be treated as prisoners.

To Petra, though, the most entertaining aspect of the Chinese posturing was that they kept referring to the Indonesian and Arab troops as paratroopers. They simply could not believe that troops landed on the coasts had got so far inland so quickly.

And one other little bit of information. One of the American newsnets had a commentary by a retired general who almost certainly was being given briefings about what American spy satellites were showing. What caught Petra's attention was when he said, "What I can't understand is why the Chinese troops that were moved out of India a few days ago, to meet the threat in Xinjiang, are not being used in Xinjiang or being sent back into India. Fully a quarter of the Chinese military is just sitting there not being used."

Petra showed this to Bean, who smiled. "Verlomi is very good. She's pinned them down for three days. How long before the Chinese army inside India simply runs out of ammunition?"

"You can't really start a betting pool with just the two of us," said Petra.

"Stop watching the war and get back to work."

"Why wait for Achilles to send this signal that I still don't think he's going to send?" asked Petra. "Why not just accept Peter's invitation and join him for the storming of the compound?

"Because if Achilles thinks he's luring us into a trap, he'll let us get inside without firing a shot. Nobody dies."

"Except us."

"First, Petra, there's no us. You're a pregnant woman, and I don't care how brilliant you are at military affairs, I can't possibly deal with Achilles if the woman who's carrying my baby is standing there in jeopardy."

"So I'm supposed to sit outside watching, not knowing what's going on, whether you're alive or dead?"

"Do we have to have the argument about how I'm going to die in a few years anyway, and you're not, and if I'm dead but we rescue the embryos you can still have babies, but if you're dead, we can't even have the baby you've already got inside you?"

"No, we don't have to have that argument," said Petra angrily.

"And second, you won't be sitting outside watching, because you'll be here in Damascus, following the war news and reading the Q'uran."

"Or clawing my own eyes out in the agony of not knowing. You'd really leave me here?"

"Achilles himself may be trapped inside the Hegemony compound, but he has people to run his errands everywhere. I doubt that many of them were lost when the China connection dried up. If it dried up. I don't want you leaving here because it would be just like Achilles to kill you long before you came anywhere near the compound."

"So why don't you think he'll kill you?"

"Because he wants me to watch the babies die."

Petra couldn't help it. She burst into tears and bowed over her desk.

"I'm sorry," said Bean. "I didn't mean to make you-"

"Of course you didn't mean to make me cry," said Petra. "I didn't mean to cry, either Just ignore this."

"I can't ignore it," said Bean. "I can barely understand what you're saying, and you're about to drip snot on your desk."

"It's not snot!" Petra shouted at him, then touched her nose and discovered that it was. She sniffed and then laughed and ran into the bathroom and blew her nose and finished crying by herself.

When she came out, Bean was lying on the bed, his eyes closed.

"I'm sorry," said Petra.

"I'm sorrier," said Bean softly.

"I know you have to go alone. I know I have to stay here. I know all of that, but I hate it, that's all."

Bean nodded.

"So why aren't you searching the nets?"

"Because the message just came."

She walked over to his desk and looked into the display. Bean had connected to an auction site, and there it was:

Wanted: A good womb. Five human embryos ready for implantation. Battle-Schoolgraduate parents, died in tragic accident. Estate needs to dispose of them immediately. Likely to be extraordinarily brilliant children. Trust fund will be set up for each child successfully implanted and brought to term. Applicants must prove they do not need the money. Top five bidders will have their funds held in escrow by certified accounting firm, pending evaluation.

"Did you reply?" asked Petra. "Or bid?"

"I sent an inquiry in which I suggested that I'd like to have all five, and I'll pick them up in person. I told him to reply to one of my dead drop sites."

"And you're not checking your mail to see if your dead drop has forwarded anything yet?"

"Petra, I'm scared."

"That's a relief. It suggests you aren't insane."

"He's the best survivor I've ever known. He'll have a way out of this..."

"No," said Petra. "You're a survivor. He's a killer"

"He's not dead," said Bean. "That makes him a survivor"

"Nobody's been trying to kill him for half his life," said Petra. "His survival is no big deal. You've had a pathological killer on your trail for years, and yet here you are."

"It's not so much that I'm afraid of him killing me," said Bean, "though I don't find it an appealing way to go. I still plan to die by growing so tall I'm hit by a low-flying plane."

"I'm not playing your macabre little how-I'd-like-to-die game."

"But if he does kill me, and then gets out of there alive somehow, what will happen to you?"

"He won't get out of there alive."

"So maybe not. But what if I'm dead, and all the babies are dead?"

"I'll have this one."

"You'll wish you hadn't loved me. I still haven't figured out why you do."

"I'll never wish I hadn't loved you, and I'll always be glad that after I pestered you long enough, you finally decided you loved me too."

"Don't let anybody call the kid by some stupid nickname based on how small she is."

"No legume names?"

The incoming-mail icon flashed on his desk. "You've got mail," said Petra.

Bean sighed, sat up, slid over onto the chair, and opened the letter

My oldest friend. I have five little presents with your name written all over them, and not much time left in which to give them to you. I wish you trusted me more, because I've never meant you any harm, but I know you don't, and so you are free to bring an armed escort with you. Well meet in the open air, the east garden. The east gate will be open. You and the first five with you can come in; any more than that try to come in and you'll all be shot.

I don't know where you are, so I don't know how long it will take for you to get here. When you come, I'll have your property in a refrigerated container, good for six hours at the right temperature. If one of your escort is a specialist with a microscope, you are free to examine the specimens on the spot, and then have the specialist carry them out.

But I hope you and I can chat for a while about old times. Reminisce about the good old days, when we brought civilization to the streets of Rotterdam. We've been down a good long road since then. Changed the world, both of us. Me more than you, kid. Eat your heart out,

Of course, you married the only woman I ever loved, so maybe things balance out in the end.

Naturally, our conversation will be more pleasant if it ends with you taking me out of the compound and giving me safe passage to a place of my own choosing. But I realize that may not be within your power. We really are limited creatures, we geniuses. We know what's best for everybody, but we still don't get our way until we can persuade the lesser creatures to do our bidding. They just don't understand how much happier they'd be if they stopped thinking for themselves. They're so unequipped for it.

Relax, Bean. That was a joke. Or an indecorous truth. Often the same thing.

Give Petra a kiss for me. Let me know when to open the gate.

"Does he really expect you to believe that he'll just let you take the babies?"

"Well, he does imply a swap for his freedom," said Bean.

"The only swap he implies is your life for theirs," said Petra.

"Oh," said Bean. "Is that how you read it?"

"That's what he's saying and you know it. He expects the two of you to die together, right there."

"The real question," said Bean, "is whether he'll really have the embryos there."

"For all we know," said Petra, "they're in a lab in Moscow or Johannesburg or already in the garbage somewhere in Ribeirao."

"Now who's the grim one?"

"It's obvious that he wasn't able to place them out for implantation. So to him they represent failure. They have no value now. Why should he give them to you?"

"I didn't say I'd accept his terms," said Bean.

"But you will."

"The hardest thing about a kidnapping is always the swap, ransom for hostage. Somebody always has to trust somebody, and give up their piece before they've received what the other one has. But this case is really weird, because he's not really asking for anything from me."

"Except your death."

"But he knows I'm dying anyway. It all seems so pointless."

"He's insane, Julian. Haven't you heard?"

"Yes, but his thinking makes sense inside his own head. I mean, he's not schizophrenic, he sees the same reality as the rest of us. He's not delusional. He's just pathologically conscience-free. So how does he see this playing out? Will he just shoot me as I come in? Or will he let me win, maybe even let me kill him, only the joke's on me because the embryos he gives me aren't ours, they're from the tragic mating of two really dumb people. Perhaps two journalists."

"You're joking about this, Bean, and I-"

"I have to catch the next flight. If you think of anything else that I should know, email me, I'll check in at least once before I go in and see the lad."

"He doesn't have them," said Petra. "He already gave them out to his cronies."

"Quite possible."

"Don't go."

"Not possible."

"Bean, you're smarter than he is, but his advantage is, he's more brutal than you are.

"Don't count on it," said Bean.

"Don't you realize that I know both of you better than anyone else in the world?"

"And no matter how well we think we know people, the fact is we're all strangers in the end."

"Oh, Bean, tell me you don't believe that."

"It's self-evident truth."

"I know you!" she insisted.

"No. You don't. But that's all right, because I don't really know me either, let alone you. We never understand anybody, not even ourselves. But Petra, shh, listen. What we've done is, we've created something else. This marriage. It consists of the two of us, and we've become something else together. That's what we know. Not me, not you, but what we are, who we are together Sister Carlotta quoted somebody in the Bible about how a man and a woman marry and they become one flesh. Very mystical and borderline weird. But in a way it's true. And when I die, you won't have Bean, but you'll still have Petra-with-Bean, Bean-with-Petra, whatever we call this new creature that we've made."

"So all those months I spent with Achilles, did we build some disgusting monstrous Petra-with-Achilles thing? Is that what you're saying?"

"No," said Bean. "Achilles doesn't build things. He just finds them, admires them, and tears them apart. There is no Achilles-withanybody. He's just... empty."

"So what happened to that theory of Ender's, that you have to know your enemy in order to beat him?"

"Still true."

"But if you can't know anybody..."

"It's imaginary," said Bean. "Ender wasn't crazy, so he knew it was just imaginary. You try to see the world through your enemy's eyes, so you can see what it all means to him. The better you do at it, the more time you spend in the world as he sees it, the more you understand how he views things, how he explains to himself the things he does."

"And you've done that with Achilles."

"Yes."

"So you think you know what he's going to do."

"I have a short list of things I expect."

"And what if you're wrong? Because that's the one certainty in all of this-that whatever you think Achilles is going to do, you're wrong."

"That's his specialty."

"So your short list..."

"Well, see, the way I made my list, I thought of all the things I thought he might do, and then I didn't put any of those on my list, I only put on the things I didn't think he'd do."

"That'll work," said Petra.

"Might," said Bean.

"Hold me before you go," she said.

He did.

"Petra, you think you aren't going to see me again. But I'm pretty sure you are."

"Do you realize how it scares me that you're only pretty sure?"

"I could die of appendicitis in the plane on the way to Ribeirao. I'm never more than pretty sure of anything."

"Except that I love you."

"Except that we love each other."

Bean's flight was the normal misery of hours in a confined space. But at least he was flying west, so the jet lag wasn't as debilitating. He thought he might just go directly in as soon as he arrived, but thought better of it. He needed to think clearly. To be able to improvise and act quickly on impulse. He needed to sleep.

Peter was waiting for him at the doorway of the airplane. Being Hegemon gives you a few privileges denied to other people in airports.

Peter led him down the stairs instead of out the jetway, and they got in a car that drove them directly to the hotel that had been set up as the IF command post. IF soldiers were at every entrance, and Peter assured him there were sharpshooters in every surrounding building, and in this one, too.

"So," said Peter, when they were alone in Bean's room, "what's the plan?"

"You sound as if you think I have one," said Bean.

"Not even a goal?"

"Oh, I have two goals," said Bean. "I promised Petra right after he stole our embryos that I'd get them back for her, and that I'd kill Achilles in the process."

"And you have no idea how you'll do that."

"Some. But nothing I plan will work anyway, so I don't let myself get too attached to any of them."

"Achilles really isn't that important now," said Peter "I mean, he's important because in essence everyone inside that compound is his hostage, but on the world stage-he's lost all his influence. Went up in smoke when he shot down that shuttle and the Chinese disavowed him."

Bean shook his head. "Do you really think, if he gets out of this alive, he won't be back at his old games? You think he won't have any takers for his medicine show?"

"I suppose there's no shortage of government people with dreams of power he can seduce them with, or fears that he can exploit."

"Peter, I'm here so he can torment me and then kill me. That's why I'm here. His purpose. His goal."

"Well, if this is the only plan, then..."

"That's right, Peter. He's the one with the plan this time. And I'm the one who can surprise him by not doing what he expects."

"All right," said Peter "I'm in."

"What?"

"You've convinced me. I'm in."

"You're in what?"

"I'm going in the gate with you."

"No you're not."

"I'm Hegemon. I'm not standing outside while you go in and save my people."

"He'll be very happy to kill you along with me."

"You first."

"No, you first."

"Whatever," said Peter. "You're not getting through that gate unless I'm one of your five."

"Look, Peter," said Bean. "The reason we're in this predicament is that you think you're smarter than everybody else, so no matter what advice you get, you go off half-cocked and do something astonishingly dumb."

"But I stay around to pick up the pieces."

"I give you credit for that."

"I won't do anything you don't tell me to," said Peter. "It's your show."

"I need to have all five of my escort be highly trained soldiers."

"No you don't," said Peter "Because if there's any shooting, five won't be enough anyway. So you have to count on there being no shooting. So I might as well be one of the five."

"But I don't want to die with you beside me," said Bean.

"Fine with me, I don't want to die beside you, either"

"You have another seventy or eighty years ahead of you. You're going to gamble with that? Me, I'm just playing with house money."

"You're the best, Bean," said Peter.

"That was in school. What armies have I commanded since then? Other people are doing all the fighting now. I'm not the best, I'm retired."

"You don't retire from your own mind."

"People retire from their minds all the time. What won't let you alone is your reputation."

"Well, I love arguing philosophy with you," said Peter abruptly, "but you need your sleep and I need mine. See you at the east gate in the morning."

In a moment he was out the door

So what was that sudden departure about?

Bean had the sneaking suspicion that maybe Peter finally believed him that he didn't have a plan and had no guarantee of winning. Not even, in fact, a decent chance of winning, if by winning he meant an outcome in which Bean was alive, Achilles was dead, and Bean had the babies. No doubt Peter had to run and get a life insurance policy. Or drum up some last minute emergency that would absolutely prevent him from going through the gate with Bean after all. "So sorry, I wish I were going with you, but you'll do fine, I know it."

Bean thought he'd have trouble getting to sleep, what with the catnaps he got on the plane and the tension of tomorrow's events preying on his mind.

So naturally he fell asleep so fast he didn't even remember turning off the light.

In the morning, Bean got up and posted a message to Achilles, naming a time about an hour later for their meeting. Then he wrote a brief note to Petra, just so she'd know he was thinking of her in case this was the last day of his life. Then another note to his parents, and one to Nikolai. At least if he managed to bring Achilles down with him, they'd be safe. That was something.

He walked downstairs to find Peter already waiting beside the IF car that would take them to the perimeter that had been established around the compound. They rode in near silence, because there was really nothing more to say.

At the perimeter, near the east gate, Bean found out very quickly that Peter hadn't lied-the IF was standing behind his determination to go in with Bean's group. Well, that was fine. Bean didn't really need his companions to do much.

As he had requested before leaving Damascus, the IF had a uniformed doctor, two highly trained sharpshooters, and a fully equipped hazard squad, one of whom was to come in with Bean's party.

"Achilles will have a container that purports to be a transport refrigerator for a half dozen frozen embryos," Bean said to the hazardist. "If I have you carry it outside, then that means I'm sure it's a bomb or contains some toxin, and I want it treated that way-even if I say something different inside there. If it turns out to have been embryos after all, well, that's my own mistake, and I'll explain it to my wife. If I have the doctor here carry it, that means I'm sure it's the embryos, and the package is to be treated that way."

"And what if you're not sure?" asked Peter"

"l'll be sure," said Bean, "or I won't give it to anybody."

"Why don't you just carry it yourself?" asked the hazardist, "and tell us what to do when it gets outside?"

Peter answered for him. "Mr. Delphiki doesn't expect to get back out alive."

"My goal for all four of you," said Bean, "is for you to walk out of there uninjured. There's no chance of that if you start shooting, for any reason. That's why none of you is going to carry a loaded weapon."

They looked at him as if he were insane.

"I'm not going in there unarmed," said one of the other men.

"Fine," said Bean. "Then there'll be one less. He didn't say I had to bring five."

"Technically," said Peter to the other sharpshooter, "you won't be unarmed. Just unloaded. So they'll treat you as if did have bullets, because they won't know you don't."

"I'm a soldier, not a sap," said the man, and he walked away.

"Anybody else?" said Bean.

In answer, the other sharpshooter took the full clip out of his weapon, popped out the bullets one by one, and then ejected the first bullet from the chamber

"I don't carry a weapon anyway," said the doctor

"Don't need a loaded pistol to carry a bomb," said the hazardist.

With a slim plastic .22-caliber pistol already tucked into the back of his pants, Bean was now the only person in his party with a loaded gun.

"I guess we re ready to go," said Bean.

It was a dazzling tropical morning as they stepped through the gate into the east garden. Birds in all the trees ranted their calls as if they were trying to memonze something and just couldn't get it to stick. There was not a soul in sight.

Bean wasn't going to wander around searching for Achilles. He definitely wasn't going to get far from the gate. So, about ten paces in, he stopped. So did the others.

And they waited.

It didn't take long. A soldier in the Hegemony uniform stepped out into the open. Then another, and another, until the fifth soldier appeared.

Suriyawong.

He gave no sign of recognition. Rather he looked right past both Bean and Peter as if they were nothing to him.

Achilles stepped out behind them-but stayed close to the trees, so he wouldn't be too easy a target for sharpshooters. He was carrying, as promised, a small transport fridge.

"Bean," he said with a smile. "My how you've grown.

Bean said nothing.

"Oh, we aren't in a jesting mood," he said. "I'm not either, really. It's almost a sentimental moment for me, to see you again. To see you as a man. Considering I knew you when you were this high."

He held out the transport fridge. "Here they are, Bean."

"You're just going to give them to me?"

"I don't really have a use for them. There weren't any takers in the auction."

"Volescu went to a lot of trouble to get these for you," said Bean.

"What trouble? He bribed a guard. Using my money.

"How did you get Volescu to help you, anyway?" asked Bean.

"He owed me," said Achilles. "I'm the one who got him out of jail. I got our brilliant Hegemon here to give me authority to authorize the release of prisoners whose crimes had ceased to be crimes. He didn't make the connection that I'd be releasing your creator into the wild." Achilles grinned at Peter.

Peter said nothing.

"You trained these men well, Bean," said Achilles. "Being with them is like... well, it's like being with my family again. Like on the streets, you know?"

Bean said nothing.

"Well, all right, you don't want to chat, so take the embryos."

Bean remembered one very important fact. Achilles didn't care about killing his victims with his own hands. It was enough for him that they die, whether he was present or not.

Bean turned to the hazardist. "Would you do me a favor and take this just outside the gate? I want to stay and talk with Achilles for a couple of minutes."

The hazardist walked up to Achilles and took the transport fridge from him. "Is it fragile?" he asked.

Achilles answered, "It's very securely packed and padded, but don't play football with it."

In only a few steps, he was out the gate.

"So what did you want to talk about?" asked Achilles.

"A couple of little questions I'm curious about."

"I'll listen. Maybe I'll answer"

"Back in Hyderabad. There was a Chinese officer who knocked you unconscious to break our stalemate."

"Oh, is that who did it?"

"Whatever happened to him?"

"I'm not sure. I think his chopper was shot down in combat only a few days later"

"Oh," said Bean. "Too bad. I wanted to ask him what it felt like to hit you."

"Really, Bean, aren't we both too old for that sort of gibe?"

Outside the gate there was a muffled explosion.

Achilles looked around, startled. "What was that?"

"I'm pretty sure," said Bean, "that it was an explosion."

"Of what?"

"Of the bomb you just tried to give me," said Bean. "Inside a containment chamber."

Achilles tried, for a moment, to look innocent. "I don't know what you..."

Then he apparently realized there was no point in feigning ignorance when the thing had just exploded. He pulled the remote detonator out of his pocket, pressed the button a couple of times. "Damn all this modern technology, nothing ever works right." He grinned at Bean. "Got to give me credit for trying."

"So... do you have the embryos or not?" asked Bean.

"They're inside, safe," said Achilles.

Bean knew that was a lie. In fact, he had decided yesterday that it was most likely the embryos had never been brought here at all.

But he'd get more mileage out of this by pretending to believe Achilles. And there was always the chance that it wasn't a lie.

"Show me," Bean said.

"You have to come inside, then," said Achilles.

"OK."

"That'll take us outside the range of the sharpshooters you no doubt have all around the compound, waiting to shoot me down."

"And inside the range of whoever you have waiting for me there."

"Bean. Be realistic. You're dead whenever I want you dead."

"Well, that's not strictly true," said Bean. "You've wanted me dead a lot more often than I've died."

Achilles grinned. "Do you know what Poke was saying just before she had that accident and fell into the Rhine?"

Bean said nothing.

"She was saying that I shouldn't hold a grudge against you for telling her to kill me when we first met. He's just a little kid, she said. He didn't know what he was saying."

Still, Bean said nothing.

"I wish I could tell you Sister Carlotta's last words, but... you know how collateral damage is in wartime. You just don't get any warning."

"The embryos," said Bean. "You said you were going to show me where they are."

"All right then," said Achilles. "Follow me.

As soon as Achilles's back was turned, the doctor looked at Bean and frantically shook his head.

"It's all right," Bean told the doctor and the other soldier "You can go on out. You won't be needed any more."

Achilles turned back around. "You're letting your escort go?"

"Except for Peter," said Bean. "He insists on staying with me.

"I didn't hear him say that," said Achilles. "I mean, he seemed so eager to get away when he left this place, I thought for sure he didn't want to see it again."

"I'm trying to figure out how you were able to fool so many people," said Peter.

"But I'm not trying to fool you," said Achilles. "Though I can see how someone like you would long to find a really masterful liar to study with." Laughing, Achilles turned his back again, and led the way toward the main office building.

Peter came closer to Bean as they followed him inside. "Are you sure you know what you're doing?" he asked quietly.

"I told you before, I have no idea."

Once inside, they were indeed confronted by another dozen soldiers. Bean knew them all by name. But he said nothing to them, and none of them met his gaze or showed any sign that they knew him.

What does Achilles want? thought Bean. His first plan was to send me out of the compound with a remote-controlled bomb, so it's not as if he planned to keep me alive. Now he's got me surrounded by soldiers, and doesn't tell them to shoot.

Achilles turned around and faced him. "Bean," he said. "I can't believe you didn't make some kind of arrangement for me to get out of here."

"Is that why you tried to blow me up?" asked Bean.

"That was when I believed you'd try to kill me as soon as you thought you had the embryos. Why didn't you?"

"Because I knew I didn't have the embryos."

"Do you and Petra already think of them as your children? Have you named them yet?"

"There's no arrangement to get you out of here, Achilles, because there's no place for you to go. The only people that still had any use for you are busy getting their butts kicked by a bunch of pissed-off Muslims. You saw to it that you couldn't go anywhere in space when you shot down that shuttle."

"In all fairness, Bean, you have to remember that nobody was supposed to know it was me who did it. But someone really should tell me-why wasn't Peter on that shuttle? I suppose somebody caught my informant." He looked back and forth from Peter to Bean, looking for an answer.

Bean did not confirm or deny. Peter, too, kept his silence. What if Achilles lived through this somehow? Why bring down Achilles's wrath on a man who already had enough trouble in his life?

"But if you caught my informant," said Achilles, "why in the world would Chamrajnagar-or Graff, if it was him-launch the shuttle anyway? Was catching me doing something naughty so important they'd risk a shuttle and its crew just to catch me? I find that quite flattering. Sort of like winning the Nobel Prize for scariest villain."

"I think," said Bean, "that you don't have the embryos at all. I think you dispersed them as soon as you got them. I think you already had them implanted in surrogates."

"Wrong," said Achilles. He reached inside his pants pocket and took out a small container Exactly like the ones in which the embryos had been frozen. "I brought one along, just to show you. Of course, he's probably thawed quite a bit. My body heat and all that. What do you think? Do we still have time to get this little sucker implanted in somebody? Petra's already pregnant. I hear, so you can't use her. I know! Peter's mother! She always likes to be so helpful, and she's used to giving birth to geniuses. Here, Peter, catch!"

He tossed the container toward Peter, but too hard, so it sailed over Peter's upstretched hands and hit the floor. It didn't break, but instead rolled and rolled.

"Aren't you going to get it?" Achilles asked Bean.

Bean shrugged. He walked over to where the container had come to rest. The liquid inside it sloshed. Fully thawed.

He stepped on it, broke it, ground it under his foot.

Achilles whistled. "Wow. You are some disciplinarian. Your kids can't get away with anything with you."

Bean walked toward Achilles.

"Now, Bean, I can see how you might be irritated at me, but I never claimed to be an athlete. When did I have a chance to play ball, will you tell me that? You grew up where I did. I can't help it that I don't know how to throw accurately."

He was still affecting his ironic tone of voice, but Bean could see that Achilles was afraid now. He had been expecting Bean to beg, or grieve-something that would keep him off balance and give control to Achilles. But Bean was seeing things through Achilles's eyes now, and he understood: You do whatever your enemy can't believe that you would even think of doing. You just do it.

Bean reached into the butt holster that rode inside his pants, hanging from the waistband, and pulled out the flat .22-caliber pistol concealed there. He pointed it at Achilles's right eye, then the left.

Achilles took a couple of steps backward. "You can't kill me," he said. "You don't know where the embryos are.

"I know you don't have them," said Bean, "and that I'm not going to get them without letting you go. And I'm not letting you go. So I guess that means the embryos are forever lost to me. Why should you go on living?"

"Suri," said Achilles. "Are you asleep?"

Suriyawong pulled his long knife from its sheath.

"That's not what's needed here," said Achilles. "He has a gun."

"Hold still, Achilles," said Bean. "Take it like a man. Besides, if I miss, you might live through it and spend the rest of your days as a brain-damaged shell of a man. We want this to be nice and clean and final, don't we?"

Achilles pulled another vial out of his pockets. "This is the real thing, Bean." He reached out his hand, offering it. "You killed one, but there are still the other four."

Bean slapped it out of his hand. This one broke when it hit the floor.

"Those are your children you're killing!" cried Achilles.

"I know you," said Bean. "I know that you would never promise me something you could actually deliver."

"Suriyawong!" shouted Achilles. "Shoot him!"

"Sir," said Suriyawong.

It was the first sound he'd made since Bean came through the east gate.

Suriyawong knelt down, laid his knife on the smooth floor, and slid it toward Achilles until it rested at his feet.

"What's this supposed to be?" demanded Achilles.

"The loan of a knife," said Suriyawong.

"But he has a gun!" cried Achilles.

"I expect you to solve your own problems," said Suriyawong, "without getting any of my men killed."

"Shoot him!" cried Achilles. "I thought you were my friend."

"I told you from the start," said Suriyawong. "I serve the Hegemon." And with that, Suriyawong turned his back on Achilles.

So did all the other soldiers.

Now Bean understood why Suriyawong had worked so hard to earn Achilles's trust: so that at this moment of crisis, Suri was in a position to betray him.

Achilles laughed nervously. "Come on now, Bean. We've known each other a long time." He had backed up against a wall. He tried to lean against it. But his legs were a little wobbly and he started to slide down the wall. "I know you, Bean," he said. "You can't just kill a man in cold blood, no matter how much you hate him. It's not in you to do that."

"Yes it is," said Bean.

He aimed the pistol down at Achilles's right eye and pulled the trigger. The eye snapped shut from the wind of the bullet passing between the eyelids and from the obliteration of the eye itself. His head rocked just a little from the force of the little bullet entering, but not leaving.

Then he slumped over and sprawled out on the floor. Dead.

It didn't bring back Poke, or Sister Carlotta, or any of the other people he had killed. It didn't change the nations of the world back to the way they were before Achilles started making them his building blocks, to break apart and put together however he wanted. It didn't end the wars Achilles had started. It didn't make Bean feel any better. There was no joy in vengeance, and precious little in justice, either.

But there was this: Achilles would never kill again.

That was all Bean could ask of a little .22.