the Dragon soldiers to Rabbit?" For a moment, Bean allowed himself to hope that it would be Nikolai. He could use a reliable friend.
No such luck.
"No, a Dragon soldier would be a veteran! I mean this guy is new. He just got to Battle School yesterday afternoon and he was assigned here last night, after you came by."
"A launchy? Assigned straight to an army?"
"Oh, we asked him about that, and he's had a lot of the same classwork. He went through a bunch of surgeries down on Earth, and he studied through it all, but - "
"You mean he's recovering from surgery, too?"
"No, he walks fine, he's - look, why don't you just meet him? All I need to know is, do you want to assign him to a toon or what?"
"Eh, let's see him."
It_ [Itu] led him to the back of the barracks. There he was, standing beside his bunk, several inches taller than Bean remembered, with legs of even length now, both of them straight. The boy he had last seen fondling Poke, minutes before her dead body went into the river.
"Ho, Achilles," said Bean.
"Ho, Bean," said Achilles. He grinned winningly. "Looks like you're the big guy here."
"So to speak," said Bean.
"You two know each other?" said It_ [Itu].
"We knew each other in Rotterdam," said Achilles.
They can't have assigned him to me by accident. I never told anybody but Sister Carlotta about what he did, but how can I guess what she told the I.F.? Maybe they put him here because they thought both of us being from the Rotterdam streets, from the same crew - the same family - I might be able to help him get into the mainstream of the school faster. Or maybe they knew that he was a murderer who was able to hold a grudge for a long, long time, and strike when least expected. Maybe they knew that he planned for my death as surely as he planned for Poke's. Maybe he's here to be my Bonzo Madrid.
Except that I haven't taken any personal defense classes. And I'm half his size - I couldn't jump high enough to hit him in the nose. Whatever they were trying to accomplish by putting Ender's life at risk, Ender always had a better chance of surviving than I will.
The only thing in my favor is that Achilles wants to survive and prosper more than he wants vengeance. Since he can hold a grudge forever, he's in no hurry to act on it. And, unlike Bonzo, he'll never allow himself to be goaded into striking under circumstances where he'd be identifiable as the killer. As long as he thinks he needs me and as long as I'm never alone, I'm probably safe.
Safe. He shuddered. Poke felt safe, too.
"Achilles was my commander there," said Bean. "He kept a group of us kids alive. Got us into the charity kitchens."
"Bean is too modest," said Achilles. "The whole thing was his idea. He basically taught us the whole idea of working together. I've studied a lot since then, Bean. I've had a year of nothing but books and classes - when they weren't cutting into my legs and pulverizing and regrowing my bones. And I finally know enough to understand just what a leap you helped us make. From barbarism into civilization. Bean here is like a replay of human evolution."
Bean was not so stupid as to fail to recognize when flattery was being used on him. At the same time, it was more than a little useful to have this new boy, straight from Earth, already know who Bean was and show respect for him.
"The evolution of the pygmies, anyway," said Bean.
"Bean was the toughest little bastard you ever saw on the street, I got to tell you."
No, this was not what Bean needed right now. Achilles had just crossed the line from flattery into possession. Stories about Bean as a "tough little bastard" would, of necessity, set Achilles up as Bean's superior, able to evaluate him. The stories might even be to Bean's credit - but they would serve more to validate Achilles, make him an insider far faster than he would otherwise have been. And Bean did not want Achilles to be inside yet.
Achilles was already going on, as more soldiers gathered closer to hear. "The way I got recruited into Bean's crew was - "