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of us, actually, unless Sister Carlotta and the Christians turn out to be right."

"You want to accomplish something before you die."

Bean sighed. "Because you want that, you think everyone does."

"The human need to leave something of yourself behind is universal."

"But I'm not human."

"No, you're superhuman," she said in disgust. "There's no talking to you, Bean."

"And yet you persist."

But Petra knew perfectly well that Bean felt just as she did-that it wasn't enough to stay in hiding, going from place to place, taking a bus here, a train there, a plane to some far-off city, only to start over again in a few days.

The only reason it mattered that they stay alive was so they could keep their independence long enough to work against Achilles. Except Bean kept denying that he had any such motive, and so they did nothing.

Bean had been maddening ever since Petra first met him in Battle School. He was the most incredibly tiny little runt then, so precocious he seemed snotty even when he said good morning, and even after they had all worked with him for years and had got the true measure of him at Command School, Petra was still the only one of Ender's jeesh that actually liked Bean.

She did like him, and not in the patronizing way that older kids take younger ones under their wing. There was never any illusion that Bean needed protection anyway. He arrived at Battle School as a consummate survivor, and within days-perhaps within hours-he knew more about the inner workings of the school than anyone else. The same was true at Tactical School and Command School, and during those crucial weeks before Ender joined them on Eros, when Bean commanded the jeesh in their practice maneuvers.

The others resented Bean then, for the fact that the youngest of them had been chosen to lead in Ender's place and because they feared that he would be their commander always. They were so relieved when Ender arrived, and didn't try to hide it. It had to hurt Bean, but Petra seemed to be the only one who even thought about his feelings. Much good that it did him. The person who seemed to think about Bean's feelings least of them all was Bean himself.

Yet he did value her friendship, though he only rarely showed it. And when she was overtaken by exhaustion during a battle, he was the one who covered for her, and he was the only one who showed that he still believed in her as firmly as ever Even Ender never quite trusted her with the same level of assignment that she had had before. But Bean remained her friend, even as he obeyed Ender's orders and watched over her in all the remaining battles, ready to cover for her if she collapsed again.

Bean was the one she counted on when the Russians kidnapped her, the one she knew would get the message she hid in an email graphic. And when she was in Achilles's power, it was Bean who was her only hope of rescue. And he got her message, and he saved her from the beast.

Bean might pretend, even to himself, that all he cared about was his own survival, but in fact he was the most perfectly loyal of friends. Far from acting selfishly, he was reckless with his own life when he had a cause he believed in. But he didn't understand this about himself. Since he thought himself completely unworthy of love, it took him the longest time to know that someone loved him. He had finally caught on about Sister Carlotta, long before she died. But he gave little sign that he recognized Petra's feelings toward him. Indeed, now that he was taller than her, he acted as though he thought of her as an annoying little sister

And that really pissed her off.

Yet she was determined not to leave him-and not because she depended on him for her own survival, either. She feared that the moment he was completely on his own, he would embark on some reckless plan to sacrifice his own life to put an end to Achilles's, and that would be an unbearable outcome, at least to Petra.

Because she had already decided that Bean was wrong in his belief that he should never have children, that the genetic alterations that had made him such a genius should die with him when his uncontrolled growth finally killed him.

On the contrary, Petra had every intention of bearing his children