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sink, the scouring of the containers to make sure an embryo hadn't managed to thrive in some remaining droplet.

I'm imagining this, thought Petra. For all she knew, the containers he flushed had never contained embryos at all. Why would Volescu sacrifice any of them, when all he had to do was lie and merely say that these three had contained embryos with Anton's Key?

So, self persuaded that no actual harm to a child of hers was being done, she thanked Volescu for his help and they waited for him to leave before anything else was done. Volescu carried nothing from the room that he hadn't come in with.

Then Bean and Petra both watched as the six remaining embryos were frozen, their containers tagged, and all of them secured against tampering.

The morning of the implantation, they both awoke almost at first light, too excited, too nervous to sleep. She lay in bed reading, trying to calm herself; he sat at the table in the hotel room, working on email, scanning the nets.

But his mind was obviously on the morning's procedure. "It's going to be expensive," he said. "Keeping guard over the ones we don't implant."

She knew what he was driving at. "You know we've got to keep them frozen until we know if the first implant works. They don't always take."

Bean nodded. "But I'm not an idiot, you know. I'm perfectly aware that you intend to keep all the embryos and implant them one by one until you have as many of my children as possible."

"Well of course," said Petra. "What if our firstborn is as nasty as Peter Wiggin?"

"Impossible," said Bean. "How could a child of mine have any but the sweetest disposition?"

"Unthinkable, I know," said Petra. "And yet somehow I thought of it."

"So this security, it has to continue for years."

"Why?" said Petra. "No one wants the babies that are left. We destroyed the ones with Anton's Key."

"We know that," said Bean. "But they're still the children of two members of Ender's jeesh. Even without my particular curse, they'll still be worth stealing."

"But they won't be old enough to be of any value for years and years," said Petra.

"Not all that many years," said Bean. "How old were we? How old are we even now? There are plenty of people willing to take the children and invest not that many years of training and then put them to work. Playing games and winning wars."

"I'll never let any of them anywhere near military training," said Petra.

"You won't be able to stop them," said Bean.

"We have plenty of money, thanks to the pensions Graff got for us," said Petra. "I'll make sure the security is intense."

"No, I mean you'll never be able to stop the children. From seeking out military service."

He was right, of course. The testing for Battle School included a child's predilection for military command, for the contest of battle. For war. Bean and Petra had proven how strong that passion was in them. It would be unlikely that any child of theirs would be happy without ever having a taste of the military life.

"At least," said Petra, "they won't have to destroy an alien invader before they turn fifteen."

But Bean wasn't listening. His body had suddenly grown alert as he scanned a message on his desk.

"What is it?" she asked.

"I think it's from Hot Soup," said Bean.

She got up and came over to look.

It was an email through one of the anonymous services, this one an Asian-based company called Mysterious East. The subject line was "definitely not vichyssoise." Not cold soup, then. Hot Soup. The Battle school nickname of Han Tzu. who had been in Ender's jeesh and was now assumed to be deeply involved in the highest levels of strategy in China.

A message from him to Bean, until recently the military commander of the Hegemon's forces, would be high treason. This message had been handed to a stranger on a street in China. Probably a European- or African-looking tourist. And the message wasn't hard to understand:

He thinks told him where Caligula would be but I did not.

"Caligula" could only refer to Achilles. "He" had to refer to Peter.

Han Tzu was saying that Peter thought he was the source of the information about where the prison convoy would be on the day Suriyawong liberated Achilles.

No wonder Peter was sure his source was reliable-Han Tzu himself! Since Han Tzu had been one of the group Achilles kidnapped, he would have plenty of reason to hate him. Motive enough for