Shadow Puppets Page 0,76

more than he wants us dead."

"How can you possibly know what the Beast is thinking?"

Bean rolled onto his back and lay there facing the ceiling. "On the plane I did a lot of thinking. About something Ender said. How he thought. You have to know your enemy, he said. That's why he studied the Formics constantly. All the footage of the First War, the anatomies of the corpses of the dead Bugger soldiers, and what he couldn't find in the books and vids, he imagined. Extrapolated. Tried to think of who they were."

"You're nothing like Achilles," said Petra. "You're the opposite of him. If you want to know him, think of whatever you're not, and that'll be him."

"Not true," said Bean. "In his sad, twisted way, he loves you, and so, in my own sad twisted way, do I."

"Not the same twists, and that makes all the difference."

"Ender said that you can't defeat a powerful enemy unless you understand him completely, and you can't understand him unless you know the desires of his heart, and you can't know the desires of his heart until you truly love him."

"Please don't tell me that you've decided to love the Beast," said Petra.

"I think," said Bean, "that I always have."

"No, no, no," said Petra in revulsion and she rolled away from him, turned her back on him.

"Ever since I saw him limping up to us, the one bully we thought we could overpower, we little children. His twisted foot, the dangerous hate he felt toward anyone who saw his weakness. The genuine kindness and love he showed to everyone but me and Poke-Petra, that's what nobody understands about Achilles, they see him as a murderer, and a monster-"

"Because he is one."

"A monster who keeps winning the love and trust of people who should know better. I know that man, the one whose eyes look into your soul and judge you and find you worthy. I saw how the other children loved him, turned their loyalty from Poke to Achilles, made him their father, truly, in their hearts. And even though he always kept me at a distance, the fact is... I loved him too."

"I didn't," said Petra. The memory of Achilles's arms around her as he kissed her-it was unbearable to her, and she wept.

She felt Bean's hand on her shoulder, then stroking her side, gently soothing her "I'm going to destroy him, Petra," said Bean. "But I'll never do it the way I've been going about it up till now. I've been avoiding him, reacting to him. Peter had the right idea after all. He was dumb about it, but the idea was right, to get close to him. You can't treat him as something faraway and unintelligible. A force of nature, like a storm or earthquake, where you have no hope but to run for shelter. You have to understand him. Get inside his head."

"I've been there," said Petra. "It's a filthy place."

"Yes, I know," said Bean. "A place of fear and fire. But remember-he lives there all the time."

"Don't tell me I'm supposed to pity him because he has to live with himself!"

"Petra, I spent the whole flight trying to be Achilles, trying to think of what he yearns for, what he hopes for, to think of how he thinks."

"And you threw up? Because I did, twice on my flight, and I didn't have to get inside the Beast to do it."

"Maybe because you have a little beast inside you.

She shuddered. "Don't call him that. Her. It. I'm not even pregnant yet, probably. It was only this morning. My baby is not a beast."

"Bad joke, I'm sorry." said Bean. "But listen, Petra, on the flight I realized something. Achilles is not a mysterious force. I know exactly what he wants."

"What does he want? Besides us, dead?"

"He wants us to know that the babies are alive. He won't even implant them yet. He'll leave little clues for us to follow-nothing too obvious, because he wants us to think we discovered something he's trying to keep hidden. But we'll find out where they are because he wants us to. They'll all be in one place. Because he wants us to come for them."

"Bait," she said.

"No, not just bait," said Bean. "He could send us a note right now if he wanted that. No, it's more than that. He wants us to think we're very smart to have found out where they are. He wants us to be full of hope that we