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and stumbled over the corner of the bed in his hotel room and ended up on his butt on the floor.

"There's the Hegemon of Earth," said Petra.

"Where's your camera? Don't you want this to be public?"

"If I wanted to destroy you, you'd be destroyed."

"Petra, I didn't send Bean into that compound. Bean sent himself."

"You let him go."

"Yes I did, and in any event I was proven right."

"But you didn't know he'd live. I was carrying his baby and you sent him in to die."

"Nobody sends Bean anywhere," said Peter, "and you know it."

She whirled away from him and stalked out of the room. She would have slammed the door, but the pneumatics prevented it.

He had seen, though. The tears in her eyes.

She didn't hate Peter. She wanted to hate him. But what she really was furious about was that her husband was dying and she had agreed to this mission because she knew it would be important. If it worked, it would be important. But it wasn't working. It probably wouldn't work.

Peter knew that. But he also knew that he had to talk to Caliph Alai, and he had to do it now if the conversation was to have any good effect. If possible, he'd like to have the conversation without risking the prestige of the office of Hegemon. But the longer they delayed, the greater the likelihood of word of his trip to Damascus getting out. And then if Alai rebuffed him, the humiliation would be public, and the office of Hegemon would be greatly diminished.

So Petra's judgment of him was obviously unfair. If all he cared about was his own authority, he wouldn't be here.

And she was clever enough to know that. She got into Battle School, didn't she? She was the only girl among Ender's Jeesh. That certified her as his superior - at least in the area of strategy and leadership. Surely she must see that he was putting the goal of preventing a bloody war above his own career.

As soon as he thought of this, he heard her voice inside his head, saying, "Oh, isn't that fine and noble of you, to put the lives of hundreds of thousands of soldiers ahead of your own indelible place in history. Do you think you get a prize for that?" Or else she'd say, "The only reason I'm along is specifically so you can avoid risking anything." Or else, "You've always been bold as a risk-taker - when the stakes are high enough and your own life isn't on the line."

This is great, Peter, he thought. You don't even need her in the room with you and you can still carry on an argument with her.

How did Bean stand her? No doubt she didn't treat him like this.

No. It was impossible to imagine that being nasty was something she could switch on and off. Bean had to have seen this side of her. And yet he stayed with her.

And loved her. Peter wondered what it would be like, to have Petra look at him the way she looked at Bean.

Then he corrected himself at once. Wonderful to have a woman look at him the way Petra looked at Bean. The last thing he wanted was a lovelorn Petra making googly eyes at him.

The telephone rang.

The voice made sure it was "Peter Jones" and then said, "Five in the morning, be downstairs outside the north lobby doors." Click.

Well, what brought that on? Something in Petra's and his argument? Peter had swept the room for bugs, but that didn't mean they couldn't have some low-tech device like somebody in the next room with his ear pressed against the wall.

What did we say to make them let me see the Caliph?

Maybe it was what he said about avoiding another bloody war.

Or perhaps it was because they heard him admit to Petra that maybe he didn't have any legitimate authority.

What if they recorded that? What if it suddenly surfaced on the web?

Then it would happen, and he'd do his best to recover from the blow, and either he'd succeed or he'd fail. No point fretting about it now. Somebody was meeting him at the north door of the lobby tomorrow morning before daylight. Maybe they'd lead him to Alai, and maybe he'd achieve what he needed to achieve, save all that he needed to save.

He toyed with the idea of not telling Petra about the meeting. After all, she had no pertinent office at all. She had no particular right to