Shadow of the Giant Page 0,107

with Peter and you'll rejoin them with the attack in progress."

"Will we?"

"And then call your mother and tell her you're all right and not to talk about what happened."

"Oh, that's about an hour too late."

"My men told her that if she called anyone but you until she heard from you again, she'd be very sorry."

"Thank you for terrifying her even more. Do you have any idea what this woman has been through in her life?"

"It always turns out all right, though. So she's better off than some."

"Thanks for your cheery optimism."

A few minutes later, the strike force was launched and a warning was given to evacuate the airport, reroute all incoming flights, evacuate the parts of Yerevan nearest the airport, and alert the men at all possible military targets inside Armenia.

As for Petra's mother, she was crying so hard - with relief, with anger at what had happened - that Petra could hardly make herself understood. But finally the conversation ended and Petra was more pissed off than ever. "What gives you the right? Why do you think you - "

"War gives me the right," said Rackham. "If I'd waited till you could come home and get your babies and then meet us at the airport, this plane would never have taken off. I have my men's lives to think of here, not just your mother's feelings."

Bean put a hand on Petra's knee. She accepted the need for calm, and fell silent.

"Mazer," said Bean, "what's this about? You could have warned us with a phone call."

"We have your other babies."

Petra was already emotional. She burst into tears. Quickly she controlled herself. And hated the fact that she had acted so ... maternal.

"All of them? At once?"

"We've been watching some of them for several weeks," said Rackham. "Waiting for an opportune moment."

Bean waited only a moment before saying, "Waiting for Peter to tell you that it was all right. That you didn't need us any more for his war."

"He still needs you," said Rackham. "As long as he can have you."

"Why did you wait, Mazer?"

"How many?" said Petra. "How many are there?"

"One more with Bean's syndrome," said Rackham. "Four more without it."

"That's eight," said Bean. "Where's the ninth?"

Rackham shook his head.

"So you're still looking?"

"No, we're not," said Rackham.

"So you have definite information that the ninth wasn't implanted. Or it's dead."

"No. We have definite information that whether it's alive or dead, we have no search criteria left. If the ninth baby was ever born, Volescu hid the birth and the mother too well. Or the mother is hiding herself. The software - the mind game, if you will - has been very effective. We wouldn't have found any of the normal children without its creative searches. But it also knows when it has nothing more to try. You have eight of the nine. Three of them have the syndrome, five are normal."

"What about Volescu?" asked Petra. "Can we drug him?"

"Why not torture?" said Rackham. "No, Petra. We can't. Because we need him."

"For what? His virus?"

"We already have his virus. And it doesn't work. It's a bust. Failure. Dead end. Volescu knew it, too. He just enjoyed tormenting us with the thought that he had endangered the entire world."

"So what do you need him for?" demanded Petra.

"We need him to work on the cure for Bean and the babies."

"Oh, right," said Bean. "You're going to turn him loose in a lab."

"No," said Rackham. "We're going to put him in space, on an asteroid-based research station, closely supervised. He's been tried and is under sentence of death for terrorism, kidnapping, and murder - the murders of your brothers, Bean."

"There's no death sentence," said Bean.

"There is in military court in space," said Rackham. "He knows he's alive as long as he's making progress on finding a legitimate cure for you and the babies. Eventually, our team of co-researchers will know everything he knows. When we don't need him anymore..."

"I don't want him killed," said Bean.

"No," said Petra. "I want him killed slowly."

"He might be evil," said Bean, "but I wouldn't exist if not for him."

"There was a day," said Rackham, "when that would be the biggest crime you charged him with."

"I've had a good life," said Bean. "Strange and hard sometimes. But I've had a lot of happiness." He squeezed Petra's knee. "I don't want you to kill him."

"You saved your own life - from him," said Petra. "You owe him nothing."

"It doesn't matter," said Rackham. "We have no intention of killing him. When he's