Shadow of the Giant Page 0,115

wheeled beds that held his five normal children. The ones he would never see again, once he left them today.

Mazer Rackham put a hand on his shoulder. "It's time to go, Julian."

"Five of them," said Bean. "How will Petra manage?"

"She'll have help," said Rackham. "The real question is, how will you manage on that messenger ship? They'll outnumber you three to one."

"As I can attest, children with my particular genetic defect become self-sufficient at a very early age," said Bean.

He touched the bed of the baby named Andrew. The same name as the eldest of the siblings. But this Andrew was a normal infant. Not undersized for his age.

And this second Bella. She would lead a normal life. As would Ramon and Julian and Petra.

"If these five are normal," Bean said to Rackham, "then the ninth child - it's most likely ... defective?"

"If the odds are fifty-fifty of the traits getting passed on, and we know that five of the nine didn't get them, then it stands to reason that the missing one has a higher likelihood of having the traits. Though as any expert on probability would tell you, the probability for each child was fifty-fifty, and the distribution of the syndrome among the other infants will have no effect on the outcome for the ninth."

"Maybe it's better if Petra never finds ... the last one."

"My guess, Bean, is that there is no ninth baby. Not every implantation works. There could easily have been an early miscarriage. That would be a complete explanation of the lack of any record that was traceable by the software."

"I don't know whether to be comforted or appalled that you would think I'd find that the death of one my children might be comforting."

Rackham grimaced. "You know what I meant."

Bean took an envelope from his pocket and laid it under Ramon. "Tell the nurses to leave that envelope there, even if he leaks and wets all over the thing."

"Of course," said Rackham. "For what it's worth, Bean, your pension will also be invested, like Ender's, and run by the same software."

"Don't," said Bean. "Give it all to Petra. She'll need it, with five babies to raise. Maybe six someday."

"What about when you come home, when they find the cure?"

Bean looked at him as if he were crazy. "Do you really think that will happen?"

"If you don't, why are you going?"

"Because it might," said Bean. "And if we stay here, early death is certain for all four of us. If the cure is found, and if we come home, then we can talk about a pension. I'll tell you what. After Petra dies, after these five all grow old and die, then start paying my pension into a fund controlled by that investor software."

"You'll be back before then."

"No," said Bean. "No, that's ... no. Once we're ten years out - and there's no hope of a cure before that - then even if you find the cure, don't call us back until ... well, until Petra would be dead before we got here. Do you understand? Because if she remarries - and I want her to - I don't want her to have to face me. To face me looking as I do right now, the boy she married - the giant boy. This is cruel enough, what we're doing now. I'm not going to cause her one last torment before she dies."

"Why don't you let her decide?"

"It's not her choice," said Bean. "Once we leave, we're dead. Gone forever. She can never have back the life that will have been lost. But I'm not worried, Mazer. There is no cure."

"You know that?"

"I know Volescu. He doesn't want to find a cure. He doesn't think it's a disease. He thinks it's the hope of humanity. And except for Anton, nobody else knows enough to proceed. It was an illegal field of study for too long. It's still tainted. The methods Volescu used, the whole process surrounding Anton's Key - nobody's going to turn that key again, and therefore you're not going to have any scientists who know what they're doing in that area. The project will have less and less importance for your successors. Someday - not too long from now - somebody will look at the budget item and say, We're paying for what? And the project will die."

"It won't happen," said Mazer. "The Fleet doesn't forget its own."

Bean laughed. "You don't get it, do you? Peter is going to succeed. The world