uniform was in sight. And these young men were armed to the teeth. As they walked briskly to the stairs -- no elevators, no doors that might suddenly open to leave them trapped in a box for an enemy to toss in a grenade or a few thousand projectiles -- Bean watched the way the soldier in the lead watched everything, checked every corner, the light under every door in the hall, so that nothing could surprise him. Bean also saw how the man's body moved inside his clothes, with a kind of contained strength that made his clothes seem like kleenex, he could rip through the fabric just by tugging at it a little, because nothing could hold him in except his own self-control. It was like his sweat was pure testosterone. This was what a man was supposed to be. This was a soldier.
I was never a soldier, thought Bean. He tried to imagine himself the way he had been in Battle School, strapping on cut-down flashsuit pieces that never fit him right. He always looked like somebody's pet monkey dressed up as a human for the joke of it. Like a toddler who got clothes out of his big brother's dresser. The man in front of him, that's what Bean wanted to be when he grew up. But try as he might, he could never imagine himself actually being big. No, not even being full size. He would always be looking up at the world. He might be male, he might be human, or at least humanesque, but he would never be a manly. No one would ever look at him and say, Now, that's a man.
Then again, this soldier had never given orders that changed the course of history. Looking great in a uniform wasn't the only way to earn your place in the world.
Down the stairs, three flights, and then a pause for just a moment well back from the emergency exit while two of the soldiers came out and watched for the signal from the men in the IF chopper waiting thirty meters away. The signal came. Graff and Sister Carlotta led the way, still a brisk walk. They looked neither left nor right, just focused on the helicopter. They got in, sat down, buckled up, and the chopper tilted and rose from the grass and flew low out over the water.
Mother was all for demanding to know the real plan but again, Graff cut off all discussion with a cheerful bellow of, "Let's wait to discuss this until we can do it without shouting!"
Mother didn't like it. None of them did. But there was Sister Carlotta smiling her best nun smile, like a sort of Virgin-in-training. How could they help but trust her?
Five minutes in the air and then they set down on the deck of a submarine. It was a big one, with the stars and stripes of the United States, and it occurred to Bean that since they didn't know what country had kidnaped the other kids, how could they be sure they weren't just walking into the hands of their enemies?
But once they got down inside the ship, they could see that while the crew was in U.S. uniforms, the only people carrying weapons were the IF soldiers who had brought them and a half dozen more who had been waiting for them with the sub. Since power came from the barrel of a gun, and the only guns on the ship were under Graff's command, Bean's mind was eased a little.
"If you try to tell us that we can't talk here," Mother began -- but to her consternation Graff again held up a hand, and Sister Carlotta again made a shushing gesture as Graff beckoned them to follow their lead soldier through the narrow corridors of the sub.
Finally the six of them were packed once more into a tiny space -- this time the executive officer's cabin -- and once again they waited while Graff hung his noise damper and turned it on. When the light started blinking, Mother was the first to speak.
"I'm trying to figure out how we can tell we aren't being kidnaped just like the others," she said dryly.
"You got it," said Graff. "They were all taken by a group of terrorist nuns, aided by fat old bureaucrats."
"He's joking," said Father, trying to soothe Mother's immediate wrath.
"I know he's joking. I just don't think it's funny. After all we've been through, and then we're supposed