talk to me/"
She hated that he was probably right. "Human company apparently you're under the delusion that you qualify."
"Oh, you're mean," said Achilles, laughing. "Look, I'm bleeding."
"You've got blood on your hands, all right."
"And you've got it all over your face," said Achilles. "Come on, it'll be fun."
"And here I thought nothing would ever be more tedious than solitary confinement."
"You're the best, Petra," said Achilles. "Except for one."
"Bean," said Petra.
"Ender," said Achilles. "Bean is nothing. Bean is dead."
Petra said nothing.
Achilles looked at her searchingly. "No smart remarks?"
"Bean is dead and you're alive," said Petra. "There's no justice."
The van slowed down and stopped.
"There," said Achilles. "Our lively conversation made the time fly by."
Fly. She heard an airplane overhead. Landing or taking off?
"Where are we flying?" she asked.
"Who says we're flying anywhere?"
"I think we're flying out of the country," said Petra, speaking the ideas as they came to her. "I think you realized that you were going to lose your cushy job here in Russia, and you're sneaking out of the country."
"You're really very good. You keep setting a new standard for cleverness," said Achilles.
"And you keep setting a new standard for failure."
He hesitated a moment, then went on as if she hadn't spoken. "They're going to pit the other kids against me," he said. "You already know them. You know their weaknesses. Whoever I'm up against, you're going to advise me."
"Never."
"We're in this together," said Achilles. "I'm a nice guy. You'll like me, eventually."
"Oh, I know," said Petra. "What's not to like?"
"Your message," said Achilles. "You wrote it to Bean, didn't you?"
"What message?" said Petra.
"That's why you don't believe he's dead."
"I believe he's dead," said Petra. But she knew her earlier hesitation had given her away.
"Or else you wonder-if he got your message before I had him killed, why did it take so long after he died to have it hit the news? And here's the obvious answer, Pet. Somebody else figured it out. Somebody else decoded it. And that really pisses me off. So don't tell me what the message said. I'm going to decode it myself. It can't be that hard."
"Downright easy," said Petra. "After all, I'm dumb enough to end up as your prisoner. So dumb, in fact, that I never sent anybody a message."
"When I do decode it, though, I hope it won't say anything disparaging about me. Because then I'd have to beat the shit out of you."
"You're right," said Petra. "You are a charmer."
Fifteen minutes later, they were on a small private jet, flying south by southeast. It was a luxurious vehicle, for its size, and Petra wondered if it belonged to one of the intelligence services or to some faction in the military or maybe to some crime lord. Or maybe all three at once.
She wanted to study Achilles, watch his face, his body language. But she didn't want him to see her showing interest in him. So she looked out the window, wondering as she did so whether she wasn't just doing the same thing the dead psychologist had done-looking away to avoid facing bitter truth.
When the chime announced that they could unbelt themselves, Petra got up and headed for the bathroom. It was small, but compared to commercial airplane toilets it was downright commodious. And it had cloth towels and real soap.
She did her best with a damp towel to wipe blood and body matter from her clothes. She had to keep wearing the dirty clothing but she could at least get rid of the visible chunks. The towel was so foul by the time she finished the job that she tossed it and got a fresh one to start in on her face and hands. She scrubbed until her face was red and raw, but she got it all off. She even soaped her hair and washed it as best she could in the tiny sink. It was hard to rinse, pouring one cup of water at a time over her head.
The whole time, she kept thinking of the fact that the psychiatrist's last minutes were spent listening to her tell him how stupid he was and point out the worthlessness of his life's work. And yes, she was right, as his death proved, but that didn't change the fact that however impure his motives might have been, he was trying to save her from Achilles. He had given his life in that effort, however badly planned it might have been. All the other rescues went off smoothly, and they were