be dead, please inform that person that I have done my best to fulfill expectations. I believe further collaboration is possible, but not through intermediaries. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, then please inform me of that, as well, so I can begin my search again.
Bean came home to find that Sister Carlotta had packed their bags.
"Moving day?" he asked.
They had agreed that either one of them could decide that it was time to move on, without having to defend the decision. It was the only way to be sure of acting on any unconscious cues that someone was closing in on them. They didn't want to spend their last moments of life listening to each other say, "I knew we should have left three days ago!" "Well why didn't you say so?" "Because I didn't have a reason."
"We have two hours till the flight."
"Wait a minute," said Bean. "You decide we're going, I decide the destination." That was how they'd decided to keep their movements random.
She handed him the printout of an email. It was from Locke. "Greensboro, North Carolina, in the U.S.," she said.
"Perhaps I'm not decoding this right," said Bean, "but I don't see an invitation to visit him."
"He doesn't want intermediaries," said Carlotta. "We can't trust his email to be untraced."
Bean took a match and burned the email in the sink. Then he crumbled the ashes and washed them down the drain. "What about Petra?"
"Still no word. Seven of Ender's jeesh released. The Russians are simply saying that Petra's place of captivity has not yet been discovered."
"Kuso," said Bean.
"I know," said Carlotta, "but what can we do if they won't tell us? I'm afraid she's dead, Bean. You've got to realize that's the likeliest reason for them to stonewall."
Bean knew it, but didn't believe it. "You don't know Petra," he said.
"You don't know Russia," said Carlotta.
"Most people are decent in every country," said Bean.
"Achilles is enough to tip the balance wherever he goes."
Bean nodded. "Rationally, I have to agree with you. Irrationally expect to see her again someday."
"If I didn't know you so well, I might interpret that as a sign of your faith in the resurrection." Bean picked up his suitcase. "Am I bigger, or is this smaller?" "The case is the same size," said Carlotta. "I think I'm growing." "Of course you're growing. Look at your pants." "I'm still wearing them," said Bean. "More to the point, look at your ankles."
"Oh." There was more ankle showing than when he bought them.
Bean had never seen a child grow up, but it bothered him that in the weeks they had been in Araraquara, he had grown at least five centimeters. If this was puberty, where were the other changes that were supposed to go along with it?
"We'll buy you new clothes in Greensboro," said Sister Carlotta.
Greensboro. "The place where Ender grew up."
"And where he killed for the first time," said Sister Carlotta.
"You just won't let go of that, will you?" said Bean.
"When you had Achilles in your power, you didn't kill him."
Bean didn't like hearing himself compared to Ender that way. Not when it showed Ender at a disadvantage. "Sister Carlotta, we'd have a whole lot less difficulty right now if I had killed him."
"You showed mercy. You turned the other cheek. You gave him a chance to make something worthwhile out of his life."
"I made sure he'd get committed to a mental institution."
"Are you so determined to believe in your own lack of virtue?"
"Yes," said Bean. "I prefer truth to lies."
"There," said Carlotta. "Yet another virtue to add to my list."
Bean laughed in spite of himself. "I'm glad you like me," he said.
"Are you afraid to meet him?"
"Who?"
"Ender's brother."
"Not afraid," said Bean.
"How do you feel, then?"
"Skeptical," said Bean.
"He showed humility in that email," said Sister Carlotta. "He wasn't sure that he'd figured things out exactly right."
"Oh, there's a thought. The humble Hegemon."
"He's not Hegemon yet," said Carlotta.
"He got seven of Ender's jeesh released, just by publishing a column. He has influence. He has ambition. And now to learn he has humility-well, it's just too much for me."
"Laugh all you want. Let's go out and find a cab."
There was no last-minute business to take care of. They had paid cash for everything, owed nothing. They could walk away.
They lived on money drawn from accounts Graff had set up for them. There was nothing about the account Bean was using now to tag it as belonging to Julian Delphiki- It held his military salary,