Bean trotted along beside Graff as he headed purposefully down the tunnel, beyond the farthest of the guards.
"If the Strategos did this right, the ansibles have already been secured. I don't know about you, but I want to be where the news is coming in. And going out."
"Is Russian a hard language to learn?" asked Bean.
"Is that what passes for humor with you?" asked Graff.
"It was a simple question."
"Bean, you're a great kid, but shut up, OK?"
Bean laughed. "OK."
"You don't mind if I still call you Bean?"
"It's my name."
"Your name should have been Julian Delphiki. If you'd had a birth certificate, that's the name that would have been on it."
"You mean that was true?"
"Would I lie about something like that?"
Then, realizing the absurdity of what he had just said, they laughed. Laughed long enough to still be smiling when they passed the detachment of marines protecting the entrance to the ansible complex.
"You think anybody will ask me for military advice?" asked Bean. "Because I'm going to get into this war, even if I have to lie about my age and enlist in the marines."
24
HOMECOMING
"I thought you'd want to know. Some bad news."
"There's no shortage of that, even in the midst of victory."
"When it became clear that the IDL had control of Battle School and was sending the kids home under I.F. protection, the New Warsaw Pact apparently did a little research and found that there was one student from Battle School who wasn't under our control. Achilles."
"But he was only there a couple of days."
"He passed our tests. He got in. He was the only one they could get."
"Did they? Get him?"
"All the security there was designed to keep inmates inside. Three guards dead, all the inmates released into the general population. They've all been recovered, except one."
"So he's loose."
"I wouldn't call it loose, exactly. They intend to use him."
"Do they know what he is?"
"No. His records were sealed. A juvenile, you see. They weren't coming for his dossier."
"They'll find out. They don't like serial killers in Moscow, either."
"He's hard to pin down. How many died before any of us suspected him?"
"The war is over for now."