"Is Achilles already in Battle School?"
"He's still recovering from his fourth surgery. We had to fix the leg on Earth."
"Let me give you a word of advice. Do not put him in Battle School while Bean is still there."
"Bean is only six. He's still too young to enter Battle School, let alone graduate."
"If you put Achilles in, take Bean out. Period."
"Why?"
"If you're too stupid to believe me after all my other judgments turned out to be correct, why should I give you the ammunition to let you second-guess me? Let me just say that putting them in school together is a probable death sentence for one of them."
"Which one?"
"That rather depends on which one sees the other first."
"Achilles says he owes everything to Bean. He loves Bean."
"Then by all means, believe him and not me. But don't send the body of the loser back to me to deal with. You bury your own mistakes."
"That sounds pretty heartless."
"I'm not going to weep over the grave of either boy. I tried to save both their lives. You apparently seem determined to let them find out which is fittest in the best Darwinian fashion."
"Calm down, Sister Carlotta. We'll consider what you've told us. We won't be foolish."
"You've already been foolish. I have no high expectations for you now."
As days became weeks, the shape of Wiggin's army began to unfold, and Bean was filled with both hope and despair. Hope, because Wiggin was setting up an army that was almost infinitely adaptable. Despair, because he was doing it without any reliance on Bean.
After only a few practices, Wiggin had chosen his toon leaders--every one of them a veteran from the transfer lists. In fact, every veteran was either a toon leader or a second. Not only that, instead of the normal organization--four toons of ten soldiers each--he had created five toons of eight, and then made them practice a lot in half-toons of four men each, one commanded by the toon leader, the other by the second.
No one had ever fragmented an army like that before. And it wasn't just an illusion. Wiggin worked hard to make sure the toon leaders and seconds had plenty of leeway. He'd tell them their objective and let the leader decide how to achieve it. Or he'd group three toons together under the operational command of one of the toon leaders to handle one operation, while Wiggin himself commanded the smaller remaining force. It was an extraordinary amount of delegation.
Some of the soldiers were critical at first. As they were milling around near the entrance to the barracks, the veterans talked about how they'd practiced that day--in ten groups of four. "Everybody knows it's loser strategy to divide your army," said Fly Molo, who commanded A toon.
Bean was a little disgusted that the soldier with the highest rank after Wiggin would say something disparaging about his commander's strategy. Sure, Fly was learning, too. But there's such a thing as insubordination.
"He hasn't divided the army," said Bean. "He's just organized it. And there's no such thing as a rule of strategy that you can't break. The idea is to have your army concentrated at the decisive point. Not to keep it huddled together all the time."
Fly glared at Bean. "Just cause you little guys can hear us doesn't mean you understand what we're talking about."
"If you don't want to believe me, think what you want. My talking isn't going to make you stupider than you already are."
Fly came at him, grabbing him by the arm and dragging him to the edge of his bunk.
At once, Nikolai launched himself from the bunk opposite and landed on Fly's back, bumping his head into the front of Bean's bunk. In moments, the other toon leaders had pulled Fly and Nikolai apart--a ludicrous fight anyway, since Nikolai wasn't that much bigger than Bean.
"Forget it, Fly," said Hot Soup--Han Tzu, leader of D toon. "Nikolai thinks he's Bean's big brother."
"What's the kid doing mouthing off to a toon leader?" demanded Fly.
"You were being insubordinate toward our commander," said Bean. "And you were also completely wrong. By your view, Lee and Jackson were idiots at Chancellorsville."
"He keeps doing it!"
"Are you so stupid you can't recognize the truth just because the person telling it to you is short?" All of Bean's frustration at not being one of the officers was spilling out. He knew it, but he didn't feel like controlling it. They needed to hear the truth. And Wiggin needed to have the support when he was being taken down behind his back.