"We're all part of it no matter what we do," said Bean. "Even those of us who aren't actually human."
"It's hardwired into all of us. Not just sexual desire--that can be twisted any which way, and it often is. And not just a desire to have children, because many people never get that, and yet they can still be woven into the fabric. No, it's a deep hunger to find a person from that strange, terrifyingly other sex and make a life together. Even old people beyond mating, even people who know they can't have children, there's still a hunger for this. For actual marriage, two unlike creatures becoming, as best they can, one."
"I know a few exceptions," said Petra wryly. "I've known a few people of the 'never-again' persuasion."
"I'm not talking about politics or hurt feelings," said Anton. "I'm talking about a trait that the human race absolutely needed to succeed. The thing that makes us neither herd animals nor solitaries, but something in between. The thing that makes us civilized or at least civilizable. And those who are cut off from it by their own desires, by those twists and bends that turn them in another way--like you, Bean, so determined are you that no more children will be born with your defect, and that there will be no children orphaned by your death--those who are cut off because they think they want to be cut off, they are still hungry for it, hungrier than ever, especially if they deny it. It makes them angry, bitter, sad, and they don't know why, or if they know, they can't bear to face the knowledge."
Bean did not know or care whether Anton was right, that this desire was inescapable for all human beings, though he suspected that he was--that this life wish had to be present in all living things for any species to continue as they all desperately struggled to do. It isn't a will to survive--that is selfish, and such selfishness would be meaningless, would lead to nothing. It is a will for the species to survive with the self inside it, part of it, tied to it, forever one of the strands in the web--Bean could see that now.
"Even if you're right," Bean said, "that only makes me more determined to overcome that desire and never have a child. For the reasons you just named. I grew up among orphans. I'm not going to leave any behind me."
"They wouldn't be orphans," said Petra. "They'd still have me."
"And when Achilles finds you and kills you?" said Bean harshly. "Are you counting on him being merciful enough to do what Volescu did for my brothers? What I cheated myself out of by being so damned smart?"
Tears leapt to Petra's eyes and she turned away.
"You're a liar when you speak like that," said Anton softly. "And a cruel one, to say such things to her."
"I told the truth," said Bean.
"You're a liar," said Anton, "but you think you need the lie so you won't let go of it. I know what these lies are--I kept my sanity by fencing myself about with lies, and believing them. But you know the truth. If you leave this world without your children in it, without having made that bond with such an alien creature as a woman, then your life will have meant nothing to you, and you'll die in bitterness and alone."
"Like you," said Bean.
"No," said Anton. "Not like me."
"What, you're not going to die? Just because they reversed the cancer doesn't mean something else won't get you in the end."
"No, you mistake me," he said. "I'm getting married."
Bean laughed. "Oh, I see. You're so happy that you want everyone to share your happiness."
"The woman I'm going to marry is a good woman, a kind one. With small children who have no father. I have a pension now--a generous one--and with my help these children will have a home. My proclivities have not changed, but she is still young enough, and perhaps we will find a way for her to bear a child that is truly my own. But if not, then I will adopt her children into my heart. I will rejoin the web. My loose thread will be woven in, knotted to the human race. I will not die alone."
"I'm happy for you," said Bean, surprised at how bitter and insincere he sounded.
"Yes," said Anton, "I'm happy for myself. This will make me miserable, of course. I will be worried about the children all the time--I already am. And getting along with a woman is hard even for men who desire them. Or perhaps especially for them. But you see, it will all mean something."
"I have work of my own to do," said Bean. "The human race faces an enemy almost as terrible, in his own way, as the Formics ever were. And I don't think Peter Wiggin is up to stopping him. In fact it looks to me as if Peter Wiggin is on the verge of losing everything to him, and then who will be left to oppose him? That's my work. And if I were selfish and stupid enough to marry my widow and father orphans on her, it would only distract me from that work. If I fail, well, how many millions of humans have already been born and died as loose threads with their lives snipped off? Given the historical rates of infant mortality, it might be as many as half, certainly at least a quarter of all humans born. All those meaningless lives. I'll be one of them. I'll just be one who did his best to save the world before he died."
To Bean's surprise--and horror--Anton flung his arms around him in one of those terrifying Russian hugs from which the unsuspecting westerner thinks he may never emerge alive. "My boy, you are so noble!" Anton let go of him, laughing. "Listen to yourself! So full of the romance of youth! You will save the world!"
"I didn't mock your dream," said Bean.
"But I'm not mocking you!" cried Anton. "I celebrate you! Because you are, in a way, a small way, my son. Or at least my nephew. And look at you! Living a life entirely for others!"
"I'm completely selfish!" cried Bean in protest.
"Then sleep with this girl, you know she'll let you! Or marry her and then sleep with anybody else, father children or not, why should you care? Nothing that happens outside your body matters. Your children don't matter to you! You're completely selfish!"
&nb
sp; Bean was left with nothing to say.
"Self-delusion dies hard," said Petra softly, slipping her hand into his.
"I don't love anybody," said Bean.