"Hope," said Bean. "Relentless hope. It never crosses my mind that there's no solution, no chance of survival. Oh, I can conceive of that intellectually, but never are my actions based on despair, because I never really believe it. Achilles knows that I have a reason to live. That's why he wants me so badly. And you, Petra. You more than me. And our babies--they are our hope. A completely insane kind of hope, yes, but we made them, didn't we?"
"So," said Petra, grasping the picture now, "he doesn't just want us to die, the way he was perfectly content to let Sister Carlotta die in an airplane, when he was far away. He wants us to see him with our babies."
"And when we realize we can't have them back, that we're going to die after all, the hope that drains out of us, he thinks it'll become his own. He thinks that because he has our babies, he has our hope."
"And he does," said Petra.
"But the hope can never be his. He's incapable of it."
"This is all very interesting," said Petra, "but completely useless."
"But don't you see?" said Bean. "This is how we can destroy him."
"What do you mean?"
"He's going to fall into the pit he dug for us."
"We don't have his babies."
"He hopes we'll come and give him what he wants. But instead, we'll come prepared to destroy him."
"He's going to be laying an ambush for us. If we come in force, he'll either slip away or--as soon as it's clear he's doomed--he'll kill our babies."
"No, no, we'll let him spring his trap. We'll walk right into it. So that when we face him, we see him in his moment of triumph. Which is always the moment when somebody is at their stupidest."
"You don't have to be smart when you have all the guns."
"Relax, Petra," said Bean. "I'm going to get our babies back. And kill Achilles while I'm at it. And I'll do it soon, my love. Before I die."
"That's good," said Petra. "It will be so much harder for you to do it afterward."
And then she wept, because, contrary to what Bean had just said, she had no hope. She was going to lose her husband, her children were going to lose their father. No victory over Achilles could change the fact that in the end, she was going to lose him.
He reached out for her again, held her cl
ose, kissed her brow, her cheek. "Have our baby," he said. "I'll bring home its brothers and sisters before it's born."
14
SPACE STATION
To: Locke%[email protected]
From: SitePostAlert
Re: Girl on bridge
Now you are not in cesspool, can communicate again. Have no e-mail here. Stones are mine. Back on bridge soon. War in earnest. Post to me only, this site, pickup name BridgeGirl password not stepstool.
Peter found spaceflight boring, just as he'd suspected he would. Like air travel, only longer and with less scenery.
Thank heaven Mother and Father had the good sense not to get all sentimental about the shuttle flight to the Ministry of Colonization. After all, it was the same space station that had been Battle School. They were going to set foot at last where precious little Ender had had his first triumphs--and, oh yes, killed a boy.
But there were no footprints here. Nothing to tell them what it was like for Ender to ride a shuttle to this place. They were not small children taken away from their homes. They were adults, and the fate of the world just might rest in their hands.
Come to think of it, that was like Ender, wasn't it.
The whole human race was united when Ender came here. The enemy was clear, the danger real, and Ender didn't even have to know what he was doing to win the war.