And Bean knew it, too.
"What's in those memos that you don't want Peter to tell me?" Bean demanded.
"I had to convince the Battle School people that I was being impartial about you," said Sister Carlotta. "So I had to make negative statements about you in order to get them to believe the positive ones."
"Do you think that would hurt my feelings?" said Bean.
"Yes, I do," said Carlotta. "Because even if you understand the reason why I said some of those things, you'll never forget that I said them."
"They can't be worse than what I imagine," said Bean.
"It's not a matter of being bad or worse. They can't be too bad or you wouldn't have got into Battle School, would you? You were too young and they didn't believe your test scores and they knew there wouldn't be time to train you unless you really were . . . what I said. I just don't want you to have my words in your memory. And if you have any sense, Bean, you'll never read them."
"Toguro," said Bean. "I've been gossiped about by the person I trust most, and it's so bad she begs me not to try to find out."
"Enough of this nonsense," said Peter. "We've all faced some nasty blows today. But we've got an alliance started here, haven't we? You're acting in my interest tonight, getting that groundswell started so I can reveal myself on the world's stage. And I've got to get you into Thailand, in a position of trust and influence, before I expose myself as a teenager. Which of us gets to sleep first, do you think?"
"Me," said Sister Carlotta. "Because I don't have any sins on my conscience."
"Kuso," said Bean. "You have all the sins of the world on your mind."
"You're confusing me with somebody else," said Sister Carlotta.
To Peter their banter sounded like family chatter--old jokes, repeated because they're comfortable.
Why didn't his own family have any of that? Peter had bantered with Valentine, but she had never really opened up to him and played that way. She always resented him, even feared him. And their parents were hopeless. There was no clever banter there, there were no shared jokes and memories.
Maybe I really was raised by robots, Peter thought.
"Tell your parents we really appreciated the dinner," said Bean.
"Home to bed," said Sister Carlotta.
"You won't be sleeping in your hotel tonight, will you?" said Peter. "You'll be leaving."
"We'll email you how to contact us," said Bean.
"You'll have to leave Greensboro yourself, you know," said Sister Carlotta. "Once you reveal your identity, Achilles will know where you are. And even though India has no reason to kill you, Achilles does. He kills anyone who has even seen him in a position of helplessness. You actually put him in that position. You're a dead man, as soon as he can reach you."
Peter thought of the attempt that had been made on Bean's life. "He was perfectly happy to kill your parents right along with you, wasn't he?" Peter asked.
"Maybe," said Bean, "you should tell your mom and dad who you are before they read about it on the nets. And then help them get out of town."
"At some point we have to stop hiding from Achilles and face him openly."
"Not until you have a government committed to keeping you alive," said Bean. "Until then, you stay in hiding. And your parents, too."
"I don't think they'll even believe me," said Peter. "My parents, I mean. When I tell them that I'm really Locke. What parents would? They'll probably try to commit me as delusional."
"Trust them," said Bean. "I think you think they're stupid. But I can assure you that they're not. Or at least your mother isn't. You got your brains from somebody. They'll deal with this."
So it was that when Peter got home at ten o'clock, he went to his parents' room and knocked on their door.
"What is it?" asked Father.
"Are you awake?" Peter asked.
"Come in," said Mother.
They chatted mindlessly for a few minutes about dinner and Sister Carlotta and that delightful little Julian Delphiki, so hard to believe that a child that young could possibly have done all that he had done in his short life. And on and on, until Peter interrupted them.
"I have something to tell you," said Peter. "Tomorrow, some friends of Bean's and Carlotta's will be starting a phony movement to get Locke nominated as Hegemon. You know who Locke is? The political commentator?"
They nodded.
"And the next morning," Peter went on, "Locke is going to come out with a statement that he has to decline such an honor because he's just a teenage boy living in Greensboro, North Carolina."
"Yes?" said Father.
Did they really not get it? "It's me, Dad," said Peter. "I'm Locke."
They looked at each other. Peter waited for them to say something stupid.
"Are you going to tell them that Valentine was Demosthenes, too?" asked Mother.
For a moment he thought she was saying that as a joke, that she thought that the only thing more absurd than Peter being Locke would be Valentine being Demosthenes.
Then he realized that there was no irony in her question at all. It was an important point, and one he needed to address--the contradiction between Locke and Demosthenes had to be resolved, or there would still be something for Chamrajnagar and Achilles to expose. And blaming Valentine for Demosthenes right from the start was an important thing to do.
But not as important to him as the fact that Mother knew it. "How long have you known?" he asked.
"We've been very proud of what you've accomplished," said Father.
"As proud as we've ever been of Ender," Mother added.
Peter almost staggered under the emotional blow. They had just told him the thing that he had wanted most to hear his entire life, without ever quite admitting it to himself. Tears sprang to his eyes.
"Thanks," he murmured. Then he closed the door and fled to his room. Somehow, fifteen minutes later, he got enough control of his emotions that he could write the letters he had to write to Thailand, and begin writing his self-exposure essay.
They knew. And far from thinking him a second-rater, a disappointment, they were as proud of him as they had ever been of Ender.
His whole world was about to change, his life would be transformed, he might lose everything, he might win everything. But all he could feel that night, as he finally went to bed and drifted off to sleep, was utter, foolish happiness.
Part Three
MANEUVERS
11
BANGKOK
Posted on Military History Forum by [email protected]
Topic: Who Remembers Briseis?
When I read the Iliad, I see the same things everyone else does--the poetry, of course, and the information about heroic bronze-age warfare. But I see something else, too. It might have been Helen whose face launched a thousand ships, but it was Briseis who almost wrecked them. She was a powerless captive, a slave, and yet Achilles almost tore the Greek alliance apart because he wanted her.
The mystery that intrigues me is: Was she extraordinarily beautiful? Or was it her mind that Achilles coveted? No, seriously: Would she have been happy for long as Achilles' captive? Would she, perhaps, have gone to him willingly? Or remained a surly, resistant slave?
Not that it would have mattered to Achilles--he would have used his captive the same way, regardless of her feelings. But one imagines Briseis taking note of the tale about Achilles' heel and slipping that information to someone within the walls of Troy . . .
Briseis, if only I could have heard from you!
--HectorVictorious
Bean amused himself by leaving messages for Petra scattered all over the forums that she might visit--if she was alive, if Achilles allowed her to browse the nets, if she realized that a topic heading like "Who Remembers Briseis?" was a reference to her, and if she was free to reply as his message covertly begged her to do. He wooed her under other names of women loved by military leaders: Guinevere, Josephine, Roxane--even Barsine, the Persian wife of Alexander that Rox
ane murdered soon after his death. And he signed himself with the name of a nemesis or chief rival or successor: Mordred, Hector, Wellington, Cassander.
He took the dangerous step of allowing these identities to continue to exist, each consisting only of a forwarding order to another anonymous net identity that held all mail it received as encrypted postings on an open board with no-tracks protocols. He could visit and read the postings without leaving a trace. But firewalls could be pierced, protocols broken.
He could afford to be a little more careless now about his online identities, if only because his real-world location was now known to people whose trustworthiness he could not assess. Do you worry about the fifth lock on the back door, when the front door is open?
They had welcomed him generously in Bangkok. General Naresuan promised him that no one would know his real identity, that he would be given soldiers to train and intelligence to analyze and his advice would be sought constantly as the Thai military prepared for all kinds of future contingencies. "We are taking seriously Locke's assessment that India will soon pose a threat to Thai security, and we will of course want your help in preparing contingency plans." All so warm and courteous. Bean and Carlotta were installed in a general-officer-level apartment on a military base, given unlimited privileges concerning meals and purchases, and then . . . ignored.
No one called. No one consulted. The promised intelligence did not flow. The promised soldiers were never assigned.
Bean knew better than to even inquire. The promises were not forgotten. If he asked about them, Naresuan would be embarrassed, would feel challenged. That would never do. Something had happened. Bean could only imagine what.
At first, of course, he feared that Achilles had gotten to the Thai government somehow, that his agents now knew exactly where Bean was, that his death was imminent.
That was when he sent Carlotta away.
It was not a pleasant scene. "You should come with me," she said. "They won't stop you. Walk away."
"I'm not leaving," said Bean. "Whatever has gone wrong is probably local politics. Somebody here doesn't like having me around--maybe Naresuan himself, maybe someone else."
"If you feel safe enough to stay," said Sister Carlotta, "then there's no reason for me to go."
"You can't pass yourself off as my grandmother here," said Bean. "The fact that I have a guardian weakens me."
"Spare me the scene you're trying to play," said Carlotta. "I know there are reasons why you'd be better off without me, and I know there are ways that I could help you greatly."
"If Achilles knows where I am already, then his penetration of Bangkok is deep enough that I'll never get away," said Bean. "You might. The information that an older woman is with me might not have reached him yet. But it will soon, and he wants you dead as much as he wants to kill me. I don't want to have to worry about you here."
"I'll go," said Carlotta. "But how do I write to you, since you never keep the same address?"
He gave her the name of his folder on the no-tracks board he was using, and the encryption key. She memorized it.
"One more thing," said Bean. "In Greensboro, Peter said something about reading your memos."
"I think he was lying," said Carlotta.
"I think the way you reacted proved that whether he read them or not, there were memos, and you don't want me to read them."
"There were, and I don't," said Carlotta.
"And that's the other reason I want you to leave," said Bean.
The expression on her face turned fierce. "You can't trust me when I tell you that there is nothing in those memos that you need to know right now?"
"I need to know everything about myself. My strengths, my weaknesses. You know things about me that you told Graff and you didn't tell me. You're still not telling me. You think of yourself as my master, able to decide things for me. That means we're not partners after all."
"Very well," said Carlotta. "I am acting in your best interest, but I understand that you don't see it that way." Her manner was cold, but Bean knew her well enough to recognize that it was not anger she was controlling, but grief and frustration. It was a cold thing to do, but for her own sake he had to send her away and keep her from being in close contact with him until he understood what was going on here in Bangkok. The contretemps about the memos made her willing to go. And he really was annoyed.
She was out the door in fifteen minutes and on her way to the airport. Nine hours later he found a posting from her on his encrypted board: She was in Manila, where she could disappear within the Catholic establishment there. Not a word about their quarrel, if that's what it had been. Only a brief reference to "Locke's confession," as the newspeople were calling it. "Poor Peter," wrote Carlotta. "He's been hiding for so long, it's going to be hard for him to get used to having to face the consequences of his words."
To her secure address at the Vatican, Bean replied, "I just hope Peter has the brains to get out of Greensboro. What he needs right now is a small country to run, so he can get some administrative and political experience. Or at least a city water department."
And what I need, thought Bean, is soldiers to command. That's why I came here.
For weeks after Carlotta left, the silence continued. It became obvious, soon enough, that whatever was going on had nothing to do with Achilles, or Bean would be dead by now. Nor could it have had anything to do with Locke being revealed as Peter Wiggin--the freeze-out had already begun before Peter published his declaration.
Bean busied himself with whatever tasks seemed meaningful. Though he had no access to military-level maps, he could still access the publicly available satellite maps of the terrain between India and the heart of Thailand--the rough mountain country of northern and eastern Burma, the Indian Ocean coastal approaches. India had a substantial fleet, by Indian Ocean standards--might they attempt to run the Strait of Malacca and strike at the heart of Thailand from the gulf? All possibilities had to be prepared for.
Some basic intelligence about the makeup of the Indian and Thai military was available on the nets. Thailand had a powerful air force--there was a chance of achieving air dominance, if they could protect their bases. Therefore it would be essential to have the capability of laying down emergency airstrips in a thousand different places, an engineering feat well within the reach of the Thai military--if they trained for it now and dispersed crews and fuel and spare parts throughout the country. That, along with mines, would be the best protection against a coastal landing.
The other Indian vulnerability would be supply lines and lanes of advance. Since India's military strategy would inevitably depend on throwing vast, irresistible armies against the enemy, the defense was to keep those vast armies hungry and harry them constantly from the air and from raiding parties. And if, as was likely, the Indian Army reached the fertile plain of the Chao Phraya or the Aoray Plateau, they had to find the land utterly stripped, the food supplies dispersed and hidden--those that weren't destroyed.
It was a brutal strategy, because the Thai people would suffer along with the Indian Army--indeed, they would suffer more. So the destruction had to be set up so it would only take place at the last minute. And, as much as possible, they had to be able to evacuate women and children to remote areas or even to camps in Laos and Cambodia. Not that borders would stop the Indian army, but terrain might. Having many isolated targets for the Indians would force them to divide their forces. Then--and only then--would it make sense for the Thai military to take on smaller portions of the Indian army in hit-and-run engagements or, where possible, in pitched battles where the Thai side would have temporary numerical parity and superior air support.
Of course, for all Bean knew this was already the longstanding Thai military doctrine and if he made these suggestions he would only annoy them--or make them feel that he had contempt for them.
So he worded his memo very carefully. Lots of phrases like, "No doubt you already have this in place," and "as I'm sure you have long ex
pected." Of course, even those phrases could backfire, if they hadn't thought of these things--it would sound patronizing. But he had to do something to break this stalemate of silence.
He read the memo over and over, revising each time. He waited days to send it, so he could see it in new perspectives. Finally, certain that it was as rhetorically inoffensive as he could make it, he put it into an email and sent it to the Office of the Chakri--the supreme military commander. It was the most public and potentially embarrassing way he could deliver the memo, since mail to that address was inevitably sorted and read by aides. Even printing it out and carrying it by hand would have been more subtle. But the idea was to stir things up; if Naresuan wanted him to be subtle, he would have given him a private email address to write to.
Fifteen minutes after he sent the memo, his door unceremoniously opened and four military police came in. "Come with us, sir," said the sergeant in charge.
Bean knew better than to delay or to ask questions. These men knew nothing but the instructions they had been given, and Bean would find out what those were by waiting to see what they did.
They did not take him to the office of the Chakri. Instead he was taken to one of the temporary buildings that had been set up on the old parade grounds--the Thai military had only recently given up marching as part of the training of soldiers and the display of military might. Only three hundred years after the American Civil War had proven that the days of marching in formation into battle were over. For military organizations, that was about the normal time lag. Sometimes Bean half-expected to find some army somewhere that was still training its soldiers to fight with sabers from horseback.
There was no label, not even a number, on the door they led him to. And when he came inside, none of the soldier-clerks even looked up at him. His arrival was both expected and unimportant, their attitude said. Which meant, of course, that it was very important, or they would not be so studiously perfect about not noticing him.
He was led to an office door, which the sergeant opened for him. He went in; the military police did not. The door closed behind him.
Shadow of the Hegemon Page 18