"I haven't checked on the subtler symptoms, but we've had the normal number of colds."
"Probably not," said Anton. "He probably didn't make himself a carrier. What would be the point? He wants other people to spread it."
"You're saying that it's already out there."
"Or he has a website that he has to check every week or every month. And then one month he doesn't do it. So a signal is sent out to some of Achilles's old network. The virus gets broken out and used. And all Volescu had to do to trigger it was ... be a captive with no access to computers."
"Was his research that complete? Could he have a working virus?"
"I don't know. All his records were changed when he moved. When you sent him a message, you told me about that, yes? You sent him a message and he moved to Rwanda. Before that maybe he had an earlier version of the virus. Maybe not. Maybe this is the first time he put the changed human genes into the virus. If that's the case, then no, it has not been released. But it could be. It's ready. Ready enough. Maybe you caught him just in time."
"And if it is out there, what?"
"Then I hope the baby my wife is pregnant with, I hope it's one like you, and not one like me."
"Why?"
"Your tragedy, Bean, is that you are the only one. If all the world will soon be like you, then you know what that makes you."
"A damn fool."
"It makes you Adam."
Anton was unbearably complaisant about this. What Bean was, what was happening to him, he wouldn't wish that on anyone. Not his child, and not Anton's. But Anton could be forgiven for his idiotic wish. He had not been so small; he had not been this large. He could not know how ... how larval the early stage was.
Like silkworms, the larva of my species does all the work of its life while it's young. Then the big butterfly, that's what people see, but all it has left to do in its life is get laid, then lay eggs, then die.
Bean talked it through with Petra, and then they went to Ferreira and Peter. Now the computer search was geared—with some urgency— toward detecting any kind of dead-man switch that Volescu was signing on to every day or every week. No doubt the dead-man switch was set to destroy itself as soon as its message was sent. Which meant that if it was already sent, it wouldn't be there anymore. But somewhere there were tracks. Backups. Records of one kind or another. Nobody traveled the networks clean.
Not even Bean. He had made himself untraceable by constantly changing everything. But Volescu had stayed rooted in a lab here or a lab there, as long as he could. He might not have been as careful in his maneuvers through the nets. After all, Volescu might think he was brilliant, but he was no Bean.
7
AN OFFER
From: PeterWiggin%private@hegemon.gov
To: Vlad%lmpaled@gcu.ru.gov
Re: my brother's friends
I'd like to have a chance to talk with you. Face to face. For my brother's sake. On neutral territory.
Peter arrived in St. Petersburg ostensibly to be an observer and consultant at the Warsaw Pact trade talks that were part of Russia's ongoing effort to set up an economic union to rival the western European one. And he did attend several meetings and kept his suite humming with conversations. Of course, his agenda was quite different from the official one, and he made good headway with—as expected— representatives from some of the smaller or less prosperous countries. Latvia. Estonia. Slovakia. Bulgaria. Bosnia. Albania. Croatia. Georgia. Every piece in the puzzle counted.
Not every piece was a country. Sometimes it was an individual.
That's why Peter found himself walking in a park—not one of the magnificent parks in the heart of St. Petersburg, but a smallish park in Kohtla-Järve, a town in northeastern Estonia with delusions of city-hood. Peter wasn't sure why Vlad had chosen a town that involved crossing borders—nothing could have made their encounter more obvious. And being in Estonia meant there'd be two intelligence services watching them, Estonia's and Russia's. Russia hadn't forgotten history: They still watched over Estonia using their domestic spy service rather than the foreign one.
This park was, perhaps, the reason. There was a lake—no, a pond, a skating pond in winter, Peter was sure, since it was almost perfectly round and over-equipped with benches. Now, in the summer, it was undoubtedly advertised with a "suck blood and lay eggs all in one place" campaign among the mosquitos, which had shown up in profusion.
"Close your eyes," said Vlad.
Peter expected some kind of spy ritual and, sighing, complied. His sigh left his mouth open, however, just enough to get a good taste of the insect repellant that Vlad sprayed in his face.
"Hands," said Vlad. "Tastes bad but doesn't kill. Hands."
Peter held out his hands. They were sprayed, too.
"Don't want you to lose more than a pint during our conversation. Horrible place. Nobody comes here in summer. So it isn't prewired. Lots of clear meadows. We can see if anybody's watching us."
"Are you that closely watched?"
"Russian government not as understanding as Hegemon. Suriyawong stays in your confidence because you believe he always opposed Achilles. But me? Not trusted. So if you think I have influence, very wrong thinking, my friend."
"Not why I'm here."
"Yes, I know, you're here for the trade talks." Vlad grinned.
"Not much point to trade talks when smuggling and bribery make any kind of customs collection a joke anyway," said Peter.
"I'm glad you understand our way of doing things," said Vlad. "Trust no one that you haven't bribed within the last half hour."
"Don't tell me you really have that thick a Russian accent, by the way," said Peter. "You grew up on Battle School. You should speak Common like a native."
"I do," said Vlad—still in a thick Russian accent. "Except when my future depends on giving people no reason to remember how different I am. Accents are hard to learn and hard to hold on to. So I will maintain it now. I am not by nature a good actor."
"May I call you Vlad?"
"May I call you Peter?"
"Yes."
"Then yes also. Lowly strategic planner cannot be more formal than Hegemon of whole world."
"You know just how much of the world I'm Hegemon over," said Peter. "And as I said, that's not why I'm here. Or not directly."
"What then? You want to hire me? Not possible. They may not trust me here, but they certainly don't want me going anywhere else. I'm a hero of the Russian people."
"Vlad, if they trusted you, what do you think you'd be doing right now?"
Vlad laughed. "Leading the armies of Mother Russia, as Alai and Hot Soup and Virlomi and so many others are already doing. So many Alexanders."
"Yes, I've heard that comparison," said Peter. "But I see it another way. I see it as being the arms race that led up to World War I."
Vlad thought for a moment. "And we Battle School brats are the arms race. If one nation has it, then another must have more. Yes, that's what Achilles's little venture in kidnapping was about."
"My point is: Having a Battle School graduate—particularly one of Ender's Jeesh—makes war more, not less, probable."