"Is this where Ender Wiggin grew up?"
A cloud passed across her face, just momentarily, but Bean saw how her expression saddened before her smile could be put back. "Yes, it is," she said. "But we don't give tours."
For reasons Bean could not understand, on impulse he said, "I was with him. In the last battle. I fought under him."
Her smile changed again, away from mere courtesy and kindness, toward something like warmth and pain. "Ali," she said. "A veteran." And then the warmth faded and was replaced by worry. "I know all the faces of Ender's companions in that last battle. You're the one who's dead. Julian Delphiki."
Just like that, his cover was blown-and he had done it to himself, by telling her that he was in Ender's jeesh. What was he thinking? There were only eleven of them. "Obviously, there's someone who wants to kill me," he said. "If you tell anyone I came here, it will help him do it."
"I won't tell. But it was careless of you to come here."
"I had to see," said Bean, wondering if that was anything like a true explanation.
She didn't wonder. "That's absurd," she said. "You wouldn't risk your life to come here without a reason." And then it came together in her mind. "Peter's not home right now."
"I know," Bean said. "I was just with him at the university." And then he realized-there was no reason for her to think he was coming to see Peter, unless she had some idea of what Peter was doing. "You know," he said.
She closed her eyes, realizing now what she had confessed. "Either we are both very great fools," she said, "or we must have trusted each other at once, to let our guard down so readily."
"We're only fools if the other can't be trusted," said Bean.
"We'll find out, won't we?" Then she smiled. "No use leaving you standing out here on the street, for people to wonder why a child your size is not in school."
He followed her up the walkway to the front door. When Ender left home, did he walk down this path? Bean tried to imagine the scene. Ender never came home. Like Bonzo, the other casualty of the war. Bonzo, killed; Ender, missing in action; and now Bean coming up the walk to Ender's home. Only this was no sentimental visit with a grieving family. It was a different war now, out war it was, and she had another son at risk these days.
She was not supposed to know what he was doing. Wasn't that the whole point of Peter's having to camouflage his activities by pretending to be a student?
She made him a sandwich without even asking, as if she simply assumed that a child would be hungry. It was, of all things, that plain American cliche, peanut butter on white bread. Had she made such sandwiches for Ender?
"I miss him," said Bean, because he knew that would make her like him.
"If he had been here," said Mrs. Wiggin, "he probably would have been killed. When I read what ... Locke ... wrote about that boy from Rotterdam, I couldn't imagine he would have let Ender live. You knew him, too, didn't you. What's his name,?"
"Achilles," said Bean.
"You're in hiding," she said. "But you seem so young."
"I travel with a nun named Sister Carlotta," said Bean. "We claim we're grandmother and grandson."
"I'm glad you're not alone."
"Neither is Ender."
Tears came to her eyes. "I suppose he needed Valentine more than we did."
On impulse-again, an impulsive act instead of a calculated decision-Bean reached out and set his hand in hers. She smiled at him.
The moment passed. Bean realized again how dangerous it was to be here. What if this house was under surveillance? The I.F. knew about Peter-what if they were observing the house?
"I should go," said Bean.
"I'm glad you came by," she said. "I must have wanted very much to talk to someone who knew Ender without being envious of him."
"We were all envious," said Bean. "But we also knew he was the best of us."
"Why else would you envy him, if you didn't think he was better?"
Bean laughed. "Well, when you envy somebody, you tell yourself he isn't really better after all."
"So ... did the other children envy his abilities?" asked Mrs. Wiggin. "Or only the recognition he received?"
Bean didn't like the question, but then remembered who it was that was asking. "I should turn that question back on you. Did Peter envy his abilities? Or only the recognition?"
She stood there, considering whether to answer or not. Bean knew that family loyalty worked against her saying anything. "I'm not just idly asking," Bean said. "I don't know how much you know about what Peter's doing..."
"We read everything he publishes," said Mrs. Wiggin. "And then we're very careful to act as if we hadn't a clue what's going on in the world."
"I'm trying to decide whether to throw in with Peter," said Bean. "And I have no way of knowing what to make of him. How much to trust him."
"I wish I could help you," said Mrs. Wiggin. "Peter marches to a different drummer. I've never really caught the rhythm."
"Don't you like him?" asked Bean, knowing he was too blunt, but knowing also that he wasn't going to get many chances like this, to talk to the mother of a potential ally---or rival.
"I love him," said Mrs. Wiggin. "He doesn't show us much of himself. But that's only fair-we never showed our children much of ourselves, either."
"Why not?" asked Bean. He was thinking of the openness of his mother and father, the way they knew Nikolai, and Nikolai knew them. It had left him almost gasping, the unguardedness of their conversations with each other. Clearly the Wiggin household did not have that custom.
"It's very complicated," said Mrs. Wiggin.
"Meaning that you think it's none of my business."
"On the contrary, I know it's very much your business." She sighed and sat back down. "Come on, let's not pretend this is only a doorstep conversation. You came here to find out about Peter. The easy answer is simply to tell you that we don't know a thing. He never tells anyone anything they want to know, unless it would be useful to him for them to know it."
"But the hard answer?"
"We've been hiding from our children, almost from the start," said Mrs. Wiggin. "We can hardly be surprised or resentful when they learned at a very early age to be secretive."
"What were you hiding?"
"We don't tell our children, and I should tell you?" But she answered her own question at once. "If Valentine and Ender were here, I think we would talk to them. I even tried to explain some of this to Valentine before she left to join Ender in ... space. I did a very bad job, because I had never put it in words before. Let me just ... let me start by saying ... we were going to have a third child anyway, even if the I.F. hadn't asked us to."
Where Bean had grown up, the population laws hadn't meant much-the street children of Rotterdam were all extra people and knew perfectly well that by law not one of them should have been born but when you're starving, it's hard to care much about whether you're going to get into the finest schools. Still, when the laws were repealed, he read about them and knew the significance of their decision to have a third child. "Why would you do that?" asked Bean. "It would hurt all your children. It would end your careers."
"We were very careful not to have careers," said Mrs. Wiggin. "Not careers that we'd hate to give up. What we had was only jobs. You see, we're religious people."
"There are lots of religious people in the world."
"But not in America," said Mrs. Wiggin. "Not the kind of fanatic that does something so selfish and antisocial as to have more than two children, just because of some misguided religious ideas. And when Peter tested so high as a toddler, and they started monitoring himwell, that was a disaster for us. We had hoped to be ... unobtrusive. To disappear. We're very bright people, you know."
"I wondered why the parents of such geniuses didn't have noted careers of their own," said Bean. "Or at least some kind of standing in the intellectual community."