"So let's act now," said Bean. "Where?"
"Thailand," said Peter. "Burma has no hope of resisting an Indian attack, or of putting together an alliance that might have a chance. But Thailand is historically the leader of southeast Asia. The one nation that was never colonized. The natural leader of the Taispeaking peoples in the surrounding nations. And they have a strong military."
"But I don't speak the language," said Bean.
"Not a problem," said Peter. "The Thai have been multilingual for centuries, and they have a long history of allowing foreigners to take positions of power and influence in their government, as long as they're loyal to Thailand's interests. You have to throw in your lot with them. They have to trust you. But it seems plain enough that you know how to be loyal."
"Not at all," said Bean. "I'm completely selfish. I survive. That's all I do."
"But you survive," said Peter, "by being absolutely loyal to the few people you depend on. I read just as much about you as I did about Achilles."
"What was written about me reflects the fantasies of the newspeople," said Bean.
"I'm not talking about the news," said Peter. "I read Carlotta's memos to the I.F. about your childhood in Rotterdam."
They both stopped walking. Ali, have I surprised you? Peter couldn't help but take pleasure in knowing that he had shown that he, too, knew some things about them.
"Those memos were eyes only," said Carlotta. "There should have been no copies."
"Ali, but whose eyes?" said Peter. "There are no secrets to people with the right friends."
"I haven't read those memos," said Bean.
Carlotta looked searchingly at Peter. "Some information is worthless except to destroy," she said.
And now Peter wondered what secrets she had about Bean. Because when he spoke of "memos," he in fact was thinking of a report that had been in Achilles' file, which had drawn on a couple of those memos as a source about life on the streets of Rotterdam. The comments about Bean had been merely ancillary matters. He really hadn't read the actual memos. But now he wanted to, because there was clearly something that she didn't want Bean to know.
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.