"It might not even be India," said Bean. "We don't really know anything."
"Except that it's Achilles," said Suriyawong. "Think about the stuff that doesn't make sense. A second-rate, obvious campaign strategy that we're probably going to be able to take apart. A nasty bit of business like this that can only soil India's reputation in the rest of the world."
"Obviously he's not acting in India's best interest," said Bean. "But they think he is, if he's really the one who brought off this deal with Pakistan. He's acting for himself. And I can see what he gains by kidnapping Ender's jeesh and by trying to kill you."
"Fewer rivals?"
"No," said Bean. "He makes Battle School grads look like the most important weapons in the war."
"But he's not a Battle School grad."
"He was in Battle School, and he's that age. He doesn't want to have to wait till he grows up to be king of the world. He wants everyone to believe that a child should lead them. If you're worth killing, if Ender's jeesh is worth stealing..." It also helps Peter Wiggin, Bean realized. He didn't go to Battle School, but if children are plausible world leaders, his own track record as Locke raises him above any other contenders. Military ability is one thing. Ending the League War was a much stronger qualification. It trumped "psychopathic Battle School expulsee" hands down.
"Do you think that's all?" asked Suriyawong.
"What's all?" asked Bean. He had lost the thread. "Oh, you mean is that enough to explain why Achilles would want you dead?" Bean thought about it. "I don't know. Maybe. But it doesn't tell us why he's setting up India for a much bloodier war than it has to fight."
"What about this," said Suriyawong. "Make everybody fear what war will bring, so they want to strengthen the Hegemony to keep the war from spreading."
"That's fine, except nobody's going to nominate Achilles as Hegemon."
"Good point. Are we ruling out the possibility that Achilles is just stupid?"
"Yes, that's not a possibility."
"What about Petra, could she have fooled him into sticking with this obvious but somewhat dumb and wasteful strategy?"
"That is possible, except that Achilles is very sharp at reading people. I don't know if Petra could lie to him. I never saw her lie to anybody. I don't know if she can."
"Never saw her lie to anybody?" asked Suriyawong.
Bean shrugged. "We became very good friends, at the end of the war. She speaks her mind. She may hold something back sometimes, but she tells you she's doing it. No smoke, no mirrors. The door's either open or it's shut."
"Lying takes practice," observed Suriyawong.
"Like the Chakri?"
"You don't get to that position by pure military ability. You have to make yourself look very good to a lot of people. And hide a lot of things you're doing."
"You're not suggesting Thailand's government is corrupt," said Bean.
"I'm suggesting Thailand's government is political. I hope this doesn't surprise you. Because I'd heard that you were bright."
They got a car to take them into town-Suriyawong had always had the authority to requisition a car and a driver, he just never used it till now.
"So where do we eat?" asked Bean. "It's not like I have a restaurant guide with me."
"I grew up in families with better chefs than any restaurant," said Suriyawong.
"So we go to your house?"
"My family lives near Chiang Mai."
"That's going to be a battle zone."
"Which is why I think they're actually in Vientiane, though security rules would keep them from telling me. My father is running a network of dispersed munitions factories." Suriyawong grinned. "I had to make sure I siphoned off some of these defense jobs for my family.
"In other words, he was best man for the task."
"My mother was best for the task, but this is Thailand. Our love affair with Western culture ended a century ago."
They ended up having to ask the soldiers, and they only knew the kind of place they could afford to eat. So they found themselves eating at a tiny all-night diner in a part of town that wasn't the worst, but wasn't the nicest, either. And the whole thing was so cheap it felt practically free.
Suriyawong and the soldiers went down on the food as if it were the best meal they'd ever had. "Isn't this great?" asked Suriyawong. "When my parents had company, and they were eating all the fancy stuff in the dining room with visitors, we kids would eat in the kitchen, the stuff the servants ate. This stuff. Real food."
No doubt that's why the Americans at Yum-Yum in Greensboro loved what they got there, too. Childhood memories. Food that tasted like safety and love and getting rewarded for good behavior. A treatwe're going out. Bean didn't have any such memories, of course. He had no nostalgia for picking up food wrappers and licking the sugar off the plastic and then trying to get at any of it that rubbed off on his nose. What was he nostalgic for? Life in Achilles' "family"? Battle School? Not likely. And his time with his family in Greece had come too late to be part of his early childhood memories. He liked being in Crete, he loved his family, but no, the only good memories of his childhood were in Sister Carlotta's apartment when she took him off the street and fed him and kept him safe and helped him prepare to take the Battle School tests-his ticket off Earth, to where he'd be safe from Achilles.
It was the only time in his childhood when he felt safe. And even
though he didn't believe it or understand it at the time, he felt loved, too. If he could sit down in some restaurant and eat a meal like the ones Sister Carlotta prepared there in Rotterdam, he'd probably feel the way those Americans felt about Yum-Yum, or these Thais felt about this place.
"Our friend Borommakot doesn't really like the food," said Suriyawong. He spoke in Thai, because Bean had picked up the language quite readily, and the soldiers weren't as comfortable in Common.
"He may not like it," said one soldier, "but it's making him grow."
"Soon he'll be as tall as you," said the other.
"How tall do Greeks get?" asked the first.
Bean froze.
So did Suriyawong.
The two soldiers looked at them with some alarm. "What, did you see something?"
"How did you know he was Greek?" asked Suriyawong.
The soldiers glanced at each other and then suppressed their smiles.
"I guess they're not stupid," said Bean.
"We saw all the vids on the Bugger War, we saw your face, you think you're not famous? Don't you know?"
"But you never said anything," said Bean.
"That would have been rude."
Bean wondered how many people made him in Araraquara and Greensboro, but were too polite to say anything.
It was three in the morning when they got to the airport. The plane was due in about six. Bean was too keyed up to sleep. He assigned himself to keep watch, and let the soldiers and Suriyawong doze.
So it was Bean who noticed when a flurry of activity began around the podium about forty-five minutes before the flight was supposed to arrive. He got up and went to ask what was going on.
"Please wait, we'll make an announcement," said the ticket agent. "Where are your parents? Are they here?"
Bean sighed. So much for fame. Suriyawong, at least, should have been recognized. Then again, everyone here had been on duty all night and probably hadn't heard any of the news about the assassination attempt, so they wouldn't have seen Suriyawong's face flashed in the vids again and again. He went back to waken one of the soldiers so he could find out, adult to adult, what was going on.
His uniform probably got him information that a civilian wouldn't have been told. He came back looking grim. "The plane went down," he said.