What surprised Suriyawong was Bean's generosity. Bean had created this strike force, and trained these men, had earned their trust. Throughout that time, Suriyawong had been of little help, and had shown outright hostility at times. Yet Bean included Suriyawong, entrusted him with command, encouraged the men to help Suriyawong learn what they could do. Through it all, Bean had never treated Suriyawong as a subordinate or inferior, but rather had deferred to him as his superior officer.
In return, Suriyawong never commanded Bean to do anything. Rather they reached a consensus on most things, and when they could not agree, Suriyawong deferred to Bean's decision and supported him in it.
Bean has no ambition, Suriyawong realized. He has no wish to be better than anyone else, or to rule over anyone, or to have more honor.
Then, on the missions where they worked together, Suriyawong saw something else: Bean had no fear of death.
Bullets could be flying, explosives could be near detonation, and Bean would move without fear and with only token concealment. It was as if he dared the enemy to shoot him, dared their own explosives to defy him and go off before he was ready.
Was this courage? Or did he wish for death? Had Sister Carlotta's death taken away some of his will to live? To hear him talk, Suriyawong would not have supposed it. Bean was too grimly determined to rescue Petra for Suriyawong to believe that he wanted to die. He had something urgent to live for. And yet he showed no fear of battle.
It was as if he knew the day that he would die, and this was not that day.
He certainly hadn't stopped caring about anything. Indeed, the quiet, icy, controlled, arrogant Bean that Suriyawong had known before had become, since the day Carlotta died, impatient and agitated. The calm he showed in battle, in front of the men, was certainly not there when he was alone with Suriyawong and Phet Noi. And the favorite object of his curses was not Achilles-he almost never spoke of Achilles-but Peter Wiggin.
"He's had everything for a month! And he does these little things-persuading Chamrajnagar not to return to Earth yet, persuading Ghaffar Wahabi not to invade Iran-and he tells me about them, but the big thing, publishing Achilles' whole treacherous strategy, he won't do that-and he tells me not to do it myself! Why not? If the Indian government could be forced to see how Achilles plans to betray them, they might be able to pull enough of their army out of Burma to make a stand against the Chinese. Russia might be able to intervene. The Japanese fleet might threaten Chinese trade. At the very least, the Chinese themselves might see Achilles for what he is, and jettison him even as they follow his plan! And all he says is, It's not the right moment, it's too soon, not yet, you have to trust me, I'm with you on this, right to the end."
He was scarcely kinder in his execrations of the Thai generals running the war--or ruining it, as he said. Suriyawong had to agree with him-the whole plan depended on keeping Thai forces dispersed, but now that the Thai Air Force had control of the air over Burma, they had concentrated their armies and airbases in forward positions. "I told them what the danger was," said Bean, "and they still gather their forces into one convenient place."
Phet Noi listened patiently; Suriyawong, too, gave up trying to argue with him. Bean was right. People were behaving foolishly, and not out of ignorance. Though of course they would say, later, "But we didn't know Bean was right."
To which Bean already had his answer: "You didn't know I was wrong! So you should have been prudent!"
The only thing different in Bean's diatribes was that he went hoarse for a week, and when his voice came back, it was lower. For a kid who had always been so tiny, even for his age, puberty-if that's what this was--certainly had struck him young. Or maybe he had just stretched out his vocal cords with all his ranting.
But now, on a mission, Bean was silent, the calm of battle already on him. Suriyawong and Bean boarded their choppers last, making sure all their men were aboard; one last salute to each other, and then they ducked inside and the door closed and the choppers rose into the air. They jetted along near the surface of the Indian Ocean, the chopper blades folded and enclosed until they got near Cheduba Island, today's staging area. Then the choppers dispersed, rose into the air, cut the jets, and opened their blades for vertical landing.
Now they would leave behind their reserves-the men and choppers that could bring out anyone stranded by a mechanical problem or unforeseen complication. Bean and Suriyawong never rode together-one chopper failure should not behead the mission. And each of them had redundant equipment, so that either could complete the whole mission. More than once, the redundancy had saved lives and missions-Phet Noi made sure they were always equipped because, as he said, "You give the materiel to the commanders who know how to use it."
Bean and Suriyawong were too busy to chat in the staging area, but they did come together for a few moments, as they watched the reserve team camouflage their choppers and scrim their solar collectors. "You know what I wish?" said Bean.
"You mean besides wanting to be an astronaut when you grow up?" said Suriyawong.
"That we could scrub this mission and take off for Hyderabad."
"And get ourselves killed without ever seeing a sign of Petra, who has probably already been moved to someplace in the Himalayas."
"That's the genius of my plan," said Bean. "I take a herd of cattle hostage and threaten to shoot a cow a day till they bring her back."
"Too risky. The cows always make a break for it." But SuriyaWong knew that to Bean, the inability to do anything for Petra was a constant ache. "We'll do it. Peter's looking for someone who'll give him current information about Hyderabad."
"Like he's working on publishing Achilles' plans." The favorite diatribe. Only because they were on mission, Bean remained calm, ironic rather than furious.
"All done," said Suriyawong.
"See you in the mountains."
It was a dangerous mission. The enemy couldn't watch every kilometer of highway, but they had learned to converge quickly when the Thai choppers were spotted, and their strike force was having to finish their missions with less and less time to spare. And this spot was likely to be defended. That was why Bean's contingent-four of the five companies-would be deployed to clear away any defenders and protect Suriyawong's group while they laid the charges and blew up the road and the bridge.
All was going according to plan-indeed, better than expected, because the enemy seemed not to know they were there-when one of the men pointed out, "There's a woman on the bridge."
"A civilian?"
"You need to see," said the soldier.
Suriyawong left the spot where the explosives were being placed and climbed back up to the bridge. Sure enough, a young Indian woman was standing there, her arms stretched out toward either side of the ravine.
"Has anyone mentioned to her that the bridge is going to explode, and we don't actually care if anyone's on it?"
"Sir," said the soldier, "she's asking for Bean."
"By name?"
He nodded.
Suriyawong looked at the woman again. A very young woman. Her clothing was filthy, tattered. Had it once been a military uniform? It certainly wasn't the way local women dressed.
She looked at him. "Suriyawong," she called.
Behind him, he could hear several soldiers exhale or gasp in surprise or wonder. How did this Indian woman know? It worried Suriyawong a little. The soldiers were reliable in almost everything, but if they once got godstuff into their heads, it could complicate everything.
"I'm Suriyawong," he said.
"You were in Dragon Army," she said. "And you work with Bean."
"What do you want?" he demanded.