"After you've used my work."
"But I'm not using your work," said Achilles.
"Oh, that's right. Because Suriyawong is dead, so you don't need to worry now about having any real opposition."
Achilles laughed. "Sure. That's it."
Which meant, of course, that she hadn't understood at all.
"It's easy to fool a person you keep living in a box. I only know what you tell me."
"But I tell you everything," said Achilles, "if only you were bright enough to get it."
Petra closed her eyes. She kept thinking of poor Suriyawong. So serious all the time. He had done his best for his country, and then it was his own commander-in-chief who killed him. Did he know? I hope not.
If she kept thinking of poor Suriyawong, she wouldn't have to think of Bean at all.
"You're not listening," said Achilles.
"Oh, thanks for telling me that," said Petra. "I thought I was."
Achilles was about to say something else, but then he cocked his head. The hearing aid he wore was a radio receiver tied to his desk. Somebody had just started talking to him.
Achilles turned from her to his desk. He typed a few things, read a few things. His face showed no emotion-but that was a real change, since he had been smiling and pleasant until the voice came. Something had gone wrong. Indeed, Petra knew him well enough now that she thought she recognized the signs of anger. Or maybe-she wondered, she hoped-fear.
"They aren't dead," Petra said.
"I'm busy," he said.
She laughed. "That's the message, isn't it? Once again, your assassins have piffed it. If you want a job done right, Achilles, you've got to do it yourself."
He turned away from the desk display and looked her in the eye. "He sent out a message from the barracks of his strike force there in Thailand. Of course the Chakri saw it."
"Not dead," said Petra. "He just keeps beating you."
"Narrowly escaping with his life while my plans are never interfered with at all..."
"Come on, you know he got you booted out of Russia."
Achilles raised his eyebrows. "So you admit you sent a coded message."
"Bean doesn't need coded messages to beat you," she said.
Achilles rose from his chair and walked over to her. She braced herself for a slap. But he planted a hand in her chest and shoved the chair over backward.
Her head hit the floor. It left her dazed, lights flashing through her peripheral vision. And then a wave of pain and nausea.
"He sent for dear old Sister Carlotta," said Achilles. His voice betrayed no emotion. "She's flying around the world to help him. Isn't that nice of her?"
Petra could barely comprehend what he was saying. The only thought she could hold on to was: Don't let there be any permanent brain damage. That was her whole self. She'd rather die than lose the brilliance that made her who she was.
"But that gives me time to set up a little surprise," said Achilles. "I think I'll make Bean very sorry that he's alive."
Petra wanted to say something to that, but she couldn't remember what. Then she couldn't remember what he had said. "What?"
"Oh, is your poor little head swimming, my Pet? You should be more careful with the way you lean back on that chair."
Now she remembered what he had said. A surprise. For Sister Carlotta. To make Bean sorry he's alive.
"Sister Carlotta is the one who got you off the streets of Rotterdam," said Petra. "You owe her everything. Your leg operation. Going to Battle School."
"I owe her nothing," said Achilles. "You see, she chose Bean. She sent him. Me, she passed over. I'm the one who brought civilization to the streets. I'm the one who kept her precious little Bean alive. But him she sends up into space, and me she leaves in the dirt."
"Poor baby," said Petra.
He kicked her, hard, in the ribs. She gasped.
"And as for Virlomi," he said, "I think I can use her to teach you a lesson about disloyalty to me."
"That's the way to bring me into your tent," said Petra.
Again he kicked her. She tried not to groan, but it came out anyway. This passive resistance strategy was not working.
He acted as if he hadn't done it. "Come on, why are you lying there? Get up."
"Just kill me and have done with it," she said. "Virlomi was just trying to be a decent human being."
"Virlomi was warned what would happen."
"Virlomi is nothing to you but a way to hurt me."
"You're not that important. And if I want to hurt you, I know how." He made as if to kick her again. She stiffened, curled away from the blow. But it didn't come. Instead he reached down a hand to her. "Get up, my Pet. The floor is no place to nap."
She reached up and took his hand. She let him bear most of her weight as she rose up, so he was pulling hard.
Fool, she thought. I was trained for personal combat. You weren't in Battle School long enough to get that training.
As soon as her legs were under her, she shoved upward. Since that was the direction he had been pulling, he lost his balance and went over backward, falling over the legs of her chair.
He did not hit his head. He immediately tried to scramble to his feet. But she knew how to respond to his movements, kicking sharply at him with her heavy army-issue shoes, shifting her weight so that her kicks never came at the place he was protecting. Every kick hurt him. He tried to scramble backward, but she pressed on, relentless, and because he was using his arms to help him scuttle across the floor, she was able to kick him in the head, a solid blow that rocked him back and laid him out.
Not unconscious, but a little dizzy. Well, see how you like it.
He tried to do some kind of street-fighting move, kicking out with his legs while his eyes were looking elsewhere, but it was pathetic. She easily jumped over his legs and landed a scuffing kick right up between his legs.
He cried out in pain.
"Come on, get up," she said. "You're going to kill Virlomi, so kill me first. Do it. You're the killer. Get your gun. Come on."
And then, without her quite seeing how he did it, there was indeed a gun in his hand.
"Kick me again," he said through gritted teeth. "Kick me faster than this bullet."
She didn't move.
"I thought you wanted to die," he said.
She could see it now. He wouldn't shoot her. Not till he had shot Virlomi in front of her.
She had missed her chance. While he was down, before he got the gun-from the back of his waistband? from under the furniture?-she should have snapped his neck. This wasn't a wrestling match, this was her chance to put an end to him. But her instinct had taken over, and her instinct was not to kill, only to disable her opponent, because that's what she had practiced in Battle School.
Of all the things I could have learned from Ender, the killer instinct, going for the final blow from the start, why was that the one I overlooked?
Something Bean had explained about Achilles. Something Graff had told him, after Bean had gotten him shipped back to Earth. That Achilles had to kill anyone who had ever seen him helpless. Even the doctor who had repaired his gimp leg, because she'd seen him laid out under anaesthetic and taken a knife to him.
Petra had just destroyed whatever feeling it was that had made him keep her alive. Whatever he had wanted from her, he wouldn't want it now. He wouldn't be able to bear having her around. She was dead.
Yet, no matter what else was going on, she was still a tactician. Thick headed as she was, her mind could still do this dance. The enemy saw things this way; so change it so he sees them another way.
Petra laughed. "I never thought you'd let me do that," she said.
He slowly, painfully, was getting to his feet, the gun trained on her.
She went on. "You always had to be el supremo, like the bunducks in Battle School. I never thought you had the guts to be like Ender or Bean, till now."