Ender's Shadow Page 7

  His first thought was to hide, but then he remembered that she knew all about his story of hiding in the clean place, so she would also think of hiding and she would look for him in a hiding place close to the big building.

  So he ran. It surprised him how strong he was now. It felt like he could run as fast as a bird flying, and he didn't get tired, he could run forever. All the way to the corner and around it onto another street.

  Then down another street, and another, until he would have been lost except he started out lost and when you start out completely lost, it's hard to get loster. As he walked and trotted and jogged and ran up and down streets and alleys, he realized that all he had to do was find a canal or a stream and it would lead him to the river or to a place that he recognized. So the first bridge that went over water, he saw which way the water flowed and chose streets that would keep him close. It wasn't as if he knew where he was yet, but at least he was following a plan.

  It worked. He came to the river and walked along it until he recognized, off in the distance and partly around a bend in the river, Maasboulevard, which led to the place where Poke was killed.

  The bend in the river--he knew it from the map. He knew where all of Sister Carlotta's marks had been. He knew that he had to go through the place where he used to live on the streets in order to get past them and closer to the area where the janitor might have lived. And that wouldn't be easy, because he would be known there, and Sister Carlotta might even have the cops looking for him and they would look there because that's where all the street urchins were and they would expect him to become a street urchin again.

  What they were forgetting was that Bean wasn't hungry anymore. And since he wasn't hungry, he wasn't in a hurry.

  He walked the long way around. Far from the river, far from the busy part of town where the urchins were. Whenever the streets started looking crowded he would widen his circle and stay away from the busy places. He took the rest of that day and most of the next making such a wide circle that for a while he was not in Rotterdam anymore at all, and he saw some of the countryside, just like the pictures--farmland and the roads built up higher than the land around them. Sister Carlotta had explained to him once that most of the farmland was lower than the level of the sea, and great dikes were the only thing keeping the sea from rushing back onto the land and covering it. But Bean knew that he would never get close to any of the big dikes. Not by walking, anyway.

  He drifted back into town now, into the Schiebroek district, and late in the afternoon of the second day he recognized the name of Rindijk Straat and soon found a cross street whose name he knew, Erasmus Singel, and then it was easy to get to the earliest place he could remember, the back door of a restaurant where he had been fed when he was still a baby and didn't talk right and grownups rushed to feed him and help him instead of kicking him out of the way.

  He stood there in the dusk. Nothing had changed. He could almost picture the woman with the little bowl of food, holding it out to him and waving a spoon in her hand and saying something in a language he didn't understand. Now he could read the sign above the restaurant and realized that it was Armenian and that's probably what the woman had been speaking.

  Which way had he walked to come here? He had smelled the food when he was walking along . . . here? He walked a little way up, a little way down the street, turning and turning to reorient himself.

  "What are you doing here, fatso?"

  It was two kids, maybe eight years old. Belligerent but not bullies. Probably part of a crew. No, part of a family, now that Achilles had changed everything. If the changes had spread to this part of town.

  "I'm supposed to meet my papa here," said Bean.

  "And who's your papa?"

  Bean wasn't sure whether they took the word "papa" to mean his father or the papa of his "family." He took the chance, though, of saying "Achilles."

  They scoffed at the idea. "He's way down by the river, why would he meet a fatso like you clear up here?"

  But their derision was not important--what mattered was that Achilles' reputation had spread this far through the city.

  "I don't have to explain his business to you," said Bean. "And all the kids in Achilles' family are fat like me. That's how well we eat."

  "Are they all short like you?"

  "I used to be taller, but I asked too many questions," said Bean, pushing past them and walking across Rozenlaan toward the area where the janitor's fiat seemed likeliest to be.

  They didn't follow him. Such was the magic of Achilles' name--or perhaps it was just Bean's utter confidence, paying them no notice as if he had nothing to fear from them.

  Nothing looked familiar. He kept turning around and checking to see if he recognized things when looking in the direction he might have been going after leaving the janitor's flat. It didn't help. He wandered until it was dark, and kept wandering even then.

  Until, quite by chance, he found himself standing at the foot of a street lamp, trying to read a sign, when a set of initials carved on the pole caught his attention. PDVM, it said. He had no idea what it meant; he had never thought of it during all his attempts to remember; but he knew that he had seen it before. And not just once. He had seen it several times. The janitor's flat was very close.

  He turned slowly, scanning the area, and there it was: A small apartment building with both an inside and an outside stairway.

  The janitor lived on the top floor. Ground floor, first floor, second floor, third. Bean went to the mailboxes and tried to read the names, but they were set too high on the wall and the names were all faded, and some of the tags were missing entirely.

  Not that he ever knew the janitor's name, truth to tell. There was no reason to think he would have recognized it even if he had been able to read it on the mailbox.

  The outside stairway did not go all the way up to the top floor. It must have been built for a doctor's office on the first floor. And because it was dark, the door at the top of the stairs was locked.

  There was nothing to do but wait. Either he would wait all night and get into the building through one entrance or another in the morning, or someone would come back in the night and Bean would slip through a door behind him.

  He fell asleep and woke up, slept and woke again. He worried that a policeman would see him and shove him away, so when he woke the second time he abandoned all pretense of being on watch and crept under the stairs and curled up there for the night.

  He was awakened by drunken laughter. It was still dark, and beginning to rain just a little--not enough to start dripping off the stairs, though, so Bean was dry. He stuck his head out to see who was laughing. It was a man and a woman, both merry with alcohol, the man furtively pawing and poking and pinching, the woman fending him off with halfhearted slaps. "Can't you wait?" she said.

  "No," he said.

  "You're just going to fall asleep without doing anything," she said.

  "Not this time," he said. Then he threw up.

  She looked disgusted and walked on without him. He staggered after her. "I feel better now," he said. "It'll be better."

  "The price just went up," she said coldly. "And you brush your teeth first."

  "Course I brush my teeth."

  They were right at the front of the building now. Bean was waiting to slip in after them.

  Then he realized that he didn't have to wait. The man was the janitor from all those years before.

  Bean stepped out of the shadows. "Thanks for bringing him home," he said to the woman.

  They both looked at him in surprise.

  "Who are you?" asked the janitor.

  Bean looked at the woman and rolled his eyes. "He's not that drunk, I hope," said Bean. To the janitor he said, "Mama will not be happy to see you come home like this again."

  "Mama!" said the janitor. "Who the hell are you talking about?"

  The woman gave the janitor a shove. He was so off balance that he lurched against the wall, then slid down it to land on
his buttocks on the sidewalk. "I should have known," she said. "You bring me home to your wife?"

  "I'm not married," said the janitor. "This kid isn't mine."

  "I'm sure you're telling the truth on both points," said the woman. "But you better let him help you up the stairs anyway. Mama's waiting." She started to walk away.

  "What about my forty gilders?" he asked plaintively, knowing the answer even as he asked.

  She made an obscene gesture and walked on into the night.

  "You little bastard," said the janitor.

  "I had to talk to you alone," said Bean.

  "Who the hell are you? Who's your mama?"

  "That's what I'm here to find out," said Bean. "I'm the baby you found and brought home. Three years ago."

  The man looked at him in stupefaction.

  Suddenly a light went on, then another. Bean and the janitor were bathed in overlapping flashlight beams. Four policemen converged on them.

  "Don't bother running, kid," said a cop. "Nor you, Mr. Fun Time."

  Bean recognized Sister Carlotta's voice. "They aren't criminals," she said. "I just need to talk to them. Up in his apartment."

  "You followed me?" Bean asked her.

  "I knew you were searching for him," she said. "I didn't want to interfere until you found him. Just in case you think you were really smart, young man, we intercepted four street thugs and two known sex offenders who were after you."

  Bean rolled his eyes. "You think I've forgotten how to deal with them?"

  Sister Carlotta shrugged. "I didn't want this to be the first time you ever made a mistake in your life." She did have a sarcastic streak.

  "So as I told you, there was nothing to learn from this Pablo de Noches. He's an immigrant who lives to pay for prostitutes. Just another of the worthless people who have gravitated here ever since the Netherlands became international territory."

  Sister Carlotta had sat patiently, waiting for the inspector to wind down his I-told-you-so speech. But when he spoke of a man's worthlessness, she could not let the remark go unchallenged. "He took in that baby," she said. "And fed the child and cared for him."

  The inspector waved off the objection. "We needed one more street urchin? Because that's all that people like this ever produce."

  "You didn't learn nothing from him," Sister Carlotta said. "You learned the location where the boy was found."

  "And the people renting the building during that time are untraceable. A company name that never existed. Nothing to go on. No way to track them down."

  "But that nothing is something," said Sister Carlotta. "I tell you that these people had many children in this place, which they closed down in a hurry, with all the children but one taken away. You tell me that the company was a false name and can't be traced. So now, in your experience, doesn't that tell you a great deal about what was going on in that building?"

  The inspector shrugged. "Of course. It was obviously an organ farm."

  Tears came to Sister Carlotta's eyes. "And that is the only possibility?"

  "A lot of defective babies are born to rich families," said the inspector. "There is an illegal market in infant and toddler organs. We close down the organ farms whenever we find out where they are. Perhaps we were getting close to this organ farm and they got wind of it and closed up shop. But there is no paper in the department on any organ farm that we actually found at that time. So perhaps they closed down for another reason. Still, nothing."

  Patiently, Sister Carlotta ignored his inability to realize how valuable this information was. "Where do the babies come from?"

  The inspector looked at her blankly. As if he thought she was asking him to explain the facts of life.

  "The organ farm," she said. "Where do they get the babies?"

  The inspector shrugged. "Late-term abortions, usually. Some arrangement with the clinics, a kickback. That sort of thing."

  "And that's the only source?"

  "Well, I don't know. Kidnappings? I don't think that could be much of a factor, there aren't that many babies leaking through the security systems in the hospitals. People selling babies? It's been heard of, yes. Poor refugees arrive with eight children, and then a few years later they have only six, and they cry about the ones who died but who can prove anything? But nothing you can trace."

  "The reason I'm asking," said Sister Carlotta, "is that this child is unusual. Extremely unusual."

  "Three arms?" asked the inspector.

  "Brilliant. Precocious. He escaped from this place before he was a year old. Before he could walk."

  The inspector thought about that for a few moments. "He crawled away?"

  "He hid in a toilet tank."

  "He got the lid up before he was a year old?"

  "He said it was hard to lift."

  "No, it was probably cheap plastic, not porcelain. You know how these institutional plumbing fixtures are."

  "You can see, though, why I want to know about the child's parentage. Some miraculous combination of parents."

  The inspector shrugged. "Some children are born smart."

  "But there is a hereditary component in this, inspector. A child like this must have . . . remarkable parents. Parents likely to be prominent because of the brilliance of their own minds."

  "Maybe. Maybe not," said the inspector. "I mean, some of these refugees, they might be brilliant, but they're caught up in desperate times. To save the other children, maybe they sell a baby. That's even a smart thing to do. It doesn't rule out refugees as the parents of this brilliant boy you have."

  "I suppose that's possible," said Sister Carlotta.

  "It's the most information you'll ever have. Because this Pablo de Noches, he knows nothing. He barely could tell me the name of the town he came from in Spain."

  "He was drunk when he was questioned," said Sister Carlotta.

  "We'll question him again when he's sober," said the inspector. "We'll let you know if we learn anything more. In the meantime, though, you'll have to make do with what I've already told you, because there isn't anything more."

  "I know all I need to know for now," said Sister Carlotta. "Enough to know that this child truly is a miracle, raised up by God for some great purpose."

  "I'm not Catholic," said the inspector.

  "God loves you all the same," said Sister Carlotta cheerfully.

  Part Two

  LAUNCHY

  5

  READY OR NOT

  "Why are you giving me a five-year-old street urchin to tend?"

  "You've seen the scores."

  "Am I supposed to take those seriously?"

  "Since the whole Battle School program is based on the reliability of our juvenile testing program, yes, I think you should take his scores seriously. I did a little research. No child has ever done better. Not even your star pupil."

  "It's not the validity of the tests that I doubt. It's the tester."

  "Sister Carlotta is a nun. You'll never find a more honest person."

  "Honest people have been known to deceive themselves. To want so desperately, after all these years of searching, to find one--just one--child whose value will be worth all that work."

  "And she's found him."

  "Look at the way she found him. Her first report touts this Achilles child, and this--this Bean, this Legume--he's just an afterthought. Then Achilles is gone, not another mention of him--did he die? Wasn't she trying to get a leg operation for him?--and it's Haricot Vert who is now her candidate."

  " 'Bean' is the name he calls himself. Rather as your Andrew Wiggin calls himself 'Ender.' "

  "He's not my Andrew Wiggin."

  "And Bean is not Sister Carlotta's child, either. If she were inclined to fudge the scores or administer tests unfairly, she would have pushed other students into the program long before now, and we'd already know how unreliable she was. She has never done that. She washes out her most hopeful children herself, then finds some place for them on Earth or in a non-command program. I think y
ou're merely annoyed because you've already decided to focus all your attention and energy on the Wiggin boy, and you don't want any distraction."

  "When did I lie down on your couch?"

  "If my analysis is wrong, do forgive me."

  "Of course I'll give this little one a chance. Even if I don't for one second believe these scores."

  "Not just a chance. Advance him. Test him. Challenge him. Don't let him languish."

  "You underestimate our program. We advance and test and challenge all our students."

  "But some are more equal than others."

  "Some take better advantage of the program than others."

  "I'll look forward to telling Sister Carlotta about your enthusiasm."

  Sister Carlotta shed tears when she told Bean that it was time for him to leave. Bean shed none.

  "I understand that you're afraid, Bean, but don't be," she said. "You'll be safe there, and there's so much to learn. The way you drink down knowledge, you'll be very happy there in no time. So you won't really miss me at all."

  Bean blinked. What sign had he given that made her think he was afraid? Or that he would miss her?

  He felt none of those things. When he first met her, he might have been prepared to feel something for her. She was kind. She fed him. She was keeping him safe, giving him a life.

  But then he found Pablo the janitor, and there was Sister Carlotta, stopping Bean from talking to the man who had saved him long before she did. Nor would she tell him anything that Pablo had said, or anything she had learned about the clean place.

  From that moment, trust was gone. Bean knew that whatever Sister Carlotta was doing, it wasn't for him. She was using him. He didn't know what for. It might even be something he would have chosen to do himself. But she wasn't telling him the truth. She had secrets from him. The way Achilles kept secrets.

  So during the months that she was his teacher, he had grown more and more distant from her. Everything she taught, he learned--and much that she didn't teach as well. He took every test she gave him, and did well; but he showed her nothing he had learned that she hadn't taught him.

  Of course life with Sister Carlotta was better than life on the street--he had no intention of going back. But he did not trust her. He was on guard all the time. He was as careful as he had ever been back in Achilles' family. Those brief days at the beginning, when he wept in front of her, when he let go of himself and spoke freely--that had been a mistake that he would not repeat. Life was better, but he wasn't safe, and this wasn't home.