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."
Still he said nothing. But he was standing there. He was listening.
"Crazy, isn't it? But Bean and Ender, they were so little. And they didn't care. Everybody looking down at them, me towering over them, they were the only guys in Battle School who weren't terrified of having somebody see a girl be better than them, bigger than them." Keep it going, keep spinning it. "They put Ender in Bonzo's army too early, he hadn't been trained. Didn't know how to do anything. And Bonzo gave orders, nobody was to work with him. So here I had this little kid, helpless, didn't know anything. That's what I like, Achilles. Smarter than me, but smaller. So I taught him. Chisel Bonzo, I didn't care. He was like you've always been, constantly showing me who's boss. But Ender knew how to let me run it. I taught him everything. I would have died for him."
"You're sick," said Achilles.
"Oh, you're going to tell me you didn't know that? You had the gun the whole time, why did you let me do that, if it wasn't--if you weren't trying to . . ."
"Trying to what?" he said. He was keeping his voice steady, but the craziness was plainly visible, and his voice trembled just a little. She had pushed him past the borders of sanity, deep into his madness. It was Caligula she was seeing now. But he was listening. If she found the right story to put on what just happened, maybe he would settle for . . . something else. Making his horse consul. Making Petra . . .
"Weren't you trying to seduce me?" she said.
"You don't even have your tits yet," he said.
"I don't think it's tits you're looking for," she said. "Or you would never have dragged me around with you in the first place. What was all that talk about wanting me in your tent? Loyal? You wanted me to belong to you. And all the time you did that sabeek stuff, pushi
ng me around--that just made me feel contempt for you. I was looking down on you the whole time. You were nothing, just another sack of testosterone, another chimp hooting and beating his chest. But then you let me--you did let me, didn't you? You don't expect me to believe I really could have done that?"
A faint smile touched the corners of his lips.
"Doesn't that spoil it, if you think I did it on purpose?" he said.
She strode to him, right to the barrel of the gun, and, letting it press into her abdomen, she reached up, grabbed him by the neck, and pulled his head down to where she could kiss him.
She had no idea how to do it, except what she'd seen in movies. But she was apparently doing it well enough. The gun stayed in her belly, but his other arm wrapped around her, pulled her closer.
In the back of her mind, she remembered what Bean told her--that the last thing he had seen Achilles do before killing Bean's friend Poke was kiss her. Bean had had nightmares about it. Achilles kissing her, and then in the middle of the kiss, strangling her. Not that Bean actually saw that part. Maybe it didn't happen that way at all.
But no matter how you cut it, Achilles was a dangerous boy to kiss. And there was that gun in her belly. Maybe this was the moment he longed for. Maybe his dreams were about this--kissing a girl, and blowing a hole in her body while he did.
Well, blow away, she thought. Before I watch you kill Virlomi for the crime of having compassion for me and courage enough to act, I'd rather be dead myself. I'd rather kiss you than watch you kill her, and there's nothing in the world that could disgust me more than having to pretend that you're the . . . thing . . . I love.
The kiss ended. But she did not let go of him. She would not step back, she would not break this embrace. He had to believe that she wanted him. That she was in his emossin' tent.
He was breathing lightly, quickly. His heartbeat was rapid. Prelude to a kill? Or just the aftermath of a kiss.
"I said I'd kill anyone who tried to answer Graff," he said. "I have to."
"She didn't answer Graff, did she?" said Petra. "I know you have to keep control of things, but you don't have to be a strutting yelda about it. She doesn't know you know what she did."
"She'll think she got away with it."
"But I'll know," said Petra, "that you weren't afraid to give me what I want."
"What, you think you've found some way to make me do what you want?" he said.
Now she could back away from him. "I thought I'd found a man who didn't have to prove he was big by pushing people around. I guess I was wrong. Do what you want. Men like you disgust me." She put as much contempt into her voice, onto her face, as she could. "Here, prove you're a man. Shoot me. Shoot everybody. I've known real men. I thought you were one of them."
He lowered the gun. She did not show her relief. Just kept her eyes looking into his.
"Don't ever think you've got me figured out," he said.
"I don't care whether I figure you out or not," she said. "All I care about is, you're the first man since Ender and Bean who had guts enough to let me stand over him."
"Is that what you're going to say?" he asked.
"Say? Who to? I don't have any friends out there. The only person worth talking to in this whole place is you."
He stood there, breathing heavily again, a bit of the craziness back in his eyes.
What am I saying wrong?
"You're going to bring this off," she said. "I don't know how you're going to do it, but I can taste it. You're going to run the whole show. They're all going to be under you, Achilles. Governments, universities, corporations, all eager to please you. But when we're alone, where nobody else can see, we'll both know that you're strong enough to keep a strong woman with you."
"You?" said Achilles. "A woman?"
"If I'm not a woman, what were you doing with me in here?"
"Take off your clothes," he said.
The craziness was still there. He was testing her somehow. Waiting for her to show . . .
To show that she was faking. That she was really afraid of him, after all. That her story was all a lie, designed to trick him.
"No," she said. "You take off yours."
And the craziness faded.
He smiled.
He tucked the gun into the back of his pants.
"Get out of here," he said. "I've got a war to run."
"It's night," she said. "Nobody's moving."
"There's a lot more to this war than the armies," said Achilles.
"When do I get to stay in your tent?" she asked. "What do I have to do?" She could hardly believe she was saying this, when all she wanted was to get out.
"You have to be the thing I need," he said. "And right now, you're not."
He walked to his desk, sat down.
"And pick up your chair on the way out."
He started typing. Orders? For what? To kill whom?
She didn't ask. She picked up the chair. She walked out.
And kept walking, through the corridors to the room where she slept alone. Knowing, with every step, that she was monitored. There would be vids. He would check them, to see how she acted. To see if she meant what she'd said. So she couldn't stop and press her face against the wall and cry. She had to be . . . what? How would this play in a movie or a vid if she were a woman who was frustrated because she wanted to be with her man?
I don't know! she screamed inside. I'm not an actress!
And then, a much quieter voice in her head answered. Yes you are. And a pretty good one. Because for another few minutes, maybe another hour, maybe another night, you're alive.
No triumph, either. She couldn't seem to gloat, couldn't show relief. Frustration, annoyance--and some pain where he kicked her, where her head hit the floor--that's all she could show.
Even alone in her bed, the lights off, she lay there, pretending, lying. Hoping that whatever she did in her sleep would not provoke him. Would not bring that crazy frightened searching look into his eyes.
Not that it would be any guarantee, of course. There was no sign of craziness when he shot those men in the bread van back in Russia. Don't ever think you've got me figured out, he said.
You win, Achilles. I don't think I've got you figured out. But I've learned how to play one lousy string. That's something.
I also knocked you onto the floor, beat the goffno out of you, kicked you in your little kintamas, and made you think you liked it. Kill me tomorrow or whenever you want--my shoe going into your face, you can't take that away from me.
In the morning, Petra was pleased to find that she was still alive, considering what she had done the night before. Her head ached, her ribs were sore, but nothing was broken.
And she was starving. She had missed dinner the night before, and perhaps there was something about beating up her jailer that made her especially hungry. She didn't usually eat breakfast, so she had no accustomed place to sit. At other meals, she sat by herself, and others, respecting her solitude or fearing Achilles' displeasure, did not sit with her.
But today, on impulse, she took her tray to a table that had only a couple of empty spots. The conversation grew quiet when she first sat down, and a few people greeted her. She smiled back at them, but then concentrated on her food. Their conversation resumed.
"There's no way she got off the base."
"So she's still here."
"Unless someone took her."
"Maybe it's a special assignment or something."
"Sayagi says he thinks she's dead."
A chill ran through Petra's body.
"Who?" she asked.
The others glanced at her, but then glanced away. Finally one of them said, "Virlomi."
Virlomi was gone. And no one knew where she was.
He killed her. He said he would, and he did. The only thing I gained by what I did last night was that he didn't do it in front of me.
I can't stand this. I'm done. My life is not worth living. To be his captive, to have him kill anyon
e who tries to help me in any way . . .
No one was looking at her. Nor were they talking.
They know Virlomi tried to answer Graff, because she must have said something to Sayagi when she walked over to him yesterday. And now she's gone.
Petra knew she had to eat, no matter how sick at heart she felt, no matter how much she wanted to cry, to run screaming from the room, to fall on the floor and beg their forgiveness for . . . for what? For being alive when Virlomi was dead.
She finished all she could bear to eat, and left the mess hall.
But as she walked through the corridors to the room where they all worked, she realized: Achilles would not have killed her like this. There was no point in killing her if the others didn't get to see her arrested and taken away. It wouldn't do what he needed it to do, if she just disappeared in the night.
At the same time, if she had escaped, he couldn't announce it. That would be even worse. So he would simply remain silent, and leave the impression with everyone that she was probably dead.
Petra imagined Virlomi walking boldly out of the building, her sheer bravado carrying the day. Or perhaps, dressed as one of the women who cleaned floors and windows, she had slipped out unnoticed. Or had she climbed a wall, or run a minefield? Petra didn't even know what the perimeter looked like, or how closely guarded it might be. She had never been given a tour.
Wishful thinking, that's all this is, she told herself as she sat down to the day's work. Virlomi is dead, and Achilles is simply waiting to announce it, to make us all suffer from not knowing.
But as the day wore on, and Achilles did not appear, Petra began to believe that perhaps she had gotten away. Maybe Achilles was staying away because he didn't want anyone speculating about any visible bruises he might have. Or maybe he's having some scrotal problems and he's having some doctor check him out--though heaven help him if Achilles decided that having a doctor handle his injured testes was worthy of the death penalty.
Maybe he was staying away because Virlomi was gone and Achilles did not want them to see him frustrated and helpless. When he caught her and could drag her into the room and shoot her dead in front of them, then he could face them.
And as long as that didn't happen, there was a chance Virlomi was alive.
Stay that way, my friend. Run far and don't pause for anything. Cross some border, find some refuge, swim to Sri Lanka, fly to the moon. Find some miracle, Virlomi, and live.