"Yes" said Alai. "That's just what we'll do."

"As plans go," said Petra, "that's about the most self-delusional one I've ever heard of."

He laughed. "Definitely you need a nap, my beloved sister You don't want that to be the mouth Bean has to listen to when he arrives."

"When will he arrive?"

"Well after dark," said Alai. "Now you see Mr. Lankowski waiting for you at that gate. He'll lead you to your room.

"I sleep in the palace of the Caliph tonight?" asked Petra.

"It's not much, as palaces go," said Alai. "Most of the rooms are public spaces, offices, things like that. I have a very simple bedroom and... this garden. Your room will also be very simple-but perhaps it will make it seem luxurious if you think of it as being identical with the one where the Caliph sleeps."

"I feel as if I've been swept away into one of Scheherazade's stories."

"We keep a sturdy roof. You have nothing to fear from rocs."

"You think of everything," said Petra.

"We have an excellent doctor on call, should you wish for medical attention of any kind."

"It's still too soon for a pregnancy test to mean anything," said Petra. "If that's what you meant."

"I meant," said Alai, "that we have an excellent doctor on call, should you wish for medical attention of any kind."

"In that case," said Petra, "my answer is, 'You think of everything.'"

She thought she couldn't sleep, but she had nothing better to do than lie on the bed in a room that was downright spartan-with no television and no book but an Armenian translation of the Q'uran. She knew what the presence of this book in her room implied. For many centuries, translations of the Q'uran were regarded as false by definition, since only the original Arabic actually conveyed the words of the Prophet. But in the great opening of Islam that followed their abject defeat in a series of desperate wars with the West, this was one of the first things that was changed.

Every translated copy of the Q'uran contained, on the title page, a quotation from the great imam Zuqaq-the very one who brought about the reconciliation of Israel and the Muslim world. "Allah is above language. Even in Arabic, the Q'uran is translated from the mind of God into the words of men. Everyone should be able to hear the words of God in the language he speaks in his own heart."

So the presence of the Q'uran in Armenian told her, first, that in the palace of the Caliph, there was no recidivism, no return to the days of fanatical Islam, when foreigners were forced to live by Islamic law, women were veiled and barred from the schools and the roads, and young Muslim soldiers strapped bombs to their bodies to blow up the children of their enemies.

And it also told her that her coming was anticipated and someone had taken great pains to prepare this room for her, simple as it seemed. To have the Q'uran in Common Speech, the more-or-less phonetically spelled English that had been adopted as the language of the International Fleet, would have been sufficient. They wanted to make the point, though, that here in the heart-no, the head-of the Muslim world, they had regard for all nations, all languages. They knew who she was, and they had the holy words for her in the language she spoke in her heart.

She appreciated the gesture and was annoyed by it, both at once. She did not open the book. She rummaged through her bag, then unpacked everything. She showered to clear the must of travel from her hair and skin, and then lay down on the bed because in this room there was nowhere else to sit.

No wonder he spends his time in the garden, she thought. He has to go out there just to turn around.

She woke because someone was at the door. Not knocking. Just standing there, pressing a palm against the reader. What could she possibly have heard that woke her? Footsteps in the corridor?

"I'm not dressed," she called out as the door opened.

"That's what I was hoping," said Bean.

He came in carrying his own bag and set it down beside the one dresser.

"Did you meet Alai?" asked Petra.

"Yes, but we'll talk of that later," said Bean.

"You know he's Caliph," she insisted.

"Later," he said. He pulled his shoes off.

"I think they're planning a war, but pretending that they're not," said Petra.

"They can plan what they like," said Bean. "You're safe here, that's what I care about."

Still in his traveling clothes, Bean lay down on the bed beside her, snaking one arm under her, drawing her close to him. He stroked her back, kissed her forehead.

"They told me about the other embryos," she said. "How Achilles stole them."

He kissed her again and said, "Shhhh."

"I don't know if I'm pregnant yet," said Petra.

"You will be," said Bean.

"I knew that he hadn't checked for Anton's Key," said Petra. "I knew he was lying about that."

"All right," said Bean.

"I knew but I didn't tell you," said Petra.

"Now you've told me."

"I want your child, no matter what."

"Well," said Bean, "in that case we can start the next one the regular way."

She kissed him. "I love you," she said.

"I'm glad to hear that."

"We have to get the others back," said Petra. "They're our children and I don't want somebody else to raise them."

"We'll get them back," said Bean. "That's one thing I know."

"He'll destroy them before he lets us have them."

"Not so," said Bean. "He wants them alive more than he wants us dead."

"How can you possibly know what the Beast is thinking?"

Bean rolled onto his back and lay there facing the ceiling. "On the plane I did a lot of thinking. About something Ender said. How he thought. You have to know your enemy, he said. That's why he studied the Formics constantly. All the footage of the First War, the anatomies of the corpses of the dead Bugger soldiers, and what he couldn't find in the books and vids, he imagined. Extrapolated. Tried to think of who they were."

"You're nothing like Achilles," said Petra. "You're the opposite of him. If you want to know him, think of whatever you're not, and that'll be him."

"Not true," said Bean. "In his sad, twisted way, he loves you, and so, in my own sad twisted way, do I."

"Not the same twists, and that makes all the difference."

"Ender said that you can't defeat a powerful enemy unless you understand him completely, and you can't understand him unless you know the desires of his heart, and you can't know the desires of his heart until you truly love him."

"Please don't tell me that you've decided to love the Beast," said Petra.

"I think," said Bean, "that I always have."

"No, no, no," said Petra in revulsion and she rolled away from him, turned her back on him.

"Ever since I saw him limping up to us, the one bully we thought we could overpower, we little children. His twisted foot, the dangerous hate he felt toward anyone who saw his weakness. The genuine kindness and love he showed to everyone but me and Poke-Petra, that's what nobody understands about Achilles, they see him as a murderer, and a monster-"

"Because he is one."

"A monster who keeps winning the love and trust of people who should know better. I know that man, the one whose eyes look into your soul and judge you and find you worthy. I saw how the other children loved him, turned their loyalty from Poke to Achilles, made him their father, truly, in their hearts. And even though he always kept me at a distance, the fact is... I loved him too."

"I didn't," said Petra. The memory of Achilles's arms around her as he kissed her-it was unbearable to her, and she wept.

She felt Bean's hand on her shoulder, then stroking her side, gently soothing her "I'm going to destroy him, Petra," said Bean. "But I'll never do it the way I've been going about it up till now. I've been avoiding him, reacting to him. Peter had the right idea after all. He was dumb about it, but the idea was right, to get close to him. You can't treat him as something faraway and unintelligible. A force of nature, like a storm or earthquake, where you have no hope but to run for shelter. You have to understand him. Get inside his head."