"Petra?" she said. "Suriyawong?"

Dimak leaned in close, so his voice would not have to be pitched loud enough that it might be overheard. "Bean," he said.

"He must have been a remarkable boy," said Mother.

"Looked like a three-year-old when he got here," said Dimak. "Nobody could believe he was old enough for this place."

"He doesn't look like that now," said Peter dryly.

"No, I ... I know about his condition. It's not public knowledge, but Colonel Graff-the minister, I mean-he knows that I still care what happens to-well, to all my kids, of course-but this one was ... I imagine your son's first trainer felt much the same way about him."

"I hope so," said Mother.

The sentimentality was getting so sweet Peter wanted to brush his teeth. He palmed the pad by the entrance and three strips lit up. "Green green brown," said Dimak. "But soon you won't be needing this. It's not as if there's miles of open country here to get lost in. The stripe system always assumes that you want to go back to your room, except when you touch the pad just outside the door of your room, and then it thinks you want to go to the bathroom-none inside the rooms, I'm afraid, it wasn't built that way. But if you want to go to the mess hall, just slap the pad twice and it'll know."

He showed them to their quarters, which consisted of a single long room with bunks in rows along both sides of a narrow aisle. "I'm afraid you'll have company for the week we're loading up the ship, but nobody'll be here very long, and then you'll have the place to yourself for three more weeks."

"You're doing a launch a month?" said Peter "How, exactly, are you funding a pace like that?"

Dimak looked at him blankly. "I don't actually know," he said.

Peter leaned in close and imitated the voice Dimak used for secrets. "I'm the Hegemon," he said. "Officially, your boss works for me.

Dimak whispered back, "You save the world, we'll finance the colony program."

"I could have used a little more money for my operations, I can tell you," said Peter.

"Every Hegemon feels that way," said Dimak. "Which is why our funding doesn't come through you."

Peter laughed. "Smart move. If you think the colonization program is very very important."

"It's the future of the human race, said Dimak simply. "The Buggers-pardon me, the Formics-had the right idea. Spread out as far as you can, so you can't be wiped out in a single disastrous war. Not that it saved them, but... we aren't hive creatures."

"Aren't we?" said Father.

"Well, if we are, then who's the queen?" asked Dimak.

"In this place," said Father, "I suspect it's Graff."

"And we're all just his little arms and legs?"

"And mouths and... well, yes, of course. A little more independent and a little less obedient than the individual Formics, of course, but that's how a species comes to dominate a world the way we did, and they did. Because you know how to get a large number of individuals to give up their personal will and subject themselves to a group mind."

"So this is philosophy we're doing here," said Dimak.

"Or very cutting-edge science," said Father "The behavior of humars in groups. Degrees of allegiance. I think about it a lot."

"How interesting."

"I see that you're not interested at all," said Father. "And that I'm now in your book as an eccentric who brings up his theories. But I never do, actually. I don't know why I did just now. I just... it's the first time I've been in Graff's house, so to speak. And meeting you was very much like visiting with him."

"I'm... flattered," said Dimak.

"John Paul," said Mother, "I do believe you're making Mr Dimak uncomfortable."

"When people feel great allegiance to their community, they start to take on the mannerisms as well as the morals of their leader," said Father, refusing to give up.

"If their leader has a personality," said Peter

"How do you get to be a leader without one?" asked Father.

"Ask Achilles," said Peter "He's the opposite. He takes on the mannerisms of the people he wants to have follow him."

"I don't remember that one," said Dimak. "He was only here a few days before he-before we discovered he had a track record of murder back on Earth."

"Someday you have to tell me how Bean got him to confess. He won't tell."

"If he won't tell, neither will I," said Dimak.

"How loyal," said Father.

"Not really," said Dimak. "I just don't know myself. I know it had something to do with a ventilation shaft."

"That confession," said Peter "The recordings wouldn't still be here, would they?"

"No, they wouldn't," said Dimak. "And even if they were, they're part of a sealed juvenile record."

"Of a mass murderer"

"We only notice laws when they act against our interest," said Dimak.

"See?" said Father. "We've traded philosophies."

"Like tribesmen swapping at a potlatch," said Dimak. "If you don't mind, I'd like to have you talk with Security Chief Uphanad before dinner"

"What about?"

"The colonists aren't a problem-they have a one-way flow and they can't easily communicate planetside. But you're probably going to be recognized here. And even if you're not, it's hard to maintain a false story for long."

"Then let's not have a false story," said Peter.

"No. let's have a really good one," said Mother.

"Let's just not talk to anybody," said Father.

"Those are precisely the issues that Major Uphanad wants to discuss with you."

Once Dimak had left, they chose bunks at the back of the long room. Peter took a top bunk, of course, but while he was unloading his bags into the locker in the wall behind the bunk, Father discovered that each set of six bunks-three on each side-could be separated from the others by a privacy curtain.

"It has to be a retrofit," said Father. "I can't believe they would let the kids seal themselves off from each other."

"How soundproof is this material?" asked Mother.

Father pulled it around in a circular motion, so it irised shut with him on the other side. They heard nothing from him. Then he dilated it open.

"Well?" he asked.

"Pretty effective sound barrier," said Mother.

"You did try to talk to us, didn't you?" asked Peter.

"No, I was listening for you," said Father.

"Well we were listening for you, John Paul," said Mother.

"No, I spoke. I didn't shout, but you couldn't hear me, right?"

"Peter," said Mother, "you just got moved to the next compartment over."

"That won't work when the colonists come through."

"You can come back and sleep in Mommy's and Daddy's room when the visitors come," said Mother.

"You'll have to walk through my room in order to get to the bathroom," said Peter.

"That's right," said Father. "I know you're Hegemon and should have the best room, but then, we're not likely to walk in on you making love."

"Don't count on it," said Peter sourly.

"We'll open the door just a little and say 'knock knock' before we come through," said Mother. "It'll give you time to smuggle your best pal out of sight."

It made him faintly nauseated to be having this discussion with his parents. "You two are so cute. I'm really glad to change rooms here, believe me."

It was good to have solitude, once the door was closed, even if the price of it was moving all his stuff out of the locker he had just loaded and putting it in a locker in the next section. Now he got a lower bunk, for one thing. And for another thing, he didn't have to put up with listening to his parents try to cheer him up.

He had to have thinking time.

So of course he promptly fell asleep.

Dimak woke him by speaking to him over the intercom. "Mr. Raymond, are you there?"

It took Peter a split second to remember that he was supposed to be Dick Raymond. "Yes. Unless you want my father."