"Second," said Graff, "we can't do anything that would play into their hands. Going home right now, before the threat can be identified and neutralized, would expose you to greater danger Our betrayer could give another signal that would tell them when and where you were going to arrive on Earth. What your trajectory of descent is going to be. That sort of thing."

"Who would risk killing the Hegemon by downing a shuttle?" said Peter. "The world would be outraged, even the people who'd be happy to see me dead."

"Anything we do that changes our pattern would let the traitor know his signal was intercepted. It might rush the project, whatever it is, before we're ready. No, I'm sorry to say this, but... our best course of action is to wait."

"And what if we disagree?" said Peter.

"Then I'll send you home on the shuttle of your choosing, and pray for you all the way down."

"You'd let us go?"

"You're my guest," said Graff. "Not my prisoner"

"Then let's test it," said Peter "We're leaving on the next shuttle. The one that brought you-when it goes back, we'll be on it."

"Too soon," said Graff. "We have no time to prepare."

"And neither does he. I suggest," said Peter, "that you go to Uphanad and make sure he knows that he has to put a complete blanket of secrecy on our imminent departure. He's not even to tell Dimak."

"But if he's the one," said Mother, "then-"

"Then he can't send a signal," said Peter "Unless he can find a way to let the information slip out and become public knowledge on the station. That's why it's vital, Minister Graff, that you remain with him at all times after you tell him. So if it's him, he can't send the signal."

"But it's probably not him," said Graff, "and now you've let everybody know."

"But now we'll be watching for the outgoing message.

"Unless they simply kill you as you're boarding the shuttle."

"Then our worries will be over," said Peter. "But I think they won't kill us here, because this agent of theirs is too useful to them- or to Achilles, depending on whose man he is-for them to use him up completely on this operation."

Graff pondered this. "So we watch to see who might be sending the message-"

"And you have agents stationed at the landing point on Earth to see if they can spot a would-be assassin.

"I can do that," said Graff. "One tiny problem, though."

"What's that?" said Peter.

"You can't go."

"Why can't I?" said Peter

"Because your one-man propaganda campaign is working. The people who read your stuff have drifted more strongly into the antiChina camp. It's still a fairly slight movement, but it's real."

"I can write my essays there," said Peter.

"In danger of being killed at any moment," said Graff.

"That could happen here, too," said Peter

"Well-but you yourself said it was unlikely."

"Let's catch the mole who's working your station," said Peter, "and send him home. Meanwhile, we're heading for Earth. It's been great being here, Minister Graff. But we've got to go."

He looked at his mother and father

"Absolutely," said Father

"Do you think," said Mother, "that when we get back to Earth we can find a place with little tiny beds like these?" She clung more tightly to Father's arms. "It's made us so much closer as a family."

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

WAR PLANS

From: Demosthenes%[email protected]

To: DropBox%[email protected]

Re:

Encrypted using code ***********

Decrypted using code ********

I spend half my memory capacity just holding on to whatever online identity you're using from week to week. Why not rely on encryption? Nobody's broken hyperprime encryption yet.

Here it is, Bean: Those stones in india? Virlomi started it, of course. Got a message from her:

>Now you are not in cesspool, can communicate again. Have no email here. Stones are

>mine. Back on bridge soon. War in earnest. Post to me only, this site, pickup name

>BridgeGirl password not stepstool.

At least I think that's what "stones are mine" means. And what does "password not stepstool" mean? That the password is "not stepstool"? Or that the password is not "stepstool," in which case it's probably not 'aardvark" either, but how does that help?

Anyhow, I think she's offering to begin war in earnest inside India. She can't possibly have a nationwide network, but then, maybe she doesn't need one. She was certainly enough in tune with the Indian people to get them all piling stones in the road. And now the whole stone wall business has taken off. Lots of skirmishes between angry hungry citizens and Chinese soldiers. Trucks hijacked. Sabotage of Chinese offices proceeding [?]apace. What can she do more than is already happening?

Given where you are, you may have more need of her information and/or help than I do. But I'd appreciate your help understanding the parts of the message that are opaque to me.

From: LostlboBoy%[email protected]

To: Demosthenes%[email protected]

Re: >blank<

Encrypted using code ********

Decrypted using code ***********

Here's why I keep changing identities. First, they don't have to decrypt the message to get information if they see patterns in our correspondence-it would be useful for them to know the frequency and timing of our correspondence and the length of our messages. Second, they don't have to decrypt the whole message, they only have to guess our encrypt and decrypt codes. Which I bet you have written down somewhere because you don't actually core whether I get killed because you're too lazy to memorize. Of course I mean that in the nicest possible way, 0 right honorable Mr. Hegemon.

Here's what Virlomi meant. Obviously she intended that you not be able to understand the message and correspond with her properly unless you talked to me or Suri. That means she doesn't trust you completely. My guess is that if you wrote to her and left a message using the password "not stepstool," she'd know that you hadn't talked to me. (You don't know how tempting it was lust to leave you with that guess.)

When we picked her up from that bridge near the Burmese border, she boarded the chopper by stepping on Suriyawang's bock as he lay prostrate before her. The password is not stepstool, it's the real name of her stepstaal. And she's going to be bock at that bridge, which means she's made her way across India to the Burmese border, where she'll be in a position to disrupt Chinese supply of their troops in India-or, conversely, Chinese attempts to move their troops out of India and back into China or Indochina.

Of course she's only going to be atone bridge. But my guess is that she's already setting up guerrilla groups that are gefting ready to disrupt traffic on the other roads between Burma and India, with a strong possibility that she's set up something along the Himalayan border as well. I doubt she can seal the borders, but she can slow and harass their passage, tying up troops trying to protect supply lines and making the Chinese less able to mount offensives or keep their troops supplied with ammunition-always a problem for them.

Personally, I think you should tell her not to tip her hand too soon. I may be able to tell you when to post a reply asking her to start in earnest on a particular date. And no, I won't post myself because I am most certainly watched here, and I don't wont them to know about her directly. I've already caught two snoopware intrusions on my desk, which cost me twenty minutes each time, scrambling them so they send back false information to the snoops. Encrypted email like this I can send, but messages posted to dead drops can be picked up by snoopware on the local net.