Shadow of the giant

assignment. They had to wheel the incubator cart
out into a waiting room to have space enough to hold everybody.
    "You're going to call him Ender, aren't you," said
Peter.
    "Until he makes us stop," said Petra.
    "What a relief," said Theresa Wiggin. "Now
you won't have to name a child of your own after your brother, Peter."
    Peter ignored her, which meant that her words had really
stung.
    "The baby is named for Saint Andrew," said Petra's
mother. "Babies are named for saints, not soldiers."
    "Of course, Mother," said Petra. "Ender and
our baby were both named for Saint Andrew."
     
     
    Anton and his team learned that yes, the baby definitely had
Bean's syndrome. The Key was turned. And having two sets of genes to compare confirmed
that Bean's genetic modification bred true. "But there's no reason to
suppose that all the babies will have the modification," he reported to
Bean, Petra, and Peter. "The likelihood is that the trait is dominant,
however. So any child who has it should be on the fast track."
    "Premature birth," said Bean.
    "And we can guess that statistically, half the eight
babies should have the trait. Mendel's law. Not ironclad, because randomness is
involved. So there might be only three. Or five. Or more. Or this might be the
only one. But the likeliest thing—"
    "We know how probability works, Professor," said
Ferreira.
    "I wanted to emphasize the uncertainty."
    "Believe me," said Ferreira, "uncertainty is
my life. Right now we've found either two dozen or nearly a hundred groups of
women who gave birth within two weeks of Petra, and who moved at the same time
as others in their group, since the day Volescu was arrested."
    "How can you not even know how many groups you
have?" asked Bean.
    "Selection criteria," said Petra.
    "If we divide them into groups that left within six
hours of each other, then we get the higher total. If we divide them into
groups that left within two days of each other, the lower total. Plus we can
shift the timeframes and the groups also shift."
    "What about prematurity in the babies?"
    "That supposes that the doctors are aware that the
babies are premature," said Ferreira. "Low birth weight is what we
went for. We eliminated any babies that were higher than the low end of normal.
Most of them will be premature. But not all."
    "And all of this," said Petra, "depends on
all the babies being on the same clock."
    "It's all we can go on," said Peter. "If it
turns out that Anton's Key doesn't make them all trigger delivery after about
the same gestation time... well, it's no more of a problem than the fact that
we don't know when the other embryos were implanted."
    "Some of the embryos might have been implanted much
more recently," said Ferreira. "So we're going to keep adding women
to the database as they give birth to low-birthweight children and turn out to
have moved at about the time Volescu was arrested. You realize how many
variables there are that we don't know? How many of the embryos have Anton's
Key. When they were implanted. If they were all implanted. If Volescu even had
a deadman switch."
    "I thought you said he did."
    "He did," said Ferreira. "We just don't know
what the switch was about. Maybe it was for release of the virus. Maybe for the
mothers to move. Maybe both. Maybe neither."
    "A lot of things we don't know," said Bean.
"Remarkable how little we got from Volescu's computer."
    "He's a careful man," said Ferreira. "He knew
perfectly well that he'd be caught someday, and his computer seized. We learned
more than he could have imagined—but less than we had hoped."
    "Just keep looking," said Petra. "Meanwhile,
I have a baby-shaped suction cup to go attach to one of the tenderest parts of
my body. Promise me that he won't develop teeth early."
    "I don't know," said Bean. "I can't remember
not having them."
    "Thanks for the encouragement," said Petra.
     
     
    Bean got up in the night, as usual, to get little Ender so
Petra could nurse him. Tiny as he was, he had a pair of lungs on him. Nothing
small about his voice.
    And, as usual, once the baby started suckling. Bean watched
until Petra rolled over to feed the baby on the other side. Then he slept.
    Until he awoke again. Usually he didn't, so for all he knew
it was like this every time. Because Petra was still nursing the baby, but she
was also crying.
    "Baby, what's wrong?" said Bean, touching her
shoulder.
    "Nothing," she said. She wasn't crying anymore.
    "Don't try to lie to me," said Bean. "You
were