Shadow of the Hegemon, the - Book 2 (Ender)

safer," said Carlotta. "And by living close together, they have a better chance of their children marrying into other rich families."
    "But why don't they want buses?"
    "They ride in individual vehicles. They can afford the fees. It gives them more freedom to choose their own schedule. And it shows everyone just how rich they are."
    "It's still stupid," said Bean. "Look how far the buses have to go out of their way."
    "The rich people didn't want their streets to be enclosed in order to hold a bus system."
    "So what?" asked Bean.
    Sister Carlotta laughed. "Bean, isn't there plenty of stupidity in the military, too?"
    "But in the long run, the guy who wins battles gets to make the decisions."
    "Well, these rich people won the economic battles. Or their grandparents did. So now they get their way most of the time."
    "Sometimes I feel like I don't know anything."
    "You've lived half your life in a tube in space, and before that you lived on the streets of Rotterdam."
    "I've lived in Greece with my family and in Araraquara, too. I should have figured this out."
    ,,That was Greece. And Brazil. This is America."
    "So money rules in America, but not those other places?"
    "No, Bean. Money rules almost everywhere. But different cultures have different ways of displaying it. In Araraquara, for instance, they made sure that the tram lines ran out to the rich neighborhoods. Why? So the servants could come to work. In America, they're more afraid of criminals coming to steal, so the sign of wealth is to make sure that the only way to reach them is by private car or on foot."
    "Sometimes I miss Battle School."
    "That's because in Battle School, you were one of the very richest in the only coin that mattered there."
    Bean thought about that. As soon as the other kids realized that, young and small as he was, he could outperform them in every class, it gave him a kind of power. Everyone knew who he was. Even those who mocked him had to give him a grudging respect. But. . . "I didn't always get my way."
    "Graff told me some of the outrageous things you did," said Carlotta. "Climbing through the air ducts to eavesdrop. Breaking into the computer system."
    "But they caught me."
    "Not as soon as they'd like to have caught you. And were you punished? No. Why? Because you were rich."
    "Money and talent aren't the same thing."
    "That's because you can inherit money that was earned by your ancestors," said Sister Carlotta. "And everybody recognizes the value of money, while only select groups recognize the value of talent."
    "So where does Peter live?"
    She had the addresses of all the Wiggin families. There weren't many-the more common spelling had an s at the end. "But I don't think this will help us," said Carlotta. "We don't want to meet him at home."
    "Why not?"
    "Because we don't know whether his parents are aware of what he's doing or not. Graff was pretty sure they don't know. If two foreigners come calling, they're going to start to wonder what their son is doing on the nets."
    "Where, then?"
    "He could be in secondary school. But given his intelligence, I'd bet on his being in college." She was accessing more information as she spoke. "Colleges colleges colleges. Lots of them in town. The biggest first, the better for him to disappear in . . ."
    "Why would he need to disappear? Nobody knows who he is."
    "But he doesn't want anyone to realize that he spends no time on his schoolwork. He has to look like an ordinary kid his age. He should be spending all his free time with friends. Or with girls. Or with friends looking for girls. Or with friends trying to distract themselves from the fact that they can't find any girls."
    "For a nun, you seem to know a lot about this."
    "I wasn't born a nun."
    "But you were born a girl."
    "And no one is a better observer of the folkways of the adolescent male than the adolescent female."
    "What makes you think he doesn't do all those things?"
    "Being Locke and Demosthenes is a fulltime job.
    "So why do you think he's in college at all?"
    "Because his parents would be upset if he stayed home all day, reading and writing email."
    Bean wouldn't know about what might make parents upset. He'd only known his parents since the end of the war, and they'd never found anything serious to criticize about him. Or maybe they never felt like he was really theirs. They didn't criticize Nikolai much, either. But ... more than they did Bean. There simply hadn't been enough time together for them to feel as