Shadow Puppets (Ender, Book 7) (Shadow Saga)

rule."
    "Someday Achilles will die. Caligula did."
    "With help from his friends," Petra pointed out.
    "And when he dies, maybe somebody better will succeed him. After Stalin, there was Khrushchev. After Caligula, there was Marcus Aurelius."
    "Not right after. And thirty million died while Stalin ruled."
    "So that made thirty million he didn't rule over any more," said Bean.
    Sometimes he could say the most terrible things. But she knew him well enough by now to know that he spoke with such callousness only when he was feeling depressed. At times like that he brooded about how he was not a member of the human species and the difference was killing him. It was not how he truly felt. "You're not that cold," she said.
    He used to argue when she tried to reassure him about his humanity. She liked to think maybe she was accomplishing something, but she feared that he had stopped answering because he no longer cared what she thought.
    "If I settle into one place," he said, "my chance of staying alive is nil!"
    It irked her that he still spoke of "my chance" instead of "ours".
    "You hate Achilles and you don't want him to rule the world and if you're going to have any chance of stopping him, you have to settle in one place and get to work."
    "All right, you're so smart, tell me where I'd be safe."
    "The Vatican," said Petra.
    "How many acres in that particular kingdom? How eager are all those cardinals to listen to an altar boy?"
    "All right then, somewhere within the borders of the Muslim League."
    "We're infidels," said Bean.
    "And they're people who are determined not to fall under the domination of the Chinese or the Hegemon or anybody else."
    "My point is that they won't want us.
    "My point is that whether they want us or not, we're the enemy of their enemy."
    "We're two children, with no army and no information to sell, no leverage at all."
    That was so laughable that Petra didn't bother answering. Besides, she had finally won-he was finally talking about where, not whether, he'd settle down and get to work.
    They found themselves in Poland, and after taking the train from Katowice to Warsaw, they walked together through the Lazienki, one of the great parks of Europe, with centuries-old paths winding among giant trees and the saplings already planted to someday replace them.
    "Did you come here with Sister Carlotta?" Petra asked him.
    "Once," said Bean. "Ender is part Polish, did you know that?"
    "Must be on his mother's side," said Petra. "Wiggin isn't a Polish name.
    "It is when you change it from Wieczorek," said Bean. "Don't you think Mr. Wiggin looks Polish? Wouldn't he fit in here? Not that nationality means that much any more."
    Petra laughed at that. "Nationality? The thing people die for and kill for and have for centuries?"
    "No, I meant ancestry, I suppose. So many people are part this and part that. Supposedly I'm Greek, but my mother's mother was an Ibo diplomat, so... when I go to Africa I look quite Greek, and when I go to Greece I look rather African. In my heart I couldn't care less about either."
    "You're a special case, Bean," said Petra. "You never had a homeland."
    "Or a childhood. I suppose," said Bean.
    "None of us in Battle School actually had much experience of either," said Petra.
    "Which is, perhaps, why so many Battle School kids are so desperate to prove their loyalty to their birth nation."
    That made sense. "Since we have few roots, the ones we have, we cling to." She thought of Vlad, who was so fanatically Russian. and Hot Soup-Han Tzu-so fanatically Chinese, that both of them had willingly helped Achilles when he seemed to be working for their nation's cause.
    "And no one completely trusts us," said Bean, "because they know our real nationality is up in space. Our strongest loyalties are to our fellow soldiers."
    "Or to ourselves," said Petra, thinking of Achilles.
    "But I've never pretended otherwise," said Bean. Apparently he thought she had meant him.
    "You're so proud of being completely self-centered," said Petra. "And it isn't even true."
    He just laughed at her and walked on.
    Families and businessmen and old people and young couples in love all strolled through the park on this unusually sunny autumn afternoon, and in the concert stand a pianist played a work of Chopin. as had been going on every day for centuries. As they walked, Petra boldly reached out and took hold of Bean's hand as if they, too, were lovers, or at least friends who liked to stay close enough to touch. To