Say it flat out, put it in his mind so plainly he can't pretend not to understand. "I want a toon."
Wiggin walked close to Bean, looked down at him. To Bean, though, it was a good sign that Wiggin hadn't just laughed. "Why should you get a toon?"
"Because I'd know what to do with it."
"Knowing what to do with a toon is easy. It's getting them to do it that's hard. Why should any soldier want to follow a little pinprick like you?"
Wiggin had got straight to the crux of the problem. But Bean didn't like the malicious way he said it. "They used to call you that, I hear. I hear Bonzo Madrid still does."
Wiggin wasn't taking the bait. "I asked you a question, soldier."
"I'll earn their respect, sir, if you don't stop me."
To his surprise, Wiggin grinned. "I'm helping you."
"Like hell."
"Nobody would notice you, except to feel sorry for the little kid. But I made sure they all noticed you today."
You should have done your research, Wiggin. You're the only one who didn't know already who I was.
"They'll be watching every move you make," said Wiggin. "All you have to do to earn their respect now is be perfect."
"So I don't even get a chance to learn before I'm being judged." That's not how you bring along talent.
"Poor kid. Nobody's treatin' him fair."
Wiggin's deliberate obtuseness infuriated Bean. You're smarter than this, Wiggin!
Seeing Bean's rage, Wiggin brought a hand forward and pushed him until his back rested firmly against the wall. "I'll tell you how to get a toon. Prove to me you know what you're doing as a soldier. Prove to me you know how to use other soldiers. And then prove to me that somebody's willing to follow you into battle. Then you'll get your toon. But not bloody well until."
Bean ignored the hand pressing against him. It would take a lot more than that to intimidate him physically. "That's fair," he said. "If you actually work that way, I'll be a toon leader in a month."
Now it was Wiggin's turn to be angry. He reached down, grabbed Bean by the front of his flash suit, and slid him up the wall so they stood there eye to eye. "When I say I work a certain way, Bean, then that's the way I work."
Bean just grinned at him. In this low gravity, so high in the station, picking up little kids wasn't any big test of strength. And Wiggin was no bully. There was no serious threat here.
Wiggin let go of him. Bean slid down the wall and landed gently on his feet, rebounded slightly, settled again. Wiggin walked to the pole and slid down. Bean had won this encounter by getting under Wiggin's skin. Besides, Wiggin knew he hadn't handled this situation very well. He wouldn't forget. In fact, it was Wiggin who had lost a little respect, and he knew it, and he'd be trying to earn it back.
Unlike you, Wiggin, I do give the other guy a chance to learn what he's doing before I insist on perfection. You screwed up with me today, but I'll give you a chance to do better tomorrow and the next day.
But when Bean got to the pole and reached out to take hold, he realized his hands were trembling and his grip was too weak. He had to pause a moment, leaning on the pole, till he had calmed enough.
That face-to-face encounter with Wiggin, he hadn't won that. It might even have been a stupid thing to do. Wiggin had hurt him with those snide comments, that ridicule. Bean had been studying Wiggin as the subject of his private theology, and today he had found out that all this time Wiggin didn't even know Bean existed. Everybody compared Bean to Wiggin -- but apparently Wiggin hadn't heard or didn't care. He had treated Bean like nothing. And after having worked so hard this past year to earn respect, Bean didn't find it easy to be nothing again. It brought back feelings he thought he left behind in Rotterdam. The sick fear of imminent death. Even though he knew that no one here would raise a hand against him, he still remembered being on the edge of dying when he first went up to Poke and put his life in her hands.
Is that what I've done, once again? By putting myself on this roster, I gave my future into this boy's hands. I counted on him seeing in me what I see. But of course he couldn't. I have to give him time.
If there was time. For the teachers were moving quickly now, and Bean might not have a year in this army to prove himself to Wiggin.
14
Brothers
"You have results for me?"
"Interesting ones. Volescu was lying. Somewhat."
"I hope you're going to be more precise than that."
"Bean's genetic alteration was not based on a clone of Volescu. But they are related. Volescu is definitely not Bean's father. But he is almost certainly Bean's half-uncle or a double cousin. I hope Volescu has a half-brother or double first cousin, because such a man is the only possible father of the fertilized egg that Volescu altered."
"You have a list of Volescu's relatives, I assume?"
"We didn't need any family at the trial. And Volescu's mother was not married. He uses her name."
"So Volescu's father had another child somewhere only you don't even know his name. I thought you knew everything."
"We know everything that we knew was worth knowing. That's a crucial distinction. We simply haven't looked for Volescu's father. He's not guilty of anything important. We can't investigate everybody."
"Another matter. Since you know everything that you know is worth knowing, perhaps you can tell me why a certain crippled boy has been removed from the school where I placed him?"
"Oh. Him. When you suddenly stopped touting him, we got suspicious. So we checked him out. Tested him. He's no Bean, but he definitely belongs here."
"And it never crossed your mind that I had good reason for keeping him out of Battle School?"
"We assumed that you thought that we might choose Achilles over Bean, who was, after all, far too young, so you offered only your favorite."
"You assumed. I've been dealing with you as if you were intelligent, and you've been dealing with me as if I were an idiot. Now I see it should have been the exact reverse."
"I didn't know Christians got so angry."
"Is Achilles already in Battle School?"
"He's still recovering from his fourth surgery. We had to fix the leg on Earth."
"Let me give you a word of advice. Do not put him in Battle School while Bean is still there."
"Bean is only six. He's still too young to enter Battle School, let alone graduate."
"If you put Achilles in, take Bean out. Period."
"Why?"
"If you're too stupid to believe me after all my other judgments turned out to be correct, why should I give you the ammunition to let you second-guess me? Let me just say that putting them in school together is a probable death sentence for one of them."
"Which one?"
"That rather depends on which one sees the other first."
"Achilles says he owes everything to Bean. He loves Bean."
"Then by all means, believe him and not me. But don't send the body of the loser back to me to deal with. You bury your own mistakes."
"That sounds pretty heartless."
"I'm not going to weep over the grave of either boy. I tried to save both their lives. You apparently seem determined to let them find out which is fittest in the best Darwinian fashion."
"Calm down, Sister Carlotta. We'll consider what you've told us. We won't be foolish."
"You've already been foolish. I have no high expectations for you now."
As days became weeks, the shape of Wiggin's army began to unfold, and Bean was filled with both hope and despair. Hope, because Wiggin was setting up an army that was almost infinitely adaptable. Despair, because he was doing it without any reliance on Bean.