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connection of yours to get a security guard to ignore the fact that I do not look old enough to be this person-"
    "Sometimes, when you haven't had enough sleep-"
    "You're too tall to be cute. So give it up." "Petra.
    I agree with you," said Bean at last. "These were all for Sister Carlotta, and you don't look like her, and we are leaving a trail of favors asked for and favors done. So we need to separate."
    "Two reasons why that won't happen," said Petra.
    "You mean besides the fact that traveling together was your idea from the beginning? Which you blackmailed me into because we both know you'd get killed without me?-which hasn't stopped you from criticizing the way I go about keeping you alive, I notice."
    "The second reason," Petra said, ignoring his effort to pick a fight, "is that while we're on the run you can't do anything. And it drives you crazy not to do anything."
    "I'm doing a lot of things," said Bean.
    "Besides arranging for us to get past stupid security guards with bad ID?"
    "Already I've started two wars, cured three diseases, and written an epic poem. If you weren't so self-centered you would have noticed."
    "You're such a jack of all trades, Julian."
    "Staying alive isn't doing nothing."
    "But it isn't doing what you want to do with your life," said Petra.
    "Staying alive is all I've ever wanted to do with my life, dear child."
    "But in the end, you're going to fail at that," said Petra.
    "Most of us do. All of us, actually, unless Sister Carlotta and the Christians turn out to be right."
    "You want to accomplish something before you die."
    Bean sighed. "Because you want that, you think everyone does."
    "The human need to leave something of yourself behind is universal."
    "But I'm not human."
    "No, you're superhuman," she said in disgust. "There's no talking to you, Bean."
    "And yet you persist."
    But Petra knew perfectly well that Bean felt just as she did-that it wasn't enough to stay in hiding, going from place to place, taking a bus here, a train there, a plane to some far-off city, only to start over again in a few days.
    The only reason it mattered that they stay alive was so they could keep their independence long enough to work against Achilles. Except Bean kept denying that he had any such motive, and so they did nothing.
    Bean had been maddening ever since Petra first met him in Battle School. He was the most incredibly tiny little runt then, so precocious he seemed snotty even when he said good morning, and even after they had all worked with him for years and had got the true measure of him at Command School, Petra was still the only one of Ender's jeesh that actually liked Bean.
    She did like him, and not in the patronizing way that older kids take younger ones under their wing. There was never any illusion that Bean needed protection anyway. He arrived at Battle School as a consummate survivor, and within days-perhaps within hours-he knew more about the inner workings of the school than anyone else. The same was true at Tactical School and Command School, and during those crucial weeks before Ender joined them on Eros, when Bean commanded the jeesh in their practice maneuvers.
    The others resented Bean then, for the fact that the youngest of them had been chosen to lead in Ender's place and because they feared that he would be their commander always. They were so relieved when Ender arrived, and didn't try to hide it. It had to hurt Bean, but Petra seemed to be the only one who even thought about his feelings. Much good that it did him. The person who seemed to think about Bean's feelings least of them all was Bean himself.
    Yet he did value her friendship, though he only rarely showed it. And when she was overtaken by exhaustion during a battle, he was the one who covered for her, and he was the only one who showed that he still believed in her as firmly as ever Even Ender never quite trusted her with the same level of assignment that she had had before. But Bean remained her friend, even as