"But knowing that I'm praying such a thing, that will be hell for you."
"Petra, I won't do anything you don't agree to."
"Then I'm coming with you," she said, "because I'll never agree to anything else. So it's decided. There's no discussion to have later when I'm rational. I'm already as rational as I'll ever be. In fact, there's no rational reason why I shouldn't come along if I want to. It's an excellent idea. And being raised on a starship has to be better than being orphaned on the streets of Rotterdam."
"No wonder they named you after rock," said Bean.
"I don't give up and I don't wear down. I'm not just rock, I'm diamond."
Her eyelids were heavy.
"Go to sleep now, Petra."
"Only if I can hold on to you," she said.
He took her hand; she gripped it fiercely. "I got you to give me a baby," she said. "Don't think for a minute I'm not going to get my way in this, too."
"I promised you already, Petra," said Bean. "Whatever we do, it'll be because you agree that it's the right thing."
"Think you want to leave me. Voyage to...nowhere. Think nowhere's better than living with me...."
"That's right, baby," said Bean, stroking her arm with his other hand. "Nowhere is better than living with you."
They had the baby christened by a priest. He came into neonate intensive care; not the first time he'd done it, of course, baptizing distressed newborns before they died. He seemed relieved to learn that this baby was strong and healthy and likely to survive, despite how tiny he was.
"Andrew Arkanian Delphiki, I baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost."
It was quite a crowd gathered around the neonate incubator to watch. Bean's family, Petra's family, and of course Anton and Ferreira and Peter and the Wiggin parents and Suriyawong and those members of Bean's little army who weren't actually on 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."