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"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.
After only a few practices, Wiggin had chosen his toon leaders -- every one of them a veteran from the transfer lists. In fact, every veteran was either a toon leader or a second. Not only that, instead of the normal organization -- four toons of ten soldiers each -- he had created five toons of eight, and then made them practice a lot in half-toons of four men each, one commanded by the toon leader, the other by the second.
No one had ever fragmented an army like that before. And it wasn't just an illusion. Wiggin worked hard to make sure the toon leaders and seconds had plenty of leeway. He'd tell them their objective and let the leader decide how to achieve it. Or he'd group three toons together under the operational command of one of the toon leaders to handle one operation, while Wiggin himself commanded the smaller remaining force. It was an extraordinary amount of delegation.
Some of the soldiers were critical at first. As they were milling around near the entrance to the barracks, the veterans talked about how they'd practiced that day -- in ten groups of four. "Everybody knows it's loser strategy to divide your army," said Fly Molo, who commanded A toon.
Bean was a little disgusted that the soldier with the highest rank after Wiggin would say something disparaging about his commander's strategy. Sure, Fly was learning, too. But there's such a thing as insubordination.
"He hasn't divided the army," said Bean. "He's just organized it. And there's no such thing as a rule of strategy that you can't break. The idea is to have your army concentrated at the decisive point. Not to keep it huddled together all the time."
Fly glared at Bean. "Just cause you little guys can hear us doesn't mean you understand what we're talking about."