ENDER'S SHADOW
by Orson Scott Card
(c) 1999 by Orson Scott Card
FOREWORD
This book is, strictly
speaking, not a sequel, because it begins about where Ender's Game begins, and
also ends, very nearly, at the same place. In fact, it is another telling of
the same tale, with many of the same characters and settings, only from the
perspective of another character. It's hard to know what to call it. A
companion novel? A parallel novel? Perhaps a "parallax," if I can
move that scientific term into literature.
Ideally, this novel should
work as well for readers who have never read Ender's Game as for those who have
read it several times. Because it is not a sequel, there is nothing you need to
know from the novel Ender's Game that is not contained here. And yet, if I have
achieved my literary goal, these two books complement and fulfill each other.
Whichever one you read first, the other novel should still work on its own
merits.
For many years, I have
gratefully watched as Ender's Game has grown in popularity, especially among
school-age readers. Though it was never intended as a young-adult novel, it has
been embraced by many in that age group and by many teachers who find ways to
use the book in their classrooms.
I have never found it
surprising that the existing sequels -- Speaker for the Dead, Xenocide, and
Children of the Mind -- never appealed as strongly to those younger readers.
The obvious reason is that Ender's Game is centered around a child, while the
sequels are about adults; perhaps more important, Ender's Game is, at least on
the surface, a heroic, adventurous novel, while the sequels are a completely
different kind of fiction, slower paced, more contemplative and idea-centered,
and dealing with themes of less immediate import to younger readers.
Recently, however, I have come
to realize that the 3,000-year gap between Ender's Game and its sequels leaves
plenty of room for other sequels that are more closely tied to the original. In
fact, in one sense Ender's Game has no sequels, for the other three books make
one continuous story in themselves, while Ender's Game stands alone.
For a brief time I flirted
seriously with the idea of opening up the Ender's Game universe to other
writers, and went so far as to invite a writer whose work I greatly admire,
Neal Shusterman, to consider working with me to create novels about Ender
Wiggin's companions in Battle School. As we talked, it became clear that the
most obvious character to begin with would be Bean, the child-soldier whom
Ender treated as he had been treated by his adult teachers.
And then something else happened.
The more we talked, the more jealous I became that Neal might be the one to
write such a book, and not me. It finally dawned on me that, far from being
finished with writing about "kids in space," as I cynically described
the project, I actually had more to say, having actually learned something in
the intervening dozen years since Ender's Game first appeared in 1985. And so,
while still hoping that Neal and I can work together on something, I deftly
swiped the project back.
I soon found that it's harder
than it looks, to tell the same story twice, but differently. I was hindered by
the fact that even though the viewpoint characters were different, the author
was the same, with the same core beliefs about the world. I was helped by the
fact that in the intervening years, I have learned a few things, and was able
to bring different concerns and a deeper understanding to the project. Both
books come from the same mind, but not the same; they draw on the same memories
of childhood, but from a different perspective. For the reader, the parallax is
created by Ender and Bean, standing a little ways apart as they move through
the same events. For the writer, the parallax was created by a dozen years in
which my older children grew up, and younger ones were born, and the world
changed around me, and I learned a few things about human nature and about art
that I had not known before.
Now you hold this book in your
hands. Whether the literary experiment succeeds for you is entirely up to you
to judge. For me it was worth dipping again into the same well, for the water
was greatly changed this time, and if it has not been turned exactly into wine,
at least it has a different flavor because of the different vessel that it was
carried in, and I hope that you will enjoy it as much, or even more.
-- Greensboro, North Carolina,
January 1999
PART ONE -- URCHIN
CHAPTER 1 -- POKE
"You think you've found
somebody, so suddenly my program gets the ax?"
"It's not about this kid
that Graff found. It's about the low quality of what you've been finding."
"We knew it was long
odds. But the kids I'm working with are actually fighting a war just to stay
alive."
"Your kids are so
malnourished that they suffer serious mental degradation before you even begin
testing them. Most of them haven't formed any normal human bonds, they're so
messed up they can't get through a day without finding something they can
steal, break, or disrupt."
"They also represent
possibility, as all children do."
"That's just the kind of
sentimentality that discredits your whole project in the eyes of the I.F."
***
Poke kept her eyes open all
the time. The younger children were supposed to be on watch, too, and sometimes
they could be quite observant, but they just didn't notice all the things they
needed to notice, and that meant that Poke could only depend on herself to see
danger.
There was plenty of danger to
watch for. The cops, for instance. They didn't show up often, but when they
did, they seemed especially bent on clearing the streets of children. They
would flail about them with their magnetic whips, landing cruel stinging blows
on even the smallest children, haranguing them as vermin, thieves, pestilence,
a plague on the fair city of Rotterdam. It was Poke's job to notice when a
disturbance in the distance suggested that the cops might be running a sweep.
Then she would give the alarm whistle and the little ones would rush to their
hiding places till the danger was past.
But the cops didn't come by
that often. The real danger was much more immediate -- big kids. Poke, at age
nine, was the matriarch of her little crew (not that any of them knew for sure
that she was a girl), but that cut no ice with the eleven- and twelve- and
thirteen-year-old boys and girls who bullied their way around the streets. The
adult-size beggars and thieves and whores of the street paid no attention to
the little kids except to kick them out of the way. But the older children, who
were among the kicked, turned around and preyed on the younger ones. Any time
Poke's crew found something to eat -- especially if they located a dependable
source of garbage or an easy mark for a coin or a bit of food -- they had to
watch jealously and hide their winnings, for the bullies liked nothing better
than to take away whatever scraps of food the little ones might have. Stealing
from younger children was much safer than stealing from shops or passersby. And
they enjoyed it, Poke could see that. They liked how the little kids cowered
and obeyed and whimpered and gave them whatever they demanded.
So when the scrawny little
two-year-old took up a perch on a garbage can across the street, Poke, being
observant, saw him at once. The kid was on the edge of starvation. No, the kid
was starving. Thin arms and legs, joints that looked ridiculously oversized, a
distended belly. And if hunger didn't kill him soon, the onset of autumn would,
because his clothing was thin and there wasn't much of it even at that.
Normally she wouldn't have
paid him more than passing attention. But this one had eyes. He was still
looking around with intelligence. None of that stupor of the walking dead, no
longer searching for food or even caring to find a comfortable place to lie
while breathing their last taste of the stinking air of Rotterdam. After all,
death would not be such a change for them. Everyone knew that Rotterdam was, if
not the capital, then the main seaport of Hell. The only difference between
Rotterdam and death was that with Rotterdam, the damnation wasn't eternal.
This little boy -- what was he
doing? Not looking for food. He wasn't eyeing the pedestrians. Which was just
as well -- there was no chance that anyone would leave anything for a child
that small. Anything he might get would be taken away by any other child, so
why should he bother? If he wanted to survive, he should be following older
scavengers and licking food wrappers behind them, getting the last sheen of
sugar or dusting of flour clinging to the packaging, whatever the first comer
hadn't licked off.
There was nothing for this
child out here on the street, not unless he got taken in by a crew, and Poke
wouldn't have him. He'd be nothing but a drain, and her kids were already
having a hard enough time without adding another useless mouth.
He's going to ask, she
thought. He's going to whine and beg. But that only works on the rich people.
I've got my crew to think of. He's not one of them, so I don't care about him.
Even if he is small. He's nothing to me.
A couple of twelve-year-old
hookers who didn't usually work this strip rounded a corner, heading toward
Poke's base. She gave a low whistle. The kids immediately drifted apart,
staying on the street but trying not to look like a crew.
It didn't help. The hookers
knew already that Poke was a crew boss, and sure enough, they caught her by the
arms and slammed her against a wall and demanded their "permission"
fee. Poke knew better than to claim she had nothing to share -- she always
tried to keep a reserve in order to placate hungry bullies. These hookers, Poke
could see why they were hungry. They didn't look like what the pedophiles
wanted, when they came cruising through. They were too gaunt, too old-looking.
So until they grew bodies and started attracting the slightly-less-perverted
trade, they had to resort to scavenging. It made Poke's blood boil, to have
them steal from her and her crew, but it was smarter to pay them off. If they
beat her up, she couldn't look out for her crew now, could she? So she took
them to one of her stashes and came up with a little bakery bag that still had
half a pastry in it.
It was stale, since she'd been
holding it for a couple of days for just such an occasion, but the two hookers
grabbed it, tore open the bag, and one of them bit off more than half before
offering the remainder to her friend. Or rather, her former friend, for of such
predatory acts are feuds born. The two of them started fighting, screaming at
each other, slapping, raking at each other with clawed hands. Poke watched
closely, hoping that they'd drop the remaining fragment of pastry, but no such
luck. It went into the mouth of the same girl who had already eaten the first
bite -- and it was that first girl who won the fight too, sending the other one
running for refuge.
Poke turned around, and there
was the little boy right behind her. She nearly tripped over him. Angry as she
was at having had to give up food to those street-whores, she gave him a knee
and knocked him to the ground. "Don't stand behind people if you don't
want to land on your butt," she snarled.
He simply got up and looked at
her, expectant, demanding.
"No, you little bastard,
you're not getting nothing from me," said Poke. "I'm not taking one
bean out of the mouths of my crew, you aren't *worth* a bean."
Her crew was starting to
reassemble, now that the bullies had passed.
"Why you give your food
to them?" said the boy. "You need that food."
"Oh, excuse me!"
said Poke. She raised her voice, so her crew could hear her. "I guess you
ought to be the crew boss here, is that it? You being so big, you got no
trouble keeping the food."
"Not me," said the
boy. "I'm not worth a bean, remember?"
"Yeah, I remember. Maybe
*you* ought to remember and shut up."
Her crew laughed.
But the little boy didn't.
"You got to get your own bully," he said.
"I don't *get* bullies, I
get rid of them," Poke answered. She didn't like the way he kept talking,
standing up to her. In a minute she was going to have to hurt him.
"You give food to bullies
every day. Give that to *one* bully and get him to keep the others away from
you."
"You think I never
thought of that, stupid?" she said. "Only once he's bought, how I
keep him? He won't fight for us."
"If he won't, then kill
him," said the boy.
That made Poke mad, the stupid
impossibility of it, the power of the idea that she knew she could never lay
hands on. She gave him a knee again, and this time kicked him when he went
down. "Maybe I start by killing you."
"I'm not worth a bean,
remember?" said the boy. "You kill one bully, get another to fight for
you, he want your food, he scared of you too."
She didn't know what to say to
such a preposterous idea.
"They eating you
up," said the boy. "Eating you up. So you got to kill one. Get him
down, everybody as small as me. Stones crack any size head."
"You make me sick,"
she said.
"Cause you didn't think
of it," he said.
He was flirting with death,
talking to her that way. If she injured him at all, he'd be finished, he must
know that.
But then, he had death living
with him inside his flimsy little shirt already. Hard to see how it would
matter if death came any closer.
Poke looked around at her
crew. She couldn't read their faces.
"I don't need no baby
telling me to kill what we can't kill."
"Little kid come up
behind him, you shove, he fall over," said the boy. "Already got you
some big stones, bricks. Hit him in the head. When you see brains you
done."
"He no good to me
dead," she said. "I want my own bully, he keep us safe, I don't want
no dead one."
The boy grinned. "So now
you like my idea," he said.
"Can't trust no
bully," she answered.
"He watch out for you at
the charity kitchen," said the boy. "You get in at the kitchen."
He kept looking her in the eye, but he was talking for the others to hear.
"He get you *all* in at the kitchen."
"Little kid get into the
kitchen, the big kids, they beat him," said Sergeant. He was eight, and
mostly acted like he thought he was Poke's second-in-command, though truth was
she didn't have a second.
"You get you a bully, he
make them go away."
"How he stop two bullies?
Three bullies?" asked Sergeant.
"Like I said," the
boy answered. "You push him down, he not so big. You get your rocks. You
be ready. Be not you a soldier? Don't they call you Sergeant?"
"Stop talking to him,
Sarge," said Poke. "I don't know why any of us is talking to some
two-year-old."
"I'm four," said the
boy.
"What your name?"
asked Poke.
"Nobody ever said no name
for me," he said.
"You mean you so stupid
you can't remember your own name?"
"Nobody ever said no
name," he said again. Still he looked her in the eye, lying there on the
ground, the crew around him.
"Ain't worth a
bean," she said.
"Am so," he said.
"Yeah," said
Sergeant. "One damn bean."
"So now you got a
name," said Poke. "You go back and sit on that garbage can, I think
about what you said."
"I need something to
eat," said Bean.
"If I get me a bully, if
what you said works, then maybe I give you something."
"I need something
now," said Bean.
She knew it was true.
She reached into her pocket
and took out six peanuts she had been saving. He sat up and took just one from
her hand, put it in his mouth and slowly chewed.
"Take them all," she
said impatiently.
He held out his little hand.
It was weak. He couldn't make a fist. "Can't hold them all," he said.
"Don't hold so good."
Damn. She was wasting
perfectly good peanuts on a kid who was going to die anyway.
But she was going to try his
idea. It was audacious, but it was the first plan she'd ever heard that offered
any hope of making things better, of changing something about their miserable
life without her having to put on girl clothes and going into business. And
since it was his idea, the crew had to see that she treated him fair. That's
how you stay crew boss, they always see you be fair.
So she kept holding her hand
out while he ate all six peanuts, one at a time.
After he swallowed the last
one, he looked her in the eye for another long moment, and then said, "You
better be ready to kill him."
"I want him alive."
"Be ready to kill him if
he ain't the right one." With that, Bean toddled back across the street to
his garbage can and laboriously climbed on top again to watch.
"You ain't no four years
old!" Sergeant shouted over to him.
"I'm four but I'm just
little," he shouted back.
Poke hushed Sergeant up and
they went looking for stones and bricks and cinderblocks. If they were going to
have a little war, they'd best be armed.
***
Bean didn't like his new name,
but it was a name, and having a name meant that somebody else knew who he was
and needed something to call him, and that was a good thing. So were the six
peanuts. His mouth hardly knew what to do with them. Chewing hurt.
So did watching as Poke
screwed up the plan he gave her. Bean didn't choose her because she was the
smartest crew boss in Rotterdam. Quite the opposite. Her crew barely survived
because her judgment wasn't that good. And she was too compassionate. Didn't
have the brains to make sure she got enough food herself to look well fed, so
while her own crew knew she was nice and liked her, to strangers she didn't
look prosperous. Didn't look good at her job.
But if she really was good at
her job, she would never have listened to him. He never would have got close.
Or if she did listen, and did like his idea, she would have got rid of him.
That's the way it worked on the street. Nice kids died. Poke was almost too
nice to stay alive. That's what Bean was counting on. But that's what he now
feared.
All this time he invested in
watching people while his body ate itself up, it would be wasted if she
couldn't bring it off. Not that Bean hadn't wasted a lot of time himself. At
first when he watched the way kids did things on the street, the way they were
stealing from each other, at each other's throats, in each other's pockets,
selling every part of themselves that they could sell, he saw how things could
be better if somebody had any brains, but he didn't trust his own insight. He
was sure there must be something else that he just didn't get. He struggled to
learn more -- of everything. To learn to read so he'd know what the signs said
on trucks and stores and wagons and bins. To learn enough Dutch and enough I.F.
Common to understand everything that was said around him. It didn't help that
hunger constantly distracted him. He probably could have found more to eat if
he hadn't spent so much time studying the people. But finally he realized: He
already understood it. He had understood it from the start. There was no secret
that Bean just didn't get yet because he was only little. The reason all these
kids handled everything so stupidly was because they were stupid.
They were stupid and he was
smart. So why was he starving to death while these kids were still alive? That
was when he decided to act. That was when he picked Poke as his crew boss. And
now he sat on a garbage can watching her blow it.
She chose the wrong bully,
that's the first thing she did. She needed a guy who made it on size alone,
intimidating people. She needed somebody big and dumb, brutal but controllable.
Instead, she thinks she needs somebody *small*. No, stupid! Stupid! Bean wanted
to scream at her as she saw her target coming, a bully who called himself
Achilles after the comics hero. He was little and mean and smart and quick, but
he had a gimp leg. So she thought she could take him down more easily. Stupid!
The idea isn't just to take him down -- you can take *anybody* down the first
time because they won't expect it. You need somebody who will *stay* down.
But he said nothing. Couldn't
get her mad at him. See what happens. See what Achilles is like when he's beat.
She'll see -- it won't work and she'll have to kill him and hide the body and
try again with another bully before word gets out that there's a crew of little
kids taking down bullies.
So up comes Achilles,
swaggering -- or maybe that was just the rolling gait that his bent leg forced
on him -- and Poke makes an exaggerated show of cowering and trying to get
away. Bad job, thought Bean. Achilles gets it already. Something's wrong. You
were supposed to act like you normally do! Stupid! So Achilles looks around a
lot more. Wary. She tells him she's got something stashed -- that part's normal
-- and she leads him into the trap in the alley. But look, he's holding back.
Being careful. It isn't going to work.
But it does work, because of
the gimp leg. Achilles can see the trap being sprung but he can't get away, a
couple of little kids pile into the backs of his legs while Poke and Sergeant
push him from the front and down he goes. Then there's a couple of bricks
hitting his body and his bad leg and they're thrown hard -- the little kids get
it, they do their job, even if Poke is stupid -- and yeah, that's good,
Achilles *is* scared, he thinks he's going to die.
Bean was off his perch by now.
Down the alley, watching, closer. Hard to see past the crowd. He pushes his way
in, and the little kids -- who are all bigger than he is -- recognize him, they
know he earned a view of this, they let him in. He stands right at Achilles'
head. Poke stands above him, holding a big cinderblock, and she's talking.
"You get us into the food
line at the shelter."
"Sure, right, I will, I
promise."
Don't believe him. Look at his
eyes, checking for weakness.
"You get more food this
way, too, Achilles. You get my crew. We get enough to eat, we have more
strength, we bring more to you. You need a crew. The other bullies shove you
out of the way -- we've seen them! -- but with us, you don't got to take no
shit. See how we do it? An army, that's what we are."
OK, now he was getting it. It
*was* a good idea, and he wasn't stupid, so it made sense to him.
"If this is so smart,
Poke, how come you didn't do this before now?"
She had nothing to say to
that. Instead, she glanced at Bean.
Just a momentary glance, but
Achilles saw it. And Bean knew what he was thinking. It was so obvious.
"Kill him," said
Bean.
"Don't be stupid,"
said Poke. "He's *in*."
"That's right," said
Achilles. "I'm in. It's a good idea."
"Kill him," said
Bean. "If you don't kill him now, he's going to kill *you*."
"You let this little
walking turd get away with talking shit like this?" said Achilles.
"It's your life or
his," said Bean. "Kill him and take the next guy."
"The next guy won't have
my bad leg," said Achilles. "The next guy won't think he needs you. I
know I do. I'm in. I'm the one you want. It makes sense."
Maybe Bean's warning made her
more cautious. She didn't cave in quite yet. "You won't decide later that
you're embarrassed to have a bunch of little kids in your crew?"
"It's *your* crew, not
mine," said Achilles.
Liar, thought Bean. Don't you
see that he's lying to you?
"What this is to
me," said Achilles, "this is my family. These are my kid brothers and
sisters. I got to look after my family, don't I?"
Bean saw at once that Achilles
had won. Powerful bully, and he had called these kids his sisters, his
brothers. Bean could see the hunger in their eyes. Not the regular hunger, for
food, but the real hunger, the deep hunger, for family, for love, for
belonging. They got a little of that by being in Poke's crew. But Achilles was
promising more. He had just beaten Poke's best offer. Now it was too late to
kill him.
Too late, but for a moment it
looked as if Poke was so stupid she was going to go ahead and kill him after
all. She raised the cinderblock higher, to crash it down.
"No," said Bean.
"You can't. He's family now."
She lowered the cinderblock to
her waist. Slowly she turned to look at Bean. "You get the hell out of
here," she said. "You no part of my crew. You get *nothing* here."
"No," said Achilles.
"You better go ahead and kill me, you plan to treat him that way."
Oh, that sounded brave. But
Bean knew Achilles wasn't brave. Just smart. He had already won. It meant
nothing that he was lying there on the ground and Poke still had the
cinderblock. It was his crew now. Poke was finished. It would be a while before
anybody but Bean and Achilles understood that, but the test of authority was
here and now, and Achilles was going to win it.
"This little kid,"
said Achilles, "he may not be part of your crew, but he's part of my
family. You don't go telling my brother to get lost."
Poke hesitated. A moment. A
moment longer.
Long enough.
Achilles sat up. He rubbed his
bruises, he checked out his contusions. He looked in joking admiration to the
little kids who had bricked him. "Damn, you bad!" They laughed --
nervously, at first. Would he hurt them because they hurt him? "Don't
worry," he said. "You showed me what you can do. We have to do this to
more than a couple of bullies, you'll see. I had to know you could do it right.
Good job. What's your name?"
One by one he learned their
names. Learned them and remembered them, or when he missed one he'd make a big
deal about it, apologize, visibly work at remembering. Fifteen minutes later,
they loved him.
If he could do this, thought
Bean, if he's this good at making people love him, why didn't he do it before?
Because these fools always
look up for power. People above you, they never want to share power with you.
Why you look to them? They give you nothing. People below you, you give them
hope, you give them respect, *they* give you power, cause they don't think they
have any, so they don't mind giving it up.
Achilles got to his feet, a
little shaky, his bad leg more sore than usual. Everybody stood back, gave him
some space. He could leave now, if he wanted. Get away, never come back. Or go
get some more bullies, come back and punish the crew. But he stood there, then
smiled, reached into his pocket, took out the most incredible thing. A bunch of
raisins. A whole handful of them. They looked at his hand as if it bore the
mark of a nail in the palm.
"Little brothers and
sisters first," he said. "Littlest first." He looked at Bean.
"You."
"Not him!" said the
next littlest. "We don't even know him."
"Bean was the one wanted
us to kill you," said another.
"Bean," said
Achilles. "Bean, you were just looking out for my family, weren't
you?"
"Yes," said Bean.
"You want a raisin?"
Bean nodded.
"You first. You the one
brought us all together, OK?"
Either Achilles would kill him
or he wouldn't. At this moment, all that mattered was the raisin. Bean took it.
Put it in his mouth. Did not even bite down on it. Just let his saliva soak it,
bringing out the flavor of it.
"You know," said
Achilles, "no matter how long you hold it in your mouth, it never turns
back into a grape."
"What's a grape?"
Achilles laughed at him, still
not chewing. Then he gave out raisins to the other kids. Poke had never shared
out so many raisins, because she had never had so many to share. But the little
kids wouldn't understand that. They'd think, Poke gave us garbage, and Achilles
gave us raisins. That's because they were stupid.
CHAPTER 2 -- KITCHEN
"I know you've already
looked through this area, and you're probably almost done with Rotterdam, but
something's been happening lately, since you visited, that ... oh, I don't know
if it's really anything, I shouldn't have called."
"Tell me, I'm
listening."
"There's always been
fighting in the line. We try to stop them, but we only have a few volunteers,
and they're needed to keep order inside the dining room, that and serve the
food. So we know that a lot of kids who should get a turn can't even get in the
line, because they're pushed out. And if we do manage to stop the bullies and
let one of the little ones in, then they get beaten up afterward. We never see
them again. It's ugly."
"Survival of the
fittest."
"Of the cruelest.
Civilization is supposed to be the opposite of that."
"You're civilized.
They're not."
"Anyway, it's changed.
All of a sudden. just in the past few days. I don't know why. But I just -- you
said that anything unusual -- and whoever's behind it -- I mean, can
civilization suddenly evolve all over again, in the middle of a jungle of
children?"
"That's the only place it
ever evolves. I'm through in Delft. There was nothing for us here. I already
have enough blue plates."
***
Bean kept to the background
during the weeks that followed. He had nothing to offer now -- they already had
his best idea. And he knew that gratitude wouldn't last long. He wasn't big and
he didn't eat much, but if he was constantly underfoot, annoying people and
chattering at them, it would soon become not only fun but popular to deny him
food in hopes that he'd die or go away.
Even so, he often felt
Achilles' eyes on him. He noticed this without fear. If Achilles killed him, so
be it. He had been a few days from death anyway. It would just mean his plan
didn't work so well after all, but since it was his only plan, it didn't matter
if it turned out not to have been good. If Achilles remembered how Bean urged
Poke to kill him -- and of course he did remember -- and if Achilles was
planning how and when he would die, there was nothing Bean could do to prevent
it.
Sucking up wouldn't help. That
would just look like weakness, and Bean had seen for a long time how bullies --
and Achilles was still a bully at heart -- thrived on the terror of other
children, how they treated people even worse when they showed their weakness.
Nor would offering more clever ideas, first because Bean didn't have any, and
second because Achilles would think it was an affront to his authority. And the
other kids would resent it if Bean kept acting like he thought he was the only
one with a brain. They already resented him for having thought of this plan
that had changed their lives.
For the change was immediate.
The very first morning, Achilles had Sergeant go stand in the line at Helga's
Kitchen on Aert Van Nes Straat, because, he said, as long as we're going to get
the crap beaten out of us anyway, we might as well try for the best free food
in Rotterdam in case we get to eat before we die. He talked like that, but he
had made them practice their moves till the last light of day the night before,
so they worked together better and they didn't give themselves away so soon,
the way they did when they were going after him. The practice gave them
confidence. Achilles kept saying, "They'll expect this," and
"They'll try that," and because he was a bully himself, they trusted
him in a way they had never trusted Poke.
Poke, being stupid, kept
trying to act as if she was in charge, as if she had only delegated their
training to Achilles. Bean admired the way that Achilles did not argue with
her, and did not change his plans or instructions in any way because of what
she said. If she urged him to do what he was already doing, he'd keep doing it.
There was no show of defiance. No struggle for power. Achilles acted as if he
had already won, and because the other kids followed him, he had.
The line formed in front of
Helga's early, and Achilles watched carefully as bullies who arrived later
inserted themselves in line in a kind of hierarchy -- the bullies knew which
ones got pride of place. Bean tried to understand the principle Achilles used
to pick which bully Sergeant should pick a fight with. It wasn't the weakest,
but that was smart, since beating the weakest bully would only set them up for
more fights every day. Nor was it the strongest. As Sergeant walked across the
street, Bean tried to see what it was about the target bully that made Achilles
pick him. And then Bean realized -- this was the strongest bully who had no
friends with him.
The target was big and he
looked mean, so beating him would look like an important victory. But he talked
to no one, greeted no one. He was out of his territory, and several of the
other bullies were casting resentful glances at him, sizing him up. There might
have been a fight here today even if Achilles hadn't picked this soup line,
this stranger.
Sergeant was cool as you
please, slipping into place directly in front of the target. For a moment, the
target just stood there looking at him, as if he couldn't believe what he was
seeing. Surely this little kid would realize his deadly mistake and run away.
But Sergeant didn't even act as if he noticed the target was there.
"Hey!" said the
target. He shoved Sergeant hard, and from the angle of the push, Sergeant
should have been propelled away from the line. But, as Achilles had told him,
he planted a foot right away and launched himself forward, hitting the bully in
front of the target in line, even though that was not the direction in which
the target had pushed him.
The bully in front turned
around and snarled at Sergeant, who pleaded, "He pushed me."
"He hit you
himself," said the target.
"Do I look that
stupid?" said Sergeant.
The bully-in-front sized up
the target. A stranger. Tough, but not unbeatable. "Watch yourself, skinny
boy."
That was a dire insult among
bullies, since it implied incompetence and weakness.
"Watch your own
self."
During this exchange, Achilles
led a picked group of younger kids toward Sergeant, who was risking life and
limb by staying right up between the two bullies. Just before reaching them,
two of the younger kids darted through the line to the other side, taking up
posts against the wall just beyond the target's range of vision. Then Achilles
started screaming.
"What the bell do you
think you're doing, you turd-stained piece of toilet paper! I send my boy to
hold my place in line and you *shove* him? You shove him into my *friend*
here?"
Of course they weren't friends
at all -- Achilles was the lowest-status bully in this part of Rotterdam and he
always took his place as the last of the bullies in line. But the target didn't
know that, and he wouldn't have time to find out. For by the time the target
was turned to face Achilles, the boys behind him were already leaping against
his calves. There was no waiting for the usual exchange of shoves and brags
before the fight began. Achilles began it and ended it with brutal swiftness.
He pushed hard just as the younger boys hit, and the target hit the cobbled
street hard. He lay there dazed, blinking. But already two other little kids
were handing big loose cobblestones to Achilles, who smashed them down, one,
two, on the target's chest. Bean could hear the ribs as they popped like twigs.
Achilles pulled him by his
shirt and flopped him right back down on the street. He groaned, struggled to
move, groaned again, lay still.
The others in line had backed
away from the fight. This was a violation of protocol. When bullies fought each
other, they took it into the alleys, and they didn't try for serious injury,
they fought until supremacy was clear and it was over. This was a new thing,
using cobblestones, breaking bones. It scared them, not because Achilles was so
fearsome to look at, but because he had done the forbidden thing, and he had
done it right out in the open.
At once Achilles signaled Poke
to bring the rest of the crew and fill in the gap in the line. Meanwhile,
Achilles strutted up and down the line, ranting at the top of his voice.
"You can disrespect me, I don't care, I'm just a cripple, I'm just a guy
with a gimp leg! But don't you go shoving my family! Don't you go shoving one
of my children out of line! You hear me? Because if you do that some truck's
going to come down this street and knock you down and break your bones, just
like happened to this little pinprick, and next time maybe your head's going to
be what breaks till your brains fall out on the street. You got to watch out
for speeding trucks like the one that knocked down this fart-for-brains right
here in front of my soup kitchen!"
There it was, the challenge.
*My* kitchen. And Achilles didn't hold back, didn't show a spark of timidity
about it. He kept the rant going, limping up and down the line, staring each
bully in the face, daring him to argue. Shadowing his movements on the other
side of the line were the two younger boys who had helped take down the
stranger, and Sergeant strutted at Achilles's side, looking happy and smug.
They reeked of confidence, while the other bullies kept glancing over their
shoulders to see what those leg-grabbers behind them were doing.
And it wasn't just talk and
brag, either. When one of the bullies started looking belligerent, Achilles
went right up into his face. However, as he had planned beforehand, he didn't
actually go after the belligerent one -- he was ready for trouble, asking for
it. Instead, the boys launched themselves at the bully directly after him in
line. Just as they leapt, Achilles turned and shoved the new target, screaming,
"What do you think is so damn funny!" He had another cobblestone in
his hands at once, standing over the fallen one, but he did not strike.
"Go to the end of the line, you moron! You're lucky I'm letting you eat in
my kitchen!"
It completely deflated the
belligerent one, for the bully Achilles knocked down and obviously could have
smashed was the one next *lower* in status. So the belligerent one hadn't been
threatened or harmed, and yet Achilles had scored a victory right in his face
and he hadn't been a part of it.
The door to the soup kitchen
opened. At once Achilles was with the woman who opened it, smiling, greeting
her like an old friend. "Thank you for feeding us today," he said.
"I'm eating last today. Thank you for bringing in my friends. Thank you
for feeding my family."
The woman at the door knew how
the street worked. She knew Achilles, too, and that something very strange was
going on here. Achilles always ate last of the bigger boys, and rather
shamefacedly. But his new patronizing attitude hardly had time to get annoying
before the first of Poke's crew came to the door. "My family,"
Achilles announced proudly, passing each of the little kids into the hall.
"You take good care of my children."
Even Poke he called his child.
If she noticed the humiliation of it, though, she didn't show it. All she cared
about was the miracle of getting into the soup kitchen. The plan had worked.
And whether she thought of it
as her plan or Bean's didn't matter to Bean in the least, at least not till he
had the first soup in his mouth. He drank it as slowly as he could, but it was
still gone so fast that he could hardly believe it. Was this all? And how had
he managed to spill so much of the precious stuff on his shirt?
Quickly he stuffed his bread
inside his clothing and headed for the door. Stashing the bread and leaving,
that was Achilles' idea and it was a good one. Some of the bullies inside the
kitchen were bound to plan retribution. The sight of little kids eating would
be galling to them. They'd get used to it soon enough, Achilles promised, but
this first day it was important that all the little kids get out while the
bullies were still eating.
When Bean got to the door, the
line was still coming in, and Achilles stood by the door, chatting with the
woman about the tragic accident there in the line. Paramedics must have been
summoned to carry the injured boy away -- he was no longer groaning in the
street. "It could have been one of the little kids," he said.
"We need a policeman out here to watch the traffic. That driver would
never have been so careless if there was a cop here."
The woman agreed. "It
could have been awful. They said half his ribs were broken and his lung was
punctured." She looked mournful, her hands fretting.
"This line forms up when
it's still dark. It's dangerous. Can't we have a light out here? I've got my
children to think about," said Achilles. "Don't you want my little
kids to be safe? Or am I the only one who cares about them?"
The woman murmured something
about money and how the soup kitchen didn't have much of a budget.
Poke was counting children at
the door while Sergeant ushered them out into the street.
Bean, seeing that Achilles was
trying to get the adults to protect them in line, decided the time was tight
for him to be useful. Because this woman was compassionate and Bean was by far
the smallest child, he knew he had the most power over her. He came up to her,
tugged on her woollen skirt. "Thank you for watching over us," he
said. "It's the first time I ever got into a real kitchen. Papa Achilles
told us that you would keep us safe so we little ones could eat here every
day."
"Oh, you poor thing! Oh,
look at you." Tears streamed down the woman's face. "Oh, oh, you poor
darling." She embraced him.
Achilles looked on, beaming.
"I got to watch out for them," he said quietly. "I got to keep
them safe."
Then he led his family -- it
was no longer in any sense Poke's crew -- away from Helga's kitchen, all
marching in a line. Till they rounded the corner of a building and then they
ran like hell, joining hands and putting as much distance between them and
Helga's kitchen as they could. For the rest of the day they were going to have
to lie low. In twos and threes the bullies would be looking for them.
But they *could* lie low,
because they didn't need to forage for food today. The soup already gave them
more calories than they normally got, and they had the bread.
Of course, the first tax on
that bread belonged to Achilles, who had eaten no soup. Each child reverently
offered his bread to their new papa, and he took a bite from each one and
slowly chewed it and swallowed it before reaching for the next offered bread.
It was quite a lengthy ritual. Achilles took a mouthful of every piece of bread
except two: Poke's and Bean's.
"Thanks," said Poke.
She was so stupid, she thought
it was a gesture of respect. Bean knew better. By not eating their bread,
Achilles was putting them outside the family. We are dead, thought Bean.
That's why Bean hung back, why
he held his tongue and remained unobtrusive during the next few weeks. That was
also why he endeavored never to be alone. Always he was within arm's reach of
one of the other kids.
But he didn't linger near
Poke. That was a picture he didn't want to get locked in anyone's memory, him
tagging along with Poke.
From the second morning,
Helga's soup kitchen had an adult outside watching, and a new light fixture on
the third day. By the end of a week the adult guardian was a cop. Even so,
Achilles never brought his group out of hiding until the adult was there, and
then he would march the whole family right to the front of the line, and loudly
thank the bully in first position for helping him look out for his children by
saving them a place in line.
It was hard on all of them,
though, seeing how the bullies looked at them. They had to be on their best
behavior while the doorkeeper was watching, but murder was on their minds.
And it didn't get better; the
bullies didn't "get used to it," despite Achilles' bland assurances
that they would. So even though Bean was determined to be unobtrusive, he knew
that something had to be done to turn the bullies away from their hatred, and
Achilles, who thought the war was over and victory achieved, wasn't going to do
it.
So as Bean took his place in
line one morning, he deliberately hung back to be last of the family. Usually
Poke brought up the rear -- it was her way of trying to pretend that she was
somehow involved in ushering the little ones in. But this time Bean
deliberately got in place behind her, with the hate-filled stare of the bully
who should have had first position burning on his head.
Right at the door, where the
woman was standing with Achilles, both of them looking proud of his family,
Bean turned to face the bully behind him and asked, in his loudest voice,
"Where's *your* children? How come you don't bring *your* children to the
kitchen?"
The bully would have snarled
something vicious, but the woman at the door was watching with raised eyebrows.
"You look after little children, too?" she asked. It was obvious she
was delighted about the idea and wanted the answer to be yes. And stupid as
this bully was, he knew that it was good to please adults who gave out food. So
he said, "Of course I do."
"Well, you can bring
them, you know. Just like Papa Achilles here. We're always glad to see the
little children."
Again Bean piped up,
"They let people with little children come inside *first*!"
"You know, that's such a
good idea," said the woman. "I think we'll make that a rule. Now,
let's move along, we're holding up the hungry children."
Bean did not even glance at
Achilles as he went inside.
Later, after breakfast, as
they were performing the ritual of giving bread to Achilles, Bean made it a
point to offer his bread yet again, though there was danger in reminding
everyone that Achilles never took a share from him. Today, though, he had to
see how Achilles regarded him, for being so bold and intrusive.
"If they all bring little
kids, they'll run out of soup faster," said Achilles coldly. His eyes said
nothing at all -- but that, too, was a message.
"If they all become papas,"
said Bean, "they won't be trying to kill us."
At that, Achilles' eyes came
to life a little. He reached down and took the bread from Bean's hand. He bit
down on the crust, tore away a huge piece of it. More than half. He jammed it
into his mouth and chewed it slowly, then handed the remnant of the bread back
to Bean.
It left Bean hungry that day,
but it was worth it. It didn't mean that Achilles wasn't going to kill him
someday, but at least he wasn't separating him from the rest of the family anymore.
And that remnant of bread was far more food than he used to get in a day. Or a
week, for that matter.
He was filling out. Muscles
grew in his arms and legs again. He didn't get exhausted just crossing a
street. He could keep up easily now, when the others jogged along. They all had
more energy. They were healthy, compared to street urchins who didn't have a
papa. Everyone could see it. The other bullies would have no trouble recruiting
families of their own.
***
Sister Carlotta was a recruiter
for the International Fleet's training program for children. It had caused a
lot of criticism in her order, and finally she won the right to do it by
pointedly mentioning the Earth Defense Treaty, which was a veiled threat. If
she reported the order for obstructing her work on behalf of the I.F., the
order could lose its tax-exempt and draft-exempt status. She knew, however,
that when the war ended and the treaty expired, she would no doubt be a nun in
search of a home, for there would be no place for her among the Sisters of St.
Nicholas.
But her mission in life, she
knew, was to care for little children, and the way she saw it, if the Buggers
won the next round of the war, all the little children of the Earth would die.
Surely God did not mean that to happen -- but in her judgment, at least, God
did not want his servants to sit around waiting for God to work miracles to
save them. He wanted his servants to labor as best they could to bring about
righteousness. So it was her business, as a Sister of St. Nicholas, to use her
training in child development in order to serve the war effort. As long as the
I.F. thought it worthwhile to recruit extraordinarily gifted children to train
them for command roles in the battles to come, then she would help them by
finding the children that would otherwise be overlooked. They would never pay
anyone to do something as fruitless as scouring the filthy streets of every
overcrowded city in the world, searching among the malnourished savage children
who begged and stole and starved there; for the chance of finding a child with
the intelligence and ability and character to make a go of it in Battle School
was remote.
To God, however, all things
were possible. Did he not say that the weak would be made strong, and the
strong weak? Was Jesus not born to a humble carpenter and his bride in the
country province of Galilee? The brilliance of children born to privilege and
bounty, or even to bare sufficiency, would hardly show forth the miraculous
power of God. And it was the miracle she was searching for. God had made
humankind in his own image, male and female he created them. No Buggers from
another planet were going to blow down what God had created.
Over the years, though, her
enthusiasm, if not her faith, had flagged a little. Not one child had done
better than a marginal success on the tests.
Those children were indeed
taken from the streets and trained, but it wasn't Battle School. They weren't
on the course that might lead them to save the world. So she began to think
that her real work was a different kind of miracle -- giving the children hope,
finding even a few to be lifted out of the morass, to be given special
attention by the local authorities. She made it a point to indicate the most
promising children, and then follow up on them with email to the authorities.
Some of her early successes had already graduated from college; they said they
owed their lives to Sister Carlotta, but she knew they owed their lives to God.
Then came the call from Helga
Braun in Rotterdam, telling her of certain changes in the children who came to
her charity kitchen. Civilization, she had called it. The children, all by
themselves, were becoming civilized.
Sister Carlotta came at once,
to see a thing which sounded like a miracle. And indeed, when she beheld it
with her own eyes, she could hardly believe it. The line for breakfast was now
flooded with little children. Instead of the bigger ones shoving them out of
the way or intimidating them into not even bothering to try, they were
shepherding them, protecting them, making sure each got his share. Helga had
panicked at first, fearful that she would run out of food -- but she found that
when potential benefactors saw how these children were acting, donations
increased. There was always plenty now -- not to mention an increase in
volunteers helping.
"I was at the point of
despair," she told Sister Carlotta. "On the day when they told me
that a truck had hit one of the boys and broken his ribs. Of course that was a
lie, but there he lay, right in the line. They didn't even try to conceal him
from me. I was going to give up. I was going to leave the children to God and
move in with my oldest boy in Frankfurt, where the government is not required
by treaty to admit every refugee from any part of the globe."
"I'm glad you
didn't," said Sister Carlotta. "You can't leave them to God, when God
has left them to us."
"Well, that's the funny
thing. Perhaps that fight in the line woke up these children to the horror of
the life they were living, for that very day one of the big boys -- but the
weakest of them, with a bad leg, they call him Achilles -- well, I suppose *I*
gave him that name years ago, because Achilles had a weak heel, you know --
Achilles, anyway -- he showed up in the line with a group of little children. He
as much as asked me for protection, warning me that what happened to that poor
boy with the broken ribs -- he was the one I call Ulysses, because he wanders
from kitchen to kitchen -- he's still in hospital, his ribs were completely
smashed in, can you believe the brutality? -- Achilles, anyway, he warned me
that the same thing might happen to his little ones, so I made the special
effort, I came early to watch over the line, and badgered the police to finally
give me a man, off-duty volunteers at first, on part pay, but now regulars --
you'd think I would have been watching over the line all along, but don't you
see? It didn't make any difference because they didn't do their intimidation in
the line, they did it where I couldn't see, so no matter how I watched over
them, it was only the bigger, meaner boys who ended up in the line, and yes, I
know they're God's children too and I fed them and tried to preach the gospel
to them as they ate, but I was losing heart, they were so heartless themselves,
so devoid of compassion, but Achilles, anyway, he had taken on a whole group of
them, including the littlest child I ever saw on the streets, it just broke my
heart, they call him Bean, so small, he looked to be two years old, though I've
learned since that he thinks he's four, and he *talks* like he's ten at least,
very precocious, I suppose that's why he lived long enough to get under
Achilles' protection, but he was skin and bone, people say that when somebody's
skinny, but in the case of this little Bean, it was true, I didn't know how he
had muscles enough to walk, to *stand*, his arms and legs were as thin as an
ant -- oh, isn't that awful? To compare him to the *Buggers*? Or I should say,
the Formics, since they're saying now that Buggers is a bad word in English,
even though I.F. Common is *not* English, even though it began that way, don't
you think?"
"So, Helga, you're
telling me it began with this Achilles."
"Do call me Hazie. We're
friends now, aren't we?" She gripped Sister Carlotta's hand. "You must
meet this boy. Courage! Vision! Test him, Sister Carlotta. He is a leader of
men! He is a civilizer!"
Sister Carlotta did not point
out that civilizers often didn't make good soldiers. It was enough that the boy
was interesting, and she had missed him the first time around. It was a
reminder to her that she must be thorough.
In the dark of early morning,
Sister Carlotta arrived at the door where the line had already formed. Helga
beckoned to her, then pointed ostentatiously at a rather good-looking young man
surrounded by smaller children. Only when she got closer and saw him take a
couple of steps did she realize just how bad his right leg was. She tried to
diagnose the condition. Was it an early case of rickets? A clubfoot, left
uncorrected? A break that healed wrong?
It hardly mattered. Battle
School would not take him with such an injury.
Then she saw the adoration in
the eyes of the children, the way they called him Papa and looked to him for
approval. Few adult men were good fathers. This boy of -- what, eleven? twelve?
-- had already learned to be an extraordinarily good father. Protector,
provider, king, god to his little ones. Even as ye do it unto the least of
these, ye have done it unto me. Christ had a special place deep in his heart
for this boy Achilles. So she would test him, and maybe the leg could be
corrected; or, failing that, she could surely find a place for him in some good
school in one of the cities of the Netherlands -- pardon, the International
Territory -- that was not completely overwhelmed by the desperate poverty of
refugees.
He refused.
"I can't leave my children,"
he said.
"But surely one of the
others can look after them."
A girl who dressed as a boy
spoke up. "I can!"
But it was obvious she could
not -- she was too small herself. Achilles was right. His children depended on
him, and to leave them would be irresponsible. The reason she was here was
because he was civilized; civilized men do not leave their children.
"Then I will come to
you," she said. "After you eat, take me where you spend your days,
and let me teach you all in a little school. Only for a few days, but that
would be good, wouldn't it?"
It *would* be good. It had
been a long time since Sister Carlotta had actually taught a group of children.
And never had she been given such a class as this. Just when her work had begun
to seem futile even to her, God gave her such a chance. It might even be a
miracle. Wasn't it the business of Christ to make the lame walk? If Achilles
did well on the tests, then surely God would let the leg also be fixed, would
let it be within the reach of medicine.
"School's good,"
said Achilles. "None of these little ones can read."
Sister Carlotta knew, of
course, that if Achilles could read, he certainly couldn't do it well.
But for some reason, perhaps
some almost unnoticeable movement, when Achilles said that none of the little
ones could read, the smallest of them all, the one called Bean, caught her eye.
She looked at him, into eyes with sparks in them like distant campfires in the
darkest night, and she knew that *he* knew how to read. She knew, without
knowing how, that it was not Achilles at all, that it was this little one that
God had brought her here to find.
She shook off the feeling. It
was Achilles who was the civilizer, doing the work of Christ. It was the leader
that the I.F. would want, not the weakest and smallest of the disciples.
***
Bean stayed as quiet as
possible during the school sessions, never speaking up and never giving an
answer even when Sister Carlotta tried to insist. He knew that it wouldn't be
good for him to let anyone know that he could already read and do numbers, nor
that he could understand every language spoken in the street, picking up new
languages the way other children picked up stones. Whatever Sister Carlotta was
doing, whatever gifts she had to bestow, if it ever seemed to the other
children that Bean was trying to show them up, trying to get ahead of them, he
knew that he would not be back for another day of school. And even though she
mostly taught things he already knew how to do, in her conversation there were
many hints of a wider world, of great knowledge and wisdom. No adult had ever
taken the time to speak to them like this, and he luxuriated in the sound of
high language well spoken. When she taught it was in I.F. Common, of course,
that being the language of the street, but since many of the children had also
learned Dutch and some were even native Dutch speakers, she would often explain
hard points in that language. When she was frustrated though, and muttered
under her breath, that was in Spanish, the language of the merchants of Jonker
Frans Straat, and he tried to piece together the meanings of new words from her
muttering. Her knowledge was a banquet, and if he remained quiet enough, he
would be able to stay and feast.
School had only been going for
a week, however, when he made a mistake. She passed out papers to them, and
they had writing on them. Bean read his paper at once. It was a
"Pre-Test" and the instructions said to circle the right answers to
each question. So he began circling answers and was halfway down the page when
he realized that the entire group had fallen silent.
They were all looking at him,
because Sister Carlotta was looking at him.
"What are you doing,
Bean?" she asked. "I haven't even told you what to do yet. Please
give me your paper."
Stupid, inattentive, careless
-- if you die for this, Bean, you deserve it.
He handed her the paper.
She looked at it, then looked
back at him very closely. "Finish it," she said.
He took the paper back from
her hand. His pencil hovered over the page. He pretended to be struggling with
the answer.
"You did the first
fifteen in about a minute and a half," said Sister Carlotta. "Please
don't expect me to believe that you're suddenly having a hard time with the
next question." Her voice was dry and sarcastic.
"I can't do it," he
said. "I was just playing anyway."
"Don't lie to me,"
said Carlotta. "Do the rest."
He gave up and did them all.
It didn't take long. They were easy. He handed her the paper.
She glanced over it and said
nothing. "I hope the rest of you will wait until I finish the instructions
and read you the questions. If you try to guess at what the hard words are,
you'll get all the answers wrong."
Then she proceeded to read
each question and all the possible answers out loud. Only then could the other
children set their marks on the papers.
Sister Carlotta didn't say
another thing to call attention to Bean after that, but the damage was done. As
soon as school was over, Sergeant came over to Bean. "So you can
read," he said.
Bean shrugged.
"You been lying to
us," said Sergeant.
"Never said I
couldn't."
"Showed us all up. How
come you didn't teach us?"
Because I was trying to
survive, Bean said silently. Because I didn't want to remind Achilles that I
was the smart one who thought up the original plan that got him this family. If
he remembers that, he'll also remember who it was who told Poke to kill him.
The only answer he actually
gave was a shrug.
"Don't like it when
somebody holds out on us."
Sergeant nudged him with a
foot.
Bean did not have to be given
a map. He got up and jogged away from the group. School was out for him. Maybe
breakfast, too. He'd have to wait till morning to find that out.
He spent the afternoon alone
on the streets. He had to be careful. As the smallest and least important of
Achilles' family, he might be overlooked. But it was more likely that those who
hated Achilles would have taken special notice of Bean as one of the most
memorable. They might take it into their heads that killing Bean or beating him
to paste and leaving him would make a dandy warning to Achilles that he was
still resented, even though life was better for everybody.
Bean knew there were plenty of
bullies who felt that way. Especially the ones who weren't able to maintain a
family, because they kept being too mean with the little children. The little
ones learned quickly that when a papa got too nasty, they could punish him by
leaving him alone at breakfast and attaching themselves to some other family.
They would eat before him. They would have someone else's protection from him.
He would eat last. If they ran out of food, he would get nothing, and Helga
wouldn't even mind, because he wasn't a papa, he wasn't watching out for little
ones. So those bullies, those marginal ones, they hated the way things worked
these days, and they didn't forget that it was Achilles who had changed it all.
Nor could they go to some other kitchen -- the word had spread among the adults
who gave out food, and now all the kitchens had a rule that groups with little
children got to be first in line. If you couldn't hold on to a family, you
could get pretty hungry. And nobody looked up to you.
Still, Bean couldn't resist
trying to get close enough to some of the other families to hear their talk.
Find out how the other groups worked.
The answer was easy to learn:
They didn't work all that well. Achilles really was a good leader. That sharing
of bread -- none of the other groups did that. But there was a lot of
punishing, the bully smacking kids who didn't do what he wanted. Taking their
bread away from them because they didn't do something, or didn't do it quickly
enough.
Poke had chosen right, after all. By dumb
luck, or maybe she wasn't all that stupid. Because she had picked, not just the
weakest bully, the easiest to beat, but also the smartest, the one who
understood how to win and hold the loyalty of others. All Achilles had ever
needed was the chance.
Except that Achilles still
didn't share her bread, and now she was beginning to realize that this was a
bad thing, not a good one. Bean could see it in her face when she watched the
others do the ritual of sharing with Achilles. Because he got soup now -- Helga
brought it to him at the door -- he took much smaller pieces, and instead of
biting them off he tore them and ate them with a smile. Poke never got that
smile from him. Achilles was never going to forgive her, and Bean could see
that she was beginning to feel the pain of that. For she loved Achilles now,
too, the way the other children did, and the way he kept her apart from the
others was a kind of cruelty.
Maybe that's enough for him,
thought Bean. Maybe that's his whole vengeance.
Bean happened to be curled up
behind a newsstand when several bullies began a conversation near him.
"He's full of brag about how Achilles is going to pay for what he
did."
"Oh, right, Ulysses is
going to punish him, right."
"Well, maybe not
directly."
"Achilles and his stupid
family will just take him apart. And this time they won't aim for his chest. He
said so, didn't he? Break open his head and put his brains on the street,
that's what Achilles'll do."
"He's still just a
cripple."
"Achilles gets away with
everything. Give it up."
"I'm hoping Ulysses does
it. Kills him, flat out. And then none of us take in any of his bastards. You
got that? Nobody takes them in. Let them all die. Put them all in the
river."
The talk went on that way
until the boys drifted away from the newsstand.
Then Bean got up and went in
search of Achilles.
CHAPTER 3 -- PAYBACK
"I think I have someone
for you."
"You've thought that
before."
"He's a born leader. But
he does not meet your physical specifications."
"Then you'll pardon me if
I don't waste time on him."
"If he passes your
exacting intellectual and personality requirements, it is quite possible that
for a minuscule portion of the brass button or toilet paper budget of the I.
F., his physical limitations might be repaired."
"I never knew nuns could
be sarcastic."
"I can't reach you with a
ruler. Sarcasm is my last resort."
"Let me see the
tests."
"I'll let you see the
boy. And while we're at it, I'll let you see another."
"Also physically
limited?"
"Small. Young. But so was
the Wiggin boy, I hear. And this one -- somehow on the streets he taught
himself to read."
"Ah, Sister Carlotta, you
help me fill the empty hours of my life."
"Keeping you out of
mischief is how I serve God."
***
Bean went straight to Achilles
with what he heard. It was too dangerous, to have Ulysses out of the hospital
and word going around that he meant to get even for his humiliation.
"I thought that was all
behind us," said Poke sadly. "The fighting I mean."
"Ulysses has been in bed
for all this time," said Achilles. "Even if he knows about the
changes, he hasn't had time to get how it works yet."
"So we stick
together," said Sergeant. "Keep you safe."
"It might be safer for
all," said Achilles, "if I disappear for a few days. To keep you
safe."
"Then how will we get in
to eat?" asked one of the younger ones. "They'll never let us in
without you."
"Follow Poke," said
Achilles. "Helga at the door will let you in just the same."
"What if Ulysses gets
you?" asked one of the young ones. He rubbed the tears out of his eyes,
lest he be shamed.
"Then I'll be dead,"
said Achilles. "I don't think he'll be content to put me in the
hospital."
The child broke down crying,
which set another to wailing, and soon it was a choir of boo-hoos, with
Achilles shaking his head and laughing. "I'm not going to die. You'll be
safe if I'm out of the way, and I'll come back after Ulysses has time to cool
down and get used to the system."
Bean watched and listened in
silence. He didn't think Achilles was handling it right, but he had given the
warning and his responsibility was over. For Achilles to go into hiding was
begging for trouble -- it would be taken as a sign of weakness.
Achilles slipped away that
night to go somewhere that he couldn't tell them so that nobody could
accidentally let it slip. Bean toyed with the idea of following him to see what
he really did, but realized he would be more useful with the main group. After
all, Poke would be their leader now, and Poke was only an ordinary leader. In
other words, stupid. She needed Bean, even if she didn't know it.
That night Bean tried to keep
watch, for what he did not know. At last he did sleep, and dreamed of school,
only it wasn't the sidewalk or alley school with Sister Carlotta, it was a real
school, with tables and chairs. But in the dream Bean couldn't sit at a desk.
Instead he hovered in the air over it, and when he wanted to he flew anywhere
in the room. Up to the ceiling. Into a crevice in the wall, into a secret dark
place, flying upward and upward as it got warmer and warmer and ...
He woke in darkness. A cold
breeze stirred. He needed to pee. He also wanted to fly. Having the dream end
almost made him cry out with the pain of it. He couldn't remember ever dreaming
of flying before. Why did he have to be little, with these stubby legs to carry
him from place to place?
When he was flying he could
look down at everyone and see the tops of their silly heads. He could pee or
poop on them like a bird. He wouldn't have to be afraid of them because if they
got mad he could fly away and they could never catch him.
Of course, if I could fly,
everyone else could fly too and I'd still be the smallest and slowest and
they'd poop and pee on me anyway.
There was no going back to
sleep. Bean could feel that in himself. He was too frightened, and he didn't
know why. He got up and went into the alley to pee.
Poke was already there. She
looked up and saw him.
"Leave me alone for a
minute," she said.
"No," he said.
"Don't give me any crap,
little boy," she said.
"I know you squat to
pee," he said, "and I'm not looking anyway." Glaring, she waited
until he turned his back to urinate against the wall. "I guess if you were
going to tell about me you already would have," she said.
"They all know you're a
girl, Poke. When you're not there, Papa Achilles talks about you as 'she' and
'her.'"
"He's not my papa."
"So I figured," said
Bean. He waited, facing the wall.
"You can turn around
now." She was up and fastening her pants again.
"I'm scared of something,
Poke," said Bean.
"What?"
"I don't know."
"You don't know what
you're scared of?"
"That's why it's so
scary."
She gave a soft, sharp laugh.
"Bean, all that means is that you're four years old. Little kids see
shapes in the night. Or they don't see shapes. Either way they're scared."
"Not me," said Bean.
"When I'm scared, it's because something's wrong."
"Ulysses is looking to
hurt Achilles, that's what."
"That wouldn't make you
sad, would it?"
She glared at him. "We're
eating better than ever. Everybody's happy. It was your plan. And I never cared
about being the boss."
"But you hate him,"
said Bean.
She hesitated. "It feels
like he's always laughing at me."
"How do you know what
little kids are scared of?"
"Cause I used to be
one," said Poke. "And I remember."
"Ulysses isn't going to
hurt Achilles," said Bean.
"I know that," said
Poke.
"Because you're planning
to find Achilles and protect him."
"I'm planning to stay
right here and watch out for the children."
"Or else maybe you're
planning to find Ulysses first and kill him."
"How? He's bigger than
me. By a lot."
"You didn't come out here
to pee," said Bean. "Or else your bladder's the size of a
gumball."
"You *listened*?"
Bean shrugged. "You wouldn't
let me watch."
"You think too much, but
you don't know enough to make sense of what's going on."
"I think Achilles was
lying to us about what he's going to do," said Bean, "and I think
you're lying to me right now."
"Get used to it,"
said Poke. "The world is full of liars."
"Ulysses doesn't care who
he kills," said Bean. "He'd be just as happy to kill you as
Achilles."
Poke shook her head
impatiently. "Ulysses is nothing. He isn't going to hurt anybody. He's all
brag."
"So why are you up?"
asked Bean.
Poke shrugged.
"*You're* going to try to
kill Achilles, aren't you," said Bean. "And make it look like Ulysses
did it."
She rolled her eyes. "Did
you drink a big glass of stupid juice tonight?"
"I'm smart enough to know
you're lying!"
"Go back to sleep,"
she said. "Go back to the other children."
He regarded her for a while,
and then obeyed.
Or rather, seemed to obey. He
went back into the crawl space where they slept these days, but immediately
crept out the back way and clambered up crates, drums, low walls, high walls,
and finally got up onto a low-hanging roof. He walked to the edge in time to
see Poke slip out of the alley into the street. She was going somewhere. To
meet someone.
Bean slid down a pipe onto a
rainbarrel, and scurried along Korte Hoog Straat after her. He tried to be
quiet, but she wasn't trying, and there were other noises of the city, so she
never heard his footfalls. He clung to the shadows of walls, but didn't dodge
around too much. It was pretty straightforward, following her -- she only
turned twice. Headed for the river. Meeting someone.
Bean had two guesses. It was
either Ulysses or Achilles. Who else did she know, that wasn't already asleep
in the nest? But then, why meet either of them? To plead with Ulysses for
Achilles' life? To heroically offer herself in his place? Or to try to persuade
Achilles to come back and face down Ulysses instead of hiding? No, these were
all things that Bean might have thought of doing -- but Poke didn't think that
far ahead.
Poke stopped in the middle of
an open space on the dock at Scheepmakershaven and looked around. Then she saw
what she was looking for. Bean strained to see. Someone waiting in a deep
shadow. Bean climbed up on a big packing crate, trying to get a better view. He
heard the two voices -- both children -- but he couldn't make out what they
were saying. Whoever it was, he was taller than Poke. But that could be either
Achilles or Ulysses.
The boy wrapped his arms
around Poke and kissed her.
This was really weird. Bean
had seen grownups do that plenty of times, but what would kids do it for? Poke
was nine years old. Of course there were whores that age, but everybody knew
that the johns who bought them were perverts.
Bean had to get closer, to
hear what they were saying. He dropped down the back of the packing crate and
slowly walked into the shadow of a kiosk. They, as if to oblige him, turned to
face him; in the deep shadow he was invisible, at least if he kept still. He
couldn't see them any better than they could see him, but he could hear
snatches of their conversation now.
"You promised," Poke
was saying. The guy mumbled in return.
A boat passing on the river
scanned a spotlight across the riverside and showed the face of the boy Poke
was with. It was Achilles.
Bean didn't want to see any
more. To think he had once believed Achilles would someday kill Poke. This
thing between girls and boys was something he just didn't get. In the midst of
hate, this happens. Just when Bean was beginning to make sense of the world.
He slipped away and ran up
Posthoornstraat.
But he did not head back to
their nest in the crawlspace, not yet. For even though he had all the answers,
his heart was still jumping; something is wrong, it was saying to him,
something is wrong.
And then he remembered that
Poke wasn't the only one hiding something from him. Achilles had also been
lying. Hiding something. Some plan. Was it just this meeting with Poke? Then
why all this business about hiding from Ulysses? To take Poke as his girl, he
didn't have to hide to do that. He could do that right out in the open. Some
bullies did that, the older ones. They usually didn't take nine-year-olds,
though. Was that what Achilles was hiding?
"You promised," Poke
said to Achilles there on the dock.
What did Achilles promise?
That was why Poke came to him -- to pay him for his promise. But what could
Achilles be promising her that he wasn't already giving her as part of his
family? Achilles didn't have anything.
So he must have been promising
not to do something. Not to kill her? Then that would be too stupid even for
Poke, to go off alone with Achilles.
Not to kill me, thought Bean.
That's the promise. Not to kill me.
Only I'm not the one in
danger, or not the most danger. I might have said to kill him, but Poke was the
one who knocked him down, who stood over him. That picture must still be in
Achilles' mind, all the time he must remember it, must dream about it, him
lying on the ground, a nine-year-old girl standing over him with a cinderblock,
threatening to kill him. A cripple like him, somehow he had made it into the
ranks of the bullies. So he was tough -- but always mocked by the boys with two
good legs, the lowest-status bully. And the lowest moment of his life had to be
then, when a nine-year-old girl knocked him down and a bunch of little kids
stood over him.
Poke, he blames you most.
You're the one he has to smash in order to wipe out the agony of that memory.
Now it was clear. Everything
Achilles had said today was a lie. He wasn't hiding from Ulysses. He would face
Ulysses down -- probably still would, tomorrow. But when he faced Ulysses,
Achilles would have a much bigger grievance. You killed Poke! He would scream
the accusation. Ulysses would look so stupid and weak, denying it after all the
bragging he'd done about how he'd get even. He might even admit to killing her,
just for the brag of it. And then Achilles would strike at Ulysses and nobody
would blame him for killing the boy. It wouldn't be mere self-defense, it would
be defense of his family.
Achilles was just too damn
smart. And patient. Waiting to kill Poke until there was somebody else who
could be blamed for it.
Bean ran back to warn her. As
fast as his little legs would move, the longest strides he could take. He ran
forever.
There was nobody there on the
dock where Poke had met Achilles.
Bean looked around helplessly.
He thought of calling out, but that would be stupid. Just because it was Poke
that Achilles hated most didn't mean that he had forgiven Bean, even if he did
let Bean give him bread.
Or maybe I've gone crazy over
nothing. He was hugging her, wasn't he? She came willingly, didn't she? There
are things between boys and girls that I just don't understand. Achilles is a
provider, a protector, not a murderer. It's my mind that works that way, my
mind that thinks of killing someone who is helpless, just because he might pose
a danger later. Achilles is the good one. I'm the bad one, the criminal.
Achilles is the one who knows
how to love. I'm the one who doesn't.
Bean walked to the edge of the
dock and looked across the channel. The water was covered with a low-flowing
mist. On the far bank, the lights of Boompjes Straat twinkled like Sinterklaas
Day. The waves lapped like tiny kisses against the pilings.
He looked down into the river
at his feet. Something was bobbing in the water, bumped up against the wharf.
Bean looked at it for a while,
uncomprehending. But then he understood that he had known all along what it
was, he just didn't want to believe it. It was Poke. She was dead. It was just
as Bean had feared. Everybody on the street would believe that Ulysses was
guilty of the murder, even if nothing could be proved. Bean had been right
about everything. Whatever it was that passed between boys and girls, it didn't
have the power to block hatred, vengeance for humiliation.
And as Bean stood there,
looking down into the water, he realized: I either have to tell what happened,
right now, this minute, to everybody, or I have to decide never to tell
anybody, because if Achilles gets any hint that I saw what I saw tonight, he'll
kill me and not give it a second thought. Achilles would simply say: Ulysses
strikes again. Then he can pretend to be avenging two deaths, not one, when he
kills Ulysses.
No, all Bean could do was keep
silence. Pretend that he hadn't seen Poke's body floating in the river, her
upturned face clearly recognizable in the moonlight.
She was stupid. Stupid not to
see through Achilles' plans, stupid to trust him in any way, stupid not to
listen to me. As stupid as I was, to walk away instead of calling out a
warning, maybe saving her life by giving her a witness that Achilles could not
hope to catch and therefore could not silence.
She was the reason Bean was
alive. She was the one who gave him a name. She was the one who listened to his
plan. And now she had died for it, and he could have saved her. Sure, he told
her at the start to kill Achilles, but in the end she had been right to choose
him -- he was the only one of the bullies who could have figured it all out and
brought it off with such style. But Bean had also been right. Achilles was a
champion liar, and when he decided that Poke would die, he began building up
the lies that would surround the murder -- lies that would get Poke off by
herself where he could kill her without witnesses; lies to alibi himself in the
eyes of the younger kids.
I trusted him, thought Bean. I
knew what he was from the start, and yet I trusted him.
Aw, Poke, you poor, stupid,
kind, decent girl. You saved me and I let you down.
It's not *just* my fault.
*She's* the one who went off alone with him.
Alone with him, trying to save
my life? What a mistake, Poke, to think of anyone but yourself!
Am I going to die from her
mistakes, too?
No. I'll die from my own damn
mistakes.
Not tonight, though. Achilles
had not set any plan in motion to get Bean off by himself. But from now on,
when he lay awake at night, unable to drift off, he would think about how
Achilles was just waiting. Biding his time. Till the day when Bean, too, would
find himself in the river.
***
Sister Carlotta tried to be
sensitive to the pain these children were suffering, so soon after one of their
own was strangled and thrown in the river. But Poke's death was all the more
reason to push forward on the testing. Achilles had not been found yet -- with
this Ulysses boy having already struck once, it was unlikely that Achilles
would come out of hiding for some time. So Sister Carlotta had no choice but to
proceed with Bean.
At first the boy was
distracted, and did poorly. Sister Carlotta could not understand how he could
fail even the elementary parts of the test, when he was so bright he had taught
himself to read on the street. It had to be the death of Poke. So she
interrupted the test and talked to him about death, about how Poke was caught
up in spirit into the presence of God and the saints, who would care for her
and make her happier than she had ever been in life. He did not seem
interested. If anything, he did worse as they began the next phase of the test.
Well, if compassion didn't
work, sternness might.
"Don't you understand
what this test is for, Bean?" she asked.
"No," he said. The
tone of his voice added the unmistakable idea "and I don't care."
"All you know about is
the life of the street. But the streets of Rotterdam are only a part of a great
city, and Rotterdam is only one city in a world of thousands of such cities.
The whole human race, Bean, that's what this test is about. Because the Formics
--"
"The Buggers," said
Bean. Like most street urchins, he sneered at euphemism.
"They will be back,
scouring the Earth, killing every living soul. This test is to see if you are
one of the children who will be taken to Battle School and trained to be a
commander of the forces that will try to stop them. This test is about saving
the world, Bean."
For the first time since the
test began, Bean turned his full attention to her. "Where is Battle
School?"
"In an orbiting platform
in space," she said. "If you do well enough on this test, you get to
be a spaceman!"
There was no childlike
eagerness in his face. Only hard calculation.
"I've been doing real bad
so far, haven't I," he said.
"The test results so far
show that you're too stupid to walk and breathe at the same time."
"Can I start over?"
"I have another version
of the tests, yes," said Sister Carlotta.
"Do it."
As she brought out the
alternate set, she smiled at him, tried to relax him again. "So you want
to be a spaceman, is that it? Or is it the idea of being part of the
International Fleet?"
He ignored her.
This time through the test, he
finished everything, even though the tests were designed not to be finished in
the allotted time. His scores were not perfect, but they were close. So close
that nobody would believe the results.
So she gave him yet another
battery of tests, this one designed for older children -- the standard tests,
in fact, that six-year-olds took when being considered for Battle School at the
normal age. He did not do as well on these; there were too many experiences he
had not had yet, to be able to understand the content of some of the questions.
But he still did remarkably well. Better than any student she had ever tested.
And to think she had thought
it was Achilles who had the real potential. This little one, this infant,
really -- he was astonishing. No one would believe she had found him on the
streets, living at the starvation level.
A suspicion crept into her
mind, and when the second test ended and she recorded the scores and set them
aside, she leaned back in her chair and smiled at bleary-eyed little Bean and
asked him, "Whose idea was it, this family thing that the street children
have come up with?"
"Achilles' idea,"
said Bean.
Sister Carlotta waited.
"His idea to call it a
family, anyway," said Bean.
She still waited. Pride would
bring more to the surface, if she gave him time.
"But having a bully
protect the little ones, that was my plan," said Bean. "I told it to
Poke and she thought about it and decided to try it and she only made one
mistake."
"What mistake was
that?"
"She chose the wrong
bully to protect us."
"You mean because he
couldn't protect her from Ulysses?"
Bean laughed bitterly as tears
slid down his cheeks.
"Ulysses is off somewhere
bragging about what he's going to do."
Sister Carlotta knew but did
not want to know. "Do you know who killed her, then?"
"I told her to kill him.
I told her he was the wrong one. I saw it in his face, lying there on the
ground, that he would never forgive her. But he's cold. He waited so long. But
he never took bread from her. That should have told her. She shouldn't have
gone off alone with him." He began crying in earnest now. "I think
she was protecting *me*. Because I told her to kill him that first day. I think
she was trying to get him not to kill me."
Sister Carlotta tried to keep
emotion out of her voice. "Do you believe you might be in danger from
Achilles?"
"I am now that I told
you," he said. And then, after a moment's thought. "I was already. He
doesn't forgive. He pays back, always."
"You realize that this
isn't the way Achilles seems to me, or to Hazie. Helga, that is. To us, he
seems -- civilized."
Bean looked at her like she
was crazy. "Isn't that what it *means* to be civilized? That you can
*wait* to get what you want?"
"You want to get out of
Rotterdam and go to Battle School so you can get away from Achilles."
Bean nodded.
"What about the other
children. Do you think they're in danger from him?"
"No," said Bean.
"He's their papa."
"But not yours. Even
though he took bread from you."
"He hugged her and kissed
her," said Bean. "I saw them on the dock, and she let him kiss her
and then she said something about how he promised, and so I left, but then I
realized and I ran back and it couldn't have been long, just running for maybe
six blocks, and she was dead with her eye stabbed out, floating in the water,
bumping up against the dock. He can kiss you and kill you, if he hates you
enough."
Sister Carlotta drummed her
fingers on the desk. "What a quandary."
"What's a quandary?"
"I was going to test
Achilles, too. I think he could get into Battle School."
Bean's whole body tightened.
"Then don't send me. Him or me."
"Do you really think
..." Her voice trailed off. "You think he'd try to kill you
there?"
"*Try?*" His voice was
scornful. "Achilles doesn't just *try*."
Sister Carlotta knew that the
trait Bean was speaking of, that ruthless determination, was one of the things
that they looked for in Battle School. It might make Achilles more attractive
to them than Bean. And they could channel such murderous violence up there. Put
it to good use.
But civilizing the bullies of
the street had not been Achilles' idea. It had been Bean who thought of it.
Incredible, for a child so young to conceive of it and bring it about. This
child was the prize, not the one who lived for cold vengeance. But one thing
was certain. It would be wrong of her to take them both. Though she could
certainly take the other one and get him into a school here on Earth, get him
off the street. Surely Achilles would become truly civilized then, where the
desperation of the street no longer drove children to do such hideous things to
each other.
Then she realized what
nonsense she had been thinking. It wasn't the desperation of the street that
drove Achilles to murder Poke. It was pride. It was Cain, who thought that
being shamed was reason enough to take his brother's life. It was Judas, who
did not shrink to kiss before killing. What was she thinking, to treat evil as
if it were a mere mechanical product of deprivation? All the children of the
street suffered fear and hunger, helplessness and desperation. But they didn't
all become cold-blooded, calculating murderers.
If, that is, Bean was right.
But she had no doubt that Bean
was telling her the truth. If Bean was lying, she would give up on herself as a
judge of children's character. Now that she thought about it, Achilles was
slick. A flatterer. Everything he said was calculated to impress. But Bean said
little, and spoke plainly when he did speak. And he was young, and his fear and
grief here in this room were real.
Of course, he also had urged
that a child be killed.
But only because he posed a
danger to others. It wasn't pride.
How can I judge? Isn't Christ
supposed to be the judge of quick and dead? Why is this in my hands, when I am
not fit to do it?
"Would you like to stay
here, Bean, while I transmit your test results to the people who make the
decisions about Battle School? You'll be safe here."
He looked down at his hands,
nodded, then laid his head on his anus and sobbed.
***
Achilles came back to the nest
that morning. "I couldn't stay away," he said. "Too much could
go wrong." He took them to breakfast, just like always. But Poke and Bean
weren't there.
Then Sergeant did his rounds,
listening here and there, talking to other kids, talking to an adult here and
there, finding out what was happening, anything that might be useful. It was
along the Wijnhaven dock that he heard some of the longshoremen talking about
the body found in the river that morning. A little girl. Sergeant found out
where her body was being held till the authorities arrived. He didn't shy away,
he walked right up to the body under a tarpaulin, and without asking permission
from any of the others standing there, he pulled it back and looked at her.
"What are you doing,
boy!"
"Her name is Poke,"
he said.
"You know her? Do you
know who might have killed her?"
"A boy named Ulysses,
that's who killed her," said Sergeant. Then he dropped the tarp and his
rounds were over. Achilles had to know that his fears had been justified, that
Ulysses was taking out anybody he could from the family.
"We've got no choice but
to kill him," said Sergeant.
"There's been enough
bloodshed," said Achilles. "But I'm afraid you're right."
Some of the younger children
were crying. One of them explained, "Poke fed me when I was going to
die."
"Shut up," said
Sergeant. "We're eating better now than we ever did when Poke was
boss."
Achilles put a hand on
Sergeant's arm, to still him. "Poke did the best a crew boss could do. And
she's the one who got me into the family. So in a way, anything I get for you,
she got for you."
Everyone nodded solemnly at
that.
A kid asked, "You think
Ulysses got Bean, too?"
"Big loss if he
did," said Sergeant.
"Any loss to my family is
a big loss," said Achilles. "But there'll be no more. Ulysses will
either leave the city, now, or he's dead. Put the word out, Sergeant. Let it be
known on the street that the challenge stands. Ulysses doesn't eat in any
kitchen in town, until he faces me. That's what he decided for himself, when he
chose to put a knife in Poke's eye."
Sergeant saluted him and took
off at a run. The picture of businesslike obedience.
Except that as he ran, he,
too, was crying. For he had not told anyone how Poke died, how her eye was a
bloody wound. Maybe Achilles knew some other way, maybe he had already heard
but didn't mention it till Sergeant came back with the news. Maybe maybe.
Sergeant knew the truth. Ulysses didn't raise his hand against anybody.
Achilles did it. Just as Bean warned in the beginning. Achilles would never
forgive Poke for beating him. He killed her now because Ulysses would get
blamed for it. And then sat there talking about how good she was and how they
should all be grateful to her and everything Achilles got for them, it was
really Poke who got it.
So Bean was right all along.
About everything. Achilles might be a good papa to the family, but he was also
a killer, and he never forgives.
Poke knew that, though. Bean
warned her, and she knew it, but she chose Achilles for their papa anyway.
Chose him and then died for it. She was like Jesus that Helga preached about in
her kitchen while they ate. She died for her people. And Achilles, he was like
God. He made people pay for their sins no matter what they did.
The important thing is, stay
on the good side of God. That's what Helga teaches, isn't it? Stay right with
God.
I'll stay right with Achilles.
I'll honor my papa, that's for sure, so I can stay alive until I'm old enough
to go out on my own.
As for Bean, well, he was
smart, but not smart enough to stay alive, and if you're not smart enough to
stay alive, then you're better off dead.
By the time Sergeant got to
his first corner to spread the word about Achilles's ban on Ulysses from any kitchen
in town, he was through crying. Grief was done. This was about survival now.
Even though Sergeant knew Ulysses hadn't killed anybody, he meant to, and it
was still important for the family's safety that he die. Poke's death provided
a good excuse to demand that the rest of the papas stand back and let Achilles
deal with him. When it was all over, Achilles would be the leader among all the
papas of Rotterdam. And Sergeant would stand beside him, knowing the secret of
his vengeance and telling no one, because that's how Sergeant, that's how the
family, that's how all the urchins of Rotterdam would survive.
CHAPTER 4 -- MEMORIES
"I was mistaken about the
first one. He tests well, but his character is not well suited to Battle
School."
"I don't see that on the
tests you've shown me."
"He's very sharp. He
gives the right answers, but they aren't true."
"And what test did you
use to determine this?"
"He committed
murder."
"Well, that is a
drawback. And the other one? What am I supposed to do with so young a child? A
fish this small I would generally throw back into the stream."
"Teach him. Feed him.
He'll grow."
"He doesn't even have a
name."
"Yes he does."
"Bean? That isn't a name,
it's a joke."
"It won't be when he's
done with it."
"Keep him until he's
five. Make of him what you can and show me your results then."
"I have other children to
find."
"No, Sister Carlotta, you
don't. In all your years of searching, this one is the best you've found. And
there isn't time to find another. Bring this one up to snuff, and all your work
will be worth it, as far as the I.F. is concerned."
"You frighten me, when
you say there isn't time."
"I don't see why.
Christians have been expecting the imminent end of the world for
millennia."
"But it keeps not
ending."
"So far, so good."
***
At first all Bean cared about
was the food. There was enough of it. He ate everything they put before him. He
ate until he was full -- that most miraculous of words, which till now had had
no meaning for him. He ate until he was stuffed. He ate until he was sick. He
ate so often that he had bowel movements every day, sometimes twice a day. He
laughed about it to Sister Carlotta. "All I do is eat and poop!" he
said.
"Like any beast of the
forest," said the nun. "It's time for you to begin to earn that
food."
She was already teaching him,
of course, daily lessons in reading and arithmetic, bringing him "up to
level," though what level she had in mind, she never specified. She also
gave him time to draw, and there were sessions where she had him sit there and
try to remember every detail about his earliest memories. The clean place in
particular fascinated her. But there were limits to memory. He was very small
then, and had very little language. Everything was a mystery. He did remember
climbing over the railing around his bed and falling to the floor. He didn't
walk well at the time. Crawling was easier, but he liked walking because that's
what the big people did. He clung to objects and leaned on walls and made good
progress on two feet, only crawling when he had to cross an open space.
"You must have been eight
or nine months old," Sister Carlotta said. "Most people don't
remember that far back."
"I remember that
everybody was upset. That's why I climbed out of bed. All the children were in
trouble."
"All the children?"
"The little ones like me.
And the bigger ones. Some of the grownups came in and looked at us and
cried."
"Why?"
"Bad things, that's all.
I knew it was a bad thing coming and I knew it would happen to all of us who
were in the beds. So I climbed out. I wasn't the first. I don't know what
happened to the others. I heard the grownups yelling and getting all upset when
they found the empty beds. I hid from them. They didn't find me. Maybe they
found the others, maybe they didn't. All I know is when I came out all the beds
were empty and the room was very dark except a lighted sign that said
*exit*."
"You could read
then?" She sounded skeptical.
"When I *could* read, I
remembered that those were the letters on the sign," said Bean. "They
were the only letters I saw back then. Of course I remembered them."
"So you were alone and
the beds were empty and the room was dark."
"They came back. I heard
them talking. I didn't understand most of the words. I hid again. And this time
when I came out, even the beds were gone. Instead, there were desks and
cabinets. An office. And no, I didn't know what an office was then, either, but
now I do know what an office is and I remember that's what the rooms had all
become. Offices. People came in during the day and worked there, only a few at
first but my hiding place turned out not to be so good, when people were
working there. And I was hungry."
"Where did you
hide?"
"Come on, you know. Don't
you?"
"If I knew, I wouldn't
ask."
"You saw the way I acted
when you showed me the toilet."
"You hid inside the
toilet?"
"The tank on the back. It
was hard to get the lid up. And it wasn't comfortable in there. I didn't know
what it was for. But people started using it and the water rose and fell and
the pieces moved and it scared me. And like I said, I was hungry. Plenty to
drink, except that I peed in it myself. My diaper was so waterlogged it fell
off my butt. I was naked."
"Bean, do you understand
what you're telling me? That you were doing all this before you were a year
old?"
"You're the one who said
how old I was," said Bean. "I didn't know about ages then. You told
me to remember. The more I tell you, the more comes back to me. But if you
don't believe me ..."
"I just ... I do believe
you. But who were the other children? What was the place where you lived, that
clean place? Who were those grownups? Why did they take away the other
children? Something illegal was going on, that's certain."
"Whatever," said
Bean. "I was just glad to get out of the toilet."
"But you were naked, you
said. And you left the place?"
"No, I got found. I came
out of the toilet and a grownup found me."
"What happened?"
"He took me home. That's
how I got clothing. I called them clothings then."
"You were talking."
"Some."
"And this grownup took
you home and bought you clothing."
"I think he was a
janitor. I know more about jobs now and I think that's what he was. It was
night when he worked, and he didn't wear a uniform like a guard."
"What happened?"
"That's when I first
found out about legal and illegal. It wasn't legal for him to have a child. I
heard him yelling at this woman about me and most of it I didn't understand,
but at the end I knew he had lost and she had won, and he started talking to me
about how I had to go away, and so I went."
"He just turned you loose
in the streets?"
"No, I left. I think now
he was going to have to give me to somebody else, and it sounded scary, so I
left before he could do it. But I wasn't naked or hungry anymore. He was nice.
After I left I bet he didn't have any more trouble."
"And that's when you
started living on the streets."
"Sort of. A couple of
places I found, they fed me. But every time, other kids, big ones, would see
that I was getting fed and they'd come shouting and begging and the people
would stop feeding me or the bigger kids would shove me out of the way or take
the food right out of my hands. I was scared. One time a big kid got so mad at
me for eating that he put a stick down my throat and made me throw up what I
just ate, right on the street. He even tried to eat it but he couldn't, it made
him try to throw up, too. That was the scariest time. I hided all the time
after that. Hid. All the time."
"And starved."
"And watched," said
Bean. "I ate some. Now and then. I didn't die."
"No, you didn't."
"I saw plenty who did.
Lots of dead children. Big ones and little ones. I kept wondering how many of
them were from the clean place."
"Did you recognize any of
them?"
"No. Nobody looked like
they ever lived in the clean place. Everybody looked hungry."
"Bean, thank you for
telling me all this."
"You asked."
"Do you realize that
there is no way you could have survived for three years as an infant?"
"I guess that means I'm
dead."
"I just... I'm saying
that God must have been watching over you."
"Yeah. Well, sure. So why
didn't he watch over all those dead kids?"
"He took them to his
heart and loved them."
"So then he *didn't* love
me?"
"No, he loved you too, he
--"
"Cause if he was watching
so careful, he could have given me something to eat now and then."
"He brought me to you. He
has some great purpose in mind for you, Bean. You may not know what it is, but
God didn't keep you alive so miraculously for no reason."
Bean was tired of talking
about this. She looked so happy when she talked about God, but he hadn't
figured it out yet, what God even was. It was like, she wanted to give God
credit for every good thing, but when it was bad, then she either didn't mention
God or had some reason why it was a good thing after all. As far as Bean could
see, though, the dead kids would rather have been alive, just with more food.
If God loved them so much, and he could do whatever he wanted, then why wasn't
there more food for these kids? And if God just wanted them dead, why didn't he
let them die sooner or not even be born at all, so they didn't have to go to so
much trouble and get all excited about trying to be alive when he was just
going to take them to his heart. None of it made any sense to Bean, and the
more Sister Carlotta explained it, the less he understood it. Because if there
was somebody in charge, then he ought to be fair, and if he wasn't fair, then
why should Sister Carlotta be so happy that he was in charge?
But when he tried to say
things like that to her, she got really upset and talked even more about God
and used words he didn't know and it was better just to let her say what she
wanted and not argue.
It was the reading that
fascinated him. And the numbers. He loved that. Having paper and pencil so he
could actually write things, that was really good.
And maps. She didn't teach him
maps at first, but there were some on the walls and the shapes of them
fascinated him. He would go up to them and read the little words written on
them and one day he saw the name of the river and realized that the blue was
rivers and even bigger blue areas were places with even more water than the
river, and then he realized that some of the other words were the same names
that had been written on the street signs and so he figured out that somehow
this thing was a picture of Rotterdam, and then it all made sense. Rotterdam
the way it would look to a bird, if the buildings were all invisible and the
streets were all empty. He found where the nest was, and where Poke had died,
and all kinds of other places.
When Sister Carlotta found out
that he understood the map, she got very excited. She showed him maps where
Rotterdam was just a little patch of lines, and one where it was just a dot,
and one where it was too small even to be seen, but she knew where it would be.
Bean had never realized the world was so big. Or that there were so many
people.
But Sister Carlotta kept
coming back to the Rotterdam map, trying to get him to remember where things
from his earliest memories were. Nothing looked the same, though, on the map,
so it wasn't easy, and it took a long time for him to figure out where some of
the places were where people had fed him. He showed these to Sister and she
made a mark right on the map, showing each place. And after a while he realized
-- all those places were grouped in one area, but kind of strung out, as if
they marked a path from where he found Poke leading back through time to ...
To the clean place.
Only that was too hard. He had
been too scared, coming out of the clean place with the janitor. He didn't know
where it was. And the truth was, as Sister Carlotta herself said, the janitor
might have lived anywhere compared to the clean place. So all she was going to
find by following Bean's path backward was maybe the janitor's flat, or at
least where he lived three years ago. And even then, what would the janitor
know?
He would know where the clean
place was, that's what he'd know. And now Bean understood: It was very
important to Sister Carlotta to find out where Bean came from.
To find out who he really was.
Only ... he already knew who
he really was. He tried to say this to her. "I'm right here. This is who I
really am. I'm not pretending."
"I know that," she
said, laughing, and she hugged him, which was all right. It felt good. Back
when she first started doing it, he didn't know what to do with his hands. She
had to show him how to hug her back. He had seen some little kids -- the ones
with mamas or papas -- doing that but he always thought they were holding on
tight so they wouldn't drop off onto the street and get lost. He didn't know
that you did it just because it felt good. Sister Carlotta's body had hard
places and squishy places and it was very strange to hug her. He thought of
Poke and Achilles hugging and kissing, but he didn't want to kiss Sister
Carlotta and after he got used to what hugging was, he didn't really want to do
that either. He let her hug him. But he didn't ever think of hugging her
himself. It just didn't come into his mind.
He knew that sometimes she
hugged him instead of explaining things to him, and he didn't like that. She
didn't want to tell him why it mattered that she find the clean place, so she
hugged him and said, "Oh, you dear thing," or "Oh, you poor
boy." But that only meant that it was even more important than she was
saying, and she thought he was too stupid or ignorant to understand if she
tried to explain.
He kept trying to remember
more and more, if he could, only now he didn't tell her everything because she
didn't tell *him* everything and fair was fair. He would find the clean room
himself. Without her. And then tell her if he decided it would be good for him
to have her know. Because what if she found the wrong answer? Would she put him
back on the street? Would she keep him from going to school in the sky? Because
that's what she promised at first, only after the tests she said he did very
well only he would *not* go in the sky until he was five and maybe not even
then because it was not entirely her decision and that's when he knew that she
didn't have the power to keep her own promises. So if she found out the wrong
thing about him, she might not be able to keep *any* of her promises. Not even
the one about keeping him safe from Achilles. That's why he had to find out on
his own.
He studied the map. He
pictured things in his mind. He talked to himself as he was falling asleep,
talked and thought and remembered, trying to get the janitor's face back into
his mind, and the room he lived in, and the stairs outside where the mean lady
stood to scream at him.
And one day, when he thought
he had remembered enough, Bean went to the toilet -- he liked the toilets, he
liked to make them flush even though it scared him to see things disappear like
that -- and instead of coming back to Sister Carlotta's teaching place, he went
the other way down the corridor and went right out the door onto the street and
no one tried to stop him.
That's when he realized his
mistake, though. He had been so busy trying to remember the janitor's place
that it never occurred to him that he had no idea where *this* place was on the
map. And it wasn't in a part of town that he knew. In fact, it hardly seemed
like the same world. Instead of the street being full of people walking and
pushing carts and riding bikes or skating to get from one place to another, the
streets were almost empty, and there were cars parked everywhere. Not a single
store, either. All houses and offices, or houses made into offices with little
signs out front. The only building that was different was the very one he had
just come out of. It was blocky and square and bigger than the others, but it
had no sign out in front of it at all.
He knew where he was going,
but he didn't know how to get there from here. And Sister Carlotta would start
looking for him soon.
His first thought was to hide,
but then he remembered that she knew all about his story of hiding in the clean
place, so she would also think of hiding and she would look for him in a hiding
place close to the big building.
So he ran. It surprised him
how strong he was now. It felt like he could run as fast as a bird flying, and
he didn't get tired, he could run forever. All the way to the corner and around
it onto another street.
Then down another street, and
another, until he would have been lost except he started out lost and when you
start out completely lost, it's hard to get loster. As he walked and trotted
and jogged and ran up and down streets and alleys, he realized that all he had
to do was find a canal or a stream and it would lead him to the river or to a
place that he recognized. So the first bridge that went over water, he saw
which way the water flowed and chose streets that would keep him close. It
wasn't as if he knew where he was yet, but at least he was following a plan.
It worked. He came to the
river and walked along it until he recognized, off in the distance and partly
around a bend in the river, Maasboulevard, which led to the place where Poke
was killed.
The bend in the river -- he
knew it from the map. He knew where all of Sister Carlotta's marks had been. He
knew that he had to go through the place where he used to live on the streets
in order to get past them and closer to the area where the janitor might have
lived. And that wouldn't be easy, because he would be known there, and Sister
Carlotta might even have the cops looking for him and they would look there
because that's where all the street urchins were and they would expect him to
become a street urchin again.
What they were forgetting was
that Bean wasn't hungry anymore. And since he wasn't hungry, he wasn't in a
hurry.
He walked the long way around.
Far from the river, far from the busy part of town where the urchins were.
Whenever the streets started looking crowded he would widen his circle and stay
away from the busy places. He took the rest of that day and most of the next
making such a wide circle that for a while he was not in Rotterdam anymore at
all, and he saw some of the countryside, just like the pictures -- farmland and
the roads built up higher than the land around them. Sister Carlotta had
explained to him once that most of the farmland was lower than the level of the
sea, and great dikes were the only thing keeping the sea from rushing back onto
the land and covering it. But Bean knew that he would never get close to any of
the big dikes. Not by walking, anyway.
He drifted back into town now,
into the Schiebroek district, and late in the afternoon of the second day he
recognized the name of Rindijk Straat and soon found a cross street whose name
he knew, a language he didn't understand. Now he could read the sign above the
restaurant and realized that it was Armenian and that's probably what the woman
had been speaking.
Which way had he walked to come
here? He had smelled the food when he was walking along ... here? He walked a
little way up, a little way down the street, turning and turning to reorient
himself.
"What are you doing here,
fatso?"
It was two kids, maybe eight
years old. Belligerent but not bullies. Probably part of a crew. No, part of a
family, now that Achilles had changed everything. If the changes had spread to
this part of town.
"I'm supposed to meet my
papa here," said Bean.
"And who's your
papa?"
Bean wasn't sure whether they
took the word "papa" to mean his father or the papa of his
"family." He took the chance, though, of saying "Achilles."
They scoffed at the idea.
"He's way down by the river, why would he meet a fatso like you clear up
here?"
But their derision was not
important -- what mattered was that Achilles' reputation had spread this far
through the city.
"I don't have to explain
his business to you," said Bean. "And all the kids in Achilles'
family are fat like me. That's how well we eat."
"Are they all short like
you?"
"I used to be taller, but
I asked too many questions," said Bean, pushing past them and walking
across Rozenlaan toward the area where the janitor's flat seemed likeliest to
be.
They didn't follow him. Such
was the magic of Achilles' name -- or perhaps it was just Bean's utter
confidence, paying them no notice as if he had nothing to fear from them.
Nothing looked familiar. He
kept turning around and checking to see if he recognized things when looking in
the direction he might have been going after leaving the janitor's flat. It
didn't help. He wandered until it was dark, and kept wandering even then.
Until, quite by chance, he
found himself standing at the foot of a street lamp, trying to read a sign,
when a set of initials carved on the pole caught his attention. P [heart shape]
DVM, it said. He had no idea what it meant; he had never thought of it during
all his attempts to remember; but he knew that he had seen it before. And not
just once. He had seen it several times. The janitor's flat was very close.
He turned slowly, scanning the
area, and there it was: A small apartment building with both an inside and an
outside stairway.
The janitor lived on the top
floor. Ground floor, first floor, second floor, third. Bean went to the
mailboxes and tried to read the names, but they were set too high on the wall
and the names were all faded, and some of the tags were missing entirely.
Not that he ever knew the
janitor's name, truth to tell. There was no reason to think he would have
recognized it even if he had been able to read it on the mailbox.
The outside stairway did not
go all the way up to the top floor. It must have been built for a doctor's
office on the first floor. And because it was dark, the door at the top of the
stairs was locked.
There was nothing to do but
wait. Either he would wait all night and get into the building through one
entrance or another in the morning, or someone would come back in the night and
Bean would slip through a door behind him.
He fell asleep and woke up,
slept and woke again. He worried that a policeman would see him and shove him
away, so when he woke the second time he abandoned all pretense of being on
watch and crept under the stairs and curled up there for the night.
He was awakened by drunken
laughter. It was still dark, and beginning to rain just a little -- not enough
to start dripping off the stairs, though, so Bean was dry. He stuck his head
out to see who was laughing. It was a man and a woman, both merry with alcohol,
the man furtively pawing and poking and pinching, the woman fending him off
with halfhearted slaps. "Can't you wait?" she said.
"No," he said.
"You're just going to
fall asleep without doing anything," she said.
"Not this time," he
said. Then he threw up.
She looked disgusted and
walked on without him. He staggered after her. "I feel better now,"
he said. "It'll be better."
"The price just went
up," she said coldly. "And you brush your teeth first. "
"Course I brush my
teeth."
They were right at the front
of the building now. Bean was waiting to slip in after them.
Then he realized that he
didn't have to wait. The man was the janitor from all those years before.
Bean stepped out of the
shadows. "Thanks for bringing him home," he said to the woman.
They both looked at him in
surprise.
"Who are you?" asked
the janitor.
Bean looked at the woman and
rolled his eyes. "He's not *that* drunk, I hope," said Bean. To the
janitor he said, "Mama will not be happy to see you come home like this
again."
"Mama!" said the
janitor. "Who the hell are you talking about?"
The woman gave the janitor a
shove. He was so off balance that he lurched against the wall, then slid down
it to land on his buttocks on the sidewalk. "I should have known,"
she said. "You bring me home to your *wife*?"
"I'm not married,"
said the janitor. "This kid isn't mine."
"I'm sure you're telling
the truth on both points," said the woman. "But you better let him
help you up the stairs anyway. Mama's waiting." She started to walk away.
"What about my forty
gilders?" he asked plaintively, knowing the answer even as he asked.
She made an obscene gesture
and walked on into the night.
"You little
bastard," said the janitor.
"I had to talk to you
alone," said Bean.
"Who the hell are you?
Who's your mama?"
"That's what I'm here to
find out," said Bean. "I'm the baby you found and brought home. Three
years ago."
The man looked at him in
stupefaction.
Suddenly a light went on, then
another. Bean and the janitor were bathed in overlapping flashlight beams. Four
policemen converged on them.
"Don't bother running,
kid," said a cop. "Nor you, Mr. Fun Time."
Bean recognized Sister
Carlotta's voice. "They aren't criminals," she said. "I just
need to talk to them. Up in his apartment."
"You followed me?"
Bean asked her.
"I knew you were
searching for him," she said. "I didn't want to interfere until you
found him. Just in case you think you were really smart, young man, we
intercepted four street thugs and two known sex offenders who were after
you."
Bean rolled his eyes.
"You think I've forgotten how to deal with them?"
Sister Carlotta shrugged.
"I didn't want this to be the first time you ever made a mistake in your
life." She did have a sarcastic streak.
***
"So as I told you, there
was nothing to learn from this Pablo de Noches. He's an immigrant who lives to
pay for prostitutes. Just another of the worthless people who have gravitated
here ever since the Netherlands became international territory."
Sister Carlotta had sat
patiently, waiting for the inspector to wind down his I-told-you-so speech. But
when he spoke of a man's worthlessness, she could not let the remark go
unchallenged. "He took in that baby," she said. "And fed the
child and cared for him."
The inspector waved off the
objection. "We needed one more street urchin? Because that's all that people
like this ever produce."
"You didn't learn
*nothing* from him," Sister Carlotta said. "You learned the location
where the boy was found."
"And the people renting
the building during that time are untraceable. A company name that never
existed. Nothing to go on. No way to track them down."
"But that nothing *is*
something," said Sister Carlotta. "I tell you that these people had
many children in this place, which they closed down in a hurry, with all the
children but one taken away. You tell me that the company was a false name and
can't be traced. So now, in your experience, doesn't that tell you a great deal
about what was going on in that building?"
The inspector shrugged.
"Of course. It was obviously an organ farm."
Tears came to Sister
Carlotta's eyes. "And that is the only possibility?"
"A lot of defective
babies are born to rich families," said the inspector. "There is an
illegal market in infant and toddler organs. We close down the organ farms
whenever we find out where they are. Perhaps we were getting close to this
organ farm and they got wind of it and closed up shop. But there is no paper in
the department on any organ farm that we actually found at that time. So
perhaps they closed down for another reason. Still, nothing."
Patiently, Sister Carlotta ignored his
inability to realize how valuable this information was. "Where do the
babies come from?"
The inspector looked at her
blankly. As if he thought she was asking him to explain the facts of life.
"The organ farm," she
said. "Where do they get the babies?"
The inspector shrugged.
"Late-term abortions, usually. Some arrangement with the clinics, a
kickback. That sort of thing."
"And that's the only
source?"
"Well, I don't know.
Kidnappings? I don't think that could be much of a factor, there aren't *that*
many babies leaking through the security systems in the hospitals. People
selling babies? It's been heard of, yes. Poor refugees arrive with eight
children, and then a few years later they have only six, and they cry about the
ones who died but who can prove anything? But nothing you can trace."
"The reason I'm
asking," said Sister Carlotta, "is that this child is unusual.
*Extremely* unusual."
"Three arms?" asked
the inspector.
"Brilliant. Precocious.
He escaped from this place before he was a year old. Before he could
walk."
The inspector thought about
that for a few moments. "He *crawled* away?"
"He hid in a toilet
tank."
"He got the lid up before
he was a year old?"
"He said it was hard to
lift."
"No, it was probably
cheap plastic, not porcelain. You know how these institutional plumbing
fixtures are."
"You can see, though, why
I want to know about the child's parentage. Some miraculous combination of
parents."
The inspector shrugged.
"Some children are born smart."
"But there is a
hereditary component in this, inspector. A child like this must have ...
remarkable parents. Parents likely to be prominent because of the brilliance of
their own minds."
"Maybe. Maybe not,"
said the inspector. "I mean, some of these refugees, they might be
brilliant, but they're caught up in desperate times. To save the other
children, maybe they sell a baby. That's even a *smart* thing to do. It doesn't
rule out refugees as the parents of this brilliant boy you have. "
"I suppose that's
possible," said Sister Carlotta.
"It's the most
information you'll ever have. Because this Pablo de Noches, he knows nothing.
He barely could tell me the name of the town he came from in Spain."
"He was drunk when he was
questioned," said Sister Carlotta.
"We'll question him again
when he's sober," said the inspector. "We'll let you know if we learn
anything more. In the meantime, though, you'll have to make do with what I've
already told you, because there isn't anything more."
"I know all I need to
know for now," said Sister Carlotta. "Enough to know that this child
truly is a miracle, raised up by God for some great purpose."
"I'm not Catholic,"
said the inspector.
"God loves you all the
same," said Sister Carlotta cheerfully.
PART TWO -- LAUNCHY
CHAPTER 5 -- READY OR NOT
"Why are you giving me a
five-year-old street urchin to tend?"
"You've seen the
scores."
"Am I supposed to take
those seriously?"
"Since the whole Battle
School program is based on the reliability of our juvenile testing program,
yes, I think you should take his scores seriously. I did a little research. No
child has ever done better. Not even your star pupil."
"It's not the validity of
the tests that I doubt. It's the tester."
"Sister Carlotta is a
nun. You'll never find a more honest person.
"Honest people have been
known to deceive themselves. To want so desperately, after all these years of
searching, to find one -- just one -- child whose value will be worth all that
work."
"And she's found
him."
"Look at the way she
found him. Her first report touts this Achilles child, and this -- this Bean,
this Legume -- he's just an afterthought. Then Achilles is gone, not another
mention of him -- did he die? Wasn't she trying to get a leg operation for him?
-- and it's Haricot Vert who is now her candidate."
"'Bean' is the name he
calls himself. Rather as your Andrew Wiggin calls himself 'Ender.'"
"He's not *my* Andrew
Wiggin."
"And Bean is not Sister
Carlotta's child, either. If she were inclined to fudge the scores or
administer tests unfairly, she would have pushed other students into the
program long before now, and we'd already know how unreliable she was. She has
never done that. She washes out her most hopeful children herself, then finds
some place for them on Earth or in a non-command program. I think you're merely
annoyed because you've already decided to focus all your attention and energy
on the Wiggin boy, and you don't want any distraction."
"When did I lie down on
your couch?"
"If my analysis is wrong,
do forgive me."
"Of course I'll give this
little one a chance. Even if I don't for one second believe these scores."
"Not just a chance. Advance
him. Test him. Challenge him. Don't let him languish."
"You underestimate our
program. We advance and test and challenge all our students."
"But some are more equal
than others."
"Some take better
advantage of the program than others."
"I'll look forward to
telling Sister Carlotta about your enthusiasm."
***
Sister Carlotta shed tears
when she told Bean that it was time for him to leave. Bean shed none.
"I understand that you're
afraid, Bean, but don't be," she said. "You'll be safe there, and
there's so much to learn. The way you drink down knowledge, you'll be very
happy there in no time. So you won't really miss me at all."
Bean blinked. What sign had he
given that made her think he was afraid? Or that he would miss her?
He felt none of those things.
When he first met her, he might have been prepared to feel something for her.
She was kind. She fed him. She was keeping him safe, giving him a life.
But then he found Pablo the
janitor, and there was Sister Carlotta, stopping Bean from talking to the man
who had saved him long before she did. Nor would she tell him anything that
Pablo had said, or anything she had learned about the clean place.
From that moment, trust was
gone. Bean knew that whatever Sister Carlotta was doing, it wasn't for him. She
was using him. He didn't know what for. It might even be something he would
have chosen to do himself.
But she wasn't telling him the
truth. She had secrets from him. The way Achilles kept secrets.
So during the months that she
was his teacher, he had grown more and more distant from her. Everything she
taught, he learned -- and much that she didn't teach as well. He took every
test she gave him, and did well; but he showed her nothing he had learned that
she hadn't taught him.
Of course life with Sister
Carlotta was better than life on the street -- he had no intention of going
back. But he did not trust her. He was on guard all the time. He was as careful
as he had ever been back in Achilles's family. Those brief days at the
beginning, when he wept in front of her, when he let go of himself and spoke
freely -- that had been a mistake that he would not repeat. Life was better,
but he wasn't safe, and this wasn't home.
Her tears were real enough, he
knew. She really did love him, and would really miss him when he left. After
all, he had been a perfect child, compliant, quick, obedient. To her, that
meant he was "good." To him, it was only a way of keeping his access
to food and learning. He wasn't stupid.
Why did she assume he was
afraid? Because she was afraid *for* him. Therefore there might indeed be
something to fear. He would be careful.
And why did she assume that he
would miss her? Because she would miss him, and she could not imagine that what
she was feeling, he might not feel as well. She had created an imaginary
version of him. Like the games of Let's Pretend that she tried to play with him
a couple of times. Harking back to her own childhood, no doubt, growing up in a
house where there was always enough food. Bean didn't have to pretend things in
order to exercise his imagination when he was on the street. Instead he had to
imagine his plans for how to get food, for how to insinuate himself into a crew,
for how to survive when he knew he seemed useless to everyone. He had to
imagine how and when Achilles would decide to act against him for having
advocated that Poke kill him. He had to imagine danger around every corner, a
bully ready to seize every scrap of food. Oh, he had plenty of imagination. But
he had no interest at all in playing Let's Pretend.
That was *her* game. She
played it all the time. Let's pretend that Bean is a good little boy. Let's
pretend that Bean is the son that this nun can never have for real. Let's
pretend that when Bean leaves, he'll cry -- that he's not crying now because
he's too afraid of this new school, this journey into space, to let his
emotions show. Let's pretend that Bean loves me.
And when he understood this,
he made a decision: It will do no harm to me if she believes all this. And she
wants very much to believe it. So why not give it to her? After all, Poke let
me stay with the crew even though she didn't need me, because it would do no
harm. It's the kind of thing Poke would do.
So Bean slid off his chair,
walked around the table to Sister Carlotta, and put his arms as far around her
as they would reach. She gathered him up onto her lap and held him tight, her
tears flowing into his hair. He hoped her nose wasn't running. But he clung to
her as long as she clung to him, letting go only when she let go of him. It was
what she wanted from him, the only payment that she had ever asked of him. For
all the meals, the lessons, the books, the language, for his future, he owed
her no less than to join her in this game of Let's Pretend.
Then the moment passed. He
slid off her lap. She dabbed at her eyes. Then she rose, took his hand, and led
him out to the waiting soldiers, to the waiting car.
As he approached the car, the
uniformed men loomed over him. It was not the grey uniform of the I.T. police,
those kickers of children, those wielders of sticks. Rather it was the sky blue
of the International Fleet that they wore, a cleaner look, and the people who
gathered around to watch showed no fear, but rather admiration. This was the
uniform of distant power, of safety for humanity, the uniform on which all hope
depended. This was the service he was about to join.
But he was so small, and as
they looked down at him he *was* afraid after all, and clung more tightly to
Sister Carlotta's hand. Was he going to become one of them? Was he going to be
a man in such a uniform, with such admiration directed at him? Then why was he
afraid?
I'm afraid, Bean thought,
because I don't see how I can ever be so tall.
One of the soldiers bent down
to him, to lift him into the car. Bean glared up at him, defying him to dare
such a thing. "I can do it," he said.
The soldier nodded slightly,
and stood upright again. Bean hooked his leg up onto the running board of the
car and hoisted himself in. It was high off the ground, and the seat he held to
was slick and offered scant purchase to his hands. But he made it, and
positioned himself in the middle of the back seat, the only position where he
could see between the front seats and have some idea of where the car would be
going.
One of the soldiers got into
the driver's seat. Bean expected the other to get into the back seat beside
Bean, and anticipated an argument about whether Bean could sit in the middle or
not. Instead, he got into the front on the other side. Bean was alone in back.
He looked out the side window
at Sister Carlotta. She was still dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief. She
gave him a little wave. He waved back. She sobbed a little. The car glided
forward along the magnetic track in the road. Soon they were outside the city,
gliding through the countryside at a hundred and fifty kilometers an hour.
Ahead was the Amsterdam airport, one of only three in Europe that could launch
one of the shuttles that could fly into orbit. Bean was through with Rotterdam.
For the time being, at least, he was through with Earth.
***
Since Bean had never flown on
an airplane, he did not understand how different the shuttle was, though that
seemed to be all that the other boys could talk about at first. I thought it
would be bigger. Doesn't it take off straight up? That was the old shuttle,
stupid. There aren't any tray tables! That's cause in null-G you can't set
anything down anyway, bonehead.
To Bean, the sky was the sky,
and all he'd ever cared about was whether it was going to rain or snow or blow
or burn. Going up into space did not seem any more strange to him than going up
to the clouds.
What fascinated him were the
other children. Boys, most of them, and all older than him. Definitely all
larger. Some of them looked at him oddly, and behind him he heard one whisper,
"Is he a kid or a doll?" But snide remarks about his size and his age
were nothing new to him. In fact, what surprised him was that there was only
the one remark, and it was whispered.
The kids themselves fascinated
him. They were all so fat, so soft. Their bodies were like pillows, their
cheeks full, their hair thick, their clothes well fitted. Bean knew, of course,
that he had more fat on him now than at any time since he left the clean place,
but he didn't see himself, he only saw them, and couldn't help comparing them
to the kids on the street. Sergeant could take any of them apart. Achilles
could ... well, no use thinking about Achilles.
Bean tried to imagine them
lining up outside a charity kitchen. Or scrounging for candy wrappers to lick.
What a joke. They had never missed a meal in their lives. Bean wanted to punch
them all so hard in the stomach that they would puke up everything they ate
that day. Let them feel some pain there in their gut, that gnawing hunger. And
then let them feel it again the next day, and the next hour, morning and night,
waking and sleeping, the constant weakness fluttering just inside your throat,
the faintness behind your eyes, the headache, the dizziness, the swelling of
your joints, the distension of your belly, the thinning of your muscles until
you barely have strength to stand. These children had never looked death in the
face and then chosen to live anyway. They were confident. They were unwary.
These children are no match
for me.
And, with just as much
certainty: I will never catch up to them. They'll always be bigger, stronger,
quicker, healthier. Happier. They talked to each other boastfully, spoke
wistfully of home, mocked the children who had failed to qualify to come with
them, pretended to have inside knowledge about how things really were in Battle
School. Bean said nothing. Just listened, watched them maneuver, some of them
determined to assert their place in the hierarchy, others quieter because they
knew their place would be lower down; a handful relaxed, unworried, because
they had never had to worry about the pecking order, having been always at the
top of it. A part of Bean wanted to engage in the contest and win it, clawing
his way to the top of the hill. Another part of him disdained the whole group of
them. What would it mean, really, to be top dog in this mangy pack?
Then he glanced down at his
small hands, and at the hands of the boy sitting next to him.
I really do look like a doll
compared to the rest of them.
Some of the kids were complaining
about how hungry they were. There was a strict rule against eating for
twenty-four hours before the shuttle flight, and most of these kids had never
gone so long without eating. For Bean, twenty-four hours without food was
barely noticeable. In his crew, you didn't worry about hunger until the second
week.
The shuttle took off, just
like any airplane, though it had a long, long runway to get it up to speed, it
was so heavy. Bean was surprised at the motion of the plane, the way it charged
forward yet seemed to hold still, the way it rocked a little and sometimes
bumped, as if it were rolling over irregularities in an invisible road.
When they got up to a high
altitude, they rendezvoused with two fuel planes, in order to take on the rest
of the rocket fuel needed to achieve escape velocity. The plane could never
have lifted off the ground with that much fuel on board.
During the refueling, a man
emerged from the control cabin and stood at the front of the rows of seats. His
sky blue uniform was crisp and perfect, and his smile looked every bit as
starched and pressed and unstainable as his clothes.
"My dear darling little
children," he said. "Some of you apparently can't read yet. Your seat
harnesses are to remain in place throughout the entire flight. Why are so many
of them unfastened? Are you going somewhere?"
Lots of little clicks answered
him like scattered applause.
"And let me also warn you
that no matter how annoying or enticing some other child might be, keep your
hands to yourself. You should keep in mind that the children around you scored
every bit as high as you did on every test you took, and some of them scored
higher."
Bean thought: That's
impossible. Somebody here had to have the highest score.
A boy across the aisle
apparently had the same thought. "Right," he said sarcastically.
"I was making a point,
but I'm willing to digress," said the man. "Please, share with us the
thought that so enthralled you that you could not contain it silently within
you."
The boy knew he had made a
mistake, but decided to tough it out. "Somebody here has the highest
score."
The man continued looking at
him, as if inviting him to continue.
Inviting him to dig himself a
deeper grave, thought Bean.
"I mean, you said that
everybody scored as high as everybody else, and some scored higher, and that's
just obviously not true."
The man waited some more.
"That's all I had to
say."
"Feel better?" said
the man.
The boy sullenly kept his
silence.
Without disturbing his perfect
smile, the man's tone changed, and instead of bright sarcasm, there was now a
sharp whiff of menace. "I asked you a question, boy."
"No, I don't feel
better."
"What's your name?"
asked the man.
"Nero."
A couple of children who knew
a little bit about history laughed at the name. Bean knew about the emperor
Nero. He did not laugh, however. He knew that a child named Bean was wise not
to laugh at other kids' names. Besides, a name like that could be a real burden
to bear. It said something about the boy's strength or at least his defiance
that he didn't give some nickname.
Or maybe Nero was his
nickname.
"Just ... Nero?"
asked the man.
"Nero Boulanger."
"French? Or just
hungry?"
Bean did not get the joke. Was
Boulanger a name that had something to do with food?
"Algerian."
"Nero, you are an example
to all the children on this shuttle. Because most of them are so foolish, they
think it is better to keep their stupidest thoughts to themselves. You,
however, understand the profound truth that you must reveal your stupidity
openly. To hold your stupidity inside you is to embrace it, to cling to it, to
protect it. But when you expose your stupidity, you give yourself the chance to
have it caught, corrected, and replaced with wisdom. Be brave, all of you, like
Nero Boulanger, and when you have a thought of such surpassing ignorance that
you think it's actually smart, make sure to make some noise, to let your mental
limitations squeak out some whimpering fart of a thought, so that you have a
chance to learn."
Nero grumbled something.
"Listen -- another
flatulence, but this time even less articulate than before. Tell us, Nero.
Speak up. You are teaching us all by the example of your courage, however half-assed
it might be."
A couple of students laughed.
"And listen -- your fart
has drawn out other farts, from people equally stupid, for they think they are
somehow superior to you, and that they could not just as easily have been
chosen to be examples of superior intellect."
There would be no more
laughter.
Bean felt a kind of dread, for
he knew that somehow, this verbal sparring, or rather this one-sided verbal
assault, this torture, this public exposure, was going to find some twisted
path that led to him. He did not know how he sensed this, for the uniformed man
had not so much as glanced at Bean, and Bean had made no sound, had done
nothing to call attention to himself. Yet he knew that he, not Nero, would end
up receiving the cruelest thrust from this man's dagger.
Then Bean realized why he was
sure it would turn against him. This had turned into a nasty little argument
about whether someone had higher test scores than anyone else on the shuttle.
And Bean had assumed, for no reason whatsoever, that he was the child with the
highest scores.
Now that he had seen his own
belief, he knew it was absurd. These children were all older and had grown up
with far more advantages. He had had only Sister Carlotta as a teacher --
Sister Carlotta and, of course, the street, though few of the things he learned
*there* had shown up on the tests. There was no way that Bean had the highest
score.
Yet he still knew, with
absolute certainty, that this discussion was full of danger for him.
"I told you to speak up,
Nero. I'm waiting."
"I still don't see how
anything I said was stupid," said Nero.
"First, it was stupid
because I have all the authority here, and you have none, so I have the power
to make your life miserable, and you have no power to protect yourself. So how
much intelligence does it take just to keep your mouth shut and avoid calling
attention to yourself? What could be a more obvious decision to make when
confronted with such a lopsided distribution of power?"
Nero withered in his seat.
"Second, you seemed to be
listening to me, not to find out useful information, but to try to catch me in
a logical fallacy. This tells us all that you are used to being smarter than
your teachers, and that you listen to them in order to catch them making
mistakes and prove how smart you are to the other students. This is such a
pointless, stupid way of listening to teachers that it is clear you are going
to waste months of our time before you finally catch on that the only
transaction that matters is a transfer of useful information from adults who
possess it to children who do not, and that catching mistakes is a criminal
misuse of time."
Bean silently disagreed. The
criminal misuse of time was pointing out the mistakes. Catching them --
noticing them -- that was essential. If you did not in your own mind
distinguish between useful and erroneous information, then you were not *learning* at all, you were merely replacing
ignorance with false belief, which was no improvement.
The part of the man's
statement that was true, however, was about the uselessness of speaking up. If
I know that the teacher is wrong, and say nothing, then I remain the only one
who knows, and that gives me an advantage over those who believe the teacher.
"Third," said the
man, "my statement only seems to be self-contradictory and impossible
because you did not think beneath the surface of the situation. In fact it is
not necessarily true that one person has the highest scores of everyone on this
shuttle. That's because there were many tests, physical, mental, social, and
psychological, and many ways to define 'highest' as well, since there are many
ways to be physically or socially or psychologically fit for command. Children
who tested highest on stamina may not have tested highest on strength; children
who tested highest on memory may not have tested highest on anticipatory
analysis. Children with remarkable social skills might be weaker in delay of
gratification. Are you beginning to grasp the shallowness of your thinking that
led you to your stupid and useless conclusion?"
Nero nodded.
"Let us hear the sound of
your flatulence again, Nero. Be just as loud in acknowledging your errors as
you were in making them."
"I was wrong."
There was not a boy on that
shuttle who would not have avowed a preference for death to being in Nero's
place at that moment. And yet Bean felt a kind of envy as well, though he did
not understand why he would envy the victim of such torture.
"And yet," said the
man, "you happen to be less wrong on this particular shuttle flight than
you would have been in any other shuttle filled with launchies heading for
Battle School. And do you know why?"
He did not choose to speak.
"Does anyone know why?
Can anyone guess? I am inviting speculation."
No one accepted the
invitation.
"Then let me choose a
volunteer. There is a child here named -- improbable as it might sound --
'Bean.' Would that child please speak?"
Here it comes, thought Bean.
He was filled with dread; but he was also filled with excitement, because this
was what he wanted, though he did not know why. Look at me. Talk to me, you
with the power, you with the authority.
"I'm here, sir,"
said Bean.
The man made a show of looking
and looking, unable to see where Bean was. Of course it was a sham -- he knew
exactly where Bean was sitting before he ever spoke. "I can't see where
your voice came from. Would you raise a hand?"
Bean immediately raised his
hand. He realized, to his shame, that his hand did not even reach to the top of
the high-backed seat.
"I still can't see
you," said the man, though of course he could. "I give you permission
to unstrap and stand on your seat."
Bean immediately complied,
peeling off the harness and bounding to his feet. He was barely taller than the
back of the seat in front of him.
"Ah, there you are,"
said the man. "Bean, would you be so kind as to speculate about why, in
this shuttle, Nero comes closer to being correct than on any other?"
"Maybe somebody here
scored highest on a lot of tests."
"Not just a lot of tests,
Bean. All the tests of intellect. All the psychological tests. All the tests
pertinent to command. Every one of them. Higher than anyone else on this
shuttle."
"So I was right,"
said the newly defiant Nero.
"No you were not,"
said the man. "Because that remarkable child, the one who scored highest
on all the tests related to command, happens to have scored the very lowest on
the physical tests. And do you know why?"
No one answered.
"Bean, as long as you're
standing, can you speculate about why this one child might have scored lowest
on the physical tests?"
Bean knew how he had been set
up. And he refused to try to hide from the obvious answer. He would say it,
even though the question was designed to make the others detest him for
answering it. After all, they would detest him anyway, no matter who said the
answer.
"Maybe he scored lowest
on the physical tests because he's very, very small."
Groans from many boys showed
their disgust at his answer. At the arrogance and vanity that it suggested. But
the man in uniform only nodded gravely.
"As should be expected
from a boy of such remarkable ability, you are exactly correct. Only this boy's
unusually small stature prevented Nero from being correct about there being one
child with higher scores than everybody else." He turned to Nero. "So
close to not being a complete fool," he said. "And yet ... even if
you had been right, it would only have been by accident. A broken clock is
right two times a day. Sit down now, Bean, and put on your harness. The
refueling is over and we're about to boost."
Bean sat down. He could feel
the hostility of the other children. There was nothing he could do about that
right now, and he wasn't sure that it was a disadvantage, anyway. What mattered
was the much more puzzling question: Why did the man set him up like that? If
the point was to get the kids competing with each other, they could have passed
around a list with everyone's scores on all the tests, so they all could see
where they stood. Instead, Bean had been singled out. He was already the
smallest, and knew from experience that he was therefore a target for every
mean-spirited impulse in a bully's heart. So why did they draw this big circle
around him and all these arrows pointing at him, practically demanding that he
be the main target of everyone's fear and hate?
Draw your targets, aim your
darts. I'm going to do well enough in this school that someday I'll be the one
with the authority, and then it won't matter who likes *me*. What will matter
is who *I* like.
"As you may
remember," said the man, "before the first fart from the mouthhole of
Nero Bakerboy here, I was starting to make a point. I was telling you that even
though some child here may seem like a prime target for your pathetic need to
assert supremacy in a situation where you are unsure of being recognized for
the hero that you want people to think you are, you must control yourself, and
refrain from poking or pinching, jabbing or hitting, or even making snidely
provocative remarks or sniggering like warthogs just because you think somebody
is an easy target. And the reason why you should refrain from doing this is
because you don't know who in this group is going to end up being *your*
commander in the future, the admiral when you're a mere captain. And if you
think for one moment that they will forget how you treated them now, today,
then you really are a fool. If they're good commanders, they'll use you
effectively in combat no matter how they despise you. But they don't have to be
helpful to you in advancing your career. They don't have to nurture you and
bring you along. They don't have to be kind and forgiving. Just think about
that. The people you see around you will someday be giving you orders that will
decide whether you live or die. I'd suggest you work on earning their respect,
not trying to put them down so you can show off like some schoolyard
punk."
The man turned his icy smile
on Bean one more time.
"And I'll bet that Bean,
here, is already planning to be the admiral who gives you all orders someday.
He's even planning how he'll order *me* to stand solitary watch on some
asteroid observatory till my bones melt from osteoporosis and I ooze around the
station like an amoeba."
Bean hadn't given a moment's
thought to some future contest between him and this particular officer. He had no
desire for vengeance. He wasn't Achilles. Achilles was stupid. And this officer
was stupid for thinking that Bean would think that way. No doubt, however, the
man thought Bean would be grateful because he had just warned the others not to
pick on him. But Bean had been picked on by tougher bastards than these could
possibly be; this officer's "protection" was not needed, and it made
the gulf between Bean and the other children wider than before. If Bean could
have lost a couple of tussles, he would have been humanized, accepted perhaps.
But now there would be no tussles. No easy way to build bridges.
That was the reason for the
annoyance that the man apparently saw on Bean's face. "I've got a word for
you, Bean. I don't care what you do to me. Because there's only one enemy that
matters. The Buggers. And if you can grow up to be the admiral who can give us
victory over the Buggers and keep Earth safe for humanity, then make me eat my
own guts, ass-first, and I'll still say, Thank you, sir. The Buggers are the
enemy. Not Nero. Not Bean. Not even me. So keep your hands off each
other."
He grinned again, mirthlessly.
"Besides, the last time
somebody tried picking on another kid, he ended up flying through the shuttle
in null-G and got his arm broken. It's one of the laws of strategy. Until you
know that you're tougher than the enemy, you maneuver, you don't commit to
battle. Consider that your first lesson in Battle School."
First lesson? No wonder they
used this guy to tend children on the shuttle flights instead of having him
teach. If you followed *that* little piece of wisdom, you'd be paralyzed
against a vigorous enemy. Sometimes you *have* to commit to a fight even when
you're weak. You *don't* wait till you *know* you're tougher. You *make* yourself
tougher by whatever means you can, and then you strike by surprise, you sneak
up, you backstab, you blindside, you cheat, you lie, you do whatever it takes
to make sure that you come out on top.
This guy might be real tough
as the only adult on a shuttle full of kids, but if he were a kid on the
streets of Rotterdam, he'd "maneuver" himself into starvation in a
month. If he wasn't killed before that just for talking like he thought his
piss was perfume.
The man turned to head back to
the control cabin.
Bean called out to him.
"What's your name?"
The man turned and fixed him
with a withering stare. "Already drafting the orders to have my balls
ground to powder, Bean?"
Bean didn't answer. Just
looked him in the eye.
"I'm Captain Dimak.
Anything else you want to know?"
Might as well find out now as
later. "Do you teach at Battle School?"
"Yes," he said.
"Coming down to pick up shuttle-loads of little boys and girls is how we
get Earthside leave. Just as with you, my being on this shuttle means my
vacation is over."
The refueling planes peeled
away and rose above them. No, it was their own craft that was sinking. And the
tail was sinking lower than the nose of the shuttle.
Metal covers came down over
the windows. It felt like they were falling faster, faster ... until, with a
bone-shaking roar, the rockets fired and the shuttle began to rise again,
higher, faster, faster, until Bean felt like he was going to be pushed right
through the back of his chair. It seemed to go on forever, unchanging.
Then ... silence.
Silence, and then a wave of
panic. They were falling again, but this time there was no downward direction,
just nausea and fear.
Bean closed his eyes. It
didn't help. He opened them again, tried to reorient himself. No direction
provided equilibrium. But he had schooled himself on the street not to succumb
to nausea -- a lot of the food he had to eat had already gone a little bad, and
he couldn't afford to throw it up. So he went into his anti-nausea routine --
deep breaths, distracting himself by concentrating on wiggling his toes. And,
after a surprisingly short time, he was used to the null-G. As long as he
didn't expect any direction to be down, he was fine.
The other kids didn't have his
routine, or perhaps they were more susceptible to the sudden, relentless loss
of balance. Now the reason for the prohibition against eating before the launch
became clear. There was plenty of retching going on, but with nothing to throw
up, there was no mess, no smell.
Dimak came back into the
shuttle cabin, this time standing on the ceiling. Very cute, thought Bean.
Another lecture began, this time about how to get rid of planetside assumptions
about directions and gravity. Could these kids possibly be so stupid they
needed to be told such obvious stuff?
Bean occupied the time of the
lecture by seeing how much pressure it took to move himself around within his
loosely-fitting harness. Everybody else was big enough that the harnesses fit
snugly and prevented movement. Bean alone had room for a little maneuvering. He
made the most of it. By the time they arrived at Battle School, he was
determined to have at least a little skill at movement in null-G. He figured
that in space, his survival might someday depend on knowing just how much force
it would take to move his body, and then how much force it would take to stop.
Knowing it in his mind wasn't half so important as knowing it with his body.
Analyzing things was fine, but good reflexes could save your life.
CHAPTER 6 -- ENDER'S SHADOW
"Normally your reports on
a launch group are brief. A few troublemakers, an incident report, or -- best
of all -- nothing."
"You're free to disregard
any portion of my report, sir."
"Sir? My, but aren't we
the prickly martinet today."
"What part of my report
did you think was excessive?"
"I think this report is a
love song."
"I realize that it might
seem like sucking up, to use with every launch the technique you used with Ender
Wiggin --"
"You use it with every
launch?"
"As you noticed yourself,
sir, it has interesting results. It causes an immediate sorting out."
"A sorting out into
categories that might not otherwise exist. Nevertheless, I accept the
compliment implied by your action. But seven pages about Bean -- really, did
you actually learn that much from a response that was primarily silent
compliance?"
"That is just my point,
sir. It was not compliance at all. It was -- I was performing the experiment,
but it felt as though his were the big eye looking down the microscope, and I
were the specimen on the slide."
"So he unnerved
you."
"He would unnerve anyone.
He's cold, sir. And yet"
"And yet hot. Yes, I read
your report. Every scintillating page of it."
"Yes sir."
"I think you know that it
is considered good advice for us not to get crushes on our students."
"Sir?"
"In this case, however, I
am delighted that you are so interested in Bean. Because, you see, I am not. I
already have the boy I think gives us our best chance. Yet there is
considerable pressure, because of Bean's damnable faked-up test scores, to give
him special attention. Very well, he shall have it. And you shall give it to
him."
"But sir ..."
"Perhaps you are unable
to distinguish an order from an invitation."
"I'm only concerned that
... I think he already has a low opinion of me."
"Good. Then he'll
underestimate you. Unless you think his low opinion might be correct."
"Compared to him, sir, we
might all be a little dim."
"Close attention is your
assignment. Try not to worship him."
***
All that Bean had on his mind
was survival, that first day in Battle School. No one would help him -- that
had been made clear by Dimak's little charade in the shuttle. They were setting
him up to be surrounded by ... what? Rivals at best, enemies at worst. So it
was the street again. Well, that was fine. Bean had survived on the street. And
would have kept on surviving, even if Sister Carlotta hadn't found him. Even
Pablo -- Bean might have made it even without Pablo the janitor finding him in
the toilet of the clean place.
So he watched. He listened.
Everything the others learned, he had to learn just as well, maybe better. And
on top of that, he had to learn what the others were oblivious to -- the
workings of the group, the systems of the Battle School. How teachers got on
with each other. Where the power was. Who was afraid of whom. Every group had
its bosses, its suckups, its rebels, its sheep. Every group had its strong
bonds and its weak ones, friendships and hypocrisies. Lies within lies within
lies. And Bean had to find them all, as quickly as possible, in order to learn
the spaces in which he could survive.
They were taken to their
barracks, given beds, lockers, little portable desks that were much more
sophisticated than the one he had used when studying with Sister Carlotta. Some
of the kids immediately began to play with them, trying to program them or
exploring the games built into them, but Bean had no interest in that. The
computer system of Battle School was not a person; mastering it might be
helpful in the long run, but for today it was irrelevant. What Bean needed to
find out was all outside the launchy barracks.
Which is where, soon enough,
they went. They arrived in the "morning" according to space time --
which, to the annoyance of many in Europe and Asia, meant Florida time, since
the earliest stations had been controlled from there. For the kids, having
launched from Europe, it was late afternoon, and that meant they would have a
serious time-lag problem. Dimak explained that the cure for this was to get
vigorous physical exercise and then take a short nap -- no more than three
hours -- in the early afternoon, following which they would again have plenty
of physical exercise so they could fall asleep that night at the regular
bedtime for students.
They piled out to form a line
in the corridor. "Green Brown Green," said Dimak, and showed them how
those lines on the corridor walls would always lead them back to their
barracks. Bean found himself jostled out of line several times, and ended up
right at the back. He didn't care -- mere jostling drew no blood and left no
bruise, and last in line was the best place from which to observe.
Other kids passed them in the
corridor, sometimes individuals, sometimes pairs or trios, most with
brightly-colored uniforms in many different designs. Once they passed an entire
group dressed alike and wearing helmets and carrying extravagant sidearms,
jogging along with an intensity of purpose that Bean found intriguing. They're
a crew, he thought. And they're heading off for a fight.
They weren't too intense to
notice the new kids walking along the corridor, looking up at them in awe.
Immediately there were catcalls. "Launchies!" "Fresh meat!"
"Who make coc¢ [coco] in the hall and don't clean it up!" "They
even smell stupid!" But it was all harmless banter, older kids asserting
their supremacy. It meant nothing more than that. No real hostility. In fact it
was almost affectionate. They remembered being launchies themselves.
Some of the launchies ahead of
Bean in line were resentful and called back some vague, pathetic insults, which
only caused more hooting and derision from the older kids. Bean had seen older,
bigger kids who hated younger ones because they were competition for food, and
drove them away, not caring if they caused the little ones to die. He had felt
real blows, meant to hurt. He had seen cruelty, exploitation, molestation,
murder. These other kids didn't know love when they saw it.
What Bean wanted to know was
how that crew was organized, who led it, how he was chosen, what the crew was
*for*. The fact that they had their own uniform meant that it had official
status. So that meant that the adults were ultimately in control -- the
opposite of the way crews were organized in Rotterdam, where adults tried to
break them up, where newspapers wrote about them as criminal conspiracies
instead of pathetic little leagues for survival.
That, really, was the key.
Everything the children did here was shaped by adults. In Rotterdam, the adults
were either hostile, unconcerned, or, like Helga with her charity kitchen,
ultimately powerless. So the children could shape their own society without
interference. Everything was based on survival -- on getting enough food
without getting killed or injured or sick. Here, there were cooks and doctors,
clothing and beds. Power wasn't about access to food-it was about getting the
approval of adults.
That's what those uniforms
meant. Adults chose them, and children wore them because adults somehow made it
worth their while.
So the key to everything was
understanding the teachers.
All this passed through Bean's
mind, not so much verbally as with a clear and almost instantaneous
understanding that within that crew there was no power at all, compared to the
power of the teachers, before the uniformed catcallers reached him. When they
saw Bean, so much smaller than any of the other kids, they broke out laughing,
hooting, howling. "That one isn't big enough to be a turd!" "I
can't believe he can walk!" "Did'ums wose um's mama?" "Is
it even human?"
Bean tuned them out
immediately. But he could feel the enjoyment of the kids ahead of him in line.
They had been humiliated in the shuttle; now it was Bean's turn to be mocked.
They loved it. And so did Bean-because it meant that he was seen as less of a
rival. By diminishing him, the passing soldiers had made him just that much
safer from ...
From what? What was the danger
here?
For there would be danger.
That he knew. There was always danger. And since the teachers had all the
power, the danger would come from them. But Dimak had started things out by
turning the other kids against him. So the children themselves were the weapons
of choice. Bean had to get to know the other kids, not because they themselves
were going to be his problem, but because their weaknesses, their desires could
be used against him by the teachers. And, to protect himself, Bean would have
to work to undercut their hold on the other children. The only safety here was
to subvert the teachers' influence. And yet that was the greatest danger -- if
he was caught doing it.
They palmed in on a
wall-mounted pad, then slid down a pole -- the first time Bean had ever done it
with a smooth shaft. In Rotterdam, all his sliding had been on rainspouts, signposts,
and lightpoles. They ended up in a section of Battle School with higher
gravity. Bean did not realize how light they must have been on the barracks
level until he felt how heavy he was down in the gym.
"This is just a little
heavier than Earth normal gravity," said Dimak. "You have to spend at
least a half-hour a day here, or your bones start to dissolve. And you have to
spend the time exercising, so you keep at peak endurance. And that's the key --
endurance exercise, not bulking up. You're too small for your bodies to endure
that kind of training, and it fights you here. Stamina, that's what we
want."
The words meant almost nothing
to the kids, but soon the trainer had made it clear. Lots of running on
treadmills, riding on cycles, stair-stepping, pushups, situps, chinups,
backups, but no weights. Some weight equipment was there, but it was all for
the use of teachers. "Your heartrate is monitored from the moment you
enter here," said the trainer. "If you don't have your heartrate
elevated within five minutes of arrival and you don't keep it elevated for the
next twenty-five minutes, it goes on your record and I see it on my control
board here."
"I get a report on it
too," said Dimak. "And you go on the pig list for everyone to see
you've been lazy."
Pig list. So that's the tool
they used -- shaming them in front of the others. Stupid. As if Bean cared.
It was the monitoring board
that Bean was interested in. How could they possibly monitor their heartrates
and know what they were doing, automatically, from the moment they arrived? He
almost asked the question, until he realized the only possible answer: The
uniform. It was in the clothing. Some system of sensors. It probably told them
a lot more than heartrate. For one thing, they could certainly track every kid
wherever he was in the station, all the time. There must be hundreds and
hundreds of kids here, and there would be computers reporting the whereabouts,
the heartrates, and who could guess what other information about them. Was
there a room somewhere with teachers watching every step they took?
Or maybe it wasn't the
clothes. After all, they had to palm in before coming down here, presumably to
identify themselves. So maybe there were special sensors in this room.
Time to find out. Bean raised
his hand. "Sir," he said.
"Yes?" The trainer
did a doubletake on seeing Bean's size, and a smile played around the corners
of his mouth. He glanced at Dimak. Dimak did not crack a smile or show any
understanding of what the trainer was thinking.
"Is the heartrate monitor
in our clothing? If we take off any part of our clothes while we're exercising,
does it --"
"You are not authorized
to be out of uniform in the gym," said the trainer. "The room is kept
cold on purpose so that you will not need to remove clothing. You will be
monitored at all times."
Not really an answer, but it
told him what he needed to know. The monitoring depended on the clothes. Maybe
there was an identifier in the clothing and by palming in, they told the gym
sensors which kid was wearing which set of clothing. That would make sense.
So clothing was probably
anonymous from the time you put on a clean set until you palmed in somewhere.
That was important -- it meant that it might be possible to be untagged without
being naked. Naked, Bean figured, would probably be conspicuous around here.
They all exercised and the
trainer told them which of them were not up to the right heartrate and which of
them were pushing too hard and would fatigue themselves too soon. Bean quickly
got an idea of the level he had to work at, and then forgot about it. He'd
remember by reflex, now that he knew.
It was mealtime, then. They
were alone in the mess hall -- as fresh arrivals, they were on a separate
schedule that day. The food was good and there was a lot of it. Bean was
stunned when some of the kids looked at their portion and complained about how
little there was. It was a feast! Bean couldn't finish it. The whiners were
informed by the cooks that the quantities were all adapted to their individual
dietary needs -- each kid's portion size came up on a computer display when he
palmed in upon entering the mess hall.
So you don't eat without your
palm on a pad. Important to know.
Bean soon found out that his
size was going to get official attention. When he brought his half-finished
tray to the disposal unit, an electronic chiming sound brought the on-duty
nutritionist to speak to him. "It's your first day, so we aren't going to be
rigid about it. But your portions are scientifically calibrated to meet your
dietary needs, and in the future you will finish every bit of what you are
served."
Bean looked at him without a
word. He had already made his decision. If his exercise program made him
hungrier, then he'd eat more. But if they were expecting him to gorge himself,
they could forget it. It would be a simple enough matter to dump excess food
onto the trays of the whiners. They'd be happy with it, and Bean would eat only
as much as his body wanted. He remembered hunger very well, but he had lived
with Sister Carlotta for many months, and he knew to trust his own appetite.
For a while he had let her goad him into eating more than he actually was
hungry for. The result had been a sense of loginess, a harder time sleeping and
a harder time staying awake. He went back to eating only as much as his body
wanted, letting his hunger be his guide, and it kept him sharp and quick. That
was the only nutritionist he trusted. Let the whiners get sluggish.
Dimak stood after several of
them had finished eating. "When you're through, go back to the barracks.
If you think you can find it. If you have any doubt, wait for me and I'll bring
the last group back myself."
The corridors were empty when
Bean went out into the corridor. The other kids palmed the wall and their
green-brown-green strip turned on. Bean watched them go. One of them turned
back. "Aren't you coming?" Bean said nothing. There was nothing to
say. He was obviously standing still. It was a stupid question. The kid turned
around and jogged on down the corridor toward the barracks.
Bean went the other way. No
stripes on the wall. He knew that there was no better time to explore than now.
If he was caught out of the area he was supposed to be in, they'd believe him
if he claimed to have got lost.
The corridor sloped up both
behind him and in front of him. To his eyes it looked like he was always going
uphill, and when he looked back, it was uphill to go back the way he had come.
Strange. But Dimak had already explained that the station was a huge wheel,
spinning in space so that centrifugal force would replace gravity. That meant
the main corridor on each level was a big circle, so you'd always come back to
where you started, and "down" was always toward the outside of the
circle. Bean made the mental adjustment. It was dizzying at first, to picture
himself on his side as he walked along, but then he mentally changed the
orientation so that he imagined the station as a wheel on a cart, with him at
the bottom of it no matter how much it turned. That put the people above him
upside down, but he didn't care. Wherever he was was the bottom, and that way
down stayed down and up stayed up.
The launchies were on the mess
hall level, but the older kids must not be, because after the mess halls and
the kitchens, there were only classrooms and unmarked doors with palmpads high
enough that they were clearly not meant for children to enter. Other kids could
probably reach those pads, but not even by jumping could Bean hope to palm one.
It didn't matter. They wouldn't respond to any child's handprint, except to
bring some adult to find out what the kid thought he was doing, trying to enter
a room where he had no business.
By long habit -- or was it
instinct? -- Bean regarded such barriers as only temporary blocks. He knew how
to climb over walls in Rotterdam, how to get up on roofs. Short as he was, he
still found ways to get wherever he needed to go. Those doors would not stop
him if he decided he needed to get beyond them. He had no idea right now how
he'd do it, but he had no doubt that he would find a way. So he wasn't annoyed.
He simply tucked the information away, waiting until he thought of some way to
use it.
Every few meters there was a
pole for downward passage or a ladderway for going up. To get down the pole to
the gym, he had had to palm a pad. But there seemed to be no pad on most of
these. Which made sense. Most poles and ladderways would merely let you pass
between floors -- no, they called them decks; this was the International Fleet
and so everything pretended to be a ship -- while only one pole led down to the
gym, to which they needed to control access so that it didn't get overcrowded
with people coming when they weren't scheduled. As soon as he had made sense of
it, Bean didn't have to think of it anymore. He scrambled up a ladder.
The next floor up had to be
the barracks level for the older kids. Doors were more widely spaced, and each
door had an insignia on it. Using the colors of some uniform -- no doubt based
on their stripe colors, though he doubted the older kids ever had to palm the
wall to find their way around -- there was also the silhouette of an animal.
Some of them he didn't recognize, but he recognized a couple of birds, some
cats, a dog, a lion. Whatever was in use symbolically on signs in Rotterdam. No
pigeon. No fly. Only noble animals, or animals noted for courage. The dog
silhouette looked like some kind of hunting animal, very thin around the hips.
Not a mongrel.
So this is where the crews
meet, and they have animal symbols, which means they probably call themselves
by animal names. Cat Crew. Or maybe Lion Crew. And probably not Crew. Bean
would soon learn what they called themselves. He closed his eyes and tried to
remember the colors and insignia on the crew that passed and mocked him in the
corridor earlier. He could see the shape in his mind, but didn't see it on any
of the doors he passed. It didn't matter -- not worth traveling the whole corridor
in search of it, when that would only increase his risk of getting caught.
Up again. More barracks, more
classrooms. How many kids in a barracks? This place was bigger than he thought.
A soft chime sounded.
Immediately, several doors opened and kids began to pour out into the corridor.
A changeover time.
At first Bean felt more secure
among the big kids, because he thought he could get lost in the crowd, the way
he always did in Rotterdam. But that habit was useless here. This wasn't a
random crowd of people on their own errands. These might be kids but they were
military. They knew where everybody was supposed to be, and Bean, in his
launchy uniform, was way out of place. Almost at once a couple of older kids
stopped him.
"You don't belong on this
deck," said one. At once several others stopped to look at Bean as if he
were an object washed into the street by a storm.
"Look at the size of this
one."
"Poor kid gots to sniff
everybody's butt, neh?"
"Eh!"
"You're out of area,
launchy."
Bean said nothing, just looked
at each one as he spoke. Or she.
"What are your
colors?" asked a girl.
Bean said nothing. Best excuse
would be that he didn't remember, so he couldn't very well name them now.
"He's so small he could
walk between my legs without touching my --"
"Oh. shut up, Dink,
that's what you said when Ender --"
"Yeah, Ender,
right."
"You don't think this is
the kid they --"
"Was Ender *this* small
when he arrived?"
"-- been saying, he
another Ender?"
"Right, like this one's
going to shoot to the top of the standings."
"It wasn't Ender's fault
that Bonzo wouldn't let him fire his weapon."
"But it's a fluke, that's
all I'm saying --"
"This the one they talking
about? One like Ender? Top scores?"
"Just get him down to the
launchy level."
"Come with me," said
the girl, taking him firmly by the hand.
Bean came along meekly.
"My name is Petra
Arkanian," she said.
Bean said nothing.
"Come on, you may be
little and you may be scared, but they don't let you in here if you're deaf or
stupid."
Bean shrugged.
"Tell me your name before
I break your stubby little fingers."
"Bean," he said.
"That's not a name,
that's a lousy meal."
He said nothing.
"You don't fool me,"
she said. "This mute thing, it's just a cover. You came up here on
purpose."
He kept his silence but it
stabbed at him, that she had figured him out so easily.
"Kids for this school,
they're chosen because they're smart and they've got initiative. So of course
you wanted to explore. The thing is, they expect it. They probably know you're
doing it. So there's no point in hiding it. What are they going to do, give you
some big bad piggy points?"
So that's what the older kids
thought about the pig list.
"This stubborn silence
thing, it'll just piss people off. I'd forget about it if I were you. Maybe it
worked with Mommy and Daddy, but it just makes you look stubborn and ridiculous
because anything that matters, you're going to tell anyway, so why not just
talk?"
"OK," said Bean.
Now that he was complying, she
didn't crow about it. The lecture worked, so the lecture was over.
"Colors?" she asked.
"Green brown green."
"Those launchy colors
sound like something you'd find in a dirty toilet, don't you think?"
So she was just another one of
the stupid kids who thought it was cute to make fun of launchies.
"It's like they designed
everything to get the older kids to make fun of the younger ones."
Or maybe she wasn't. Maybe she
was just talking. She was a talker. There weren't a lot of talkers on the
streets. Not among the kids, anyway. Plenty of them among the drunks.
"The system around here
is screwed. It's like they want us to act like little kids. Not that that's
going to bother you. Hell, you're already doing some dumb lost-little-kid
act."
"Not now," he said.
"Just remember this. No
matter what you do, the teachers know about it and they already have some
stupid theory about what this means about your personality or whatever. They
always find a way to use it against you, if they want to, so you might as well
not try. No doubt it's already in your report that you took this little jaunt
when you were supposed to be having beddy-bye time and that probably tells them
that you 'respond to insecurity by seeking to be alone while exploring the
limits of your new environment.'" She used a fancy voice for the last part.
And maybe she had more voices
to show off to him, but he wasn't going to stick around to find out. Apparently
she was a take-charge person and didn't have anybody to take charge of until he
came along. He wasn't interested in becoming her project. It was all right
being Sister Carlotta's project because she could get him out of the street and
into Battle School. But what did this Petra Arkanian have to offer him?
He slid down a pole, stopped
in front of the first opening, pushed out into the corridor, ran to the next
ladderway, and scooted up two decks before emerging into another corridor and
running full out. She was probably right in what she said, but one thing was
certain -- he was not going to have her hold his hand all the way back to green-brown-green.
The last thing he needed, if he was going to hold his own in this place, was to
show up with some older kid holding his hand.
Bean was four decks above the
mess level where he was supposed to be right now. There were kids moving
through here, but nowhere near as many as the deck below. Most of the doors
were unmarked, but a few stood open, including one wide arch that opened into a
game room.
Bean had seen computer games
in some of the bars in Rotterdam, but only from a distance, through the doors
and between the legs of men and women going in and out in their endless search
for oblivion. He had never seen a child playing a computer game, except on the
vids in store windows. Here it was real, with only a few players catching quick
games between classes so that each game's sounds stood out. A few kids playing
solo games, and then four of them playing a four-sided space game with a
holographic display. Bean stood back far enough not to intrude in their
sightlines and watched them play. Each of them controlled a squadron of four
tiny ships, with the goal of either wiping out all the other fleets or
capturing -- but not destroying -- each player's slow-moving mothership. He
learned the rules and the terminology by listening to the four boys chatter as
they played.
The game ended by attrition,
not by any cleverness -- the last boy simply happened to be the least stupid in
his use of his ships. Bean watched as they reset the game. No one put in a
coin. The games here were free.
Bean watched another game. It
was just as quick as the first, as each boy committed his ships clumsily,
forgetting about whichever one was not actively engaged. It was as if they
thought of their force as one active ship and three reserves.
Maybe the controls didn't allow
anything different. Bean moved closer. No, it was possible to set the course
for one, flip to control another ship, and another, then return to the first
ship to change its course at any time.
How did these boys get into
Battle School if this was all they could think of? Bean had never played a
computer game before, but he saw at once that any competent player could
quickly win if this was the best competition available.
"Hey, dwarf, want to
play?"
One of them had noticed him.
Of course the others did, too.
"Yes," said Bean.
"Well Bugger that,"
said the one who invited him. "Who do you think you are, Ender
Wiggin?"
They laughed and then all four
of them walked away from the game, heading for their next class. The room was
empty. Class time.
Ender Wiggin. The kids in the
corridor talked about him, too. Something about Bean made these kids think of
Ender Wiggin. Sometimes with admiration, sometimes with resentment. This Ender
must have beaten some older kids at a computer game or something. And he was at
the top of the standings, that's what somebody said. Standings in what?
The kids in the same uniform,
running like one crew, heading for a fight -- that was the central fact of life
here. There was one core game that everyone played. They lived in barracks
according to what team they were on. Every kid's standings were reported so
everybody else knew them. And whatever the game was, the adults ran it.
So this was the shape of life
here. And this Ender Wiggin, whoever he was, he was at the top of it all, he
led the standings.
Bean reminded people of him.
That made him a little proud,
yes, but it also annoyed him. It was safer not to be noticed. But because this
other small kid had done brilliantly, everybody who saw Bean thought of Ender
and that made Bean memorable. That would limit his freedom considerably. There
was no way to disappear here, as he had been able to disappear in crowds in
Rotterdam.
Well, who cared? He couldn't
be hurt now, not really. No matter what happened, as long as he was here at
Battle School he would never be hungry. He'd always have shelter. He had made
it to heaven. All he had to do was the minimum required to not get sent home
early. So who cared if people noticed him or not? It made no difference. Let
them worry about their standings. Bean had already won the battle for survival,
and after that, no other competition mattered.
But even as he had that
thought, he knew it wasn't true. Because he did care. It wasn't enough just to
survive. It never had been. Deeper than his need for food had been his hunger
for order, for finding out how things worked, getting a grasp on the world
around him. When he was starving, of course he used what he learned in order to
get himself into Poke's crew and get her crew enough food that there would be
enough to trickle some down to him at the bottom of the pecking order. But even
when Achilles had turned them into his family and they had something to eat
every day, Bean hadn't stopped being alert, trying to understand the changes,
the dynamics in the group. Even with Sister Carlotta, he had spent a lot of
effort trying to understand why and how she had the power to do for him what
she was doing, and the basis on which she had chosen him. He had to know. He
had to have the picture of everything in his mind.
Here, too. He could have gone
back to the barracks and napped. Instead, he risked getting in trouble just to
find out things that no doubt he would have learned in the ordinary course of
events.
Why did I come up here? What
was I looking for?
The key. The world was full of
locked doors, and he had to get his hands on every key.
He stood still and listened.
The room was nearly silent. But there was white noise, background rumble and
hiss that made it so sounds didn't carry throughout the entire station.
With his eyes closed, he
located the source of the faint rushing sound. Eyes open, he then walked to
where the vent was. An out-flowing vent with slightly warmer air making a very
slight breeze. The rushing sound was not the hiss of air here at the vent, but
rather a much louder, more distant sound of the machinery that pumped air throughout
the Battle School.
Sister Carlotta had told him
that in space, there was no air, so wherever people lived, they had to keep
their ships and stations closed tight, holding in every bit of air. And they
also had to keep changing the air, because the oxygen, she said, got used up
and had to be replenished. That's what this air system was about. It must go
everywhere through the ship.
Bean sat before the vent
screen, feeling around the edges. There were no visible screws or nails holding
it on. He got his fingernails under the rim and carefully slid his fingers
around it, prying it out a little, then a little more. His fingers now fit
under the edges. He pulled straight forward. The vent came free, and Bean
toppled over backward.
Only for a moment. He set
aside the screen and tried to see into the vent. The vent duct was only about
fifteen centimeters deep from front to back. The top was solid, but the bottom
was open, leading down into the duct system.
Bean sized up the vent opening
just the way he had, years before, stood on the seat of a toilet and studied
the inside of the toilet tank, deciding whether he could fit in it. And the
conclusion was the same -- it would be cramped, it would be painful, but he
could do it.
He reached an arm inside and
down. He couldn't feel the bottom. But with arms as short as his, that didn't
mean much. There was no way to tell by looking which way the duct went when it
got down to the floor level. Bean could imagine a duct leading under the floor,
but that felt wrong to him. Sister Carlotta had said that every scrap of
material used to build the station had to be hauled up from Earth or the
manufacturing plants on the moon. They wouldn't have big gaps between the decks
and the ceilings below because that would be wasted space into which precious air
would have to be pumped without anyone breathing it. No, the ductwork would be
in the outside walls. It was probably no more than fifteen centimeters deep
anywhere.
He closed his eyes and
imagined an air system. Machinery making a warm wind blow through the narrow
ducts, flowing into every room, carrying fresh breathable air everywhere.
No, that wouldn't work. There
had to be a place where the air was getting sucked in and drawn back. And if
the air blew in at the outside walls, then the intake would be ... in the
corridors.
Bean got up and ran to the
door of the game room. Sure enough, the corridor's ceiling was at least twenty
centimeters lower than the ceiling inside the room. But no vents. Just light
fixtures.
He stepped back into the room and
looked up. All along the top of the wall that bordered on the corridor there
was a narrow vent that looked more decorative than practical. The opening was
about three centimeters. Not even Bean could fit through the intake system.
He ran back to the open vent
and took off his shoes. No reason to get hung up because his feet were so much
bigger than they needed to be.
He faced the vent and swung
his feet down into the opening. Then he wriggled until his legs were entirely
down the hole and his buttocks rested on the rim of the vent. His feet still
hadn't found bottom. Not a good sign. What if the vent dropped straight down
into the machinery?
He wriggled back out, then
went in the other way. It was harder and more painful, but now his arms were more
usable, giving him a good grip on the floor as he slid chest-deep into the
hole.
His feet touched bottom.
Using his toes, he probed.
Yes, the ductwork ran to the left and the right, along the outside wall of the
room. And the opening was tall enough that he could slide down into it, then
wriggle -- always on his side -- along from room to room.
That was all he needed to know
at present. He gave a little jump so his anus reached farther out onto the
floor, meaning to use friction to let him pull himself up. Instead, he just
slid back down into the vent.
Oh, this was excellent.
Someone would come looking for him, eventually, or he'd be found by the next
batch of kids who came in to play games, but he did not want to be found like
this. More to the point, the ductwork would only give him an alternate route
through the station if he could climb out of the vents. He had a mental image
of somebody opening a vent and seeing his skull looking out at them, his dead
body completely dried up in the warm wind of the air ducts where he starved to
death or died of thirst trying to get out of the vents.
As long as he was just
standing there, though, he might as well find out if he could cover the vent
opening from the inside.
He reached over and, with
difficulty, got a finger on the screen and was able to pull it toward him. Once
he got a hand solidly on it, it wasn't hard at all to get it over the opening.
He could even pull it in, tightly enough that it probably wouldn't be
noticeably different to casual observers on the other side. With the vent
closed, though, he had to keep his head turned to one side. There wasn't room
enough for him to turn it. So once he got in the duct system, his head would
either stay turned to the left or to the right. Great.
He pushed the vent back out,
but carefully, so that it didn't fall to the floor. Now it was time to climb
out in earnest.
After a couple more failures,
he finally realized that the screen was exactly the tool he needed. Laying it
down on the floor in front of the vent, he hooked his fingers under the far
end. Pulling back on the screen provided him with the leverage to lift his body
far enough to get his chest over the rim of the vent opening. It hurt, to hang
the weight of his body on such a sharp edge, but now he could get up on his
elbows and then on his hands, lifting his whole body up through the opening and
back into the room.
He thought carefully through
the sequence of muscles he had used and then thought about the equipment in the
gym. Yes, he could strengthen those muscles.
He put the vent screen back
into place. Then he pulled up his shirt and looked at the red marks on his skin
where the rim of the vent opening had scraped him mercilessly. There was some
blood. Interesting. How would he explain it, if anyone asked? He'd have to see
if he could reinjure the same spot by climbing around on the bunks later.
He jogged out of the game room
and down the corridor to the nearest pole, then dropped to the mess hall level.
All the way, he wondered why he had felt such urgency about getting into the
ducts. Whenever he got like that in the past, doing some task without knowing
why it even mattered, it had turned out that there was a danger that he had
sensed but that hadn't yet risen to his conscious mind. What was the danger
here?
Then he realized -- in
Rotterdam, out on the street, he had always made sure he knew a back way out of
everything, an alternate path to get from one place to another. If he was
running from someone, he never dodged into a cul-de-sac to hide unless he knew
another way out. In truth, he never really hid at all -- he evaded pursuit by
keeping on the move, always. No matter how awful the danger following him might
be, he could not hold still. It felt terrible to be cornered. It hurt.
It hurt and was wet and cold
and he was hungry and there wasn't enough air to breathe and people walked by
and if they just lifted the lid they would find him and he had no way to run if
they did that, he just had to sit there waiting for them to pass without
noticing him. If they used the toilet and flushed it, the equipment wouldn't
work right because the whole weight of his body was pressing down on the float.
A lot of the water had spilled out of the tank when he climbed in. They'd
notice something was wrong and they'd find him.
It was the worst experience of
his life, and he couldn't stand the idea of ever hiding like that again. It
wasn't the small space that bothered him, or that it was wet, or that he was
hungry or alone. It was the fact that the only way out was into the arms of his
pursuers.
Now that he understood that
about himself, he could relax. He hadn't found the ductwork because he sensed
some danger that hadn't yet risen to his conscious mind. He found the ductwork
because he remembered how bad it felt to hide in the toilet tank as a toddler.
So whatever danger there might be, he hadn't sensed it yet. It was just a
childhood memory coming to the surface. Sister Carlotta had told him that a lot
of human behavior was really acting out our responses to dangers long past. It
hadn't sounded sensible to Bean at the time, but he didn't argue, and now he
could see that she was right.
And how could he know there
would never be a time when that narrow, dangerous highway through the ductwork
might not be exactly the route he needed to save his life?
He never did palm the wall to
light up green-brown-green. He knew exactly where his barracks was. How could
he not? He had been there before, and knew every step between the barracks and
every other place he had visited in the station.
And when he got there, Dimak
had not yet returned with the slow eaters. His whole exploration hadn't taken
more than twenty minutes, including his conversation with Petra and watching
two quick computer games during the class break.
He awkwardly hoisted himself
up from the lower bunk, dangling for a while from his chest on the rim of the
second bunk. Long enough that it hurt in pretty much the same spot he had
injured climbing out of the vent. "What are you doing?" asked one of
the launchies near him.
Since the truth wouldn't be
understood, he answered truthfully. "Injuring my chest," he said.
"I'm trying to
sleep," said the other boy. "You're supposed to sleep, too."
"Naptime," said
another boy. "I feel like I'm some stupid four-year-old."
Bean wondered vaguely what
these boys' lives had been like, when taking a nap made them think of being
four years old.
***
Sister Carlotta stood beside
Pablo de Noches, looking at the toilet tank. "Old-fashioned kind,"
said Pablo. "Norteamericano. Very popular for a while back when the
Netherlands first became international."
She lifted the lid on the
toilet tank. Very light. Plastic.
As they came out of the
lavatory, the office manager who had been showing them around looked at her
curiously. "There's not any kind of danger from using the toilets, is
there?" she asked.
"No," said Sister
Carlotta. "I just had to see it, that's all. It's Fleet business. I'd
appreciate it if you didn't talk about our visit here."
Of course, that almost
guaranteed that she would talk about nothing else. But Sister Carlotta counted
on it sounding like nothing more than strange gossip.
Whoever had run an organ farm
in this building would not want to be discovered, and there was a lot of money
in such evil businesses. That was how the devil rewarded his friends -- lots of
money, up to the moment he betrayed them and left them to face the agony of
hell alone.
Outside the building, she
spoke again to Pablo. "He really hid in there?"
"He was very tiny,"
said Pablo de Noches. "He was crawling when I found him, but he was
soaking wet up to his shoulder on one side, and his chest. I thought he peed
himself, but he said no. Then he showed me the toilet. And he was red here,
here, where he pressed against the mechanism."
"He was talking,"
she said.
"Not a lot. A few words.
So tiny. I could not believe a child so small could talk."
"How long was he in
there?"
Pablo shrugged.
"Shriveled up skin like old lady. All over. Cold. I was thinking, he will
die. Not warm water like a swimming pool. Cold. He shivered all night."
"I can't understand why
he *didn't* die," said Sister Carlotta.
Pablo smiled. "No hay
nada que Dios no puede hacer."
"True," she
answered. "But that doesn't mean we can't figure out *how* God works his
miracles. Or why."
Pablo shrugged. "God does
what he does. I do my work and live, the best man I can be."
She squeezed his arm.
"You took in a lost child and saved him from people who meant to kill him.
God saw you do that and he loves you."
Pablo said nothing, but Sister
Carlotta could guess what he was thinking -- how many sins, exactly, were
washed away by that good act, and would it be enough to keep him out of hell?
"Good deeds do not wash
away sins," said Sister Carlotta. "Solo el redentor puede limpiar su
alma."
Pablo shrugged. Theology was
not his skill.
"You don't do good deeds
for yourself," said Sister Carlotta. "You do them because God is in
you, and for those moments you are his hands and his feet, his eyes and his
lips."
"I thought God was the
baby. Jesus say, if you do it to this little one, you do it to me."
Sister Carlotta laughed.
"God will sort out all the fine points in his own due time. It is enough
that we try to serve him."
"He was so small,"
said Pablo. "But God was in him."
She bade him goodbye as he got
out of the taxi in front of his apartment building.
Why did I have to see that
toilet with my own eyes? My work with Bean is done. He left on the shuttle
yesterday. Why can't I leave the matter alone?
Because he should have been
dead, that's why. And after starving on the streets for all those years, even
if he lived he was so malnourished he should have suffered serious mental
damage. He should have been permanently retarded.
That was why she could not
abandon the question of Bean's origin. Because maybe he *was* damaged. Maybe he
*is* retarded. Maybe he started out so smart that he could lose half his
intellect and still be the miraculous boy he is.
She thought of how St. Matthew
kept saying that all the things that happened in Jesus' childhood, his mother
treasured them in her heart. Bean is not Jesus, and I am not the Holy Mother.
But he is a boy, and I have loved him as my son. What he did, no child of that
age could do.
No child of less than a year,
not yet walking by himself, could have such clear understanding of his danger
that he would know to do the things that Bean did. Children that age often
climbed out of their cribs, but they did not hide in a toilet tank for hours
and then come out alive and ask for help. I can call it a miracle all I want,
but I have to understand it. They use the dregs of the Earth in those organ
farms. Bean has such extraordinary gifts that he could only have come from
extraordinary parents.
And yet for all her research
during the months that Bean lived with her, she had never found a single
kidnapping that could possibly have been Bean. No abducted child. Not even an
accident from which someone might have taken a surviving infant whose body was
therefore never found. That wasn't proof -- not every baby that disappeared
left a trace of his life in the newspapers, and not every newspaper was
archived and available for a search on the nets. But Bean had to be the child
of parents so brilliant that the world took note of them -- didn't he? Could a
mind like his come from ordinary parents? Was that the miracle from which all
other miracles flowed?
No matter how much Sister
Carlotta tried to believe it, she could not. Bean was not what he seemed to be.
He was in Battle School now, and there was a good chance he would end up
someday as the commander of a great fleet. But what did anyone know about him?
Was it possible that he was not a natural human being at all? That his
extraordinary intelligence had been given him, not by God, but by someone or
something else?
There was the question: If not
God, then who could make such a child?
Sister Carlotta buried her
face in her hands. Where did such thoughts come from? After all these years of
searching, why did she have to keep doubting the one great success she had?
We have seen the beast of
Revelation, she said silently. The Bugger, the Formic monster bringing
destruction to the Earth, just as prophesied. We have seen the beast, and long
ago Mazer Rackham and the human fleet, on the brink of defeat, slew that great
dragon. But it will come again, and St. John the Revelator said that when it
did, there would be a prophet who came with him.
No, no. Bean is good, a
good-hearted boy. He is not any kind of devil, not the servant of the beast,
just a boy of great gifts that God may have raised up to bless this world in
the hour of its greatest peril. I know him as a mother knows her child. I am
not wrong.
Yet when she got back to her
room, she set her computer to work, searching now for something new. For
reports from or about scientists who had been working, at least five years ago,
on projects involving alterations in human DNA.
And while the search program
was querying all the great indexes on the nets and sorting their replies into
useful categories, Sister Carlotta went to the neat little pile of folded
clothing waiting to be washed. She would not wash it after all. She put it in a
plastic bag along with Bean's sheets and pillowcase, and sealed the bag. Bean
had worn this clothing, slept on this bedding. His skin was in it, small bits
of it. A few hairs. Maybe enough DNA for a serious analysis.
He was a miracle, yes, but she
would find out just what the dimensions of this miracle might be. For her
ministry had not been to save the children of the cruel streets of the cities
of the world. Her ministry had been to help save the one species made in the
image of God. That was still her ministry. And if there was something wrong
with the child she had taken into her heart as a beloved son, she would find
out about it, and give warning.
CHAPTER 7 -- EXPLORATION
"So this launch group was
slow getting back to their barracks."
"There is a
twenty-one-minute discrepancy."
"Is that a lot? I didn't
even know this sort of thing was tracked."
"For safety. And to have
an idea, in the event of emergency, where everyone is. Tracking the uniforms
that departed from the mess hall and the uniforms that entered the barracks, we
come up with an aggregate of twenty-one minutes. That could be twenty-one
children loitering for exactly one minute, or one child for twenty-one
minutes."
"That's very helpful. Am
I supposed to ask them?"
"No! They aren't supposed
to know that we track them by their uniforms. It isn't good for them to know
how much we know about them."
"And how little."
"Little?"
"If it was one student,
it wouldn't be good for him to know that our tracking methods don't tell us who
it was."
"Ah. Good point. And ...
actually, I came to you because I believe that it was one student only."
"Even though your data
aren't clear?"
"Because of the arrival
pattern. Spaced out in groups of two or three, a few solos. Just the way they
left the mess hall. A little bit of clumping -- three solos become a threesome,
two twos arrive as four -- but if there had been some kind of major distraction
in the corridor, it would have caused major coalescing, a much larger group
arriving at once after the disturbance ended."
"So. One student with
twenty-one minutes unaccounted for."
"I thought you should at
least be aware."
"What would he do with
twenty-one minutes?"
"You know who it
was?"
"I will, soon enough. Are
the toilets tracked? Are we sure it wasn't somebody so nervous he went in to
throw up his lunch?"
"Toilet entry and exit
patterns were normal. In and out."
"Yes, I'll find out who
it was. And keep watching the data for this launch group."
"So I was right to bring
this to your attention?"
"Did you have any doubt
of it?"
***
Bean slept lightly, listening,
as he always did, waking twice that he remembered. He didn't get up, just lay
there listening to the breathing of the others. Both times, there was a little
whispering somewhere in the room. Always children's voices, no urgency about
them, but the sound was enough to rouse Bean and kindle his attention, just for
a moment till he was sure there was no danger.
He woke the third time when
Dimak entered the room. Even before sitting up, Bean knew that's who it was,
from the weight of his step, the sureness of his movement, the press of
authority. Bean's eyes were open before Dimak spoke; he was on all fours, ready
to move in any direction, before Dimak finished his first sentence.
"Naptime is over, boys
and girls, time for work."
It was not about Bean. If
Dimak knew what Bean had done after lunch and before their nap, he gave no
sign. No immediate danger.
Bean sat on his bunk as Dimak
instructed them in the use of their lockers and desks. Palm the wall beside the
locker and it opens. Then turn on the desk and enter your name and a password.
Bean immediately palmed his
own locker with his right hand, but did not palm the desk. Instead, he checked
on Dimak -- busy helping another student near the door -- then scrambled to the
unoccupied third bunk above his own and palmed *that* locker with his left
hand. There was a desk inside that one, too. Quickly he turned on his own desk
and typed in his name and a password. Bean. Achilles. Then he pulled out the
other desk and turned it on. Name? Poke. Password? Carlotta.
He slipped the second desk
back into the locker and closed the door, then tossed his first desk down onto
his own bunk and slipped down after it. He did not look around to see if anyone
noticed him. If they did, they'd say something soon enough; visibly checking
around would merely call attention to him and make people suspect him who would
not otherwise have noticed what he did.
Of course the adults would
know what he had done. In fact, Dimak was certainly noticing already, when one
child complained that his locker wouldn't open. So the station computer knew
how many students there were and stopped opening lockers when the right total
had been opened. But Dimak did not turn and demand to know who had opened two
lockers. Instead, he pressed his own palm against the last student's locker. It
popped open. He closed it again, and now it responded to the student's palm.
So they were going to let him
have his second locker, his second desk, his second identity. No doubt they
would watch him with special interest to see what he did with it. He would have
to make a point of fiddling with it now and then, clumsily, so they'd think
they knew what he wanted a second identity for. Maybe some kind of prank. Or to
write down secret thoughts. That would be fun -- Sister Carlotta was always
prying after his secret thoughts, and no doubt these teachers would, too.
Whatever he wrote, they'd eat it up.
Therefore they wouldn't be
looking for his truly private work, which he would perform on his own desk. Or,
if it was risky, on the desk of one of the boys across from him, both of whose
passwords he had carefully noticed and memorized. Dimak was lecturing them
about protecting their desks at all times, but it was inevitable that kids
would be careless, and desks would be left lying around.
For now, though, Bean would do
nothing riskier than what he had already done. The teachers had their own
reasons for letting him do it. What mattered is that they not know his own.
After all, he didn't know
himself. It was like the vent -- if he thought of something that might get him
some advantage later, he did it.
Dimak went on talking about
how to submit homework, the directory of teachers' names, and the fantasy game
that was on every desk. "You are not to spend study time playing the
game," he said. "But when your studies are done, you are permitted a
few minutes to explore."
Bean understood at once. The
teachers *wanted* the students to play the game, and knew that the best way to
encourage it was to put strict limits on it ... and then not enforce them. A
game-Sister Carlotta had used games to try to analyze Bean from time to time.
So Bean always turned them into the same game: Try to figure out what Sister
Carlotta is trying to learn from the way I play this game.
In this case, though, Bean
figured that anything he did with the game would tell them things that he
didn't want them to know about him. So he would not play at all, unless they
compelled him. And maybe not even then. It was one thing to joust with Sister
Carlotta; here, they no doubt had real experts, and Bean was not going to give
them a chance to learn more about him than he knew himself.
Dimak took them on the tour,
showing them most of what Bean had already seen. The other kids went ape over
the game room. Bean did not so much as glance at the vent into which he had
climbed, though he did make it a point to fiddle with the game he had watched
the bigger boys play, figuring out how the controls worked and verifying that
his tactics could, in fact, be carried out.
They did a workout in the gym,
in which Bean immediately began working on the exercises that he thought he'd
need -- one-armed pushups and pullups being the most important, though they had
to get a stool for him to stand on in order to reach the lowest chinning bar.
No problem. Soon enough he'd be able to jump to reach it. With all the food
they were giving him, he could build up strength quickly.
And they seemed grimly
determined to pack food into him at an astonishing rate. After the gym they
showered, and then it was suppertime. Bean wasn't even hungry yet, and they
piled enough food onto his tray to feed his whole crew back in Rotterdam. Bean
immediately headed for a couple of the kids who had whined about their small
portions and, without even asking permission, scraped his excess onto their
trays. When one of them tried to talk to him about it, Bean just put his finger
to his lips. In answer, the boy grinned. Bean still ended up with more food
than he wanted, but when he turned in his tray, it was scraped clean. The
nutritionist would be happy. It remained to be seen if the janitors would
report the food Bean left on the floor.
Free time. Bean headed back to
the game room, hoping that tonight he'd actually see the famous Ender Wiggin.
If he was there, he would no doubt be the center of a group of admirers. But at
the center of the groups he saw were only the ordinary prestige-hungry
clique-formers who thought they were leaders and so would follow their group
anywhere in order to maintain that delusion. No way could any of them be Ender
Wiggin. And Bean was not about to ask.
Instead, he tried his hand at
several games. Each time, though, the moment he lost for the first time, other
kids would push him out of the way. It was an interesting set of social rules.
The students knew that even the shortest, greenest launchy was entitled to his
turn -- but the moment a turn ended, so did the protection of the rule. And
they were rougher in shoving him than they needed to be, so the message was
clear -- you shouldn't have been using that game and making me wait. Just like
the food lines at the charity kitchens in Rotterdam -- except that absolutely
nothing that mattered was at stake.
That was interesting, to find
that it wasn't hunger that caused children to become bullies on the street. The
bulliness was already in the child, and whatever the stakes were, they would
find a way to act as they needed to act. If it was about food, then the children
who lost would die; if it was about games, though, the bullies did not hesitate
to be just as intrusive and send the same message. Do what I want, or pay for
it.
Intelligence and education,
which all these children had, apparently didn't make any important difference
in human nature. Not that Bean had really thought they would.
Nor did the low stakes make
any difference in Bean's response to the bullies. He simply complied without
complaint and took note of who the bullies were. Not that he had any intention
of punishing them or of avoiding them, either. He would simply remember who
acted as a bully and take that into account when he was in a situation where
that information might be important.
No point in getting emotional
about anything. Being emotional didn't help with survival. What mattered was to
learn everything, analyze the situation, choose a course of action, and then
move boldly. Know, think, choose, do. There was no place in that list for
"feel." Not that Bean didn't have feelings. He simply refused to
think about them or dwell on them or let them influence his decisions, when
anything important was at stake.
"He's even smaller than
Ender was."
Again, again. Bean was so
tired of hearing that.
"Don't talk about that
hijo de puta to me, bicho."
Bean perked up. Ender had an
enemy. Bean was wondering when he'd spot one, for someone who was first in the
standings *had* to have provoked something besides admiration. Who said it?
Bean drifted nearer to the group the conversation had come from. The same voice
came up again. Again. And then he knew: That one was the boy who had called
Ender an hijo de puta.
He had the silhouette of some
kind of lizard on his uniform. And a single triangle on his sleeve. None of the
boys around him had the triangle. All were focused on him. Captain of the team?
Bean needed more information.
He tugged on the sleeve of a boy standing near him.
"What," said the
boy, annoyed.
"Who's that boy
there?" asked Bean. "The team captain with the lizard."
"It's a salamander,
pinhead. Salamander *army*. And he's the *commander*."
Teams are called armies.
Commander is the triangle rank. "What's his name?"
"Bonzo Madrid. And he's
an even bigger asshole than you." The boy shrugged himself away from Bean.
So Bonzo Madrid was bold
enough to declare his hatred for Ender Wiggin, but a kid who was not in Bonzo's
army had contempt for *him* in turn and wasn't afraid to say so to a stranger.
Good to know. The only enemy Ender had, so far, was contemptible.
But ... contemptible as Bonzo
might be, he was a commander. Which meant it was possible to become a commander
without being the kind of boy that everybody respected. So what was their
standard of judgment, in assigning command in this war game that shaped the
life of Battle School?
More to the point, how do I
get a command?
That was the first moment that
Bean realized that he even had such a goal. Here in Battle School, he had
arrived with the highest scores in his launch group -- but he was the smallest
and youngest and had been isolated even further by the deliberate actions of
his teacher, making him a target of resentment. Somehow, in the midst of all
this, Bean had made the decision that this would not be like Rotterdam. He was
not going to live on the fringes, inserting himself only when it was absolutely
essential for his own survival. As rapidly as possible, he was going to put
himself in place to command an army.
Achilles had ruled because he
was brutal, because he was willing to kill. That would always trump
intelligence, when the intelligent one was physically smaller and had no strong
allies. But here, the bullies only shoved and spoke rudely. The adults
controlled things tightly and so brutality would not prevail, not in the
assignment of command. Intelligence, then, had a chance to win out. Eventually,
Bean might not have to live under the control of stupid people.
If this was what Bean wanted
-- and why not try for it, as long as some more important goal didn't come
along first? -- then he had to learn how the teachers made their decisions
about command. Was it solely based on performance in classes? Bean doubted it.
The International Fleet had to have smarter people than that running this
school. The fact that they had that fantasy game on every desk suggested that
they were looking at personality as well. Character. In the end, Bean
suspected, character mattered more than intelligence. In Bean's litany of
survival -- know, think, choose, do -- intelligence only mattered in the first
three, and was the decisive factor only in the second one. The teachers knew
that.
Maybe I *should* play the
game, thought Bean.
Then: Not yet. Let's see what
happens when I don't play.
At the same time he came to
another conclusion he did not even know he had been concerned about. He would
talk to Bonzo Madrid.
Bonzo was in the middle of a
computer game, and he was obviously the kind of person who thought of anything
unexpected as an affront to his dignity. That meant that for Bean to accomplish
what he wanted, he could not approach Bonzo in a cringing way, like the suckups
who surrounded him as he played, commending him even for his stupid mistakes in
game-play.
Instead, Bean pushed close
enough to see when Bonzo's onscreen character died -- again. "Se¤or
[Senor] Madrid, puedo hablar convozco?" The Spanish came to mind easily
enough -- he had listened to Pablo de Noches talk to fellow immigrants in
Rotterdam who visited his apartment, and on the telephone to family members
back in Valencia. And using Bonzo's native language had the desired effect. He
didn't ignore Bean. He turned and glared at him.
"What do you want,
bichinho?" Brazilian slang was common in Battle School, and Bonzo
apparently felt no need to assert the purity of his Spanish.
Bean looked him in the eye,
even though he was about twice Bean's height, and said, "People keep
saying that I remind them of Ender Wiggin, and you're the only person around
here who doesn't seem to worship him. I want to know the truth."
The way the other kids fell
silent told Bean that he had judged aright -- it was dangerous to ask Bonzo
about Ender Wiggin. Dangerous, but that's why Bean had phrased his request so
carefully.
"Damn right I don't
worship the farteating insubordinate traitor, but why should I tell *you* about
him?"
"Because you won't lie to
me," said Bean, though he actually thought it was obvious Bonzo would
probably lie outrageously in order to make himself look like the hero of what
was obviously a story of his own humiliation at Ender's hands. "And if
people are going to keep comparing me to the guy, I've got to know what he
really is. I don't want to get iced because I do it all wrong here. You don't
owe me nothing, but when you're small like me, you gots to have somebody who
can tell you the stuff you gots to know to survive." Bean wasn't quite
sure of the slang here yet, but what he knew, he used.
One of the other kids chimed
in, as if Bean had written him a script and he was right on cue. "Get
lost, launchy, Bonzo Madrid doesn't have time to change diapers."
Bean rounded on him and said
fiercely, "I can't ask the teachers, they don't tell the truth. If Bonzo
don't talk to me who I ask then? *You*? You don't know zits from zeroes."
It was pure Sergeant, that
spiel, and it worked. Everybody laughed at the kid who had tried to brush him
off, and Bonzo joined in, then put a hand on Bean's shoulder. "I'll tell
you what I know, kid, it's about time somebody wanted to hear the truth about
that walking rectum." To the kid that Bean had just fronted, Bonzo said,
"Maybe you better finish my game, it's the only way you'll ever get to
play at that level."
Bean could hardly believe a
commander would say such a pointlessly offensive thing to one of his own
subordinates. But the boy swallowed his anger and grinned and nodded and said,
"That's right, Bonzo," and turned to the game, as instructed. A real
suckup.
By chance Bonzo led him to
stand right in front of the wall vent where Bean had been stuck only a few
hours before. Bean gave it no more than a glance.
"Let me tell you about
Ender. He's all about beating the other guy. Not just winning -- he has to beat
the other guy into the ground or he isn't happy. No rules for him. You give him
a plain order, and he acts like he's going to obey it, but if he sees a way to
make himself look good and all he has to do is disobey the order, well, all I
can say is, I pity whoever has him in his army."
"He used to be
Salamander?"
Bonzo's face reddened.
"He wore a uniform with our colors, his name was on my roster, but he was
*never* Salamander. The minute I saw him, I knew he was trouble. That cocky
look on his face, like he thinks the whole Battle School was made just to give
him a place to strut. I wasn't having it. I put in to transfer him the second
he showed up and I refused to let him practice with us, I knew he'd learn our
whole system and then take it to some other army and use what he learned from
me to stick it to my army as fast as he could. I'm not stupid!"
In Bean's experience, that was
a sentence never uttered except to prove its own inaccuracy.
"So he didn't follow
orders."
"It's more than that. He
goes crying like a baby to the teachers about how I don't let him practice,
even though they *know* I've put in to transfer him out, but he whines and they
let him go in to the battleroom during freetime and practice alone. Only he
starts getting kids from his launch group and then kids from other armies, and
they go in there as if he was their commander, doing what he tells them. That
really pissed off a lot of us. And the teachers always give that little suckup
whatever he wants, so when we commanders *demanded* that they bar our soldiers
from practicing with him, they just said, 'Freetime is *free*,' but everything
is part of the game, sabe? Everything, so they're letting him cheat, and every
lousy soldier and sneaky little bastard goes to Ender for those freetime
practices so every army's system is compromised, sabe? You plan your strategy
for a game and you never know if your plans aren't being told to a soldier in
the enemy army the second they come out of your mouth, sabe?"
Sabe sabe sabe. Bean wanted to
shout back at him, Si, yo *s‚* [*se*], but you couldn't show impatience with
Bonzo. Besides, this was all fascinating. Bean was getting a pretty good
picture of how this army game shaped the life of Battle School. It gave the
teachers a chance to see not only how the kids handled command, but also how
they responded to incompetent commanders like Bonzo. Apparently, he had decided
to make Ender the goat of his army, only Ender refused to take it. This Ender
Wiggin was the kind of kid who got it that the teachers ran everything and used
them by getting that practice room. He didn't ask them to get Bonzo to stop
picking on him, he asked them for an alternate way to train himself. Smart. The
teachers had to love that, and Bonzo couldn't do a thing about it.
Or could he?
"What did you do about
it?"
"It's what we're going to
do. I'm about fed up. If the teachers won't stop it, somebody else will have
to, neh?" Bonzo grinned wickedly. "So I'd stay out of Ender Wiggin's
freetime practice if I were you."
"Is he really number one
in the standings?"
"Number one is
piss," said Bonzo. "He's dead last in loyalty. There's not a
commander who wants him in his army."
"Thanks," said Bean.
"Only now it kind of pisses me off that people say I'm like him."
"Just because you're
small. They made him a soldier when he was still way too young. Don't let them
do that to you, and you'll be OK, sabe?"
"Ahora s‚ [se],"
said Bean. He gave Bonzo his biggest grin.
Bonzo smiled back and clapped
him on his shoulder. "You'll do OK. When you get big enough, if I haven't
graduated yet, maybe you'll be in Salamander."
If they leave you in command
of an army for another day, it's just so that the other students can learn how
to make the best of taking orders from a higher-ranking idiot. "I'm not
going to be a soldier for a *long* time," said Bean.
"Work hard," said
Bonzo. "It pays off." He clapped him on the shoulder yet again, then
walked off with a big grin on his face. Proud of having helped a little kid.
Glad to have convinced somebody of his own twisted version of dealing with
Ender Wiggin, who was obviously smarter farting than Bonzo was talking.
And there was a threat of
violence against the kids who practiced with Ender Wiggin in freetime. That was
good to know. Bean would have to decide now what to do with that information.
Get the warning to Ender? Warn the teachers? Say nothing? Be there to watch?
Freetime ended. The game room
cleared out as everyone headed to their barracks for the time officially dedicated
to independent study. Quiet time, in other words. For most of the kids in
Bean's launch group, though, there was nothing to study -- they hadn't had any
classes yet. So for tonight, study meant playing the fantasy game on their
desks and bantering with each other to assert position. Everybody's desk popped
up with the suggestion that they could write letters home to their families.
Some of the kids chose to do that. And, no doubt, they all assumed that's what
Bean was doing.
But he was not. He signed on
to his first desk as Poke and discovered that, as he suspected, it didn't
matter which desk he used, it was the name and password that determined
everything. He would never have to pull that second desk out of its locker.
Using the Poke identity, he wrote a journal entry. This was not unexpected --
"diary" was one of the options on the desk.
What should he be? A whiner?
"Everybody pushed me out of the way in the game room just because I'm
little, it isn't fair!" A baby? "I miss Sister Carlotta so so so
much, I wish I could be in my own room back in Rotterdam." Ambitious?
"I'll get the best scores on everything, they'll see."
In the end, he decided on
something a little more subtle.
{What would Achilles do if he
were me? Of course he's not little, but with his bad leg it's almost the same
thing. Achilles always knew how to wait and not show them anything. That's what
I've got to do, too. Just wait and see what pops up. Nobody's going to want to
be my friend at first. But after a while, they'll get used to me and we'll
start sorting ourselves out in the classes. The first ones who'll let me get
close will be the weaker ones, but that's not a problem. You build your crew
based on loyalty first, that's what Achilles did, build loyalty and train them
to obey. You work with what you have, and go from there.}
Let them stew on *that*. Let
them think he was trying to turn Battle School into the street life that he
knew. They'd believe it. And in the meantime, he'd have time to learn as much
as he could about how Battle School actually worked, and come up with a
strategy that actually fit the situation.
Dimak came in one last time
before lights out. "Your desks keep working after lights out," he
said, "but if you use it when you're supposed to be sleeping, we'll know
about it and we'll know what you're doing. So it better be important, or you go
on the pig list."
Most of the kids put their
desks away; a couple of them defiantly kept them out. Bean didn't care either
way. He had other things to think about. Plenty of time for the desk tomorrow,
or the next day.
He lay in the near-darkness --
apparently the babies here had to have a little light so they could find their
way to the toilet without tripping -- and listened to the sounds around him,
learning what they meant. A few whispers, a few shushes. The breathing of boys
and girls as, one by one, they fell asleep. A few even had light child-snores.
But under those human sounds, the windsound from the air system, and random
clicking and distant voices, sounds of the flexing of a station rotating into
and out of sunlight, the sound of adults working through the night.
This place was so expensive.
Huge, to hold thousands of kids and teachers and staff and crew. As expensive
as a ship of the fleet, surely. And all of it just to train little children.
The adults may keep the kids wrapped up in a game, but it was serious business
to *them*. This program of training children for war wasn't just some wacko
educational theory gone mad, though Sister Carlotta was probably right when she
said that a lot of people thought it was. The I.F. wouldn't maintain it at this
level if it weren't expected to give serious results. So these kids snoring and
soughing and whispering their way into the darkness, they really mattered.
They expect results from me.
It's not just a party up here, where you come for the food and then do what you
want. They really do want to make commanders out of us. And since Battle School
has been going for a while, they probably have proof that it works -- kids who
already graduated and went on to compile a decent service record. That's what
I've got to keep in mind. Whatever the system is here, it works.
A different sound. Not regular
breathing. Jagged little breaths. An occasional gasp. And then ... a sob.
Crying. Some boy was crying
himself to sleep.
In the nest, Bean had heard
some of the kids cry in their sleep, or as they neared sleep. Crying because
they were hungry or injured or sick or cold. But what did these kids have to
cry about here?
Another set of soft sobs
joined the first.
They're homesick, Bean
realized. They've never been away from mommy and daddy before, and it's getting
to them.
Bean just didn't get it. He
didn't feel that way about anybody. You just live in the place you're in, you
don't worry about where you used to be or where you wish you were, *here* is
where you are and here's where you've got to find a way to survive and lying in
bed boo-hooing doesn't help much with *that*.
No problem, though. Their
weakness just puts me farther ahead. One less rival on my road to becoming a
commander.
Is that how Ender Wiggin
thought about things? Bean recalled everything he had learned about Ender so
far. The kid was resourceful. He didn't openly fight with Bonzo, but he didn't
put up with his stupid decisions, either. It was fascinating to Bean, because
on the street the one rule he knew for sure was, you don't stick your neck out
unless your throat's about to be slit anyway. If you have a stupid crew boss,
you don't tell him he's stupid, you don't show him he's stupid, you just go
along and keep your head down. That's how kids survived.
When he had to, Bean had taken
a bold risk. Got himself onto Poke's crew that way. But that was about food.
That was about not dying. Why did Ender take such a risk when there was nothing
at stake but his standing in the war game?
Maybe Ender knew something
Bean didn't know. Maybe there was some reason why the game was more important
than it seemed.
Or maybe Ender was one of
those kids who just couldn't stand to lose, ever. The kind of kid who's for the
team only as long as the team is taking him where he wants to go, and if it
isn't, then it's every man for himself. That's what Bonzo thought. But Bonzo
was stupid.
Once again, Bean was reminded
that there were things he didn't understand. Ender wasn't doing every man for
himself. He didn't practice alone. He opened his free time practice to other
kids. Launchies, too, not just kids who could do things for him. Was it
possible he did that just because it was a decent thing to do?
The way Poke had offered
herself to Achilles in order to save Bean's life?
No, Bean didn't *know* that's
what she did, he didn't know that's why she died.
But the possibility was there.
And in his heart, he believed it. That was the thing he had always despised
about her. She acted tough but she was soft at heart. And yet ... that softness
was what saved his life. And try as he might, he couldn't get himself to take
the too-bad-for-her attitude that prevailed on the street. She listened to me
when I talked to her, she did a hard thing that risked her own life on the
chance that it would lead to a better life for all her crew. Then she offered
me a place at her table and, in the end, she put herself between me and danger.
Why?
What was this great secret?
Did Ender know it? How did he learn it? Why couldn't Bean figure it out for
himself? Try as he might, though, he couldn't understand Poke. He couldn't
understand Sister Carlotta, either. Couldn't understand the arms she held him
with, the tears she shed over him. Didn't they understand that no matter how
much they loved him, he was still a separate person, and doing good for him
didn't improve their lives in any way?
If Ender Wiggin has this
weakness, then I will not be anything like him. I am not going to sacrifice
myself for anybody. And the beginning of that is that I refuse to lie in my bed
and cry for Poke floating there in the water with her throat slit, or boo-hoo
because Sister Carlotta isn't asleep in the next room.
He wiped his eyes, rolled
over, and willed his body to relax and go to sleep. Moments later, he was
dozing in that light, easy-to-rouse sleep. Long before morning his pillow would
be dry.
***
He dreamed, as human beings
always dream -- random firings of memory and imagination that the unconscious
mind tries to put together into coherent stories. Bean rarely paid attention to
his own dreams, rarely even remembered that he dreamed at all. But this morning
he awoke with a clear image in his mind.
Ants, swarming from a crack in
the sideway. Little black ants. And larger red ants, doing battle with them,
destroying them. All of them scurrying. None of them looking up to see the
human shoe coming down to stamp the life out of them.
When the shoe came back up,
what was crushed under it was not ant bodies at all. They were the bodies of
children, the urchins from the streets of Rotterdam. All of Achilles' family.
Bean himself -- he recognized his own face, rising above his flattened body,
peering around for one last glimpse at the world before death.
Above him loomed the shoe that
killed him. But now it was worn on the end of a bugger's leg, and the bugger
laughed and laughed.
Bean remembered the laughing
bugger when he awoke, and remembered the sight of all those children crushed
flat, of his own body mashed like gum under a shoe. The meaning was obvious:
While we children play at war, the buggers are coming to crush us. We must look
above the level of our private struggles and keep in mind the greater enemy.
Except that Bean rejected that
interpretation of his own dream the moment he thought of it. Dreams have no
meaning at all, he reminded himself. And even if they do mean something, it's a
meaning that reveals what I feel, what I fear, not some deep abiding truth. So
the buggers are coming. So they might crush us all like ants under their feet.
What's that to me? My business right now is to keep Bean alive, to advance
myself to a position where I might be useful in the war against the buggers.
There's nothing I can do to stop them right now.
Here's the lesson Bean took
from his own dream: Don't be one of the scurrying, struggling ants.
Be the shoe.
***
Sister Carlotta had reached a
dead end in her search of the nets. Plenty of information on human genetics
studies, but nothing like what she was looking for.
So she sat there, doodling
with a nuisance game on her desk while trying to think of what to do next and
wondering why she was bothering to look into Bean's beginnings at all, when the
secure message arrived from the I.F. Since the message would erase itself a
minute after arrival, to be re-sent every minute until it was read by the
recipient, she opened it at once and keyed in her first and second passwords.
{FROM:
Col.Graff@BattleSchool.IF
TO:
Ss.Carlotta@SpecAsn.RemCon.IF
RE: Achilles
Please report all info on
"Achilles" as known to subject.}
As usual, a message so cryptic
that it didn't actually have to be encrypted, though of course it had been.
This was a secure message, wasn't it? So why not just use the kid's name.
"Please report on 'Achilles' as known to *Bean*."
Somehow Bean had given them
the name Achilles, and under circumstances such that they didn't want to ask
him directly to explain. So it had to be in something he had written. A letter
to her? She felt a little thrill of hope and then scoffed at her own feelings.
She knew perfectly well that mail from the kids in Battle School was almost
never passed along, and besides, the chance of Bean actually writing to her was
remote. But they had the name somehow, and wanted to know from her what it
meant.
The trouble is, she didn't
want to give him that information without knowing what it would mean for Bean.
So she prepared an equally
cryptic reply:
{Will reply by secure
conference only.}
Of course this would infuriate
Graff, but that was just a perk. Graff was so used to having power far beyond
his rank that it would be good for him to have a reminder that all obedience
was voluntary and ultimately depended on the free choice of the person receiving
the orders. And she would obey, in the end. She just wanted to make sure Bean
was not going to suffer from the information. If they knew he had been so
closely involved with both the perpetrator and the victim of a murder, they
might drop him from the program. And even if she was sure it would be all right
to talk about it, she might be able to get a quid pro quo.
It took another hour before
the secure conference was set up, and when Graff's head appeared in the display
above her computer, he was not happy. "What game are you playing today,
Sister Carlotta?"
"You've been putting on
weight, Colonel Graff. That's not healthy."
"Achilles," he said.
"Man with a bad
heel," she said. "Killed Hector and dragged his body around the gates
of Troy. Also had a thing for a captive girl named Briseis."
"You know that's not the
context."
"I know more than that. I
know you must have got the name from something Bean wrote, because the name is
not pronounced uh-KILL-eez, it's pronounced ah-SHEEL. French."
"Someone local
there."
"Dutch is the native
language here, though Fleet Common has just about driven it out as anything but
a curiosity."
"Sister Carlotta, I don't
appreciate your wasting the expense of this conference."
"And I'm not going to
talk about it until I know why you need to know."
Graff took a few deep breaths.
She wondered if his mother taught him to count to ten, or if, perhaps, he had
learned to bite his tongue from dealing with nuns in Catholic school.
"We are trying to make
sense of something Bean wrote."
"Let me see it and I'll
help you as I can."
"He's not your
responsibility anymore, Sister Carlotta," said Graff.
"Then why are you asking
me about him? He's your responsibility, yes? So I can get back to work,
yes?"
Graff sighed and did something
with his hands, out of sight in the display. Moments later the text of Bean's
diary entry appeared on her display below and in front of Graff's face. She
read it, smiling slightly.
"Well?" asked Graff.
"He's doing a number on
you, Colonel."
"What do you mean?"
"He knows you're going to
read it. He's misleading you."
"You *know* this?"
"Achilles might indeed be
providing him with an example, but not a good one. Achilles once betrayed
someone that Bean valued highly."
"Don't be vague, Sister
Carlotta."
"I wasn't vague. I told
you precisely what I wanted you to know. Just as Bean told you what he wanted
you to hear. I can promise you that his diary entries will only make sense to
you if you recognize that he is writing these things for you, with the intent
to deceive."
"Why, because he didn't
keep a diary down there?"
"Because his memory is
perfect," said Sister Carlotta. "He would never, never commit his
real thoughts to a readable form. He keeps his own counsel. Always. You will
never find a document written by him that is not meant to be read."
"Would it make a
difference if he was writing it under another identity? Which he thinks we
don't know about?"
"But you *do* know about
it, and so he *knows* you will know about it, so the other identity is there
only to confuse you, and it's working."
"I forgot, you think this
kid is smarter than God."
"I'm not worried that you
don't accept my evaluation. The better you know him, the more you'll realize
that I'm right. You'll even come to believe those test scores."
"What will it take to get
you to help me with this?" asked Graff.
"Try telling me the truth
about what this information will mean to Bean."
"He's got his primary
teacher worried. He disappeared for twenty-one minutes on the way back from
lunch -- we have a witness who talked to him on a deck where he had no
business, and that still doesn't account for that last seventeen minutes of his
absence. He doesn't play with his desk --"
"You think setting up
false identities and writing phony diary entries isn't playing?"
"There's a diagnostic /
therapeutic game that all the children play -- he hasn't even signed on
yet."
"He'll know that the game
is psychological, and he won't play it until he knows what it will cost
him."
"Did you teach him that
attitude of default hostility?"
"No, I learned it from
him."
"Tell me straight. Based
on this diary entry, it looks as though he plans to set up his own crew here,
as if this were the street. We need to know about this Achilles so we'll know
what he actually has in mind."
"He plans no such
thing," said Sister Carlotta.
"You say it so
forcefully, but without giving me a single reason to trust your
conclusion."
"You called *me*,
remember?"
"That's not enough,
Sister Carlotta. Your opinions on this boy are suspect."
"He would never emulate
Achilles. He would never write his true plans where you could find them. He
does not build crews, he joins them and uses them and moves on without a
backward glance."
"So investigating this
Achilles won't give us a clue about Bean's future behavior?"
"Bean prides himself on
not holding grudges. He thinks they're counterproductive. But at some level, I
believe he wrote about Achilles specifically because you would read what he
wrote and would want to know more about Achilles, and if you investigated him
you would discover a very bad thing that Achilles did."
"To Bean?"
"To a friend of
his."
"So he *is* capable of
having friendships?"
"The girl who saved his
life here on the street."
"And what's *her*
name?"
"Poke. But don't bother
looking for her. She's dead."
Graff thought about that a
moment. "Is that the bad thing Achilles did?"
"Bean has reason to
believe so, though I don't think it would be evidence enough to convict in
court. And as I said, all these things may be unconscious. I don't think Bean
would knowingly try to get even with Achilles, or anybody else, for that
matter, but he might hope you'd do it for him."
"You're still holding
back, but I have no choice but to trust your judgment, do I?"
"I promise you that
Achilles is a dead end."
"And if you think of a
reason why it might not be so dead after all?"
"I want your program to
succeed, Colonel Graff, even more than I want Bean to succeed. My priorities
are not skewed by the fact that I do care about the child. I really have told
you everything now. But I hope you'll help me also."
"Information isn't traded
in the I.F., Sister Carlotta. It flows from those who have it to those who need
it."
"Let me tell you what I
want, and you decide if I need it."
"Well?"
"I want to know of any
illegal or top secret projects involving the alteration of the human genome in
the past ten years."
Graff looked off into the
distance. "It's too soon for you to be off on a new project, isn't it. So
this is the same old project. This is about Bean."
"He came from
somewhere."
"You mean his mind came
from somewhere."
"I mean the whole
package. I think you're going to end up relying on this boy, betting all our
lives on him, and I think you need to know what's going on in his genes. It's a
poor second to knowing what's happening in his mind, but that, I suspect, will
always be out of reach for you."
"You sent him up here,
and then you tell me something like this. Don't you realize that you have just
guaranteed that I will never let him move to the top of our selection
pool?"
"You say that now, when
you've only had him for a day," said Sister Carlotta. "He'll grow on
you."
"He damn well better not
shrink or he'd get sucked away by the air system."
"Tut-tut, Colonel
Graff."
"Sorry, Sister," he
answered.
"Give me a high enough
clearance and I'll do the search myself."
"No," he said.
"But I'll get summaries sent to you."
She knew that they would give
her only as much information as they thought she should have. But when he tried
to fob her off with useless drivel, she'd deal with that problem, too. Just as
she would try to get to Achilles before the I.F. found him. Get him away from
the streets and into a school. Under another name. Because if the I.F. found
him, in all likelihood they would test him -- or find her scores on him. If
they tested him, they would fix his foot and bring him up to Battle School. And
she had promised Bean that he would never have to face Achilles again.
CHAPTER 8 -- GOOD STUDENT
"He doesn't play the
fantasy game at *all*?"
"He has never so much as
chosen a figure, let alone come through the portal."
"It's not possible that
he hasn't discovered it."
"He reset the preferences
on his desk so that the invitation no longer pops up."
"From which you conclude
..."
"He knows it isn't a
game. He doesn't want us analyzing the workings of his mind."
"And yet he wants us to
advance him."
"I don't know that. He
buries himself in his studies. For three months he's been getting perfect
scores on every test. But he only reads the lesson material once. His study is
on other subjects of his own choosing."
"Such as?"
"Vauban."
"Seventeenth-century
fortifications? What is he *thinking*?"
"You see the
problem?"
"How does he get along
with the other children?"
"I think the classic
description is 'loner.' He is polite. He volunteers nothing. He asks only what
he's interested in. The kids in his launch group think he's strange. They know
he scores better than them on everything, but they don't hate him. They treat
him like a force of nature. No friends, but no enemies."
"That's important, that
they don't hate him. They should, if he stays aloof like that."
"I think it's a skill he
learned on the street -- to turn away anger. He never gets angry himself. Maybe
that's why the teasing about his size stopped."
"Nothing that you're
telling me suggests that he has command potential."
"If you think he's trying
to show command potential and failing at it, then you're right."
"So ... what do you think
he's doing?"
"Analyzing us."
"Gathering information
without giving any. Do you really think he's that sophisticated?"
"He stayed alive on the
street."
"I think it's time for
you to probe a little."
"And let him know that
his reticence bothers us?"
"If he's as clever as you
think, he already knows."
***
Bean didn't mind being dirty.
He had gone years without bathing, after all. A few days didn't bother him. And
if other people minded, they kept their opinions to themselves. Let them add it
to the gossip about him. Smaller and younger than Ender! Perfect scores on
every test! Stinks like a pig!
That shower time was precious.
That's when he could sign on to his desk as one of the boys bunking near him --
while they were showering. They were naked, wearing only towels to the shower,
so their uniforms weren't tracking them. During that time Bean could sign on
and explore the system without letting the teachers know that he was learning
the tricks of the system. It tipped his hand, just a little, when he altered
the preferences so he didn't have to face that stupid invitation to play their
mind game every time he changed tasks on his desk. But that wasn't a very
difficult hack, and he decided they wouldn't be particularly alarmed that he'd
figured it out.
So far, Bean had found only a
few really useful things, but he felt as though he was on the verge of breaking
through more important walls. He knew that there was a virtual system that the
students were meant to hack through. He had heard the legends about how Ender
(of course) had hacked the system on his first day and signed on as God, but he
knew that while Ender might have been unusually quick about it, he wasn't doing
anything that wasn't expected of bright, ambitious students.
Bean's first achievement was
to find the way the teachers' system tracked student computer activity. By
avoiding the actions that were automatically reported to the teachers, he was
able to create a private file area that they wouldn't see unless they were
deliberately looking for it. Then, whenever he found something interesting while
signed on as someone else, he would remember the location, then go and download
the information into his secure area and work on it at his leisure -- while his
desk reported that he was reading works from the library. He actually read
those works, of course, but far more quickly than his desk reported.
With all that preparation,
Bean expected to make real progress. But far too quickly he ran into the
firewalls -- information the system had to have but wouldn't yield. He found
several workarounds. For instance, he couldn't find any maps of the whole
station, only of the student-accessible areas, and those were always
diagrammatic and cute, deliberately out of scale. But he did find a series of
emergency maps in a program that would automatically display them on the walls
of the corridors in the event of a pressure-loss emergency, showing the nearest
safety locks. These maps were to scale, and by combining them into a single map
in his secure area, he was able to create a schema of the whole station. Nothing
was labeled except the locks, of course, but he learned of the existence of a
parallel system of corridors on either side of the student area. The station
must be not one but three parallel wheels, cross-linked at many points. That's
where the teachers and staff lived, where the life support was located, the
communications with the Fleet. The bad news was that they had separate
air-circulation systems. The ductwork in one would not lead him to either of
the others. Which meant that while he could probably spy on anything going on
in the student wheel, the other wheels were out of reach.
Even within the student wheel,
however, there were plenty of secret places to explore. The students had access
to four decks, plus the gym below A-Deck and the battleroom above D-Deck. There
were actually nine decks, however, two below A-Deck and three above D. Those
spaces had to be used for something. And if they thought it was worth hiding it
from the students, Bean figured it was worth exploring.
And he would have to start
exploring soon. His exercise was making him stronger, and he was staying lean
by not overeating -- it was unbelievable how much food they tried to force on
him, and they kept increasing his portions, probably because the previous
servings hadn't caused him to gain as much weight as they wanted him to gain.
But what he could not control was the increase in his height. The ducts would
be impassable for him before too long -- if they weren't already. Yet using the
air system to get him access to the hidden decks was not something he could do
during showers. It would mean losing sleep. So he kept putting it off -- one
day wouldn't make that much difference.
Until the morning when Dimak
came into the barracks first thing in the morning and announced that everyone
was to change his password immediately, with his back turned to the rest of the
room, and was to tell no one what the new password was. "Never type it in
where anyone can see," he said.
"Somebody's been using
other people's passwords?" asked a kid, his tone suggesting that he
thought this an appalling idea. Such dishonor! Bean wanted to laugh.
"It's required of all
I.F. personnel, so you might as well develop the habit now," said Dimak.
"Anyone found using the same password for more than a week will go on the
pig list."
But Bean could only assume
that they had caught on to what he was doing. That meant they had probably
looked back into his probing for the past months and knew pretty much what he
had found out. He signed on and purged his secure file area, on the chance that
they hadn't actually found it yet. Everything he really needed there, he had
already memorized. He would never rely on the desk again for anything his
memory could hold.
Stripping and wrapping his
towel around him, Bean headed for the showers with the others. But Dimak
stopped him at the door.
"Let's talk," he
said.
"What about my
shower?" asked Bean.
"Suddenly you care about
cleanliness?" asked Dimak.
So Bean expected to be chewed
out for stealing passwords. Instead, Dimak sat beside him on a lower bunk near
the door and asked him far more general questions. "How are you getting on
here?"
"Fine."
"I know your test scores
are good, but I'm concerned that you aren't making many friends among the other
kids."
"I've got a lot of
friends."
"You mean you know a lot
of people's names and don't quarrel with anybody."
Bean shrugged. He didn't like
this line of questioning any better than he would have liked an inquiry into
his computer use.
"Bean, the system here
was designed for a reason. There are a lot of factors that go into our
decisions concerning a student's ability to command. The classwork is an
important part of that. But so is leadership."
"Everybody here is just
full of leadership ability, right?"
Dimak laughed. "Well,
that's true, you can't all be leaders at once."
"I'm about as big as a
three-year-old," said Bean. "I don't think a lot of kids are eager to
start saluting me."
"But you could be
building networks of friendship. The other kids are. You don't."
"I guess I don't have
what it takes to be a commander."
Dimak raised an eyebrow.
"Are you suggesting you *want* to be iced?"
"Do my test scores look
like I'm trying to fail?"
"What *do* you
want?" asked Dimak. "You don't play the games the other kids play.
Your exercise program is weird, even though you know the regular program is
designed to strengthen you for the battleroom. Does that mean you don't intend
to play that game, either? Because if that's your plan, you really *will* get
iced. That's our primary means of assessing command ability. That's why the
whole life of the school is centered around the armies."
"I'll do fine in the
battleroom," said Bean.
"If you think you can do
it without preparation, you're mistaken. A quick mind is no replacement for a
strong, agile body. You have no idea how physically demanding the battleroom
can be."
"I'll join the regular
workouts, sir."
Dimak leaned back and closed
his eyes with a small sigh. "My, but you're compliant, aren't you,
Bean."
"I try to be, sir."
"That is such complete
bullshit," said Dimak.
"Sir?" Here it
comes, thought Bean.
"If you devoted the
energy to making friends that you devote to hiding things from the teachers,
you'd be the most beloved kid in the school."
"That would be Ender
Wiggin, sir."
"And don't think we
haven't picked up on the way you obsess about Wiggin."
"Obsess?" Bean
hadn't asked about him after that first day. Never joined in discussions about
the standings. Never visited the battleroom during Ender's practice sessions.
Oh. What an obvious mistake.
Stupid.
"You're the only launchy
who has completely avoided so much as seeing Ender Wiggin. You track his
schedule so thoroughly that you are never in the same room with him. That takes
real effort."
"I'm a launchy, sir. He's
in an army."
"Don't play dumb, Bean.
It's not convincing and it wastes my time."
Tell a useless and obvious
truth, that was the rule. "Everyone compares me to Ender all the time
'cause I came here so young and small. I wanted to make my own way."
"I'll accept that for now
because there's a limit to how deeply I want to wade into your bullshit,"
said Dimak.
But in saying what he'd said
about Ender, Bean wondered if it might not be true. Why shouldn't I have such a
normal emotion as jealousy? I'm not a machine. So he was a little offended that
Dimak seemed to assume that something more subtle had to be going on. That Bean
was lying no matter what he said.
"Tell me," said
Dimak, "why you refuse to play the fantasy game."
"It looks boring and
stupid," said Bean. That was certainly true.
"Not good enough,"
said Dimak. "For one thing, it *isn't* boring and stupid to any other kid
in Battle School. In fact, the game adapts itself to your interests."
I have no doubt of *that*,
thought Bean. "It's all pretending," said Bean. "None of it's
real."
"Stop hiding for one
second, can't you?" snapped Dimak. "You know perfectly well that we
use the game to analyze personality, and that's why you refuse to play."
"Sounds like you've
analyzed my personality anyway," said Bean.
"You just don't let up,
do you?"
Bean said nothing. There was
nothing to say.
"I've been looking at
your reading list," said Dimak. "Vauban?"
"Yes?"
"Fortification engineering
from the time of Louis the Fourteenth?"
Bean nodded. He thought back
to Vauban and how his strategies had adapted to fit Louis's
ever-more-straitened finances. Defense in depth had given way to a thin line of
defenses; building new fortresses had largely been abandoned, while razing
redundant or poorly placed ones continued. Poverty triumphing over strategy. He
started to talk about this, but Dimak cut him off.
"Come on, Bean. Why are
you studying a subject that has nothing to do with war in space?"
Bean didn't really have an
answer. He had been working through the history of strategy from Xenophon and
Alexander to Caesar and Machiavelli. Vauban came in sequence. There was no plan
-- mostly his readings were a cover for his clandestine computer work. But now
that Dimak was asking him, what *did* seventeenth-century fortifications have
to do with war in space?
"I'm not the one who put
Vauban in the library."
"We have the full set of
military writings that are found in every library in the fleet. Nothing more
significant than that."
Bean shrugged.
"You spent two hours on
Vauban."
"So what? I spent as long
on Frederick the Great, and I don't think we're doing field drills, either, or
bayoneting anyone who breaks ranks during a march into fire."
"You didn't actually read
Vauban, did you," said Dimak. "So I want to know what you *were*
doing."
"I *was* reading
Vauban."
"You think we don't know
how fast you read?"
"And *thinking* about
Vauban?"
"All right then, what
were you thinking?"
"Like you said. About how
it applies to war in space." Buy some time here. What *does* Vauban have
to do with war in space?
"I'm waiting," said
Dimak. "Give me the insights that occupied you for two hours just
yesterday."
"Well of course
fortifications are impossible in space," said Bean. "In the
traditional sense, that is. But there are things you can do. Like his
mini-fortresses, where you leave a sallying force outside the main
fortification. You can station squads of ships to intercept raiders. And there
are barriers you can put up. Mines. Fields of flotsam to cause collisions with
fast-moving ships, holing them. That sort of thing."
Dimak nodded, but said
nothing.
Bean was beginning to warm to
the discussion. "The real problem is that unlike Vauban, we have only one
strong point worth defending -- Earth. And the enemy is not limited to a
primary direction of approach. He could come from anywhere. From anywhere all
at once. So we run into the classic problem of defense, cubed. The farther out
you deploy your defenses, the more of them you have to have, and if your
resources are limited, you soon have more fortifications than you can man. What
good are bases on moons Jupiter or Saturn or Neptune, when the enemy doesn't
even have to come in on the plane of the ecliptic? He can bypass all our
fortifications. The way Nimitz and MacArthur used two-dimensional island-hopping
against the defense in depth of the Japanese in World War II. Only our enemy
can work in three dimensions. Therefore we cannot possibly maintain defense in
depth. Our only defense is early detection and a single massed force."
Dimak nodded slowly. His face
showed no expression. "Go on."
Go on? That wasn't enough to
explain two hours of reading? "Well, so I thought that even that was a
recipe for disaster, because the enemy is free to divide his forces. So even if
we intercept and defeat ninety-nine of a hundred attacking squadrons, he only
has to get one squadron through to cause terrible devastation on Earth. We saw
how much territory a single ship could scour when they first showed up and
started burning over China. Get ten ships to Earth for a single day -- and if
they spread us out enough, they'd have a lot more than a day! -- and they could
wipe out most of our main population centers. All our eggs are in that one
basket."
"And all this you got
from Vauban," said Dimak.
Finally. That was apparently
enough to satisfy him. "From thinking about Vauban, and how much harder
our defensive problem is."
"So," said Dimak,
"what's your solution?"
Solution? What did Dimak think
Bean was? I'm thinking about how to get control of the situation here in Battle
School, not how to save the world! "I don't think there is a
solution," said Bean, buying time again. But then, having said it, he
began to believe it. "There's no point in trying to defend Earth at all.
In fact, unless they have some defensive device we don't know about, like some
way of putting an invisible shield around a planet or something, the enemy is
just as vulnerable. So the only strategy that makes any sense at all is an
all-out attack. To send our fleet against *their* home world and destroy
it."
"What if our fleets pass
in the night?" asked Dimak. "We destroy each other's worlds and all
we have left are ships?"
"No," said Bean, his
mind racing. "Not if we sent out a fleet immediately after the Second
Bugger War. After Mazer Rackham's strike force defeated them, it would take
time for word of their defeat to come back to them. So we build a fleet as
quickly as possible and launch it against their home world immediately. That
way the news of their defeat reaches them at the same time as our devastating
counterattack."
Dimak closed his eyes.
"Now you tell us."
"No," said Bean, as
it dawned on him that he was right about everything. "That fleet was
already sent. Before anybody on this station was born, that fleet was
launched."
"Interesting
theory," said Dimak. "Of course you're wrong on every point."
"No I'm not," said
Bean. He knew he wasn't wrong, because Dimak's air of calm was not holding.
Sweat was standing out on his forehead. Bean had hit on something really
important here, and Dimak knew it.
"I mean your theory is
right, about the difficulty of defense in space. But hard as it is, we still
have to do it, and that's why you're here. As to some fleet we supposedly
launched -- the Second Bugger War exhausted humanity's resources, Bean. It's
taken us this long to get a reasonable-sized fleet again. And to get better
weaponry for the next battle. If you learned anything from Vauban, you should
have learned that you can't build more than your people have resources to
support. Besides which, you're assuming we know where the enemy's home world
is. But your analysis is good insofar as you've identified the magnitude of the
problem we face."
Dimak got up from the bunk.
"It's nice to know that your study time isn't completely wasted on
breaking into the computer system," he said.
With that parting shot, he
left the barracks.
Bean got up and walked back to
his own bunk, where he got dressed. No time for a shower now, and it didn't
matter anyway. Because he knew that he had struck a nerve in what he said to
Dimak. The Second Bugger War hadn't exhausted humanity's resources, Bean was
sure of that. The problems of defending a planet were so obvious that the I.F.
couldn't possibly have missed them, especially not in the aftermath of a
nearly-lost war. They knew they had to attack. They built the fleet. They
launched it. It was gone. It was inconceivable that they had done anything
else.
So what was all this nonsense
with the Battle School for? Was Dimak right, that Battle School was simply
about building up the defensive fleet around Earth to counter any enemy assault
that might have passed our invasion fleet on the way?
If that were true, there would
be no reason to conceal it. No reason to lie. In fact, all the propaganda on
Earth was devoted to telling people how vital it was to prepare for the next
Bugger invasion. So Dimak had done nothing more than repeat the story that the
I.F. had been telling everybody on Earth for three generations. Yet Dimak was
sweating like a fish. Which suggested that the story wasn't true.
The defensive fleet around
Earth was already fully manned, that was the problem. The normal process of
recruitment would have been enough. Defensive war didn't take brilliance, just
alertness. Early detection, cautious interception, protection of an adequate
reserve. Success depended, not on the quality of command, but on the quantity
of available ships and the quality of the weaponry. There was no reason for
Battle School -- Battle School only made sense in the context of an offensive
war, a war where maneuver, strategy, and tactics would play an important role.
But the offensive fleet was already gone. For all Bean knew, the battle had
already been fought years ago and the I.F. was just waiting for news about
whether we had won or lost. It all depended on how many light-years away the
Bugger home planet was.
For all we know, thought Bean,
the war is already over, the I.F. knows that we won, and they simply haven't
told anybody.
And the reason for that was
obvious. The only thing that had ended war on Earth and bound together all of
humanity was a common cause -- defeating the Buggers. As soon as it was known
that the Bugger threat was eliminated, all the pent-up hostilities would be
released. Whether it was the Muslim world against the West, or long-restrained
Russian imperialism and paranoia against the Atlantic alliance, or Indian
adventurism, or ... or all of them at once. Chaos. The resources of the
International Fleet would be co-opted by mutinying commanders from one faction
or another. Conceivably it could mean the destruction of Earth -- without any
help from the Formics at all.
That's what the I.F. was
trying to prevent. The terrible cannibalistic war that would follow. Just as
Rome tore itself apart in civil war after the final elimination of Carthage --
only far worse, because the weapons were more terrible and the hatreds far
deeper, national and religious hatreds rather than the mere personal rivalries
among leading citizens of Rome.
The I.F. was determined to
prevent it.
In that context, Battle School
made perfect sense. For many years, almost every child on Earth had been
tested, and those with any potential brilliance in military command were taken
out of their homeland and put into space. The best of the Battle School
graduates, or at least those most loyal to the I.F., might very well be used to
command armies when the I.F. finally announced the end of the war and struck
preemptively to eliminate national armies and unify the world, finally and
permanently, under one government. But the main purpose of the Battle School
was to get these kids off Earth so that they could not become commanders of the
armies of any one nation or faction.
After all, the invasion of
France by the major European powers after the French Revolution led to the
desperate French government discovering and promoting Napoleon, even though in
the end he seized the reins of power instead of just defending the nation. The
I.F. was determined that there would be no Napoleons on Earth to lead the
resistance. All the potential Napoleons were here, wearing silly uniforms and
battling each other for supremacy in a stupid game. It was all pig lists. By
taking us, they have tamed the world.
"If you don't get
dressed, you'll be late for class," said Nikolai, the boy who slept on the
bottommost bunk directly across from Bean.
"Thanks," said Bean.
He shed his dry towel and hurriedly pulled on his uniform.
"Sorry I had to tell them
about your using my password," said Nikolai.
Bean was dumfounded.
"I mean, I didn't *know*
it was you, but they started asking me what I was looking for in the emergency
map system, and since I didn't know what they were talking about, it wasn't
hard to guess that somebody was signing on as me, and there you are, in the
perfect place to see my desk whenever I sign on, and ... I mean, you're really
smart. But it's not like I set out to tell on you."
"That's fine," said
Bean. "Not a problem."
"But, I mean, what *did*
you find out? From the maps?"
Until this moment, Bean would
have blown off the question -- and the boy. Nothing much, I was just curious,
that's what he would have said. But now his whole world had changed. Now it
mattered that he have connections with the other boys, not so he could show his
leadership ability to the teachers, but so that when war did break out on
Earth, and when the I.F.'s little plan failed, as it was bound to do, he would
know who his allies and enemies were among the commanders of the various
national and factional armies.
For the I.F.'s plan *would*
fail. It was a miracle it hadn't failed already. It depended too heavily on
millions of soldiers and commanders being more loyal to the I.F. than to their
homeland. It would not happen. The I.F. itself would break up into factions,
inevitably.
But the plotters no doubt were
aware of that danger. They would have kept the number of plotters as small as
possible -- perhaps only the triumvirate of Hegemon, Strategos, and Polemarch
and maybe a few people here at Battle School. Because this station was the
heart of the plan. Here was where every single gifted commander for two
generations had been studied intimately. There were records on every one of
them -- who was most talented, most valuable. What their weaknesses were, both
in character and in command. Who their friends were. What their loyalties were.
Which of them, therefore, should be approached to command the I.F.'s forces in
the intrahuman wars to come, and which should be stripped of command and held
incommunicado until hostilities were over.
No wonder they were worried
about Bean's lack of participation in their little mind game. It made him an
unknown quantity. It made him dangerous.
Now it was even more dangerous
for Bean to play than ever. Not playing might make them suspicious and fearful
-- but in whatever move they planned against him, at least they wouldn't know
anything about him. While if he did play, then they might be less suspicious --
but if they did move against him, they would do it knowing whatever information
the game gave to them. And Bean was not at all confident of his ability to
outplay the game. Even if he tried to give them misleading results, that
strategy in itself might tell them more about him than he wanted them to know.
And there was another
possibility, too. He might be completely wrong. There might be key information
that he did not have. Maybe no fleet had been launched. Maybe they hadn't
defeated the Buggers at their home world. Maybe there really was a desperate
effort to build a defensive fleet. Maybe maybe maybe.
Bean had to get more
information in order to have some hope that his analysis was correct and that
his choices would be valid.
And Bean's isolation had to
end.
"Nikolai," said
Bean, "you wouldn't believe what I found out from those maps. Did you know
there are nine decks, not just four?"
"Nine?"
"And that's just in this
wheel. There are two other wheels they never tell us about."
"But the pictures of the
station show only the one wheel."
"Those pictures were all
taken when there *was* only one wheel. But in the plans, there are three.
Parallel to each other, turning together."
Nikolai looked thoughtful.
"But that's just the plans. Maybe they never built those other
wheels."
"Then why would they
still have maps for them in the emergency system?"
Nikolai laughed. "My
father always said, bureaucrats never throw anything away."
Of course. Why hadn't he
thought of that? The emergency map system was no doubt programmed before the first
wheel was ever brought into service. So all those maps would already be in the
system, even if the other wheels were never built, even if two-thirds of the
maps would never have a corridor wall to be displayed on. No one would bother
to go into the system and clean them out.
"I never thought of
that," said Bean. He knew, given his reputation for brilliance, that he
could pay Nikolai no higher compliment. As indeed the reaction of the other
kids in nearby bunks showed. No one had ever had such a conversation with Bean
before. No one had ever thought of something that Bean hadn't obviously thought
of first. Nikolai was blushing with pride.
"But the nine decks, that
makes sense," said Nikolai.
"Wish I knew what was on
them," said Bean.
"Life support," said
the girl named Corn Moon. "They got to be making oxygen somewhere here.
That takes a lot of plants."
More kids joined in. "And
staff. All we ever see are teachers and nutritionists."
"And maybe they *did*
build the other wheels. We don't *know* they didn't."
The speculation ran rampant
through the group. And at the center of it all: Bean.
Bean and his new friend,
Nikolai.
"Come on," said
Nikolai, "we'll be late for math."
PART THREE -- SCHOLAR
CHAPTER 9 -- GARDEN OF SOFIA
"So he found out how many
decks there are. What can he possibly do with that information?"
"Yes, that's the exact
question. What was he planning, that he felt it necessary to find that out?
Nobody else even looked for that, in the whole history of this school."
"You think he's plotting
revolution?"
"All we know about this
kid is that he survived on the streets of Rotterdam. It's a hellish place, from
what I hear. The kids are vicious. They make _Lord of the Flies_ look like
_Pollyanna_."
"When did you read
_Pollyanna_?"
"It was a book?"
"How can he plot a
revolution? He doesn't have any friends."
"I never said anything
about revolution, that's *your* theory."
"I don't have a theory. I
don't understand this kid. I never even wanted him up here. I think we should
just send him home."
"No."
"No *sir*, I'm sure you
meant to say."
"After three months in
Battle School, he figured out that defensive war makes no sense and that we
must have launched a fleet against the Bugger home worlds right after the end
of the last war."
"He knows *that*? And you
come telling me he knows how many *decks* there are?"
"He doesn't *know* it. He
guessed. I told him he was wrong."
"I'm sure he believed
you."
"I'm sure he's in
doubt."
"This is all the more
reason to send him back to Earth. Or out to some distant base somewhere. Do you
realize the nightmare if there's a breach of security on this?"
"Everything depends on
how he uses the information."
"Only we don't know
anything about him, so we have no way of knowing how he'll use it."
"Sister Carlotta --"
"Do you *hate* me? That
woman is even more inscrutable than your little dwarf."
"A mind like Bean's is
not to be thrown away just because we fear there might be a security
breach."
"Nor is security to be
thrown away for the sake of one really smart kid."
"Aren't we smart enough
to create new layers of deception for him? Let him find out something that
he'll think is the truth. All we have to do is come up with a lie that we think
he'll believe."
***
Sister Carlotta sat in the
terrace garden, across the tiny table from the wizened old exile.
"I'm just an old Russian
scientist living out the last years of his life on the shores of the Black
Sea." Anton took a long drag on his cigarette and blew it out over the
railing, adding it to the pollution flowing from Sofia out over the water.
"I'm not here with any
law enforcement authority," said Sister Carlotta.
"You have something much
more dangerous to me. You are from the Fleet."
"You're in no danger."
"That's true, but only
because I'm not going to tell you anything."
"Thank you for your
candor."
"You value candor, but I
don't think you would appreciate it if I told you the thoughts your body
arouses in the mind of this old Russian."
"Trying to shock nuns is
not much sport. There is no trophy."
"So you take nunnitude
seriously."
Sister Carlotta sighed.
"You think I came here because I know something about you and you don't
want me to find out more. But I came here because of what I can't find out
about you."
"Which is?"
"Anything. Because I was
researching a particular matter for the I.F., they gave me a summary of
articles on the topic of research into altering the human genome."
"And my name came
up?"
"On the contrary, your
name was never mentioned."
"How quickly they
forget."
"But when I read the few
papers available from the people they did mention -- always early work, before
the I.F. security machine clamped down on them -- I noticed a trend. Your name
was always cited in their footnotes. Cited constantly. And yet not a word of
yours could be found. Not even abstracts of papers. Apparently you have never
published."
"And yet they quote me.
Almost miraculous, isn't it? You people do collect miracles, don't you? To make
saints?"
"No beatification until
after you're dead, sorry."
"I have only one lung
left as it is," said Anton. "So I don't have that long to wait, as
long as I keep smoking."
"You could stop."
"With only one lung, it
takes twice as many cigarettes to get the same nicotine. Therefore I have had
to increase my smoking, not cut down. This should be obvious, but then, you do
not think like a scientist, you think like a woman of faith. You think like an
obedient person. When you find out something is bad, you don't do it."
"Your research was into
genetic limitations on human intelligence."
"Was it?"
"Because it's in that
area that you are always cited. Of course, these papers were never *about* that
exact subject, or they too would have been classified. But the titles of the
articles mentioned in the footnotes -- the ones you never wrote, since you
never published anything -- are all tied to that area."
"It is so easy in a
career to find oneself in a rut."
"So I want to ask you a
hypothetical question."
"My favorite kind. Next
to rhetorical ones. I can nap equally well through either kind."
"Suppose someone were to
break the law and attempt to alter the human genome, specifically to enhance
intelligence."
"Then someone would be in
serious danger of being caught and punished."
"Suppose that, using the
best available research, he found certain genes that he could alter in an
embryo that would enhance the intelligence of the person when he was
born."
"Embryo! Are you testing
me? Such changes can only happen in the egg. A single cell."
"And suppose a child was
born with these alterations in place. The child was born and he grew up enough
for his great intelligence to be noticed."
"I assume you are not
speaking of your own child."
"I'm speaking of no child
at all. A hypothetical child. How would someone recognize that this child had
been genetically altered? Without actually examining the genes."
Anton shrugged. "What
does it matter if you examine the genes? They will be normal."
"Even though you altered
them?"
"It is such a little
change. Hypothetically speaking."
"Within the normal range
of variation?"
"It is two switches, one
that you turn on, one that you turn off. The gene is already there, you
see."
"What gene?"
"Savants were the key,
for me. Autistic, usually. Dysfunctional. They have extraordinary mental
powers. Lightning-fast calculations. Phenomenal memories. But they are inept,
even retarded in other areas. Square roots of twelve-digit numbers in seconds,
but incapable of conducting a simple purchase in a store. How can they be so
brilliant, and so stupid?"
"That gene?"
"No, it was another, but
it showed me what was possible. The human brain could be far smarter than it
is. But is there a, how you say, bargain?"
"Trade-off."
"A terrible bargain. To
have this great intellect, you have to give up everything else. That's how the
brains of autistic savants accomplish such feats. They do one thing, and the
rest is a distraction, an annoyance, beyond the reach of any conceivable
interest. Their attention truly is undivided."
"So all hyperintelligent
people would be retarded in some other way."
"That is what we all
assumed, because that is what we saw. The exceptions seemed to be only mild
savants, who were thus able to spare some concentration on ordinary life. Then
I thought ... but I can't tell you what I thought, because I have been served
with an order of inhibition."
He smiled helplessly. Sister
Carlotta's heart fell. When someone was a proven security risk, they implanted
in his brain a device that caused any kind of anxiety to launch a feedback
loop, leading to a panic attack. Such people were then given periodic
sensitization to make sure that they felt a great deal of anxiety when they contemplated
talking about the forbidden subject. Viewed one way, it was a monstrous
intrusion on a person's life; but if it was compared to the common practice of
imprisoning or killing people who could not be trusted with a vital secret, an
order of intervention could look downright humane.
That explained, of course, why
Anton was amused by everything. He had to be. If he allowed himself to become
agitated or angry -- any strong negative emotion, really -- then he would have
a panic attack even without talking about forbidden subjects. Sister Carlotta
had read an article once in which the wife of a man equipped with such a device
said that their life together had never been happier, because now he took
everything so calmly, with good humor. "The children love him now, instead
of dreading his time at home." She said that, according to the article,
only hours before he threw himself from a cliff. Life was better, apparently,
for everyone but him.
And now she had met a man
whose very memories had been rendered inaccessible.
"What a shame," said
Sister Carlotta.
"But stay. My life here
is a lonely one. You're a sister of mercy, aren't you? Have mercy on a lonely
old man, and walk with me."
She wanted to say no, to leave
at once. At that moment, however, he leaned back in his chair and began to
breathe deeply, regularly, with his eyes closed, as he hummed a little tune to
himself.
A ritual of calming. So ... at
the very moment of inviting her to walk with him, he had felt some kind of
anxiety that triggered the device. That meant there was something important
about his invitation.
"Of course I'll walk with
you," she said. "Though technically my order is relatively
unconcerned with mercy to individuals. We are far more pretentious than that.
Our business is trying to save the world."
He chuckled. "One person
at a time would be too slow, is that it?"
"We make our lives of
service to the larger causes of humanity. The Savior already died for sin. We
work on trying to clean up the consequences of sin on other people."
"An interesting religious
quest," said Anton. "I wonder whether my old line of research would
have been considered a service to humanity, or just another mess that someone
like you would have to clean up."
"I wonder that
myself," said Sister Carlotta.
"We will never
know." They strolled out of the garden into the alley behind the house,
and then to a street, and across it, and onto a path that led through an
untended park.
"The trees here are very
old," Sister Carlotta observed.
"How old are *you*,
Carlotta?"
"Objectively or
subjectively?"
"Stick to the Gregorian
calendar, please, as most recently revised."
"That switch away from
the Julian system still sticks in the Russian craw, does it?"
"It forced us for more
than seven decades to commemorate an October Revolution that actually occurred
in November."
"You are much too young
to remember when there were Communists in Russia."
"On the contrary, I am
old enough now to have all the memories of my people locked within my head. I
remember things that happened long before I was born. I remember things that
never happened at all. I live in memory."
"Is that a pleasant place
to dwell?"
"Pleasant?" He
shrugged. "I laugh at all of it because I must. Because it is so sweetly
sad -- all the tragedies, and yet nothing is learned."
"Because human nature
never changes," she said.
"I have imagined,"
he said, "how God might have done better, when he made man -- in his own
image, I believe."
"Male and female created
he them. Making his image anatomically vague, one must suppose."
He laughed and clapped her
rather too forcefully on the back. "I didn't know you could laugh about
such things! I am pleasantly surprised!"
"I'm glad I could bring
cheer into your bleak existence."
"And then you sink the
barb into the flesh." They reached an overlook that had rather less of a
view of the sea than Anton's own terrace. "It is not a bleak existence,
Carlotta. For I can celebrate God's great compromise in making human beings as
we are."
"Compromise?"
"Our bodies could live
forever, you know. We don't have to wear out. Our cells are all alive; they can
maintain and repair themselves, or be replaced by fresh ones. There are even
mechanisms to keep replenishing our bones. Menopause need not stop a woman from
bearing children. Our brains need not decay, shedding memories or failing to
absorb new ones. But God made us with death inside."
"You are beginning to
sound serious about God."
"God made us with death
inside, and also with intelligence. We have our seventy years or so -- perhaps
ninety, with care -- in the mountains of Georgia, a hundred and thirty is not
unheard of, though I personally believe they are all liars. They would claim to
be immortal if they thought they could get away with it. We could live forever,
if we were willing to be stupid the whole time."
"Surely you're not saying
that God had to choose between long life and intelligence for human
beings!"
"It's there in your own
Bible, Carlotta. Two trees -- knowledge and life. You eat of the tree of
knowledge, and you will surely die. You eat of the tree of life, and you remain
a child in the garden forever, undying."
"You speak in theological
terms, and yet I thought you were an unbeliever."
"Theology is a joke to
me. Amusing! I laugh at it. I can tell amusing stories about theology, to jest
with believers. You see? It pleases me and keeps me calm."
At last she understood. How
clearly did he have to spell it out? He was telling her the information she
asked about, but doing it in code, in a way that fooled not only any
eavesdroppers -- and there might well be listeners to every word they said --
but even his own mind. It was all a jest; therefore he could tell her the
truth, as long as he did it in this form.
"Then I don't mind
hearing your wild humorous forays into theology."
"Genesis tells of men who
lived to be more than nine hundred years old. What it does not tell you is how
very stupid these men all were."
Sister Carlotta laughed aloud.
"That's why God had to
destroy humanity with his little flood," Anton went on. "Get rid of
those stupid people and replace them with quicker ones. Quick quick quick,
their minds moved, their metabolism. Rushing onward into the grave."
"From Methuselah at
nearly a millennium of life to Moses with his hundred and twenty years, and now
to us. But our lives are getting longer."
"I rest my case."
"Are we stupider
now?"
"So stupid that we would
rather have long life for our children than see them become too much like God,
knowing ... good and evil ... knowing ... everything." He clutched at his
chest, gasping. "Ah, God! God in heaven!" He sank to his knees, His
breath was shallow and rapid now. His eyes rolled back in his head. He fell
over.
Apparently he hadn't been able
to maintain his self-deception. His body finally caught on to how he had
managed to tell his secret to this woman by speaking it in the language of
religion.
She rolled him onto his back.
Now that he had fainted, his panic attack was subsiding. Not that fainting was
trivial in a man of Anton's age. But he would not need any heroism to bring him
back, not this time. He would wake up calm.
Where were the people who were
supposed to be monitoring him? Where were the spies who were listening in to
their conversation?
Pounding feet on the grass, on
the leaves.
"A bit slow, weren't
you?" she said without looking up.
"Sorry, we didn't expect
anything." The man was youngish, but not terribly bright-looking. The
implant was supposed to keep him from spilling his tale; it was not necessary
for his guards to be clever.
"I think he'll be all
right."
"What were you talking
about?"
"Religion," she
said, knowing that her account would probably be checked against a recording.
"He was criticizing God for mis-making human beings. He claimed to be
joking, but I think that a man of his age is never really joking when he talks
about God, do you?"
"Fear of death gets in
them," said the young man sagely -- or at least as sagely as he could
manage.
"Do you think he
accidentally triggered this panic attack by agitating his own anxiety about
death?" If she asked it as a question, it wasn't actually a lie, was it?
"I don't know. He's
coming around."
"Well, I certainly don't
want to cause him any more anxiety about religious matters. When he wakes up,
tell him how grateful I am for our conversation. Assure him that he has
clarified for me one of the great questions about God's purpose."
"Yes, I'll tell
him," said the young man earnestly.
Of course he would garble the
message hopelessly.
Sister Carlotta bent over and
kissed Anton's cold, sweaty forehead. Then she rose to her feet and walked
away.
So that was the secret. The
genome that allowed a human being to have extraordinary intelligence acted by
speeding up many bodily processes. The mind worked faster. The child developed
faster. Bean was indeed the product of an experiment in unlocking the savant
gene. He had been given the fruit of the tree of knowledge. But there was a
price. He would not be able to taste of the tree of life. Whatever he did with
his life, he would have to do it young, because he would not live to be old.
Anton had not done the
experiment. He had not played God, bringing forth human beings who would live
in an explosion of intelligence, sudden fireworks instead of single,
long-burning candles. But he had found a key God had hidden in the human
genome. Someone else, some follower, some insatiably curious soul, some
would-be visionary longing to take human beings to the next stage of evolution
or some other such mad, arrogant cause -- this someone had taken the bold step
of turning that key, opening that door, putting the killing, brilliant fruit
into the hand of Eve. And because of that act -- that serpentine, slithering
crime -- it was Bean who had been expelled from the garden. Bean who would now,
surely, die -- but die like a god, knowing good and evil.
CHAPTER 10 -- SNEAKY
"I can't help you. You
didn't give me the information I asked for."
"We gave you the damned
summaries."
"You gave me nothing and
you know it. And now you come to me asking me to evaluate Bean for you -- but
you do not tell me why, you give me no context. You expect an answer but you
deprive me of the means of providing it."
"Frustrating, isn't
it?"
"Not for me. I simply
won't give you any answer."
"Then Bean is out of the
program."
"If your mind is made up,
no answer of mine will change you, especially because you have made certain my
answer will be unreliable."
"You know more than
you've told me, and I must have it."
"How marvelous. You have
achieved perfect empathy with me, for that is the exact statement I have
repeatedly made to you."
"An eye for an eye? How
Christian of you."
"Unbelievers always want
*other* people to act like Christians."
"Perhaps you haven't
heard, but there's a war on."
"Again, I could have said
the same thing to you. There's a war on, yet you fence me around with foolish
secrecy. Since there is no evidence of the Formic enemy spying on us, this
secrecy is not about the war. It's about the Triumvirate maintaining their
power over humanity. And I am not remotely interested in that."
"You're wrong. That
information is secret in order to prevent some terrible experiments from being
performed."
"Only a fool closes the
door when the wolf is already inside the barn."
"Do you have proof that
Bean is the result of a genetic experiment?"
"How can I prove it, when
you have cut me off from all evidence? Besides, what matters is not *whether*
he has altered genes, but what those genetic changes, if he has them, might
lead him to do. Your tests were all designed to allow you to predict the
behavior of normal human beings. They may not apply to Bean."
"If he's that
unpredictable, then we can't rely on him. He's out."
"What if he's the only
one who can win the war? Do you drop him from the program then?"
***
Bean didn't want to have much
food in his body, not tonight, so he gave away almost all his food and turned
in a clean tray long before anyone else was done. Let the nutritionist be
suspicious -- he had to have time alone in the barracks.
The engineers had always
located the intake at the top of the wall over the door into the corridor.
Therefore the air must flow into the room from the opposite end, where the
extra bunks were unoccupied. Since he had not been able to see a vent just
glancing around that end of the room, it had to be located under one of the
lower bunks. He couldn't search for it when others would see him, because no
one could be allowed to know that he was interested in the vents. Now, alone,
he dropped to the floor and in moments was jimmying at the vent cover. It came
off readily. He tried putting it back on, listening carefully for the level of
noise that operation caused. Too much. The vent screen would have to stay off.
He laid it on the floor beside the opening, but out of the way so he wouldn't
accidentally bump into it in the darkness. Then, to be sure, he took it
completely out from under that bunk and slid it under the one directly across.
Done. He then resumed his
normal activities.
Until night. Until the
breathing of the others told him that most, if not all, were asleep.
Bean slept naked, as many of
the boys did -- his uniform would not give him away. They were told to wear
their towels when going to and from the toilet in the night, so Bean assumed
that it, too, could be tracked.
So as Bean slid down from his
bunk, he pulled his towel from its hook on the bunk frame and wrapped it around
himself as he trotted to the door of the barracks.
Nothing unusual. Toilet trips
were allowed, if not encouraged, after lights out, and Bean had made it a point
to make several such runs during his time in Battle School. No pattern was
being violated. And it was a good idea to make his first excursion with an
empty bladder.
When he came back, if anyone
was awake all they saw was a kid in a towel heading back to his bunk.
But he walked past his bunk
and quietly sank down and slid under the last bunk, where the uncovered vent
awaited him. His towel remained on the floor under the bunk, so that if anyone
woke enough to notice that Bean's bunk was empty, they would see that his towel
was missing and assume he had gone to the toilet.
It was no less painful this
time, sliding into the vent, but once inside, Bean found that his exercise had
paid off. He was able to slide down at an angle, always moving slowly enough to
make no noise and to avoid snagging his skin on any protruding metal. He wanted
no injuries he'd have to explain.
In the utter darkness of the
air duct, he had to keep his mental map of the station constantly in mind. The
faint nightlight of each barracks cast only enough light into the air ducts to
allow him to make out the location of each vent. But what mattered was not the
location of the other barracks on this level. Bean had to get either up or down
to a deck where teachers lived and worked. Judging from the amount of time it
took Dimak to get to their barracks the rare times that a quarrel demanded his
attention, Bean assumed that his quarters were on another deck. And because
Dimak always arrived breathing a little heavily, Bean also assumed it was a
deck below their own level, not above -- Dimak had to climb a ladder, not slide
down a pole, to reach them.
Nevertheless, Bean had no
intention of going down first. He had to see whether he could successfully
climb to a higher deck before getting himself potentially trapped on a lower
one.
So when he finally -- after
passing three barracks -- came to a vertical shaft, he did not climb down.
Instead, he probed the walls to see how much larger it was than the
horizontals. It was much wider -- Bean could not reach all the way across it.
But it was only slightly deeper, front to back. That was good. As long as Bean
didn't work too hard and sweat too much, friction between his skin and the
front and back walls of the duct would allow him to inch his way upward. And in
the vertical duct, he could face forward, giving his neck a much-needed respite
from being perpetually turned to one side.
Downward was almost harder
than upward, because once he started sliding it was harder to stop. He was also
aware that the lower he went, the heavier he would become. And he had to keep
checking the wall beside him, looking for another side duct.
But he didn't have to find it
by probing, after all. He could see the side duct, because there was light in
both directions. The teachers didn't have the same lights-out rules as the
students, and their quarters were smaller, so that vents came more frequently,
spilling more light into the duct.
In the first room, a teacher
was awake and working at his desk. The trouble was that Bean, peering out of a
vent screen near the floor, could not see a thing he was typing.
It would be that way in all
the rooms. The floor vents would not work for him. He had to get into the
air-intake system.
Back to the vertical duct. The
wind was coming from above, and so that was where he had to go if he was to
cross over from one system to another. His only hope was that the duct system
would have an access door before he reached the fans, and that he would be able
to find it in the dark.
Heading always into the wind,
and finding himself noticeably lighter after climbing past seven decks, he
finally reached a wider area with a small light strip. The fans were much
louder, but he still wasn't near enough to see them. It didn't matter. He would
be out of this wind.
The access door was clearly
marked. It also might be wired to sound an alarm if it was opened. But he
doubted it. That was the kind of thing that was done in Rotterdam to guard
against burglars. Burglary wasn't a serious problem on space stations. This
door would only have been alarmed if all doors in the station were fitted with
alarms. He'd find out soon enough.
He opened the door, slipped
out into a faintly lighted space, closed the door behind him.
The structure of the station
was visible here, the beams, the sections of metal plating. There were no solid
surfaces. The room was also noticeably colder, and not just because he was out
of the hot wind. Cold hard space was on the other side of those curved plates.
The furnaces might be located here, but the insulation was very good, and they
had not bothered to pump much of that hot air into this space, relying instead
on seepage to heat it. Bean hadn't been this cold since Rotterdam ... but
compared to wearing thin clothing in the winter streets with the wind off the
North Sea, this was still almost balmy. It annoyed Bean that he had become so
pampered here that he even cared about such a slight chill. And yet he couldn't
keep himself from shivering a couple of times. Even in Rotterdam, he hadn't
been naked.
Following the ductwork, he
climbed up the workmen's ladderways to the furnaces and then found the
air-intake ducts and followed them back down. It was easy to find an access
door and enter the main vertical duct.
Because the air in the intake
system did not have to be under positive pressure, the ducts did not have to be
so narrow. Also, this was the part of the system where dirt had to be caught
and removed, so it was more important to maintain access; by the time air got
past the furnaces, it was already as clean as it was ever going to get. So
instead of shinnying up and down narrow shafts, Bean scrambled easily down a
ladder, and in the low light still had no trouble reading the signs telling
which deck each side opening led to.
The side passages weren't
really ducts at all. Instead, they consisted of the entire space between the
ceiling of one corridor and the floor of the one above. All the wiring was
here, and the water pipes -- hot, cold, sewer. And besides the strips of dim
worklights, the space was frequently lighted by the vents on both sides of the
space -- those same narrow strips of vent openings that Bean had seen from the
floor below on his first excursion.
Now he could see easily down
into each teacher's quarters. He crept along, making as little noise as
possible -- a skill he had perfected prowling through Rotterdam. He quickly
found what he was looking for -- a teacher who was awake, but not working at
his desk. The man was not well known to Bean, because he supervised an older
group of launchies and did not teach any of the classes Bean was taking. He was
heading for a shower. That meant he would come back to the room and, perhaps,
would sign in again, allowing Bean to have a chance at getting both his log-in
name and his password.
No doubt the teachers changed
passwords often, so whatever he got wouldn't last long. Moreover, it was always
possible that attempting to use a teacher's password on a student desk might
set off some kind of alarm. But Bean doubted it. The whole security system was
designed to shut students out, to monitor student behavior. The teachers would
not be so closely watched. They frequently worked on their desks at odd hours,
and they also frequently signed on to student desks during the day to call on
their more powerful tools to help solve a student's problem or give a student
more personalized computer resources. Bean was reasonably sure that the risk of
discovery was outweighed by the benefits of snagging a teacher's identity.
While he waited, he heard
voices a few rooms up. He wasn't quite close enough to make out the words. Did
he dare risk missing the bather's return?
Moments later he was looking
down into the quarters of ... Dimak himself. Interesting. He was talking to a
man whose holographic image appeared in the air over his desk. Colonel Graff,
Bean realized. The commandant of Battle School.
"My strategy was simple
enough," Graff was saying. "I gave in and got her access to the stuff
she wanted. She was right, I can't get good answers from her unless I let her
see the data she's asking for."
"So did she give you any
answers?"
"No, too soon. But she
gave me a very good question."
"Which is?"
"Whether the boy is
actually human."
"Oh, come on. Does she
think he's a Bugger larva in a human suit?"
"Nothing to do with the
Buggers. Genetically enhanced. It would explain a lot."
"But still human,
then."
"Isn't that debatable?
The difference between humans and chimpanzees is genetically slight. Between
humans and neanderthals it had to be minute. How much difference would it take
for him to be a different species?"
"Philosophically
interesting, but in practical terms --"
"In practical terms, we
don't know what this kid will do. There's no data on his species. He's a
primate, which suggests certain regularities, but we can't assume anything
about his motivations that --"
"Sir, with all due
respect, he's still a kid. He's a human being. He's not some alien --"
"That's precisely what
we've got to find out before we determine how much we can rely on him. And
that's why you are to watch him even more carefully. If you can't get him into
the mind game, then find some other way to figure out what makes him tick.
Because we can't use him until we know just how much we can rely on him."
Interesting that they openly
call it the mind game among themselves, thought Bean.
Then he realized what they
were saying. "Can't get him into the mind game." As far as Bean knew,
he was the only kid who didn't play the fantasy game. They were talking about
him. New species. Genetically altered. Bean felt his heart pounding in his
chest. What am I? Not just smart, but ... different.
"What about the breach of
security?" Dimak asked.
"That's the other thing.
You've got to figure out what he knows. Or at least how likely he is to spill
it to any other kids. That's the greatest danger right now. Is the possibility
of this kid being the commander we need great enough to balance the risk of breaching
security and collapsing the program? I thought with Ender we had an
all-or-nothing long-odds bet, but this one makes Ender look like a sure
thing."
"I didn't think of you as
a gambler, sir."
"I'm not. But sometimes
you're forced into the game."
"I'm on it, sir."
"Encrypt everything you
send me on him. No names. No discussions with other teachers beyond the normal.
Contain this."
"Of course."
"If the only way we can
beat the Buggers is to replace ourselves with a new species, Dimak, then have
we really saved humanity?"
"One kid is not
replacement of a species," said Dimak.
"Foot in the door.
Camel's nose in the tent. Give them an inch."
"*Them*, sir?"
"Yes, I'm paranoid and
xenophobic. That's how I got this job. Cultivate those virtues and you, too,
might rise to my lofty station."
Dimak laughed. Graff didn't.
His head disappeared from the display.
Bean had the discipline to
remember that he was waiting to get a password. He crept back to the bather's
room.
Still not back.
What breach of security were
they talking about? It must have been recent, for them to be discussing it with
such urgency. That meant it had to be Bean's conversation with Dimak about what
was really going on with the Battle School. And yet his guess that the battle
had already happened could not be it, or Dimak and Graff would not be talking
about how he might be the only way they could beat the Buggers. If the Buggers
were still unbeaten, the breach of security had to be something else.
It could still be that his
earlier guess was partly right, and Battle School existed as much to strip the
Earth of good commanders as to beat the Buggers. Graff and Dimak's fear might
be that Bean would let other kids in on the secret. For some of them, at least,
it might rekindle their loyalty to the nation or ethnic group or ideology of
their parents.
And since Bean had definitely
been planning to probe the loyalties of other students over the next months and
years, he now would have to be doubly cautious not to let his pattern of
conversation attract the attention of the teachers. All he needed to know was
which of the best and brightest kids had the strongest home loyalties. Of
course, for that Bean would need to figure out just how loyalty worked, so he
would have some idea of how to weaken it or strengthen it, how to exploit it or
turn it.
But just because this first
guess of Bean's could explain their words didn't mean it was right. And just
because the final Bugger war had not yet been fought didn't mean his initial
guess was completely wrong. They might, for instance, have launched a fleet against
the Bugger home world years ago, but were still preparing commanders to fight
off an invasion fleet now approaching Earth. In that case, the security breach
Graff and Dimak feared was that Bean would frighten others by letting them know
how urgent and dire the situation of humanity was.
The irony was that of all the
children Bean had ever known, none could keep a secret as well as he did. Not
even Achilles, for in refusing his share of Poke's bread, he had tipped his
hand.
Bean could keep a secret, but
he also knew that sometimes you had to give some hint of what you knew in order
to get more information. That was what had prompted Bean's conversation with
Dimak. It was dangerous, but in the long run, if he could keep them from
removing him from the school entirely in order to silence him -- not to mention
keeping them from killing him -- he had learned more important information than
he had given them. In the end, the only things they could learn from him were
about himself. And what he learned from them was about everything else -- a
much larger pool of knowledge.
Himself. That was their puzzle
-- who he was. Silly to be concerned about whether he was human. What else
*could* he be? He had never seen any child show any desire or emotion that he
himself had not felt. The only difference was that Bean was stronger, and did
not let his fleeting needs and passions control his actions. Did that make him
alien? He was human -- only better.
The teacher came back into the
room. He hung up his damp towel, but even before he dressed he sat back down
and logged on. Bean watched his fingers move over the keys. It was so quick. A
blur of keystrokes. He would have to replay the memory in his mind many times
to make sure. But at least he had seen it; nothing obstructed his view.
Bean crawled back toward the
vertical intake shaft. The evening's expedition had already taken as long as he
dared -- he needed his sleep, and every minute away increased the risk of
chance discovery.
In fact, he had been very lucky
on this first foray through the ducts. To happen to hear Dimak and Graff
conversing about him, to happen to watch a teacher who conveniently gave him a
clear view of his log-in. For a moment it crossed Bean's mind that they might
know he was in the air system, might even have staged all this for him, to see
what he'd do. It might be just one more experiment.
No. It wasn't just luck that
this teacher showed him the log-in. Bean had chosen to watch him because he was
going to shower, because his desk was sitting on the table in such a way that
Bean had a reasonable chance of seeing the log-in. It was an intelligent choice
on Bean's part. He had gone with the best odds, and it paid off.
As for Dimak and Graff, it
might have been chance that he overheard them talking, but it was his own
choice to move closer at once in order to hear. And, come to think of it, he
had chosen to go exploring in the ducts because of precisely the same event
that had prompted Graff and Dimak to be so concerned. Nor was it a surprise
that their conversation happened after lights-out for the children -- that's
when things would have quieted down, and, with duties done, there would be time
for a conversation without Graff calling Dimak in for a special meeting, which
might arouse questions in the minds of the other teachers. Not luck, really --
Bean had made his own luck. He saw the log-in and overheard the conversation
because he had made that quick decision to get into the intake system and acted
on it at once.
He had always made his own
luck.
Maybe that was something that
went along with whatever genetic alteration Graff had found out about.
*She*, they had said. *She*
had raised the question of whether Bean was genetically human. Some woman who
was searching for information, and Graff had given in, was letting her have
access to facts that had been hidden from her. That meant that he would receive
more answers from this woman as she began to use that new data. More answers
about Bean's origins.
Could it be Sister Carlotta
who had doubted Bean's humanity?
Sister Carlotta, who wept when
he left her and went into space? Sister Carlotta, who loved him as a mother
loves her child? How could *she* doubt him?
If they wanted to find some
inhuman human, some alien in a human suit, they ought to take a good long look
at a nun who embraces a child as her own, and then goes around casting doubt
about whether he's a real boy. The opposite of Pinocchio's fairy. She touches a
real boy and turns him into something awful and fearful.
It could not have been Sister
Carlotta they were talking about. Just another woman. His guess that it might
be her was simply wrong, just like his guess that the final battle with the Buggers
had already happened. That's why Bean never fully trusted his own guesses. He
acted on them, but always kept himself open to the possibility that his
interpretations might be wrong.
Besides, *his* problem was not
figuring out whether he really was human or not. Whatever he was, he was
himself and must act in such a way as to not only stay alive but also get as
much control over his own future as possible. The only danger to him was that
*they* were concerned about the issue of his possible genetic alteration.
Bean's task was therefore to appear so normal that their fears on that score
would be dispelled.
But how could he pretend to be
normal? He hadn't been brought here because he was normal, he was brought here
because he was extraordinary. For that matter, so were all the other kids. And
the school put so much strain on them that some became downright odd. Like
Bonzo Madrid, with his loud vendetta against Ender Wiggin. So in fact, Bean
shouldn't appear normal, he should appear weird in the expected ways.
Impossible to fake that. He
didn't know yet what signs the teachers were looking for in the behavior of the
children here. He could find ten things to do, and do them, never guessing that
there were ninety things he hadn't noticed.
No, what he had to do was not
to *act* in predictable ways, but to *become* what they hoped their perfect
commander would be.
When he got back to his
barracks, climbed back up to his bunk, and checked the time on his desk, he
found that he had done it all in less than an hour. He put away his desk and
lay there replaying in his mind the image in his memory of the teacher's
fingers, logging in. When he was reasonably certain of what the log-in and
password were, he allowed himself to drift toward sleep.
Only then, as he was beginning
to doze, did he realize what his perfect camouflage would be, quelling their
fears and bringing him both safety and advancement.
He had to become Ender Wiggin.
CHAPTER 11 -- DADDY
"Sir. I asked for a
private interview."
"Dimak is here because
your breach of security affects his work."
"Breach of security! This
is why you reassign me?"
"There is a child who
used your log-in to the master teacher system. He found the log-in record files
and rewrote them to give himself an identity."
"Sir, I have faithfully
adhered to all regulations. I never sign on in front of the students."
"Everyone *says* they
never sign on, but then it turns out they do."
"Excuse me, sir, but
Uphanad does not. He's always on the others when he catches them doing it.
Actually, he's kind of anal about it. Drives us all crazy."
"You can check my log-in
records. I never sign on during teaching hours. In fact, I never sign on
outside my quarters."
"Then how could this
child possibly get in using your log-in?"
"My desk sits on my
table, like so. If I may use your desk to demonstrate."
"Of course."
"I sit like so. I keep my
back to the door so no one can even see in. I never sign on in any other
position."
"Well it's not like
there's a window he can peek through!"
"Yes there is, sir."
"Dimak?"
"There *is* a window,
sir. Look. The vent."
"Are you seriously
suggesting that he could --"
"He is the smallest child
who ever --"
"It was that little
*Bean* child who got my log-in?"
"Excellent, Dimak, you've
managed to let his name slip out, haven't you."
"I'm sorry, sir."
"Ah. Another security
breach. Will you send Dimak home with me?"
"I'm not sending anybody
home."
"Sir, I must point out
that Bean's intrusion into the master teacher system is an excellent
opportunity."
"To have a student
romping through the student data files?"
"To study Bean. We don't
have him in the fantasy game, but now we have the game *he* chooses to play. We
watch where he goes in the system, what he does with this power he has created
for himself."
"But the damage he can do
is --"
"He won't do any damage,
sir. He won't do anything to give himself away. This kid is too street-smart.
It's information he wants. He'll look, not touch."
"So you've got him
analyzed already, is that it? You know what he's doing at all times?"
"I know that if there's a
story we really want him to believe, he has to discover it himself. He has to
*steal* it from us. So I think this little security breach is the perfect way
to heal a much more important one."
"What I'm wondering is,
if he's been crawling through the ducts, what *else* has he heard?"
"If we close off the duct
system, he'll know he was caught, and then he won't trust what we set up for
him to find."
"So I have to permit a
child to crawl around through the ductwork and --"
"He can't do it much
longer. He's growing, and the ducts are extremely shallow."
"That's not much comfort
right now. And, unfortunately, we'll still have to kill Uphanad for knowing too
much."
"Please assure me that
you're joking."
"Yes, I'm joking. You'll
have him as a student soon enough, Captain Uphanad. Watch him very carefully.
Speak of him only with me. He's unpredictable and dangerous."
"Dangerous. Little
Bean."
"He cleaned *your* clock,
didn't he?"
"Yours too, sir, begging
your pardon."
***
Bean worked his way through
every student at Battle School, reading the records of a half dozen or so per
day. Their original scores, he found, were the least interesting thing about
them. Everyone here had such high scores on all the tests given back on Earth
that the differences were almost trivial. Bean's own scores were the highest,
and the gap between him and the next highest, Ender Wiggin, was wide -- as wide
as the gap between Ender and the next child after him. But it was all relative.
The difference between Ender and Bean amounted to half of a percentage point;
most of the children clustered between 97 and 98 percent.
Of course, Bean knew what they
could not know, that for him getting the highest possible score on the tests
had been easy. He could have done more, he could have done better, but he had
reached the boundary of what the test could discover. The gap between him and
Ender was much wider than they supposed.
And yet ... in reading the
records, Bean came to see that the scores were merely a guide to a child's
potential. The teachers talked most about things like cleverness, insight,
intuition; the ability to develop rapport, to outguess an opponent; the courage
to act boldly, the caution to make certain before committing, the wisdom to
know which course was the appropriate one. And in considering this, Bean
realized that he was not necessarily any better at *these* things than the
other students.
Ender Wiggin really did know
things that Bean did not know. Bean might have thought to do as Wiggin did,
arranging extra practices to make up for being with a commander who wouldn't
train him. Bean even might have tried to bring in a few other students to train
with him, since many things could not be done alone. But Wiggin had taken all
comers, no matter how difficult it became to practice with so many in the
battleroom, and according to the teachers' notes, he spent more time now
training others than in working on his own technique. Of course, that was
partly because he was no longer in Bonzo Madrid's army, so he got to take part
in the regular practices. But he still kept working with the other kids,
especially the eager launchies who wanted a head start before they were
promoted into a regular army. Why?
Is he doing what I'm doing,
studying the other students to prepare for a later war on Earth? Is he building
some kind of network that reaches out into all the armies? Is he somehow
mistraining them, so he can take advantage of their mistakes later?
From what Bean heard about
Wiggin from the kids in his launch group who attended those practices, he came
to realize that it was something else entirely. Wiggin seemed really to care
about the other kids doing their best. Did he need so badly for them to like
him? Because it was working, if that's what he was trying for. They worshiped
him.
But there had to be more to it
than some hunger for love. Bean couldn't get a handle on it.
He found that the teachers'
observations, while helpful, didn't really help him get inside Wiggin's head.
For one thing, they kept the psychological observations from the mind game
somewhere else that Bean didn't have access to. For another, the teachers
couldn't really get into Wiggin's mind because they simply didn't think at his
level.
Bean did.
But Bean's project wasn't to
analyze Wiggin out of scientific curiosity, or to compete with him, or even to
understand him. It was to make himself into the kind of child that the teachers
would trust, would rely on. Would regard as fully human. For that project,
Wiggin was his teacher because Wiggin had already done what Bean needed to do.
And Wiggin had done it without
being perfect. Without being, as far as Bean could tell, completely sane. Not
that anyone was. But Wiggin's willingness to give up hours every day to
training kids who could do nothing for him -- the more Bean thought about it,
the less sense it made. Wiggin was not building a network of supporters. Unlike
Bean, he didn't have a perfect memory, so Bean was quite sure Wiggin was not
compiling a mental dossier on every other kid in Battle School. The kids he
worked with were not the best, and were often the most fearful and dependent of
the launchies and of the losers in the regular armies. They came to him because
they thought being in the same room with the soldier who was leading in the
standings might bring some luck to them. But why did Wiggin keep giving his
time to *them*?
Why did Poke die for me?
That was the same question.
Bean knew it. He found several books about ethics in the library and called
them up on his desk to read. He soon discovered that the only theories that
explained altruism were bogus. The stupidest was the old sociobiological
explanation of uncles dying for nephews -- there were no blood ties in armies
now, and people often died for strangers. Community theory was fine as far as
it went -- it explained why communities all honored sacrificial heroes in their
stories and rituals, but it still didn't explain the heroes themselves.
For that was what Bean saw in
Wiggin. This was the hero at his root.
Wiggin really does not care as
much about himself as he does about these other kids who aren't worth five
minutes of his time.
And yet this may be the very
trait that makes everyone focus on him. Maybe this is why in all those stories
Sister Carlotta told him, Jesus always had a crowd around him.
Maybe this is why I'm so
afraid of Wiggin. Because *he's* the alien, not me. He's the unintelligible
one, the unpredictable one. He's the one who doesn't do things for sensible,
predictable reasons. I'm going to survive, and once you know that, there's
nothing more to know about me. Him, though, he could do anything.
The more he studied Wiggin,
the more mysteries Bean uncovered. The more he determined to act like Wiggin
until, at some point, he came to see the world as Wiggin saw it.
But even as he tracked Wiggin
-- still from a distance -- what Bean could not let himself do was what the
younger kids did, what Wiggin's disciples did. He could not call him Ender.
Calling him by his last name kept him at a distance. A microscope's distance,
anyway.
What did Wiggin study when he
read on his own? Not the books of military history and strategy that Bean had
blown through in a rush and was now rereading methodically, applying everything
to both space combat and modem warfare on Earth. Wiggin did his share of
reading, too, but when he went into the library he was just as likely to look
at combat vids, and the ones he watched most often were of Bugger ships. Those
and the clips of Mazer Rackham's strike force in the heroic battle that broke
the back of the Second Invasion.
Bean watched them too, though
not over and over again -- once he saw them, he remembered them perfectly and
could replay them in his mind, with enough detail that he could notice things
later that he hadn't realized at first. Was Wiggin seeing something new each
time he went back to these vids? Or was he looking for something that he hadn't
yet found?
Is he trying to understand the
way the Buggers think? Why doesn't he realize that the library here simply
doesn't have enough of the vids to make it useful? It's all propaganda stuff
here. They withheld all the terrible scenes of dead guys, of fighting and
killing hand to hand when ships were breached and boarded. They didn't have
vids of defeats, where the Buggers blew the human ships out of the sky. All
they had here was ships moving around in space, a few minutes of preparation
for combat.
War in space? So exciting in
the made-up stories, so boring in reality. Occasionally something would light
up, mostly it was just dark.
And, of course, the obligatory
moment of Mazer Rackham's victory.
What could Wiggin possibly
hope to learn?
Bean learned more from the
omissions than from what he actually saw. For instance, there was not one
picture of Mazer Rackham anywhere in the library. That was odd. The
Triumvirates' faces were everywhere, as were those of other commanders and
political leaders. Why not Rackham? Had he died in the moment of victory? Or
was he, perhaps, a fictitious figure, a deliberately-created legend, so that
there could be a name to peg the victory to? But if that were the case, they'd
have created a face for him -- it was too easy to do that. Was he deformed?
Was he really, really small?
If I grow up to be the
commander of the human fleet that defeats the Buggers, will they hide my
picture, too, because someone so tiny can never be seen as a hero?
Who cares? I don't want to be
a hero.
That's Wiggin's gig.
***
Nikolai, the boy across from
him. Bright enough to make some guesses Bean hadn't made first. Confident
enough not to get angry when he caught Bean intruding on him. Bean was so
hopeful when he came at last to Nikolai's file.
The teacher evaluation was
negative. "A place-holder." Cruel -- but was it true?
Bean realized: I have been
putting too much trust in the teachers' evaluations. Do I have any real
evidence that they're right? Or do I believe in their evaluations because I am
rated so highly? Have I let them flatter me into complacency?
What if all their evaluations
were hopelessly wrong?
I had no teacher files on the
streets of Rotterdam. I actually knew the children. Poke -- I made my own
judgment of her, and I was almost right, just a few surprises here and there.
Sergeant -- no surprises at all. Achilles -- yes, I knew him.
So why have I stayed apart
from the other students? Because they isolated me at first, and because I
decided that the teachers had the power. But now I see that I was only partly
right. The teachers have the power here and now, but someday I will not be in
Battle School, and what does it matter then what the teachers think of me? I
can learn all the military theory and history that I want, and it will do me no
good if they never entrust me with command. And I will never be placed in
charge of an army or a fleet unless they have reason to believe that other men
would follow me.
Not men today, but boys, most
of them, a few girls. Not men, but they *will* be men. How do they choose their
leaders? How do I make them follow one who is so small, so resented?
What did Wiggin do?
Bean asked Nikolai which of
the kids in their launch group practiced with Wiggin.
"Only a few. And they on
the fringes, neh? Suckups and brags."
"But who are they?"
"You trying to get in
with Wiggin?"
"Just want to find out
about him."
"What you want to
know?"
The questions bothered Bean.
He didn't like talking so much about what he was doing. But he didn't sense any
malice in Nikolai. He just wanted to know.
"History. He the best,
neh? How he get that way?" Bean wondered if he sounded quite natural with
the soldier slang. He hadn't used it that much. The music of it, he still
wasn't quite there.
"You find out, you tell
me." He rolled his eyes in self-derision.
"I'll tell you,"
said Bean.
"I got a chance to be
best like Ender?" Nikolai laughed. "*You* got a chance, the way you
learn."
"Wiggin's snot ain't
honey," said Bean.
"What does that
mean?"
"He human like anybody. I
find out, I tell you, OK?"
Bean wondered why Nikolai
already despaired about his own chances of being one of the best. Could it be
that the teachers' negative evaluation was right after all? Or had they
unconsciously let him see their disdain for him, and he believed them?
From the boys Nikolai had
pointed out -- the brags and suckups, which wasn't an inaccurate evaluation as
far as it went -- Bean learned what he wanted to know. The names of Wiggin's
closest friends.
Shen. Alai. Petra -- her
again! But Shen the longest.
Bean found him in the library
during study time. The only reason to go there was for the vids -- all the
books could be read from the desks. Shen wasn't watching vids, though. He had
his desk with him, and he was playing the fantasy game.
Bean sat down beside him to
watch. A lion-headed man in chain mail stood before a giant, who seemed to be
offering him a choice of drinks -- the sound was shaped so that Bean couldn't
hear it from beside the desk, though Shen seemed to be responding; he typed in a
few words. His lion-man figure drank one of the substances and promptly died.
Shen muttered something and
shoved the desk away.
"That the Giant's
Drink?" said Bean. "I heard about that."
"You've never played
it?" said Shen. "You can't win it. I *thought*."
"I heard. Didn't sound
fun."
"*Sound* fun? You haven't
tried it? It's not like it's hard to find."
Bean shrugged, trying to fake
the mannerisms he'd seen other boys use. Shen looked amused. Because Bean did
the cool-guy shrug wrong? Or because it looked cute to have somebody so small
do it?
"Come on, you don't play
the fantasy game?"
"What you said,"
Bean prompted him. "You *thought* nobody ever won it."
"I saw a guy in a place
I'd never seen. I asked him where it was, and he said, 'Other side of the
Giant's Drink.'"
"He tell you how to get
there?"
"I didn't ask."
"Why not?"
Shen grinned, looked away.
"It be Wiggin, neh?"
asked Bean.
The grin faded. "I didn't
say that."
"I know you're his
friend, that's why I came here."
"What is this? You spying
on him? You from Bonzo?"
This was not going well. Bean
hadn't realized how protective Wiggin's friends might be. "I'm from me.
Look, nothing bad, OK? I just -- look, I just want to know about -- you know
him from the start, right? They say you been his friend from launchy
days."
"So what?"
"Look, he got friends,
right? Like you. Even though he always does better in class, always the best on
everything, right? But they don't hate him."
"Plenty bichƒo [bichao]
hate him."
"I got to make some
friends, man." Bean knew that he shouldn't try to sound pitiful. Instead,
he should sound like a pitiful kid who was trying really hard *not* to sound
pitiful. So he ended his maudlin little plea with a laugh. As if he was trying
to make it sound like a joke.
"You're pretty
short," said Shen.
"Not on the planet I'm
from," said Bean.
For the first time, Shen let a
genuine smile come to his face. "The planet of the pygmies."
"Them boys too big for
me."
"Look, I know what you're
saying," said Shen. "I had this funny walk. Some of the kids were
ragging me. Ender stopped them."
"How?"
"Ragged them more."
"I never heard he got a
mouth."
"No, he didn't say nada.
Did it on the desk. Sent a message from God."
Oh, yeah. Bean had heard about
that. "He did that for you?"
"They were making fun of
my butt. I had a big butt. Before workouts, you know? Back then. So he make fun
of them for looking at my butt. But he signs it God."
"So they didn't know it
was him."
"Oh, they knew. Right
away. But he didn't say anything. Out loud."
"That's how you got to be
friends? He the protector of the little guys?" Like Achilles ...
"*Little* guys?"
said Shen. "He was the smallest in our launch group. Not like you, but way
small. Younger, see."
"He was youngest, but he
became your protector?"
"No. Not like that. No,
he kept it from going on, that's all. He went to the group -- it was Bernard,
he was getting together the biggest guys, the tough guys --"
"The bullies."
"Yeah, I guess. Only
Ender, he goes to Bernard's number one, his best friend. Alai. He gets Alai to
be his friend, too."
"So he stole away
Bernard's support?"
"No, man. No, it's not
like that. He made friends with Alai, and then got Alai to help him make
friends with Bernard."
"Bernard ... he's the
one, Ender broke his arm in the shuttle."
"That's right. And I
think, really, Bernard never forgave him, but he saw how things were."
"How were things?"
"Ender's *good*, man. You
just -- he doesn't hate anybody. If you're a good person, you're going to like
him. You want him to like you. If he likes you, then you're OK, see? But if
you're scum, he just makes you mad. Just knowing he exists, see? So Ender, he
tries to wake up the good part of you."
"How do you wake up 'good
parts'?"
"I don't know, man. You
think I know? It just ... you know Ender long enough, he just makes you want
him to be proud of you. That sounds so ... sounds like I'm a baby, neh?"
Bean shook his head. What it
sounded like to him was devotion. Bean hadn't really understood this. Friends
were friends, he thought. Like Sergeant and Poke used to be, before Achilles.
But it was never love. When Achilles came, they loved him, but it was more like
worship, like ... a god, he got them bread, they gave bread back to him. Like
... well, like what he called himself. Papa. Was it the same thing? Was Ender
Achilles all over again?
"You're smart, kid,"
said Shen. "I was there, neh? Only I never once thought, How did Ender
*do* it? How can I do the same, be like him? It's like that was Ender, he's
great, but it's nothing *I* could do. Maybe I should have tried. I just wanted
to be ... *with* him."
"Cause you're good,
too," said Bean.
Shen rolled his eyes. "I
guess that's what I was saying, wasn't it? Implying, anyway. Guess that makes
me a brag, neh?"
"Big old brag," said
Bean, grinning.
"He's just ... he makes
you want to ... I'd die for him. That sounds like hero talk, neh? But it's
true. I'd die for him. I'd kill for him."
"You'd fight for
him."
Shen got it at once.
"That's right. He's a born commander."
"Alai fight for him
too?"
"A lot of us."
"But some not, yes?"
"Like I said, the bad
ones, they hate him, he makes them crazy."
"So the whole world
divides up -- good people love Wiggin, bad people hate Wiggin."
Shen's face went suspicious again.
"I don't know why I told you all that merda. You too smart to believe any
of it."
"I do believe it,"
said Bean. "Don't be mad at me." He'd learned that one a long time
ago. Little kid says, Don't be mad at me, they feel a little silly.
"I'm not mad," said
Shen. "I just thought you were making fun of me."
"I wanted to know how
Wiggin makes friends."
"If I knew that, if I
really understood that, I'd have more friends than I do, kid. But I got Ender
as my friend, and all his friends are my friends too, and I'm their friend, so
... it's like a family."
A family. Papa. Achilles
again.
That old dread returned. That
night after Poke died. Seeing her body in the water. Then Achilles in the
morning. How he acted. Was that Wiggin? Papa until he got his chance?
Achilles was evil, and Ender
was good. Yet they both created a family. Both had people who loved them, who
would die for them. Protector, papa, provider, mama. Only parent to a crowd of
orphans. We're all street kids up here in Battle School, too. We might not be
hungry, but we're all still wishing for a family.
Except me. Last thing I need.
Some papa smiling at me, waiting with a knife.
Better to *be* the papa than
to have one.
How can I do that? Get
somebody to love me the way Shen loves Wiggin?
No chance. I'm too little. Too
cute. I got nothing they want. All I can do is protect myself, work the system.
Ender's got plenty to teach those that have some hope of doing what he's done.
But me, I have to learn my own way.
Even as he made the decision,
though, he knew he wasn't done with Wiggin. Whatever Wiggin had, whatever
Wiggin knew, Bean *would* learn it.
And so passed the weeks, the
months. Bean did all his regular classwork. He attended the regular battleroom
classes with Dimak teaching them how to move and shoot, the basic skills. On
his own he completed all the enrichment courses you could take at your own
desk, certifying in everything. He studied military history, philosophy,
strategy. He read ethics, religion, biology. He kept track of every student in
the school, from the newly arrived launchies to the students about to graduate.
When he saw them in the halls, he knew more about them than they knew about
themselves. He knew their nation of origin. He knew how much they missed their
families and how important their native country or ethnic or religious group
was to them. He knew how valuable they might be to a nationalist or idealist
resistance movement.
And he kept reading everything
Wiggin read, watching everything Wiggin watched. Hearing about Wiggin from the
other kids. Watching Wiggin's standings on the boards. Meeting more of Wiggin's
friends, hearing them talk about him. Bean listened to all the things Wiggin
was quoted as saying and tried to fit them into some coherent philosophy, some
worldview, some attitude, some plan.
And he found out something
interesting. Despite Wiggin's altruism, despite his willingness to sacrifice,
not one of his friends ever said that Wiggin came and talked over his problems.
They all went to Wiggin, but who did Wiggin go to? He had no more *real*
friends than Bean did. Wiggin kept his own counsel, just like Bean.
Soon Bean found himself being
advanced out of classes whose work he had already mastered and being plunged
into classwork with older and older groups, who looked at him with annoyance at
first, but later simply with awe, as he raced past them and was promoted again
before they were half done. Had Wiggin been pushed through his classwork at an
accelerated rate? Yes, but not quite as fast. Was that because Bean was better?
Or because the deadline was getting closer?
For the sense of urgency in
teacher evaluations was getting greater. The ordinary students -- as if any
child here were ordinary -- were getting briefer and briefer notations. They
weren't being ignored, exactly. But the best were being identified and lifted
out.
The *seeming* best. For Bean
began to realize that the teachers' evaluations were often colored by which
students they liked the best. The teachers pretended to be dispassionate,
impartial, but in fact they got sucked in by the more charismatic children,
just as the other students did. If a kid was likable, they gave him better
comments on leadership, even if he was really just glib and athletic and needed
to surround himself with a team. As often as not, they tagged the very students
who would be the least effective commanders, while ignoring the ones who, to
Bean, showed real promise. It was frustrating to watch them make such obvious
mistakes. Here they had Wiggin right before their eyes -- Wiggin, who was the
real thing -- and they still went on misreading everybody else. Getting all
excited about some of these energetic, self-confident, ambitious kids even
though they weren't actually producing excellent work.
Wasn't this whole school set
up in order to find and train the best possible commanders? The Earthside
testing did pretty well -- there were no real dolts among the students. But the
system had overlooked one crucial factor: How were the teachers chosen?
They were career military, all
of them. Proven officers with real ability. But in the military you don't get
trusted positions just because of your ability. You also have to attract the
notice of superior officers. You have to be liked. You have to fit in with the
system. You have to look like what the officers above you think that officers
should look like. You have to think in ways that they are comfortable with.
The result was that you ended
up with a command structure that was top-heavy with guys who looked good in
uniform and talked right and did well enough not to embarrass themselves, while
the really good ones quietly did all the serious work and bailed out their
superiors and got blamed for errors they had advised against until they
eventually got out.
That was the military. These
teachers were all the kind of people who thrived in that environment. And they
were selecting their favorite students based on precisely that same screwed-up
sense of priorities.
No wonder a kid like Dink
Meeker saw through it and refused to play. He was one of the few kids who was
both likable *and* talented. His likability made them try to make him commander
of his own army; his talent let him understand why they were doing it and turn
them down because he couldn't believe in such a stupid system. And other kids,
like Petra Arkanian, who had obnoxious personalities but could handle strategy
and tactics in their sleep, who had the confidence to lead others into war, to
trust their own decisions and act on them -- they didn't care about trying to
be one of the guys, and so they got overlooked, every flaw became magnified,
every strength belittled.
So Bean began constructing his
own anti-army. Kids who weren't getting picked out by the teachers, but were
the real talents, the ones with heart and mind, not just face and chat. He
began to imagine who among them should be officers, leading their own toons
under the command of ...
Of Ender Wiggin, of course.
Bean could not imagine anyone else in that position. Wiggin would know how to
use them.
And Bean knew just where he
should be. Close to Wiggin. A toon leader, but the most trusted of them.
Wiggin's righthand man. So when Wiggin was about to make a mistake, Bean could
point out to him the error he was making. And so that Bean could be close
enough to maybe understand why Wiggin was human and he himself was not.
***
Sister Carlotta used her new
security clearance like a scalpel, most of the time, slicing her way into the information
establishment, picking up answers here and new questions there, talking to
people who never guessed what her project was, why she knew so much about their
top-secret work, and quietly putting it all together in her own mind, in memos
to Colonel Graff.
But sometimes she wielded her
top security clearance like a meat-ax, using it to get past prison wardens and
security officers, who saw her unbelievable level of need-to-know and then,
when they checked to make sure her documents weren't a stupid forgery, were
screamed at by officers so high-ranked that it made them want to treat Sister
Carlotta like God.
That's how, at last, she came
face to face with Bean's father. Or at least the closest thing to a father that
he had.
"I want to talk to you
about your installation in Rotterdam."
He looked at her sourly.
"I already reported on everything. That's why I'm not dead, though I
wonder if I made the right choice."
"They told me you were
quite the whiner," said Sister Carlotta, utterly devoid of compassion.
"I didn't expect it to surface so quickly."
"Go to hell." He
turned his back on her.
As if that meant anything.
"Dr. Volescu, the records show that you had twenty-three babies in your
organ farm in Rotterdam."
He said nothing.
"But of course that's a
lie."
Silence.
"And, oddly enough, I
know that the lie is not your idea. Because I know that your installation was
not an organ farm indeed, and that the reason you aren't dead is because you
agreed to plead guilty to running an organ farm in exchange for never
discussing what you were *really* doing there."
He slowly turned around again.
Enough that he could look up and see her with a sidelong glance. "Let me
see that clearance you tried to show me before."
She showed it to him again. He
studied it.
"What do you know?"
he asked.
"I know your real crime
was continuing a research project after it was closed down. Because you had
these fertilized eggs that had been meticulously altered. You had turned
Anton's key. You wanted them to be born. You wanted to see who they would
become."
"If you know all that,
why have you come to me? Everything I knew is in the documents you must have
read."
"Not at all," said
Sister Carlotta. "I don't care about confessions. I don't care about
logistics. I want to know about the babies."
"They're all dead,"
he said. "We killed them when we knew we were about to be
discovered." He looked at her with bitter defiance. "Yes,
infanticide. Twenty-three murders. But since the government couldn't admit that
such children had ever existed, I was never charged with the crimes. God judges
me, though. God will press the charges. Is that why you're here? Is that who
gave you your clearance?"
You make jokes about this?
"All I want to know is what you learned about them."
"I learned nothing, there
was no time, they were still babies."
"You had them for almost
a year. They developed. All the work done since Anton found his key was
theoretical. *You* watched the babies grow."
A slow smile crept across his
face. "This is like those Nazi medical crimes all over again. You deplore
what I did, but you still want to know the results of my research."
"You monitored their
growth. Their health. Their intellectual development."
"We were about to start
the tracking of intellectual development. The project wasn't funded, of course,
so it's not as if we could provide much more than a clean warm room and basic
bodily needs."
"Their bodies, then.
Their motor skills."
"Small," he said.
"They are born small, they grow slowly. Undersized and underweight, all of
them."
"But very bright?"
"Crawling very young.
Making pre-speech sounds far earlier than normal. That's all we knew. I didn't
see them often myself. I couldn't afford the risk of detection."
"So what was your
prognosis?"
"Prognosis?"
"How did you see their
future?"
"Dead. That's everyone's
future. What are you talking about?"
"If they hadn't been
slaughtered, Dr. Volescu, what would have happened?"
"They would have kept on
growing, of course."
"And later?"
"There *is* no later.
They keep on growing."
She thought for a moment,
trying to process the information.
"That's right, Sister.
You're getting it. They grow slowly, but they never stop. That's what Anton's
key does. Unlocks the mind because the brain never stops growing. But neither
does anything else. The cranium keeps expanding -- it's never fully closed. The
arms and legs, longer and longer."
"So when they reach adult
height ..."
"There is no adult
height. There's just height at time of death. You can't keep growing like that
forever. There's a reason why evolution builds a stop-clock into the growth
control of long-lived bodies. You can't keep growing without some organ giving
out, eventually. Usually the heart."
The implications filled Sister
Carlotta with dread. "And the rate of this growth? In the children, I
mean? How long until they are at normal height for their age?"
"My guess was that they'd
catch up twice," said Volescu. "Once just before puberty, and then
the normal kids would leap ahead for a while, but slow and steady wins the
race, n'est-ce pas? By twenty, they would be giants. And then they'd die,
almost certainly before age twenty-five. Do you have any idea how huge they
would be? So my killing them, you see -- it was a mercy."
"I doubt any of them
would have chosen to miss out on even the mere twenty years you took from
them."
"They never knew what
happened to them. I'm not a monster. We drugged them all. They died in their
sleep and then the bodies were incinerated."
"What about puberty?
Would they ever mature sexually?"
"That's the part we'll
never know, isn't it?"
Sister Carlotta got up to go.
"He lived, didn't
he?" asked Volescu.
"Who?"
"The one we lost. The one
whose body wasn't with the others. I counted only twenty-two going into the
fire."
"When you worship Moloch,
Dr. Volescu, you get no answers but the ones your chosen god provides."
"Tell me what he's
like." His eyes were so hungry.
"You know it was a
boy?"
"They were all
boys," said Volescu.
"What, did you discard
the girls?"
"How do you think I got
the genes I worked with? I implanted my own altered DNA into denucleated
eggs."
"God help us, they were
all your own twins?"
"I'm not the monster you
think I am," said Volescu. "I brought the frozen embryos to life
because I had to know what they would become. Killing them was my greatest
sorrow."
"And yet you did it -- to
save yourself."
"I was afraid. And the
thought came to me: They're only copies. It isn't murder to discard the
copies."
"Their souls and lives
were their own."
"Do you think the
government would have let them live? Do you really think they would have
survived? Any of them?"
"You don't deserve to
have a son," said Sister Carlotta.
"But I have one, don't
l?" He laughed. "While you, Miss Carlotta, perpetual bride of the
invisible God, how many do *you* have?"
"They may have been
copies, Volescu, but even dead they're worth more than the original."
He continued laughing as she
walked down the corridor away from him, but it sounded forced. She knew his
laughter was a mask for grief. But it wasn't the grief of compassion, or even
of remorse. It was the grief of a damned soul.
Bean. God be thanked, she
thought, that you do not know your father, and never will. You're nothing like
him. You're far more human.
In the back of her mind,
though, she had one nagging doubt. Was she sure Bean had more compassion, more
humanity? Or was Bean as cold of heart as this man? As incapable of empathy?
Was he all mind?
Then she thought of him
growing and growing, from this too-tiny child to a giant whose body could no
longer sustain life. This was the legacy your father gave you. This was Anton's
key. She thought of David's cry, when he learned of the death of his son.
Absalom! Oh Absalom! Would God I could die for thee, Absalom, my son!
But he was not dead yet, was
he? Volescu might have been lying, might simply be wrong. There might be some
way to prevent it. And even if there was not, there were still many years ahead
of Bean. And how he lived those years still mattered.
God raises up the children
that he needs, and makes men and women of them, and then takes them from this
world at his good pleasure. To him all of life is but a moment. All that
matters is what that moment was used for. And Bean *would* use it well. She was
sure of that.
Or at least she hoped it with
such fervor that it felt like certainty.
CHAPTER 12 -- ROSTER
"If Wiggin's the one,
then let's get him to Eros."
"He's not ready for
Command School yet. It's premature."
"Then we have to go with
one of the alternates."
"That's your
decision."
"*Our* decision! What do
we have to go on but what you tell us?"
"I've told you about
those older boys, too. You have the same data I have."
"Do we have all of
it?"
"Do you *want* all of
it?"
"Do we have the data on
all the children with scores and evaluations at such a high level?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"Some of them are
disqualified for various reasons."
"Disqualified by
whom?"
"By me."
"On what grounds?"
"One of them is
borderline insane, for instance. We're trying to find some structure in which
his abilities will be useful. But he could not possibly bear the weight of
complete command."
"That's one."
"Another is undergoing
surgery to correct a physical defect."
"Is it a defect that
limits his ability to command?"
"It limits his ability to
be trained to command."
"But it's being
fixed."
"He's about to have his
third operation. If it works, he might amount to something. But, as you say,
there won't be time."
"How many more children
have you concealed from us?"
"I have *concealed* none
of them. If you mean how many have I simply not referred to you as potential
commanders, the answer is *all* of them. Except the ones whose names you
already have."
"Let me be blunt. We hear
rumors about a very young one."
"They're all young."
"We hear rumors about a
child who makes the Wiggin boy look slow."
"They all have their
different strengths."
"There are those who want
you relieved of your command."
"If I'm not to be allowed
to select and train these kids properly, I'd prefer to be relieved, sir. Consider
this a request."
"So it was a stupid
threat. Advance them all as quickly as you can. just keep in mind that they
need a certain amount of time in Command School, too. It does us no good to
give them all your training if they don't have time to get ours."
***
Dimak met Graff in the
battleroom control center. Graff conducted all his secure meetings here, until
they could be sure Bean had grown enough that he couldn't get through the
ducts. The battlerooms had their own separate air systems.
Graff had an essay on his desk
display. "Have you read this? 'Problems in Campaigning Between Solar
Systems Separated by Light-years.'"
"It's been circulating
pretty widely among the faculty."
"But it isn't
signed," said Graff. "You don't happen to know who wrote it, do
you?"
"No, sir. Did you write
it?"
"I'm no scholar, Dimak,
you know that. In fact, this was written by a student."
"At Command School?"
"A student here."
At that moment Dimak
understood why he had been called in. "Bean."
"Six years old. The paper
reads like a work of scholarship!"
"I should have guessed.
He picks up the voice of the strategists he's been reading. Or their
translators. Though I don't know what will happen now that he's he's [sic --
should be a single "he's"] been reading Frederick and Bulow in the
original -- French and German. He inhales languages and breathes them back
out."
"What did you think of
this paper?"
"You already know it's
killing me to keep key information from this boy. If he can write *this* with
what he knows, what would happen if we told him everything? Colonel Graff, why
can't we promote him right out of Battle School, set him loose as a theorist,
and then watch what he spits out?"
"Our job isn't to find
theorists here. It's too late for theory anyway."
"I just think ... look, a
kid so small, who'd follow him? He's being wasted here. But when he writes,
nobody knows how little he is. Nobody knows how young he is."
"I see your point, but
we're not going to breach security, period."
"Isn't he already a grave
security risk?"
"The mouse who scutters
through the ducts?"
"No. I think he's grown
too big for that. He doesn't do those side-arm pushups anymore. I thought the
security risk came from the fact that he guessed that an offensive fleet had
been launched generations ago, so why were we still training children for
command?"
"From analysis of his
papers, from his activities when he signs on as a teacher, we think he's got a
theory and it's wonderfully wrong. But he believes his false theory *only*
because he doesn't know about the ansible. Do you understand? Because that's
the main thing we'd have to tell him about, isn't it?"
"Of course."
"So you see, that's the
one thing we can't tell him."
"What is his
theory?"
"That we're assembling
children here in preparation for a war between nations, or between nations and
the I.F. A landside war, back on Earth."
"Why would we take the
kids into space to prepare for a war on Earth?"
"Think just a minute and
you'll get it."
"Because ... because when
we've licked the Formics, there probably *will* be a little landside conflict.
And all the talented commanders -- the I.F. would already have them."
"You see? We can't have
this kid publishing, not even within the I.F. Not everybody has given up
loyalty to groups on Earth."
"So why did you call me
in?"
"Because I *do* want to
use him. We aren't running the war here, but we *are* running a school. Did you
read his paper about the ineffectiveness of using officers as teachers?"
"Yes. I felt
slapped."
"This time he's mostly
wrong, because he has no way of knowing how nontraditional our recruitment of
faculty has always been. But he may also be a little bit right. Because our
system of testing for officer potential was designed to produce candidates with
the traits identified in the most highly regarded officers in the Second
Invasion."
"Hi-ho."
"You see? Some of the
highly regarded were officers who performed well in battle, but the war was too
short to weed out the deadwood. The officers they tested included just the kind
of people he criticized in his paper. So ..."
"So he had the wrong
reason, but the right result."
"Absolutely. It gives us
little pricks like Bonzo Madrid. You've known officers like him, haven't you?
So why should we be surprised that our tests give him command of an army even
though he has no idea what to do with it. All the vanity and all the stupidity
of Custer or Hooker or -- hell, pick your own vain incompetent, it's the most
common kind of general officer."
"May I quote you?"
"I'll deny it. The thing
is, Bean has been studying the dossiers of all the other students. We think
he's evaluating them for loyalty to their native identity group, and also for
their excellence as commanders."
"By *his* standards of
excellence."
"We need to get Ender the
command of an army. We're under a lot of pressure to get our leading candidates
into Command School. But if we bust one of the current commanders in order to
make a place for Ender, it'll cause too much resentment."
"So you have to give him
a new army."
"Dragon."
"There are still kids
here who remember the last Dragon Army."
"Right. I like that. The
jinx."
"I see. You want to give
Ender a running start."
"It gets worse."
"I thought it
would."
"We also aren't going to
give him any soldiers that aren't already on their commanders' transfer
list."
"The dregs? What are you
*doing* to this kid?"
"If we choose them, by
our ordinary standards, then yes, the dregs. But we aren't going to choose
Ender's army."
"Bean?"
"Our tests are worthless
on this, right? Some of those dregs are the very best students, according to
Bean, right? And he's been studying the launchies. So give him an assignment.
Tell him to solve a hypothetical problem. Construct an army only out of
launchies. Maybe the soldiers on the transfer lists, too."
"I don't think there's
any way to do that without telling him that we're on to his fake teacher
log-in."
"So tell him."
"Then he won't believe
anything he found while searching."
"He didn't find
anything," said Graff. "We didn't have to plant anything fake for him
to find, because he had his false theory. See? So whether he thinks we planted
stuff or not, he'll stay deceived and we're still secure."
"You seem to be counting
on your understanding of his psychology."
"Sister Carlotta assures
me that he differs from ordinary human DNA in only one small area."
"So now he's human
again?"
"I've got to make
decisions based on *something*, Dimak!"
"So the jury's still out
on the human thing?"
"Get me a roster of the
hypothetical army Bean would pick, so we can give it to Ender."
"He'll put himself in it,
you know."
"He damn well better, or
he's not as smart as we've been thinking."
"What about Ender? Is he
ready?"
"Anderson thinks he
is." Graff sighed. "To Bean, it's still just a game, because none of
the weight has fallen on him yet. But Ender ... I think he knows, deep down,
where this is going to lead. I think he feels it already."
"Sir, just because you're
feeling the weight doesn't mean he is."
Graff laughed. "You cut
straight to the heart of things, don't you!"
"Bean's hungry for it,
sir. If Ender isn't, then why not put the burden where it's wanted?"
"If Bean's hungry for it,
it proves he's still too young. Besides, the hungry ones always have something
to prove. Look at Napoleon. Look at Hitler. Bold at first, yes, but then
*still* bold later on, when they need to cautious, to pull back. Patton.
Caesar. Alexander. Always overreaching, never quite putting the finish on it.
No, it's Ender, not Bean. Ender doesn't want to do it, so he won't have
anything to prove."
"Are you sure you're not
just picking the kind of commander you'd want to serve under?"
"That's precisely what
I'm doing," said Graff. "Can you think of a better standard?"
"The thing is, you can't
pass the buck on this one, can you? Can't say how it was the tests, you just
followed the tests. The scores. Whatever."
"Can't run this like a
machine."
"That's why you don't
want Bean, isn't it? Because he was *made*, like a machine."
"I don't analyze myself.
I analyze *them*."
"So if we win, who really
won the war? The commander you picked? Or you, for picking him?"
"The Triumvirate, for
trusting me. After their fashion. But if we lose ..."
"Well *then* it's
definitely you."
"We're *all* dead then.
What will they do? Kill me first? Or leave me till last so I can contemplate
the consequences of my error?"
"Ender, though. I mean if
he's the one. *He* won't say it's you. He'll take it all on himself. Not the
credit for victory -- just the blame for failure."
"Win or lose, the kid I
pick is going to have a brutal time of it."
***
Bean got his summons during
lunch. He reported at once to Dimak's quarters.
He found his teacher sitting
at his desk, reading something. The light was set so that Bean couldn't read it
through the dazzle.
"Have a seat," said
Dimak.
Bean jumped up and sat on
Dimak's bed, his legs dangling.
"Let me read you
something," said Dimak. "'There are no fortifications, no magazines,
no strong points ... In the enemy solar system, there can be no living off the
land, since access to habitable planets will be possible only after complete
victory ... Supply lines are not a problem, since there are none to protect,
but the cost of that is that all supplies and ordnance must be carried with the
invading fleet ... In effect, all interstellar invasion fleets are suicide
attacks, because time dilation means that even if a fleet returns intact,
almost no one they knew will still be alive. They can never return, and so must
be sure that their force is sufficient to be decisive and therefore is worth the
sacrifice.... Mixed-sex forces allow the possibility of the army becoming a
permanent colony and/or occupying force on the captured enemy planet."
Bean listened complacently. He
had left it in his desk for them to find it, and they had done so.
"You wrote this, Bean,
but you never submitted it to anybody."
"There was never an
assignment that it fit."
"You don't seem surprised
that we found it."
"I assume that you
routinely scan our desks."
"Just as you routinely
scan ours?"
Bean felt his stomach twist
with fear. They knew.
"Cute, naming your false
log-in 'Graff' with a caret in front of it."
Bean said nothing.
"You've been scanning all
the other students' records. Why?"
"I wanted to know them.
I've only made friends with a few."
"Close friends with
none."
"I'm little and I'm
smarter than they are. Nobody's standing in line."
"So you use their records
to tell you more about them. Why do you feel the need to understand them?"
"Someday I'll be in
command of one of these armies."
"Plenty of time to get to
know your soldiers then."
"No sir," said Bean.
"No time at all."
"Why do you say
that?"
"Because of the way I've
been promoted. And Wiggin. We're the two best students in this school, and
we're being raced through. I'm not going to have much time when I get an
army."
"Bean, be realistic. It's
going to be a long time before anybody's going to be willing to follow you into
battle."
Bean said nothing. He knew
that this was false, even if Dimak didn't. "Let's see just how good your
analysis is. Let me give you an assignment."
"For which class?"
"No class, Bean. I want
you to create a hypothetical army. Working only with launchies, construct an entire
roster, the full complement of forty-one soldiers."
"*No* veterans?"
Bean meant the question
neutrally, just checking to make sure he understood the rules. But Dimak seemed
to take it as criticism of the unfairness of it. "No, tell you what, you
can include veterans who are posted for transfer at their commanders' request.
That'll give you some experienced ones."
The ones the commander
couldn't work with. Some really were losers, but some were the opposite.
"Fine," said Bean.
"How long do you think it
will take you?"
Bean already had a dozen
picked out. "I can tell the list to you right now."
"I want you to think
about it seriously."
"I already have. But you
need to answer a couple of questions first. You said forty-one soldiers, but
that would include the commander."
"All right, forty, and
leave the commander blank."
"I have another question.
Am I to command the army?"
"You can write it up that
way, if you want."
But Dimak's very unconcern
told Bean that the army was not for him. "This army's for Wiggin, isn't
it?"
Dimak glowered. "It's
hypothetical."
"Definitely Wiggin,"
said Bean. "You can't boot somebody else out of command to make room for
him, so you're giving Wiggin a whole new army. I bet it's Dragon."
Dimak looked stricken, though
he tried to cover it.
"Don't worry," said
Bean. "I'll give him the best army you can form, following those
rules."
"I *said* this was
hypothetical!"
"You think I wouldn't
figure it out when I found myself in Wiggin's army and everybody else in it was
also on my roster?"
"Nobody's said we're
actually going to follow your roster!"
"You will. Because I'll
be right and you'll know it," said Bean. "And I can promise you,
it'll be a hell of an army. With Wiggin to train us, we'll kick ass."
"Just do the hypothetical
assignment, and talk to no one about it. Ever."
That was dismissal, but Bean
didn't want to be dismissed yet. They came to *him*. They were having *him* do
their work. He wanted to have his say while they were still listening.
"The reason this army can be so good is that your system's been promoting
a lot of the wrong kids. About half the best kids in this school are launchies
or on the transfer lists, because they're the ones who haven't already been
beaten into submission by the kiss-ass idiots you put in command of armies or
toons. These misfits and little kids are the ones who can win. Wiggin will
figure that out. He'll know how to use us."
"Bean, you're not as
smart about everything as you think you are!"
"Yes I am, sir,"
said Bean. "Or you wouldn't have given this assignment to me. May I be
dismissed? Or do you want me to tell you the roster now?"
"Dismissed," said
Dimak.
I probably shouldn't have
provoked him, thought Bean. Now it's possible that he'll fiddle with my roster
just to prove he can. But that's not the kind of man he is. If I'm not right
about that, then I'm not right about anybody else, either.
Besides, it felt good to speak
the truth to someone in power.
***
After working with the list a
little while, Bean was just as glad that Dimak hadn't taken him up on his
foolish offer to make up the roster on the spot. Because it wasn't just a
matter of naming the forty best soldiers among the launchies and the transfer
lists.
Wiggin was way early for
command, and that would make it harder for older kids to take it -- getting put
into a kid's army. So he struck off the list all who were older than Wiggin.
That left him with nearly
sixty kids who were good enough to be in the army. Bean was ranking them in
order of value when he realized that he was about to make another mistake.
Quite a few of these kids were in the group of launchies and soldiers that practiced
with Wiggin during free time. Wiggin would know these kids best, and naturally
he'd look to them to be his toon leaders. The core of his army.
The trouble was, while a
couple of them would do fine as toon leaders, relying on that group would mean
passing over several who weren't part of that group. Including Bean.
So he doesn't choose me to
lead a toon. He isn't going to choose me anyway, right? I'm too little. He
won't look at me and see a leader.
Is this just about me, then?
Am I corrupting this process just to get myself a chance to show what I can do?
And if I am, what's wrong with
that? I know what I can do, and no one else really gets it. The teachers think
I'm a scholar, they know I'm smart, they trust my judgment, but they aren't making
this army for me, they're making it for him. I still have to prove to them what
I can do. And if I really am one of the best, it would be to the benefit of the
program to have it revealed as quickly as possible.
And then he thought: Is this
how idiots rationalize their stupidity to themselves?
"Ho, Bean," said
Nikolai.
"Ho," said Bean. He
passed a hand across his desk, blanking the display. "Tell me."
"Nothing to tell. *You*
looked grim."
"Just doing an
assignment."
Nikolai laughed. "You
never look that serious doing classwork. You just read for a while and then you
type for a while. Like it was nothing. This is something."
"An extra
assignment."
"A hard one, neh?"
"Not very."
"Sorry to break in. Just
thought maybe something was wrong. Maybe a letter from home."
They both laughed at that.
Letters weren't that common here. Every few months at the most. And the letters
were pretty empty when they came. Some never got mail at all. Bean was one of
them, and Nikolai knew why. It wasn't a secret, he was just the only one who
noticed and the only one who asked about it. "No family at *all*?" he
had said. "Some kids' families, maybe I'm the lucky one," Bean answered
him, and Nikolai agreed. "But not mine. I wish you had parents like
mine." And then he went on about how he was an only child, but his parents
really worked hard to get him. "They did it with surgery, fertilized five
or six eggs, then twinned the healthiest ones a few more times, and finally
they picked me. I grew up like I was going to be king or the Dalai Lama or
something. And then one day the I.F. says, we need him. Hardest thing my
parents ever did, saying yes. But I said, What if I'm the next Mazer Rackham?
And they let me go."
That was months ago, but it
was still between them, that conversation. Kids didn't talk much about home.
Nikolai didn't discuss his family with anybody else, either. Just with Bean.
And in return, Bean told him a little about life on the street. Not a lot of
details, because it would sound like he was asking for pity or trying to look
cool. But he mentioned how they were organized into a family. Talked about how
it was Poke's crew, and then it became Achilles' family, and how they got into a
charity kitchen. Then Bean waited to see how much of this story started
circulating.
None of it did. Nikolai never
said a word about it to anyone else. That was when Bean was sure that Nikolai
was worth having as a friend. He could keep things to himself without even
having to be asked to do it.
And now here Bean was, making
up the roster for this great army, and here sat Nikolai, asking him what he was
doing. Dimak had said to tell no one, but Nikolai could keep a secret. What
harm could it do?
Then Bean recovered his
senses. Knowing about this wouldn't help Nikolai in any way. Either he'd be in
Dragon Army or he wouldn't. If he wasn't, he'd know Bean hadn't put him there.
If he was, it would be worse, because he'd wonder if Bean had included him in
the roster out of friendship instead of excellence.
Besides, Nikolai shouldn't be
in Dragon Army. Bean liked him and trusted him, but Nikolai was not among the
best of the launchies. He was smart, he was quick, he was good -- but he was
nothing special.
Except to me, thought Bean.
"It was a letter from
*your* parents," said Bean. "They've stopped writing to you, they
like me better."
"Yeah, and the Vatican is
moving to Mecca."
"And I'm going to be made
Polemarch."
"No jeito," said
Nikolai. "You too tall, bicho." Nikolai picked up his desk. "I
can't help you with your classwork tonight, Bean, so please don't beg me."
He lay back on his bed, started into the fantasy game.
Bean lay back, too. He woke up
his display and began wrestling with the names again. If he eliminated every
one of the kids who'd been practicing with Wiggin, how many of the good ones
would it leave? Fifteen veterans from the transfer lists. Twenty-two launchies,
including Bean.
Why *hadn't* these launchies
taken part in Wiggin's freetime practices? The veterans, they were already in
trouble with their commanders, they weren't about to antagonize them any more,
so it made sense for them not to have taken part. But these launchies, weren't
they ambitious? Or were they bookish, trying to do it all through classwork
instead of catching on that the battleroom was everything? Bean couldn't fault
them for that -- it had taken him a while to catch on, too. Were they so
confident of their own abilities they didn't think they needed the extra prep?
Or so arrogant they didn't want anybody to think they owed their success to
Ender Wiggin? Or so shy they ...
No. He couldn't possibly guess
their motives. They were all too complex anyway. They were smart, with good
evaluations -- good by Bean's standards, not necessarily by the teachers'. That
was all he needed to know. If he gave Wiggin an army without a single kid he'd
worked with in practices, then all the army would start out equal in his eyes.
Which meant Bean would have the same chance as any other kid to earn Wiggin's
eye and maybe get command of a toon. If they couldn't compete with Bean for
that position, then too damn bad for them.
But that left him with
thirty-seven names on the roster. Three more slots to fill.
He went back and forth on a
couple. Finally decided to include Crazy Tom, a veteran who held the unenviable
record of being the most-transferred soldier in the history of the game who
wasn't actually iced and sent home. So far. The thing was, Crazy Tom really was
good. Sharp mind. But he couldn't stand it when somebody above him was stupid
and unfair. And when he got pissed, he really went off. Ranting, throwing
things, tearing bedding off every bed in his barracks once, another time
writing a message about what an idiot his commander was and mailing it to every
other student in the school. A few actually got it before the teachers intercepted
it, and they said it was the hottest thing they ever read. Crazy Tom. Could be
disruptive. But maybe he was just waiting for the right commander. He was in.
And a girl, Wu, which of
course had become Woo and even Woo-*hoo*. Brilliant at her studies, absolutely
a killer in the arcade games, but she refused to be a toon leader and as soon
as her commanders asked her, she put in for a transfer and refused to fight
until they gave it to her. Weird. Bean had no idea why she did that -- the
teachers were baffled, too. Nothing in her tests to show why. What the hell,
thought Bean. She's in.
Last slot.
He typed in Nikolai's name.
Am I doing him a favor? He's
not bad, he's just a little slower than these kids, just a little gentler.
It'll be hard for him. And if he's left out of it, he won't mind. He'll just do
his best with whatever army he gets sent to eventually.
And yet ... Dragon Army is
going to be a legend. Not just here in Battle School, either. These kids are
going to go on to be leaders in the I.F. Or somewhere, anyway. And they'll tell
stories about when they were in Dragon Army with the great Ender Wiggin. And if
I include Nikolai, then even if he isn't the best of the soldiers, even if he's
in fact the slowest, he'll still be *in*, he'll still be able to tell those
stories someday. And he's not bad. He won't embarrass himself. He won't bring
down the army. He'll do OK. So why not?
And I want him with me. He's
the only one I've ever talked to. About personal things. The only one who knows
the name of Poke. I want him. And there's a slot on the roster.
Bean went down the list one
more time. Then he alphabetized it and mailed it to Dimak.
***
The next morning, Bean,
Nikolai, and three other kids in their launch group had their assignment to
Dragon Army. Months before they should have been promoted to soldiers. The
unchosen kids were envious, hurt, furious by turn. Especially when they
realized Bean was one of the chosen. "Do they *make* uniform flash suits
that size?"
It was a good question. And
the answer was no, they didn't. The colors of Dragon Army were grey, orange,
grey. Because soldiers were usually a lot older than Bean when they came in,
they had to cut a flash suit down for Bean, and they didn't do it all that
well. Flash suits weren't manufactured in space, and nobody had the tools to do
a first-rate job of alteration.
When they finally got it to
fit him, Bean wore his flash suit to the Dragon Army barracks. Because it had
taken him so long to be fitted, he was the last to arrive. Wiggin arrived at
the door just as Bean was entering. "Go ahead," said Wiggin.
It was the first time Wiggin
had ever spoken to him -- for all Bean knew, the first time Wiggin had even
noticed him. So thoroughly had Bean concealed his fascination with Wiggin that
he had made himself effectively invisible.
Wiggin followed him into the
room. Bean started down the corridor between the bunks, heading for the back of
the room where the younger soldiers always had to sleep. He glanced at the
other kids, who were all looking at him as he passed with a mixture of horror
and amusement. They were in an army so lame that *this* little tiny kid was
part of it?
Behind him, Wiggin was
starting his first speech. Voice confident, loud enough but not shouting, not
nervous. "I'm Ender Wiggin. I'm your commander. Bunking will be arranged
by seniority."
Some of the launchies groaned.
"Veterans to the back of
the room, newest soldiers to the front."
The groaning stopped. That was
the opposite of the way things were usually arranged. Wiggin was already
shaking things up. Whenever he came into the barracks, the kids closest to him
would be the new ones. Instead of getting lost in the shuffle, they'd always
have his attention.
Bean turned around and headed
back to the front of the room. He was still the youngest kid in Battle School,
but five of the soldiers were from more recently arrived launch groups, so they
got the positions nearest the door. Bean got an upper bunk directly across from
Nikolai, who had the same seniority, being from the same launch group.
Bean clambered up onto his bed,
hampered by his flash suit, and put his palm beside the locker. Nothing
happened.
"Those of you who are in
an army for the first time," said Wiggin, "just pull the locker open
by hand. No locks. Nothing private here."
Laboriously Bean pulled off his
flash suit to stow it in his locker.
Wiggin walked along between
the bunks, making sure that seniority was respected. Then he jogged to the
front of the room. "All right, everybody. Put on your flash suits and come
to practice."
Bean looked at him in complete
exasperation. Wiggin had been looking right at him when he started taking off
his flash suit. Why didn't he suggest that Bean not take the damn thing off?
"We're on the morning
schedule," Wiggin continued. "Straight to practice after breakfast.
Officially you have a free hour between breakfast and practice. We'll see what
happens after I find out how good you are."
Truth was, Bean felt like an
idiot. Of course Wiggin would head for practice immediately. He shouldn't have
needed a warning not to take the suit off. He should have *known*.
He tossed his suit pieces onto
the floor and slid down the frame of the bunk. A lot of the other kids were talking,
flipping clothes at each other, playing with their weapons. Bean tried to put
on the cut-down suit, but couldn't figure out some of the jury-rigged
fastenings. He had to take off several pieces and examine them to see how they
fit, and finally gave up, took it all off, and started assembling it on the
floor.
Wiggin, unconcerned, glanced
at his watch. Apparently three minutes was his deadline. "All right,
everybody out, now! On your way!"
"But I'm naked!"
said one boy -- Anwar, from Ecuador, child of Egyptian immigrants. His dossier
ran through Bean's mind.
"Dress faster next
time," said Wiggin.
Bean was naked, too.
Furthermore, Wiggin was standing right there, watching him struggle with his
suit. He could have helped. He could have waited. What am I getting myself in
for?
"Three minutes from first
call to running out the door -- that's the rule this week," said Wiggin.
"Next week the rule is two minutes. Move!"
Out in the corridor, kids who
were in the midst of free time or were heading for class stopped to watch the
parade of the unfamiliar uniforms of Dragon Army. And to mock the ones that
were even more unusual.
One thing for sure. Bean was
going to have to practice getting dressed in his cut-down suit if he was going
to avoid running naked through the corridors. And if Wiggin didn't make any
exceptions for him the first day, when he'd only just got his nonregulation
flash suit, Bean certainly was *not* going to ask for special favors.
I chose to put myself in this
army, Bean reminded himself as he jogged along, trying to keep pieces of his
flash suit from spilling out of his arms.
PART FOUR -- SOLDIER
CHAPTER 13 -- DRAGON ARMY
"I need access to Bean's
genetic information," said Sister Carlotta.
"That's not for
you," said Graff.
"And here I thought my
clearance level would open any door."
"We invented a special
new category of security, called 'Not for Sister Carlotta.' We don't want you
sharing Bean's genetic information with anyone else. And you were already
planning on putting it in other hands, weren't you?"
"Only to perform a test.
So ... you'll have to perform it for me. I want a comparison between Bean's DNA
and Volescu's."
"I thought you told me
Volescu was the source of the cloned DNA."
"I've been thinking about
it since I told you that, Colonel Graff, and you know what? Bean doesn't look
anything like Volescu. I couldn't see how he could possibly grow up to be like
him, either."
"Maybe the difference in
growth patterns makes him look different, too."
"Maybe. But it's also
possible Volescu is lying. He's a vain man."
"Lying about
everything?"
"Lying about anything.
About paternity, quite possibly. And if he's lying about that --"
"Then maybe Bean's
prognosis isn't so bleak? Don't you think we've already checked with our
genetics people? Volescu wasn't lying about that, anyway. Anton's key will
probably behave just the way he described."
"Please. Run the test and
tell me the results."
"Because you don't want
Bean to be Volescu's son."
"I don't want Bean to be
Volescu's twin. And neither, I think, do you."
"Good point. Though I
must tell you, the boy does have a vain streak."
"When you're as gifted as
Bean, accurate self-assessment looks like vanity to other people."
"Yeah, but he doesn't
have to rub it in, does he?"
"Uh-oh. Has someone's ego
been hurt?"
"Not mine. Yet. But one
of his teachers is feeling a little bruised."
"I notice you aren't
telling me I faked his scores anymore."
"Yes, Sister Carlotta,
you were right all along. He deserves to be here. And so does ... Well, let's
just say you hit the jackpot after all those years of searching."
"It's humanity's
jackpot."
"I said he was worth
bringing up here, not that he was the one who'll lead us to victory. The
wheel's still spinning on that one. And my money's on another number."
***
Going up the ladderways while
holding a flash suit wasn't practical, so Wiggin made the ones who were dressed
run up and down the corridor, working up a sweat, while Bean and the other
naked or partially-dressed kids got their suits on. Nikolai helped Bean get his
suit fastened; it humiliated Bean to need help, but it would have been worse to
be the last one finished -- the pesky little teeny brat who slows everyone
down. With Nikolai's help, he was not the last one done.
"Thanks."
"No ojjikay [sic -- no
idea what this means]."
Moments later, they were
streaming up the ladders to the battleroom level. Wiggin took them all the way
to the upper door, the one that opened out into the middle of the battleroom
wall. The one used for entering when it was an actual battle. There were
handholds on the sides, the ceiling, and the floor, so students could swing out
and hurl themselves into the null-G environment. The story was that gravity was
lower in the battleroom because it was closer to the center of the station, but
Bean had already realized that was bogus. There would still be some centrifugal
force at the doors and a pronounced Coriolis effect. Instead, the battlerooms
were completely null. To Bean, that meant that the I.F. had a device that would
either block gravitation or, more likely, produce false gravity that was
perfectly balanced to counter Coriolis and centrifugal forces in the
battleroom, starting exactly at the door. It was a stunning technology -- and
it was never discussed inside the I.F., at least not in the literature
available to students in Battle School, and completely unknown outside.
Wiggin assembled them in four
files along the corridor and ordered them to jump up and use the ceiling
handholds to fling their bodies into the room. "Assemble on the far wall,
as if you were going for the enemy's gate." To the veterans that meant
something. To the launchies, who had never been in a battle and had never, for
that matter, entered through the upper door, it meant nothing at all. "Run
up and go four at a time when I open the gate, one group per second."
Wiggin walked to the back of the group and, using his hook, a controller
strapped to the inside of his wrist and curved to conform to his left hand, he
made the door, which had seemed quite solid, disappear.
"Go!" The first four
kids started running for the gate. "Go!" The next group began to run
before the first had even reached it. There would be no hesitation or somebody
would crash into you from behind. "Go!" The first group grabbed and
swung with varying degrees of clumsiness and heading out in various directions.
"Go!" Later groups learned, or tried to, from the awkwardness of the
earlier ones. "Go!"
Bean was at the end of the
line, in the last group. Wiggin laid a hand on his shoulder. "You can use
a side handhold if you want."
Right, thought Bean. *Now* you
decide to baby me. Not because my meshugga flash suit didn't fit together
right, but just because I'm short. "Go suck on it," said Bean.
"Go!"
Bean kept pace with the other
three, though it meant pumping his legs half again as fast, and when he got
near the gate he took a flying leap, tapped the ceiling handhold with his
fingers as he passed, and sailed out into the room with no control at all,
spinning in three nauseating directions at once.
But he didn't expect himself
to do any better, and instead of fighting the spin, he calmed himself and did
his anti-nausea routine, relaxing himself until he neared a wall and had to
prepare for impact. He didn't land near one of the recessed handholds and
wasn't facing the right way to grab anything even if he had. So he rebounded,
but this time was a little more stable as he flew, and he ended up on the
ceiling very near the back wall. It took him less time than some to make his
way down to where the others were assembling, lined up along the floor under
the middle gate on the back wall -- the enemy gate.
Wiggin sailed calmly through
the air. Because he had a hook, during practice he could maneuver in midair in
ways that soldiers couldn't; during battle, though, the hook would be useless,
so commanders had to make sure they didn't become dependent on the hook's added
control. Bean noted approvingly that Wiggin seemed not to use the hook at all.
He sailed in sideways, snagged a handhold on the floor about ten paces out from
the back wall, and hung in the air. Upside down.
Fixing his gaze on one of
them, Wiggin demanded, "Why are you upside down, soldier?"
Immediately some of the other
soldiers started to turn themselves upside down like Wiggin.
"Attention!" Wiggin
barked. All movement stopped. "I said why are you upside down!"
Bean was surprised that the
soldier didn't answer. Had he forgotten what the teacher did in the shuttle on
the way here? The deliberate disorientation? Or was that something that only
Dimak did?
"I said why does every
one of you have his feet in the air and his head toward the ground!"
Wiggin didn't look at Bean in
particular, and this was one question Bean didn't want to answer. There was no
assurance of which particular correct answer Wiggin was looking for, so why
open his mouth just to get shut down?
It was a kid named Shame --
short for Seamus -- who finally spoke up. "Sir, this is the direction we
were in coming out of the door." Good job, thought Bean. Better than some
lame argument that there was no up or down in null-G.
"Well what difference is
that supposed to make! What difference does it make what the gravity was back
in the corridor! Are we going to fight in the corridor? Is there any gravity
here?"
No sir, they all murmured.
"From now on, you forget
about gravity before you go through that door. The old gravity is gone, erased.
Understand me? Whatever your gravity is when you get to the door, remember --
the enemy's gate is down. Your feet are toward the enemy gate. Up is toward
your own gate. North is that way" -- he pointed toward what had been the
ceiling -- "south is that way, east is that way, west is -- what
way?"
They pointed.
"That's what I
expected," said Wiggin. "The only process you've mastered is the
process of elimination, and the only reason you've mastered that is because you
can do it in the toilet."
Bean watched, amused. So
Wiggin subscribed to the you're-so-stupid-you-need-me-to-wipe-your-butts school
of basic training. Well, maybe that was necessary. One of the rituals of
training. Boring till it was over, but ... commander's choice.
Wiggin glanced at Bean, but
his eyes kept moving.
"What was the circus I
saw out here! Did you call that forming up? Did you call that flying? Now
everybody, launch and form up on the ceiling! Right now! Move!"
Bean knew what the trap was
and launched for the wall they had just entered through before Wiggin had even
finished talking. Most of the others also got what the test was, but a fair
number of them launched the wrong way -- toward the direction Wiggin had called
*north* instead of the direction he had identified as *up*. This time Bean
happened to arrive near a handhold, and he caught it with surprising ease. He
had done it before in his launch group's battleroom practices, but he was small
enough that, unlike the others, it was quite possible for him to land in a
place that had no handhold within reach. Short arms were a definite drawback in
the battleroom. On short bounds he could aim at a handhold and get there with
some accuracy. On a cross-room jump there was little hope of that. So it felt
good that this time, at least, he didn't look like an oaf. In fact, having
launched first, he arrived first.
Bean turned around and watched
as the ones who had blown it made the long, embarrassing second leap to join
the rest of the army. He was a little surprised at who some of the bozos were.
Inattention can make clowns of us all, he thought.
Wiggin was watching him again,
and this time it was no passing glance.
"You!" Wiggin
pointed at him. "Which way is down?"
Didn't we just cover this?
"Toward the enemy door."
"Name, kid?"
Come on, Wiggin really didn't
know who the short kid with the highest scores in the whole damn school was?
Well, if we're playing mean sergeant and hapless recruit, I better follow the
script. "This soldier's name is Bean, sir."
"Get that for size or for
brains?"
Some of the other soldiers
laughed. But not many of them. *They* knew Bean's reputation. To them it was no
longer funny that he was so small -- it was just embarrassing that a kid that
small could make perfect scores on tests that had questions they didn't even
understand.
"Well, Bean, you're right
onto things." Wiggin now included the whole group as he launched into a
lecture on how coming through the door feet first made you a much smaller
target for the enemy to shoot at. Harder for him to hit you and freeze you.
"Now, what happens when you're frozen?"
"Can't move,"
somebody said.
"That's what frozen
*means*," said Wiggin. "But what *happens* to you?"
Wiggin wasn't phrasing his
question very clearly, in Bean's opinion, and there was no use in prolonging
the agony while the others figured it out. So Bean spoke up. "You keep
going in the direction you started in. At the speed you were going when you
were flashed."
"That's true," said
Wiggin. "You five, there on the end, move!" He pointed at five
soldiers, who spent long enough looking at each other to make sure which five
he meant that Wiggin had time to flash them all, freezing them in place. During
practice, it took a few minutes for a freeze to wear off, unless the commander used
his hook to unfreeze them earlier.
"The next five,
move!"
Seven kids moved at once -- no
time to count. Wiggin flashed them as quickly as he flashed the others, but
because they had already launched, they kept moving at a good clip toward the
walls they had headed for.
The first five were hovering
in the air near where they had been frozen.
"Look at these so-called
soldiers. Their commander ordered them to move, and now look at them. Not only
are they frozen, they're frozen right here, where they can get in the way.
While the others, because they moved when they were ordered, are frozen down
there, plugging up the enemy's lanes, blocking the enemy's vision. I imagine
that about five of you have understood the point of this."
We all understand it, Wiggin.
It's not like they bring stupid people up here to Battle School. It's not like
I didn't pick you the best available army.
"And no doubt Bean is one
of them. Right, Bean?"
Bean could hardly believe that
Wiggin was singling him out *again*.
Just because I'm little, he's
using me to embarrass the others. The little guy knows the answers, so why
don't you big boys.
But then, Wiggin doesn't
realize yet. He thinks he has an army of incompetent launchies and rejects. He
hasn't had a chance to see that he actually has a select group. So he thinks of
me as the most ludicrous of a sad lot. He's found out I'm not an idiot, but he
still assumes the others are.
Wiggin was still looking at
him. Oh, yeah, he had asked a question. "Right, sir," said Bean.
"Then what is the
point?"
Spit back to him exactly what
he just said to us. "When you are ordered to move, move fast, so if you
get iced you'll bounce around instead of getting in the way of your own army's
operations."
"Excellent. At least I
have one soldier who can figure things out."
Bean was disgusted. This was
the commander who was supposed to turn Dragon into a legendary army? Wiggin was
supposed to be the alpha and omega of the Battle School, and he's playing the
game of singling me out to be the goat. Wiggin didn't even find out our scores,
didn't discuss his soldiers with the teachers. If he did, he'd already know
that I'm the smartest kid in the school. The others all know it. That's why
they're looking at each other in embarrassment. Wiggin is revealing his own
ignorance.
Bean saw how Wiggin seemed to
be registering the distaste of his own soldiers. It was just an eyeblink, but
maybe Wiggin finally got it that his make-fun-of-the-shrimp ploy was
backfiring. Because he finally got on with the business of training. He taught
them how to kneel in midair -- even flashing their own legs to lock them in
place -- and then fire between their knees as they moved downward toward the
enemy, so that their legs became a shield, absorbing fire and allowing them to
shoot for longer periods of time out in the open. A good tactic, and Bean
finally began to get some idea of why Wiggin might not be a disastrous
commander after all. He could sense the others giving respect to their new
commander at last.
When they'd got the point,
Wiggin thawed himself and all the soldiers he had frozen in the demonstration.
"Now," he said, "which way is the enemy's gate?"
"Down!" they all answered.
"And what is our attack
position?"
Oh, right, thought Bean, like
we can all give an explanation in unison. The only way to answer was to
demonstrate -- so Bean flipped himself away from the wall, heading for the
other side, firing between his knees as he went. He didn't do it perfectly --
there was a little rotation as he went -- but all in all, he did OK for his
first actual attempt at the maneuver.
Above him, he heard Wiggin
shout at the others. "Is Bean the only one who knows how?"
By the time Bean had caught
himself on the far wall, the whole rest of the army was coming after him,
shouting as if they were on the attack. Only Wiggin remained at the ceiling.
Bean noticed, with amusement, that Wiggin was standing there oriented the same
way he had been in the corridor -- his head "north," the old
"up." He might have the theory down pat, but in practice, it's hard
to shake off the old gravity-based thinking. Bean had made it a point to orient
himself sideways, his head to the west. And the soldiers near him did the same,
taking their orientation from him. If Wiggin noticed, he gave no sign.
"Now come back at me, all
of you, attack *me*!"
Immediately his flash suit lit
up with forty weapons firing at him as his entire army converged on him, firing
all the way. "Ouch," said Wiggin when they arrived. "You got
me."
Most of them laughed.
"Now, what are your legs
good for, in combat?"
Nothing, said some boys.
"Bean doesn't think
so," said Wiggin.
So he isn't going to let up on
me even now. Well, what does he want to hear? Somebody else muttered
"shields," but Wiggin didn't key in on that, so he must have
something else in mind. "They're the best way to push off walls,"
Bean guessed.
"Right," said
Wiggin.
"Come on, pushing off is
movement, not combat," said Crazy Tom. A few others murmured their
agreement.
Oh good, now it starts,
thought Bean. Crazy Tom picks a meaningless quarrel with his commander, who
gets pissed off at him and ...
But Wiggin didn't take umbrage
at Crazy Tom's correction. He just corrected him back, mildly. "There *is*
no combat without movement. Now, with your legs frozen like this, can you push
off walls?"
Bean had no idea. Neither did
anyone else.
"Bean?" asked
Wiggin. Of course.
"I've never tried
it," said Bean, "but maybe if you faced the wall and doubled over at
the waist --"
"Right but wrong. Watch
me. My back's to the wall, legs are frozen. Since I'm kneeling, my feet are
against the wall, Usually, when you push off you have to push downward, so you
string out your body behind you like a string *bean*, right?"
The group laughed. For the
first time, Bean realized that maybe Wiggin wasn't being stupid to get the
whole group laughing at the little guy. Maybe Wiggin knew perfectly well that
Bean was the smartest kid, and had singled him out like this because he could
tap into all the resentment the others felt for him. This whole session was
guaranteeing that the other kids would all think it was OK to laugh at Bean, to
despise him even though he was smart.
Great system, Wiggin. Destroy
the effectiveness of your best soldier, make sure he gets no respect.
However, it was more important
to learn what Wiggin was teaching than to feel sullen about the way he was
teaching it. So Bean watched intently as Wiggin demonstrated a frozen-leg
takeoff from the wall. He noticed that Wiggin gave himself a deliberate spin.
It would make it harder for him to shoot as he flew, but it would also make it
very hard for a distant enemy to focus enough light on any part of him for long
enough to get a kill.
I may be pissed off, but that
doesn't mean I can't learn.
It was a long and grueling
practice, drilling over and over again on new skills. Bean saw that Wiggin
wasn't willing to let them learn each technique separately. They had to do them
all at once, integrating them into smooth, continuous movements. Like dancing,
Bean thought. You don't learn to shoot and then learn to launch and then learn
to do a controlled spin -- you learn to launch-shoot-spin.
At the end, all of them
dripping with sweat, exhausted, and flushed with the excitement of having
learned stuff that they'd never heard of other soldiers doing, Wiggin assembled
them at the lower door and announced that they'd have another practice during
free time. "And don't tell me that free time is supposed to be free. I
know that, and you're perfectly free to do what you want. I'm *inviting* you to
come to an extra, *voluntary* practice."
They laughed. This group
consisted entirely of kids who had *not* chosen to do extra battleroom practice
with Wiggin before, and he was making sure they understood that he expected
them to change their priorities now. But they didn't mind. After this morning
they knew that when Wiggin ran a practice, every second was effective. They
couldn't afford to miss a practice or they'd fall significantly behind. Wiggin
would get their free time. Even Crazy Tom wasn't arguing about it.
But Bean knew that he had to
change his relationship with Wiggin right now, or there was no chance that he
would get a chance for leadership. What Wiggin had done to him in today's
practice, feeding on the resentment of the other kids for this little
pipsqueak, would make it even less plausible for Bean to be made a leader
within the army -- if the other kids despised him, who would follow him?
So Bean waited for Wiggin in
the corridor after the others had gone on ahead.
"Ho, Bean," said
Wiggin.
"Ho, Ender," said
Bean. Did Wiggin catch the sarcasm in the way Bean said his name? Was that why
he paused a moment before answering?
"*Sir*," said Wiggin
softly.
Oh, cut out the merda, I've
seen those vids, we all *laugh* at those vids. "I know what you're doing,
*Ender*, sir, and I'm warning you."
"Warning me?"
"I can be the best man
you've got, but don't play games with me."
"Or what?"
"Or I'll be the worst man
you've got. One or the other." Not that Bean expected Wiggin to understand
what he meant by that. How Bean could only be effective if he had Wiggin's
trust and respect, how otherwise he'd just be the little kid, useful for
nothing. Wiggin would probably take it to mean that Bean meant to cause trouble
if Wiggin didn't use him. And maybe he did mean that, a little.
"And what do you
want?" asked Wiggin. "Love and kisses?"
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.
CHAPTER 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 Volescu's [sic --
should be "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.
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."
"If you don't want to
believe me, think what you want. My talking isn't going to make you stupider
than you already are."
Fly came at him, grabbing him
by the arm and dragging him to the edge of his bunk.
At once, Nikolai launched
himself from the bunk opposite and landed on Fly's back, bumping his head into
the front of Bean's bunk. In moments, the other toon leaders had pulled Fly and
Nikolai apart -- a ludicrous fight anyway, since Nikolai wasn't that much
bigger than Bean.
"Forget it, Fly,"
said Hot Soup -- Han Tzu, leader of D toon. "Nikolai thinks he's Bean's
big brother."
"What's the kid doing
mouthing off to a toon leader?" demanded Fly.
"You were being
insubordinate toward our commander," said Bean. "And you were also
completely wrong. By your view, Lee and Jackson were idiots at
Chancellorsville."
"He keeps doing it!"
"Are you so stupid you
can't recognize the truth just because the person telling it to you is
short?" All of Bean's frustration at not being one of the officers was
spilling out. He knew it, but he didn't feel like controlling it. They needed
to hear the truth. And Wiggin needed to have the support when he was being
taken down behind his back.
Nikolai was standing on the
lower bunk, so he was as close to Bean as possible, affirming the bond between
them. "Come on, Fly," said Nikolai. "This is *Bean*,
remember?"
And, to Bean's surprise, that
silenced Fly. Until this moment, Bean had not realized the power that his
reputation had. He might be just a regular soldier in Dragon Army, but he was
still the finest student of strategy and military history in the school, and
apparently everybody -- or at least everybody but Wiggin -- knew it.
"I should have spoken
with more respect," said Bean.
"Damn right," said
Fly.
"But so should you."
Fly lunged against the grip of
the boys holding him.
"Talking about
Wiggin," said Bean. "You spoke without respect. 'Everybody knows it's
loser strategy to divide your army.'" He got Fly's intonation almost
exactly right. Several kids laughed. And, grudgingly, so did Fly.
"OK, right," said
Fly. "I was out of line." He turned to Nikolai. "But I'm still
an officer."
"Not when you're dragging
a little kid off his bunk you're not," said Nikolai. "You're a bully
when you do that."
Fly blinked. Wisely, no one
else said a thing until Fly had decided how he was going to respond.
"You're right, Nikolai. To defend your friend against a bully." He
looked from Nikolai to Bean and back again. "Pusha, you guys even look
like brothers." He walked past them, heading for his bunk. The other toon
leaders followed him. Crisis over.
Nikolai looked at Bean then.
"I was never as squished up and ugly as you," he said.
"And if I'm going to grow
up to look like you, I'm going to kill myself now," said Bean.
"Do you have to talk to
really *big* guys like that?"
"I didn't expect you to
attack him like a one-man swarm of bee."
"I guess I wanted to jump
on somebody," said Nikolai.
"You? Mr. Nice Guy?"
"I don't feel so nice
lately." He climbed up on the bunk beside Bean, so they could talk more
softly. "I'm out of my depth here, Bean. I don't belong in this
army."
"What do you mean?"
"I wasn't ready to get
promoted. I'm just average. Maybe not that good. And even though this army
wasn't a bunch of heroes in the standings, these guys are good. Everybody learns
faster than me. Everybody *gets* it and I'm still standing there thinking about
it."
"So you work
harder."
"I *am* working harder.
You -- you just get it, right away, everything, you see it all. And it's not
that I'm stupid. I always get it, too. Just ... a step behind."
"Sorry," said Bean.
"What are *you* sorry
about? It's not *your* fault."
Yes it is, Nikolai. "Come
on, you telling me you wish you weren't part of Ender Wiggin's army?"
Nikolai laughed a little.
"He's really something, isn't he?"
"You'll do your part.
You're a good soldier. You'll see. When we get into the battles, you'll do as
well as anybody."
"Eh, probably. They can
always freeze me and throw me around. A big lumpy projectile weapon."
"You're not so
lumpy."
"Everybody's lumpy
compared to you. I've watched you -- you give away half your food."
"They feed me too
much."
"I've got to study."
Nikolai jumped across to his bunk.
Bean felt bad sometimes about
having put Nikolai in this situation. But when they started winning, a lot of
kids outside of Dragon Army would be wishing they could trade places with him.
In fact, it was kind of surprising Nikolai realized he wasn't as qualified as
the others. After all, the differences weren't that pronounced. Probably there
were a lot of kids who felt just like Nikolai. But Bean hadn't really reassured
him. In fact, he had probably reaffirmed Nikolai's feelings of inferiority.
What a sensitive friend I am.
***
There was no point in
interviewing Volescu again, not after getting such lies from him the first
time. All that talk of copies, and him the original -- there was no mitigation
now. He was a murderer, a servant of the Father of Lies. He would do nothing to
help Sister Carlotta. And the need to find out what might be expected of the
one child who evaded Volescu's little holocaust was too great to rely again on
the word of such a man.
Besides, Volescu had made
contact with his half-brother or double cousin -- how else could he have
obtained a fertilized egg containing his DNA? So Sister Carlotta should be able
either to follow Volescu's trail or duplicate his research.
She learned quickly that
Volescu was the illegitimate child of a Romanian woman in Budapest, Hungary. A
little checking -- and the judicious use of her security clearance -- got her
the name of the father, a Greek-born official in the League who had recently
been promoted to service on the Hegemon's staff. That might have been a roadblock,
but Sister Carlotta did not need to speak to the grandfather. She only needed
to know who he was in order to find out the names of his three legitimate
children. The daughter was eliminated because the shared parent was a male. And
in checking the two sons, she decided to go first to visit the married one.
They lived on the island of
Crete, where Julian ran a software company whose only client was the
International Defense League. Obviously this was not a coincidence, but
nepotism was almost honorable compared to some of the outright graft and
favor-trading that was endemic in the League. In the long run such corruption
was basically harmless, since the International Fleet had seized control of its
own budget early on and never let the League touch it again. Thus the Polemarch
and the Strategos had far more money at their disposal than the Hegemon, which
made him, though first in title, weakest in actual power and independence of
movement.
And just because Julian
Delphiki owed his career to his father's political connections did not
necessarily mean that his company's product was not adequate and that he
himself was not an honest man. By the standards of honesty that prevailed in
the world of business, anyway.
Sister Carlotta found that she
did not need her security clearance to get a meeting with Julian and his wife,
Elena. She called and said she would like to see them on a matter concerning
the I.F., and they immediately opened their calendar to her. She arrived in
Knossos and was immediately driven to their home on a bluff overlooking the
Aegean. They looked nervous -- indeed, Elena was almost frantic, wringing a
handkerchief.
"Please," she said,
after accepting their offer of fruit and cheese. "Please tell me why you
are so upset. There's nothing about my business that should alarm you."
The two of them glanced at
each other, and Elena became flustered. "Then there's nothing wrong with
our boy?"
For a moment, Sister Carlotta
wondered if they already knew about Bean -- but how could they?
"Your son?"
"Then he's all
right!" Elena burst into tears of relief and when her husband knelt beside
her, she clung to him and sobbed.
"You see, it was very
hard for us to let him go into service," said Julian. "So when a
religious person calls to tell us she needs to see us on business pertaining to
the I.F., we thought -- we leapt to the conclusion --"
"Oh, I'm so sorry. I
didn't know you had a son in the military, or I would have been careful to
assure you from the start that ... but now I fear I am here under false
pretenses. The matter I need to speak to you about is personal, so personal you
may be reluctant to answer. Yet it *is* about a matter that is of some
importance to the I.F. Truthful answers cannot possibly expose you to any
personal risk, I promise."
Elena got control of herself.
Julian seated himself again, and now they looked at Sister Carlotta almost with
cheerfulness. "Oh, ask whatever you want," said Julian. "We're
just happy that -- whatever you want to ask."
"We'll answer if we
can," said Elena.
"You say you have a son.
This raises the possibility that -- there is reason to wonder if you might not
at some point have ... was your son conceived under circumstances that would
have allowed a clone of his fertilized egg to be made?"
"Oh yes," said
Elena. "That is no secret. A defect in one fallopian tube and an ectopic
pregnancy in the other made it impossible for me to conceive in utero. We
wanted a child, so they drew out several of my eggs, fertilized them with my
husband's sperm, and then cloned the ones we chose. There were four that we
cloned, six copies of each. Two girls and two boys. So far, we have implanted
only the one. He was such a -- such a special boy, we did not want to dilute
our attention. Now that his education is out of our hands, however, we have
been thinking of bearing one of the girls. It's time." She reached over
and took Julian's hand and smiled. He smiled back.
Such a contrast to Volescu.
Hard to believe there was any genetic material in common.
"You said six copies of
each of the four fertilized eggs," said Sister Carlotta.
"Six including the
original," said Julian. "That way we have the best chance of
implanting each of the four and carrying them through a full pregnancy."
"A total of twenty-four
fertilized eggs. And only one of them was implanted?"
"Yes, we were very
fortunate, the first one worked perfectly."
"Leaving
twenty-three."
"Yes. Exactly."
"Mr. Delphiki, all
twenty-three of those fertilized eggs remain in storage, waiting for
implantation?"
"Of course."
Sister Carlotta thought for a
moment. "How recently have you checked?"
"Just last week,"
said Julian. "As we began talking about having another child. The doctor
assured us that nothing has happened to the eggs and they can be implanted with
only a few hours' notice."
"But did the doctor
actually check?"
"I don't know," said
Julian.
Elena was starting to tense up
a little. "What have you heard?" she asked.
"Nothing," said Sister
Carlotta. "What I am looking for is the source of a particular child's
genetic material. I simply need to make sure that your fertilized eggs were not
the source."
"But of course they were
not. Except for our son."
"Please don't be alarmed.
But I would like to know the name of your doctor and the facility where the
eggs are stored. And then I would be glad if you would call your doctor and
have him go, in person, to the facility and insist upon seeing the eggs
himself."
"They can't be seen without
a microscope," said Julian.
"See that they have not
been disturbed," said Sister Carlotta.
They had both become
hyperalert again, especially since they had no idea what this was all about --
nor could they be told. As soon as Julian gave her the name of doctor and
hospital, Sister Carlotta stepped onto the porch and, as she gazed at the
sail-specked Aegean, she used her global and got herself put through to the
I.F. headquarters in Athens.
It would take several hours,
perhaps, for either her call or Julian's to bring in the answer, so she and
Julian and Elena made a heroic effort to appear unconcerned. They took her on a
walking tour of their neighborhood, which offered views both ancient and modem,
and of nature verdant, desert, and marine. The dry air was refreshing as long
as the breeze from the sea did not lag, and Sister Carlotta enjoyed hearing
Julian talk about his company and Elena talk about her work as a teacher. All
thought of their having risen in the world through government corruption faded
as she
realized that however he got
his contract, Julian was a serious, dedicated creator of software, while Elena
was a fervent teacher who treated her profession as a crusade. "I knew as
soon as I started teaching our son how remarkable he was," Elena told her.
"But it wasn't until his pre-tests for school placement that we first
learned that his gifts were particularly suited for the I.F."
Alarm bells went off. Sister
Carlotta had assumed that their son was an adult. After all, they were not a
young couple. "How old is your son?"
"Eight years old
now," said Julian. "They sent us a picture. Quite a little man in his
uniform. They don't let many letters come through."
Their son was in Battle
School. They appeared to be in their forties, but they might not have started
to have a family until late, and then tried in vain for a while, going through
a tubal pregnancy before finding out that Elena could no longer conceive. Their
son was only a couple of years older than Bean.
Which meant that Graff could
compare Bean's genetic code with that of the Delphiki boy and find out if they
were from the same cloned egg. There would be a control, to compare what Bean
was like with Anton's key turned, as opposed to the other, whose genes were
unaltered.
Now that she thought about it,
of *course* any true sibling of Bean's would have exactly the abilities that
would bring the attention of the I.F.
Anton's key made a child into a savant in general; the particular mix of
skills that the I.F. looked for were not affected. Bean would have had those
skills no matter what; the alteration merely allowed him to bring a far sharper
intelligence to bear on abilities he already had.
*If* Bean was in fact their
child. Yet the coincidence of twenty-three fertilized eggs and the twenty-three
children that Volescu had produced in the "clean room" -- what other
conclusion could she reach?
And soon the answer came,
first to Sister Carlotta, but immediately thereafter to the Delphikis. The I.F.
investigators had gone to the clinic with the doctor and together they had
discovered that the eggs were missing.
It was hard news for the
Delphikis to bear, and Sister Carlotta discreetly waited outside while Elena
and Julian took some time alone together. But soon they invited her in.
"How much can you tell us?" Julian asked. "You came here because
you suspected our babies might have been taken. Tell me, were they born?"
Sister Carlotta wanted to hide
behind the veil of military secrecy, but in truth there was no military secret
involved -- Volescu's crime was a matter of public record. And yet ... weren't
they better off not knowing?
"Julian, Elena, accidents
happen in the laboratory. They might have died anyway. Nothing is certain.
Isn't it better just to think of this as a terrible accident? Why add to the
burden of the loss you already have?"
Elena looked at her fiercely.
"You *will* tell me, Sister Carlotta, if you love the God of truth!"
"The eggs were stolen by
a criminal who ... illegally caused them to be brought through gestation. When
his crime was about to be discovered, he gave them a painless death by
sedative. They did not suffer."
"And this man will be put
on trial?"
"He has already been
tried and sentenced to life in prison," said Sister Carlotta.
"Already?" asked
Julian. "How long ago were our babies stolen?"
"More than seven years
ago."
"Oh!" cried Elena.
"Then our babies ... when they died ..."
"They were infants. Not a
year old yet."
"But why *our* babies?
Why would he steal them? Was he going to sell them for adoption? Was
he..."
"Does it matter? None of
his plans came to fruition," said Sister Carlotta. The nature of Volescu's
experiments *was* a secret.
"What was the murderer's
name?" asked Julian. Seeing her hesitation, he insisted. "His name is
a matter of public record, is it not?"
"In the criminal courts
of Rotterdam," said Sister Carlotta. "Volescu."
Julian reacted as if slapped
-- but immediately controlled himself. Elena did not see it.
He knows about his father's
mistress, thought Sister Carlotta. He understands now what part of the motive
had to be. The legitimate son's children were kidnapped by the bastard, experimented
on, and eventually killed -- and the legitimate son didn't find out about it
for seven years. Whatever privations Volescu fancied that his fatherlessness
had caused him, he had taken his vengeance. And for Julian, it also meant that
his father's lusts had come back to cause this loss, this pain to Julian and
his wife. The sins of the fathers are visited upon the children unto the third
and fourth generation ...
But didn't the scripture say
the third and fourth generation of them that hate me? Julian and Elena did not
hate God. Nor did their innocent babies.
It makes no more sense than
Herod's slaughter of the babes of Bethlehem. The only comfort was the trust
that a merciful God caught up the spirits of the slain infants into his bosom,
and that he brought comfort, eventually, to the parents' hearts.
"Please," said
Sister Carlotta. "I cannot say you should not grieve for the children that
you will never hold. But you can still rejoice in the child that you
have."
"A million miles
away!" cried Elena.
"I don't suppose ... you
don't happen to know if the Battle School ever lets a child come home for a
visit," said Julian. "His name is Nikolai Delphiki. Surely under the
circumstances ..."
"I'm so sorry," said
Sister Carlotta. Reminding them of the child they had was not such a good idea
after all, when they did not, in fact, have him. "I'm sorry that my coming
led to such terrible news for you."
"But you learned what you
came to learn," said Julian.
"Yes," said Sister
Carlotta.
Then Julian realized
something, though he said not a word in front of his wife. "Will you want
to return to the airport now?"
"Yes, the car is still
waiting. Soldiers are much more patient than cab drivers."
"I'll walk you to the
car," said Julian.
"No, Julian," said
Elena, "don't leave me."
"Just for a few moments,
my love. Even now, we don't forget courtesy." He held his wife for a long
moment, then led Sister Carlotta to the door and opened it for her.
As they walked to the car,
Julian spoke of what he had come to understand. "Since my father's bastard
is already in prison, you did not come here because of his crime."
"No," she said.
"One of our children is
still alive," he said.
"What I tell you now I
should not tell, because it is not within my authority," said Sister
Carlotta. "But my first allegiance is to God, not the I.F. If the
twenty-two children who died at Volescu's hand were yours, then a twenty-third
may be alive. It remains for genetic testing to be done."
"But we will not be
told," said Julian.
"Not yet," said
Sister Carlotta. "And not soon. Perhaps not ever. But if it is within my
power, then a day will come when you will meet your second son."
"Is he ... do you know
him?"
"If it is your son,"
she said, "then yes, I know him. His life has been hard, but his heart is
good, and he is such a boy as to make any father or mother proud. Please don't
ask me more. I've already said too much."
"Do I tell this to my
wife?" asked Julian. "What will be harder for her, to know or not
know?"
"Women are not so
different from men. *You* preferred to know."
Julian nodded. "I know
that you were only the bearer of news, not the cause of our loss. But your
visit here will not be remembered with happiness. Yet I want you to know that I
understand how kindly you have done this miserable job."
She nodded. "And you have
been unfailingly gracious in a difficult hour."
Julian opened the door of her
car. She stooped to the seat, swung her legs inside. But before he could close
the door for her, she thought of one last question, a very important one.
"Julian, I know you were
planning to have a daughter next. But if you had gone on to bring another son
into the world, what would you have named him?"
"Our firstborn was named
for my father, Nikolai," he said. "But Elena wanted to name a second
son for me."
"Julian Delphiki,"
said Sister Carlotta. "If this truly is your son, I think he would be
proud someday to bear his father's name."
"What name does he use
now?" asked Julian.
"Of course I cannot
say."
"But ... not Volescu,
surely."
"No. As far as I'm
concerned, he'll never hear that name. God bless you, Julian Delphiki. I will
pray for you and your wife."
"Pray for our children's
souls, too, Sister."
"I already have, and do,
and will."
***
Major Anderson looked at the
boy sitting across the table from him. "Really, it's not that important a
matter, Nikolai."
"I thought maybe I was in
trouble."
"No, no. We just noticed
that you seemed to be a particular friend of Bean. He doesn't have a lot of
friends."
"It didn't help that
Dimak painted a target on him in the shuttle. And now Ender's gone and done the
same thing. I suppose Bean can take it, but smart as he is, he kind of pisses
off a lot of the other kids."
"But not you?"
"Oh, he pisses me off,
too."
"And yet you became his
friend."
"Well, I didn't mean to.
I just had the bunk across from him in launchy barracks."
"You traded for that
bunk."
"Did I? Oh. Eh."
"And you did that before
you knew how smart Bean was."
"Dimak told us in the
shuttle that Bean had the highest scores of any of us."
"Was that why you wanted
to be near him?"
Nikolai shrugged.
"It was an act of
kindness," said Major Anderson. "Perhaps I'm just an old cynic, but
when I see such an inexplicable act I become curious."
"He really does kind of
look like my baby pictures. Isn't that dumb? I saw him and I thought, he looks
just like cute little baby Nikolai. Which is what my mother always called me in
my baby pictures. I never thought of them as *me*. I was big Nikolai. That was
cute little baby Nikolai. I used to pretend that he was my little brother and
we just happened to have the same name. Big Nikolai and Cute Little Baby
Nikolai."
"I see that you're
ashamed, but you shouldn't be. It's a natural thing for an only child to
do."
"I wanted a
brother."
"Many who have a brother
wish they didn't."
"But the brother I made up
for myself, he and I got along fine." Nikolai laughed at the absurdity of
it.
"And you saw Bean and
thought of him as the brother you once imagined."
"At first. Now I know who
he really is, and it's better. It's like ... sometimes he's the little brother
and I'm looking out for him, and sometimes he's the big brother and he's
looking out for me."
"For instance?"
"What?"
"A boy that small -- how
does he look out for you?"
"He gives me advice.
Helps me with classwork. We do some practice together. He's better at almost
everything than I am. Only I'm bigger, and I think I like him more than he
likes me."
"That may be true,
Nikolai. But as far as we can tell, he likes you more than he likes anybody
else. He just ... so far, he may not have the same capacity for friendship that
you have. I hope that my asking you these questions won't change your feelings and
actions toward Bean. We don't assign people to be friends, but I hope you'll
remain Bean's."
"I'm not his
friend," said Nikolai.
"Oh?"
"I told you. I'm his
brother." Nikolai grinned. "Once you get a brother, you don't give
him up easy."
CHAPTER 15 -- COURAGE
"Genetically, they're
identical twins. The only difference is Anton's key."
"So the Delphikis have
two sons."
"The Delphikis have one
son, Nikolai, and he's with us for the duration. Bean was an orphan found on
the streets of Rotterdam."
"Because he was
kidnapped."
"The law is clear.
Fertilized eggs are property. I know that this is a matter of religious
sensitivity for you, but the I.F. is bound by law, not --"
"The I.F. uses law where
possible to achieve its own ends. I know you're fighting a war. I know that
some things are outside your power. But the war will not go on forever. All I
ask is this: Make this information part of a record -- part of many records. So
that when the war ends, the proof of these things can and will survive. So the
truth won't stay hidden."
"Of course."
"No, not of course. You
know that the moment the Formics are defeated, the I.F. will have no reason to
exist. It will try to continue to exist in order to maintain international
peace. But the League is not politically strong enough to survive in the
nationalist winds that will blow. The I.F. will break into fragments, each
following its own leader, and God help us if any part of the fleet ever should
use its weapons against the surface of the Earth."
"You've been spending too
much time reading the Apocalypse."
"I may not be one of the
genius children in your school, but I see how the tides of opinion are flowing
here on Earth. On the nets a demagogue named Demosthenes is inflaming the West
about illegal and secret maneuvers by the Polemarch to give an advantage to the
New Warsaw Pact, and the propaganda is even more virulent from Moscow, Baghdad,
Buenos Aires, Beijing. There are a few rational voices, like Locke, but they're
given lip service and then ignored. You and I can't do anything about the fact
that world war will certainly come. But we *can* do our best to make sure these
children don't become pawns in that game."
"The only way they won't
be pawns is if they're players."
"You've been raising
them. Surely you don't *fear* them. Give them their chance to play."
"Sister Carlotta all my
work is aimed at preparing for the showdown with the Formics. At turning these
children into brilliant, reliable commanders. I can't look beyond that
mark."
"Don't *look*. Just leave
the door open for their families, their nations to claim them."
"I can't think about that
right now."
"Right now is the only
time you'll have the power to do it."
"You overestimate
me."
"You underestimate
yourself."
***
Dragon Army had only been
practicing for a month when Wiggin came into the barracks only a few seconds
after lights-on, brandishing a slip of paper. Battle orders. They would face
Rabbit Army at 0700. And they'd do it without breakfast.
"I don't want anybody
throwing up in the battleroom."
"Can we at least take a
leak first?" asked Nikolai.
"No more than a
decaliter," said Wiggin.
Everybody laughed, but they
were also nervous. As a new army, with only a handful of veterans, they didn't
actually expect to win, but they didn't want to be humiliated, either. They all
had different ways of dealing with nerves -- some became silent, others
talkative. Some joked and bantered, others turned surly. Some just lay back
down on their bunks and closed their eyes.
Bean watched them. He tried to
remember if the kids in Poke's crew ever did these things. And then realized:
They were *hungry*, not afraid of being shamed. You don't get this kind of fear
until you have enough to eat. So it was the bullies who felt like these kids,
afraid of humiliation but not of going hungry. And sure enough, the bullies
standing around in line showed all these attitudes. They were always
performing, always aware of others watching them. Fearful they would have to
fight; eager for it, too.
What do I feel?
What's wrong with me that I
have to think about it to know?
Oh ... I'm just sitting here,
watching. I'm one of *those*.
Bean pulled out his flash
suit, but then realized he had to use the toilet before putting it on. He
dropped down onto the deck and pulled his towel from its hook, wrapped it
around himself. For a moment he flashed back to that night he had tossed his
towel under a bunk and climbed into the ventilation system. He'd never fit now.
Too thickly muscled, too tall. He was still the shortest kid in Battle School,
and he doubted if anyone else would notice how he'd grown, but he was aware of
how his arms and legs were longer. He could reach things more easily. Didn't
have to jump so often just to do normal things like palming his way into the
gym.
I've changed, thought Bean. My
body, of course. But also the way I think.
Nikolai was still lying in bed
with his pillow over his head. Everybody had his own way of coping.
The other kids were all using
the toilets and getting drinks of water, but Bean was the only one who thought
it was a good idea to shower. They used to tease him by asking if the water was
still warm when it got all the way down there, but the joke was old now. What
Bean wanted was the steam. The blindness of the fog around him, of the fogged
mirrors, everything hidden, so he could be anyone, anywhere, any size.
Someday they'll all see me as
I see myself. Larger than any of them. Head and shoulders above the rest,
seeing farther, reaching farther, carrying burdens they could only dream of. In
Rotterdam all I cared about was staying alive. But here, well fed, I've found
out who I am. What I might be. *They* might think I'm an alien or a robot or
something, just because I'm not genetically ordinary. But when I've done the
great deeds of my life, they'll be proud to claim me as a human, furious at
anyone who questions whether I'm truly one of them.
Greater than Wiggin.
He put the thought out of his
mind, or tried to. This wasn't a competition. There was room for two great men
in the world at the same time. Lee and Grant were contemporaries, fought
against each other. Bismarck and Disraeli. Napoleon and Wellington.
No, that's not the comparison.
It's *Lincoln* and Grant. Two great men working together.
It was disconcerting, though,
to realize how rare that was. Napoleon could never bear to let any of his
lieutenants have real authority. All victories had to be his alone. Who was the
great man beside Augustus? Alexander? They had friends, they had rivals, but
they never had partners.
That's why Wiggin has kept me
down, even though he knows by now from the reports they give to army commanders
that I've got a mind better than anybody else in Dragon. Because I'm too
obviously a rival. Because I made it clear that first day that I intended to
rise, and he's letting me know that it won't happen while I'm with his army.
Someone came into the
bathroom. Bean couldn't see who it was because of the fog. Nobody greeted him.
Everybody else must have finished here and gone back to get ready.
The newcomer walked through
the fog past the opening in Bean's shower stall. It was Wiggin.
Bean just stood there, covered
with soap. He felt like an idiot. He was in such a daze he had forgotten to
rinse, was just standing in the fog, lost in his thoughts. Hurriedly he moved
under the water again.
"Bean?"
"Sir?" Bean turned
to face him. Wiggin was standing in the shower entrance.
"I thought I ordered
everybody to get down to the gym."
Bean thought back. The scene
unfolded in his mind. Yes, Wiggin *had* ordered everybody to bring their flash
suits to the gym.
"I'm sorry. I ... was
thinking of something else ..."
"Everybody's nervous
before their first battle."
Bean hated that. To have
Wiggin see him doing something stupid. Not remembering an order -- Bean
remembered *everything*. It just hadn't registered. And now he was patronizing
him. Everybody's nervous!
"*You* weren't,"
said Bean.
Wiggin had already stepped
away. He came back. "Wasn't I?"
"Bonzo Madrid gave you
orders not to take your weapon out. You were supposed to just stay there like a
dummy. You weren't nervous about doing *that*."
"No," said Wiggin.
"I was pissed."
"Better than
nervous."
Wiggin started to leave. Then
returned again. "Are *you* pissed?"
"I did that before I
showered," said Bean.
Wiggin laughed. Then his smile
disappeared. "You're late, Bean, and you're still busy rinsing. I've
already got your flash suit down in the gym. All we need now is your ass in it."
Wiggin took Bean's towel off its hook. "I'll have this waiting for you
down there, too. Now move."
Wiggin left.
Bean turned the water off,
furious. That was completely unnecessary, and Wiggin knew it. Making him go
through the corridor wet and naked during the time when other armies would be
coming back from breakfast. That was low, and it was stupid.
Anything to put me down. Every
chance he gets.
Bean, you idiot, you're still
standing here. You could have run down to the gym and beaten him there.
Instead, you're shooting your stupid self in the stupid foot. And why? None of
this makes sense. None of this is going to help you. You want him to make you a
toon leader, not think of you with contempt. So why are you doing things to
make yourself look stupid and young and scared and unreliable?
And still you're standing
here, frozen.
I'm a coward.
The thought ran through Bean's
mind and filled him with terror. But it wouldn't go away.
I'm one of those guys who
freezes up or does completely irrational things when he's afraid. Who loses
control and goes slack-minded and stupid.
But I didn't do that in
Rotterdam. If I had, I'd be dead.
Or maybe I *did* do it. Maybe
that's why I didn't call out to Poke and Achilles when I saw them there alone
on the dock. He wouldn't have killed her if I'd been there to witness what
happened. Instead I ran off until I realized the danger she was in. But why
didn't I realize it before? Because I *did* realize it, just as I heard Wiggin
tell us to meet in the gym. Realized it, understood it completely, but was too
cowardly to act. Too afraid that something would go wrong.
And maybe that's what happened
Achilles lay on the ground and I told Poke to kill him. I was wrong and she was
right. Because *any* bully she caught that way would probably have held a
grudge -- and might easily have acted on it immediately, killing her as soon as
they let him up. Achilles was the likeliest one, maybe the only one that would
agree to the arrangement Bean had thought up. There was no choice. But I got
scared. Kill him, I said, because I wanted it to go away.
And still I'm standing here.
The water is off. I'm dripping wet and cold. But I can't move.
Nikolai was standing in the
bathroom doorway. "Too bad about your diarrhea," he said.
"What?"
"I told Ender about how
you were up with diarrhea in the night. That's why you had to go to the
bathroom. You were sick, but you didn't want to tell him because you didn't
want to miss the first battle."
"I'm so scared I couldn't
take a dump if I wanted to," said Bean.
"He gave me your towel.
He said it was stupid of him to take it." Nikolai walked in and gave it to
him. "He said he needs you in the battle, so he's glad you're toughing it
out."
"He doesn't need me. He
doesn't even want me."
"Come on, Bean,"
said Nikolai. "You can do this."
Bean toweled off. It felt good
to be moving. Doing something.
"I think you're dry enough,"
said Nikolai.
Again, Bean realized he was
simply drying and drying himself, over and over.
"Nikolai, what's wrong
with me?"
"You're afraid that
you'll turn out to be just a little kid. Well, here's a clue: You *are* a
little kid."
"So are you."
"So it's OK to be really
bad. Isn't that what you keep telling me?" Nikolai laughed. "Come on,
if I can do it, bad as I am, so can you."
"Nikolai," said
Bean.
"What now?"
"I really *do* have to
crap."
"I sure hope you don't expect
me to wipe your butt."
"If I don't come out in
three minutes, come in after me."
Cold and sweating -- a
combination he wouldn't have thought possible. Bean went into the toilet stall
and closed the door. The pain in his abdomen was fierce. But he couldn't get
his bowel to loosen up and let go.
What am I so *afraid* of?
Finally, his alimentary system
triumphed over his nervous system. It felt like everything he'd ever eaten
flooded out of him at once.
"Time's up," said
Nikolai. "I'm coming in."
"At peril of your
life," said Bean. "I'm done, I'm coming out."
Empty now, clean, and
humiliated in front of his only real friend, Bean came out of the stall and
wrapped his towel around him.
"Thanks for keeping me
from being a liar," said Nikolai.
"What?"
"About your having
diarrhea."
"For you I'd get
dysentery."
"Now that's
friendship."
By the time they got to the
gym, everybody was already in their flash suits, ready to go. While Nikolai
helped Bean get into his suit, Wiggin had the rest of them lie down on the mats
and do relaxation exercises. Bean even had time to lie down for a couple of
minutes before Wiggin had them get up. 0656. Four minutes to get to the
battleroom. He was cutting it pretty fine.
As they ran along the
corridor, Wiggin occasionally jumped up to touch the ceiling. Behind him, the
rest of the army would jump up and touch the same spot when they reached it.
Except the smaller ones. Bean, his heart still burning with humiliation and
resentment and fear, did not try. You do that kind of thing when you belong
with the group. And he didn't belong. After all his brilliance in class, the
truth was out now. He was a coward. He didn't belong in the military at all. If
he couldn't even risk playing a game, what would he be worth in combat? The
real generals exposed themselves to enemy fire. Fearless, they had to be, an
example of courage to their men.
Me, I freeze up, take long
showers, and dump a week's rations into the head. Let's see them follow *that*
example.
At the gate, Wiggin had time
to line them up in toons, then remind them. "Which way is the enemy's
gate?"
"Down!" they all
answered.
Bean only mouthed the word.
Down. Down down down.
What's the best way to get
down off a goose?
What are you doing up on a
goose in the first place, you fool!
The grey wall in front of them
disappeared, and they could see into the battleroom. It was dim -- not dark,
but so faintly lighted that the only way they could see the enemy gate was the
light of Rabbit Army's flash suits pouring out of it.
Wiggin was in no hurry to get
out of the gate. He stood there surveying the room, which was arranged in an
open grid, with eight "stars" -- large cubes that served as
obstacles, cover, and staging platforms -- distributed fairly evenly if
randomly through the space.
Wiggin's first assignment was
to C toon. Crazy Tom's toon. The toon Bean belonged to. Word was whispered down
the file. "Ender says slide the wall." And then, "Tom says flash
your legs and go in on your knees. South wall."
Silently they swung into the
room, using the handholds to propel themselves along the ceiling to the east
wall. "They're setting up their battle formation. All we want to do is cut
them up a little, make them nervous, confused, because they don't know what to
do with us. We're raiders. So we shoot them up, then get behind that star.
*Don't* get stuck out in the middle. And *aim*. Make every shot count."
Bean did everything
mechanically. It was habit now to get in position, freeze his own legs, and
then launch with his body oriented the right way. They'd done it hundreds of
times. He did it exactly right; so did the other seven soldiers in the toon.
Nobody was looking for anyone to fail. He was right where they expected him to
be, doing his job.
They coasted along the wall,
always within reach of a handhold. Their frozen legs were dark, blocking the
lights of the rest of their flash suits until they were fairly close. Wiggin
was doing something up near the gate to distract Rabbit Army's attention, so
the surprise was pretty good.
As they got closer, Crazy Tom
said, "Split and rebound to the star -- me north, you south."
It was a maneuver that Crazy
Tom had practiced with his toon. It was the right time for it, too. It would
confuse the enemy more to have two groups to shoot at, heading different
directions.
They pulled up on handholds.
Their bodies, of course, swung against the wall, and suddenly the lights of
their flash suits were quite visible. Somebody in Rabbit saw them and gave the
alarm.
But C was already moving, half
the toon diagonally south, the other half north, and all angling downward
toward the floor. Bean began firing; the enemy was also firing at him. He heard
the low whine that said somebody's beam was on his suit, but he was twisting
slowly, and far enough from the enemy that none of the beams was in one place
long enough to do damage. In the meantime, he found that his arm tracked
perfectly, not trembling at all. He had practiced this a lot, and he was good
at it. A clean kill, not just an arm or leg.
He had time for a second
before he hit the wall and had to rebound up to the rendezvous star. One more
enemy hit before he got there, and then he snagged a handhold on the star and
said, "Bean here."
"Lost three," said
Crazy Tom. "But their formation's all gone to hell."
"What now?" said
Dag.
They could tell from the
shouting that the main battle was in progress. Bean was thinking back over what
he had seen as he approached the star.
"They sent a dozen guys
to this star to wipe us out," said Bean. "They'll come around the
east and west sides."
They all looked at him like he
was insane. How could he know this?
"We've got about one more
second," said Bean.
"All south," said Crazy
Tom.
They swung up to the south
side of the star. There were no Rabbits on that face, but Crazy Tom immediately
led them in an attack around to the west face. Sure enough, there were Rabbits
there, caught in the act of attacking what they clearly thought of as the
"back" of the star -- or, as Dragon Army was trained to think of it,
the bottom. So to the Rabbits, the attack seemed to come from below, the
direction they were least aware of. In moments, the six Rabbits on that face
were frozen and drifting along below the star.
The other half of the attack
force would see that and know what had happened.
"Top," said Crazy
Tom.
To the enemy, that would be
the front of the star -- the position most exposed to fire from the main
formation. The last place they'd expect Tom's toon to go.
And once they were there,
instead of continuing to attempt to engage the strike force coming against
them, Crazy Tom had them shoot at the main Rabbit formation, or what was left
of it -- mostly disorganized groups hiding behind stars and firing at Dragons
coming down at them from several directions. The five of them in C toon had
time to hit a couple of Rabbits each before the strike force found them again.
Without waiting for orders,
Bean immediately launched away from the surface of the star so he could shoot
downward at the strike force. This close, he was able to do four quick kills
before the whining abruptly stopped and his suit went completely stiff and
dark. The Rabbit who got him wasn't one of the strike force -- it was somebody
from the main force above him. And to his satisfaction, Bean could see that
because of his firing, only one soldier from C toon was hit by the strike force
sent against them. Then he rotated out of view.
It didn't matter now. He was
out. But he had done well. Seven kills that he was sure of, maybe more. And it
was more than his personal score. He had come up with the information Crazy Tom
needed in order to make a good tactical decision, and then he had taken the
bold action that kept the strike force from causing too many casualties. As a
result, C toon remained in position to strike at the enemy from behind. Without
any place to hide, Rabbit would be wiped out in moments. And Bean was part of
it.
I didn't freeze once we got into
action. I did what I was trained to do, and I stayed alert, and I thought of
things. I can probably do better, move faster, see more. But for a first
battle, I did fine. I can do this.
Because C toon was crucial to
the victory, Wiggin used the other four toon leaders to press their helmets to
the corners of the enemy gate, and gave Crazy Tom the honor of passing through
the gate, which is what formally ended the game, bringing the lights on bright.
Major Anderson himself came in
to congratulate the winning commander and supervise cleanup. Wiggin quickly
unfroze the casualties. Bean was relieved when his suit could move again. Using
his hook, Wiggin drew them all together and formed his soldiers into their five
toons before he began unfreezing Rabbit Army. They stood at attention in the
air, their feet pointed down, their heads up -- and as Rabbit unfroze, they
gradually oriented themselves in the same direction. They had no way of knowing
it, but to Dragon, that was when victory became complete -- for the enemy was
now oriented as if their *own* gate was down.
***
Bean and Nikolai were already
eating breakfast when Crazy Tom came to their table. "Ender says instead
of fifteen minutes for breakfast, we have till 0745. And he'll let us out of
practice in time to shower."
That was good news. They could
slow down their eating.
Not that it mattered to Bean.
His tray had little food on it, and he finished it immediately. Once he was in
Dragon Army, Crazy Tom had caught him giving away food. Bean told him that he
was always given too much, and Tom took the matter to Ender, and Ender got the
nutritionists to stop overfeeding Bean. Today was the first time Bean ever
wished for more. And that was only because he was so up from the battle.
"Smart," said
Nikolai.
"What?"
"Ender tells us we've got
fifteen minutes to eat, which feels rushed and we don't like it. Then right
away he sends around the toon leaders, telling us we have till 0745. That's
only ten minutes longer, but now it feels like forever. And a shower -- we're
supposed to be able to shower right after the game, but now we're
grateful."
"*And* he gave the toon
leaders the chance to bring good news," said Bean.
"Is that important?"
asked Nikolai. "We know it was Ender's choice."
"Most commanders make
sure all good news comes from them," said Bean, "and bad news from
the toon leaders. But Wiggin's whole technique is building up his toon leaders.
Crazy Tom went in there with nothing more than his training and his brains and
a single objective -- strike first from the wall and get behind them. All the
rest was up to him."
"Yeah, but if his toon
leaders screw up, it looks bad on Ender's record," said Nikolai.
Bean shook his head. "The
point is that in his very first battle, Wiggin divided his force for tactical
effect, and C toon was able to continue attacking even after we ran out of
plans, because Crazy Tom was really, truly in charge of us. We didn't sit
around wondering what Wiggin wanted us to do."
Nikolai got it, and nodded.
"Bacana. That's right."
"Completely right,"
said Bean. By now everybody at the table was listening. "And that's
because Wiggin isn't just thinking about Battle School and standings and merda
like that. He keeps watching vids of the Second Invasion, did you know that?
He's thinking about how to beat the *Buggers*. And he knows that the way you do
that is to have as many commanders ready to fight them as you can get. Wiggin
doesn't want to come out of this with Wiggin as the only commander ready to
fight the Buggers. He wants to come out of this with him *and* the toon leaders
*and* the seconds *and* if he can do it every single one of his soldiers ready
to command a fleet against the Buggers if we have to."
Bean knew his enthusiasm was
probably giving Wiggin credit for more than he had actually planned, but he was
still full of the glow of victory. And besides, what he was saying was true --
Wiggin was no Napoleon, holding on to the reins of control so tightly that none
of his commanders was capable of brilliant independent command. Crazy Tom had
performed well under pressure. He had made the right decisions -- including the
decision to listen to his smallest, most useless-looking soldier. And Crazy Tom
had done that because Wiggin had set the example by listening to his toon
leaders. You learn, you analyze, you choose, you act.
After breakfast, as they
headed for practice, Nikolai asked him, "Why do you call him Wiggin?"
"Cause we're not
friends," said Bean.
"Oh, so it's Mr. Wiggin
and Mr. Bean, is that it?"
"No. *Bean* is my first
name."
"Oh. So it's Mr. Wiggin
and Who The Hell Are You."
"Got it."
***
Everybody expected to have at
least a week to strut around and brag about their perfect won-lost record.
Instead, the next morning at 0630, Wiggin appeared in the barracks, again
brandishing battle orders. "Gentlemen, I hope you learned something
yesterday, because today we're going to do it again."
All were surprised, and some
were angry -- it wasn't fair, they weren't ready. Wiggin just handed the orders
to Fly Molo, who had just been heading out for breakfast. "Flash
suits!" cried Fly, who clearly thought it was a cool thing to be the first
army ever to fight two in a row like this.
But Hot Soup, the leader of D
toon, had another attitude. "Why didn't you tell us earlier?"
"I thought you needed the
shower," said Wiggin. "Yesterday Rabbit Army claimed we only won
because the stink knocked them out."
Everybody within earshot
laughed. But Bean was not amused. He knew that the paper hadn't been there
first thing, when Wiggin woke up. The teachers planted it late. "Didn't
find the paper till you got back from the showers, right?"
Wiggin gave him a blank look.
"Of course. I'm not as close to the floor as you."
The contempt in his voice
struck Bean like a blow. Only then did he realize that Wiggin had taken his
question as a criticism -- that Wiggin had been inattentive and hadn't
*noticed* the orders. So now there was one more mark against Bean in Wiggin's
mental dossier. But Bean couldn't let that upset him. It's not as if Wiggin
didn't have him tagged as a coward. Maybe Crazy Tom told Wiggin about how Bean
contributed to the victory yesterday, and maybe not. It wouldn't change what
Wiggin had seen with his own eyes -- Bean malingering in the shower. And now
Bean apparently taunting him for making them all have to rush for their second
battle. Maybe I'll be made toon leader on my thirtieth birthday. And then only
if everybody else is drowned in a boat accident.
Wiggin was still talking, of
course, explaining how they should expect battles any time, the old rules were
coming apart. "I can't pretend I like the way they're screwing around with
us, but I do like one thing -- that I've got an army that can handle it."
As he put on his flash suit,
Bean thought through the implications of what the teachers were doing. They
were pushing Wiggin faster and also making it harder for him. And this was only
the beginning. Just the first few sprinkles of a snotstorm.
Why? Not because Wiggin was so
good he needed the testing. On the contrary -- Wiggin was training his army
well, and the Battle School would only benefit from giving him plenty of time
to do it. So it had to be something outside Battle School.
Only one possibility, really.
The Bugger invaders were getting close. Only a few years away. They had to get
Wiggin through training.
Wiggin. Not all of us, just
Wiggin. Because if it were everybody, then everybody's schedule would be
stepped up like this. Not just ours.
So it's already too late for
me. Wiggin's the one they've chosen to rest their hopes on. Whether I'm toon
leader or not will never matter. All that matters is: Will Wiggin be ready?
If Wiggin succeeds, there'll
still be room for me to achieve greatness in the aftermath. The League will
come apart. There'll be war among humans. Either I'll be used by the I.F. to
help keep the peace, or maybe I can get into some army on Earth. I've got
plenty of life ahead of me. Unless Wiggin commands our fleet against the
invading Buggers and loses. Then none of us has any life at all.
All I can do right now is my
best to help Wiggin learn everything he can learn here. The trouble is, I'm not
close enough to him for me to have any effect on him at all.
The battle was with Petra
Arkanian, commander of Phoenix Army. Petra was sharper than Carn Carby had
been; she also had the advantage of hearing how Wiggin worked entirely without
formations and used little raiding parties to disrupt formations ahead of the
main combat. Still, Dragon finished with only three soldiers flashed and nine
partially disabled. A crushing defeat. Bean could see that Petra didn't like
it, either. She probably felt like Wiggin had poured it on, deliberately
setting her up for humiliation. But she'd get it, soon enough -- Wiggin simply
turned his toon leaders loose, and each of them pursued total victory, as he
had trained them. Their system worked better, that's all, and the old way of
doing battle was doomed.
Soon enough, all the other
commanders would start adapting, learning from what Wiggin did. Soon enough,
Dragon Army would be facing armies that were divided into five toons, not four,
and that moved in a free-ranging style with a lot more discretion given to the
toon leaders. The kids didn't get to Battle School because they were idiots.
The only reason the techniques worked a second time was because there'd only
been a day since the first battle, and nobody expected to have to face Wiggin
again so soon. Now they'd know that changes would have to be made fast. Bean
guessed that they'd probably never see another formation.
What then? Had Wiggin emptied
his magazine, or would he have new tricks up his sleeve? The trouble was,
innovation never resulted in victory over the long term. It was too easy for
the enemy to imitate and improve on your innovations. The real test for Wiggin
would be what he did when he was faced with slugfests between armies using
similar tactics.
And the real test for me will
be seeing if I can stand it when Wiggin makes some stupid mistake and I have to
sit here as an ordinary soldier and watch him do it.
The third day, another battle.
The fourth day, another. Victory. Victory. But each time, the score was closer.
Each time, Bean gained more confidence as a soldier -- and became more
frustrated that the most he could contribute, beyond his own good aim, was
occasionally making a suggestion to Crazy Tom, or reminding him of something
Bean had noticed and remembered.
Bean wrote to Dimak about it,
explaining how he was being underused and suggesting that he would be getting
better trained by working with a worse commander, where he'd have a better
chance of getting his own toon.
The answer was short.
"Who else would want you? Learn from Ender."
Brutal but true. No doubt even
Wiggin didn't really want him. Either he was forbidden to transfer any of his
soldiers, or he had tried to trade Bean away and no one would take him.
***
It was free time of the
evening after their fourth battle. Most of the others were trying to keep up
with their classwork -- the battles were really taking it out of them,
especially because they could all see that they needed to practice hard to stay
ahead. Bean, though, coasted through classwork like always, and when Nikolai
told him he didn't need any more damned help with his assignments, Bean decided
that he should take a walk.
Passing Wiggin's quarters -- a
space even smaller than the cramped quarters the teachers had, just space for a
bunk, one chair, and a tiny table -- Bean was tempted to knock on the door and
sit down and have it out with Wiggin once and for all. Then common sense
prevailed over frustration and vanity, and Bean wandered until he came to the
arcade.
It wasn't as full as it used
to be. Bean figured that was because everyone was holding extra practices now,
trying to implement whatever they thought it was Wiggin was doing before they
actually had to face him in battle. Still, a few were still willing to fiddle
with the controllers and make things move on screens or in holodisplays.
Bean found a flat-screen game
that had, as its hero, a mouse. No one was using it, so Bean started
maneuvering it through a maze. Quickly the maze gave way to the wallspaces and
crawlspaces of an old house, with traps set here and there, easy stuff. Cats
chased him -- ho hum. He jumped up onto a table and found himself face to face
with a giant.
A giant who offered him a
drink.
This was the fantasy game.
This was the psychological game that everybody else played on their desks all
the time. No wonder no one was playing it here. They all recognized it and that
wasn't the game they came here to play.
Bean was well aware that he
was the only kid in the school who had never played the fantasy game. They had
tricked him into playing this once, but he doubted that anything important
could be learned from what he had done so far. So screw 'em. They could trick
him into playing up to a point, but he didn't have to go further.
Except that the giant's face
had changed. It was Achilles.
Bean stood there in shock for
a moment. Frozen, frightened. How did they know? Why did they do it? To put him
face-to-face with Achilles, by surprise like that. Those bastards.
He walked away from the game.
Moments later, he turned
around and came back. The giant was no longer on the screen. The mouse was
running around again, trying to get out of the maze.
No, I won't play. Achilles is
far away and he does not have the power to hurt me. Or Poke either, not
anymore. I don't have to think about him and I sure as hell don't have to drink
anything he offers me.
Bean walked away again, and
this time did not come back.
He found himself down by the
mess. It had just closed, but Bean had nothing better to do, so he sat down in
the corridor beside the mess hall door and rested his forehead on his knees and
thought about Rotterdam and sitting on top of a garbage can watching Poke
working with her crew and how she was the most decent crew boss he'd seen, the
way she listened to the little kids and gave them a fair share and kept them
alive even if it meant not eating so much herself and that's why he chose her,
because she had mercy-mercy enough that she just might listen to a child.
Her mercy killed her.
*I* killed her when I chose
her.
There better be a God. So he
can damn Achilles to hell forever.
Someone kicked at his foot.
"Go away," said
Bean, "I'm not bothering you."
Whoever it was kicked again,
knocking Bean's feet out from under him. With his hands he caught himself from
falling over. He looked up. Bonzo Madrid loomed over him.
"I understand you're the
littlest dingleberry clinging to the butt hairs of Dragon Army," said
Bonzo.
He had three other guys with
him. Big guys. They all had bully faces.
"Hi, Bonzo."
"We need to talk,
pinprick."
"What is this,
espionage?" asked Bean. "You're not supposed to talk to soldiers in
other armies."
"I don't need espionage
to find out how to beat Dragon Army," said Bonzo.
"So you're just looking
for the littlest Dragon soldiers wherever you can find them, and then you'll
push them around a little till they cry?"
Bonzo's face showed his anger.
Not that it didn't always show anger.
"Are you begging to eat
out of your own asshole, pinprick?"
Bean didn't like bullies right
now. And since, at the moment, he felt guilty of murdering Poke, he didn't
really care if Bonzo Madrid ended up being the one to administer the death
penalty. It was time to speak his mind.
"You're at least three
times my weight," said Bean, "except inside your skull. You're a
second-rater who somehow got an army and never could figure out what to do with
it. Wiggin is going to grind you into the ground and he isn't even going to
have to try. So does it really matter what you do to me? I'm the smallest and
weakest soldier in the whole school. Naturally *I'm* the one you choose to kick
around."
"Yeah, the smallest and
weakest," said one of the other kids.
Bonzo didn't say anything,
though. Bean's words had stung. Bonzo had his pride, and he knew now that if he
harmed Bean it would be a humiliation, not a pleasure.
"Ender Wiggin isn't going
to beat me with that collection of launchies and rejects that he calls an army.
He may have psyched out a bunch of dorks like Carn and ... *Petra*." He
spat her name. "But whenever *we* find crap my army can pound it
flat."
Bean affixed him with his most
withering glare. "Don't you get it, Bonzo? The teachers have picked
Wiggin. He's the best. The best ever. They didn't give him the worst army. They
gave him the *best* army. Those veterans you call rejects -- they were soldiers
so good that the *stupid* commanders couldn't get along with them and tried to
transfer them away. Wiggin knows how to use good soldiers, even if you don't.
That's why Wiggin is winning. He's smarter than you. And his soldiers are all
smarter than your soldiers. The deck is stacked against you, Bonzo. You might
as well give up now. When your pathetic little Salamander Army faces us, you'll
be so whipped you'll have to pee sitting down."
Bean might have said more --
it's not like he had a plan, and there was certainly a lot more he could have
said -- but he was interrupted. Two of Bonzo's friends scooped him up and held
him high against the wall, higher than their own heads. Bonzo put one hand
around his throat, just under his jaw, and pressed back. The others let go.
Bean was hanging by his neck, and he couldn't breathe. Reflexively he kicked,
struggling to get some purchase with his feet. But long-armed Bonzo was too far
away for any of Bean's kicking to land on him.
"The game is one
thing," Bonzo said quietly. "The teachers can rig that and give it to
their little Wiggin catamite. But there'll come a time when it isn't a game.
And when that time comes, it won't be a frozen flash suit that makes it so Wiggin
can't move. Comprendes?"
What answer was he hoping for?
It was a sure thing Bean couldn't nod or speak.
Bonzo just stood there,
smiling maliciously, as Bean struggled.
Everything started turning
black around the edges of Bean's vision before Bonzo finally let him drop to
the floor. He lay there, coughing and gasping.
What have I done? I goaded
Bonzo Madrid. A bully with none of Achilles's subtlety. When Wiggin beats him,
Bonzo isn't going to take it. He won't stop with a demonstration, either. His
hatred for Wiggin runs deep.
As soon as he could breathe
again, Bean headed back to the barracks. Nikolai noticed the marks on his neck
at once. "Who was choking you?"
"I don't know," said
Bean.
"Don't give me
that," said Nikolai. "He was facing you, look at the
fingermarks."
"I don't remember."
"You remember the pattern
of arteries on your own placenta."
"I'm not going to tell
you," said Bean. To that, Nikolai had no answer, though he didn't like it.
Bean signed on as ^Graff and
wrote a note to Dimak, even though he knew it would do no good.
"Bonzo is insane. He
could kill somebody, and Wiggin's the one he hates the most."
The answer came back quickly,
almost as if Dimak had been waiting for the message. "Clean up your own
messes. Don't go crying to mama."
The words stung. It wasn't
Bean's mess, it was Wiggin's. And, ultimately, the teachers', for having put
Wiggin in Bonzo's army to begin with. And then to taunt him because he didn't
have a mother -- when did the teachers become the enemy here? They were
supposed to protect us from crazy kids like Bonzo Madrid. How do they think I'm
going to clean this mess up?
The only thing that will stop
Bonzo Madrid is to kill him.
And then Bean remembered
standing there looking down at Achilles, saying, "You got to kill
him."
Why couldn't I have kept my
mouth shut? Why did I have to goad Bonzo Madrid? Wiggin is going to end up like
Poke. And it will be my fault again.
CHAPTER 16 -- COMPANION
"So you see, Anton, the
key you found has been turned, and it may be the salvation of the human
race."
"But the poor boy. To
live his life so small, and then die as a giant."
"Perhaps he'll be ...
amused at the irony."
"How strange to think
that my little key might turn out to be the salvation of the human race. From
the invading beasts, anyway. Who will save us when we become our own enemy
again?"
"We are not enemies, you
and I."
"Not many people are
enemies to anyone. But the ones full of greed or hate, pride or fear -- their
passion is strong enough to lever all the world into war."
"If God can raise up a
great soul to save us from one menace, might he not answer our prayers by
raising up another when we need him?"
"But Sister Carlotta, you
know the boy you speak of was not raised up by God. He was created by a
kidnapper, a baby-killer, an outlaw scientist."
"Do you know why Satan is
so angry all the time? Because whenever he works a particularly clever bit of
mischief, God uses it to serve his own righteous purposes."
"So God uses wicked
people as his tools."
"God gives us the freedom
to do great evil, if we choose. Then he uses his own freedom to create goodness
out of that evil, for that is what he chooses."
"So in the long run, God
always wins."
"Yes."
"In the short run,
though, it *can* be uncomfortable."
"And when, in the past,
would you have preferred to die, instead of being alive here today?"
"There it is. We get used
to everything. We find hope in anything."
"That's why I've never
understood suicide. Even those suffering from great depression or guilt --
don't they feel Christ the Comforter in their hearts, giving them hope?"
"You're asking me?"
"God not being
convenient, I ask a fellow mortal."
"In my view, suicide is
not really the wish for life to end."
"What is it, then?"
"It is the only way a
powerless person can find to make everybody else look away from his shame. The
wish is not to die, but to hide."
"As Adam and Eve hid from
the Lord."
"Because they were
naked."
"If only Such sad people
could remember: Everyone is naked. Everyone wants to hide. But life is still
sweet. Let it go on."
"You don't believe that
the Formics are the beast of the Apocalypse, then, Sister?"
"No, Anton. I believe
they are also children of God."
"And yet you found this
boy specifically so he could grow up to destroy them."
"*Defeat* them. Besides,
if God does not want them to die, they will not die."
"And if God wants *us* to
die, we will. Why do you work so hard, then?"
"Because these hands of
mine, I gave them to God, and I serve him as best I can. If he had not wanted
me to find Bean, I would not have found him."
"And if God wants the
Formics to prevail?"
"He'll find some other
hands to do it. For that job, he can't have mine."
***
Lately, while the toon leaders
drilled the soldiers, Wiggin had taken to disappearing. Bean used his ^Graff
log-on to find what he was doing. He'd gone back to studying the vids of Mazer
Rackham's victory, much more intensely and single-mindedly than ever before.
And this time, because Wiggin's army was playing games daily and winning them
all, the other commanders and many toon leaders and common soldiers as well
began to go to the library and watch the same vids, trying to make sense of them,
trying to see what Wiggin saw.
Stupid, thought Bean. Wiggin
isn't looking for anything to use here in Battle School -- he's created a
powerful, versatile army and he'll figure out what to do with them on the spot.
He's studying those vids in order to figure out how to beat the Buggers.
Because he knows now: He will face them someday. The teachers would not be
wrecking the whole system here in Battle School if they were not nearing the
crisis, if they did not need Ender Wiggin to save us from the invading Buggers.
So Wiggin studies the Buggers, desperate for some idea of what they want, how
they fight, how they die.
Why don't the teachers see
that Wiggin is done? He's not even thinking about Battle School anymore. They
should take him out of here and move him into Tactical School, or whatever the
next stage of his training will be. Instead, they're pushing him, making him
tired.
Us too. We're tired.
Bean saw it especially in
Nikolai, who was working harder than the others just to keep up. If we were an
ordinary army, thought Bean, most of us would be like Nikolai. As it is, many
of us are -- Nikolai was not the first to show his weariness. Soldiers drop
silverware or food trays at mealtimes. At least one has wet his bed. We argue
more at practice. Our classwork is suffering. Everyone has limits. Even me,
even genetically-altered Bean the thinking machine, I need time to relubricate
and refuel, and I'm not getting it.
Bean even wrote to Colonel
Graff about it, a snippy little note saying only, "It is one thing to
train soldiers and quite another to wear them out." He got no reply.
Late afternoon, with a half
hour before mess call. They had already won a game that morning and then
practiced after class, though the toon leaders, at Wiggin's suggestion, had let
their soldiers go early. Most of Dragon Army was now dressing after showers,
though some had already gone on to kill time in the game room or the video room
... or the library. Nobody was paying attention to classwork now, but a few
still went through the motions.
Wiggin appeared in the
doorway, brandishing the new orders.
A second battle on the *same
day*.
"This one's hot and
there's no time," said Wiggin. "They gave Bonzo notice about twenty
minutes ago, and by the time we get to the door they'll have been inside for a
good five minutes at least."
He sent the four soldiers
nearest the door -- all young, but not launchies anymore, they were veterans
now -- to bring back the ones who had left. Bean dressed quickly -- he had
learned how to do it by himself now, but not without hearing plenty of jokes
about how he was the only soldier who had to practice getting dressed, and it
was still slow.
As they dressed, there was
plenty of complaining about how this was getting stupid, Dragon Army should
have a break now and then. Fly Molo was the loudest, but even Crazy Tom, who
usually laughed at everything, was pissed about it. When Tom said, "Same
day nobody ever do two battles!" Wiggin answered, "Nobody ever beat
Dragon Army, either. This be your big chance to lose?"
Of course not. Nobody intended
to lose. They just wanted to complain about it.
It took a while, but finally
they were gathered in the corridor to the battleroom. The gate was already
open. A few of the last arrivals were still putting on their flash suits. Bean
was right behind Crazy Tom, so he could see down into the room. Bright light.
No stars, no grid, no hiding place of any kind. The enemy gate was open, and
yet there was not a Salamander soldier to be seen.
"My heart," said
Crazy Tom. "They haven't come out yet, either."
Bean rolled his eyes. Of
course they were out. But in a room without cover, they had simply formed
themselves up on the ceiling, gathered around Dragon Army's gate, ready to
destroy everybody as they came out.
Wiggin caught Bean's facial
expression and smiled as he covered his own mouth to signal them all to be
silent. He pointed all around the gate, to let them know where Salamander was
gathered, then motioned for them to move back.
The strategy was simple and
obvious. Since Bonzo Madrid had kindly pinned his army against a wall, ready to
be slaughtered, it only remained to find the right way to enter the battleroom
and carry out the massacre.
Wiggin's solution -- which
Bean liked -- was to transform the larger soldiers into armored vehicles by
having them kneel upright and freeze their legs. Then a smaller soldier knelt
on each big kid's calves, wrapped one arm around the bigger soldier's waist,
and prepared to fire. The largest soldiers were used as launchers, throwing
each pair into the battleroom.
For once being small had its
advantages. Bean and Crazy Tom were the pair Wiggin used to demonstrate what he
wanted them all to do. As a result, when the first two pairs were thrown into
the room, Bean got to begin the slaughter. He had three kills almost at once --
at such close range, the beam was tight and the kills came fast. And as they
began to go out of range, Bean climbed around Crazy Tom and launched off of
him, heading east and somewhat up while Tom went even faster toward the far
side of the room. When other Dragons saw how Bean had managed to stay within
firing range, while moving sideways and therefore remaining hard to hit, many
of them did the same. Eventually Bean was disabled, but it hardly mattered --
Salamander was wiped out to the last man, and without a single one of them
getting off the wall. Even when it was obvious they were easy, stationary
targets, Bonzo didn't catch on that he was doomed until he himself was already
frozen, and nobody else had the initiative to countermand his original order
and start moving so they wouldn't be so easy to hit. Just one more example of
why a commander who ruled by fear and made all the decisions himself would
always be beaten, sooner or later.
The whole battle had taken
less than a full minute from the time Bean rode Crazy Tom through the door
until the last Salamander was frozen.
What surprised Bean was that
Wiggin, usually so calm, was pissed off and showing it. Major Anderson didn't
even have a chance to give the official congratulations to the victor before
Wiggin shouted at him, "I thought you were going to put us against an army
that could match us in a fair fight."
Why would he think that?
Wiggin must have had some kind of conversation with Anderson, must have been
promised something that hadn't been delivered.
But Anderson explained
nothing. "Congratulations on the victory, commander."
Wiggin wasn't going to have
it. It wasn't going to be business as usual. He turned to his army and called
out to Bean by name. "If you had commanded Salamander Army, what would you
have done?"
Since another Dragon had used
him to shove off in midair, Bean was now drifting down near the enemy gate, but
he heard the question -- Wiggin wasn't being subtle about this. Bean didn't
want to answer, because he knew what a serious mistake this was, to speak
slightingly of Salamander and call on the smallest Dragon soldier to correct
Bonzo's stupid tactics. Wiggin hadn't had Bonzo's hand around his throat the
way Bean had. Still, Wiggin was commander, and Bonzo's tactics had been stupid,
and it was fun to say so.
"Keep a shifting pattern
of movement going in front of the door," Bean answered, loudly, so every
soldier could hear him -- even the Salamanders, still clinging to the ceiling.
"You never hold still when the enemy knows exactly where you are."
Wiggin turned to Anderson
again. "As long as you're cheating, why don't you train the other army to
cheat intelligently!"
Anderson was still calm,
ignoring Wiggin's outburst. "I suggest that you remobilize your
army."
Wiggin wasn't wasting time
with rituals today. He pressed the buttons to thaw both armies at once. And
instead of forming up to receive formal surrender, he shouted at once,
"Dragon Army dismissed!"
Bean was one of those nearest
the gate, but he waited till nearly last, so that he and Wiggin left together.
"Sir," said Bean. "You just humiliated Bonzo and he's --"
"I know," said
Wiggin. He jogged away from Bean, not wanting to hear about it.
"He's dangerous!"
Bean called after him. Wasted effort. Either Wiggin already knew he'd provoked
the wrong bully, or he didn't care.
Did he do it deliberately?
Wiggin was always in control of himself, always carrying out a plan. But Bean
couldn't think of any plan that required yelling at Major Anderson and shaming
Bonzo Madrid in front of his whole army.
Why would Wiggin do such a
stupid thing?
***
It was almost impossible to
think of geometry, even though there was a test tomorrow. Classwork was utterly
unimportant now, and yet they went on taking the tests and turning in or
failing to turn in their assignments. The last few days, Bean had begun to get
less-than-perfect scores. Not that he didn't know the answers, or at least how
to figure them out. It's that his mind kept wandering to things that mattered
more -- new tactics that might surprise an enemy; new tricks that the teachers
might pull in the way they set things up; what might be, must be going on in
the larger war, to cause the system to start breaking apart like this; what
would happen on Earth and in the I.F. once the Buggers were defeated. If they
were defeated. Hard to care about volumes, areas, faces, and dimensions of
solids. On a test yesterday, working out problems of gravity near planetary and
stellar masses, Bean finally gave up and wrote:
2 + 2 = pi*SQRT(2+n) : When
you know the value of n, I'll finish this test.
He knew that the teachers all
knew what was going on, and if they wanted to pretend that classwork still mattered,
fine, let them, but he didn't have to play.
At the same time, he knew that
the problems of gravity mattered to someone whose only likely future was in the
International Fleet. He also needed a thorough grounding in geometry, since he
had a pretty good idea of what math was yet to come. He wasn't going to be an
engineer or artillerist or rocket scientist or even, in all likelihood, a
pilot. But he had to know what they knew better than they knew it, or they'd
never respect him enough to follow him.
Not tonight, that's all,
thought Bean. Tonight I can rest. Tomorrow I'll learn what I need to learn.
When I'm not so tired.
He closed his eyes.
He opened them again. He
opened his locker and took out his desk.
Back on the streets of
Rotterdam he had been tired, worn out by hunger and malnutrition and despair.
But he kept watching. Kept thinking. And therefore he was able to stay alive.
In this army everyone was getting tired, which meant that there would be more
and more stupid mistakes. Bean, of all of them, could least afford to become
stupid. Not being stupid was the only asset he had.
He signed on. A message
appeared in his display.
See me at once -- Ender
It was only ten minutes before
lights out. Maybe Wiggin sent the message three hours ago. But better late than
never. He slid off his bunk, not bothering with shoes, and padded out into the
corridor in his stocking feet. He knocked at the door marked
COMMANDER
DRAGON ARMY
"Come in," said
Wiggin.
Bean opened the door and came
inside. Wiggin looked tired in the way that Colonel Graff usually looked tired.
Heavy skin around the eyes, face slack, hunched in the shoulders, but eyes
still bright and fierce, watching, thinking. "Just saw your message,"
said Bean.
"Fine."
"It's near
lights-out."
"I'll help you find your
way in the dark."
The sarcasm surprised Bean. As
usual, Wiggin had completely misunderstood the purpose of Bean's comment.
"I just didn't know if you knew what time it was --"
"I always know what time
it is."
Bean sighed inwardly. It never
failed. Whenever he had any conversation with Wiggin, it turned into some kind
of pissing contest, which Bean always lost even when it was Wiggin whose
deliberate misunderstanding caused the whole thing. Bean hated it. He
recognized Wiggin's genius and honored him for it. Why couldn't he see anything
good in Bean?
But Bean said nothing. There
was nothing he could say that would improve the situation. Wiggin had called
him in. Let Wiggin move the meeting forward.
"Remember four weeks ago,
Bean? When you told me to make you a toon leader?"
"Eh."
"I've made five toon
leaders and five assistants since then. And none of them was you." Wiggin
raised his eyebrows. "Was I right?"
"Yes, sir." But only
because you didn't bother to give me a chance to prove myself before you made
the assignments.
"So tell me how you've
done in these eight battles."
Bean wanted to point out how
time after time, his suggestions to Crazy Tom had made C toon the most
effective in the army. How his tactical innovations and creative responses to
flowing situations had been imitated by the other soldiers. But that would be
brag and borderline insubordination. It wasn't what a soldier who wanted to be
an officer would say. Either Crazy Tom had reported Bean's contribution or he
hadn't. It wasn't Bean's place to report on anything about himself that wasn't
public record. "Today was the first time they disabled me so early, but
the computer listed me as getting eleven hits before I had to stop. "I've
never had less than five hits in a battle. I've also completed every assignment
I've been given."
"Why did they make you a
soldier so young, Bean?"
"No younger than you
were." Technically not true, but close enough.
"But why?"
What was he getting at? It was
the teachers' decision. Had he found out that Bean was the one who composed the
roster? Did he know that Bean had chosen himself? "I don't know."
"Yes you do, and so do
I."
No, Wiggin wasn't asking
specifically about why *Bean* was made a soldier. He was asking why launchies
were suddenly getting promoted so young. "I've tried to guess, but they're
just guesses." Not that Bean's guesses were ever just guesses -- but then,
neither were Wiggin's. "You're -- very good. They knew that, they pushed
you ahead --"
"Tell me *why*,
Bean."
And now Bean understood the
question he was really asking. "Because they need us, that's why." He
sat on the floor and looked, not into Wiggin's face, but at his feet. Bean knew
things that he wasn't supposed to know. That the teachers didn't know he knew.
And in all likelihood, there were teachers monitoring this conversation. Bean
couldn't let his face give away how much he really understood. "Because
they need somebody to beat the Buggers. That's the only thing they care
about."
"It's important that you
know that, Bean."
Bean wanted to demand, Why is
it important that *I* know it? Or are you just saying that people in general
should know it? Have you finally seen and understood who I am? That I'm *you*,
only smarter and less likable, the better strategist but the weaker commander?
That if you fail, if you break, if you get sick and die, then I'm the one? Is
that why I need to know this?
"Because," Wiggin
went on, "most of the boys in this school think the game is important *for
itself*, but it isn't. It's only important because it helps them find kids who
might grow up to be real commanders, in the real war. But as for the game,
screw that. That's what they're doing. Screwing up the game."
"Funny," said Bean.
"I thought they were just doing it to us." No, if Wiggin thought Bean
needed to have this explained to him, he did *not* understand who Bean really
was. Still, it was Bean in Wiggin's quarters, having this conversation with
him. That was something.
"A game nine weeks
earlier than it should have come. A game every day. And now two games in the
same day. Bean, I don't know what the teachers are doing, but my army is
getting tired, and I'm getting tired, and they don't care at all about the
rules of the game. I've pulled the old charts up from the computer. No one has
ever destroyed so many enemies and kept so many of his own soldiers whole in
the history of the game."
What was this, brag? Bean
answered as brag was meant to be answered. "You're the best, Ender."
Wiggin shook his head. If he
heard the irony in Bean's voice, he didn't respond to it. "Maybe. But it
was no accident that I got the soldiers I got. Launchies, rejects from other
armies, but put them together and my worst soldier could be a toon leader in
another army. They've loaded things my way, but now they're loading it all
against me. Bean, they want to break us down."
So Wiggin did understand how
his army had been selected, even if he didn't know who had done the selecting.
Or maybe he knew everything, and this was all that he cared to show Bean at
this time. It was hard to guess how much of what Wiggin did was calculated and
how much merely intuitive. "They can't break you."
"You'd be
surprised." Wiggin breathed sharply, suddenly, as if there were a stab of
pain, or he had to catch a sudden breath in a wind; Bean looked at him and
realized that the impossible was happening. Far from baiting him, Ender Wiggin
was actually confiding in him. Not much. But a little. Ender was letting Bean
see that he was human. Bringing him into the inner circle. Making him ... what?
A counselor? A confidant?
"Maybe you'll be
surprised," said Bean.
"There's a limit to how many
clever new ideas I can come up with every day. Somebody's going to come up with
something to throw at me that I haven't thought of before, and I won't be
ready."
"What's the worst that
could happen?" asked Bean. "You lose one game."
"Yes. That's the worst
that could happen. I can't lose *any* games. Because if I lose *any* ..."
He didn't complete the
thought. Bean wondered what Ender imagined the consequences would be. Merely
that the legend of Ender Wiggin, perfect soldier, would be lost? Or that his
army would lose confidence in him, or in their own invincibility? Or was this
about the larger war, and losing a game here in Battle School might shake the
confidence of the teachers that Ender was the commander of the future, the one
to lead the fleet, if he could be made ready before the Bugger invasion
arrived?
Again, Bean did not know how
much the teachers knew about what Bean had guessed about the progress of the
wider war. Better to keep silence.
"I need you to be clever,
Bean," said Ender. "I need you to think of solutions to problems we
haven't seen yet. I want you to try things that no one has ever tried because
they're absolutely stupid."
So what is this about, Ender?
What have you decided about me, that brings me into your quarters tonight?
"Why me?"
"Because even though
there are some better soldiers than you in Dragon Army -- not many, but some --
there's nobody who can think better and faster than you."
He *had* seen. And after a
month of frustration, Bean realized that it was better this way. Ender had seen
his work in battle, had judged him by what he did, not by his reputation in
classes or the rumors about his having the highest scores in the history of the
school. Bean had earned this evaluation, and it had been given him by the only
person in this school whose high opinion Bean longed for.
Ender held out his desk for
Bean to see. On it were twelve names. Two or three soldiers from each toon.
Bean immediately knew how Ender had chosen them. They were all good soldiers,
confident and reliable. But not the flashy ones, the stunters, the show-offs.
They were, in fact, the ones that Bean valued most highly among those who were not
toon leaders. "Choose five of these," said Ender. "One from each
toon. They're a special squad, and you'll train them. Only during the extra
practice sessions. Talk to me about what you're training them to do. Don't
spend too long on any one thing. Most of the time you and your squad will be
part of the whole army, part of your regular toons. But when I need you. When
there's something to be done that only you can do."
There was something else about
these twelve. "These are all new. No veterans."
"After last week, Bean,
all our soldiers are veterans. Don't you realize that on the individual soldier
standings, all forty of our soldiers are in the top fifty? That you have to go
down seventeen places to find a soldier who *isn't* a Dragon?"
"What if I can't think of
anything?" asked Bean.
"Then I was wrong about
you."
Bean grinned. "You
weren't wrong."
The lights went out.
"Can you find your way
back, Bean?"
"Probably not."
"Then stay here. If you
listen very carefully, you can hear the good fairy come in the night and leave
our assignment for tomorrow."
"They won't give us
another battle tomorrow, will they?" Bean meant it as a joke, but Ender
didn't answer.
Bean heard him climb into bed.
Ender was still small for a
commander. His feet didn't come near the end of the bunk. There was plenty of
room for Bean to curl up at the foot of the bed. So he climbed up and then lay
still, so as not to disturb Ender's sleep. If he was sleeping. If he was not
lying awake in the silence, trying to make sense of ... what?
For Bean, the assignment was
merely to think of the unthinkable -- stupid ploys that might be used against
them, and ways to counter them; equally stupid innovations they might introduce
in order to sow confusion among the other armies and, Bean suspected, get them
sidetracked into imitating completely nonessential strategies. Since few of the
other commanders understood why Dragon Army was winning, they kept imitating
the nonce tactics used in a particular battle instead of seeing the underlying
method Ender used in training and organizing his army. As Napoleon said, the
only thing a commander ever truly controls is his own army -- training, morale,
trust, initiative, command and, to a lesser degree, supply, placement,
movement, loyalty, and courage in battle. What the enemy will do and what
chance will bring, those defy all planning. The commander must be able to
change his plans abruptly when obstacles or opportunities appear. If his army
isn't ready and willing to respond to his will, his cleverness comes to
nothing.
The less effective commanders
didn't understand this. Failing to recognize that Ender won because he and his
army responded fluidly and instantly to change, they could only think to
imitate the specific tactics they saw him use. Even if Bean's creative gambits
were irrelevant to the outcome of the battle, they would lead other commanders
to waste time imitating irrelevancies. Now and then something he came up with
might actually be useful. But by and large, he was a sideshow.
That was fine with Bean. If
Ender wanted a sideshow, what mattered was that he had chosen Bean to create
that show, and Bean would do it as well as it could be done.
But if Ender was lying awake
tonight, it was not because he was concerned about Dragon Army's battles
tomorrow and the next day and the next. Ender was thinking about the Buggers
and how he would fight them when he got through his training and was thrown
into war, with the real lives of real men depending on his decisions, with the
survival of humanity depending on the outcome.
In that scheme, what is my
place? thought Bean. I'm glad enough that the burden is on Ender, not because I
could not bear it -- maybe I could -- but because I have more confidence that
Ender can bring it off than that I could. Whatever it is that makes men love
the commander who decides when they will die, Ender has that, and if I have it
no one has yet seen evidence of it. Besides, even without genetic alteration,
Ender has abilities that the tests didn't measure for, that run deeper than
mere intellect.
But he shouldn't have to bear
all this alone. I can help him. I can forget geometry and astronomy and all the
other nonsense and concentrate on the problems he faces most directly. I'll do
research into the way other animals wage war, especially swarming hive insects,
since the Formics resemble ants the way we resemble primates.
And I can watch his back.
Bean thought again of Bonzo
Madrid. Of the deadly rage of bullies in Rotterdam.
Why have the teachers put
Ender in this position? He's an obvious target for the hatred of the other
boys. Kids in Battle School had war in their hearts. They hungered for triumph.
They loathed defeat. If they lacked these attributes, they would never have
been brought here. Yet from the start, Ender had been set apart from the others
-- younger but smarter, the leading soldier and now the commander who makes all
other commanders look like babies. Some commanders responded to defeat by
becoming submissive -- Carn Carby, for instance, now praised Ender behind his
back and studied his battles to try to learn how to win, never realizing that
you had to study Ender's training, not his battles, to understand his
victories. But most of the other commanders were resentful, frightened,
ashamed, angry, jealous, and it was in their character to translate such
feelings into violent action ... if they were sure of victory.
Just like the streets of
Rotterdam. Just like the bullies, struggling for supremacy, for rank, for
respect. Ender has stripped Bonzo naked. It cannot be borne. He'll have his
revenge, as surely as Achilles avenged his humiliation.
And the teachers understand
this. They intend it. Ender has clearly mastered every test they set for him --
whatever Battle School usually taught, he was done with. So why didn't they
move him on to the next level? Because there was a lesson they were trying to
teach, or a test they were trying to get him to pass, which was not within the
usual curriculum. Only this particular test could end in death. Bean had felt
Bonzo's fingers around his throat. This was a boy who, once he let himself go,
would relish the absolute power that the murderer achieves at his victim's
moment of death.
They're putting Ender into a street situation.
They're testing him to see if he can survive.
They don't know what they're
doing, the fools. The street is not a test. The street is a lottery.
I came out a winner -- I was
alive. But Ender's survival won't depend on his ability. Luck plays too large a
role. Plus the skill and resolve and power of the opponent.
Bonzo may be unable to control
the emotions that weaken him, but his presence in Battle School means that he
is not without skill. He was made a commander because a certain type of soldier
will follow him into death and horror. Ender is in mortal danger. And the
teachers, who think of us as children, have no idea how quickly death can come.
Look away for only a few minutes, step away far enough that you can't get back
in time, and your precious Ender Wiggin, on whom all your hopes are pinned,
will be quite, quite dead. I saw it on the streets of Rotterdam. It can happen
just as easily in your nice clean rooms here in space.
So Bean set aside classwork
for good that night, lying at Ender's feet. Instead, he had two new courses of
study. He would help Ender prepare for the war he cared about, with the
Buggers. But he would also help him in the street fight that was being set up
for him.
It wasn't that Ender was
oblivious, either. After some kind of fracas in the battleroom during one of
Ender's early freetime practices, Ender had taken a course in self-defense, and
knew something about fighting man to man. But Bonzo would not come at him man
to man. He was too keenly aware of having been beaten. Bonzo's purpose would
not be a rematch, it would not be vindication. It would be punishment. It would
be elimination. He would bring a gang.
And the teachers would not
realize the danger until it was too late. They still didn't think of anything
the children did as "real."
So after Bean thought of
clever, stupid things to do with his new squad, he also tried to think of ways
to set Bonzo up so that, in the crunch, he would have to take on Ender Wiggin
alone or not at all. Strip away Bonzo's support. Destroy the morale, the
reputation of any bully who might go along with him.
This is one job Ender *can't*
do. But it can be done.
PART FIVE -- LEADER
CHAPTER 17 -- DEADLINE
"I don't even know how to
interpret this. The mind game had only one shot at Bean, and it puts up this
one kid's face, and he goes off the charts with -- what, fear? Rage? Isn't
there anybody who knows how this so-called game works? It ran Ender through a
wringer, brought in those pictures of his brother that it couldn't possibly
have had, only it got them. And this one -- was it some deeply insightful
gambit that leads to powerful new conclusions about Bean's psyche? Or was it
simply the only person Bean knew whose picture was already in the Battle School
files?"
"Was that a rant, or is
there any particular one of those questions you want answered?"
"What I want you to
answer is this question: How the hell can you tell me that something was 'very
significant' if you have no idea what it signifies!"
"If someone runs after
your car, screaming and waving his arms, you know that something significant is
intended, even if you can't hear a word he's saying."
"So that's what this was?
Screaming?"
"That was an analogy. The
image of Achilles was extraordinarily important to Bean."
"Important positive, or
important negative?"
"That's too cut-and-dried.
If it was negative, are his negative feelings because Achilles caused some
terrible trauma in Bean? Or negative because having been torn away from
Achilles was traumatic, and Bean longs to be restored to him?"
"So if we have an
independent source of information that tells us to keep them apart ..."
"Then either that
independent source is really really right ..."
"Or really really
wrong."
"I'd be more specific if
I could. We only had a minute with him."
"That's disingenuous.
You've had the mind game linked to all his work with his
teacher-identity."
"And we've reported to
you about that. It's partly his hunger to have control -- that's how it began
-- but it has since become a way of taking responsibility. He has, in a way,
*become* a teacher. He has also used his inside information to give himself the
illusion of belonging to the community."
"He does belong."
"He has only one close
friend, and that's more of a big brother, little brother thing."
"I have to decide whether
I can put Achilles into Battle School while Bean is there, or give up one of
them in order to keep the other. Now, from Bean's response to Achilles's face,
what counsel can you give me."
"You won't like it."
"Try me."
"From that incident, we
can tell you that putting them together will be either a really really bad
thing, or --"
"I'm going to have to
take a long, hard look at your budget."
"Sir, the whole purpose
of the program, the way it works, is that the computer makes connections we
would never think of, and gets responses we weren't looking for. It's not
actually under our control."
"Just because a program
isn't out of control doesn't mean intelligence is present, either in the
program or the programmer."
"We don't use the word
'intelligence' with software. We regard that as a naive idea. We say that it's
'complex.' Which means that we don't always understand what it's doing. We
don't always get conclusive information."
"Have you *ever* gotten
conclusive information about anything?"
"*I* chose the wrong word
this time. 'Conclusive' isn't ever the goal when we are studying the human
mind."
"Try 'useful.' Anything
useful?"
"Sir, I've told you what
we know. The decision was yours before we reported to you, and it's still your
decision now. Use our information or not, but is it sensible to shoot the
messenger?"
"When the messenger won't
tell you what the hell the message *is*, my trigger finger gets twitchy.
Dismissed."
***
Nikolai's name was on the list
that Ender gave him, but Bean ran into problems immediately.
"I don't want to,"
said Nikolai.
It had not occurred to Bean
that anyone would refuse.
"I'm having a hard enough
time keeping up as it is."
"You're a good
soldier."
"By the skin of my teeth.
With a big helping of luck."
"That's how *all* good
soldiers do it."
"Bean, if I lose one
practice a day from my regular toon, then I'll fall behind. How can I make it
up? And one practice a day with you won't be enough. I'm a smart kid, Bean, but
I'm not Ender. I'm not you. That's the thing that I don't think you really get.
How it feels *not* to be you. Things just aren't as easy and clear."
"It's not easy for me,
either."
"Look, I know that, Bean.
And there are some things I can do for you. This isn't one of them.
Please."
It was Bean's first experience
with command, and it wasn't working. He found himself getting angry, wanting to
say Screw you and go on to someone else. Only he couldn't be angry at the only
true friend he had. And he also couldn't easily take no for an answer.
"Nikolai, what we're doing won't be hard. Stunts and tricks."
Nikolai closed his eyes.
"Bean, you're making me feel bad."
"I don't want you to feel
bad, Sinterklaas, but this is the assignment I was given, because Ender thinks
Dragon Army needs this. You were on the list, his choice not mine."
"But you don't have to
choose me."
"So I ask the next kid,
and he says, 'Nikolai's on this squad, right?' and I say, No, he didn't want
to. That makes them all feel like they can say no. And they'll *want* to say
no, because nobody wants to be taking orders from me."
"A month ago, sure, that
would have been true. But they know you're a solid soldier. I've heard people
talk about you. They respect you."
Again, it would have been so
easy to do what Nikolai wanted and let him off the hook on this. And, as a
friend, that would be the *right* thing to do. But Bean couldn't think as a
friend. He had to deal with the fact that he had been given a command and he
had to make it work.
Did he really need Nikolai?
"I'm just thinking out
loud, Nikolai, because you're the only one I can say this to, but see, I'm
scared. I wanted to lead a toon, but that's because I didn't know anything
about what leaders do. I've had a week of battles to see how Crazy Tom holds
the group of us together, the voice he uses for command. To see how Ender
trains us and trusts us, and it's a dance, tiptoe, leap, spin, and I'm afraid
that I'll fail, and there isn't *time* to fail, I have to make this work, and
when you're with me, I know there's at least one person who isn't halfway
hoping for this smart little kid to fail."
"Don't kid
yourself," said Nikolai. "As long as we're being honest."
That stung. But a leader had
to take that, didn't he? "No matter what you feel, Nikolai, you'll give me
a chance," said Bean. "And because you're giving me a chance, the others
will, too. I need ... loyalty."
"So do I, Bean."
"You need my loyalty as a
friend, in order to let you, personally, be happy," said Bean. "I
need loyalty as a leader, in order to fulfil the assignment given to us by our
commander."
"That's mean," said
Nikolai.
"Eh," said Bean.
"Also true."
"You're mean, Bean."
"Help me, Nikolai."
"Looks like our
friendship goes only one way."
Bean had never felt like this
before -- this knife in his heart, just because of the words he was hearing,
just because somebody else was angry with him. It wasn't just because he wanted
Nikolai to think well of him. It was because he knew that Nikolai was at least
partly right. Bean was using his friendship against him.
It wasn't because of that
pain, however, that Bean decided to back off. It was because a soldier who was
with him against his will would not serve him well. Even if he was a friend.
"Look, if you won't, you won't. I'm sorry I made you mad. I'll do it
without you. And you're right, I'll do fine. Still friends, Nikolai?"
Nikolai took his offered hand,
held it. "Thank you," he whispered.
Bean went immediately to
Shovel, the only one on Ender's list who was also from C toon. Shovel wasn't
Bean's first choice -- he had just the slightest tendency to delay, to do
things halfheartedly. But because he was in C toon, Shovel had been there when
Bean advised Crazy Tom. He had observed Bean in action.
Shovel set aside his desk when
Bean asked if they could talk for a minute. As with Nikolai, Bean clambered up
onto the bunk to sit beside the larger boy. Shovel was from Cagnes-sur-Mer, a
little town on the French Riviera, and he still had that open-faced
friendliness of Provence. Bean liked him. Everybody liked him.
Quickly Bean explained what
Ender had asked him to do -- though he didn't mention that it was just a
sideshow. Nobody would give up a daily practice for a something that wouldn't
be crucial to victory. "You were on the list Ender gave me, and I'd like
you to --"
"Bean, what are you
doing?"
Crazy Tom stood in front of
Shovel's bunk.
At once Bean realized his
mistake. "Sir," said Bean, "I should have talked to you first.
I'm new at this and I just didn't think."
"New at what?"
Again Bean laid out what he
had been asked to do by Ender.
"And Shovel's on the
list?"
"Right."
"So I'm going to lose you
*and* Shovel from my practices?"
"Just one practice per
day."
"I'm the only toon leader
who loses two."
"Ender said one from each
toon. Five, plus me. Not my choice."
"Merda," said Crazy
Tom. "You and Ender just didn't think of the fact that this is going to
hit me harder than any of the other toon leaders. Whatever you're doing, why
can't you do it with five instead of six? You and four others -- one from each
of the other toons?"
Bean wanted to argue, but
realized that going head to head wasn't going to get him anywhere. "You're
right, I didn't think of that, and you're right that Ender might very well change
his mind when he realizes what he's doing to your practices. So when he comes
in this morning, why don't you talk to him and let me know what the two of you
decide? In the meantime, though, Shovel might tell me no, and then the question
doesn't matter anymore, right?"
Crazy Tom thought about it.
Bean could see the anger ticking away in him. But leadership had changed Crazy
Tom. He no longer blew up the way he used to. He caught himself. He held it in.
He waited it out.
"OK, I'll talk to Ender.
If Shovel wants to do it."
They both looked at Shovel.
"I think it'd be
OK," said Shovel. "To do something weird like this."
"I won't let up on either
of you," said Crazy Tom. "And you don't talk about your wacko toon
during my practices. You keep it outside."
They both agreed to that. Bean
could see that Crazy Tom was wise to insist on that. This special assignment
would set the two of them apart from the others in C toon. If they rubbed their
noses in it, the others could feel shut out of an elite. That problem wouldn't
show up as much in any of the other toons, because there'd only be one kid from
each toon in Bean's squad. No chat. Therefore no nose-rubbing.
"Look, I don't have to
talk to Ender about this," said Crazy Tom. "Unless it becomes a
problem. OK?"
"Thanks," said Bean.
Crazy Tom went back to his own
bunk.
I did that OK, thought Bean. I
didn't screw up.
"Bean?" said Shovel.
"Eh?"
"One thing."
"Eh."
"Don't call me
Shovel."
Bean thought back. Shovel's
real name was Ducheval. "You prefer 'Two Horses'? Sounds kind of like a
Sioux warrior."
Shovel grinned. "That's
better than sounding like the tool you use to clean the stable."
"Ducheval," said
Bean. "From now on."
"Thanks. When do we
start?"
"Freetime practice
today."
"Bacana."
Bean almost danced away from
Ducheval's bunk. He had done it. He had handled it. Once, anyway.
And by the time breakfast was
over, he had all five on his toon. With the other four, he checked with their
toon leaders first. No one turned him down. And he got his squad to promise to
call Ducheval by his right name from then on.
***
Graff had Dimak and Dap in his
makeshift office in the battleroom bridge when Bean came. It was the usual
argument between Dimak and Dap -- that is, it was about nothing, some trivial
question of one violating some minor protocol or other, which escalated quickly
into a flurry of formal complaints. Just another skirmish in their rivalry, as
Dap and Dimak tried to gain some advantage for their proteges, Ender and Bean,
while at the same time trying to keep Graff from putting them in the physical
danger that both saw looming. When the knock came at the door, voices had been
raised for some time, and because the knock was not loud, it occurred to Graff
to wonder what might have been overheard.
Had names been mentioned? Yes.
Both Bean and Ender. And also Bonzo. Had Achilles's name come up? No. He had
just been referred to as "another irresponsible decision endangering the
future of the human race, all because of some insane theory about games being
one thing and genuine life-and-death struggles being another, completely
unproven and unprovable except in the blood of some child!" That was Dap,
who had a tendency to wax eloquent.
Graff, of course, was already
sick at heart, because he agreed with both teachers, not only in their
arguments against each other, but also in their arguments against his own
policy. Bean was demonstrably the better candidate on all tests; Ender was just
as demonstrably the better candidate based on his performance in actual
leadership situations. And Graff *was* being irresponsible to expose both boys
to physical danger.
But in both cases, the child
had serious doubts about his own courage. Ender had his long history of
submission to his older brother, Peter, and the mind game had shown that in
Ender's unconscious, Peter was linked to the Buggers. Graff knew that Ender had
the courage to strike, without restraint, when the time came for it. That he
could stand alone against an enemy, without anyone to help him, and destroy the
one who would destroy him. But Ender didn't know it, and he had to know.
Bean, for his part, had shown
physical symptoms of panic before his first battle, and while he ended up
performing well, Graff didn't need any psychological tests to tell him that the
doubt was there. The only difference was, in Bean's case Graff shared his
doubt. There *was* no proof that Bean would strike.
Self-doubt was the one thing
that neither candidate could afford to have. Against an enemy that did not
hesitate -- that *could* not hesitate -- there could be no pause for
reflection. The boys had to face their worst fears, knowing that no one would
intervene to help. They had to know that when failure would be fatal, they
would not fail. They had to pass the test and know that they had passed it. And
both boys were so perceptive that the danger could not be faked. It had to *be*
real.
Exposing them to that risk was
utterly irresponsible of Graff. Yet he knew that it would be just as
irresponsible not to. If Graff played it safe, no one would blame him if, in
the actual war, Ender or Bean failed. That would be small consolation, though,
given the consequences of failure. Whichever way he guessed, if he was wrong,
everybody on Earth might pay the ultimate price. The only thing that made it
possible was that if either of them was killed, or damaged physically or
mentally, the other was still there to carry on as the sole remaining
candidate.
If both failed, what then?
There were many bright children, but none who were that much better than
commanders already in place, who had graduated from Battle School many years
ago.
Somebody has to roll the dice.
Mine are the hands that hold those dice. I'm not a bureaucrat, placing my
career above the larger purpose I was put here to serve. I will not put the
dice in someone else's hands, or pretend that I don't have the choice I have.
For now, all Graff could do
was listen to both Dap and Dimak, ignore their bureaucratic attacks and
maneuvers against him, and try to keep them from each other's throats in their
vicarious rivalry.
That small knock at the door
-- Graff knew before the door opened who it would be.
If he had heard the argument,
Bean gave no sign. But then, that was Bean's specialty, giving no sign. Only
Ender managed to be more secretive -- and he, at least, had played the mind
game long enough to give the teachers a map of his psyche.
"Sir," said Bean.
"Come in, Bean."
Come in, Julian Delphiki, longed-for child of good and loving parents. Come in,
kidnapped child, hostage of fate. Come and talk to the Fates, who are playing
such clever little games with your life.
"I can wait," said
Bean.
"Captain Dap and Captain
Dimak can hear what you have to say, can't they?" asked Graff.
"If you say so, sir. It's
not a secret. I would like to have access to station supplies."
"Denied."
"That's not acceptable,
sir."
Graff saw how both Dap and
Dimak glanced at him. Amused at the audacity of the boy? "Why do you think
so?"
"Short notice, games
every day, soldiers exhausted and yet still being pressured to perform in class
-- fine, Ender's dealing with it and so are we. But the only possible reason
you could be doing this is to test our resourcefulness. So I want some
resources."
"I don't remember your
being commander of Dragon Army," said Graff. "I'll listen to a
requisition for specific equipment from your commander."
"Not possible," said
Bean. "He doesn't have time to waste on foolish bureaucratic
procedures."
Foolish bureaucratic
procedures. Graff had used that exact phrase in the argument just a few minutes
ago. But Graff's voice had *not* been raised. How long *had* Bean been
listening outside the door? Graff cursed himself silently. He had moved his
office up here specifically because he knew Bean was a sneak and a spy,
gathering intelligence however he could. And then he didn't even post a guard
to stop the boy from simply walking up and listening at the door.
"And you do?" asked
Graff.
"I'm the one he assigned
to think of stupid things you might do to rig the game against us, and think of
ways to deal with them."
"What do you think you're
going to find?"
"I don't know," said
Bean. "I just know that the only things we ever see are our uniforms and
flash suits, our weapons and our desks. There are other supplies here. For
instance, there's paper. We never get any except during written tests, when our
desks are closed to us."
"What would you do with
paper in the battleroom?"
"I don't know," said
Bean. "Wad it up and throw it around. Shred it and make a cloud of dust
out of it."
"And who would clean this
up?"
"Not my problem,"
said Bean.
"Permission denied."
"That's not acceptable,
sir," said Bean.
"I don't mean to hurt
your feelings, Bean, but it matters less than a cockroach's fart whether you
accept my decision or not."
"I don't mean to hurt
*your* feelings, sir, but you clearly have no idea what you're doing. You're
improvising. Screwing with the system. The damage you're doing is going to take
years to undo, and you don't care. That means that it doesn't matter what
condition this school is in a year from now. That means that everybody who
matters is going to be graduated soon. Training is being accelerated because
the Buggers are getting too close for delays. So you're pushing. And you're
especially pushing Ender Wiggin."
Graff felt sick. He knew that
Bean's powers of analysis were extraordinary. So, also, were his powers of
deception. Some of Bean's guesses weren't right -- but was that because he
didn't know the truth, or because he simply didn't want them to know how much
he knew, or how much he guessed? I never wanted you here, Bean, because you're
too dangerous.
Bean was still making his
case. "When the day comes that Ender Wiggin is looking for ways to stop
the Buggers from getting to Earth and scouring the whole planet the way they
started to back in the First Invasion, are you going to give him some bullshit
answer about what resources he can or cannot use?"
"As far as you're
concerned, the ship's supplies don't exist."
"As far as I'm
concerned," said Bean, "Ender is *this* close to telling you to fry
up your game and eat it. He's sick of it -- if you can't see that, you're not
much of a teacher. He doesn't care about the standings. He doesn't care about
beating other kids. All he cares about is preparing to fight the Buggers. So
how hard do you think it will be for me to persuade him that your program here
is crocked, and it's time to quit playing?"
"All right," said
Graff. "Dimak, prepare the brig. Bean is to be confined until the shuttle
is ready to take him back to Earth. This boy is out of Battle School."
Bean smiled slightly. "Go
for it, Colonel Graff. I'm done here anyway. I've got everything *I* wanted
here -- a first-rate education. I'll never have to live on the street again.
I'm home free. Let me out of your game, right now, I'm ready."
"You won't be free on
Earth, either. Can't risk having you tell these wild stories about Battle
School," said Graff.
"Right. Take the best
student you ever had here and put him in jail because he asked for access to
the supply closet and you didn't like it. Come on, Colonel Graff. Swallow hard
and back down. You need my cooperation more than I need yours."
Dimak could barely conceal his
smile.
If only confronting Graff like
this were sufficient proof of Bean's courage. And for all that Graff had doubts
about Bean, he didn't deny that he was good at maneuver. Graff would have given
almost anything not to have Dimak and Dap in the room at this moment.
"It was your decision to
have this conversation in front of witnesses," said Bean.
What, was the kid a mind
reader?
No, Graff had glanced at the
two teachers. Bean simply knew how to read his body language. The kid missed
nothing. That's why he was so valuable to the program.
Isn't this why we pin our
hopes on these kids? Because they're good at maneuver?
And if I know anything about
command, don't I know this -- that there are times when you cut your losses and
leave the field?
"All right, Bean. One
scan through supply inventory."
"With somebody to explain
to me what it all is."
"I thought you already
knew everything."
Bean was polite in victory; he
did not respond to taunting. The sarcasm gave Graff a little compensation for
having to back down. He knew that's all it was, but this job didn't have many
perks.
"Captain Dimak and
Captain Dap will accompany you," said Graff. "One scan, and either
one of them can veto anything you request. They will be responsible for the
consequences of any injuries resulting from your use of any item they let you
have."
"Thank you, sir,"
said Bean. "In all likelihood I won't find anything useful. But I
appreciate your fair-mindedness in letting us search the station's resources to
further the educational objectives of the Battle School."
The kid had the jargon down
cold. All those months of access to the student data, with all the notations in
the files, Bean had clearly learned more than just the factual contents of the
dossiers. And now Bean was giving him the spin that he should use in writing up
a report about his decision. As if Graff were not perfectly capable of creating
his own spin.
The kid is patronizing me.
Little bastard thinks that he's in control.
Well, I have some surprises
for him, too.
"Dismissed," said
Graff. "All of you."
They got up, saluted, left.
Now, thought Graff, I have to
second-guess all my future decisions, wondering how much my choices are
influenced by the fact that this kid really pisses me off.
***
As Bean scanned the inventory
list, he was really searching primarily for something, anything, that might be
made into a weapon that Ender or some of his army could carry to protect him
from physical attack by Bonzo. But there was nothing that would be both
concealable from the teachers and powerful enough to give smaller kids sufficient
leverage over larger ones.
It was a disappointment, but
he'd find other ways to neutralize the threat. And now, as long as he was
scanning the inventory, *was* there anything that he might be able to use in
the battleroom? Cleaning supplies weren't very promising. Nor would the
hardware stocks make much sense in the battleroom. What, throw a handful of
screws?
The safety equipment, though
...
"What's a deadline?"
asked Bean.
Dimak answered. "Very
fine, strong cord that's used to secure maintenance and construction workers
when they're working outside the station."
"How long?"
"With links, we can
assemble several kilometers of secure deadline," said Dimak. "But
each coil unspools to a hundred meters."
"I want to see it."
They took him into parts of
the station that children never went to. The decor was far more utilitarian
here. Screws and rivets were visible in the plates on the walls. The intake
ducts were visible instead of being hidden inside the ceiling. There were no
friendly lightstripes for a child to touch and get directions to his barracks.
All the palm pads were too high for a child to comfortably use. And the staff
they passed saw Bean and then looked at Dap and Dimak as if they were crazy.
The coil was amazingly small.
Bean hefted it. Light, too. He unspooled a few decameters of it. It was almost
invisible. "This will hold?"
"The weight of two
adults," said Dimak.
"It's so fine. Will it
cut?"
"Rounded so smoothly it
can't cut anything. Wouldn't do us any good if it went slicing through things.
Like spacesuits."
"Can I cut it into short
lengths?"
"With a blowtorch,"
said Dimak.
"This is what I
want."
"Just one?" asked
Dap, rather sarcastically.
"And a blowtorch,"
said Bean.
"Denied," said
Dimak.
"I was joking," said
Bean. He walked out of the supply room and started jogging down the corridor,
retracing the route they had just taken.
They jogged after him.
"Slow down!" Dimak called out.
"Keep up!" Bean
answered. "I've got a toon waiting for me to train them with this."
"Train them to do
what!"
"I don't know!" He
got to the pole and slid down. It passed him right through to the student
levels. Going this direction, there was no security clearance at all.
His toon was waiting for him
in the battleroom. They'd been working hard for him the past few days, trying
all kinds of lame things. Formations that could explode in midair. Screens.
Attacks without guns, disarming enemies with their feet. Getting into and out
of spins, which made them almost impossible to hit but also kept them from
shooting at anybody else.
The most encouraging thing was
the fact that Ender spent almost the entire practice time watching Bean's squad
whenever he wasn't actually responding to questions from leaders and soldiers
in the other toons. Whatever they came up with, Ender would know about it and
have his own ideas about when to use it. And, knowing that Ender's eyes were on
them, Bean's soldiers worked all the harder. It gave Bean more stature in their
eyes, that Ender really did care about what they did.
Ender's good at this, Bean
realized again for the hundredth time. He knows how to form a group into the
shape he wants it to have. He knows how to get people to work together. And he
does it by the most minimal means possible.
If Graff were as good at this
as Ender, I wouldn't have had to act like such a bully in there today.
The first thing Bean tried
with the deadline was to stretch it across the battleroom. It reached, with
barely enough slack to allow knots to be tied at both ends. But a few minutes
of experimentation showed that it would be completely ineffective as a
tripwire. Most enemies would simply miss it; those that did run into it might
be disoriented or flipped around, but once it was known that it was there, it
could be used like part of a grid, which meant it would work to the advantage
of a creative enemy.
The deadline was designed to
keep a man from drifting off into space. What happens when you get to the end
of the line?
Bean left one end fastened to
a handhold in the wall, but coiled the other end around his waist several
times. The line was now shorter than the width of the battleroom's cube. Bean
tied a knot in the line, then launched himself toward the opposite wall.
As he sailed through the air,
the deadline tautening behind him, he couldn't help thinking: I hope they were
right about this wire not being capable of cutting. What a way to end -- sliced
in half in the battleroom. *That* would be an interesting mess for them to
clean up.
When he was a meter from the
wall, the line went taut. Bean's forward progress was immediately halted at his
waist. His body jacknifed and he felt like he'd been kicked in the gut. But the
most surprising thing was the way his inertia was translated from forward
movement into a sideways arc that whipped him across the battleroom toward
where D toon was practicing. He hit the wall so hard he had what was left of
his breath knocked out of him.
"Did you see that!"
Bean screamed, as soon as he could breathe. His stomach hurt -- he might not
have been sliced in half, but he would have a vicious bruise, he knew that at
once, and if he hadn't had his flash suit on, he could well believe there would
have been internal injuries. But he'd be OK, and the deadline had let him
change directions abruptly in midair. "Did you see it! Did you see
it!"
"Are you all right!"
Ender shouted.
He realized that Ender thought
he was injured. Slowing down his speech, Bean called out again, "Did you
see how fast I went! Did you see how I changed direction!"
The whole army stopped practice to watch as
Bean played more with the deadline. Tying two soldiers together got interesting
results when one of them stopped, but it was hard to hold on. More effective
was when Bean had Ender use his hook to pull a star out of the wall and put it
into the middle of the battleroom. Bean tied himself and launched from the
star; when the line went taut, the edge of the star acted as a fulcrum,
shortening the length of the line as he changed direction. And as the line
wrapped around the star, it shortened even more upon reaching each edge. At the
end, Bean was moving so fast that he blacked out for a moment upon hitting the
star. But the whole of Dragon Army was stunned at what they had seen. The
deadline was completely invisible, so it looked as though this little kid had
launched himself and then suddenly started changing direction and speeding up
in midflight. It was seriously disturbing to see it.
"Let's do it again, and
see if I can shoot while I'm doing it," said Bean.
***
Evening practice didn't end
till 2140, leaving little time before bed. But having seen the stunts Bean's
squad was preparing, the army was excited instead of weary, fairly scampering
through the corridors. Most of them probably understood that what Bean had come
up with were stunts, nothing that would be decisive in battle. It was fun
anyway. It was new. And it was Dragon.
Bean started out leading the
way, having been given that honor by Ender. A time of triumph, and even though
he knew he was being manipulated by the system -- behavior modification through
public honors -- it still felt good.
Not so good, though, that he
let up his alertness. He hadn't gone far along the corridor until he realized
that there were too many Salamander uniforms among the other boys wandering
around in this section. By 2140, most armies were in their barracks, with only
a few stragglers coming back from the library or the vids or the game room. Too
many Salamanders, and the other soldiers were often big kids from armies whose
commanders bore no special love toward Ender. It didn't take a genius to
recognize a trap.
Bean jogged back and tagged
Crazy Tom, Vlad, and Hot Soup, who were walking together. "Too many
Salamanders," Bean said. "Stay back with Ender." They got it at
once -- it was public knowledge that Bonzo was breathing out threats about what
"somebody" ought to do to Ender Wiggin, just to put him in his place.
Bean continued his shambling, easygoing run toward the back of the army,
ignoring the smaller kids but tagging the other two toon leaders and all the
seconds -- the older kids, the ones who might have some chance of standing up
to Bonzo's crew in a fight. Not *much* of a chance, but all that was needed was
to keep them from getting at Ender until the teachers intervened. No way could
the teachers stand aloof if an out-and-out riot erupted. Or could they?
Bean passed right by Ender,
got behind him. He saw, coming up quickly, Petra Arkanian in her Phoenix Army
uniform. She called out. "Ho, Ender!"
To Bean's disgust, Ender
stopped and turned around. The boy was too trusting.
Behind Petra, a few
Salamanders fell into step. Bean looked the other way, and saw a few more
Salamanders and a couple of set-faced boys from other armies, drifting down the
corridor past the last of the Dragons. Hot Soup and Crazy Tom were coming
quickly, with more toon leaders and the rest of the larger Dragons coming
behind them, but they weren't moving fast enough. Bean beckoned, and he saw
Crazy Tom pick up his pace. The others followed suit.
"Ender, can I talk to
you," said Petra.
Bean was bitterly
disappointed. Petra was the Judas. Setting Ender up for Bonzo -- who would have
guessed? She *hated* Bonzo when she was in his army.
"Walk with me," said
Ender.
"It's just for a
moment," said Petra.
Either she was a perfect
actress or she was oblivious, Bean realized. She only seemed aware of the other
Dragon uniforms, never as much as glancing at anybody else. She isn't in on it
after all, thought Bean. She's just an idiot.
At last, Ender seemed to be
aware of his exposed position. Except for Bean, all the other Dragons were past
him now, and that was apparently enough -- at last -- to make him
uncomfortable. He turned his back on Petra and walked away, briskly, quickly
closing the gap between him and the older Dragons.
Petra was angry for a moment,
then jogged quickly to catch up with him. Bean stood his ground, looking at the
oncoming Salamanders. They didn't even glance at him. They just picked up their
pace, continuing to gain on Ender almost as fast as Petra was.
Bean took three steps and
slapped the door of Rabbit Army barracks. Somebody opened it. Bean had only to
say, "Salamander's making a move against Ender," and at once Rabbits
started to pour out the door into the corridor. They emerged just as the
Salamanders reached them, and started following along.
Witnesses, thought Bean. And
helpers, too, if the fight seemed unfair.
Ahead of him, Ender and Petra
were talking, and the larger Dragons fell in step around them. The Salamanders
continued to follow closely, and the other thugs joined them as they passed.
But the danger was dissipating. Rabbit Army and the older Dragons had done the
job. Bean breathed a little easier. For the moment, at least, the danger was
over.
Bean caught up with Ender in
time to hear Petra angrily say, "How can you think I did? Don't you know
who your friends are?" She ran off, ducked into a ladderway, scrambled
upward.
Carn Carby of Rabbit caught up
with Bean. "Everything OK?"
"I hope you don't mind my
calling out your army."
"They came and got me. We
seeing Ender safely to bed?"
"Eh."
Carn dropped back and walked
along with the bulk of his soldiers. The Salamander thugs were now outnumbered
about three to one. They backed off even more, and some of them peeled away and
disappeared up ladderways or down poles.
When Bean caught up with Ender
again, he was surrounded by his toon leaders. There was nothing subtle about it
now -- they were clearly his bodyguards, and some of the younger Dragons had
realized what was happening and were filling out the formation. They got Ender
to the door of his quarters and Crazy Tom pointedly entered before him, then
allowed him to go in when he certified that no one was lying in wait. As if one
of them could palm open a commander's door. But then, the teachers had been
changing a lot of the rules lately. Anything could happen.
Bean lay awake for a while,
trying to think what he could do. There was no way they could be with Ender
every moment. There was classwork -- armies were deliberately broken up then.
Ender was the only one who could eat in the commanders' mess, so if Bonzo
jumped him there ... but he wouldn't, not with so many other commanders around
him. Showers. Toilet stalls. And if Bonzo assembled the right group of thugs,
they'd slap Ender's toon leaders aside like balloons.
What Bean had to do was try to
peel away Bonzo's support. Before he slept, he had a half-assed little plan
that might help a little, or might make things work [sic -- should be worse],
but at least it was something, and it would be public, so the teachers couldn't
claim after the fact, in their typical bureaucrat cover-my-butt way that they
hadn't known anything was going on.
He thought he could do
something at breakfast, but of course there was a battle first thing in the
morning. Pol Slattery, Badger Army. The teachers had found a new way to mess
with the rules, too. When Badgers were flashed, instead of staying frozen till
the end of the game they thawed after five minutes, the way it worked in
practice. But Dragons, once hit, stayed rigid. Since the battleroom was packed
with stars -- plenty of hiding places -- it took a while to realize that they
were having to shoot the same soldiers more than once as they maneuvered
through the stars, and Dragon Army came closer to losing than it ever had. It
was all hand to hand, with a dozen of the remaining Dragons having to watch
batches of frozen Badgers, reshooting them periodically and meanwhile
frantically looking around for some other Badger sneaking up from behind.
The battle took so long that
by the time they got out of the battleroom, breakfast was over. Dragon Army was
pissed off -- the ones who had been frozen early on, before they knew the
trick, had spent more than an hour, some of them, floating in their rigid
suits, growing more and more frustrated as the time wore on. The others, who
had been forced to fight outnumbered and with little visibility against enemies
who kept reviving, they were exhausted. Including Ender.
Ender gathered his army in the
corridor and said, "Today you know everything. No practice. Get some rest.
Have some fun. Pass a test."
They were all grateful for the
reprieve, but still, they weren't getting any breakfast today and nobody felt
like cheering. As they walked back to the barracks, some of them grumbled,
"Bet they're serving breakfast to Badger Army right now."
"No, they got them up and
served them breakfast before."
"No, they ate breakfast
and then five minutes later they get to eat another."
Bean, however, was frustrated
because he hadn't had a chance to carry out his plan at breakfast. It would
have to wait till lunch.
The good thing was that
because Dragon wasn't practicing, Bonzo's guys wouldn't know where to lie in
wait for him. The bad thing was that if Ender went off by himself, there'd be
nobody to protect him.
So Bean was relieved when he
saw Ender go into his quarters. In consultation with the other toon leaders,
Bean set up a watch on Ender's door. One Dragon sat outside the barracks for a
half-hour shift, then knocked on the door and his replacement came out. No way
was Ender going to go wandering off without Dragon Army knowing it.
But Ender never came out and
finally it was lunchtime. All the toon leaders sent the soldiers on ahead and
then detoured past Ender's door. Fly Molo knocked loudly -- actually, he
slapped the door hard five times. "Lunch, Ender."
"I'm not hungry."
His voice was muffled by the door. "Go on and eat."
"We can wait," said
Fly. "Don't want you walking to the commanders' mess alone."
"I'm not going to eat any
lunch at all," said Ender. "Go on and I'll see you after."
"You heard him,"
said Fly to the others. "He'll be safe in here while we eat."
Bean had noticed that Ender
did not promise to stay in his room throughout lunch. But at least Bonzo's
people wouldn't know where he was. Unpredictability was helpful. And Bean
wanted to get the chance to make his speech at lunch.
So he ran to the messroom and
did not get in line, but instead bounded up onto a table and clapped his hands
loudly to get attention. "Hey, everybody!"
He waited until the group went
about as close to silent as it was going to get.
"There's some of you here
who need a reminder of a couple of points of I.F. law. If a soldier is ordered
to do something illegal or improper by his commanding officer, he has a
responsibility to refuse the order and report it. A soldier who obeys an
illegal or improper order is fully responsible for the consequences of his
actions. Just in case any of you here are too dim to know what that means, the
law says that if some commander orders you to commit a crime, that's no excuse.
You are forbidden to obey."
Nobody from Salamander would
meet Bean's gaze, but a thug in Rat uniform answered in a surly tone. "You
got something in mind, here, pinprick?"
"I've got *you* in mind,
Lighter. Your scores are pretty much in the bottom ten percent in the school,
so I thought you might need a little extra help."
"You can shut your
facehole right now, that's the help I need!"
"Whatever Bonzo had you
set to do last night, Lighter, you and about twenty others, what I'm telling
you is *if* you'd actually tried something, every single one of you would have
been out of Battle School on his ass. Iced. A complete failure, because you
listened to Bonehead Madrid. Can I be any more clear than that?"
Lighter laughed -- it sounded
forced, but then, he wasn't the only one laughing. "You don't even know
what's going on, pinprick," one of them said.
"I know Bonehead's trying
to turn you into a street crew, you pathetic losers. He can't beat Ender in the
battleroom, so he's going to get a dozen tough guys to beat up one little kid.
You all hear that? You know what Ender is -- the best damn commander ever to
come through here. He might be the only one able to do what Mazer Rackham did
and beat the Buggers when they come back, did you think of that? And these guys
are so *smart* they want to beat his brains out. So when the Buggers come, and
we've only got pus-brains like Bonzo Madrid to lead our fleets to defeat, then
as the Buggers scour the Earth and kill every last man, woman, and child, the
survivors will all know that *these* fools are the ones who got rid of the one
guy who could have led us to victory!"
The whole place was dead
silent now, and Bean could see, looking at the ones he recognized as having
been with Bonzo's group last night, that he was getting through to them.
"Oh, you *forgot* the
Buggers, is that it? You forgot that this Battle School wasn't put here so you
could write home to Mommy about your high standings on the scoreboard. So you
go ahead and help Bonzo out, and while you're at it, why not just slit your own
throats, too, cause that's what you're doing if you hurt Ender Wiggin. But for
the rest of us -- well, how many here think that Ender Wiggin is the one
commander we would all want to follow into battle? Come on, how many of
you!"
Bean began to clap his hands
slowly, rhythmically. Immediately, all the Dragons joined in. And very quickly,
most of the rest of the soldiers were also clapping. The ones who weren't were
conspicuous and could see how the others looked at them with scorn or hate.
Pretty soon, the whole room
was clapping. Even the food servers.
Bean thrust both his hands
straight up in the air. "The butt-faced Buggers are the only enemy! Humans
are all on the same side! Anybody who raises a hand against Ender Wiggin is a
Bugger-lover!"
They responded with cheers and
applause, leaping to their feet.
It was Bean's first attempt at
rabble-rousing. He was pleased to see that, as long as the cause was right, he
was pretty damn good at it.
Only later, when he had his
food and was sitting with C toon, eating it, did Lighter himself come up to
Bean. He came up from behind, and the rest of C toon was on their feet, ready
to take him on, before Bean even knew he was there. But Lighter motioned them
to sit down, then leaned over and spoke right into Bean's ear. "Listen to
this, Queen Stupid. The soldiers who are planning to take Wiggin apart aren't
even *here*. So much for your stupid speech."
Then he was gone.
And, a moment later, so was
Bean, with C toon gathering the rest of Dragon Army to follow behind him.
Ender wasn't in his quarters,
or at least he didn't answer. Fly Molo, as A toon commander, took charge and
divided them into groups to search the barracks, the game room, the vid room,
the library, the gym.
But Bean called out for his
squad to follow him. To the bathroom. That's the one place that Bonzo and his
boys could plan on Ender having to go, eventually.
By the time Bean got there, it
was all over. Teachers and medical staff were clattering down the halls. Dink
Meeker was walking with Ender, his arm across Ender's shoulder, away from the
bathroom. Ender was wearing only his towel. He was wet, and there was blood all
over the back of his head and dripping down his back. It took Bean only a
moment to realize that it was not his blood. The others from Bean's squad
watched as Dink led Ender back to his quarters and helped him inside. But Bean
was already on his way to the bathroom.
The teachers ordered him out
of the way, out of the corridor. But Bean saw enough. Bonzo lying on the floor,
medical staff doing CPR. Bean knew that you don't do that to somebody whose
heart is beating. And from the inattentive way the others were standing around,
Bean knew it was only a formality. Nobody expected Bonzo's heart to start
again. No surprise. His nose had been jammed up inside his head. His face was a
mass of blood. Which explained the bloody back of Ender's head.
All our efforts didn't amount
to squat. But Ender won anyway. He knew this was coming. He learned
self-defense. He used it, and he didn't do a half-assed job of it, either.
If Ender had been Poke's
friend, Poke wouldn't have died.
And if Ender had depended on
Bean to save him, he'd be just as dead as Poke.
Rough hands dragged Bean off
his feet, pushed him against a wall. "What did you see!" demanded
Major Anderson.
"Nothing," said Bean. "Is that
Bonzo in there? Is he hurt?"
"This is none of your
business. Didn't you hear us order you away?"
Colonel Graff arrived then,
and Bean could see that the teachers around him were furious at him -- yet
couldn't say anything, either because of military protocol or because one of
the children was present.
"I think Bean has stuck
his nose into things once too often," said Anderson.
"Are you going to send
Bonzo home?" asked Bean. "Cause he's just going to try it
again."
Graff gave him a withering
glance. "I heard about your speech in the mess hall," said Graff.
"I didn't know we brought you up here to be a politician."
"If you don't ice Bonzo
and get him *out* of here, Ender's never going to be safe, and we won't stand
for it!"
"Mind your own business,
little boy," said Graff. "This is men's work here."
Bean let himself be dragged
away by Dimak. Just in case they still wondered whether Bean saw that Bonzo was
dead, he kept the act going just a little longer. "He's going to come
after me, too," he said. "I don't want Bonzo coming after me."
"He's not coming after
you," said Dimak. "He's going home. Count on it. But don't talk about
this to anyone else. Let them find out when the official word is given out. Got
it?"
"Yes, sir," said
Bean.
"And where did you get
all that nonsense about not obeying a commander who gives illegal orders?"
"From the Uniform Code of
Military Conduct," said Bean.
"Well, here's a little
fact for you -- nobody has ever been prosecuted for obeying orders."
"That," said Bean,
"is because nobody's done anything so outrageous that the general public
got involved."
"The Uniform Code doesn't
apply to students, at least not that part of it."
"But it applies to
teachers," said Bean. "It applies to *you*. Just in case you obeyed
any illegal or improper orders today. By ... what, I don't know ... standing by
while a fight broke out in a bathroom? Just because your commanding officer
told you to let a big kid beat up on a little kid."
If that information bothered
Dimak, he gave no sign. He stood in the corridor and watched as Bean went into
the Dragon Army barracks.
It was crazy inside. Dragon
Army felt completely helpless and stupid, furious and ashamed. Bonzo Madrid had
outsmarted them! Bonzo had gotten Ender alone! Where were Ender's soldiers when
he needed them?
It took a long time for things
to calm down. Through it all, Bean just sat on his bunk, thinking his own
thoughts. Ender didn't just win his fight. Didn't just protect himself and walk
away. Ender killed him. Struck a blow so devastating that his enemy will never,
never come after him again.
Ender Wiggin, you're the one
who was born to be commander of the fleet that defends Earth from the Third
Invasion. Because that's what we need -- someone who'll strike the most brutal
blow possible, with perfect aim and with no regard for consequences. Total war.
Me, I'm no Ender Wiggin. I'm
just a street kid whose only skill was staying alive. Somehow. The only time I
was in real danger, I ran like a squirrel and took refuge with Sister Carlotta.
Ender went alone into battle. I go alone into my hidey-hole. I'm the guy who
makes big brave speeches standing on tables in the mess hall. Ender's the guy
who meets the enemy naked and overpowers him against all odds.
Whatever genes they altered to
make me, they weren't the ones that mattered.
Ender almost died because of
me. Because I goaded Bonzo. Because I failed to keep watch at the crucial time.
Because I didn't stop and think like Bonzo and figure out that he'd wait for
Ender to be alone in the shower.
If Ender had died today, it
would have been my fault all over again.
He wanted to kill somebody.
Couldn't be Bonzo. Bonzo was
already dead.
Achilles. That's the one he
needed to kill. And if Achilles had been there at that moment, Bean would have
tried. Might have succeeded, too, if violent rage and desperate shame were
enough to beat down any advantage of size and experience Achilles might have
had. And if Achilles killed Bean anyway, it was no worse than Bean deserved,
for having failed Ender Wiggin so completely.
He felt his bed bounce.
Nikolai had jumped the gap between the upper bunks.
"It's OK," murmured
Nikolai, touching Bean's shoulder.
Bean rolled onto his back, to
face Nikolai.
"Oh," said Nikolai.
"I thought you were crying."
"Ender won," said
Bean. "What's to cry about?"
CHAPTER 18 -- FRIEND
"This boy's death was not
necessary."
"This boy's death was not
foreseen."
"But it was
foreseeable."
"You can always foresee
things that already happened. These are children, after all. We did *not*
anticipate this level of violence."
"I don't believe you. I
believe that this is precisely the level of violence you anticipated. This is
what you set up. You think that the experiment succeeded."
"I can't control your
opinions. I can merely disagree with them.
"Ender Wiggin is ready to
move on to Command School. That is my report."
"I have a separate report
from Dap, the teacher assigned to watch him most closely. And that report --
for which there are to be *no* sanctions against Captain Dap -- tells me that
Andrew Wiggin is 'psychologically unfit for duty.'"
"*If* he is, which I
doubt, it is only temporary."
"How much time do you
think we have? No, Colonel Graff, for the time being we have to regard your
course of action regarding Wiggin as a failure, and the boy as ruined not only
for our purposes but quite possibly for any other as well. So, if it can be
done without further killings, I want the other one pushed forward. I want him
here in Command School as close to immediately as possible."
"Very well, sir. Though I
must tell you that I regard Bean as unreliable."
"Why, because you haven't
turned him into a killer yet?"
"Because he is not human,
sir."
"The genetic difference
is well within the range of ordinary variation."
"He was manufactured, and
the manufacturer was a criminal, not to mention a certified loon."
"I could see some danger
if his *father* were a criminal. Or his mother. But his *doctor*? The boy is
exactly what we need, as quickly as we can get him."
"He is
unpredictable."
"And the Wiggin boy is
not?"
"Less unpredictable,
sir."
"Very carefully answered,
considering that you just insisted that the murder today was 'not
foreseeable.'"
"*Not* murder, sir!"
"Killing, then."
"The mettle of the Wiggin
boy is proved, sir, while Bean's is not."
"I have Dimak's report --
for which, again, he is not to be --"
"Punished, I know,
sir."
"Bean's behavior
throughout this set of events has been exemplary."
"Then Captain Dimak's
report was incomplete. Didn't he inform you that it was Bean who may have
pushed Bonzo over the edge to violence by breaking security and informing him
that Ender's army was composed of exceptional students?"
"That *was* an act with
unforeseeable consequences."
"Bean was acting to save
his own life, and in so doing he shunted the danger onto Ender Wiggin's
shoulders. That he later tried to ameliorate the danger does not change the
fact that when Bean is under pressure, he turns traitor."
"Harsh language!"
"This from the man who just
called an obvious act of self-defense 'murder'?"
"Enough of this! You are
on leave of absence from your position as commander of Battle School for the duration
of Ender Wiggin's so-called rest and recuperation. If Wiggin recovers enough to
come to Command School, you may come with him and continue to have influence
over the education of the children we bring here. If he does not, you may await
your court-martial on Earth."
"I am relieved effective
when?"
"When you get on the
shuttle with Wiggin. Major Anderson will stand in as acting commander."
"Very well, sir. Wiggin
*will* return to training, sir."
"*If* we still want
him."
"When you are over the
dismay we all feel at the unfortunate death of the Madrid boy, you will realize
that I am right, and Ender is the only viable candidate, all the more now than
before."
"I allow you that
Parthian shot. And, if you are right, I wish you Godspeed on your work with the
Wiggin boy. Dismissed."
***
Ender was still wearing only
his towel when he stepped into the barracks. Bean saw him standing there, his
face a rictus of death, and thought: He knows that Bonzo is dead, and it's
killing him.
"Ho, Ender," said
Hot Soup, who was standing near the door with the other toon leaders.
"There gonna be a
practice tonight?" asked one of the younger soldiers.
Ender handed a slip of paper
to Hot Soup.
"I guess that means
not," said Nikolai softly.
Hot Soup read it. "Those
sons of bitches! Two at once?"
Crazy Tom looked over his
shoulder. "Two armies!"
"They'll just trip over
each other," said Bean. What appalled him most about the teachers was not
the stupidity of trying to combine armies, a ploy whose ineffectiveness had
been proved time after time throughout history, but rather the
get-back-on-the-horse mentality that led them to put *more* pressure on Ender
at this of all times. Couldn't they see the damage they were doing to him? Was
their goal to train him or break him? Because he was trained long since. He
should have been promoted out of Battle School the week before. And now they
give him one more battle, a completely meaningless one, when he's already over
the edge of despair?
"I've got to clean
up," said Ender. "Get them ready, get everybody together, I'll meet
you there, at the gate." In his voice, Bean heard a complete lack of
interest. No, something deeper than that. Ender doesn't *want* to win this
battle.
Ender turned to leave.
Everyone saw the blood on his head, his shoulders, down his back. He left.
They all ignored the blood. They
had to. "Two fart-eating armies!" cried Crazy Tom. "We'll whip
their butts!"
That seemed to be the general
consensus as they got into their flash suits.
Bean tucked the coil of
deadline into the waist of his flash suit. If Ender ever needed a stunt, it
would be for this battle, when he was no longer interested in winning.
As promised, Ender joined them
at the gate before it opened -- just barely before. He walked down the corridor
lined with his soldiers, who looked at him with love, with awe, with trust.
Except Bean, who looked at him with anguish. Ender Wiggin was not larger than
life, Bean knew. He was exactly life-sized, and so his larger-than-life burden
was too much for him. And yet he was bearing it. So far.
The gate went transparent.
Four stars had been combined
directly in front of the gate, completely blocking their view of the
battleroom. Ender would have to deploy his forces blind. For all he knew, the
enemy had already been let into the room fifteen minutes ago. For all he could
possibly know, they were deployed just as Bonzo had deployed his army, only
this time it would be completely effective, to have the gate ringed with enemy
soldiers.
But Ender said nothing. Just
stood there looking at the barrier.
Bean had halfway expected
this. He was ready. What he did wasn't all that obvious -- he only walked
forward to stand directly beside Ender at the gate. But he knew that was all it
would take. A reminder.
"Bean," said Ender.
"Take your boys and tell me what's on the other side of this star."
"Yes *sir*," said
Bean. He pulled the coil of deadline from his waist, and with his five soldiers
he made the short hop from the gate to the star. Immediately the gate he had
just come through became the ceiling, the star their temporary floor. Bean tied
the deadline around his waist while the other boys unspooled the line,
arranging it in loose coils on the star. When it was about one-third played
out, Bean declared it to be sufficient. He was guessing that the four stars
were really eight -- that they made a perfect cube. If he was wrong, then he
had way too much deadline and he'd crash into the ceiling instead of making it
back behind the star. Worse things could happen.
He slipped out beyond the edge
of the star. He was right, it was a cube. It was too dim in the room to see
well what the other armies were doing, but they seemed to be deploying. There
had been no head start this time, apparently. He quickly reported this to Ducheval,
who would repeat it to Ender while Bean did his stunt. Ender would no doubt
start bringing out the rest of the army at once, before the time clicked down
to zero.
Bean launched straight down
from the ceiling. Above him, his toon was holding the other end of the deadline
secure, making sure it fed out properly and stopped abruptly.
Bean did not enjoy the
wrenching of his gut when the deadline went taut, but there was kind of a
thrill to the increase of speed as he suddenly moved south. He could see the
distant flashing of the enemy firing up at him. Only soldiers from one half of
the enemy's area were firing.
When the deadline reached the
next edge of the cube, his speed increased again, and now he was headed upward
in an arc that, for a moment, looked like it was going to scrape him against
the ceiling. Then the last edge bit, and he scooted in behind the star and was
caught deftly by his toon. Bean wiggled his arms and legs to show that he was
none the worse for his ride. What the enemy was thinking about his magical
maneuvers in midair he could only guess. What mattered was that Ender had *not*
come through the gate. The timer must be nearly out.
Ender came alone through the
gate. Bean made his report as quickly as possible. "It's really dim, but
light enough you can't follow people easily by the lights on their suits. Worst
possible for seeing. It's all open space from this star to the enemy side of
the room. They've got eight stars making a square around their door. I didn't
see anybody except the ones peeking around the boxes. They're just sitting
there waiting for us."
In the distance, they heard
the enemy begin catcalls. "Hey! We be hungry, come and feed us! Your ass
is draggin'! Your ass is Dragon!"
Bean continued his report, but
had no idea if Ender was even listening. "They fired at me from only one
half their space. Which means that the two commanders are *not* agreeing and
neither one has been put in supreme command."
"In a real war,"
said Ender, "any commander with brains at all would retreat and save this
army."
"What the hell,"
said Bean. "It's only a game."
"It stopped being a game
when they threw away the rules."
This wasn't good, thought
Bean. How much time did they have to get their army through the gate? "So,
you throw 'em away, too." He looked Ender in the eye, demanding that he
wake up, pay attention, *act*.
The blank look left Ender's
face. He grinned. It felt damn good to see that. "OK. Why not. Let's see
how they react to a formation."
Ender began calling the rest
of the army through the gate. It was going to get crowded on the top of that
star, but there was no choice.
As it turned out, Ender's plan
was to use another of Bean's stupid ideas, which he had watched Bean practice
with his toon. A screen formation of frozen soldiers, controlled by Bean's
toon, who remained unfrozen behind them. Having once told Bean what he wanted
him to do, Ender joined the formation as a common soldier and left everything
up to Bean to organize. "It's your show," he said.
Bean had never expected Ender
to do any such thing, but it made a kind of sense. What Ender wanted was not to
have this battle; allowing himself to be part of a screen of frozen soldiers,
pushed through the battle by someone else, was as close to sleeping through it
as he could get.
Bean set to work at once,
constructing the screen in four parts consisting of one toon each. Each of
toons A through C lined up four and three, arms interlocked with the men beside
them, the upper row of three with toes hooked under the arms of the four
soldiers below. When everybody was clamped down tight, Bean and his toon froze
them. Then each of Bean's men took hold of one section of the screen and,
careful to move very slowly so that inertia would not carry the screen out of
their control, they maneuvered them out from above the star and slowly moved
them down until they were just under it. Then they joined them back together
into a single screen, with Bean's squad forming the interlock.
"When did you guys
practice this?" asked Dumper, the leader of E toon.
"We've never done this
before," Bean answered truthfully. "We've done bursting and linking
with one-man screens, but seven men each? It's all new to us."
Dumper laughed. "And
there's Ender, plugged into the screen like anybody. That's trust, Bean old
boy."
That's despair, thought Bean.
But he didn't feel the need to say *that* aloud.
When all was ready, E toon got
into place behind the screen and, on Bean's command, pushed off as hard as they
could.
The screen drifted down toward
the enemy's gate at a pretty good clip. Enemy fire, though it was intense, hit
only the already-frozen soldiers in front. E toon and Bean's squad kept moving,
very slightly, but enough that no stray shot could freeze them. And they
managed to do some return fire, taking out a few of the enemy soldiers and
forcing them to stay behind cover.
When Bean figured they were as
far as they could get before Griffin or Tiger launched an attack, he gave the
word and his squad burst apart, causing the four sections of the screen also to
separate and angle slightly so they were drifting now toward the corners of the
stars where Griffin and Tiger were gathered. E toon went with the screens,
firing like crazy, trying to make up for their tiny numbers.
After a count of three, the
four members of Bean's squad who had gone with each screen pushed off again,
this time angling to the middle and downward, so that they rejoined Bean and
Ducheval, with momentum carrying them straight toward the enemy gate.
They held their bodies rigid,
*not* firing a shot, and it worked. They were all small; they were clearly
drifting, not moving with any particular purpose; the enemy took them for
frozen soldiers if they were noticed at all. A few were partially disabled with
stray shots, but even when under fire they never moved, and the enemy soon
ignored them.
When they got to the enemy
gate, Bean slowly, wordlessly, got four of them with their helmets in place at
the corners of the gate. They pressed, just as in the end-of-game ritual, and
Bean gave Ducheval a push, sending him through the gate as Bean drifted upward
again.
The lights in the battleroom
went on. The weapons all went dead. The battle was over.
It took a few moments before
Griffin and Tiger realized what had happened. Dragon only had a few soldiers who
weren't frozen or disabled, while Griffin and Tiger were mostly unscathed,
having played conservative strategies. Bean knew that if either of them had
been aggressive, Ender's strategy wouldn't have worked. But having seen Bean
fly around the star, doing the impossible, and then watching this weird screen
approach so slowly, they were intimidated into inaction. Ender's legend was
such that they dared not commit their forces for fear of falling into a trap.
Only ... that *was* the trap.
Major Anderson came into the
room through the teachergate. "Ender," he called.
Ender was frozen; he could
only answer by grunting loudly through clenched jaws. That was a sound that
victorious commanders rarely had to make.
Anderson, using the hook,
drifted over to Ender and thawed him. Bean was half the battleroom away, but he
heard Ender's words, so clear was his speech, so silent was the room. "I
beat you again, sir."
Bean's squad members glanced
at him, obviously wondering if he was resentful at Ender for claiming credit
for a victory that was engineered and executed entirely by Bean. But Bean
understood what Ender was saying. He wasn't talking about the victory over
Griffin and Tiger armies. He was talking about a victory over the teachers. And
*that* victory *was* the decision to turn the army over to Bean and sit it out
himself. If they thought they were putting Ender to the ultimate test, making
him fight two armies right after a personal fight for survival in the bathroom,
he beat them -- he sidestepped the test.
Anderson knew what Ender was
saying, too. "Nonsense, Ender," said Anderson. He spoke softly, but
the room was so silent that his words, too, could be heard. "Your battle
was with Griffin and Tiger."
"How stupid do you think
I am?" said Ender.
Damn right, said Bean
silently.
Anderson spoke to the group at
large. "After that little maneuver, the rules are being revised to require
that all of the enemy's soldiers must be frozen or disabled before the gate can
be reversed."
"Rules?" murmured
Ducheval as he came back through the gate. Bean grinned at him.
"It could only work once
anyway," said Ender.
Anderson handed the hook to
Ender. Instead of thawing his soldiers one at a time, and only then thawing the
enemy, Ender entered the command to thaw everyone at once, then handed the hook
back to Anderson, who took it and drifted away toward the center, where the
end-of-game rituals usually took place.
"Hey!" Ender
shouted. "What is it next time? My army in a cage without guns, with the
rest of the Battle School against them? How about a little equality?"
So many soldiers murmured
their agreement that the sound of it was loud, and not all came from Dragon
Army. But Anderson seemed to pay no attention.
It was William Bee of Griffin
Army who said what almost everyone was thinking. "Ender, if you're on one
side of the battle, it won't be equal no matter what the conditions are."
The armies vocally agreed,
many of the soldiers laughing, and Talo Momoe, not to be outclassed by Bee,
started clapping his hands rhythmically. "Ender Wiggin!" he shouted.
Other boys took up the chant.
But Bean knew the truth --
knew, in fact, what Ender knew. That no matter how good a commander was, no
matter how resourceful, no matter how well-prepared his army, no matter how
excellent his lieutenants, no matter how courageous and spirited the fight,
victory almost always went to the side with the greater power to inflict
damage. Sometimes David kills Goliath, and people never forget. But there were
a lot of little guys Goliath had already mashed into the ground. Nobody sang
songs about *those* fights, because they knew that was the likely outcome. No,
that was the *inevitable* outcome, except for the miracles.
The Buggers wouldn't know or
care how legendary a commander Ender might be to his own men. The human ships
wouldn't have any magical tricks like Bean's deadline to dazzle the Buggers
with, to put them off their stride. Ender knew that. Bean knew that. What if
David hadn't had a sling, a handful of stones, and the time to throw? What good
would the excellence of his aim have done him then?
So yes, it was good, it was
right for the soldiers of all three armies to cheer Ender, to chant his name as
he drifted toward the enemy gate, where Bean and his squad waited for him. But
in the end it meant nothing, except that everyone would have too much hope in
Ender's ability. It only made the burden on Ender heavier.
I would carry some of it if I
could, Bean said silently. Like I did today, you can turn it over to me and
I'll do it, if I can. You don't have to do this alone.
Only even as he thought this,
Bean knew it wasn't true. If it could be done, Ender was the one who would have
to do it. All those months when Bean refused to see Ender, hid from him, it was
because he couldn't bear to face the fact that Ender was what Bean only wished
to be -- the kind of person on whom you could put all your hopes, who could
carry all your fears, and he would not let you down, would not betray you.
I want to be the kind of boy
you are, thought Bean. But I don't want to go through what you've been through
to get there.
And then, as Ender passed
through the gate and Bean followed behind him, Bean remembered falling into
line behind Poke or Sergeant or Achilles on the streets of Rotterdam, and he
almost laughed as he thought, I don't want to have to go through what *I've*
gone through to get here, either.
Out in the corridor, Ender
walked away instead of waiting for his soldiers. But not fast, and soon they
caught up with him, surrounded him, brought him to a stop through their sheer
ebullience. Only his silence, his impassivity, kept them from giving full vent
to their excitement.
"Practice tonight?"
asked Crazy Tom.
Ender shook his head.
"Tomorrow morning
then?"
"No."
"Well, when?"
"Never again, as far as
I'm concerned."
Not everyone had heard, but
those who did began to murmur to each other.
"Hey, that's not
fair," said a soldier from B toon. "It's not our fault the teachers
are screwing up the game. You can't just stop teaching us stuff because
--"
Ender slammed his hand against
the wall and shouted at the kid. "I don't care about the game
anymore!" He looked at other soldiers, met their gaze, refused to let them
pretend they didn't hear. "Do you understand that?" Then he
whispered. "The game is over."
He walked away.
Some of the boys wanted to
follow him, took a few steps. But Hot Soup grabbed a couple of them by the neck
of their flash suits and said, "Let him be alone. Can't you see he wants
to be alone?"
Of course he wants to be
alone, thought Bean. He killed a kid today, and even if he doesn't know the
outcome, he knows what was at stake. These teachers were willing to let him
face death without help. Why should he play along with them anymore? Good for
you, Ender.
Not so good for the rest of
us, but it's not like you're our father or something. More like a brother, and
the thing with brothers is, you're supposed to take turns being the keeper.
Sometimes you get to sit down and be the brother who is kept.
Fly Molo led them back to the
barracks. Bean followed along, wishing he could go with Ender, talk to him,
assure him that he agreed completely, that he understood. But that was
pathetic, Bean realized. Why should Ender care whether I understand him or not?
I'm just a kid, just one of his army. He knows me, he knows how to use me, but
what does he care whether I know him?
Bean climbed to his bunk and
saw a slip of paper on it.
{Transfer -- Bean -- Rabbit
Army -- Commander}
That was Carn Carby's army.
Carn was being removed from command? He was a good guy -- not a great
commander, but why couldn't they wait till he graduated?
Because they're through with
this school, that's why. They're advancing everybody they think needs some
experience with command, and they're graduating other students to make room for
them. I might have Rabbit Army, but not for long, I bet.
He pulled out his desk,
meaning to sign on as ^Graff and check the rosters. Find out what was happening
to everybody. But the ^Graff log-in didn't work. Apparently they no longer
considered it useful to permit Bean to keep his inside access.
From the back of the room, the
older boys were raising a hubbub. Bean heard Crazy Tom's voice rising above the
rest. "You mean I'm supposed to figure out how to beat Dragon Army?"
Word soon filtered to the front. The toon leaders and seconds had all received
transfer orders. Every single one of them was being given command of an army.
Dragon had been stripped.
After about a minute of chaos,
Fly Molo led the other toon leaders along between the bunks, heading toward the
door. Of course -- they had to go tell Ender what the teachers had done to him
now.
But to Bean's surprise, Fly
stopped at his bunk and looked up at him, then glanced at the other toon
leaders behind him.
"Bean, somebody's got to
tell Ender."
Bean nodded.
"We thought ... since
you're his friend ..."
Bean let nothing show on his
face, but he was stunned. Me? Ender's friend? No more than anyone else in this
room.
And then he realized. In this
army, Ender had everyone's love and admiration. And they all knew they had
Ender's trust. But only Bean had been taken inside Ender's confidence, when
Ender assigned him his special squad. And when Ender wanted to stop playing the
game, it was Bean to whom he had turned over his army. Bean was the closest
thing to a friend they had seen Ender have since he got command of Dragon.
Bean looked across at Nikolai,
who was grinning his ass off. Nikolai saluted him and mouthed the word
*commander*.
Bean saluted Nikolai back, but
could not smile, knowing what this would do to Ender. He nodded to Fly Molo,
then slid off the bunk and went out the door.
He didn't go straight to
Ender's quarters, though. Instead, he went to Carn Carby's room. No one
answered. So he went on to Rabbit barracks and knocked. "Where's
Carn?" he asked.
"Graduated," said
It£ [Itu], the leader of Rabbit's A toon. "He found out about half an hour
ago."
"We were in a
battle."
"I know -- two armies at
once. You won, right?"
Bean nodded. "I bet Carn
wasn't the only one graduated early."
"A lot of
commanders," said It£ [Itu]. "More than half."
"Including Bonzo Madrid?
I mean, he graduated?"
"That's what the official
notice said." It£ [Itu] shrugged. "Everybody knows that if anything,
Bonzo was probably iced. I mean, they didn't even list his assignment. Just
'Cartagena.' His hometown. Is that iced or what? But let the teachers call it
what they want."
"I'll bet the total who
graduated was nine," said Bean. "Neh?"
"Eh," said It£
[Itu]. "Nine. So you know something?"
"Bad news, I think,"
said Bean. He showed It£ [Itu] his transfer orders.
"Santa merda," said
It£ [Itu]. Then he saluted. Not sarcastically, but not enthusiastically,
either.
"Would you mind breaking
it to the others? Give them a chance to get used to the idea before I show up
for real? I've got to go talk to Ender. Maybe he already knows they've just
taken his entire leadership and given them armies. But if he doesn't, I've got
to tell him."
"*Every* Dragon toon
leader?"
"And every second."
He thought of saying, Sorry Rabbit got stuck with me. But Ender would never
have said anything self-belittling like that. And if Bean was going to be a
commander, he couldn't start out with an apology. "I think Carn Carby had
a good organization," said Bean, "so I don't expect to change any of
the toon leadership for the first week, anyway, till I see how things go in
practice and decide what shape we're in for the kind of battles we're going to
start having now that most of the commanders are kids trained in Dragon."
It£ [Itu] understood
immediately. "Man, that's going to be strange, isn't it? Ender trained all
you guys, and now you've got to fight each other."
"One thing's for
sure," said Bean. "I have no intention of trying to turn Rabbit into
a copy of Ender's Dragon. We're not the same kids and we won't be fighting the
same opponents. Rabbit's a good army. We don't have to copy anybody."
It£ [Itu] grinned. "Even
if that's just bullshit, sir, it's first-rate bullshit. I'll pass it on."
He saluted.
Bean saluted back. Then he
jogged to Ender's quarters.
Ender's mattress and blankets
and pillow had been thrown out into the corridor. For a moment Bean wondered
why. Then he saw that the sheets and mattress were still damp and bloody. Water
from Ender's shower. Blood from Bonzo's face. Apparently Ender didn't want them
in his room.
Bean knocked on the door.
"Go away," said
Ender softly.
Bean knocked again. Then
again.
"Come in," said
Ender.
Bean palmed the door open.
"Go away, Bean,"
said Ender.
Bean nodded. He understood the
sentiment. But he had to deliver his message. So he just looked at his shoes
and waited for Ender to ask him his business. Or yell at him. Whatever Ender
wanted to do. Because the other toon leaders were wrong. Bean didn't have any
special relationship with Ender. Not outside the game.
Ender said nothing. And
continued to say nothing.
Bean looked up from the ground
and saw Ender gazing at him. Not angry. Just ... watching. What does he see in
me, Bean wondered. How well does he know me? What does he think of me? What do
I amount to in his eyes?
That was something Bean would
probably never know. And he had come here for another purpose. Time to carry it
out.
He took a step closer to
Ender. He turned his hand so the transfer slip was visible. He didn't offer it
to Ender, but he knew Ender would see it.
"You're
transferred?" asked Ender. His voice sounded dead. As if he'd been
expecting it.
"To Rabbit Army,"
said Bean.
Ender nodded. "Carn
Carby's a good man. I hope he recognizes what you're worth."
The words came to Bean like a
longed-for blessing. He swallowed the emotion that welled up inside him. He
still had more of his message to deliver.
"Carn Carby was graduated
today," said Bean. "He got his notice while we were fighting our
battle."
"Well," said Ender.
"Who's commanding Rabbit then?" He didn't sound all that interested.
The question was expected, so he asked it.
"Me," said Bean. He
was embarrassed; a smile came inadvertently to his lips.
Ender looked at the ceiling
and nodded. "Of course. After all, you're only four years younger than the
regular age."
"It isn't funny,"
said Bean. "I don't know what's going on here." Except that the
system seems to be running on sheer panic. "All the changes in the game.
And now this. I wasn't the only one transferred, you know. They graduated half
the commanders, and transferred a lot of our guys to command their
armies."
"Which guys?" Now
Ender did sound interested.
"It looks like -- every
toon leader and every assistant."
"Of course. If they
decide to wreck my army, they'll cut it to the ground. Whatever they're doing,
they're thorough."
"You'll still win, Ender.
We all know that. Crazy Tom, he said, 'You mean I'm supposed to figure out how
to beat Dragon Army?' Everybody knows you're the best." His words sounded
empty even to himself. He wanted to be encouraging, but he knew that Ender knew
better. Still he babbled on. "They can't break you down, no matter what
they --"
"They already have."
They've broken trust, Bean
wanted to say. That's not the same thing. *You* aren't broken. *They're*
broken. But all that came out of his mouth were empty, limping words. "No,
Ender, they can't --"
"I don't care about their
game anymore, Bean," said Ender. "I'm not going to play it anymore.
No more practices. No more battles. They can put their little slips of paper on
the floor all they want, but I won't go. I decided that before I went through
the door today. That's why I had you go for the gate. I didn't think it would
work, but I didn't care. I just wanted to go out in style."
I know that, thought Bean. You
think I didn't know that? But if it comes down to style, you certainly got
that. "You should've seen William Bee's face. He just stood there trying
to figure out how he had lost when you only had seven boys who could wiggle
their toes and he only had three who couldn't."
"Why should I want to see
William Bee's face?" said Ender. "Why should I want to beat
anybody?"
Bean felt the heat of
embarrassment in his face. He'd said the wrong thing. Only ... he didn't know
what the right thing was. Something to make Ender feel better. Something to
make him understand how much he was loved and honored.
Only that love and honor were
part of the burden Ender bore. There was nothing Bean could say that would not
make it all the heavier on Ender. So he said nothing.
Ender pressed his palms
against his eyes. "I hurt Bonzo really bad today, Bean. I really hurt him
bad."
Of course. All this other
stuff, that's nothing. What weighs on Ender is that terrible fight in the
bathroom. The fight that your friends, your army, did nothing to prevent. And
what hurts you is not the danger you were in, but the harm you did in
protecting yourself.
"He had it coming,"
said Bean. He winced at his own words. Was that the best he could come up with?
But what else could he say? No problem, Ender. Of course, he looked dead to
*me*, and I'm probably the only kid in this school who actually knows what
death looks like, but ... no problem! Nothing to worry about! He had it coming!
"I knocked him out
standing up," said Ender. "It was like he was dead, standing there.
And I kept hurting him."
So he did know. And yet ... he
didn't actually *know*. And Bean wasn't about to tell him. There were times for
absolute honesty between friends, but this wasn't one of them.
"I just wanted to make
sure he never hurt me again."
"He won't," said
Bean. "They sent him home."
"Already?"
Bean told him what It£ [Itu]
had said. All the while, he felt like Ender could see that he was concealing
something. Surely it was impossible to deceive Ender Wiggin.
"I'm glad they graduated
him," said Ender.
Some graduation. They're going
to bury him, or cremate him, or whatever they're doing with corpses in Spain
this year.
Spain. Pablo de Noches, who
saved his life, came from Spain. And now a body was going back there, a boy who
turned killer in his heart, and died for it.
I must be losing it, thought
Bean. What does it matter that Bonzo was Spanish and Pablo de Noches was
Spanish? What does it matter that anybody is anything?
And while these thoughts ran
through Bean's mind, he babbled, trying to talk like someone who didn't know
anything, trying to reassure Ender but knowing that if Ender believed that he
knew nothing, then his words were meaningless, and if Ender realized that Bean
was only faking ignorance, then his words were all lies. "Was it true he
had a whole bunch of guys gang up on you?" Bean wanted to run from the
room, he sounded so lame, even to himself.
"No," said Ender.
"It was just him and me. He fought with honor."
Bean was relieved. Ender was
turned so deeply inward right now that he didn't even register what Bean was
saying, how false it was.
"I didn't fight with
honor," said Ender. "I fought to win."
Yes, that's right, thought
Bean. Fought the only way that's worth fighting, the only way that has any
point. "And you did. Kicked him right out of orbit." It was as close
as Bean could come to telling him the truth.
There was a knock on the door.
Then it opened, immediately, without waiting for an answer. Before Bean could
turn to see who it was, he knew it was a teacher -- Ender looked up too high
for it to be a kid.
Major Anderson and Colonel
Graff.
"Ender Wiggin," said
Graff.
Ender rose to his feet.
"Yes sir." The deadness had returned to his voice.
"Your display of temper
in the battleroom today was insubordinate and is not to be repeated."
Bean couldn't believe the
stupidity of it. After what Ender had been through -- what the teachers had
*put* him through -- and they have to keep playing this oppressive game with
him? Making him feel utterly alone even *now*? These guys were relentless.
Ender's only answer was
another lifeless "Yes sir." But Bean was fed up. "I think it was
about time somebody told a teacher how we felt about what you've been
doing."
Anderson and Graff didn't show
a sign they'd even heard him. Instead, Anderson handed Ender a full sheet of
paper. Not a transfer slip. A full-fledged set of orders. Ender was being
transferred out of the school.
"Graduated?" Bean
asked.
Ender nodded.
"What took them so
long?" asked Bean. "You're only two or three years early. You've
already learned how to walk and talk and dress yourself. What will they have
left to teach you?" The whole thing was such a joke. Did they really think
anybody was fooled? You reprimand Ender for insubordination, but then you
graduate him because you've got a war coming and you don't have a lot of time
to get him ready. He's your hope of victory, and you treat him like something
you scrape off your shoe.
"All I know is, the
game's over," said Ender. He folded the paper. "None too soon. Can I
tell my army?"
"There isn't time,"
said Graff. "Your shuttle leaves in twenty minutes. Besides, it's better
not to talk to them after you get your orders. It makes it easier."
"For them or for
you?" Ender asked.
He turned to Bean, took his
hand. To Bean, it was like the touch of the finger of God. It sent light all
through him. Maybe I am his friend. Maybe he feels toward me some small part of
the ... feeling I have for him.
And then it was over. Ender
let go of his hand. He turned toward the door.
"Wait," said Bean. "Where are
you going? Tactical? Navigational? Support?"
"Command School,"
said Ender.
"*Pre*-command?"
"Command." Ender was
out the door.
Straight to Command School.
The elite school whose location was even a secret. Adults went to Command
School. The battle must be coming very soon, to skip right past all the things
they were supposed to learn in Tactical and Pre-Command.
He caught Graff by the sleeve.
"Nobody goes to Command School until they're sixteen!" he said.
Graff shook off Bean's hand
and left. If he caught Bean's sarcasm, he gave no sign of it.
The door closed. Bean was
alone in Ender's quarters.
He looked around. Without
Ender in it, the room was nothing. Being here meant nothing. Yet it was only a
few days ago, not even a week, when Bean had stood here and Ender told him he
was getting a toon after all.
For some reason what came into
Bean's mind was the moment when Poke handed him six peanuts. It was life that
she handed to him then.
Was it life that Ender gave to
Bean? Was it the same thing?
No. Poke gave him life. Ender
gave it meaning.
When Ender was here, this was
the most important room in Battle School. Now it was no more than a broom
closet.
Bean walked back down the
corridor to the room that had been Carn Carby's until today. Until an hour ago.
He palmed it -- it opened. Already programmed in.
The room was empty. Nothing in
it.
This room is mine, thought
Bean.
Mine, and yet still empty.
He felt powerful emotions
welling up inside him. He should be excited, proud to have his own command. But
he didn't really care about it. As Ender said, the game was nothing. Bean would
do a decent job, but the reason he'd have the respect of his soldiers was
because he would carry some of Ender's reflected glory with him, a shrimpy
little Napoleon flumping around wearing a man's shoes while he barked commands
in a little tiny child's voice. Cute little Caligula, "Little Boot,"
the pride of Germanicus's army. But when he was wearing his father's boots,
those boots were empty, and Caligula knew it, and nothing he ever did could
change that. Was that his madness?
It won't drive *me* mad,
thought Bean. Because I don't covet what Ender has or what he is. It's enough
that *he* is Ender Wiggin. I don't have to be.
He understood what this
feeling was, welling up in him, filling his throat, making tears stand out in
his eyes, making his face burn, forcing a gasp, a silent sob. He bit on his
lip, trying to let pain force the emotion away. It didn't help. Ender was gone.
Now that he knew what the
feeling was, he could control it. He lay down on the bunk and went into the
relaxing routine until the need to cry had passed. Ender had taken his hand to
say good-bye. Ender had said, "I hope he recognizes what you're
worth." Bean didn't really have anything left to prove. He'd do his best
with Rabbit Army because maybe at some point in the future, when Ender was at
the bridge of the flagship of the human fleet, Bean might have some role to
play, some way to help. Some stunt that Ender might need him to pull to dazzle
the Buggers. So he'd please the teachers, impress the hell out of them, so that
they would keep opening doors for him, until one day a door would open and his
friend Ender would be on the other side of it, and he could be in Ender's army
once again.
CHAPTER 19 -- REBEL
"Putting in Achilles was
Graff's last act, and we know there were grave concerns. Why not play it safe
and at least change Achilles to another army?"
"This is not necessarily
a Bonzo Madrid situation for Bean."
"But we have no assurance
that it's not, sir. Colonel Graff kept a lot of information to himself. A lot
of conversations with Sister Carlotta, for instance, with no memo of what was
said. Graff knows things about Bean and, I can promise you, about Achilles as
well. I think he's laid a trap for us."
"Wrong, Captain Dimak. If
Graff laid a trap, it was not for us."
"You're sure of
that?"
"Graff doesn't play
bureaucratic games. He doesn't give a damn about you and me. If he laid a trap,
it's for Bean."
"Well that's my
point!"
"I understand your point.
But Achilles stays."
"Why?"
"Achilles' tests show him
to be of a remarkably even temperament. He is no Bonzo Madrid. Therefore Bean
is in no physical danger. The stress seems to be psychological. A test of
character. And that is precisely the area where we have the very least data about
Bean, given his refusal to play the mind game and the ambiguity of the
information we got from his playing with his teacher log-in. Therefore I think
this forced relationship with his bugbear is worth pursuing."
"Bugbear or nemesis,
sir?"
"We will monitor closely.
I will *not* be keeping adults so far removed that we can't get there to
intervene in time, the way Graff arranged it with Ender and Bonzo. Every
precaution will be taken. I am not playing Russian roulette the way Graff
was."
"Yes you are, sir. The
only difference is that he knew he had only one empty chamber, and you don't
know how many chambers are empty because he loaded the gun."
***
On his first morning as
commander of Rabbit Army, Bean woke to see a paper lying on his floor. For a
moment he was stunned at the thought that he would be given a battle before he
even met his army, but to his relief the note was about something much more
mundane.
{Because of the number of new
commanders, the tradition of not joining the commanders' mess until after the
first victory is abolished. You are to dine in the commanders' mess starting
immediately.}
It made sense. Since they were
going to accelerate the battle schedule for everyone, they wanted to have the
commanders in a position to share information right from the start. And to be
under social pressure from their peers, as well.
Holding the paper in his hand,
Bean remembered how Ender had held his orders, each impossible new permutation
of the game. Just because this order made sense did not make it a good thing.
There was nothing sacred about the game itself that made Bean resent changes in
the rules and customs, but the way the teachers were manipulating them *did*
bother him.
Cutting off his access to
student information, for instance. The question wasn't why they cut it off, or
even why they let him have it for so long. The question was why the other
commanders didn't have that much information all along. If they were supposed
to be learning to lead, then they should have the tools of leadership.
And as long as they were
changing the system, why not get rid of the really pernicious, destructive
things they did? For instance, the scoreboards in the mess halls. Standings and
scores! Instead of fighting the battle at hand, those scores made soldiers and
commanders alike more cautious, less willing to experiment. That's why the
ludicrous custom of fighting in formations had lasted so long -- Ender can't
have been the first commander to see a better way. But nobody wanted to rock
the boat, to be the one who innovated and paid the price by dropping in the
rankings. Far better to treat each battle as a completely separate problem, and
to feel free to engage in battles as if they were *play* rather than work.
Creativity and challenge would increase drastically. And commanders wouldn't
have to worry when they gave an order to a toon or an individual whether they
were causing a particular soldier to sacrifice his standing for the good of the
army.
Most important, though, was
the challenge inherent in Ender's decision to reject the game. The fact that he
graduated before he could really go on strike didn't change the fact that if he
had done so, Bean would have supported him in it.
Now that Ender was gone, a
boycott of the game didn't make sense. Especially if Bean and the others were
to advance to a point where they might be part of Ender's fleet when the real
battles came. But they could take charge of the game, use it for their own
purposes.
So, dressed in his new -- and
ill-fitting -- Rabbit Army uniform, Bean soon found himself once again standing
on a table, this time in the much smaller officers' mess. Since Bean's speech
the day before was already the stuff of legend, there was laughter and some
catcalling when he got up.
"Do people where you come
from eat with their feet, Bean?"
"Instead of getting up on
tables, why don't you just *grow*, Bean?"
"Put some stilts on so we
can keep the tables clean!"
But the other new commanders
who had, until yesterday, been toon leaders in Dragon Army, made no catcalls
and did not laugh. Their respectful attention to Bean soon prevailed, and
silence fell over the room.
Bean flung up an arm to point
to the scoreboard that showed the standings. "Where's Dragon Army?"
he asked.
"They dissolved it,"
said Petra Arkanian. "The soldiers have been folded into the other armies.
Except for you guys who used to be Dragon."
Bean listened, keeping his
opinion of her to himself. All he could think of, though, was two nights
before, when she was, wittingly or not, the judas who was supposed to lure
Ender into a trap.
"Without Dragon up
there," said Bean, "that board means nothing. Whatever standing any
of us gets would not be the same if Dragon were still there."
"There's not a hell of a
lot we can do about it," said Dink Meeker.
"The problem isn't that
Dragon is missing," said Bean. "The problem is that we shouldn't have
that board at all. *We're* not each other's enemies. The *Buggers* are the only
enemy. *We're* supposed to be allies. We should be learning from each other,
sharing information and ideas. We should feel free to experiment, trying new
things without being afraid of how it will affect our standings. That board up
there, that's the *teachers'* game, getting us to turn against each other. Like
Bonzo. Nobody here is as crazy with jealousy as he was, but come on, he was
what those standings were bound to create. He was all set to beat in the brains
of our best commander, our best hope against the next Bugger invasion, and why?
Because Ender humiliated him in the *standings*. Think about that! The
standings were more important to him than the war against the Formics!"
"Bonzo was crazy,"
said William Bee.
"So let's *not* be crazy,"
said Bean. "Let's get those standings out of the game. Let's take each
battle one at a time, a clean slate. Try anything you can think of to win. And
when the battle is over, both commanders sit down and explain what they were
thinking, why they did what they did, so we can learn from each other. No
secrets! Everybody try everything! And screw the standings!"
There were murmurs of assent,
and not just from the former Dragons.
"That's easy for you to
say," said Shen. "*Your* standing right now is tied for last."
"And there's the problem,
right there," said Bean. "You're suspicious of my motives, and why?
Because of the standings. But aren't we all supposed to be commanders in the
same fleet someday? Working together? Trusting each other? How sick would the
I.F. be, if all the ship captains and strike force commanders and fleet
admirals spent all their time worrying about their standings instead of working
together to try to beat the Formics! I want to learn from you, Shen. I don't
want to *compete* with you for some empty rank that the teachers put up on that
wall in order to manipulate us."
"I'm sure you guys from
Dragon are all concerned about learning from us losers," said Petra.
There it was, out in the open.
"Yes! Yes, I *am*
concerned. Precisely because I've been in Dragon Army. There are nine of us
here who know pretty much only what we learned from Ender. Well, brilliant as
he was, he's not the only one in the fleet or even in the school who knows
anything. I need to learn how *you* think. I don't need you keeping secrets
from me, and you don't need me keeping secrets from you. Maybe part of what
made Ender so good was that he kept all his toon leaders talking to each other,
free to try things but only as long as we shared what we were doing."
There was more assent this
time. Even the doubters were nodding thoughtfully.
"So what I propose is
this. A unanimous rejection of that board up there, not only the one in here
but the one in the soldiers' mess, too. We all agree not to pay attention to
it, period. We ask the teachers to disconnect the things or leave them blank.
If they refuse, we bring in sheets to cover it, or we throw chairs until we
break it. We don't have to play *their* game. We can take charge of our own
education and get ready to fight the *real* enemy. We have to remember, always,
who the real enemy is."
"Yeah, the
teachers," said Dink Meeker.
Everybody laughed. But then
Dink Meeker stood up on the table beside Bean. "I'm the senior commander
here, now they've graduated all the oldest guys. I'm probably the oldest
soldier left in Battle School. So I propose that we adopt Bean's proposal right
now, and I'll go to the teachers to demand that the boards be shut off. Is
there anyone opposed?"
Not a sound.
"That makes it unanimous.
If the boards are still on at lunch, let's bring sheets to cover them up. If
they're still on at dinner, then forget using chairs to vandalize, let's just
refuse to take our armies to any battles until the boards are off."
Alai spoke up from where he
stood in the serving line. "*That'll* shoot our standings all to ..."
Then Alai realized what he was
saying, and laughed at himself. "Damn, but they've got us brainwashed,
haven't they!"
***
Bean was still flushed with
victory when, after breakfast, he made his way to Rabbit barracks in order to
meet his soldiers officially for the first time. Rabbit was on a midday
practice schedule, so he only had about half an hour between breakfast and the
first classes of the morning. Yesterday, when he talked to It£ [Itu], his mind
had been on other things, with only the most cursory attention to what was
going on inside Rabbit barracks. But now he realized that, unlike Dragon Army,
the soldiers in Rabbit were all of the regular age. Not one was even close to
Bean's height. He looked like somebody's doll, and worse, he felt like that
too, walking down the corridor between the bunks, seeing all these huge boys --
and a couple of girls -- looking down at him.
Halfway down the bunks, he
turned to face those he had already passed. Might as well address the problem
immediately.
"The first problem I
see," said Bean loudly, "is that you're all way too tall."
Nobody laughed. Bean died a
little. But he had to go on.
"I'm growing as fast as I
can. Beyond that, I don't know what I can do about it."
Only now did he get a chuckle
or two. But that was a relief, that even a few were willing to meet him
partway.
"Our first practice
together is at 1030. As to our first battle together, I can't predict that, but
I can promise you this -- the teachers are *not* going to give me the
traditional three months after my assignment to a new army. Same with all the
other new commanders just appointed. They gave Ender Wiggin only a few weeks
with Dragon before they went into battle -- and Dragon was a new army,
constructed out of nothing. Rabbit is a good army with a solid record. The only
new person here is me. I expect the battles to begin in a matter of days, a
week at most, and I expect battles to come frequently. So for the first couple
of practices, you'll really be training me in your existing system. I need to
see how you work with your toon leaders, how the toons work with each other,
how you respond to orders, what commands you use. I'll have a couple of things
to say that are more about attitude than tactics, but by and large, I want to
see you doing things as you've always done them under Carn. It would help me,
though, if you practiced with intensity, so I can see you at your sharpest. Are
there any questions?"
None. Silence.
"One other thing. Day
before yesterday, Bonzo and some of his friends were stalking Ender Wiggin in
the halls. I saw the danger, but the soldiers in Dragon Army were mostly too
small to stand up against the crew Bonzo had assembled. It wasn't an accident
that when I needed help for my commander, I came to the door of Rabbit Army.
This wasn't the closest barracks. I came to you because I knew that you had a
fair-minded commander in Carn Carby, and I believed that his army would have
the same attitude. Even if you didn't have any particular love for Ender Wiggin
or Dragon Army, I knew that you would not stand by and let a bunch of thugs
pound on a smaller kid that they couldn't beat fair and square in battle. And I
was right about you. When you poured out of this barracks and stood as
witnesses in the corridor, I was proud of what you stood for. I'm proud now to
be one of you."
That did it. Flattery rarely
fails, and never does if it's sincere. By letting them know they had already
earned his respect, he dissipated much of the tension, for of course they were
worried that as a former Dragon he would have contempt for the first army that
Ender Wiggin beat. Now they knew better, and so he'd have a chance to win their
respect as well.
It£ [Itu] started clapping,
and the other boys joined in. It wasn't a long ovation, but it was enough to
let him know the door was open, at least a crack.
He raised his hands to silence
the applause -- just in time, since it was already dying down. "I'd like
to speak to the toon leaders for a few minutes in my quarters. The rest of you
are dismissed till practice."
Almost at once, It£ [Itu] was
beside him. "Good job," he said. "Only one mistake."
"What was that?"
"You aren't the only new
person here."
"They assigned one of the
Dragon soldiers to Rabbit?" For a moment, Bean allowed himself to hope
that it would be Nikolai. He could use a reliable friend.
No such luck.
"No, a Dragon soldier
would be a veteran! I mean this guy is *new*. He just got to Battle School
yesterday afternoon and he was assigned here last night, after you came
by."
"A launchy? Assigned
straight to an army?"
"Oh, we asked him about
that, and he's had a lot of the same classwork. He went through a bunch of
surgeries down on Earth, and he studied through it all, but --"
"You mean he's recovering
from surgery, too?"
"No, he walks fine, he's
-- look, why don't you just meet him? All I need to know is, do you want to
assign him to a toon or what?"
"Eh, let's see him."
It£ [Itu] led him to the back
of the barracks. There he was, standing beside his bunk, several inches taller
than Bean remembered, with legs of even length now, both of them straight. The
boy he had last seen fondling Poke, minutes before her dead body went into the
river.
"Ho, Achilles," said
Bean.
"Ho, Bean," said
Achilles. He grinned winningly. "Looks like you're the big guy here."
"So to speak," said
Bean.
"You two know each
other?" said It£ [Itu].
"We knew each other in
Rotterdam," said Achilles.
They can't have assigned him
to me by accident. I never told anybody but Sister Carlotta about what he did,
but how can I guess what she told the I.F.? Maybe they put him here because
they thought both of us being from the Rotterdam streets, from the same crew --
the same family -- I might be able to help him get into the mainstream of the
school faster. Or maybe they knew that he was a murderer who was able to hold a
grudge for a long, long time, and strike when least expected. Maybe they knew
that he planned for my death as surely as he planned for Poke's. Maybe he's
here to be my Bonzo Madrid.
Except that I haven't taken
any personal defense classes. And I'm half his size -- I couldn't jump high enough
to hit him in the nose. Whatever they were trying to accomplish by putting
Ender's life at risk, Ender always had a better chance of surviving than I
will.
The only thing in my favor is
that Achilles wants to survive and prosper more than he wants vengeance. Since
he can hold a grudge forever, he's in no hurry to act on it. And, unlike Bonzo,
he'll never allow himself to be goaded into striking under circumstances where
he'd be identifiable as the killer. As long as he thinks he needs me and as long
as I'm never alone, I'm probably safe.
Safe. He shuddered. Poke felt
safe, too.
"Achilles was *my*
commander there," said Bean. "He kept a group of us kids alive. Got
us into the charity kitchens."
"Bean is too
modest," said Achilles. "The whole thing was his idea. He basically
taught us the whole idea of working together. I've studied a lot since then,
Bean. I've had a year of nothing but books and classes -- when they weren't
cutting into my legs and pulverizing and regrowing my bones. And I finally know
enough to understand just what a leap you helped us make. From barbarism into
civilization. Bean here is like a replay of human evolution."
Bean was not so stupid as to
fail to recognize when flattery was being used on him. At the same time, it was
more than a little useful to have this new boy, straight from Earth, already
know who Bean was and show respect for him.
"The evolution of the
pygmies, anyway," said Bean.
"Bean was the toughest
little bastard you ever saw on the street, I got to tell you."
No, this was not what Bean
needed right now. Achilles had just crossed the line from flattery into
possession. Stories about Bean as a "tough little bastard" would, of
necessity, set Achilles up as Bean's superior, able to evaluate him. The
stories might even be to Bean's credit -- but they would serve more to validate
Achilles, make him an insider far faster than he would otherwise have been. And
Bean did not want Achilles to be inside yet.
Achilles was already going on,
as more soldiers gathered closer to hear. "The way I got recruited into
Bean's crew was --"
"It wasn't my crew,"
said Bean, cutting him off. "And here in Battle School, we don't tell
stories about home and we don't listen to them either. So I'd appreciate it if
you never spoke again of anything that happened Rotterdam, not while you're in
my army."
He'd done the nice bit during
his opening speech. But now was the time for authority.
Achilles didn't show any sign
of embarrassment at the reprimand. "I get it. No problem."
"It's time for you to get
ready to go to class," said Bean to the soldiers. "I need to confer
with my toon leaders only." Bean pointed to Ambul, a Thai soldier who,
according to what Bean read in the student reports, would have been a toon
leader long ago, except for his tendency to disobey stupid orders. "You,
Ambul. I assign you to get Achilles to and from his correct classes and
acquaint him with how to wear a flash suit, how it works, and the basics of
movement in the battleroom. Achilles, you are to obey Ambul like God until I
assign you to a regular toon."
Achilles grinned. "But I
don't obey God."
You think I don't know that?
"The correct answer to an order from me is 'Yes sir.'"
Achilles's grin faded.
"Yes sir."
"I'm glad to have you
here," Bean lied.
"Glad to be here,
sir," said Achilles. And Bean was reasonably sure that while Achilles was
*not* lying, his reason for being glad was very complicated, and certainly
included, by now, a renewed desire to see Bean die.
For the first time, Bean
understood the reason Ender had almost always acted as if he was oblivious to
the danger from Bonzo. It was a simple choice, really. Either he could act to
save himself, or he could act to maintain control over his army. In order to
hold real authority, Bean had to insist on complete obedience and respect from
his soldiers, even if it meant putting Achilles down, even if it meant
increasing his personal danger.
And yet another part of him
thought: Achilles wouldn't be here if he didn't have the ability to be a
leader. He performed extraordinarily well as our papa in Rotterdam. It's my
responsibility now to get him up to speed as quickly as possible, for the sake
of his potential usefulness to the I.F. I can't let my personal fear interfere
with that, or my hatred of him for what he did to Poke. So even if Achilles is
evil incarnate, my job is to turn him into a highly effective soldier with a
good shot at becoming a commander.
And in the meantime, I'll
watch my back.
CHAPTER 20 -- TRIAL AND ERROR
"You brought him up to
Battle School, didn't you?"
"Sister Carlotta, I'm on
a leave of absence right now. That means I've been sacked, in case you don't
understand how the I.F. handles these things."
"Sacked! A miscarriage of
justice. You ought to be shot."
"If the Sisters of St.
Nicholas had convents, your abbess would make you do serious penance for that
un-Christian thought."
"You took him out of the
hospital in Cairo and directly into space. Even though I warned you."
"Didn't you notice that
you telephoned me on a regular exchange? I'm on Earth. Someone else is running
Battle School."
"He's a serial murderer
now, you know. Not just the girl in Rotterdam. There was a boy there, too, the
one Helga called Ulysses. They found his body a few weeks ago."
"Achilles has been in
medical care for the past year."
"The coroner estimates
that the killing took place at least that long ago. The body was hidden behind
some long-term storage near the fish market. It covered the smell, you see. And
it goes on. A teacher at the school I put him in."
"Ah. That's right. *You*
put him in a school long before I did."
"The teacher fell to his
death from an upper story."
"No witnesses. No
evidence."
"Exactly."
"You see a trend
here?"
"But that's *my* point.
Achilles does not kill carelessly. Nor does he choose his victims at random.
Anyone who has seen him helpless, crippled, beaten -- he can't bear the shame.
He has to expunge it by getting absolute power over the person who dared to
humiliate him."
"You're a psychologist
now?"
"I laid the facts before
an expert."
"The supposed
facts."
"I'm not in court,
Colonel. I'm talking to the man who put this killer in school with the child
who came up with the original plan to humiliate him. Who called for his death.
My expert assured me that the chance of Achilles *not* striking against Bean is
zero."
"It's not as easy as you
think, in space. No dock, you see."
"Do you know how I knew
you had taken him into space?"
"I'm sure you have your
sources, both mortal and heavenly."
"My dear friend, Dr.
Vivian Delamar, was the surgeon who reconstructed Achilles's leg."
"As I recall, you
recommended her."
"Before I knew what
Achilles really was. When I found out, I called her. Warned her to be careful.
Because my expert also said that she was in danger."
"The one who restored his
leg? Why?"
"No one has seen him more
helpless than the surgeon who cuts into him as he lies there drugged to the
gills. Rationally, I'm sure he knew it was wrong to harm this woman who did him
so much good. But then, the some would apply to Poke, the first time he killed.
*If* it was the first time."
"So ... Dr. Vivian
Delamar. You alerted her. What did she see? Did he murmur a confession under
anaesthetic?"
"We'll never know. He
killed her."
"You're joking."
"I'm in Cairo. Her
funeral is tomorrow. They were calling it a heart attack until I urged them to
look for a hypodermic insertion mark. Indeed they found one, and now it's on
the books as a murder. Achilles *does* know how to read. He learned which drugs
would do the job. How he got her to sit still for it, I don't know."
"How can I believe this,
Sister Carlotta? The boy is generous, gracious, people are drawn to him, he's a
born leader. People like that don't kill."
"Who are the dead? The
teacher who mocked him for his ignorance when he first arrived in the school,
showed him up in front of the class. The doctor who saw him laid out under
anaesthetic. The street girl whose crew took him down. The street boy who vowed
to kill him and made him go into hiding. Maybe the coincidence argument would
sway a jury, but it shouldn't sway you."
"Yes, you've convinced me
that the danger might well be real. But I already alerted the teachers at
Battle School that there might be some danger. And now I really am not in
charge of Battle School."
"You're still in *touch*.
If you give them a more urgent warning, they'll take steps."
"I'll give the
appropriate warning."
"You're lying to
me."
"You can tell that over
the phone?"
"You *want* Bean exposed to
danger!"
"Sister ... yes, I do.
But not this much of it. Whatever I can do, I'll do."
"If you let Bean come to
harm, God will have an accounting from you."
"He'll have to get in
line, Sister Carlotta. The I.F. court-martial takes precedence."
***
Bean looked down into the air
vent in his quarters and marveled that he had ever been small enough to fit in
there. What was he then, the size of a rat?
Fortunately, with a room of
his own now he wasn't limited to the outflow vents. He put his chair on top of
his table and climbed up to the long, thin intake vents along the wall on the
corridor side of his room. The vent trim pried out as several long sections.
The paneling above it was separate from the riveted wall below. And it, too, came
off fairly easily. Now there was room enough for almost any kid in Battle
School to shinny in to the crawl space over the corridor ceiling.
Bean stripped off his clothes
and once again crawled into the air system.
It was more cramped this time
-- it was surprising how much he'd grown. He made his way quickly to the
maintenance area near the furnaces. He found how the lighting systems worked,
and carefully went around removing lightbulbs and wall glow units in the areas
he'd be needing. Soon there was a wide vertical shaft that was utterly dark
when the door was closed, with deep shadows even when it was open. Carefully he
laid his trap.
***
Achilles never ceased to be
astonished at how the universe bent to his will. Whatever he wished seemed to
come to him. Poke and her crew, raising him above the other bullies. Sister
Carlotta, bringing him to the priests' school in Bruxelles. Dr. Delamar,
straightening his leg so he could *run*, so he looked no different from any
other boy his age. And now here he was in Battle School, and who should be his
first commander but little Bean, ready to take him under his wing, help him
rise within this school. As if the universe were created to serve him, with all
the people in it tuned to resonate with his desires.
The battleroom was cool beyond
belief. War in a box. Point the gun, the other kid's suit freezes. Of course,
Ambul had made the mistake of demonstrating this by freezing Achilles and then
laughing at his consternation at floating in the air, unable to move, unable to
change the direction of his drift. People shouldn't do that. It was wrong, and
it always gnawed at Achilles until he was able to set things right. There
should be more kindness and respect in the world.
Like Bean. It looked so
promising at first, but then Bean started putting him down. Making sure the
others saw that Achilles *used* to be Bean's papa, but now he was just a
soldier in Bean's army. There was no need for that. You don't go putting people
down. Bean had changed. Back when Poke first put Achilles on his back, shaming
him in front of all those little children, it was Bean who showed him respect.
"Kill him," Bean had said. He knew, then, that tiny boy, he knew that
even on his back, Achilles was dangerous. But he seemed to have forgotten that
now. In fact, Achilles was pretty sure that Bean must have told Ambul to freeze
his flash suit and humiliate him in the practice room, setting him up for the
others to laugh at him.
I was your friend and
protector, Bean, because you showed respect for me. But now I have to weigh
that in the balance with your behavior here in Battle School. No respect for me
at all.
The trouble was, the students
in Battle School were given nothing that could be used as a weapon, and
everything was made completely safe. No one was ever alone, either. Except the
commanders. Alone in their quarters. That was promising. But Achilles suspected
that the teachers had a way of tracking where every student was at any given
time. He'd have to learn the system, learn how to evade it, before he could
start setting things to rights.
But he knew this: He'd learn
what he needed to learn. Opportunities would appear. And he, being Achilles,
would see those opportunities and seize them. Nothing could interrupt his rise
until he held all the power there was to hold within his hands. Then there
would be perfect justice in the world, not this miserable system that left so
many children starving and ignorant and crippled on the streets while others
lived in privilege and safety and health. All those adults who had run things
for thousands of years were fools or failures. But the universe obeyed
Achilles. He and he alone could correct the abuses.
On his third day in Battle
School, Rabbit Army had its first battle with Bean as commander. They lost.
They would not have lost if Achilles had been commander. Bean was doing some
stupid touchy-feely thing, leaving things up to the toon leaders. But it was
obvious that the toon leaders had been badly chosen by Bean's predecessor. If
Bean was to win, he needed to take tighter control. When he tried to suggest
this to Bean, the child only smiled knowingly -- a maddeningly superior smile
-- and told him that the key to victory was for each toon leader and,
eventually, each soldier to see the whole situation and act independently to
bring about victory. It made Achilles want to slap him, it was so stupid, so
wrongheaded. The one who knew how to order things did not leave it up to others
to create their little messes in the corners of the world. He took the reins
and pulled, sharp and hard. He whipped his men into obedience. As Frederick the
Great said: The soldier must fear his officers more than he fears the bullets
of the enemy. You could not rule without the naked exercise of power. The
followers must bow their heads to the leader. They must *surrender* their
heads, using only the mind and will of the leader to rule them. No one but
Achilles seemed to understand that this was the great strength of the Buggers.
They had no individual minds, only the mind of the hive. They submitted
perfectly to the queen. We cannot defeat the Buggers until we learn from them,
become like them.
But there was no point in
explaining this to Bean. He would not listen. Therefore he would never make
Rabbit Army into a hive. He was working to create chaos. It was unbearable.
Unbearable -- yet, just when
Achilles thought he couldn't bear the stupidity and waste any longer, Bean
called him to his quarters.
Achilles was startled, when he
entered, to find that Bean had removed the vent cover and part of the wall
panel, giving him access to the air-duct system. This was not at all what
Achilles had expected.
"Take your clothes
off," said Bean.
Achilles smelled an attempt at
humiliation.
Bean was taking off his own
uniform. "They track us through the uniforms," said Bean. "If
you aren't wearing one, they don't know where you are, except in the gym and
the battleroom, where they have really expensive equipment to track each warm
body. We aren't going to either of those places, so strip."
Bean was naked. As long as
Bean went first, Achilles could not be shamed by doing the same.
"Ender and I used to do
this," said Bean. "Everybody thought Ender was such a brilliant
commander, but the truth is he knew all the plans of the other commanders
because we'd go spying through the air ducts. And not just the commanders,
either. We found out what the teachers were planning. We always knew it in
advance. Not hard to win that way."
Achilles laughed. This was too
cool. Bean might be a fool, but this Ender that Achilles had heard so much
about, *he* knew what he was doing.
"It takes two people, is
that it?"
"To get where I can spy
on the teachers, there's a wide shaft, pitch black. I can't climb down. I need
somebody to lower me down and haul me back up. I didn't know who in Rabbit Army
I could trust, and then ... there you were. A friend from the old days."
It was happening again. The
universe, bending to his will. He and Bean would be alone. No one would be
tracking where they were. No one would know what had happened.
"I'm in," said
Achilles.
"Boost me up," said
Bean. "You're tall enough to climb up alone."
Clearly, Bean had come this
way many times before. He scampered through the crawl space, his feet and butt
flashing in the spill from the corridor lights. Achilles noted where he put his
hands and feet, and soon was as adept at Bean at picking his way through. Every
time he used his leg, he marveled at the use of it. It went where he wanted it
to go, and had the strength to hold him. Dr. Delamar might be a skilled
surgeon, but even she said that she had never seen a body respond to the
surgery as Achilles' did. His body knew how to be whole, expected to be strong.
All the time before, those crippled years, had been the universe's way of
teaching Achilles the unbearability of disorder. And now Achilles was perfect
of body, ready to move ahead in setting things to rights.
Achilles very carefully noted
the route they took. If the opportunity presented itself, he would be coming
back alone. He could not afford to get lost, or give himself away. No one could
know that he had ever been in the air system. As long as he gave them no
reason, the teachers would never suspect him. All they knew was that he and
Bean were friends. And when Achilles grieved for the child, his tears would be
real. They always were, for there was a nobility to these tragic deaths. A
grandeur as the great universe worked its will through Achilles's adept hands.
The furnaces roared as they
came into a room where the framing of the station was visible. Fire was good.
It left so little residue. People died when they accidentally fell into fire.
It happened all the time. Bean, crawling around alone ... it would be good if
they went near the furnace.
Instead, Bean opened a door
into a dark space. The light from the opening showed a black gap not far
inside. "Don't step over the edge of that," Bean said cheerfully. He
picked up a loop of very fine cord from the ground. "It's a deadline.
Safety equipment. Keeps workmen from drifting off into space when they're
working on the outside of the station. Ender and I set it up -- it goes over a
beam up there and keeps me centered in the shaft. You can't grip it in your
hands, it cuts too easily if it slides across your skin. So you loop it tight
around your body -- no sliding, see? -- and brace yourself. The gravity's not
that intense, so I just jump off. We measured it out, so I stop right at the
level of the vents leading to the teachers' quarters."
"Doesn't it hurt when you
stop?"
"Like a bitch," said
Bean. "No pain no gain, right? I take off the deadline, I snag it on a
flap of metal and it stays there till I get back. I'll tug on it three times
when I get it back on. Then you pull me back up. But *not* with your hands. You
go out the door and walk out there. When you get to place where we came in, go
around the beam there and go till you touch the wall. Just wait there until I
can get myself swinging and land back here on this ledge. Then I unloop myself
and you come back in and we leave the deadline for next time. Simple,
see?"
"Got it," said
Achilles.
Instead of walking to the
wall, it would be simple enough to just keep walking. Get Bean floating in the
air where he couldn't get hold of anything. Plenty of time, then, to find a way
to tie it off inside that dark room. With the roar of the furnaces and fans,
nobody would hear Bean calling for help. Then Achilles would have time to
explore. Figure out how to get into the furnaces. Swing Bean back, strangle
him, carry the body to the fire. Drop the deadline down the shaft. Nobody would
find it. Quite possibly no one would ever find Bean, or if they did, his soft
tissues would be consumed. All evidence of strangulation would be gone. Very
neat. There'd be some improvisation, but there always was. Achilles could
handle little problems as they came up.
Achilles looped the deadline
over his head, then drew it tight under his arms as Bean climbed into the loop
at the other end.
"Set," said
Achilles.
"Make sure it's tight, so
it doesn't have any slack to cut you when I hit bottom."
"Yes, it's tight."
But Bean had to check. He got
a finger under the line. "Tighter," said Bean.
Achilles tightened it more.
"Good," said Bean.
"That's it. Do it."
Do it? Bean was the one who
was supposed to do it.
Then the deadline went taut
and Achilles was lifted off his feet. With a few more yanks, he hung in the air
in the dark shaft. The deadline dug harshly into his skin.
When Bean said "do
it" he was talking to someone else. Someone who was already here, lying in
wait. The traitorous little bastard.
Achilles said nothing,
however. He reached up to see if he could touch the beam above him, but it was
out of reach. Nor could he climb the line, not with bare hands, not with the
line drawn taut by his own body weight.
He wriggled on the line,
starting himself swinging. But no matter how far he went in any direction, he
touched nothing. No wall, no place where he might find purchase.
Time to talk.
"What's this about,
Bean?"
"It's about Poke,"
said Bean.
"She's dead, Bean."
"You kissed her. You
killed her. You put her in the river."
Achilles felt the blood run
hot into his face. No one saw that. He was guessing. But then ... how did he
know that Achilles had kissed her first, unless he saw?
"You're wrong," said
Achilles.
"How sad if I am. Then
the wrong man will die for the crime."
"Die? Be serious, Bean.
You aren't a killer."
"But the hot dry air of
the shaft will do it for me. You'll dehydrate in a day. Your mouth's already a
little dry, isn't it? And then you'll just keep hanging here, mummifying. This
is the intake system, so the air gets filtered and purified. Even if your body
stinks for a while, nobody will smell it. Nobody will see you -- you're above
where the light shines from the door. And nobody comes in here anyway. No, the
disappearance of Achilles will be the mystery of Battle School. They'll tell
ghost stories about you to frighten the launchies."
"Bean, I didn't do
it."
"I saw you, Achilles, you
poor fool. I don't care what you say, I saw you. I never thought I'd have the
chance to make you pay for what you did to her. Poke did nothing but good to
you. I told her to kill you, but she had mercy. She made you king of the streets.
And for that you killed her?"
"I didn't kill her."
"Let me lay it out for
you, Achilles, since you're clearly too stupid to see where you are. First
thing is, you forgot where you were. Back on Earth, you were used to being a
lot smarter than everybody around you. But here in Battle School, *everybody*
is as smart as you, and most of us are smarter. You think Ambul didn't see the
way you looked at him? You think he didn't know he was marked for death after
he laughed at you? You think the other soldiers in Rabbit doubted me when I
told them about you? They'd already seen that there was something wrong with
you. The adults might have missed it, they might buy into the way you suck up
to them, but *we* didn't. And since we just had a case of one kid trying to
kill another, nobody was going to put up with it again. Nobody was going to
wait for you to strike. Because here's the thing -- we don't give a shit about
fairness here. We're soldiers. Soldiers do not give the other guy a sporting
chance. Soldiers shoot in the back, lay traps and ambushes, lie to the enemy
and outnumber the other bastard every chance they get. Your kind of murder only
works among civilians. And you were too cocky, too stupid, too insane to
realize that."
Achilles knew that Bean was
right. He had miscalculated grossly. He had forgotten that when Bean said for
Poke to kill him, he had not just been showing respect for Achilles. He had
also been trying to get Achilles killed.
This just wasn't working out
very well.
"So you have only two
ways for this to end. One way, you just hang there, we take turns watching to
make sure you don't figure some way out of this, until you're dead and then we
leave you and go about our lives. The other way, you confess to everything -- and
I mean everything, not just what you think I already know -- and you keep
confessing. Confess to the teachers. Confess to the psychiatrists they send you
to. Confess your way into a mental hospital back on Earth. We don't care which
you choose. All that matters is that you never again walk freely through the
corridors of Battle School. Or anywhere else. So ... what will it be? Dry out
on the line, or let the teachers know just how crazy you are?"
"Bring me a teacher, I'll
confess."
"Didn't you hear me
explain how stupid we're not? You confess now. Before witnesses. With a
recorder. We don't bring some teacher up here to see you hanging there and feel
all squishy sorry for you. Any teacher who comes here will know exactly what
you are, and there'll be about six marines to keep you subdued and sedated
because, Achilles, they don't play around here. They don't give people chances
to escape. You've got no rights here. You don't get rights again until you're
back on Earth. Here's your last chance. Confession time."
Achilles almost laughed out
loud. But it was important for Bean to think that he had won. As, for the
moment, he had. Achilles could see now that there was no way for him to remain
in Battle School. But Bean wasn't smart enough just to kill him and have done.
No, Bean was, completely unnecessarily, allowing him to live. And as long as
Achilles was alive, then time would move things his way. The universe would
bend until the door was opened and Achilles went free. And it would happen
sooner rather than later.
You shouldn't have left a door
open for me, Bean. Because I *will* kill you someday. You and everyone else who
has seen me helpless here.
"All right," said
Achilles. "I killed Poke. I strangled her and put her in the river."
"Go on."
"What more? You want to
know how she wet herself and took a shit while she was dying? You want to know
how her eyes bugged out?"
"One murder doesn't get
you psychiatric confinement, Achilles. You know you've killed before."
"What makes you think
so?"
"Because it didn't bother
you."
It never bothered, not even
the first time. You just don't understand power. If it *bothers* you, you
aren't fit to *have* power. "I killed Ulysses, of course, but just because
he was a nuisance."
"And?"
"I'm not a mass murderer,
Bean."
"You live to kill,
Achilles. Spill it all. And then convince me that it really *was* all."
But Achilles had just been
playing. He had already decided to tell it all.
"The most recent was Dr.
Vivian Delamar," he said. "I told her not to do the operations under
total anaesthetic. I told her to leave me alert, I could take it even if there
was pain. But she had to be in control. Well, if she really loved control so
much, why did she turn her back on me? And why was she so stupid as to think I
really had a gun? By pressing hard in her back, I made it so she didn't even
feel the needle go in right next to where the tongue depressors were poking
her. Died of a heart attack right there in her own office. Nobody even knew I'd
been in there. You want more?"
"I want it all,
Achilles."
It took twenty minutes, but
Achilles gave them the whole chronicle, all seven times he had set things
right. He liked it, actually, telling them like this. Nobody had ever had a
chance to understand how powerful he was till now. He wanted to see their
faces, that's the only thing that was missing. He wanted to see the disgust
that would reveal their weakness, their inability to look power in the face.
Machiavelli understood. If you intend to rule, you don't shrink from killing.
Saddam Hussein knew it -- you have to be willing to kill with your own hand.
You can't stand back and let others do it for you all the time. And Stalin
understood it, too -- you can never be loyal to anybody, because that only
weakens you. Lenin was good to Stalin, gave him his chance, raised him out of
nothing to be the keeper of the gate to power. But that didn't stop Stalin from
imprisoning Lenin and then killing him. That's what these fools would never
understand. All those military writers were just armchair philosophers. All
that military history -- most of it was useless. War was just one of the tools
that the great men used to get and keep their power. And the only way to stop a
great man was the way Brutus did it.
Bean, you're no Brutus.
Turn on the light. Let me see
the faces,
But the light did not go on.
When he was finished, when they left, there was only the light through the
door, silhouetting them as they left. Five of them. All naked, but carrying the
recording equipment. They even tested it, to make sure it had picked up
Achilles's confession. He heard his own voice, strong and unwavering. Proud of
what he'd done. That would prove to the weaklings that he was "insane."
They would keep him alive. Until the universe bent things to his will yet
again, and set him free to reign with blood and horror on Earth. Since they
hadn't let him see their faces, he'd have no choice. When all the power was in
his hands, he'd have to kill everyone who was in Battle School at this time.
That would be a good idea, anyway. Since all the brilliant military minds of
the age had been assembled here at one time or another, it was obvious that in
order to rule safely, Achilles would have to get rid of everyone whose name had
ever been on a Battle School roster. Then there'd be no rivals. And he'd keep
testing children as long as he lived, finding any with the slightest spark of
military talent. Herod understood how you stay in power.
PART SIX -- VICTOR
CHAPTER 21 -- GUESSWORK
"We're not waiting any
longer for Colonel Graff to repair the damage done to Ender Wiggin. Wiggin
doesn't need Tactical School for the job he'll be doing. And we need the others
to move on at once. *They* have to get the feel of what the old ships can do
before we bring them here and put them on the simulators, and that takes
time."
"They've only had a few
games."
"I shouldn't have allowed
them as much time as I have. ISL is two months away from you, and by the time
they're done with Tactical, the voyage from there to FleetCom will be four
months. That gives them only three months in Tactical before we have to bring
them to Command School. Three months in which to compress three years of
training."
"I should tell you that
Bean seems to have passed Colonel Graff's last test."
"Test? When I relieved
Colonel Graff, I thought his sick little testing program ended as well."
"We didn't know how
dangerous this Achilles was. We had been warned of *some* danger, but ... he
seemed so likable ... I'm not faulting Colonel Graff, you understand, *he* had
no way of knowing."
"Knowing what?"
"That Achilles is a
serial killer."
"That should make Graff
happy. Ender's count is up to two."
"I'm not joking, sir.
Achilles has seven murders on his tally."
"And he passed the
screening?"
"He knew how to answer
the psychological tests."
"Please tell me that none
of the seven took place at Battle School."
"Number eight would have.
But Bean got him to confess."
"Bean's a priest
now?"
"Actually, sir, it was
deft strategy. He outmaneuvered Achilles -- led him into an ambush, and
confession was the only escape."
"So Ender, the nice
middle-class American boy, kills the kid who wants to beat him up in the
bathroom. And Bean, the hoodlum street kid, turns a serial killer over to law
enforcement."
"The more significant
thing for our purposes is that Ender was good at building teams, but he beat
Bonzo hand to hand, one on one. And then Bean, a loner who had almost no
friends after a year in the school, he beats Achilles by assembling a team to
be his defense and his witnesses. I have no idea if Graff predicted these
outcomes, but the result was that his tests got each boy to act not only
against our expectations, but also against his own predilections."
"Predilections. Major
Anderson."
"It will all be in my
report."
"Try to write the entire
thing without using the word *predilection* once.
"Yes, sir."
"I've assigned the
destroyer Condor to take the group."
"How many do you want,
sir?"
"We have need of a
maximum of eleven at any one time. We have Carby, Bee, and Momoe on their way
to Tactical already, but Graff tells me that of those three, only Carby is
likely to work well with Wiggin. We do need to hold a slot for Ender, but it
wouldn't hurt to have a spare. So send ten."
"*Which* ten?"
"How the hell should I
know? Well ... Bean, him for sure. And the nine others that you think would
work best with either Bean or Ender in command, whichever one it turns out to
be."
"One list for both
possible commanders?"
"With Ender as the first choice.
We want them all to train together. Become a team."
***
The orders came at 1700. Bean
was supposed to board the Condor at 1800. It's not as if he had anything to
pack. An hour was more time than they gave Ender. So Bean went and told his
army what was happening, where he was going.
"We've only had five
games," said It£ [Itu].
"Got to catch the bus
when it comes to the stop, neh?" said Bean.
"Eh," said It£
[Itu].
"Who else?" asked
Ambul.
"They didn't tell me.
Just ... Tactical School."
"We don't even know where
it is."
"Somewhere in
space," said It£ [Itu].
"No, really?" It was
lame, but they laughed. It wasn't all that hard a good-bye. He'd only been with
Rabbit for eight days.
"Sorry we didn't win any
for you," said It£ [Itu].
"We would have won, if
I'd wanted to," said Bean.
They looked at him like he was
crazy.
"I was the one who
proposed that we get rid of the standings, stop caring who wins. How would it
look if we do that and I win every time?"
"It would look like you
really did care about the standings," said It£ [Itu].
"That's not what bothers
me," said another toon leader. "Are you telling me you set us up to
*lose*?"
"No, I'm telling you I
had a different priority. What do we learn from beating each other? Nothing.
We're never going to have to fight human children. We're going to have to fight
Buggers. So what do we need to learn? How to coordinate our attacks. How to
respond to each other. How to feel the course of the battle, and take
responsibility for the whole thing even if you don't have command. *That's*
what I was working on with you guys. And if we *won*, if we went in and mopped
up the walls with them, using *my* strategy, what does that teach *you*? You
already worked with a good commander. What you needed to do was work with each
other. So I put you in tough situations and by the end you were finding ways to
bail each other out. To make it work."
"We never made it work
well enough to win."
"That's not how I
measured it. You made it work. When the Buggers come again, they're going to
make things go wrong. Besides the normal friction of war, they're going to be
doing stuff we couldn't think of because they're not human, they don't think like
us. So plans of attack, what good are they then? We try, we do what we can, but
what really counts is what you do when command breaks down. When it's just you
with your squadron, and you with your transport, and you with your beat-up
strike force that's got only five weapons among eight ships. How do you help
each other? How do you make do? That's what I was working on. And then I went
back to the officers' mess and told them what I learned. What you guys showed
me. I learned stuff from them, too. I told you all the stuff I learned from
them, right?"
"Well, you could have
told us what you were teaming from us," said It£ [Itu]. They were all
still a bit resentful.
"I didn't have to *tell*
you. You learned it."
"At least you could have
told us it was OK not to win."
"But you were supposed to
*try* to win. I didn't tell you because it only works if you think it counts.
Like when the Buggers come. It'll count then, for real. That's when you get
really smart, when losing means that you and everybody you ever cared about,
the whole human race, will die. Look, I didn't think we'd have long together.
So I made the best use of the time, for you and for me. You guys are all ready
to take command of armies."
"What about you,
Bean?" asked Ambul. He was smiling, but there was an edge to it. "You
ready to command a fleet?"
"I don't know. It depends
on whether they want to win." Bean grinned.
"Here's the thing,
Bean," said Ambul. "Soldiers don't like to lose."
"And *that*," said
Bean, "is why losing is a much more powerful teacher than winning."
They heard him. They thought
about it. Some of them nodded.
"*If* you live,"
Bean added. And grinned at them.
They smiled back.
"I gave you the best
thing I could think of to give you during this week," said Bean. "And
learned from you as much as I was smart enough to learn. Thank you." He
stood and saluted them.
They saluted back.
He left.
And went to Rat Army barracks.
"Nikolai just got his orders,"
a toon leader told him.
For a moment Bean wondered if
Nikolai would be going to Tactical School with him. His first thought was, No
way is he ready. His second thought was, I wish he could come. His third
thought was, I'm not much of a friend, to think first how he doesn't deserve to
be promoted.
"What orders?" Bean
asked.
"He's got him an army.
Hell, he wasn't even a toon leader here. Just *got* here last week."
"Which army?"
"Rabbit." The toon
leader looked at Bean's uniform again. "Oh. I guess he's replacing
*you*."
Bean laughed and headed for
the quarters he had just left.
Nikolai was sitting inside
with the door open, looking lost.
"Can I come in?"
Nikolai looked up and grinned.
"Tell me you're here to take your army back."
"I've got a hint for you.
Try to win. They think that's important."
"I couldn't believe you
lost all five."
"You know, for a school
that doesn't list standings anymore, everybody sure keeps track."
"I keep track of
*you*."
"Nikolai, I wish you were
coming with me."
"What's happening, Bean?
Is this it? Are the Buggers here?"
"I don't know."
"Come on, you figure
these things out."
"If the Buggers were really
coming, would they leave all you guys here in the station? Or send you back to
Earth? Or evacuate you to some obscure asteroid? I don't know. Some things
point to the end being really close. Other things seem like nothing important's
going to happen anywhere around here."
"So maybe they're about
to launch this huge fleet against the Bugger world and you guys are supposed to
grow up on the voyage."
"Maybe," said Bean.
"But the time to launch *that* fleet was right after the Second
Invasion."
"Well, what if they
didn't find out where the Bugger home world *was* until now?"
That stopped Bean cold.
"Never crossed my mind," said Bean. "I mean, they must have been
sending signals home. All we had to do was track that direction. Follow the
light, you know. That's what it says in the manuals."
"What if they don't
communicate by light?"
"Light may take a year to
go a light-year, but it's still faster than anything else."
"Anything else that we
know about," said Nikolai. Bean just looked at him.
"Oh, I know, that's
stupid. The laws of physics and all that. I just -- you know, I keep thinking,
that's all. I don't like to rule things out just because they're
impossible."
Bean laughed. "Merda,
Nikolai, I should have let you talk more and me talk less back when we slept
across from each other."
"Bean, you know I'm not a
genius."
"All geniuses here,
Nikolai."
"I was scraping by."
"So maybe you're not a
Napoleon, Nikolai. Maybe you're just an Eisenhower. Don't expect me to cry for
you."
It was Nikolai's turn to
laugh.
"I'll miss you,
Bean."
"Thanks for coming with
me to face Achilles, Nikolai."
"Guy gave me
nightmares."
"Me too."
"And I'm glad you brought
the others along too. It£ [Itu], Ambul, Crazy Tom, I felt like we could've used
six more, and Achilles was hanging from a wire. Guys like him, you can
understand why they invented hanging."
"Someday," said
Bean, "you're going to need me the way I needed you. And I'll be
there."
"I'm sorry I didn't join
your squad, Bean."
"You were right,"
said Bean. "I asked you because you were my friend, and I thought I needed
a friend, but I should have *been* a friend, too, and seen what *you*
needed."
"I'll never let you down
again."
Bean threw his arms around
Nikolai. Nikolai hugged him back.
Bean remembered when he left
Earth. Hugging Sister Carlotta. Analyzing. This is what she needs. It costs me
nothing. Therefore I'll give her the hug.
I'm not that kid anymore.
Maybe because I was able to
come through for Poke after all. Too late to help her, but I still got her
killer to admit it. I still got him to pay something, even if it can never be
enough.
"Go meet your army, Nikolai,"
said Bean. "I've got a spaceship to catch."
He watched Nikolai go out the
door and knew, with a sharp pang of regret, that he would never see his friend
again.
***
Dimak stood in Major
Anderson's quarters.
"Captain Dimak, I watched
Colonel Graff indulge your constant complaints, your resistance to his orders,
and I kept thinking, Dimak might be right, but I would never tolerate such lack
of respect if *I* were in command. I'd throw him out on his ass and write
'insubordinate' in about forty places in his dossier. I thought I should tell
you that before you make your complaint."
Dimak blinked.
"Go ahead, I'm
waiting."
"It isn't so much a
complaint as a question."
"Then ask your
question."
"I thought you were
supposed to choose a team that was equally compatible with Ender *and* with
Bean."
"The word *equally* was
never used, as far as I can recall. But even if it was, did it occur to you
that it might be impossible? I could have chosen forty brilliant children who
would all have been proud and eager to serve under Andrew Wiggin. How many
would be *equally* proud and eager to serve under Bean?"
Dimak had no answer for that.
"The way I analyze it,
the soldiers I chose to send on this destroyer are the students who are emotionally
closest and most responsive to Ender Wiggin, while also being among the dozen
or so best commanders in the school. These soldiers also have no particular
animosity toward Bean. So if they find him placed over them, they'll probably
do their best for him."
"They'll never forgive
him for not being Ender."
"I guess that will be
Bean's challenge. Who else should I have sent? Nikolai is Bean's friend, but
he'd be out of his depth. Someday he'll be ready for Tactical School, and then
Command, but not yet. And what other friends does Bean have?"
"He's won a lot of
respect."
"And lost it again when
he lost all five of his games."
"I've explained to you
why he --"
"Humanity doesn't need
explanations, Captain Dimak! It needs winners! Ender Wiggin had the fire to
win. Bean is capable of losing five in a row as if they didn't even
matter."
"They didn't matter. He
learned what he needed to learn from them."
"Captain Dimak, I can see
that I'm falling into the same trap that Colonel Graff fell into. You have
crossed the line from teaching into advocacy. I would dismiss you as Bean's
teacher, were it not for the fact that the question is already moot. I'm
sending the soldiers I decided on already. If Bean is really so brilliant,
he'll figure out a way to work with them."
"Yes sir," said
Dimak.
"If it's any consolation,
do remember that Crazy Tom was one of the ones Bean brought along to hear
Achilles' confession. Crazy Tom *went*. That suggests that the better they know
Bean, the more seriously they take him."
"Thank you, sir."
"Bean is no longer your
responsibility, Captain Dimak. You did well with him. I salute you for it. Now
... get back to work."
Dimak saluted.
Anderson saluted.
Dimak left.
***
On the destroyer Condor, the
crew had no idea what to do with these children. They all knew about the Battle
School, and both the captain and the pilot were Battle School graduates. But
after perfunctory conversation -- What army were you in? Oh, in my day Rat was
the best, Dragon was a complete loser, how things change, how things stay the
same -- there was nothing more to say.
Without the shared concerns of
being army commanders, the children drifted into their natural friendship
groups. Dink and Petra had been friends almost from their first beginnings in
Battle School, and they were so senior to the others that no one tried to
penetrate that closed circle. Alai and Shen had been in Ender Wiggin's original
launch group, and Vlad and Dumper, who had commanded B and E toons and were
probably the most worshipful of Ender, hung around with them. Crazy Tom, Fly
Molo, and Hot Soup had already been a trio back in Dragon Army. On a personal
level, Bean did not expect to be included in any of these groups, and he wasn't
particularly excluded, either; Crazy Tom, at least, showed real respect for
Bean, and often included him in conversation. If Bean belonged to any of these
groups, it was Crazy Tom's.
The only reason the division
into cliques bothered him was that this group was clearly being assembled, not
just randomly chosen. Trust needed to grow between them all, strongly if not
equally. But they had been chosen for Ender -- any idiot could see that -- and
it was not Bean's place to suggest that they play the onboard games together,
learn together, do anything together. If Bean tried to assert any kind of
leadership, it would only build more walls between him and the others than
already existed.
There was only one of the
group that Bean didn't think belonged there. And he couldn't do anything about
that. Apparently the adults did not hold Petra responsible for her
near-betrayal of Ender in the corridor the evening before Ender's life-or-death
struggle with Bonzo. But Bean was not so sure. Petra was one of the best of the
commanders, smart, able to see the big picture. How could she possibly have
been fooled by Bonzo? Of course she couldn't have been hoping for Ender's
destruction. But she had been careless, at best, and at worst might have been
playing some kind of game that Bean did not yet understand. So he remained
suspicious of her. Which wasn't good, to have such mistrust, but there it was.
Bean passed the four months of
the voyage in the ship's library, mostly. Now that they were out of Battle
School, he was reasonably sure that they weren't being spied on so intensely.
The destroyer simply wasn't equipped for it. So he no longer had to choose his
reading material with an eye to what the teachers would make of his selections.
He read no military history or
theory whatsoever. He had already read all the major writers and many of the
minor ones and knew the important campaigns backward and forward, from both
sides. Those were in his memory to be called upon whenever he needed them. What
was missing from his memory was the big picture. How the world worked.
Political, social, economic history. What happened in nations when they weren't
at war. How they got into and out of wars. How victory and defeat affected
them. How alliances were formed and broken.
And, most important of all,
but hardest to find: What was going on in the world today. The destroyer
library had only the information that had been current when last it docked at
Interstellar Launch -- ISL -- which is where the authorized list of documents
was made available for download. Bean could make requests for more information,
but that would require the library computer to make requisitions and use
communications bandwidth that would have to be justified. It would be noticed,
and then they'd wonder why this child was studying matters that could have no
possible concern for him.
From what he could find on
board, however, it was still possible to piece together the basic situation on
Earth, and to reach some conclusions. During the years before the First
Invasion, various power blocs had jockeyed for position, using some combination
of terrorism, "surgical" strikes, limited military operations, and
economic sanctions, boycotts, and embargos [sic -- should be embargoes] to gain
the upper hand or give firm warnings or simply express national or ideological
rage. When the Buggers showed up, China had just emerged as the dominant world
power, economically and militarily, having finally reunited itself as a
democracy. The North Americans and Europeans played at being China's "big
brothers," but the economic balance had finally shifted.
What Bean saw as the driving
force of history, however, was the resurgent Russian Empire. Where the Chinese
simply took it for granted that they were and should be the center of the
universe, the Russians, led by a series of ambitious demagogues and
authoritarian generals, felt that history had cheated them out of their
rightful place, century after century, and it was time for that to end. So it
was Russia that forced the creation of the New Warsaw Pact, bringing its
effective borders back to the peak of Soviet power -- and beyond, for this time
Greece was its ally, and an intimidated Turkey was neutralized. Europe was on
the verge of being neutralized, the Russian dream of hegemony from the Pacific
to the Atlantic at last within reach.
And then the Formics came and
cut a swath of destruction through China that left a hundred million dead.
Suddenly land-based armies seemed trivial, and questions of international competition
were put on hold.
But that was only superficial.
In fact, the Russians used their domination of the office of the Polemarch to
build up a network of officers in key places throughout the fleet. Everything
was in place for a vast power play the moment the Buggers were defeated -- or
before, if they thought it was to their advantage. Oddly, the Russians were
rather open about their intentions -- they always had been. They had no talent
for subtlety, but they made up for it with amazing stubbornness. Negotiations
for anything could take decades. And meanwhile, their penetration of the fleet
was nearly total. Infantry forces loyal to the Strategos would be isolated,
unable to get to the places where they were needed because there would be no
ships to carry them.
When the war with the Buggers
ended, the Russians clearly planned that within hours they would rule the fleet
and therefore the world. It was their destiny. The North Americans were as
complacent as ever, sure that destiny would work everything out in their favor.
Only a few demagogues saw the danger. The Chinese and the Muslim world were
alert to the danger, and even they were unable to make any kind of stand for
fear of breaking up the alliance that made resistance to the Buggers possible.
The more he studied, the more
Bean wished that he did not have to go to Tactical School. This war would
belong to Ender and his friends. And while Bean loved Ender as much as any of
them, and would gladly serve with them against the Buggers, the fact was that
they didn't need him. It was the next war, the struggle for world domination,
that fascinated him. The Russians *could* be stopped, if the right preparations
were made.
But then he had to ask
himself: *Should* they be stopped? A quick, bloody, but effective coup which
would bring the world under a single government -- it would mean the end of war
among humans, wouldn't it? And in such a climate of peace, wouldn't all nations
be better off?
So, even as Bean developed his
plan for stopping the Russians, he tried to evaluate what a worldwide Russian
Empire would be like.
And what he concluded was that
it would not last. For along with their national vigor, the Russians had also
nurtured their astonishing talent for misgovernment, that sense of personal
entitlement that made corruption a way of life. The institutional tradition of
competence that would be essential for a successful world government was
nonexistent. It was in China that those institutions and values were most
vigorous. But even China would be a poor substitute for a genuine world
government that transcended any national interest. The wrong world government
would eventually collapse under its own weight.
Bean longed to be able to talk
these things over with someone -- with Nikolai, or even with one of the
teachers. It slowed him down to have his own thoughts move around in circles --
without outside stimulation it was hard to break free of his own assumptions.
One mind can think only of its own questions; it rarely surprises itself. But
he made progress, slowly, during that voyage, and then during the months of
Tactical School.
Tactical was a blur of short
voyages and detailed tours of various ships. Bean was disgusted that they
seemed to concentrate entirely on older designs, which seemed pointless to him
-- why train your commanders in ships they won't actually be using in battle?
But the teachers treated his objection with contempt, pointing out that ships
were ships, in the long run, and the newest vessels had to be put into service
patrolling the perimeters of the solar system. There were none to spare for
training children.
They were taught very little
about the art of pilotry, for they were not being trained to fly the ships,
only to command them in battle. They had to get a sense of how the weapons
worked, how the ships moved, what could be expected of them, what their
limitations were. Much of it was rote learning ... but that was precisely the
kind of learning Bean could do almost in his sleep, being able to recall
anything that he had read or heard with any degree of attention.
So throughout Tactical School,
while he performed as well as anyone, his real concentration was still on the
problems of the current political situation on Earth. For Tactical School was
at ISL, and so the library there was constantly being updated, and not just
with the material authorized for inclusion in finite ships' libraries. For the
first time, Bean began to read the writings of current political thinkers on
Earth. He read what was coming out of Russia, and once again was astonished at
how nakedly they pursued their ambitions. The Chinese writers saw the danger,
but being Chinese, made no effort to rally support in other nations for any
kind of resistance.
To the Chinese, once something
was known in China, it was known everywhere that mattered. And the
Euro-American nations seemed dominated by a studied ignorance that to Bean
appeared to be a death wish. Yet there were some who were awake, struggling to
create coalitions.
Two popular commentators in
particular came to Bean's attention. Demosthenes at first glance seemed to be a
rabble-rouser, playing on prejudice and xenophobia. But he was also having
considerable success in leading a popular movement. Bean didn't know if life
under a government headed by Demosthenes would be any better than living under
the Russians, but Demosthenes would at least make a contest out of it. The
other commentator that Bean took note of was Locke, a lofty, high-minded fellow
who nattered about world peace and forging alliances -- yet amid his apparent
complacency, Locke actually seemed to be working from the same set of facts as
Demosthenes, taking it for granted that the Russians were vigorous enough to
"lead" the world, but unprepared to do so in a "beneficial"
way. In a way, it was as if Demosthenes and Locke were doing their research
together, reading all the same sources, learning from all the same correspondents,
but then appealing to completely different audiences.
For a while, Bean even toyed
with the possibility that Locke and Demosthenes were the same person. But no,
the writing styles were different, and more importantly, they thought and
analyzed differently. Bean didn't think anyone was smart enough to fake that.
Whoever they were, these two
commentators were the people that seemed to see the situation most accurately,
and so Bean began to conceive of his essay on strategy in the post-Formic world
as a letter to both Locke and Demosthenes. A private letter. An anonymous
letter. Because his observations should be known, and these two seemed to be in
the best position to bring Bean's ideas to fruition.
Resorting to old habits, Bean
spent some time in the library watching several officers log on to the net, and
soon had six log-ins that he could use. He then wrote his letter in six parts,
using a different log-in for each part, and then sent the parts to Locke and
Demosthenes within minutes of each other. He did it during an hour when the
library was crowded, and made sure that he himself was logged on to the net on
his own desk in his barracks, ostensibly playing a game. He doubted they'd be
counting his keystrokes and realize that he wasn't actually doing anything with
his desk during that time. And if they did trace the letter back to him, well,
too bad. In all likelihood, Locke and Demosthenes would not try to trace him --
in his letter he asked them not to. They would either believe him or not; they
would agree with him or not; beyond that he could not go. He had spelled out
for them exactly what the dangers were, what the Russian strategy obviously
was, and what steps must be taken to ensure that the Russians did not succeed
in their preemptive strike.
One of the most important
points he made was that the children from Battle, Tactical, and Command School
had to be brought back to Earth as quickly as possible, once the Buggers were
defeated. If they remained in space, they would either be taken by the Russians
or kept in ineffectual isolation by the I.F. But these children were the finest
military minds that humanity had produced in this generation. If the power of
one great nation was to be subdued, it would require brilliant commanders in
opposition to them.
Within a day, Demosthenes had
an essay on the nets calling for the Battle School to be dissolved at once and
all those children brought home. "They have kidnapped our most promising
children. Our Alexanders and Napoleons, our Rommels and Pattons, our Caesars
and Fredericks and Washingtons and Saladins are being kept in a tower where we
can't reach them, where they can't help their own people remain free from the
threat of Russian domination. And who can doubt that the Russians intend to
seize those children and use them? Or, if they can't, they will certainly try,
with a single well-placed missile, to blast them all to bits, depriving us of
our natural military leadership." Delicious demagoguery, designed to spark
fear and outrage. Bean could imagine the consternation in the military as their
precious school became a political issue. It was an emotional issue that
Demosthenes would not let go of and other nationalists all over the world would
fervently echo. And because it was about children, no politician could dare
oppose the principle that all the children in Battle School would come home the
*moment* the war ended. Not only that, but on this issue, Locke lent his
prestigious, moderate voice to the cause, openly supporting the principle of
the return of the children. "By all means, pay the piper, rid us of the
invading rats -- and then bring our children home."
I saw, I wrote, and the world
changed a little. It was a heady feeling. It made all the work at Tactical
School seem almost meaningless by comparison. He wanted to bound into the
classroom and tell the others about his triumph. But they would look at him
like he was crazy. They knew nothing about the world at large, and took no
responsibility for it. They were closed into the military world.
Three days after Bean sent his
letters to Locke and Demosthenes, the children came to class and found that
they were to depart immediately for Command School, this time joined by Carn
Carby, who had been a class ahead of them in Tactical School. They had spent
only three months at ISL, and Bean couldn't help wondering if his letters had
not had some influence over the timing. If there was some danger that the
children might be sent home prematurely, the I.F. had to make sure their prize specimens
were out of reach.
CHAPTER 22 -- REUNION
"I suppose I should
congratulate you for undoing the damage you did to Ender Wiggin."
"Sir, I respectfully
disagree that I did any damage."
"Ah, good then, I *don't*
have to congratulate you. You do realize that your status here will be as
observer."
"I hope that I will also
have opportunities to offer advice based on my years of experience with these
children."
"Command School has
worked with children for years."
"Respectfully, sir, Command
School has worked with adolescents. Ambitious, testosterone-charged,
competitive teenagers. And quite aside from that, we have a lot riding on these
particular children, and I know things about them that must be taken into
account."
"All those things should
be in your reports."
"They are. But with all
respect, is there anyone there who has memorized my reports so thoroughly that
the appropriate details will come to mind the instant they're needed?"
"I'll listen to you,
Colonel Graff. And please stop assuring me of how respectful you are whenever
you're about to tell me I'm an idiot."
"I thought that my leave
of absence was designed to chasten me. I'm trying to show that I've been
chastened."
"Are there any of these
details about the children that come to mind right now?"
"An important one, sir.
Because so much depends on what Ender does or does not know, it is vital that
you isolate him from the other children. During actual practices he can be
there, but under no circumstances can you allow free conversation or sharing of
information."
"And why is that?"
"Because if Bean ever
comes to know about the ansible, he'll leap straight to the core situation. He
may figure it out on his own as it is -- you have no idea how difficult it is
to conceal information from him. Ender is more trusting -- but Ender can't do
his job *unless* he knows about the ansible. You see? He and Bean cannot be
allowed to have any free time together. Any conversation that is not on
point."
"But if this is so, then
Bean is not capable of being Ender's backup, because then he would *have* to be
told about the ansible."
"It won't matter
then."
"But you yourself were
the author of the proposition that only a child --"
"Sir, none of that
applies to Bean."
"Because?"
"Because he's not
human."
"Colonel Graff, you make
me tired."
***
The voyage to Command School
was four long months, and this time they were being trained continuously, as
thorough an education in the mathematics of targeting, explosives, and other
weapons-related subjects as could be managed on board a fast-moving cruiser.
Finally, too, they were being forged again into a team, and it quickly became
clear to everyone that the leading student was Bean. He mastered everything
immediately, and was soon the one whom the others turned to for explanations of
concepts they didn't grasp at once. From being the lowest in status on the
first voyage, a complete outsider, Bean now became an outcast for the opposite
reason -- he was alone in the position of highest status.
He struggled with the
situation, because he knew that he needed to be able to function as part of the
team, not just as a mentor or expert. Now it became vital that he take part in
their downtime, relaxing with them, joking, joining in with reminiscences about
Battle School. And about even earlier times.
For now, at last, the Battle
School tabu against talking about home was gone. They all spoke freely of
mothers and fathers who by now were distant memories, but who still played a
vital role in their lives.
The fact that Bean had no
parents at first made the others a little shy with him, but he seized the
opportunity and began to speak openly about his entire experience. Hiding in
the toilet tank in the clean room. Going home with the Spanish custodian.
Starving on the streets as he scouted for his opportunity. Telling Poke how to
beat the bullies at their own game. Watching Achilles, admiring him, fearing
him as he created their little street family, marginalized Poke, and finally
killed her. When he told them of finding Poke's body, several of them wept.
Petra in particular broke down and sobbed.
It was an opportunity, and
Bean seized it. Naturally, she soon fled the company of others, taking her
emotions into the privacy of her quarters. As soon afterward as he could, Bean
followed her.
"Bean, I don't want to
talk."
"I do," said Bean.
"It's something we have to talk about. For the good of the team."
"Is that what we
are?" she asked.
"Petra, you know the
worst thing I've ever done. Achilles was dangerous, I knew it, and I still went
away and left Poke alone with him. She died for it. That burns in me every day
of my life. Every time I start to feel happy, I remember Poke, how I owe my
life to her, how I could have saved her. Every time I love somebody, I have
that fear that I'll betray them the same way I did her."
"Why are you telling me
this, Bean?"
"Because you betrayed
Ender and I think it's eating at you."
Her eyes flashed with rage.
"I did not! And it's eating at *you*, not me!"
"Petra, whether you admit
it to yourself or not, when you tried to slow Ender down in the corridor that
day, there's no way you didn't know what you were doing. I've seen you in
action, you're sharp, you see everything. In some ways you're the best tactical
commander in the whole group. It's absolutely impossible that you didn't see
how Bonzo's thugs were all there in the corridor, waiting to beat the crap out
of Ender, and what did you do? You tried to slow him down, peel him off from
the group."
"And you stopped
me," said Petra. "So it's moot, isn't it?"
"I have to know
why."
"You don't have to know
squat."
"Petra, we have to fight
shoulder to shoulder someday. We have to be able to trust each other. I don't
trust you because I don't know why you did that. And now you won't trust me
because you know I don't trust *you*."
"Oh what a tangled web we
weave."
"What the hell does that
mean?"
"My father said it. Oh
what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive."
"Exactly. Untangle this
for me."
"You're the one who's
weaving a web for me, Bean. You know things you don't tell the rest of us. You
think I don't see that? So you want me to restore your trust in me, but you
don't tell me anything useful."
"I opened my soul to
you," said Bean.
"You told me about your
*feelings*." She said it with utter contempt. "So good, it's a relief
to know you have them, or at least to know that you think it's worth pretending
to have them, nobody's quite sure about that. But what you don't ever tell us
is what the hell is actually going on here. We think you know."
"All I have are
guesses."
"The teachers told you
things back in Battle School that none of the rest of us knew. You knew the
name of every kid in the school, you knew things about us, all of us. You knew
things you had no business knowing."
Bean was stunned to realize
that his special access had been so noticeable to her. Had he been careless? Or
was she even more observant than he had thought? "I broke into the student
data," said Bean.
"And they didn't catch
you?"
"I think they did. Right
from the start. Certainly they knew about it later." And he told her about
choosing the roster for Dragon Army.
She flopped down on her bunk
and addressed the ceiling. "You chose them! All those rejects and those
little launchy bastards, *you* chose them!"
"Somebody had to. The
teachers weren't competent to do it."
"So Ender had the best.
He didn't *make* them the best, they already *were* the best."
"The best that weren't
already in armies. I'm the only one who was a launchy when Dragon was formed who's
with this team now. You and Shen and Alai and Dink and Carn, you weren't in
Dragon, and you're obviously among the best. Dragon won because they were good,
yes, but also because Ender knew what to do with them."
"It still turns one
little corner of my universe upside down."
"Petra, this was a
trade."
"Was it?"
"Explain why you weren't
a judas back in Battle School."
"I was a judas,"
said Petra. "How's that for an explanation?"
Bean was sickened. "You
can say it like that? Without shame?"
"Are you stupid?"
asked Petra. "I was doing the same thing you were doing, trying to save
Ender's life. I knew Ender had trained for combat, and those thugs hadn't. I
was also trained. Bonzo had been working these guys up into a frenzy, but the
fact is, they didn't like Bonzo very much, he had just pissed them off at
Ender. So if they got in a few licks against Ender, right there in the corridor
where Dragon Army and other soldiers would get into it right away, where Ender
would have me beside him in a limited space so only a few of them could come at
us at once -- I figured that Ender would get bruised, get a bloody nose, but
he'd come out of it OK. And all those walking scabies would be satisfied.
Bonzo's ranting would be old news. Bonzo would be alone again. Ender would be
safe from anything worse."
"You were gambling a lot
on your fighting ability."
"And Ender's. We were
both damn good then, and in excellent shape. And you know what? I think Ender
understood what I was doing, and the only reason he didn't go along with it was
you."
"Me?"
"He saw you plunging
right into the middle of everything. You'd get your head beaten in, that was
obvious. So he had to avoid the violence then. Which means that because of you,
he got set up the next day when it really *was* dangerous, when Ender was
completely alone with no one for backup."
"So why didn't you
explain this before?"
"Because you were the
only one besides Ender who knew I was setting him up, and I didn't really care
what you thought then, and I'm not that concerned about it now."
"It was a stupid
plan," said Bean.
"It was better than
yours," said Petra.
"Well, I guess when you
look at how it all turned out, we'll never know how stupid your plan was. But
we sure know that mine was shot to hell."
Petra flashed him a brief,
insincere grin. "Now, do you trust me again? Can we go back to the
intimate friendship we've shared for so long?"
"You know something,
Petra? All that hostility is wasted on me. In fact, it's bad aim on your part
to even try it. Because I'm the best friend you've got here."
"Oh really?"
"Yes, really. Because I'm
the only one of these boys who ever chose to have a girl as his
commander."
She paused a moment, staring
at him blankly before saying, "I got over the fact that I'm a girl a long
time ago."
"But they didn't. And you
know they didn't. You know that it bothers them all the time, that you're not
really one of the guys. They're your friends, sure, at least Dink is, but they
all like you. At the same time, there were what, a dozen girls in the whole
school? And except for you, none of them were really topflight soldiers. They
didn't take you seriously,"
"Ender did," said
Petra.
"And I do," said
Bean. "The others all know what happened in the corridor, you know. It's
not like it was a secret. But you know why they haven't had this conversation
with you?"
"Why?"
"Because *they* all
figured you were an idiot and didn't realize how close you came to getting
Ender pounded into the deck. I'm the only one who had enough respect for you to
realize that you would never make such a stupid mistake by accident."
"I'm supposed to be
flattered?"
"You're supposed to stop
treating me like the enemy. You're almost as much of an outsider in this group
as I am. And when it comes down to actual combat, you need someone who'll take
you as seriously as you take yourself."
"Do me no favors."
"I'm leaving now."
"About time."
"And when you think about
this more and you realize I'm right, you don't have to apologize. You cried for
Poke, and that makes us friends. You can trust me, and I can trust you, and
that's all."
She was starting some retort
as he left, but he didn't stick around long enough to hear what it was. Petra
was just that way -- she had to act tough. Bean didn't mind. He knew they'd
said the things they needed to say.
***
Command School was at FleetCom,
and the location of FleetCom was a closely guarded secret. The only way you
ever found out where it was was to be assigned there, and very few people who
had been there ever came back to Earth.
Just before arrival, the kids
were briefed. FleetCom was in the wandering asteroid Eros. And as they
approached, they realized that it really was *in* the asteroid. Almost nothing
showed on the surface except the docking station. They boarded the shuttlebug,
which reminded them of schoolbuses, and took the five-minute ride down to the
surface. There the shuttlebug slid inside what looked like a cave, A snakelike
tube reached out to the bug and enclosed it completely. They got out of the
shuttlebug into near-zero gravity, and a strong air current sucked them like a
vacuum cleaner up into the bowels of Eros.
Bean knew at once that this
place was not shaped by human hands. The tunnels were all too low -- and even
then, the ceilings had obviously been raised after the initial construction,
since the lower walls were smooth and only the top half-meter showed tool
marks. The Buggers made this, probably when they were mounting the Second
Invasion. What was once their forward base was now the center of the
International Fleet. Bean tried to imagine the battle required to take this
place. The Buggers scuttering along the tunnels, the infantry coming in with
low-power explosives to burn them out. Flashes of light. And then cleanup,
dragging the Formic bodies out of the tunnels and bit by bit converting it into
a human space.
This is how we got our secret
technologies, thought Bean. The Buggers had gravity-generating machines. We
learned how they worked and built our own, installing them in the Battle School
and wherever else they were needed. But the I.F. never announced the fact,
because it would have frightened people to realize how advanced their
technology was.
What else did we learn from
them?
Bean noticed how even the
children hunched a little to walk through the tunnels. The headroom was at
least two meters, and not one of the kids was nearly that tall, but the
proportions were all wrong for human comfort, so the roof of the tunnels seemed
oppressively low, ready to collapse. It must have been even worse when we first
arrived, before the roofs were raised.
Ender would thrive here. He'd
hate it, of course, because he was human. But he'd also use the place to help
him get inside the minds of the Buggers who built it. Not that you could ever
really understand an alien mind. But this place gave you a decent chance to
try.
The boys were bunked up in two
rooms; Petra had a smaller room to herself. It was even more bare here than
Battle School, and they could never escape the coldness of the stone around
them. On Earth, stone had always seemed solid. But in space, it seemed
downright porous. There were bubble holes all through the stone, and Bean
couldn't help feeling that air was leaking out all the time. Air leaking out,
and cold leaking in, and perhaps something else, the larvae of the Buggers
chewing like earthworms through the solid stone, crawling out of the bubble
holes at night when the room was dark, crawling over their foreheads and reading
their minds and ...
He woke up, breathing heavily,
his hand clutching his forehead. He hardly dared to move his hand. Had
something been crawling on him?
His hand was empty.
He wanted to go back to sleep,
but it was too close to reveille for him to hope for that. He lay there
thinking. The nightmare was absurd -- there could not possibly be any Buggers
alive here. But something made him afraid. Something was bothering him, and he
wasn't sure what.
He thought back to a
conversation with one of the technicians who serviced the simulators. Bean's
had malfunctioned during practice, so that suddenly the little points of light
that represented his ships moving through three-dimensional space were no
longer under his control. To his surprise, they didn't just drift on in the
direction of the last orders he gave. Instead, they began to swarm, to gather,
and then changed color as they shifted to be under someone else's control.
When the technician arrived to
replace the chip that had blown, Bean asked him why the ships didn't just stop
or keep drifting. "It's part of the simulation," the technician said.
"What's being simulated here is not that you're the pilot or even the
captain of these ships. You're the admiral, and so inside each ship there's a
simulated captain and a simulated pilot, and so when your contact got cut off,
they acted the way the real guys would act if they lost contact. See?"
"That seems like a lot of
trouble to go to."
"Look, we've had a lot of
time to work on these simulators," said the technician. "They're
*exactly* like combat."
"Except," said Bean,
"the time-lag."
The technician looked blank
for a moment. "Oh, right. The time-lag. Well, that just wasn't worth
programming in." And then he was gone.
It was that moment of
blankness that was bothering Bean. These simulators were as perfect as they
could make them, *exactly* like combat, and yet they didn't include the
time-lag that came from lightspeed communications. The distances being
simulated were large enough that most of the time there should be at least a
slight delay between a command and its execution, and sometimes it should be
several seconds. But no such delay was programmed in. All communications were
being treated as instantaneous. And when Bean asked about it, his question was
blown off by the teacher who first trained them on the simulators. "It's a
simulation. Plenty of time to get used to the lightspeed delay when you train
with the real thing."
That sounded like typically
stupid military thinking even at the time, but now Bean realized it was simply
a lie. If they programmed in the behavior of pilots and captains when
communications were cut off, they could very easily have included the time-lag.
The reason these ships were simulated with instantaneous response was because
that *was* an accurate simulation of conditions they would meet in combat.
Lying awake in the darkness,
Bean finally made the connection. It was so obvious, once he thought of it. It
wasn't just gravity control they got from the Buggers. It was faster-than-light
communication. It's a big secret from people on Earth, but our ships can talk
to each other instantaneously.
And if the ships can, why not
FleetCom here on Eros? What was the range of communication? Was it truly
instantaneous regardless of distance, or was it merely faster than light, so
that at truly great distances it began to have its own time-lag?
His mind raced through the
possibilities, and the implications of those possibilities. Our patrol ships
will be able to warn us of the approaching enemy fleet long before it reaches
us. They've probably known for years that it was coming, and how fast. That's
why we've been rushed through our training like this -- they've known for years
when the Third Invasion would begin.
And then another thought. If
this instantaneous communication works regardless of distance, then we could
even be talking to the invasion fleet we sent against the Formic home planet
right after the Second Invasion. If our starships were going near lightspeed,
the relative time differential would complicate communication, but as long as
we're imagining miracles, that would be easy enough to solve. We'll know
whether our invasion of their world succeeded or not, moments afterward. Why,
if the communication is really powerful, with plenty of bandwidth, FleetCom
could even watch the battle unfold, or at least watch a simulation of the
battle, and ...
A simulation of the battle.
Each ship in the expeditionary force sending back its position at all times.
The communications device receives that data and feeds it into a computer and
what comes out is ... the simulation we've been practicing with.
We are training to command
ships in combat, not here in the solar system, but light-years away. They sent
the pilots and the captains, but the admirals who will command them are still
back here. At FleetCom. They had generations to find the right commanders, and
we're the ones.
It left him gasping, this
realization. He hardly dared to believe it, and yet it made far better sense
than any of the other more plausible scenarios. For one thing, it explained perfectly
why the kids had been trained on older ships. The fleet they would be
commanding had launched decades ago, when those older designs were the newest
and the best.
They didn't rip us through
Battle School and Tactical School because the Bugger fleet is about to reach
our solar system. They're in a hurry because *our* fleet is about to reach the
Buggers' world.
It was like Nikolai said. You
can't rule out the impossible, because you never know which of your assumptions
about what was possible might turn out, in the real universe, to be false. Bean
hadn't been able to think of this simple, rational explanation because he had
been locked in the box of thinking that lightspeed limited both travel *and*
communication. But the technician let down just the tiniest part of the veil
they had covering the truth, and because Bean finally found a way to open his
mind to the possibility, he now knew the secret.
Sometime during their
training, anytime at all, without the slightest warning, without ever even telling
us they're doing it, they can switch over and we'll be commanding real ships in
a real battle. We'll think it's a game, but we'll be fighting a war.
And they don't tell us because
we're children. They think we can't handle it. Knowing that our decisions will
cause death and destruction. That when we lose a ship, real men die. They're
keeping it a secret to protect us from our own compassion.
Except me. Because now I know.
The weight of it suddenly came
upon him and he could hardly breathe, except shallowly. Now I know. How will it
change the way I play? I can't let it, that's all. I was already doing my best
-- knowing this won't make me work harder or play better. It might make me do
worse. Might make me hesitate, might make me lose concentration. Through their
training, they had all learned that winning depended on being able to forget
everything but what you were doing at that moment. You could hold all your
ships in your mind at once -- but only if any ship that no longer matters could
be blocked out completely. Thinking about dead men, about torn bodies having
the air sucked out of their lungs by the cold vacuum of space, who could still
play the game knowing that this was what it really meant?
The teachers were right to
keep this secret from us. That technician should be court-martialed for letting
me see behind the curtain.
I can't tell anyone. The other
kids shouldn't know this. And if the teachers know that I know it, they'll take
me out of the game.
So I have to fake it.
No. I have to disbelieve it. I
have to forget that it's true. It *isn't* true.
The truth is what they've been
telling us. The simulation is simply ignoring lightspeed. They trained us on
old ships because the new ones are all deployed and can't be wasted. The fight
we're preparing for is to repel invading Formics, not to invade their solar
system. This was just a crazy dream, pure self-delusion. Nothing goes faster
than light, and therefore information can't be transmitted faster than light.
Besides, if we really did send
an invasion fleet that long ago, they don't need little kids to command them.
Mazer Rackham must be with that fleet, no way would it have launched without
him. Mazer Rackham is still alive, preserved by the relativistic changes of near-lightspeed
travel. Maybe it's only been a few years to him. And he's ready. We aren't
needed.
Bean calmed his breathing. His
heartrate slowed. I can't let myself get carried away with fantasies like that.
I would be so embarrassed if anyone knew the stupid theory I came up with in my
sleep. I can't even tell this as a dream. The game is as it always was.
Reveille sounded over the
intercom. Bean got out of bed -- a bottom bunk, this time -- and joined in as
normally as possible with the banter of Crazy Tom and Hot Soup, while Fly Molo
kept his morning surliness to himself and Alai did his prayers. Bean went to
mess and ate as he normally ate. Everything was normal. It didn't mean a thing
that he couldn't get his bowels to unclench at the normal time. That his belly
gnawed at him all day, and at mealtime he was faintly nauseated. That was just
lack of sleep.
Near the end of three months
on Eros, their work on the simulators changed. There would be ships directly
under their control, but they also had others under them to whom they had to
give commands out loud, besides using the controls to enter them manually.
"Like combat," said their supervisor.
"In combat," said
Alai, "we'd know who the officers serving under us were."
"That would matter if you
depended on them to give you information. But you do not. All the information
you need is conveyed to your simulator and appears in the display. So you give
your orders orally as well as manually. Just assume that you will be obeyed.
Your teachers will be monitoring the orders you give to help you learn to be
explicit and immediate. You will also have to master the technique of switching
back and forth between crosstalk among yourselves and giving orders to
individual ships. It's quite simple, you see. Turn your heads to the left or
right to speak to each other, whichever is more comfortable for you. But when
your face is pointing straight at the display, your voice will be carried to
whatever ship or squadron you have selected with your controls. And to address
all the ships under your control at once, head straight forward and duck your
chin, like this."
"What happens if we raise
our heads?" asked Shen.
Alai answered before the
teacher could. "Then you're talking to God."
After the laughter died down,
the teacher said, "Almost right, Alai. When you raise your chin to speak,
you'll be talking to *your* commander."
Several spoke at once.
"*Our* commander?"
"You did not think we
were training all of you to be supreme commander at once, did you? No no. For
the moment, we will assign one of you at random to be that commander, just for
practice. Let's say ... the little one. You. Bean."
"I'm supposed to be commander?"
"Just for the practices.
Or is he not competent? You others will not obey him in battle?"
The others answered the
teacher with scorn. Of course Bean was competent. Of course they'd follow him.
"But then, he never did
win a battle when he commanded Rabbit Army," said Fly Molo.
"Excellent. That means
that you will all have the challenge of making this little one a winner in
spite of himself. If you do not think *that* is a realistic military situation,
you have not been reading history carefully enough."
So it was that Bean found
himself in command of the ten other kids from Battle School. It was
exhilarating, of course, for neither he nor the others believed for one moment
that the teacher's choice had been random. They knew that Bean was better at
the simulator than anybody. Petra was the one who said it after practice one
day. "Hell, Bean, I think you have this all in your head so clear you
could close your eyes and still play." It was almost true. He did not have
to keep checking to see where everyone was. It was all in his head at once.
It took a couple of days for
them to handle it smoothly, taking orders from Bean and giving their own orders
orally along with the physical controls. There were constant mistakes at first,
heads in the wrong position so that comments and questions and orders went to
the wrong destination. But soon enough it became instinctive.
Bean then insisted that others
take turns being in the command position. "I need practice taking orders
just like they do," he said. "And learning how to change my head
position to speak up and sideways." The teacher agreed, and after another
day, Bean had mastered the technique as well as any of the others.
Having other kids in the
master seat had another good effect as well. Even though no one did so badly as
to embarrass himself, it was clear that Bean was sharper and faster than anyone
else, with a keener grasp of developing situations and a better ability to sort
out what he was hearing and remember what everybody had said.
"You're not
*human*," said Petra. "*Nobody* can do what you do!"
"Am so human," said
Bean mildly. "And I know somebody who can do it better than me."
"Who's that?" she
demanded.
"Ender."
They all fell silent for a
moment.
"Yeah, well, he ain't
here," said Vlad.
"How do *you* know?"
said Bean. "For all we know, he's been here all along."
"That's stupid,"
said Dink. "Why wouldn't they have him practice with us? Why would they
keep it a secret?"
"Because they like secrets,"
said Bean. "And maybe because they're giving him different training. And
maybe because it's like Sinterklaas. They're going to bring him to us as a
present."
"And maybe you're full of
merda," said Dumper.
Bean just laughed. Of course
it would be Ender. This group was assembled for Ender. Ender was the one all
their hopes were resting on. The reason they put Bean in that master position
was because Bean was the substitute. If Ender got appendicitis in the middle of
the war, it was Bean they'd switch the controls to. Bean who'd start giving
commands, deciding which ships would be sacrificed, which men would die. But
until then, it would be Ender's choice, and for Ender, it would only be a game.
No deaths, no suffering, no fear, no guilt. Just ... a game.
Definitely it's Ender. And the
sooner the better.
The next day, their supervisor
told them that Ender Wiggin was going to be their commander starting that
afternoon. When they didn't act surprised, he asked why. "Because Bean
already told us."
***
"They want me to find out
how you've been getting your inside information, Bean." Graff looked
across the table at the painfully small child who sat there looking at him
without expression.
"I don't have any inside
information," said Bean.
"You knew that Ender was
going to be the commander."
"I *guessed*," said
Bean. "Not that it was hard. Look at who we are. Ender's closest friends.
Ender's toon leaders. He's the common thread. There were plenty of other kids
you could have brought here, probably about as good as us. But these are the
ones who'd follow Ender straight into space without a suit, if he told us he
needed us to do it."
"Nice speech, but you
have a history of sneaking."
"Right. *When* would I be
doing this sneaking? When are any of us alone? Our desks are just dumb
terminals and we never get to see anybody else log on so it's not like I can
capture another identity. I just do what I'm told all day every day. You guys
keep assuming that we kids are stupid, even though you chose us because we're
really, really smart. And now you sit there and accuse me of having to *steal*
information that any idiot could guess."
"Not *any* idiot."
"That was just an
expression."
"Bean," said Graff,
"I think you're feeding me a line of complete bullshit."
"Colonel Graff, even if
that were true, which it isn't, so what? So I found out Ender was coming. I'm
secretly monitoring your dreams. So *what*? He'll still come, he'll be in command,
he'll be brilliant, and then we'll all graduate and I'll sit in a booster seat
in a ship somewhere and give commands to grownups in my little-boy voice until
they get sick of hearing me and throw me out into space."
"I don't care about the
fact that you knew about Ender. I don't care that it was a guess."
"I know you don't care
about those things."
"I need to know what else
you've figured out."
"Colonel," said
Bean, sounding very tired, "doesn't it occur to you that the very fact
that you're asking me this question *tells* me there's something else for me to
figure out, and therefore greatly increases the chance that I *will* figure it
out?"
Graff's smile grew even
broader. "That's just what I told the ... officer who assigned me to talk
to you and ask these questions. I told him that we would end up telling you
more, just by having the interview, than you would ever tell us, but he said,
'The kid is *six*, Colonel Graff.'"
"I think I'm seven."
"He was working from an
old report and hadn't done the math."
"Just tell me what secret
you want to make sure I don't know, and I'll tell you if I already knew
it."
"Very helpful."
"Colonel Graff, am I
doing a good job?"
"Absurd question. Of
course you are."
"If I do know anything
that you don't want us kids to know, have I talked about it? Have I told any of
the other kids? Has it affected my performance in any way?"
"No."
"To me that sounds like a
tree falling in the forest where no one can hear. If I *do* know something,
because I figured it out, but I'm not telling anybody else, and it's not
affecting my work, then why would you waste time finding out whether I know it?
Because after this conversation, you may be sure that I'll be looking very hard
for any secret that might be lying around where a seven-year-old might find it.
Even if I do find such a secret, though, I *still* won't tell the other kids,
so it *still* won't make a difference. So why don't we just drop it?"
Graff reached under the table
and pressed something.
"All right," said
Graff. "They've got the recording of our conversation and if that doesn't
reassure them, nothing will."
"Reassure them of what?
And who is 'them'?"
"Bean, this part is not
being recorded."
"Yes it is," said
Bean.
"I turned it off."
"Puh-leeze."
In fact, Graff was not
altogether sure that the recording *was* off. Even if the machine he controlled
was off, that didn't mean there wasn't another.
"Let's walk," said
Graff.
"I hope not
outside."
Graff got up from the table --
laboriously, because he'd put on a lot of weight and they kept Eros at full
gravity -- and led the way out into the tunnels.
As they walked, Graff talked
softly. "Let's at least make them work for it," he said.
"Fine," said Bean.
"I thought you'd want to
know that the I.F. is going crazy because of an apparent security leak. It
seems that someone with access to the most secret archives wrote letters to a
couple of net pundits who then started agitating for the children of Battle
School to be sent home to their native countries."
"What's a pundit?"
asked Bean.
"My turn to say
puh-leeze, I think. Look, I'm not accusing you. I just happen to have seen a
text of the letters sent to Locke and Demosthenes -- they're both being closely
watched, as I'm sure you would expect -- and when I read those letters --
interesting the differences between them, by the way, very cleverly done -- I
realized that there was not really any top secret information in there, beyond
what any child in Battle School knows. No, the thing that's really making them
crazy is that the political analysis is dead on, even though it's based on
insufficient information. From what is publicly known, in other words, the
writer of those letters couldn't have figured out what he figured out. The
Russians are claiming that somebody's been spying on them -- and lying about
what they found, of course. But I accessed the library on the destroyer Condor
and found out what you were reading. And then I checked your library use on the
ISL while you were in Tactical School. You've been a busy boy."
"I try to keep my mind
occupied."
"You'll be happy to know
that the first group of children has already been sent home."
"But the war's not
over."
"You think that when you
start a political snowball rolling, it will always go where you wanted it to
go? You're smart but you're naive, Bean. Give the universe a push, and you
don't know which dominoes will fall. There are always a few you never thought
were connected. Someone will always push back a little harder than you
expected. But still, I'm happy that you remembered the other children and set
the wheels in motion to free them."
"But not us."
"The I.F. has no
obligation to remind the agitators on Earth that Tactical School and Command
School are still full of children."
"I'm not going to remind
them."
"I know you won't. No,
Bean, I got a chance to talk to you because you panicked some of the higher-ups
with your educated guess about who would command your team. But I was hoping
for a chance to talk to you because there are a couple of things I wanted to
tell you. Besides the fact that your letter had pretty much the desired
effect."
"I'm listening, though I
admit to no letter."
"First, you'll be
fascinated to know the identity of Locke and Demosthenes."
"Identity? Just
one?"
"One mind, two voices.
You see, Bean, Ender Wiggin was born third in his family. A special waiver, not
an illegal birth. His older brother and sister are just as gifted as he is, but
for various reasons were deemed inappropriate for Battle School. But the
brother, Peter Wiggin, is a very ambitious young man. With the military closed
off to him, he's gone into politics. Twice."
"He's Locke *and*
Demosthenes," said Bean.
"He plans the strategy
for both of them, but he only writes Locke. His sister Valentine writes Demosthenes."
Bean laughed. "Now it
makes sense."
"So both your letters
went to the same people."
"If I wrote them."
"And it's driving poor
Peter Wiggin crazy. He's really tapping into all his sources inside the fleet
to find out who sent those letters. But nobody in the Fleet knows, either. The
six officers whose log-ins you used have been ruled out. And as you can guess,
*nobody* is checking to see if the only seven-year-old ever to go to Tactical
School might have dabbled in political epistolary in his spare time."
"Except you."
"Because, by God, I'm the
only person who understands exactly how brilliant you children actually
are."
"How brilliant are
we?" Bean grinned.
"Our walk won't last
forever, and I won't waste time on flattery. The other thing I wanted to tell
you is that Sister Carlotta, being unemployed after you left, devoted a lot of
effort to tracking down your parentage. I can see two officers approaching us
right now who will put an end to this unrecorded conversation, and so I'll be
brief. You have a name, Bean. You are Julian Delphiki."
"That's Nikolai's last
name."
"Julian is the name of
Nikolai's father. And of your father. Your mother's name is Elena. You are
identical twins. Your fertilized eggs were implanted at different times, and
your genes were altered in one very small but significant way. So when you look
at Nikolai, you see yourself as you would have been, had you not been
genetically altered, and had you grown up with parents who loved you and cared
for you."
"Julian Delphiki,"
said Bean.
"Nikolai is among those
already heading for Earth. Sister Carlotta will see to it that, when he is
repatriated to Greece, he is informed that you are indeed his brother. His
parents already know that you exist -- Sister Carlotta told them. Your home is
a lovely place, a house on the hills of Crete overlooking the Aegean. Sister
Carlotta tells me that they are good people, your parents. They wept with joy
when they learned that you exist. And now our interview is coming to an end. We
were discussing your low opinion of the quality of teaching here at Command
School."
"How did you guess."
"You're not the only one
who can do that."
The two officers -- an admiral
and a general, both wearing big false smiles -- greeted them and asked how the
interview had gone.
"You have the
recording," said Graff. "Including the part where Bean insisted that
it was still being recorded."
"And yet the interview
continued."
"I was telling him,"
said Bean, "about the incompetence of the teachers here at Command
School."
"Incompetence?"
"Our battles are always
against exceptionally stupid computer opponents. And then the teachers insist
on going through long, tedious analyses of these mock combats, even though no
enemy could possibly behave as stupidly and predictably as these simulations
do. I was suggesting that the only way for us to get decent competition here is
if you divide us into two groups and have us fight each other."
The two officers looked at
each other. "Interesting point," said the general.
"Moot," said the
admiral. "Ender Wiggin is about to be introduced into your game. We
thought you'd want to be there to greet him."
"Yes," said Bean.
"I do."
"I'll take you,"
said the admiral.
"Let's talk," the
general said to Graff.
On the way, the admiral said
little, and Bean could answer his chat without thought. It was a good thing.
For he was in turmoil over the things that Graff had told him. It was almost
not a surprise that Locke and Demosthenes were Ender's siblings. If they were
as intelligent as Ender, it was inevitable that they would rise into
prominence, and the nets allowed them to conceal their identity enough to
accomplish it while they were still young. But part of the reason Bean was
drawn to them had to be the sheer familiarity of their voices. They must have
sounded like Ender, in that subtle way in which people who have lived long
together pick up nuances of speech from each other. Bean didn't realize it
consciously, but unconsciously it would have made him more alert to those
essays. He should have known, and at some level he did know.
But the other, that Nikolai
was really his brother -- how could he believe that? It was as if Graff had
read his heart and found the lie that would penetrate most deeply into his soul
and told it to him. I'm Greek? My brother happened to be in my launch group,
the boy who became my dearest friend? Twins? Parents who love me?
Julian Delphiki?
No, I can't believe this.
Graff has never dealt honestly with us. Graff was the one who did not lift a
finger to protect Ender from Bonzo. Graff does nothing except to accomplish
some manipulative purpose.
My name is Bean. Poke gave me
that name, and I won't give it up in exchange for a lie.
***
They heard his voice, first,
talking to a technician in another room. "How can I work with squadron
leaders I never see?"
"And why would you need
to see them?" asked the technician.
"To know who they are,
how they think --"
"You'll learn who they
are and how they think from the way they work with the simulator. But even so,
I think you won't be concerned. They're listening to you right now. Put on the
headset so you can hear them."
They all trembled with
excitement, knowing that he would soon hear their voices as they now heard his.
"Somebody say
something," said Petra.
"Wait till he gets the
headset on," said Dink.
"How will we know?"
asked Vlad.
"Me first," said
Alai.
A pause. A new faint hiss in
their earphones.
"Salaam," Alai
whispered.
"Alai," said Ender.
"And me," said Bean.
"The dwarf."
"Bean," said Ender.
Yes, thought Bean, as the
others talked to him. That's who I am. That's the name that is spoken by the
people who know me.
CHAPTER 23 -- ENDER'S GAME
"General, you are the
Strategos. You have the authority to do this, and you have the
obligation."
"I don't need disgraced
former Battle School commandants to tell me my obligations."
"If you do not arrest the
Polemarch and his conspirators --"
"Colonel Graff, if I *do*
strike first, then I will bear the blame for the war that ensues."
"Yes, you would, sir. Now
tell me, which would be the better outcome -- everybody blames you, but we win
the war, or nobody blames you, because you've been stood up against a wall and
shot after the Polemarch's coup results in worldwide Russian hegemony?"
"I will not fire the
first shot."
"A military commander not
willing to strike preemptively when he has firm intelligence --"
"The politics of the
thing --"
"If you let them win it's
the end of politics!"
"The Russians stopped
being the bad guys back in the twentieth century!"
"Whoever is doing the bad
things, that's the bad guy. You're the sheriff, sir, whether people approve of
you or not. Do your job."
***
With Ender there, Bean
immediately stepped back into his place among the toon leaders. No one
mentioned it to him. He had been the leading commander, he had trained them
well, but Ender had always been the natural commander of this group, and now
that he was here, Bean was small again.
And rightly so, Bean knew. He
had led them well, but Ender made him look like a novice. It wasn't that
Ender's strategies were better than Bean's -- they weren't, really. Different
sometimes, but more often Bean watched Ender do exactly what he would have
done.
The important difference was
in the way he led the others. He had their fierce devotion instead of the
ever-so-slightly-resentful obedience Bean got from them, which helped from the
start. But he also earned that devotion by noticing, not just what was going on
in the battle, but what was going on in his commanders' minds. He was stern,
sometimes even snappish, making it clear that he expected better than their
best. And yet he had a way of giving an intonation to innocuous words, showing
appreciation, admiration, closeness. They felt known by the one whose honor
they needed. Bean simply did not know how to do that. His encouragement was
always more obvious, a bit heavy-handed. It meant less to them because it felt
more calculated. It *was* more calculated. Ender was just ... himself. Authority
came from him like breath.
They flipped a genetic switch
in me and made me an intellectual athlete. I can get the ball into the goal
from anywhere on the field. But knowing *when* to kick. Knowing how to forge a
team out of a bunch of players. What switch was it that was flipped in Ender
Wiggin's genes? Or is that something deeper than the mechanical genius of the
body? Is there a spirit, and is what Ender has a gift from God? We follow him
like disciples. We look to him to draw water from the rock.
Can I learn to do what he
does? Or am I to be like so many of the military writers I've studied,
condemned to be second-raters in the field, remembered only because of their
chronicles and explanations of other commanders' genius? Will I write a book
after this, telling all about how Ender did it?
Let Ender write that book. Or
Graff. I have work to do here, and when it's done, I'll choose my own work and
do it as well as I can. If I'm remembered only because I was one of Ender's
companions, so be it. Serving with Ender is its own reward.
But ah, how it stung to see
how happy the others were, and how they paid no attention to him at all, except
to tease him like a little brother, like a mascot. How they must have hated it
when he was their leader.
And the worst thing was,
that's how Ender treated him, too. Not that any of them were ever allowed to
see Ender. But during their long separation, Ender had apparently forgotten how
he once relied on Bean. It was Petra that he leaned on most, and Alai, and
Dink, and Shen. The ones who had never been in an army with him. Bean and the
other toon leaders from Dragon Army were still used, still trusted, but when
there was something hard to do, something that required creative flair, Ender
never thought of Bean.
Didn't matter. Couldn't think
about that. Because Bean knew that along with his primary assignment as one of
the squadron chiefs, he had another, deeper work to do. He had to watch the
whole flow of each battle, ready to step in at any moment, should Ender falter.
Ender seemed not to guess that Bean had that kind of trust from the teachers,
but Bean knew it, and if sometimes it made him a little distracted in
fulfilling his official assignments, if sometimes Ender grew impatient with him
for being a little late, a little inattentive, that was to be expected. For
what Ender did not know was that at any moment, if the supervisor signaled him,
Bean could take over and continue Ender's plan, watching over all of the
squadron leaders, saving the game.
At first, that assignment
seemed empty -- Ender was healthy, alert. But then came the change.
It was the day after Ender
mentioned to them, casually, that he had a different teacher from theirs. He
referred to him as "Mazer" once too often, and Crazy Tom said,
"He must have gone through hell, growing up with that name."
"When he was growing
up," said Ender, "the name wasn't famous."
"Anybody that old is
dead," said Shen.
"Not if he was put on a
lightspeed ship for a lot of years and then brought back."
That's when it dawned on them.
"Your teacher is *the* Mazer Rackham?"
"You know how they say
he's a brilliant hero?" said Ender.
Of course they knew.
"What they don't mention
is, he's a complete hard-ass."
And then the new simulation
began and they got back to work.
Next day, Ender told them that
things were changing. "So far we've been playing against the computer or
against each other. But starting now, every few days Mazer himself and a team
of experienced pilots will control the opposing fleet. Anything goes."
A series of tests, with Mazer
Rackham himself as the opponent. It smelled fishy to Bean.
These aren't tests, these are
setups, preparations for the conditions that might come when they face the
actual Bugger fleet near their home planet.
The I.F. is getting
preliminary information back from the expeditionary fleet, and they're
preparing us for what the Buggers are actually going to throw at us when battle
is joined.
The trouble was, no matter how
bright Mazer Rackham and the other officers might be, they were still human.
When the real battle came, the Buggers were bound to show them things that
humans simply couldn't think of.
Then came the first of these
"tests" -- and it was embarrassing how juvenile the strategy was. A
big globe formation, surrounding a single ship.
In this battle it became clear
that Ender knew things that he wasn't telling them. For one thing, he told them
to ignore the ship in the center of the globe. It was a decoy. But how could
Ender know that? Because he knew that the Buggers would *show* a single ship
like that, and it was a lie. Which means that the Buggers expect us to go for
that one ship.
Except, of course, that this
was not really the Buggers, this was Mazer Rackham. So why would Rackham expect
the Buggers to expect humans to strike for a single ship?
Bean thought back to those
vids that Ender had watched over and over in Battle School -- all the
propaganda film of the Second Invasion.
They never showed the battle
because there wasn't one. Nor did Mazer Rackham command a strike force with a
brilliant strategy. Mazer Rackham hit a single ship and the war was over.
That's why there's no video of hand-to-hand combat. Mazer Rackham killed the queen.
And now he expects the Buggers to show a central ship as a decoy, because
that's how we won last time.
Kill the queen, and all the
Buggers are defenseless. Mindless. That's what the vids meant. Ender knows
that, but he also knows that the Buggers know that we know it, so he doesn't
fall for their sucker bait.
The second thing that Ender
knew and they didn't was the use of a weapon that hadn't been in any of their
simulations till this first test. Ender called it "Dr. Device" and
then said nothing more about it -- until he ordered Alai to use it where the
enemy fleet was most concentrated. To their surprise, the thing set off a chain
reaction that leapt from ship to ship, until all but the most outlying Formic
ships were destroyed. And it was an easy matter to mop up those stragglers. The
playing field was clear when they finished.
"Why was their strategy
so stupid?" asked Bean.
"That's what I was
wondering," said Ender. "But we didn't lose a ship, so that's
OK."
Later, Ender told them what
Mazer said -- they were simulating a whole invasion sequence, and so he was
taking the simulated enemy through a learning curve. "Next time they'll
have learned. It won't be so easy."
Bean heard that and it filled
him with alarm. An invasion sequence? Why a scenario like that? Why not warmups
before a single battle?
Because the Buggers have more
than one world, thought Bean. Of course they do. They found Earth and expected
to turn it into yet another colony, just as they've done before.
We have more than one fleet.
One for each Formic world.
And the reason they can learn
from battle to battle is because they, too, have faster-than-light
communication across interstellar space.
All of Bean's guesses were
confirmed. He also knew the secret behind these tests. Mazer Rackham wasn't
commanding a simulated Bugger fleet. It was a real battle, and Rackham's only
function was to watch how it flowed and then coach Ender afterward on what the
enemy strategies meant and how to counter them in future.
That was why they were giving
most of their commands orally. They were being transmitted to real crews of
real ships who followed their orders and fought real battles. Any ship we lose,
thought Bean, means that grown men and women have died. Any carelessness on our
part takes lives. Yet they don't tell us this precisely because we can't afford
to be burdened with that knowledge. In wartime, commanders have always had to
learn the concept of "acceptable losses." But those who keep their
humanity never really accept the idea of acceptability, Bean understood that.
It gnaws at them. So they protect us child-soldiers by keeping us convinced
that it's only games and tests.
Therefore I can't let on to
anyone that I do know. Therefore I must accept the losses without a word,
without a visible qualm. I must try to block out of my mind the people who will
die from our boldness, whose sacrifice is not of a mere counter in a game, but
of their lives.
The "tests" came
every few days, and each battle lasted longer. Alai joked that they ought to be
fitted with diapers so they didn't have to be distracted when their bladder got
full during a battle. Next day, they were fitted out with catheters. It was
Crazy Tom who put a stop to that. "Come on, just get us a jar to pee in.
We can't play this game with something hanging off our dicks." Jars it
was, after that. Bean never heard of anyone using one, though. And though he
wondered what they provided for Petra, no one ever had the courage to brave her
wrath by asking.
Bean began to notice some of
Ender's mistakes pretty early on. For one thing, Ender was relying too much on
Petra. She always got command of the core force, watching a hundred different
things at once, so that Ender could concentrate on the feints, the ploys, the
tricks. Couldn't Ender see that Petra, a perfectionist, was getting eaten alive
by guilt and shame over every mistake she made? He was so good with people, and
yet he seemed to think she was really tough, instead of realizing that
toughness was an act she put on to hide her intense anxiety. Every mistake
weighed on her. She wasn't sleeping well, and it showed up as she got more and
more fatigued during battles.
But then, maybe the reason
Ender didn't realize what he was doing to her was that he, too, was tired. So
were all of them. Fading a little under the pressure, and sometimes a lot.
Getting more fatigued, more error-prone as the tests got harder, as the odds
got longer.
Because the battles were
harder with each new "test," Ender was forced to leave more and more
decisions up to others. Instead of smoothly carrying out Ender's detailed
commands, the squadron leaders had more and more of the battle to carry on
their own shoulders. For long sequences, Ender was too busy in one part of the
battle to give new orders in another. The squadron leaders who were affected
began to use crosstalk to determine their tactics until Ender noticed them
again. And Bean was grateful to find that, while Ender never gave him the interesting
assignments, some of the others talked to him when Ender's attention was
elsewhere. Crazy Tom and Hot Soup came up with their own plans, but they
routinely ran them past Bean. And since, in each battle, he was spending half
his attention observing and analyzing Ender's plan, Bean was able to tell them,
with pretty good accuracy, what they should do to help make the overall plan
work out. Now and then Ender praised Tom or Soup for decisions that came from
Bean's advice. It was the closest thing to praise that Bean heard.
The other toon leaders and the
older kids simply didn't turn to Bean at all. He understood why; they must have
resented it greatly when the teachers placed Bean above them during the time
before Ender was brought in. Now that they had their true commander, they were
never again going to do anything that smacked of subservience to Bean. He
understood -- but that didn't keep it from stinging.
Whether or not they wanted him
to oversee their work, whether or not his feelings were hurt, that was still
his assignment and he was determined never to be caught unprepared. As the
pressure became more and more intense, as they became wearier and wearier, more
irritable with each other, less generous in their assessment of each other's work,
Bean became all the more attentive because the chances of error were all the
greater.
One day Petra fell asleep
during battle. She had let her force drift too far into a vulnerable position,
and the enemy took advantage, tearing her squadron to bits. Why didn't she give
the order to fall back? Worse yet, Ender didn't notice soon enough, either. It
was Bean who told him: Something's wrong with Petra.
Ender called out to her. She
didn't answer. Ender flipped control of her two remaining ships to Crazy Tom
and then tried to salvage the overall battle. Petra had, as usual, occupied the
core position, and the loss of most of her large squadron was a devastating
blow. Only because the enemy was overconfident during mop-up was Ender able to
lay a couple of traps and regain the initiative. He won, but with heavy losses.
Petra apparently woke up near
the end of the battle and found her controls cut off, with no voice until it
was all over. Then her microphone came on again and they could hear her crying,
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Tell Ender I'm sorry, he can't hear me, I'm so
sorry ..."
Bean got to her before she
could return to her room. She was staggering along the tunnel, leaning against
the wall and crying, using her hands to find her way because she couldn't see
through her tears. Bean came up and touched her. She shrugged off his hand.
"Petra," said Bean.
"Fatigue is fatigue. You can't stay awake when your brain shuts
down."
"It was *my* brain that
shut down! You don't know how that feels because you're always so smart you
could do all our jobs and play chess while you're doing it!"
"Petra, he was relying on
you too much, he never gave you a break --"
"He doesn't take breaks
either, and I don't see him --"
"Yes you *do*. It was
obvious there was something wrong with your squadron for several seconds before
somebody called his attention to it. And even then, he tried to rouse you
before assigning control to somebody else. If he'd acted faster you would have
had six ships left, not just two."
"*You* pointed it out to
him. You were watching me. Checking up on me."
"Petra, I watch
everybody."
"You said you'd trust me,
but you don't. And you shouldn't, nobody should trust me."
She broke into uncontrollable
sobbing, leaning against the stone of the wall.
A couple of officers showed up
then, led her away. Not to her room.
***
Graff called him in soon
afterward. "You handled it just right," said Graff. "That's what
you're there for."
"I wasn't quick
either," said Bean.
"You were watching. You
saw where the plan was breaking down, you called Ender's attention to it. You
did your job. The other kids don't realize it and I know that has to gall you
--"
"I don't care what they
notice --"
"But you did the job. On
that battle you get the save."
"Whatever the hell that
means."
"It's baseball. Oh yeah.
That wasn't big on the streets of Rotterdam."
"Can I please go sleep
now?"
"In a minute. Bean,
Ender's getting tired. He's making mistakes. It's all the more important that
you watch everything. Be there for him. You saw how Petra was."
"We're all getting
fatigued."
"Well, so is Ender. Worse
than anyone. He cries in his sleep. He has strange dreams. He's talking about
how Mazer seems to know what he's planning, spying on his dreams."
"You telling me he's
going crazy?"
"I'm telling you that the
only person he pushed harder than Petra is himself. Cover for him, Bean. Back
him up."
"I already am."
"You're angry all the
time, Bean."
Graff's words startled him. At
first he thought, No I'm not! Then he thought, Am I?
"Ender isn't using you
for anything important, and after having run the show that has to piss you off,
Bean. But it's not Ender's fault. Mazer has been telling Ender that he has
doubts about your ability to handle large numbers of ships. That's why you
haven't been getting the complicated, interesting assignments. Not that Ender
takes Mazer's word for it. But everything you do, Ender sees it through the
lens of Mazer's lack of confidence."
"Mazer Rackham thinks I
--"
"Mazer Rackham knows
exactly what you are and what you can do. But we had to make sure Ender didn't
assign you something so complicated you couldn't keep track of the overall flow
of the game. And we had to do it without telling Ender you're his backup."
"So why are you telling
me this?"
"When this test is over
and you go on to real commands, we'll tell Ender the truth about what you were
doing, and why Mazer said what he said. I know it means a lot to you to have
Ender's confidence, and you don't feel like you have it, and so I wanted you to
know why. We did it."
"Why this sudden bout of
honesty?"
"Because I think you'll
do better knowing it."
"I'll do better
*believing* it whether it's true or not. You could be lying. So do I really
know anything at all from this conversation?"
"Believe what you want,
Bean."
***
Petra didn't come to practice
for a couple of days. When she came back, of course Ender didn't give her the
heavy assignments anymore. She did well at the assignments she had, but her
ebullience was gone. Her heart was broken.
But dammit, she had *slept*
for a couple of days. They were all just the tiniest bit jealous of her for
that, even though they'd never willingly trade places with her. Whether they
had any particular god in mind, they all prayed: Let it not happen to me. Yet
at the same time they also prayed the opposite prayer: Oh, let me sleep, let me
have a day in which I don't have to think about this game.
The tests went on. How many
worlds did these bastards colonize before they got to Earth? Bean wondered. And
are we sure we have them all? And what good does it do to destroy their fleets
when we don't have the forces there to occupy the defeated colonies? Or do we
just leave our ships there, shooting down anything that tries to boost from the
surface of the planet?
Petra wasn't the only one to
blow out. Vlad went catatonic and couldn't be roused from his bunk. It took
three days for the doctors to get him awake again, and unlike Petra, he was out
for the duration. He just couldn't concentrate.
Bean kept waiting for Crazy
Tom to follow suit, but despite his nickname, he actually seemed to get saner
as he got wearier. Instead it was Fly Molo who started laughing when he lost
control of his squadron. Ender cut him off immediately, and for once he put
Bean in charge of Fly's ships. Fly was back the next day, no explanation, but
everyone understood that he wouldn't be given crucial assignments now.
And Bean became more and more
aware of Ender's decreasing alertness. His orders came after longer and longer
pauses now, and a couple of times his orders weren't clearly stated. Bean
immediately translated them into a more comprehensible form, and Ender never
knew there had been confusion. But the others were finally becoming aware that
Bean was following the whole battle, not just his part of it. Perhaps they even
saw how Bean would ask a question during a battle, make some comment that
alerted Ender to something that he needed to be aware of, but never in a way
that sounded like Bean was criticizing anybody. After the battles one or two of
the older kids would speak to Bean. Nothing major. Just a hand on his shoulder,
on his back, and a couple of words. "Good game." "Good
work." "Keep it up." "Thanks, Bean."
He hadn't realized how much he
needed the honor of others until he finally got it.
***
"Bean, this next game, I
think you should know something."
"What?"
Colonel Graff hesitated.
"We couldn't get Ender awake this morning. He's been having nightmares. He
doesn't eat unless we make him. He bites his hand in his sleep -- bites it
bloody. And today we couldn't get him to wake up. We were able to hold off on
the ... test ... so he's going to be in command, as usual, but ... not as
usual."
"I'm ready. I always
am."
"Yeah, but ... look,
advance word on this test is that it's ... there's no ..."
"It's hopeless."
"Anything you can do to
help. Any suggestion."
"This Dr. Device thing,
Ender hasn't let us use it in a long time."
"The enemy learned enough
about how it works that they never let their ships get close enough together
for a chain reaction to spread. It takes a certain amount of mass to be able to
maintain the field. Basically, right now it's just ballast. Useless."
"It would have been nice
if you'd told *me* how it works before now."
"There are people who
don't want us to tell you anything, Bean. You have a way of using every scrap
of information to guess ten times more than we want you to know. It makes them
a little leery of giving you those scraps in the first place."
"Colonel Graff, you know
that I know that these battles are real. Mazer Rackham isn't making them up.
When we lose ships, real men die."
Graff looked away.
"And these are men that
Mazer Rackham knows, neh?"
Graff nodded slightly.
"You don't think Ender
can sense what Mazer is feeling? I don't know the guy, maybe he's like a rock,
but *I* think that when he does his critiques with Ender, he's letting his ...
what, his anguish... Ender feels it. Because Ender is a lot more tired *after*
a critique than before it. He may not know what's really going on, but he knows
that something terrible is at stake. He knows that Mazer Rackham is really
upset with every mistake Ender makes."
"Have you found some way
to sneak into Ender's room?"
"I know how to listen to
Ender. I'm not wrong about Mazer, am I?"
Graff shook his head.
"Colonel Graff, what you
don't realize, what nobody seems to remember -- that last game in Battle
School, where Ender turned his army over to me. That wasn't a strategy. He was
quitting. He was through. He was on strike. You didn't find that out because
you graduated him. The thing with Bonzo finished him. I think Mazer Rackham's
anguish is doing the same thing to him now. I think even when Ender doesn't
*consciously* know that he's killed somebody, he knows it deep down, and it
burns in his heart."
Graff looked at him sharply.
"I know Bonzo was dead. I
saw him. I've seen death before, remember? You don't get your nose jammed into
your brain and lose two gallons of blood and get up and walk away. You never
told Ender that Bonzo was dead, but you're a fool if you think he doesn't know.
And he knows, thanks to Mazer, that every ship we've lost means good men are
dead. He can't stand it, Colonel Graff."
"You're more insightful
than you get credit for, Bean," said Graff.
"I know, I'm the cold
inhuman intellect, right?" Bean laughed bitterly. "Genetically
altered, therefore I'm just as alien as the Buggers."
Graff blushed. "No one's
ever said that."
"You mean you've never
said it in front of me. Knowingly. What you don't seem to understand is,
sometimes you have to just tell people the truth and ask them to do the thing
you want, instead of trying to trick them into it."
"Are you saying we should
tell Ender the game is real?"
"No! Are you insane? If
he's this upset when the knowledge is unconscious, what do you think would
happen if he *knew* that he knew? He'd freeze up."
"But you don't freeze up.
Is that it? You should command this next battle?"
"You still don't get it,
Colonel Graff. I don't freeze up because it isn't my battle. I'm helping. I'm
watching. But I'm free. Because it's Ender's game."
Bean's simulator came to life.
"It's time," said
Graff. "Good luck."
"Colonel Graff, Ender may
go on strike again. He may walk out on it. He might give up. He might tell
himself, It's only a game and I'm sick of it, I don't care what they do to me,
I'm done. That's in him, to do that. When it seems completely unfair and
utterly pointless."
"What if I promised him
it was the last one?"
Bean put on his headset as he
asked, "Would it be true?"
Graff nodded.
"Yeah, well, I don't
think it would make much difference. Besides, he's Mazer's student now, isn't
he?"
"I guess. Mazer was
talking about telling him that it was the final exam."
"Mazer is Ender's teacher
now," Bean mused. "And you're left with me. The kid you didn't
want."
Graff blushed again.
"That's right," he said. "Since you seem to know everything. I
didn't want you."
Even though Bean already knew
it, the words still hurt.
"But Bean," said
Graff, "the thing is, I was wrong." He put a hand on Bean's shoulder
and left the room.
Bean logged on. He was the
last of the squadron leaders to do so.
"Are you there?"
asked Ender over the headsets.
"All of us," said
Bean. "Kind of late for practice this morning, aren't you?"
"Sorry," said Ender.
"I overslept."
They laughed. Except Bean.
Ender took them through some
maneuvers, warming up for the battle. And then it was time. The display
cleared.
Bean waited, anxiety gnawing
at his gut.
The enemy appeared in the
display.
Their fleet was deployed
around a planet that loomed in the center of the display. There had been
battles near planets before, but every other time, the world was near the edge
of the display -- the enemy fleet always tried to lure them away from the
planet.
This time there was no luring.
Just the most incredible swarm of enemy ships imaginable. Always staying a
certain distance away from each other, thousands and thousands of ships
followed random, unpredictable, intertwining paths, together forming a cloud of
death around the planet.
This is the home planet,
thought Bean. He almost said it aloud, but caught himself in time. This is a
*simulation* of the Bugger defense of their home planet.
They've had generations to
prepare for us to come. All the previous battles were nothing. These Formics
can lose any number of individual Buggers and they don't care. All that matters
is the queen. Like the one Mazer Rackham killed in the Second Invasion. And
they haven't put a queen at risk in any of these battles. Until now.
That's why they're swarming.
There's a queen here.
Where?
On the planet surface, thought
Bean. The idea is to keep us from getting to the planet surface.
So that's precisely where we
need to go. Dr. Device needs mass. Planets have mass. Pretty simple.
Except that there was no way
to get this small force of human ships through that swarm and near enough to
the planet to deploy Dr. Device. For if there was anything that history taught,
it was this: Sometimes the other side is irresistibly strong, and then the only
sensible course of action is to retreat in order to save your force to fight
another day.
In this war, however, there
would be no other day. There was no hope of retreat. The decisions that lost
this battle, and therefore this war, were made two generations ago when these
ships were launched, an inadequate force from the start. The commanders who set
this fleet in motion may not even have known, then, that this was the Buggers'
home world. It was no one's fault. They simply didn't have enough of a force
even to make a dent in the enemy's defenses. It didn't matter how brilliant
Ender was. When you have only one guy with a shovel, you can't build a dike to
hold back the sea.
No retreat, no possibility of
victory, no room for delay or maneuver, no reason for the enemy to do anything
but continue to do what they were doing.
There were only twenty
starships in the human fleet, each with four fighters. And they were the oldest
design, sluggish compared to some of the fighters they'd had in earlier
battles. It made sense -- the Bugger home world was probably the farthest away,
so the fleet that got there now had left before any of the other fleets. Before
the better ships came on line.
Eighty fighters. Against five
thousand, maybe ten thousand enemy ships. It was impossible to determine the
number. Bean saw how the display kept losing track of individual enemy ships,
how the total count kept fluctuating. There were so many it was overloading the
system. They kept winking in and out like fireflies.
A long time passed -- many
seconds, perhaps a minute. By now Ender usually had them all deployed, ready to
move. But still there was nothing from him but silence.
A light blinked on Bean's
console. He knew what it meant. All he had to do was press a button, and
control of the battle would be his. They were offering it to him, because they
thought that Ender had frozen up.
He hasn't frozen up, thought
Bean. He hasn't panicked. He has simply understood the situation, exactly as I
understand it. There *is* no strategy. Only he doesn't see that this is simply
the fortunes of war, a disaster that can't be helped. What he sees is a test
set before him by his teachers, by Mazer Rackham, a test so absurdly unfair
that the only reasonable course of action is to refuse to take it.
They were so clever, keeping
the truth from him all this time. But now was it going to backfire on them. If
Ender understood that it was not a game, that the real war had come down to
this moment, then he might make some desperate effort, or with his genius he
might even come up with an answer to a problem that, as far as Bean could see,
had no solution. But Ender did not understand the reality, and so to him it was
like that day in the battleroom, facing two armies, when Ender turned the whole
thing over to Bean and, in effect, refused to play.
For a moment Bean was tempted
to scream the truth. It's not a game, it's the real thing, this is the last
battle, we've lost this war after all! But what would be gained by that, except
to panic everyone?
Yet it was absurd to even
contemplate pressing that button to take over control himself. Ender hadn't
collapsed or failed. The battle was unwinnable; it should not even be fought.
The lives of the men on those ships were not to be wasted on such a hopeless
Charge of the Light Brigade. I'm not General Burnside at Fredericksburg. I
don't send my men off to senseless, hopeless, meaningless death.
If I had a plan, I'd take
control. I have no plan. So for good or ill, it's Ender's game, not mine.
And there was another reason
for not taking over.
Bean remembered standing over
the supine body of a bully who was too dangerous to ever be tamed, telling
Poke, Kill him now, kill him.
I was right. And now, once
again, the bully must be killed. Even though I don't know how to do it, we
*can't* lose this war. I don't know how to win it, but I'm not God, I don't see
everything. And maybe Ender doesn't *see* a solution either, but if anyone can
find one, if anyone can make it happen, it's Ender.
Maybe it isn't hopeless. Maybe
there's some way to get down to the planet's surface and wipe the Buggers out
of the universe. Now is the time for miracles. For Ender, the others will do
their best work. If I took over, they'd be so upset, so distracted that even if
I came up with a plan that had some kind of chance, it would never work because
their hearts wouldn't be in it.
Ender has to try. If he
doesn't, we all die. Because even if they weren't going to send another fleet
against us, after this they'll *have* to send one. Because we beat all their
fleets in every battle till now. If we don't win this one, with finality, destroying
their capability to make war against us, then they'll be back. And this time
they'll have figured out how to make Dr. Device themselves.
We have only the one world. We
have only the one hope.
Do it, Ender.
There flashed into Bean's mind
the words Ender said in their first day of training as Dragon Army: Remember,
the enemy's gate is down. In Dragon Army's last battle, when there was no hope,
that was the strategy that Ender had used, sending Bean's squad to press their
helmets against the floor around the gate and win. Too bad there was no such
cheat available now.
Deploying Dr. Device against
the planet's surface to blow the whole thing up, that might do the trick. You
just couldn't get there from here.
It was time to give up. Time to
get out of the game, to tell them not to send children to do grownups' work.
It's hopeless. We're done.
"Remember," Bean
said ironically, "the enemy's gate is down."
Fly Molo, Hot Soup, Vlad,
Dumper, Crazy Tom -- they grimly laughed. They had been in Dragon Army. They
remembered how those words were used before.
But Ender didn't seem to get
the joke.
Ender didn't seem to
understand that there was no way to get Dr. Device to the planet's surface.
Instead, his voice came into
their ears, giving them orders. He pulled them into a tight formation,
cylinders within cylinders.
Bean wanted to shout, Don't do
it! There are real men on those ships, and if you send them in, they'll die, a
sacrifice with no hope of victory.
But he held his tongue,
because, in the back of his mind, in the deepest corner of his heart, he still
had hope that Ender might do what could not be done. And as long as there was
such a hope, the lives of those men were, by their own choice when they set out
on this expedition, expendable.
Ender set them in motion,
having them dodge here and there through the ever-shifting formations of the
enemy swarm.
Surely the enemy sees what
we're doing, thought Bean. Surely they see how every third or fourth move takes
us closer and closer to the planet.
At any moment the enemy could
destroy them quickly by concentrating their forces. So why weren't they doing it?
One possibility occurred to
Bean. The Buggers didn't dare concentrate their forces close to Ender's tight
formation, because the moment they drew their ships that close together, Ender
could use Dr. Device against them.
And then he thought of another
explanation. Could it be that there were simply too many Bugger ships? Could it
be that the queen or queens had to spend all their concentration, all their
mental strength just keeping ten thousand ships swarming through space without
getting too close to each other?
Unlike Ender, the Bugger queen
couldn't turn control of her ships over to subordinates. She *had* no
subordinates. The individual Buggers; were like her hands and her feet. Now she
had hundreds of hands and feet, or perhaps thousands of them, all wiggling at
once.
That's why she wasn't
responding intelligently. Her forces were too numerous. That's why she wasn't
making the obvious moves, setting traps, blocking Ender from taking his
cylinder ever closer to the planet with every swing and dodge and shift that he
made.
In fact, the maneuvers the
Buggers were making were ludicrously wrong. For as Ender penetrated deeper and
deeper into the planet's gravity well, the Buggers were building up a thick
wall of forces *behind* Ender's formation.
They're blocking our retreat!
At once Bean understood a
third and most important reason for what was happening. The Buggers had learned
the wrong lessons from the previous battles. Up to now, Ender's strategy had
always been to ensure the survival of as many human ships as possible. He had
always left himself a line of retreat. The Buggers, with their huge numerical
advantage, were finally in a position to guarantee that the human forces would
not get away.
There was no way, at the
beginning of this battle, to predict that the Buggers would make such a
mistake. Yet throughout history, great victories had come as much because of
the losing army's errors as because of the winner's brilliance in battle. The
Buggers have finally, finally learned that we humans value each and every
individual human life. We don't throw our forces away because every soldier is
the queen of a one-member hive. But they've learned this lesson just in time
for it to be hopelessly wrong -- for we humans *do*, when the cause is
sufficient, spend our own lives. We throw ourselves onto the grenade to save
our buddies in the foxhole. We rise out of the trenches and charge the
entrenched enemy and die like maggots under a blowtorch. We strap bombs on our
bodies and blow ourselves up in the midst of our enemies. We are, when the
cause is sufficient, insane.
They don't believe we'll use
Dr. Device because the only way to use it is to destroy our own ships in the
process. From the moment Ender started giving orders, it was obvious to
everyone that this was a suicide run. These ships were not made to enter an
atmosphere. And yet to get close enough to the planet to set off Dr. Device,
they had to do exactly that.
Get down into the gravity well
and launch the weapon just before the ship burns up. And if it works, if the
planet is torn apart by whatever force it is in that terrible weapon, the chain
reaction will reach out into space and take out any ships that might happen to
survive.
Win or lose, there'd be no
human survivors from this battle.
They've never seen us make a
move like that. They don't understand that, yes, humans will always act to
preserve their own lives -- except for the times when they don't. In the
Buggers' experience, autonomous beings do not sacrifice themselves. Once they
understood our autonomy, the seed of their defeat was sown.
In all of Ender's study of the
Buggers, in all his obsession with them over the years of his training, did he
somehow come to *know* that they would make such deadly mistakes?
I did not know it. I would not
have pursued this strategy. I *had* no strategy. Ender was the only commander
who could have known, or guessed, or unconsciously hoped that when he flung out
his forces the enemy would falter, would trip, would fall, would fail.
Or *did* he know at all? Could
it be that he reached the same conclusion as I did, that this battle was
unwinnable? That he decided not to play it out, that he went on strike, that he
quit? And then my bitter words, "the enemy's gate is down," triggered
his futile, useless gesture of despair, sending his ships to certain doom
because he did not know that there were real ships out there, with real men
aboard, that he was sending to their deaths? Could it be that he was as
surprised as I was by the mistakes of the enemy? Could our victory be an
accident?
No. For even if my words
provoked Ender into action, he was still the one who chose *this* formation,
*these* feints and evasions, *this* meandering route. It was Ender whose
previous victories taught the enemy to think of us as one kind of creature,
when we are really something quite different. He pretended all this time that
humans were rational beings, when we are really the most terrible monsters
these poor aliens could ever have conceived of in their nightmares. They had no
way Of knowing the story of blind Samson, who pulled down the temple on his own
head to slay his enemies.
On those ships, thought Bean,
there are individual men who gave up homes and families, the world of their
birth, in order to cross a great swatch of the galaxy and make war on a
terrible enemy. Somewhere along the way they're bound to understand that
Ender's strategy requires them all to die. Perhaps they already have. And yet
they obey and will continue to obey the orders that come to them. As in the
famous Charge of the Light Brigade, these soldiers give up their lives,
trusting that their commanders are using them well. While we sit safely here in
these simulator rooms, playing an elaborate computer game, they are obeying,
dying so that all of humankind can live.
And yet we who command them,
we children in these elaborate game machines, have no idea of their courage,
their sacrifice. We cannot give them the honor they deserve, because we don't
even know they exist.
Except for me.
There sprang into Bean's mind
a favorite scripture of Sister Carlotta's. Maybe it meant so much to her
because she had no children. She told Bean the story of Absalom's rebellion
against his own father, King David. In the course of a battle, Absalom was
killed. When they brought the news to David, it meant victory, it meant that no
more of his soldiers would die. His throne was safe. His *life* was safe. But
all he could think about was his son, his beloved son, his dead boy.
Bean ducked his head, so his
voice would be heard only by the men under his command. And then, for just long
enough to speak, he pressed the override that put his voice into the ears of
all the men of that distant fleet. Bean had no idea how his voice would sound
to them; would they hear his childish voice, or were the sounds distorted, so
they would hear him as an adult, or perhaps as some metallic, machinelike
voice? No matter. In some form the men of that distant fleet would hear his
voice, transmitted faster than light, God knows how.
"O my son Absalom,"
Bean said softly, knowing for the first time the kind of anguish that could
tear such words from a man's mouth. "My son, my son Absalom. Would God I
could die for thee, O Absalom, my son. My sons!"
He had paraphrased it a
little, but God would understand. Or if he didn't, Sister Carlotta would.
Now, thought Bean. Do it now,
Ender. You're as close as you can get without giving away the game. They're
beginning to understand their danger. They're concentrating their forces.
They'll blow us out of the sky before our weapons can be launched --
"All right, everybody
except Petra's squadron," said Ender. "Straight down, as fast as you
can. Launch Dr. Device against the planet. Wait till the last possible second.
Petra, cover as you can."
The squadron leaders, Bean
among them, echoed Ender's commands to their own fleets. And then there was
nothing to do but watch. Each ship was on its own.
The enemy understood now, and
rushed to destroy the plummeting humans. Fighter after fighter was picked off
by the inrushing ships of the Formic fleet. Only a few human fighters survived
long enough to enter the atmosphere.
Hold on, thought Bean. Hold on
as long as you can.
The ships that launched too
early watched their Dr. Device burn up in the atmosphere before it could go
off. A few other ships burned up themselves without launching.
Two ships were left. One was
in Bean's squadron.
"Don't launch it,"
said Bean into his microphone, head down. "Set it off inside your ship.
God be with you."
Bean had no way of knowing
whether it was his ship or the other that did it. He only knew that both ships
disappeared from the display without launching. And then the surface of the
planet started to bubble. Suddenly a vast eruption licked outward toward the
last of the human fighters, Petra's ships, on which there might or might not
still be men alive to see death coming at them. To see their victory approach.
The simulator put on a
spectacular show as the exploding planet chewed up all the enemy ships,
engulfing them in the chain reaction. But long before the last ship was
swallowed up, all the maneuvering had stopped. They drifted, dead. Like the dead
Bugger ships in the vids of the Second Invasion. The queens of the hive had
died on the planet's surface. The destruction of the remaining ships was a mere
formality. The Buggers were already dead.
***
Bean emerged into the tunnel
to find that the other kids were already there, congratulating each other and
commenting on how cool the explosion effect was, and wondering if something
like that could really happen.
"Yes," said Bean.
"It could."
"As if you know,"
said Fly Molo, laughing.
"Of course I know it
could happen," said Bean. "It *did* happen."
They looked at him
uncomprehendingly. When did it happen? I never heard of anything like that.
Where could they have tested that weapon against a planet? I know, they took
out Neptune!
"It happened just
now," said Bean. "It happened at the home world of the Buggers. We
just blew it up. They're all dead."
They finally began to realize
that he was serious. They fired objections at him. He explained about the
faster-than-light communications device. They didn't believe him.
Then another voice entered the
conversation. "It's called the ansible."
They looked up to see Colonel
Graff standing a ways off, down the tunnel.
Is Bean telling the truth? Was
that a real battle?
"They were all
real," said Bean. "All the so-called tests. Real battles. Real
victories. Right, Colonel Graff? We were fighting the real war all along."
"It's over now,"
said Graff. "The human race will continue. The Buggers won't."
They finally believed it, and
became giddy with the realization. It's over. We won. We weren't practicing, we
were actually commanders.
And then, at last, a silence
fell.
"They're *all*
dead?" asked Petra.
Bean nodded.
Again they looked at Graff.
"We have reports. All life activity has ceased on all the other planets.
They must have gathered their queens back on their home planet. When the queens
die, the Buggers die. There is no enemy now."
Petra began to cry, leaning
against the wall. Bean wanted to reach out to her, but Dink was there. Dink was
the friend who held her, comforted her.
Some soberly, some exultantly,
they went back to their barracks. Petra wasn't the only one who cried. But
whether the tears were shed in anguish or in relief, no one could say for sure.
Only Bean did not return to
his room, perhaps because Bean was the only one not surprised. He stayed out in
the tunnel with Graff.
"How's Ender taking
it?"
"Badly," said Graff.
"We should have broken it to him more carefully, but there was no holding
back. In the moment of victory."
"All your gambles paid
off," said Bean.
"I know what happened,
Bean," said Graff. "Why did you leave control with him? How did you
know he'd come up with a plan?"
"I didn't," said
Bean. "I only knew that I had no plan at all."
"But what you said --
'the enemy's gate is down.' That's the plan Ender used."
"It wasn't a plan,"
said Bean. "Maybe it made him think of a plan. But it was him. It was
Ender. You put your money on the right kid."
Graff looked at Bean in
silence, then reached out and put a hand on Bean's head, tousled his hair a
little. "I think perhaps you pulled each other across the finish
line."
"It doesn't matter, does
it?" said Bean. "It's finished, anyway. And so is the temporary unity
of the human race."
"Yes," said Graff.
He pulled his hand away, ran it through his own hair. "I believed in your
analysis. I tried to give warning. *If* the Strategos heeded my advice, the
Polemarch's men are getting arrested here on Eros and all over the fleet."
"Will they go
peacefully?" asked Bean.
"We'll see," said
Graff.
The sound of gunfire echoed from some distant
tunnel.
"Guess not," said
Bean.
They heard the sound of men
running in step. And soon they saw them, a contingent of a dozen armed marines.
Bean and Graff watched them
approach. "Friend or foe?"
"They all wear the same
uniform," said Graff. "You're the one who called it, Bean. Inside
those doors" -- he gestured toward the doors to the kids' quarters --
"those children are the spoils of war. In command of armies back on Earth,
they're the hope of victory. *You* are the hope."
The soldiers came to a stop in
front of Graff. "We're here to protect the children, sir," said their
leader.
"From what?"
"The Polemarch's men seem
to be resisting arrest, sir," said the soldier. "The Strategos has ordered
that these children be kept safe at all costs."
Graff was visibly relieved to
know which side these troops were on. "The girl is in that room over
there. I suggest you consolidate them all into those two barrack rooms for the
duration."
"Is this the kid who did
it?" asked the soldier, indicating Bean.
"He's one of them."
"It was Ender Wiggin who
did it," said Bean. "Ender was our commander."
"Is he in one of those
rooms?" asked the soldier.
"He's with Mazer
Rackham," said Graff. "And this one stays with me."
The soldier saluted. He began
positioning his men in more advanced positions down the tunnel, with only a
single guard outside each door to prevent the kids from going out and getting
lost somewhere in the fighting.
Bean trotted along beside
Graff as he headed purposefully down the tunnel, beyond the farthest of the
guards.
"If the Strategos did
this right, the ansibles have already been secured. I don't know about you, but
I want to be where the news is coming in. And going out."
"Is Russian a hard
language to learn?" asked Bean.
"Is that what passes for
humor with you?" asked Graff.
"It was a simple
question."
"Bean, you're a great
kid, but shut up, OK?"
Bean laughed. "OK."
"You don't mind if I
still call you Bean?"
"It's my name."
"Your name should have
been Julian Delphiki. If you'd had a birth certificate, that's the name that
would have been on it."
"You mean that was
true?"
"Would I lie about
something like that?"
Then, realizing the absurdity
of what he had just said, they laughed. Laughed long enough to still be smiling
when they passed the detachment of marines protecting the entrance to the
ansible complex.
"You think anybody will ask
me for military advice?" asked Bean. "Because I'm going to get into
this war, even if I have to lie about my age and enlist in the marines."
CHAPTER 24 -- HOMECOMING
"I thought you'd want to
know. Some bad news."
"There's no shortage of
that, even in the midst of victory."
"When it became clear
that the IDL had control of Battle School and was sending the kids home under
I.F. protection, the New Warsaw Pact apparently did a little research and found
that there was one student from Battle School who wasn't under our control.
Achilles."
"But he was only there a
couple of days."
"He passed our tests. He
got in. He was the only one they could get."
"Did they? Get him?"
"All the security there
was designed to keep inmates inside. Three guards dead, all the inmates
released into the general population. They've all been recovered, except
one."
"So he's loose."
"I wouldn't call it
loose, exactly. They intend to use him."
"Do they know what he
is?"
"No. His records were
sealed. A juvenile, you see. They weren't coming for his dossier."
"They'll find out. They
don't like serial killers in Moscow, either."
"He's hard to pin down.
How many died before any of us suspected him?"
"The war is over for
now."
"And the jockeying for
advantage in the next war has begun."
"With any luck, Colonel
Graff, I'll be dead by then."
"I'm not actually a
colonel anymore, Sister Carlotta."
"They're really going to
go ahead with that court-martial?"
"An investigation, that's
all. An inquiry."
"I just don't understand
why they have to find a scapegoat for victory."
"I'll be fine. The sun
still shines on planet Earth."
"But never again on
*their* tragic world."
"Is your God also their
God, Sister Carlotta? Did he take them into heaven?"
"He's not *my* God, Mr.
Graff. But I am his child, as are you. I don't know whether he looks at the
Formics and sees them, too, as his children."
"Children. Sister
Carlotta, the things I did to these children."
"You gave them a world to
come home to."
"All but one of
them."
***
It took days for the
Polemarch's men to be subdued, but at last Fleetcom was entirely under the
Strategos's command, and not one ship had been launched under rebel command. A
triumph. The Hegemon resigned as part of the truce, but that only formalized what
had already been the reality.
Bean stayed with Graff
throughout the fighting, as they read every dispatch and listened to every
report about what was happening elsewhere in the fleet and back on Earth. They
talked through the unfolding situation, tried to read between the lines,
interpreted what was happening as best they could. For Bean, the war with the
Buggers was already behind him. All that mattered now was how things went on
Earth. When a shaky truce was signed, temporarily ending the fighting, Bean
knew that it would not last. He would be needed. Once he got to Earth, he could
prepare himself to play his role. Ender's war is over, he thought. This next
one will be mine.
While Bean was avidly
following the news, the other kids were confined to their quarters under guard,
and during the power failures in their part of Eros they did their cowering in
darkness. Twice there were assaults on that section of the tunnels, but whether
the Russians were trying to get at the kids or merely happened to probe in that
area, looking for weaknesses, no one could guess.
Ender was under much heavier
guard, but didn't know it. Utterly exhausted, and perhaps unwilling or unable
to bear the enormity of what he had done, he remained unconscious for days.
Not till the fighting stopped
did he come back to consciousness.
They let the kids get together
then, their confinement over for now. Together they made the pilgrimage to the
room where Ender had been under protection and medical care. They found him
apparently cheerful, able to joke. But Bean could see a deep weariness, a
sadness in Ender's eyes that it was impossible to ignore. The victory had cost
him deeply, more than anybody.
More than me, thought Bean,
even though I knew what I was doing, and he was innocent of any bad intent. He
tortures himself, and I move on. Maybe because to me the death of Poke was more
important than the death of an entire species that I never saw. I knew her --
she has stayed with me in my heart. The Buggers I never knew. How can I grieve
for them?
Ender can.
After they filled Ender in on
the news about what happened while he slept, Petra touched his hair. "You
OK?" she asked. "You scared us. They said you were crazy, and we said
*they* were crazy."
"I'm crazy," said Ender.
"But I think I'm OK."
There was more banter, but
then Ender's emotions overflowed and for the first time any of them could
remember, they saw Ender cry. Bean happened to be standing near him, and when
Ender reached out, it was Bean and Petra that he embraced. The touch of his
hand, the embrace of his arm, they were more than Bean could bear. He also
cried.
"I missed you," said
Ender. "I wanted to see you so bad."
"You saw us pretty
bad," said Petra. She was not crying. She kissed his cheek.
"I saw you
magnificent," said Ender. "The ones I needed most, I used up soonest.
Bad planning on my part."
"Everybody's OK
now," said Dink. "Nothing was wrong with any of us that five days of
cowering in blacked-out rooms in the middle of a war couldn't cure."
"I don't have to be your
commander anymore, do I?" asked Ender. "I don't want to command
anybody again."
Bean believed him. And
believed also that Ender never *would* command in battle again. He might still
have the talents that brought him to this place. But the most important ones
didn't have to be used for violence. If the universe had any kindness in it, or
even simple justice, Ender would never have to take another life. He had surely
filled his quota.
"You don't have to
command anybody," said Dink, "but you're always our commander."
Bean felt the truth of that.
There was not one of them who would not carry Ender with them in their hearts,
wherever they went, whatever they did.
What Bean didn't have the
heart to tell them was that on Earth, both sides had insisted that they be
given custody of the hero of the war, young Ender Wiggin, whose great victory
had captured the popular imagination. Whoever had him would not only have the
use of his fine military mind -- they thought -- but would also have the
benefit of all the publicity and public adulation that surrounded him, that
filled every mention of his name.
So as the political leaders
worked out the truce, they reached a simple and obvious compromise. All the
children from Battle School would be repatriated. Except Ender Wiggin.
Ender Wiggin would not be
coming home. Neither party on Earth would be able to use him. That was the
compromise.
And it had been proposed by
Locke. By Ender's own brother.
When he learned that it made
Bean seethe inside, the way he had when he thought Petra had betrayed Ender. It
was wrong. It couldn't be borne.
Perhaps Peter Wiggin did it to
keep Ender from becoming a pawn. To keep him free. Or perhaps he did it so that
Ender could not use his celebrity to make his own play for political power. Was
Peter Wiggin saving his brother, or eliminating a rival for power?
Someday I'll meet him and find
out, thought Bean. And if he betrayed his brother, I'll destroy him.
When Bean shed his tears there
in Ender's room, he was weeping for a cause the others did not yet know about.
He was weeping because, as surely as the soldiers who died in those fighting
ships, Ender would not be coming home from the war.
"So," said Alai,
breaking the silence. "What do we do now? The Bugger War's over, and so's
the war down there on Earth, and even the war here. What do we do now?"
"We're kids," said
Petra. "They'll probably make us go to school. It's a law. You have to go
to school till you're seventeen."
They all laughed until they
cried again.
They saw each other off and on
again over the next few days. Then they boarded several different cruisers and
destroyers for the voyage back to Earth. Bean knew well why they traveled in
separate ships. That way no one would ask why Ender wasn't on board. If Ender
knew, before they left, that he was not going back to Earth, he said nothing
about it.
***
Elena could hardly contain her
joy when Sister Carlotta called, asking if she and her husband would both be at
home in an hour. "I'm bringing you your son," she said.
Nikolai, Nikolai, Nikolai.
Elena sang the name over and over again in her mind, with her lips. Her husband
Julian, too, was almost dancing as he hurried about the house, making things
ready. Nikolai had been so little when he left. Now he would be so much older.
They would hardly know him. They would not understand what he had been through.
But it didn't matter. They loved him. They would learn who he was all over
again. They would not let the lost years get in the way of the years to come.
"I see the car!"
cried Julian.
Elena hurriedly pulled the
covers from the dishes, so that Nikolai could come into a kitchen filled with
the freshest, purest food of his childhood memories. Whatever they ate in
space, it couldn't be as good as this.
Then she ran to the door and
stood beside her husband as they watched Sister Carlotta get out of the front
seat.
Why didn't she ride in back
with Nikolai?
No matter. The back door
opened, and Nikolai emerged, unfolding his lanky young body. So tall he was
growing! Yet still a boy. There was a little bit of childhood left for him.
Run to me, my son!
But he didn't run to her. He
turned his back on his parents.
Ah. He was reaching into the
back seat. A present, perhaps?
No. Another boy.
A smaller boy, but with the
same face as Nikolai. Perhaps too careworn for a child so small, but with the same
open goodness that Nikolai had always had. Nikolai was smiling so broadly he
could not contain it. But the small one was not smiling. He looked uncertain.
Hesitant.
"Julian," said her
husband.
Why would he say his own name?
"Our second son," he
said. "They didn't all die, Elena. One lived."
All hope of those little ones
had been buried in her heart. It almost hurt to open that hidden place. She
gasped at the intensity of it.
"Nikolai met him in
Battle School," he went on. "I told Sister Carlotta that if we had
another son, you meant to name him Julian."
"You knew," said
Elena.
"Forgive me, my love. But
Sister Carlotta wasn't sure then that he was ours. Or that he would ever be
able to come home. I couldn't bear it, to tell you of the hope, only to break
your heart later."
"I have two sons,"
she said.
"If you want him,"
said Julian. "His life has been hard. But he's a stranger here. He doesn't
speak Greek. He's been told that he's coming just for a visit. That legally he
is not our child, but rather a ward of the state. We don't have to take him in,
if you don't want to, Elena."
"Hush, you foolish
man," she said. Then, loudly, she called out to the approaching boys.
"Here are my two sons, home from the wars! Come to your mother! I have
missed you both so much, and for so many years!"
They ran to her then, and she
held them in her arms, and her tears fell on them both, and her husband's hands
rested upon both boys' heads.
Her husband spoke. Elena
recognized his words at once, from the gospel of St. Luke. But because he had
only memorized the passage in Greek, the little one did not understand him. No
matter. Nikolai began to translate into Common, the language of the fleet, and
almost at once the little one recognized the words, and spoke them correctly,
from memory, as Sister Carlotta had once read it to him years before.
"Let us eat, and be
merry: for this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found."
Then the little one burst into tears and clung to his mother, and kissed his
father's hand.
"Welcome home, little
brother," said Nikolai. "I told you they were nice."
THE END
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
One book was particularly
useful in preparing this novel: Peter Paret, ed., _Makers of Modern Strategy:
From Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age_ (Princeton University Press, 1986). The
essays are not all of identical quality, but they gave me a good idea of the
writings that might be in the library in Battle School.
I have nothing but fond
memories of Rotterdam, a city of kind and generous people. The callousness
toward the poor shown in this novel would be impossible today, but the business
of science fiction is sometimes to show impossible nightmares.
I owe individual thanks to:
Erin and Phillip Absher, for,
among other things, the lack of vomiting on the shuttle, the size of the toilet
tank, and the weight of the lid;
Jane Brady, Laura Morefield,
Oliver Withstandley, Matt Tolton, Kathryn H. Kidd, Kristine A. Card, and others
who read the advance manuscript and made suggestions and corrections. Some
annoying contradictions between Ender's Game and this book were thereby
averted; any that remain are not errors at all, but merely subtle literary effects
designed to show the difference in perception and memory between the two
accounts of the same event. As my programmer friends would say, there are no
bugs, only features;
Tom Doherty, my publisher;
Beth Meacham, my editor; and Barbara Bova, my agent, for responding so
positively to the idea of this book when I proposed it as a collaborative
project and then realized I wanted to write it entirely myself. And if I still
think _Urchin_ was the better title for this book, it doesn't mean that I don't
agree that my second title, _Ender's Shadow_, is the more marketable one;
My assistants, Scott Allen and
Kathleen Bellamy, who at various times defy gravity and perform other useful
miracles;
My son Geoff, who, though he
is no longer the five-year-old he was when I wrote the novel _Ender's Game_, is
still the model for Ender Wiggin;
My wife, Kristine, and the
children who were home during the writing of this book: Emily, Charlie Ben, and
Zina. Their patience with me when I was struggling to figure out the right
approach to this novel was surpassed only by their patience when I finally
found it and became possessed by the story. When I brought Bean home to a
loving family I knew what it should look like, because I see it every day.