The Ender Quintet (Omnibus) Page 6

  “Looks like you’ve got it made here,” whispered the boy next to him.

  Ender shook his head.

  “Oh, won’t even talk to me?” the boy said.

  “I didn’t ask him to say that stuff,” Ender whispered.

  He felt a sharp pain on the top of his head. Then again. Some giggles from behind him. The boy in the next seat back must have unfastened his straps. Again a blow to the head. Go away, Ender thought. I didn’t do anything to you.

  Again a blow to the head. Laughter from the boys. Didn’t Graff see this? Wasn’t he going to stop it? Another blow. Harder. It really hurt. Where was Graff?

  Then it became clear. Graff had deliberately caused it. It was worse than the abuse in the shows. When the sergeant picked on you, the others liked you better. But when the officer prefers you, the others hate you.

  “Hey, fart-eater,” came the whisper from behind him. He was hit on the head again. “Do you like this? Hey, super-brain, is this fun?” Another blow, this one so hard that Ender cried out softly with the pain.

  If Graff was setting him up, there’d be no help unless he helped himself. He waited until he thought another blow was about to come. Now, he thought. And yes, the blow was there. It hurt, but Ender was already trying to sense the coming of the next blow. Now. And yes, right on time. I’ve got you, Ender thought.

  Just as the next blow was coming, Ender reached up with both hands, snatched the boy by the wrist, and then pulled down on the arm, hard.

  In gravity, the boy would have been jammed against Ender’s seat back, hurting his chest. In null gravity, however, he flipped over the seat completely, up toward the ceiling. Ender wasn’t expecting it. He hadn’t realized how null gravity magnified the effects of even a child’s movements. The boy sailed through the air, bouncing against the ceiling, then down against another boy in his seat, then out into the aisle, his arms flailing until he screamed as his body slammed into the bulkhead at the front of the compartment, his left arm twisted under him.

  It took only seconds. Graff was already there, snatching the boy out of the air. Deftly he propelled him down the aisle toward the other man. “Left arm. Broken, I think,” he said. In moments the boy had been given a drug and lay quietly in the air as the officer ballooned a splint around his arm.

  Ender felt sick. He had only meant to catch the boy’s arm. No. No, he had meant to hurt him, and had pulled with all his strength. He hadn’t meant it to be so public, but the boy was feeling exactly the pain Ender had meant him to feel. Null gravity had betrayed him, that was all. I am Peter. I’m just like him. And Ender hated himself.

  Graff stayed at the front of the cabin. “What are you, slow learners? In your feeble little minds, haven’t you picked up one little fact? You were brought here to be soldiers. In your old schools, in your old families, maybe you were the big shot, maybe you were tough, maybe you were smart. But we chose the best of the best, and that’s the only kind of kid you’re going to meet now. And when I tell you Ender Wiggin is the best in this launch, take the hint, my little dorklings. Don’t mess with him. Little boys have died in Battle School before. Do I make myself clear?”

  There was silence the rest of the launch. The boy sitting next to Ender was scrupulously careful not to touch him.

  I am not a killer, Ender said to himself over and over. I am not Peter. No matter what Graff says, I’m not. I was defending myself. I bore it a long time. I was patient. I’m not what he said.

  A voice over the speaker told them they were approaching the school; it took twenty minutes to decelerate and dock. Ender lagged behind the others. They were not unwilling to let him be the last to leave the shuttle, climbing upward in the direction that had been down when they embarked. Graff was waiting at the end of the narrow tube that led from the shuttle into the heart of the Battle School.

  “Was it a good flight, Ender?” Graff asked cheerfully.

  “I thought you were my friend.” Despite himself, Ender’s voice trembled.

  Graff looked puzzled. “Whatever gave you that idea, Ender?”

  “Because you—” Because you spoke nicely to me, and honestly. “You didn’t lie.”

  “I won’t lie now, either,” said Graff. “My job isn’t to be friends. My job is to produce the best soldiers in the world. In the whole history of the world. We need a Napoleon. An Alexander. Except that Napoleon lost in the end, and Alexander flamed out and died young. We need a Julius Caesar, except that he made himself dictator, and died for it. My job is to produce such a creature, and all the men and women he’ll need to help him. Nowhere in that does it say I have to make friends with children.”

  “You made them hate me.”

  “So? What will you do about it? Crawl into a corner? Start kissing their little backsides so they’ll love you again? There’s only one thing that will make them stop hating you. And that’s being so good at what you do that they can’t ignore you. I told them you were the best. Now you damn well better be.”

  “What if I can’t?”

  “Then too bad. Look, Ender, I’m sorry if you’re lonely and afraid. But the buggers are out there. Ten billion, a hundred billion, a million billion of them, for all we know. With as many ships, for all we know. With weapons we can’t understand. And a willingness to use those weapons to wipe us out. It isn’t the world at stake, Ender. Just us. Just humankind. As far as the rest of the biosphere is concerned, we could be wiped out and it would adjust, it would get on with the next step in evolution. But humanity doesn’t want to die. As a species, we have evolved to survive. And the way we do it is by straining and straining and, at last, every few generations, giving birth to genius. The one who invents the wheel. And light. And flight. The one who builds a city, a nation, an empire. Do you understand any of this?”

  Ender thought he did, but wasn’t sure, and so said nothing.

  “No. Of course not. So I’ll put it bluntly. Human beings are free except when humanity needs them. Maybe humanity needs you. To do something. Maybe humanity needs me—to find out what you’re good for. We might both do despicable things, Ender, but if humankind survives, then we were good tools.”

  “Is that all? Just tools?”

  “Individual human beings are all tools, that the others use to help us all survive.”

  “That’s a lie.”

  “No. It’s just a half truth. You can worry about the other half after we win this war.”

  “It’ll be over before I grow up,” Ender said.

  “I hope you’re wrong,” said Graff. “By the way, you aren’t helping yourself at all, talking to me. The other boys are no doubt telling each other that old Ender Wiggin is back there licking up to Graff. If word once gets around that you’re a teachers’ boy, you’re iced for sure.”

  In other words, go away and leave me alone. “Goodbye,” Ender said. He pulled himself hand over hand along the tube where the other boys had gone.

  Graff watched him go.

  One of the teachers near him said, “Is that the one?”

  “God knows,” said Graff. “If Ender isn’t him, then he’d better show up soon.”

  “Maybe it’s nobody,” said the teacher.

  “Maybe. But if that’s the case, Anderson, then in my opinion God is a bugger. You can quote me on that.”

  “I will.”

  They stood in silence a while longer.

  “Anderson.”

  “Mmm.”

  “The kid’s wrong. I am his friend.”

  “I know.”

  “He’s clean. Right to the heart, he’s good.”

  “I’ve read the reports.”

  “Anderson, think what we’re going to do to him.”

  Anderson was defiant. “We’re going to make him the best military commander in history.”

  “And then put the fate of the world on his shoulders. For his sake, I hope it isn’t him. I do.”

  “Cheer up. The buggers may kill us all before he graduates.”

  Graff smile
d. “You’re right. I feel better already.”

  5

  GAMES

  “You have my admiration. Breaking an arm—that was a master stroke.”

  “That was an accident.”

  “Really? And I’ve already commended you in your official report.”

  “It’s too strong. It makes that other little bastard into a hero. It could screw up training for a lot of kids. I thought Ender might call for help.”

  “Call for help? I thought that was what you valued most in him—that he settles his own problems. When he’s out there surrounded by an enemy fleet, there ain’t gonna be nobody to help him if he calls.”

  “Who would have guessed the little sucker’d be out of his seat? And that he’d land just wrong against the bulkhead?”

  “Just one more example of the stupidity of the military. If you had any brains, you’d be in a real career, like selling life insurance.”

  “You, too, mastermind.”

  “We’ve just got to face the fact that we’re second rate. With the fate of humanity in our hands. Gives you a delicious feeling of power, doesn’t it? Especially because this time if we lose there won’t be any criticism of us at all.”

  “I never thought of it that way. But let’s not lose.”

  “See how Ender handles it. If we’ve already lost him, if he can’t handle this, who next? Who else?”

  “I’ll make up a list.”

  “In the meantime, figure out how to unlose Ender.”

  “I told you. His isolation can’t be broken. He can never come to believe that anybody will ever help him out, ever. If he once thinks there’s an easy way out, he’s wrecked.”

  “You’re right. That would be terrible, if he believed he had a friend.”

  “He can have friends. It’s parents he can’t have.”

  The other boys had already chosen their bunks when Ender arrived. Ender stopped in the doorway of the dormitory, looking for the sole remaining bed. The ceiling was low—Ender could reach up and touch it. A child-sized room, with the bottom bunk resting on the floor. The other boys were watching him, cornerwise. Sure enough, the bottom bunk right by the door was the only empty bed. For a moment it occurred to Ender that by letting the others put him in the worst place, he was inviting later bullying. Yet he couldn’t very well oust someone else.

  So he smiled broadly. “Hey, thanks,” he said. Not sarcastically at all. He said it as sincerely as if they had reserved for him the best position. “I thought I was going to have to ask for low bunk by the door.”

  He sat down and looked in the locker that stood open at the foot of the bunk. There was a paper taped to the inside of the door.

  PLACE YOUR HAND ON THE SCANNER

  AT THE HEAD OF YOUR BUNK

  AND SPEAK YOUR NAME TWICE.

  Ender found the scanner, a sheet of opaque plastic. He put his left hand on it and said, “Ender Wiggin. Ender Wiggin.”

  The scanner glowed green for a moment. Ender closed his locker and tried to reopen it. He couldn’t. Then he put his hand on the scanner and said, “Ender Wiggin.” The locker popped open. So did three other compartments.

  One of them contained four jumpsuits like the one he was wearing, and one white one. Another compartment contained a small desk, just like the ones at school. So they weren’t through with studies yet.

  It was the largest compartment that contained the prize. It looked like a spacesuit at first glance, complete with helmet and gloves. But it wasn’t. There was no airtight seal. Still, it would effectively cover the whole body. It was thickly padded. It was also a little stiff.

  And there was a pistol within. A lasergun, it looked like, since the end was solid, clear glass. But surely they wouldn’t let children have lethal weapons—

  “Not a laser,” said a man. Ender looked up. It was one he hadn’t seen before. A young and kind-looking man. “But it has a tight enough beam. Well-focused. You can aim it and make a three-inch circle of light on a wall a hundred meters off.”

  “What’s it for?” Ender asked.

  “One of the games we play during recreation. Does anyone else have his locker open?” The man looked around. “I mean, have you followed directions and coded in your voices and hands? You can’t get into the lockers until you do. This room is your home for the first year or so here at the Battle School, so get the bunk you want and stay with it. Ordinarily, we let you elect your chief officer and install him in the lower bunk by the door, but apparently that position has been taken. Can’t recode the lockers now. So think about whom you want to choose. Dinner in seven minutes. Follow the lighted dots on the floor. Your color code is red yellow yellow—whenever you’re assigned a path to follow, it will be red yellow yellow, three dots side by side—go where those lights indicate. What’s your color code, boys?”

  “Red, yellow, yellow.”

  “Very good. My name is Dap. I’m your mom for the next few months.”

  The boys laughed.

  “Laugh all you like, but keep it in mind. If you get lost in the school, which is quite possible, don’t go opening doors. Some of them lead outside.” More laughter. “Instead just tell someone that your mom is Dap, and they’ll call me. Or tell them your color, and they’ll light up a path for you to get home. If you have a problem, come talk to me. Remember, I’m the only person here who’s paid to be nice to you. But not too nice. Give me any lip and I’ll break your face. OK?”

  They laughed again. Dap had a room full of friends. Frightened children are so easy to win.

  “Which way is down, anybody tell me?”

  They told him.

  “OK, that’s true. But that direction is toward the outside. The ship is spinning, and that’s what makes it feel like that is down. The floor actually curves around in that direction. Keep going long enough that way, and you come back to where you started. Except don’t try it. Because up that way is teachers’ quarters, and up that way is the bigger kids. And the bigger kids don’t like Launchies butting in. You might get pushed around. In fact, you will get pushed around. And when you do, don’t come crying to me. Got it? This is Battle School, not nursery school.”

  “What are we supposed to do, then?” asked a boy, a really small black kid who had a top bunk near Ender’s.

  “If you don’t like getting pushed around, figure out for yourself what to do about it. But I warn you—murder is strictly against the rules. So is any deliberate injury. I understand there was one attempted murder on the way up here. A broken arm. That kind of thing happens again, somebody ices out. You got it?”

  “What’s icing out?” asked the boy with his arm puffed up in a splint.

  “Ice. Put out in the cold. Sent Earthside. Finished at Battle School.”

  Nobody looked at Ender.

  “So, boys, if any of you are thinking of being troublemakers, at least be clever about it, OK?”

  Dap left. They still didn’t look at Ender.

  Ender felt the fear growing in his belly. The kid whose arm he broke—Ender didn’t feel sorry for him. He was a Stilson. And like Stilson, he was already gathering a gang. A little knot of kids, several of the bigger ones. They were laughing at the far end of the room, and every now and then one of them would turn to look at Ender.

  With all his heart, Ender wanted to go home. What did any of this have to do with saving the world? There was no monitor now. It was Ender against the gang again, only they were right in his room. Peter again, but without Valentine.

  The fear stayed, all through dinner as no one sat by him in the mess hall. The other boys were talking about things—the big scoreboard on one wall, the food, the bigger kids. Ender could only watch in isolation.

  The scoreboards were team standings. Win-loss records, with the most recent scores. Some of the bigger boys apparently had bets on the most recent games. Two teams, Manticore and Asp, had no recent score—these boxes were flashing. Ender decided they must be playing right now.

  He noticed that the older boys wer
e divided into groups, according to the uniforms they wore. Some with different uniforms were talking together, but generally the groups each had their own area. Launchies—their own group, and the two or three next older groups—all had plain blue uniforms. But the big kids, the ones that were on teams, they were wearing much more flamboyant clothing. Ender tried to guess which ones went with which name. Scorpion and Spider were easy. So were Flame and Tide.

  A bigger boy came to sit by him. Not just a little bigger—he looked to be twelve or thirteen. Getting his man’s growth started.

  “Hi,” he said.

  “Hi,” Ender said.

  “I’m Mick.”

  “Ender.”

  “That’s a name?”

  “Since I was little. It’s what my sister called me.”

  “Not a bad name here. Ender. Finisher. Hey.”

  “Hope so.”

  “Ender, you the bugger in your launch?”

  Ender shrugged.

  “I noticed you eating all alone. Every launch has one like that. Kid that nobody takes to right away. Sometimes I think the teachers do it on purpose. The teachers aren’t very nice. You’ll notice that.”

  “Yeah.”

  “So you the bugger?”

  “I guess so.”

  “Hey. Nothing to cry about, you know?” He gave Ender his roll, and took Ender’s pudding. “Eat nutritious stuff. It’ll keep you strong.” Mick dug into the pudding.

  “What about you?” asked Ender.

  “Me? I’m nothing. I’m a fart in the air conditioning. I’m always there, but most of the time nobody knows it.”

  Ender smiled tentatively.

  “Yeah, funny, but no joke. I got nowhere here. I’m getting big now. They’re going to send me to my next school pretty soon. No way it’ll be Tactical School for me. I’ve never been a leader, you see. Only the guys who get to be leaders have a shot at it.”

  “How do you get to be a leader?”