1 Ender's Game (17 page)

  As always the serpent waited in the tower room, unraveling itself from the rug on the floor. But this time Ender didn't grind it underfoot. This time he caught it in his hands, knelt before it, and gently, so gently, brought the snake's gaping mouth to his lips.

  And kissed.

  He had not meant to do that. He had meant to let the snake bite him on the mouth.  Or perhaps he had meant to eat the snake alive, as Peter in the mirror had done, with his bloody chin and the snake's tail dangling from his lips. But he kissed it instead.

  And the snake in his hands thickened and bent into another shape. A human shape. It was Valentine, and she kissed him again.

  The snake could not be Valentine. He had killed it too often for it to be his sister. Peter had devoured it too often to bear it that it might have been Valentine all along.

  Was this what they planned when they let him read her letter? He didn't care.

  She arose from the floor of the tower room and walked to the mirror. Ender made his figure also rise and go with her. They stood before the mirror, where instead of Peter's cruel reflection there stood a dragon and a unicorn. Ender reached out his hand and touched the mirror; the wall fell open and revealed a great stairway downward, carpeted and lined with shouting, cheering multitudes. Together, arm in arm, he and Valentine walked down the stairs. Tears filled his eyes, tears of relief that at last he had broken free of the End of the World. And because of the tears, he didn't notice that every member of the multitude wore Peter's face. He only knew that wherever he went in this world, Valentine was with him.

  Valentine read the letter that Dr. Lineberry had given her. “Dear Valentine,” it said, "We thank you and commend you for your efforts on behalf of the war effort. You are hereby notified that you have been awarded the Star of the Order of the League of Humanity, First Class, which is the highest military award that can be given to a civilian. Unfortunately, I.F. security forbids us to make this award public until after the successful conclusion of current operations, but we want you to know that your efforts resulted in complete success. Sincerely, General Shimon Levy, Strategos.”

  When she had read it twice Dr. Lineberry took it from her hands. “I was instructed to let you read it, and then destroy it.” She took a cigarette lighter from a drawer and set the paper afire. It burned brightly in the ashtray. “Was it good or bad news?” she asked.

  “I sold my brother,” Valentine said, "and they paid me for it.”

  "That's a bit melodramatic, isn't it, Valentine?”

  Valentine went back to class without answering.

  That night Demosthenes published a scathing denunciation of the population limitation laws. People should be allowed to have as many children as they like, and the surplus population should be sent to other worlds, to spread mankind so far across the galaxy that no disaster, no invasion could ever threaten the human race with annihilation. “The most noble title any child can have,” Demosthenes wrote, "is Third.”

  For you, Ender, she said to herself as she wrote.

  Peter laughed in delight when he read it. "That'll make them sit up and take notice. Third! A noble title! Oh, you have a wicked streak.”

Dragon

 
"Now?”

  "I suppose so.

  "It has to be an order, Colonel Graff. Armies don't move because a commander says 'I suppose it's time to attack.'“

  "I'm not a commander. I'm a teacher of little children.”

  "Colonel, sir, I admit I was on you, I admit I was a pain in the ass, but it worked, everything worked just like you wanted it to. The last few weeks Ender's even been, been--”

  "Happy.”

  "Content. He's doing well. His mind is keen, his play is excellent. Young as he is. we've never had a boy better prepared for command. Usually they go at eleven. but at nine and a half he's top flight.”

  "Well, yes. For a few minutes there, it actually occurred to me to wonder what kind of a man would heal a broken child of some of his hurt, just so he could throw him back into battle again. A little private moral dilemma. Please overlook it. I was tired.”

  "Saving the world, remember?”

  "Call him in.”

  "We're doing what must be done, Colonel Graff.”

  "Come on, Anderson, you're just dying to see how he handles all those rigged games I had you work out.”

  "That's a pretty low thing to--”

  "So I'm a low kind of guy. Come on, Major. We're both the scum of the earth. I'm dying to see how he handles them, too. After all, our lives depend on him doing real well. Neh?”

  "You're not starting to use the boys' slang, are you?”

  "Call him in, Major. I'll dump the rosters into his files and give him his security system. What we're doing to him isn't all bad, you know. He gets his privacy again.”

  "Isolation, you mean.”

  "The loneliness of power. Go call him in.”

  "Yes sir. I'll be back with him in fifteen minutes.”

  "Good-bye. Yes sir yessir yezzir. I hope you had fun, I hope you had a nice, nice time being happy, Ender. It might be the last time in your life. Welcome, little boy. Your dear Uncle Graff has plans for you.”

  Ender knew what was happening from the moment they brought him in. Everyone expected him to go commander early. Perhaps not this early, but he had topped the standings almost continuously for three years, no one else was remotely close to him, and his evening practices had become the most prestigious group in the school. There were some who wondered why the teachers had waited this long.

  He wondered which army they'd give him. Three commanders were graduating soon, including Petra, but it was beyond hope for them to give him Phoenix Army. No one ever succeeded to command of the same army he was in when he was promoted.

  Anderson took him first to his new quarters. That sealed it -- only commanders had private rooms. Then he had him fitted for new uniforms and a new flash suit. He looked on the forms to discover the name of his army.

  Dragon, said the form. There was no Dragon Army.

  “I've never heard of Dragon Army,” Ender said.

  "That's because there hasn't been a Dragon Army in four years. We discontinued the name because there was a superstition about it. No Dragon Army in the history of the Battle School ever won even a third of its games. It got to be a joke.”

  "Well, why are you reviving it now?”

  "We had a lot of extra uniforms to use up.”

 
 Graff sat at his desk, looking fatter and wearier than the last time Ender had seen him. He handed Ender his hook, the small box that commanders used to go where they wanted in the battleroom during practices. Many times during his evening practice sessions Ender wished that he had a hook, instead of having to rebound off walls to get where he wanted to go. Now that he'd got quite deft at maneuvering without one, here it was. “It only works,” Anderson pointed out, “during your regularly scheduled practice sessions.”  Since Ender already planned to have extra practices, it meant the hook would only be useful some of the time.  It also explained why so many commanders never held extra practices. They depended on the hook, and it wouldn't do anything for them during the extra times. If they felt that the hook was their authority, their power over the other boys, then they were even less likely to work without it. That's an advantage I'll have over some of my enemies, Ender thought.

  Graff's official welcome speech sounded bored and over-rehearsed. Only at the end did he begin to sound interested in his own words. "We're doing something unusual with Dragon Army. I hope you don't mind. We've assembled a new army by advancing the equivalent of an entire launch course early and delaying the graduation of quite a few advanced students. I think you'll be pleased with the quality of your soldiers. I hope you are, because we're forbidding you to transfer any of them.”

  “No trades?” asked Ender. It was how commanders always shored up their weak points, by trading around.

  "None. You see, you have been conducting your extra practice sessions for three years now. You have a following. Many good soldiers would put unfair pressure on their commanders to trade them into your army. We've given you an army that can, in time, be competitive. We have no intention of letting you dominate unfairly.”

  "What if I've got a soldier I just can't get along with?”

  “Get along with him.” Graff closed his eyes. Anderson stood up and the interview was over.

  Dragon was assigned the colors grey, orange, grey; Ender changed into his flash suit, then followed the ribbons of light until he came to the barracks that contained his army. They were there already, milling around near the entrance. Ender took charge at once. "Bunking will be arranged by seniority. Veterans to the back of the room, newest soldiers to the front.”

  It was the reverse of the usual pattern, and Ender knew it. He also knew that he didn't intend to be like many commanders, who never even saw the younger boys because they were always in the back.

  As they sorted themselves out according to their arrival dates, Ender walked up and down the aisle. Almost thirty of his soldiers were new, straight out of their launch group. completely inexperienced in battle. Some were even underage -- the ones nearest the door were pathetically small. Ender reminded himself that that's how he must have looked to Bonzo Madrid when he first arrived. Still, Bonzo had had only one underage soldier to cope with.

  Not one of the veterans belonged to Ender's elite practice group. None had ever been a toon leader. None, in fact, was older than Ender himself, which meant that even his veterans didn't have more than eighteen months' experience. Some he didn't even recognize, they had made so little impression.

  They recognized Ender, of course, since he was the most celebrated soldier in the school. And some, Ender could see, resented him. At least they did me one favor -- none of my soldiers is older than me.

  As soon as each soldier had a bunk, Ender ordered them to put on their flash suits and come to practice. “We're on the morning schedule, 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.” After three minutes, though many of them still weren't dressed, he ordered them out of the room.

  “But I'm naked!” said one boy.

  “Dress faster next time. Three minutes from first call to running out the door -- that's the rule this week. Next week the rule is two minutes. Move!” It would soon be a joke in the rest of the school that Dragon Army was so dumb they had to practice getting dressed.

  Five of the boys were completely naked, carrying their flash suits as they ran through the corridors; few were fully dressed. They attracted a lot of attention as they passed open classroom doors. No one would be late again if he could help it.

  In the corridors leading to the battleroom, Ender made them run back and forth in the halls, fast, so they were sweating a little, while the naked ones got dressed. Then he led them to the upper door, the one that opened into the middle of the battleroom just like the doors in the actual games. Then he made them jump up and use the ceiling handholds to hurl themselves into the room. “Assemble on the far wall,” he said.  "As if you were going for the enemy's gate.”

  They revealed themselves as they jumped, four at a time, through the door. Almost none of them knew how to establish a direct line to the target, and when they reached the far wall few of the new ones had any idea how to catch on or even control their rebounds.

  The last boy out was a small kid, obviously underage. There was no way he was going to reach the ceiling handhold.

  “You can use a side handhold if you want,” Ender said.

  “Go suck on it,” said the boy. He took a flying leap, touched the ceiling handhold with a finger tip, and hurtled through the door with no control at all, spinning in three directions at once. Ender tried to decide whether to like the little kid for refusing to take a concession or to be annoyed at his insubordinate attitude.

  They finally got themselves together along the wall. Ender noticed that without exception they had lined up with their heads still in the direction that had been up in the corridor. So Ender deliberately took hold of what they were treating as a floor and dangled from it upside down. “Why are you upside down, soldiers?” he demanded.

  Some of them started to turn the other way.

  “Attention!” They held still. "I said why are you upside down!”

  No one answered. They didn't know what he expected.

  "I said why does every one of you have his feet in the air and his head toward the ground!”

  Finally one of them spoke. "Sir, this is the direction we were in coming out of the door.”

  "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. No sir
.

  "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's gate. Up is toward your own gate. North is that way, south is that way, east is that way, west is -- what way?”

  They pointed.

  "That's what I expected. 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. 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!”

  As Ender expected, a good number of them instinctively launched, not toward the wall with the door in it, but toward the wall that Ender had called north, the direction that had been up when they were in the corridor.  Of course they quickly realized their mistake, but too late -- they had to wait to change things until they had rebounded off the north wall.

  In the meantime, Ender was mentally grouping them into slow learners and fast learners. The littlest kid, the one who had been last out of the door, was the first to arrive at the correct wall, and he caught himself adroitly. They had been right to advance him. He'd do well. He was also cocky and rebellious, and probably resented the fact that he had been one of the ones Ender had sent naked through the corridors.

  “You!” Ender said, pointing at the small one. "Which way is down?”

  “Toward the enemy door.” The answer was quick. It was also surly, as if to say, OK, OK, now get on with the important stuff.

  "Name, kid?”

  "This soldier's name is Bean, sir.”

  “Get that for size or for brains?” The other boys laughed a little. "Well, Bean, you're right onto things. Now listen to me, because this matters. Nobody's going to get through that door without a good chance of getting hit. In the old days, you had ten, twenty seconds before you even had to move. Now if you aren't already streaming out of the door when the enemy comes out, you're frozen. Now, what happens when you're frozen?”

  “Can't move,” one of the boys said.

  “That's what frozen means,” Ender said. "But what happens to you?”

  It was Bean, not intimidated at all, who answered intelligently. "You keep going in the direction you started in. At the speed you were going when you were flashed.”

  "That's true. You five, there on the end, move!”

  Startled, the boys looked at each other, Ender flashed them all. "The next five, move!”

  They moved. Ender flashed them, too, but they kept moving, heading toward the walls. The first five, though, were drifting uselessly near the main group.

  “Look at these so-called soldiers,” Ender said. "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. And no doubt Bean is one of them. Right, Bean?”

  He didn't answer at first. Ender looked at him until he said, "Right, sir.”

  "Then what is the point?”

  "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.” Ender could see resentment growing in the way the other soldiers shifted their weight and glanced at each other, the way they avoided looking at Bean. Why am I doing this? What does this have to do with being a good commander, making one boy the target of all the others? Just because they did it to me, why should I do it to him? Ender wanted to undo his taunting of the boy, wanted to tell the others that the little one needed their help and friendship more than anyone else. But of course Ender couldn't do that. Not on the first day. On the first day even his mistakes had to look like part of a brilliant plan.

  Ender hooked himself nearer the wall and pulled one of the boys away from the others. “Keep your body straight,” said Ender. He rotated the boy in midair so his feet pointed toward the others. When the boy kept moving his body, Ender flashed him. The others laughed. “How much of his body could you shoot?” Ender asked a boy directly under the frozen soldier's feet.