1 Ender's Game (18 page)

  "Mostly all I can hit is his feet.”

  Ender turned to the boy next to him. "What about you?”

  "I can see his body.”

  "And you?”

  A boy a little farther down the wall answered. "All of him.”

  “Feet aren't very big. Not much protection.” Ender pushed the frozen soldier out of the way. Then he doubled his legs under him, as if he were kneeling in midair, and flashed his own legs. Immediately the legs of his suit went rigid, holding them in that position.

  Ender twisted himself in the air so that he knelt above the other boys.

  “What do you see?” he asked.

  A lot less, they said.

  Ender thrust his gun between his legs. “I can see fine,” he said, and proceeded to flash the boys directly under him. “Stop me!” he shouted. "Try and flash me!”

  They finally did, but not until he had flashed more than a third of them. He thumbed his hook and thawed himself and every other frozen soldier. “Now,” he said "which way is the enemy's gate?”

  "Down!”

  "And what is our attack position?”

  Some started to answer with words, but Bean answered by flipping himself away from the wall with his legs doubled under him, straight toward the opposite wall, flashing between his legs all the way.

  For a moment Ender wanted to shout at him, to punish him; then he caught himself, rejected the ungenerous impulse. Why should I be so angry at this little boy? “Is Bean the only one who knows how?” Ender shouted.

  Immediately the entire army pushed off toward the opposite wall, kneeling in the air, firing between their legs, shouting at the top of their lungs. There may be a time, thought Ender, when this is exactly the strategy I'll need -- forty screaming boys in an unbalancing attack.

  When they were all at the other side, Ender called for them to attack him, all at once. Yes, thought Ender. Not bad. They gave me an untrained army, with no excellent veterans, but at least it isn't a crop of fools. I can work with this.

  When they were assembled again, laughing and exhilarated, Ender began the real work. He had them freeze their legs in the kneeling position. "Now, what are your legs good for, in combat?”

  Nothing, said some boys.

  “Bean doesn't think so,” said Ender.

  "They're the best way to push off walls.”

  “Right,” Ender said, The other boy's started to complain that pushing off walls was movement, not combat.

  “There is no combat without movement,” Ender said. They fell silent and hated Bean a little more. "Now, with your legs frozen like this, can you push off walls?”

  No one dared answer, for fear they'd he wrong. “Bean?” asked Ender.

  "I've never tried it, 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?”

  Laughter.

  "But with my legs frozen, I use pretty much the same force, pushing downward from the hips and thighs, only now it pushes my shoulders and my feet backward, shoots out my hips, and when I come loose my body's tight, nothing stringing out behind me. Watch this.”

  Ender forced his hips forward, which shot him away from the wall; in a moment he readjusted his position and was kneeling, legs downward, rushing toward the opposite wall. He landed on his knees, flipped over on his back, and jackknifed off the wall in another direction. “Shoot me!” he shouted. Then he set himself spinning in the air as he took a course roughly parallel to the boys along the far wall. Because he was spinning, they couldn't get a continuous beam on him.

  He thawed his suit and hooked himself back to them. "That's what we're working on for the first half hour today. Build up some muscles you didn't know you had. Learn to use your legs as a shield and control your movements so you can get that spin. Spinning doesn't do any good up close, but far away, they can't hurt you if you're spinning -- at that distance the beam has to hit the same spot for a couple of moments, and if you're spinning it can't happen. Now freeze yourself and get started.”

  “Aren't you going to assign lanes?” asked a boy.

  "No I'm not going to assign lanes. I want you bumping into each other and learning how to deal with it all the time, except when we're practicing formations, and then I'll usually have you bump into each other on purpose. Now move!”

  When he said move, they moved.

  Ender was the last one out after practice, since he stayed to help some of the slower ones improve on technique. They'd had good teachers, but the inexperienced soldiers fresh out of their launch groups were completely helpless when it came to doing two or three things at the same time. It was fine to practice jackknifing with frozen legs, they had no trouble maneuvering in midair, but to launch in one direction, fire in another, spin twice, rebound with a jackknife off a wall, and come out firing, facing the right direction -- that was way beyond them. Drill drill drill, that was all Ender would be able to do with them for a while. Strategies and formations were nice, but they were nothing if the army didn't know how to handle themselves in battle.

  He had to get this army ready now. He was early at being a commander, and the teachers were changing the rules now, not letting him trade, giving him no top-notch veterans. There was no guarantee that they'd give him the usual three months to get his army together before sending them into battle.

  At least in the evenings he'd have Alai and Shen to help him train his new boys.

  He was still in the corridor leading out of the battleroom when he found himself face to face with little Bean. Bean looked angry. Ender didn't want problems right now.

  "Ho, Bean.”

  "Ho, Ender.”

  Pause.

  “Sir
,” Ender said softly.

  "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,”

  “And what do you want, love and kisses?” Ender was getting angry now.

  Bean looked unworried. "I want a toon.”

  Ender walked back to him and stood looking down into his eyes. "Why should you get a toon?”

  "Because I'd know what to do with it.”

  “Knowing what to do with a toon is easy,” Ender said. "It's getting them to do it that's hard. Why would any soldier want to follow a little pinprick like you?”

  "They used to call you that, I hear. I hear Bonzo Madrid still does.”

  "I asked you a question, soldier.”

  "I'll earn their respect, if you don't stop me.”

  Ender grinned. "I'm helping you.”

  “Like hell,” said Bean.

  "Nobody would notice you, except to feel sorry for the little kid. But I made sure they all noticed you today. They'll be watching every move you make. 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.”

  “Poor kid. Nobody's treatin’ him fair.” Ender gently pushed Bean back 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 smiled. "That's fair. If you actually work that way, I'll be a toon leader in a month.”

  Ender reached down and grabbed the front of his uniform and shoved him into the wall. "When I say I work a certain way, Bean, then that's the way I work.”

  Bean just smiled. Ender let go of him and walked away. When he got to his room he lay down on his bed and trembled. What am I doing? My first practice session and I'm already bullying people the way Bonzo did. And Peter. Shoving people around. Picking on some poor little kid so the others'll have somebody they all hate. Sickening. Everything I hated in a commander, and I'm doing it.

  Is it some law of human nature that you inevitably become whatever your first commander was? I can quit right now, if that's so.

  Over and over he thought of the things he did and said in his first practice with his new army. Why couldn't he talk like he always did in his evening practice group? No authority except excellence. Never had to give orders, just made suggestions. But that wouldn't work, not with an army. His informal practice group didn't have to learn to do things together. They didn't have to develop a group feeling; they never had to learn how to hold together and trust each other in battle. They didn't have to respond instantly to command.

  And he could go to the other extreme, too. He could be as lax and incompetent as Rose the Nose, if he wanted. He could make stupid mistakes no matter what he did. He had to have discipline, and that meant demanding -- and getting -- quick, decisive obedience.  He had to have a well-trained army, and that meant drilling the soldiers over and over again, long after they thought they had mastered a technique, until it was so natural to them that they didn't have to think about it anymore.

  But what was this thing with Bean? Why had he gone for the smallest, weakest, and possibly the brightest of the boys? Why had he done to Bean what had been done to Ender by commanders that he despised.

  Then he remembered that it hadn't begun with his commanders.  Before Rose and Bonzo had treated him with contempt, he had been isolated in his launch group. And it wasn't Bernard who began that, either.  It was Graff.

  It was the teachers who had done it. And it wasn't an accident. Ender realized that now. It was a strategy. Graff had deliberately set him up to be separate from the other boys, made it impossible for him to be close to them. And he began now to suspect the reasons behind it. It wasn't to unify the rest of the group -- in fact, it was divisive. Graff had isolated Ender to make him struggle. To make him prove, not that he was competent, but that he was far better than everyone else. That was the only way he could win respect and friendship. It made him a better soldier than he would ever have been otherwise. It also made him lonely, afraid, angry, untrusting. And maybe those traits, too, made him a better soldier.

  That's what I'm doing to you, Bean. I'm hurting you to make you a better soldier in every way. To sharpen your wit. To intensify your effort. To keep you off balance, never sure what's going to happen next, so you always have to be ready for anything, ready to improvise, determined to win no matter what. I'm also making you miserable. That's why they brought you to me, Bean. So you could be just like me. So you could grow up to be just like the old man.

  And me -- am I supposed to grow up like Graff? Fat and sour and unfeeling, manipulating the lives of little boys so they turn out factory perfect, generals and admirals ready to lead the fleet in defense of the homeland. You get all the pleasures of the puppeteer. Until you get a soldier who can do more than anyone else. You can't have that. It spoils the symmetry. You must get him in line, break him down, isolate him, beat him until he gets in line with everyone else.

  Well, what I've done to you this day, Bean, I've done. But I'll be watching you, more compassionately than you know, and when the time is right you'll find that I'm your friend, and you are the soldier you want to be.

  Ender did not go to classes that afternoon. He lay on his bunk and wrote down his impressions of each of the boys in his army, the things he noticed right about them, the things that needed more work. In practice tonight, he would talk with Alai and they'd figure out ways to teach small groups the things they needed to know. At least he wouldn't be in this thing alone.

  But when Ender got to the battleroom that night, while most others were still eating, he found Major Anderson waiting for him. "There has been a rule change, Ender. From now on, only members of the same army may work together in a battleroom during freetime. And, therefore, battlerooms are available only on a scheduled basis. After tonight, your next turn is in four days.”

  "Nobody else is holding extra practices.”

  "They are row, Ender. Now that you command another army, they don't want their boys practicing with you. Surely you can understand that. So they'll conduct their own practices.”

  "I've always been in another army from them. They still sent their soldiers to me for training.”

  "You weren't commander then.”

  "You gave me a completely green army, Major Anderson, sir--”

  "You have quite a few veterans.”

  "They aren't any good.”

  "Nobody gets here without being brilliant, Ender. Make them good.”

  "I needed Alai and Shen to--”

  "It's about time you grew up and did some things on your own, Ender. You don't need these other boys to hold your hand. You're a commander now.  So kindly act like it, Ender.”

  Ender walked past Anderson toward the battleroom. Then he stopped, turned, asked a question. "Since these evening practices are now regularly scheduled, does it mean I can use the hook?”

  Did Anderson almost smile? No. Not a chance of that. “We'll see,” he said.

 
 Ender turned his back and went on into the battleroom. Soon his army arrived, and no one else; either Anderson waited around to intercept anyone coming to Ender's practice group, or word had already passed through the whole school that Ender's informal evenings were through.

  It was a good practice, they accomplished a lot, but at the end of it Ender was tired and lonely. There was a half hour before bedtime. He couldn't go into his army's barracks -- he had long since learned that the best commanders stay away unless they have some reason to visit. The boys have to have a chance to be at peace, at rest, without someone listening to favor or despise them depending on the way they talk and act and think.

  So he wandered to the game room, where a few other boys were using the last half hour before final bell to settle bets or beat their previous scores on the games. None of the games looked interesting, but he played one anyway, an easy animated game designed for Launchies. Bored, he ignored the objectives of the game and used the little player-figure, a bear, to explore the animated scenery around him.