IGMS Issue 8 (22 page)

The woman isn't old, thought Valentine. She's still young and quite good looking. Beautiful, even, especially now, especially in this strange fairyish dance.

The song ended. Dorabella kept dancing in the silence.

"Mother, you can stop flying now," said Alessandra gently.

"But I can't," said Dorabella, and now she was openly teasing. "In this starship we fly for fifty years!"

"Forty years," said Ender.

"Two years," said Alessandra.

Apparently Ender liked the idea of doing a play, because he brought them all back to the topic. "Not Romeo and Juliet," he said. "We need a comedy, not a tragedy."

"The Merry Wives of Windsor," said Valentine. "Lots of women's parts."

"The Taming of the Shrew!" cried Alessandra, and Dorabella almost collapsed with laughter. Another reference, apparently, to Isabella.

And so it was that the plan was conceived for a play reading in the theater three days later -- days by ship's time, though the whole concept of time seemed rather absurd to Valentine, on this voyage where forty years would pass in less than two. What would her birthday be
now
? Would she count her age by ship's time or the elapsed calendar when she arrived? And what did Earth's calendar mean on Shakespeare?

Naturally, Dorabella and Alessandra came to Ender often during the days of preparation, asking him endless questions. Even though he made it clear that all the decisions were up to them, that he was not in charge of the event, he was never impatient with them. He seemed to enjoy their company -- though Valentine suspected that it was not for the reason Dorabella had hoped. Ender wasn't falling in love with Alessandra -- if he was infatuated with anyone, it was likely to be the mother. No, what Ender was falling in love with was the family-ness of them. They were close in a way that Ender and Valentine had once been close. And they were including Ender in that closeness.

Why couldn't I have done that for him? Valentine was quite jealous, but only because of her own failure, not because she wished to deprive him of the pleasure he was getting from the Toscanos.

It was inevitable, of course, that they enlisted Ender himself to read the part of Lucentio, the handsome young suitor of Bianca -- played, of course, by Alessandra. Dorabella herself read Kate the shrew, while Valentine was relegated to the part of the Widow. Valentine didn't even pretend not to want to read the part -- this was the most interesting thing going on in the ship, and why not be at the heart of it? She was Ender's sister; let people hear her voice, especially in the ribald, exaggerated part of the widow.

It was entertaining for Valentine to see how the men and boys who were cast in the many other parts focused on Dorabella. The woman had an incredible laugh, rich and throaty and contagious. To earn a laugh from her in this comedy was a fine thing, and the men all vied to please her. It made Valentine wonder if getting Ender and Alessandra together was really Dorabella's agenda? Perhaps it's what she
thought
she was doing, but in fact Dorabella held the center of the stage herself, and seemed to love having all eyes on her. She flirted with them all, fell in love with them all, and yet always seemed to be in a world of her own, too.

Has Kate the Shrew ever been played like this before?

Does every woman have what this Dorabella has? Valentine searched in her heart to find that kind of ebullience. I know how to have fun, Valentine insisted to herself. I know how to be playful.

But she knew there was always irony in her wit, a kind of snottiness in her banter. Alessandra's timidity covered everything she did -- she was bold in what she said, but it was as if her own words surprised and embarrassed her after the fact. Dorabella, however, was neither ironic nor frightened. Here was a woman who had faced all her dragons and slain them; now she was ready for the accolades of the admiring throng. She cried out Kate's dialogue from the heart, her rage, her passion, her petulance, her frustration, and finally her love. The final monologue, in which she submits to her husband's will, was so beautiful it made Valentine cry a little, and she thought: I wonder what it would be like to love and trust a man so much that I'd be willing to abase myself as Kate did. Is there something in women that makes us long to be humbled? Or is it something in human beings, that when we are overmastered, we rejoice in our subjection? That would explain a lot of history.

Since everyone who was interested in the play was already in it, and attending the rehearsals, it's not as if the actual performance was going to surprise anyone. Valentine almost asked the whole group, at the last rehearsal, "Why bother to put it on? We just did it, and it was wonderful."

But there was still a kind of excitement throughout the ship about the coming performance, and Valentine realized that rehearsal was not performance, no matter how well it went. And there would be others there after all, who had not been at the last rehearsal: Dorabella was going around inviting members of the crew, many of whom promised to come. And passengers who weren't in the play seemed excited about coming, and some were openly rueful about having declined to take part. "Next time," they said.

When they got to the theater at the appointed time, they found Jarrko standing at the door, a stiff, formal expression on his face. No, the theater would not be opened; by order of the Admiral, the play reading had been canceled.

"Ah, Governor Wiggin," said Jarrko.

A bad sign, if the title was back, thought Valentine.

"Admiral Morgan would like to see you at once, if you please, sir."

Ender nodded and smiled. "Of course," he said.

So Ender had
expected
this? Or was he really that perfectly poised, so it
seemed
that nothing surprised him?

Valentine started to go with him, but Jarrko touched her shoulder. "Please, Val," he whispered. "Alone."

Ender grinned at her and took off with real bounce in his step, as if he was truly excited to be going to see the admiral.

"What's this about?" Valentine asked Jarrko quietly.

"I can't say," he said. "Truly. Just have my orders. No play, theater closed for the night, would the Governor please come see the Admiral immediately."

So Valentine stayed with Jarrko, helping soothe the players and other colonists, whose reactions ranged from disappointment to outrage to revolutionary fervor. Some of them even started reciting lines there in the corridor, until Valentine asked them not to. "Poor Colonel Kitunen will be in trouble if you keep this up, and he's too nice to stop you himself."

The result was that everyone was quite angry with Admiral Morgan for his arbitrary cancellation of a completely harmless event. And Valentine herself couldn't help but wonder: What was the man thinking? Hadn't he ever heard of morale? Maybe he'd heard of it, but was against it.

Something was going on here, and Valentine began to wonder if somehow Ender was behind it. Could it be that in his own way, Ender was just as sneaky and snaky as Peter?

No. Not possible. Especially because Valentine could always see through Peter. Ender wasn't devious at all. He always said what he meant and meant what he said.

What is the boy doing?

Admiral Morgan kept Ender waiting outside his office for two full hours. It was exactly what Ender expected, however, so he closed his eyes and used the time to take a long, refreshing nap. He awoke to hear someone shouting from the other side of a door: "Well, wake him up and send him in, I'm ready!"

Ender sat up immediately, instantly aware of his surroundings. Even though he had never knowingly been in combat, he had acquired the military habit of remaining alert even when asleep. By the time the ensign whose duty was to waken him arrived, Ender was already standing up and smiling. "I understand it's time for my meeting with Admiral Morgan."

"Yes sir, if you please sir." The poor kid (well, six or seven years older than Ender, but still young to have an admiral yelling at him all day) was all over himself with eagerness to please Ender. So Ender made it a point to be visibly pleased. "He's in a temper," the ensign whispered.

"Let's see if I can cheer him up a little," said Ender.

"Not bloody likely," whispered the ensign. Then he had the door open. "Admiral Andrew Wiggin, sir." Ender stepped in as he was announced; the ensign beat a hasty retreat and shut the door behind him.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" demanded Admiral Morgan, his face livid. Since Ender had been napping for two hours, that meant either that Morgan had maintained his lividity throughout the interim, or he was able to switch it on at will, for effect. Ender was betting on the latter.

"I'm meeting with the captain of the ship, at his request."

"
Sir
," said Admiral Morgan.

"Oh, you don't need to call me
sir
," said Ender. "Andrew will do. I don't like to insist on the privileges of rank." Ender sat down in a comfortable chair beside Morgan's desk, instead of the stiff chair directly in front of it.

"On my ship you have no rank," said Morgan.

"I have no authority," said Ender. "But my rank travels with me."

"You are fomenting rebellion on my ship, coopting vital resources, subverting a mission whose primary purpose is to deliver
you
to the colony that you purport to be ready to govern."

"Rebellion? We're reading Taming of the Shrew, not Richard II."

"I'm still talking, boy! You may think you're toguro personified because you and your little chums played a videogame that turned out to be real, but I won't put up with this kind of subversion on my own ship! Whatever you did that made you famous and got you that ridiculous rank is
over
. You're in the real world now, and you're just a snot-nosed boy with delusions of grandeur."

Ender sat in silence, regarding him calmly.

"
Now
you can answer."

"I have no idea what you're talking about," said Ender.

Whereupon Morgan let fly with a string of obscenities and vulgarities that it sounded like he had collected the favorite sayings of the entire fleet. If he had been red-faced before, he was purple now. And through it all, Ender struggled to figure out what it was about a play reading that had the man so insanely angry.

When Morgan paused for breath, leaning -- no, slumping -- on the desk, Ender rose to his feet. "I think you had better prepare the charges for my court martial, Admiral Morgan."

"Court martial! I'm not going to court martial you, boy! I don't have to! I can have you put in stasis for the duration of the voyage on the authority of my signature alone!"

"Not a person of admiralty rank, I'm afraid," said Ender. "And it seems that formal charges in a court martial are the only way I'm going to get a coherent statement from you about what I have supposedly done to offend your dignity and cause such alarm."

"Oh, you want a formal statement? How about this: Hijacking all ansible communications for three hours so that we are effectively cut off from the rest of the known universe, how about that? Three hours means more than two days back in real time -- for all I know there's been a revolution, or my orders have changed, or any number of things might be happening and I can't even send a message to inquire!"

"That's a problem, certainly," said Ender. "But why would you think I have anything to do with it?"

"Because it's got your name all over it," said Morgan. "The message is addressed to you. And it's still coming in, coopting our entire ansible bandwidth."

"Doesn't it occur to you," said Ender gently, "that the message is
to
me, not
from
me?"

"
From
Wiggin,
to
Wiggin, eyes only, so deeply encrypted that none of the shipboard computers can crack it."

"You tried to crack a secure communication addressed to a ranking officer, without first asking the permission of that officer?"

"It's a subversive communication, boy, that's why I tried to crack it!"

"You know it's subversive because you can't crack it, and you tried to crack it because you know it's subversive," said Ender. He kept his voice soft and cheerful. Not because he knew that it would drive Morgan crazy that Ender remained unflappable -- that was just a bonus. He simply assumed that the entire exchange was being recorded to be used as evidence later, and Ender was not going to say a word or reveal an emotion that would not redound to his credit in some later court proceeding. So Morgan could be as abusive as he pleased -- Ender was not going to make a single statement that could be excerpted and used to make him look subversive or angry.

"I don't have to justify my actions to you," said Morgan. "I brought you here and canceled your supposed play reading so that you could open the transmission in front of me."

"Eyes only, secure communication -- I'm not sure it's proper for you to insist on watching."

"Either you open it right now, in front of me, or you go into stasis and you never get off this ship until it returns to Eros for your court martial."

Someone's court martial, thought Ender, but probably not mine.