So, after using up all our bottled oxygen, killing the sled-dogs for meat, and giving Green Boots and Sleeping Beauty the finger, we've finally reached a new chapter! You know what that means? Yep, another trip to the Disembodied Plane of Dialogue:
"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.”
They're talking about giving Ender his own laser-tag team, in case you thought this was about the space war.
"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.
Who knew letters from home were good for morale? Well, literally anyone who's ever read anything about soldiers, but as Card established, actually seeking out information about things is the mindkiller.
Usually they go at eleven. but at nine and a half he's top flight.”
"Naturally, I feel to remind you, the man who runs Battle School, what age students usually make commander at Battle School." Also, continuing the trend of Ender being the bestest evar... right over there, where we can't see.
"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.”
Again, we're talking about making Ender be a team-captain.
"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?”
Look, isolating a little boy from his family and the rest of his family in a hellish crabbucket was one thing, but introducing new variables into a military training exercise? I can feel the vomit rising in my throat! These two aren't military men, they're
Yu-Gi-Oh characters talking about the heart of the cards.
"You're not starting to use the boys' slang, are you?”
...Can someone please tell me what part of the last few sentences was "slang?"
"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.”
Okay, is the idea meant to be that cyber-warfare is an accepted part of the game, with commanders attempting to steal each other's strategems and notes? Or do the security systems mean these two can't look at Ender's shit?
"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.”
Okay, this is just the therapy transcript of someone who was molested by Stepin Fetchit.
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.
He also beat up Superman and made out with all the girls.
Hahahaa. "Girls."
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.”
Oh God. I'm having
Methods of Rationality flashbacks.
"Well, why are you reviving it now?”
"We had a lot of extra uniforms to use up.”
Am I supposed to think the odds are stacked against Ender because he inherited the name "Dragon" from underperforming armies?
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.
The difficulty of writing super-smart characters is that most authors, even really good ones, aren't geniuses. There's no shame in that, obviously. I'm not a genius, you're probably not a genius, most people aren't geniuses. Concientious authors tend to work around this by spending a really long time carefuly working out plans and solutions, then having their characters come up with them much faster. Sloppy or lazy authors meanwhile just make everyone else in the story retarded. The hooks don't work during the actual battles. So Ender is one of the few commanders who thinks it's worth practising in conditions that more closely resemble the ones they'll be fighting in. That's like being the only kid who doesn't practise for a spelling test without autocorrect.
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.
So, why give the commanders hooks if they encourage this kind of idiocy? Or hell, why not give
everyone hooks? We know the actual space-marines have some kind of self-contained propulsion system, so why shouldn't the kids learn how to handle them? I get not wanting them to be too reliant on such a thing, but just give them a limited supply of propellant, and/or run games without them sometimes.
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.”
Man, imagine being held back from graduating primary school because the idiots who run the place won't stop jacking off to the weird kid with the groin shot fixation.
"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.”
Don't pretend you care about anyone else's training or education, Graff, nobody's buying it.
"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.
Am I right in thinking this emphasis seems more appropriate for field commanders and not someone who'll be giving orders to spaceships via space-radio?
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.
It's difficult for me to articulate, but I feel like the structure of Battle School is kind of wonky if the idea is seperating the children into space-marines and officers. The only kids who really get to show off potential for command are the commanders and the (
sigh) toon leaders, and they seem to be picked pretty early?
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.
As someone pointed out, being small isn't actually a huge disadvantage in laser-tag. Less of a target. In fact, it's weird that a book about a kid being groomed to be a starship commander is so focused on face-to-face violence. It's like if
The Queen's Gambit had five kickboxing scenes. The reason of course is that Battle School is really meant to be a mirror of how picked on nerdy kids percieve... I was going to say "primary school" because that's how old the kids are, but really, these are meant to be middle-schoolers at the youngest, just in the bodies of small children for reasons either stupid or gross.
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.
Okay, I'm confused. Graff said he delayed the graduation of a bunch of kids to be in Ender's army. But it seems like kids graduate from Battle School at about twelve or thirteen? So why are the oldest kids Ender's age? Okay, maybe by "graduate" Graff meant "washout of the command stream and be moved to Combat School"? But that doesn't sound right, because according to Graff in the long-long-ago of chapter four, "nobody" who's ever made it through their first year at Battle School has ended up as less than a CO on a spaceship. I know Graff could've been lying to Ender's parents about that, but Card seems to have a fetish for him never
technically being dishonest. This of course raises another issue with the school, if the teachers have confidentally decided everyone who makes it to their seventh birthday without being sent to Spartan Daycare is officier material, why have they set up the school so only a few kids get to practise
giving orders? Even if we assume it's perfectly expected to leave Battle School before the age of ten, wouldn't that create a dire shortage of soldiers for the commanders?
Fuck, that was a lot of stupid in a few sentences. I think my brain is now a Möbius strip.
They recognized Ender, of course, since he was the most celebrated soldier in the school.
He distinguished during the Battle of Fuck and All.
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.
...How long does it take them to get dressed?
"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.
Clearly Ender is trying to get on Anderson's good side.
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.
Since when has anyone in this school given a shit about being seen naked? Bonzo was hated partly because he insisted his soldiers wear clothes in the
hallways!
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.
Okay, now I'm just shocked Card had the restraint not to have the kids practise in the Battle Room nude. It would make Ender's Super-Move all the more effective.
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.
So, we know there are multiple Battle Rooms, are some of them designed with different age-groups in mind? Or would that make too much sense.
"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.
Yes, it's time for Ender to show his inhuman big-boy brain by being the only space-kid to grasp the basic premise of outer-space.
"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?”
I'd argue it's gotten even stupider than it was the first time. Ender's the most celebrated student at Battle School. His practise sessions are even more popular than when Petra lets boys pay for a glimpse of her mosquito-bites. He's been here for three years. The annoying thing about introducing an innovation, no matter how seemingly basic, is that everyone who adopts it after can move straight to improving on it. Unless all these kids are actually fresh off the shuttle up here, they should've heard dozens of variants of "The enemy gate is down!" over the months or years. Either that or "Go for the nuts!" Also, some of these kids are meant to have been in armies before, why are they acting like it's their first time in the Battle Room?
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!”
Ender: master of space-combat explaining the joke.
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.
I'm starting to think this is a sci fi version of Cabin in the Woods. Graff and Anderson must appease Tzeentch by staging crappy sports and army films for him.
"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.”
Some of you probably know Bean as the guy in the spin-offs who turns out to be a genetically engineered super-baby doomed to grow up into a cross between Andre the Giant and the Big Brain Wojack. I'm pretty sure that wasn't a thing in Card's head when he was writing this book, but apparently he thought it was such a good idea, he later reused it... for
Ultimate Iron Man of all things.
"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.
Strategy advances at a breakneck pace at Battle School. By next year, they'll have completely phased out mounted cavalry and bayonett charges.
Now, what happens when you're frozen?”
Well, in an actual battle with the buggers, you instantly die because their weapons hit like the entire
Dark Heresy crit-table.
"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!”
Remember, all these kids are genius level intellects specially selected for having the potential for combat in three dimensions. And only one of them knew how momentum in space works. Of course, Bean is another example of Card's apparent view of genius. In his world, it's not an open, curious mind willing to ask questions that gets results, it's the special uber-babies who were apparently born knowing this shit.
"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?”
Where did Card get the idea that picking one cadet to suck the dick off was peak drill seargent technique?
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.
You can tell Ender is a kind-hearted soul, because the only time he doesn't pick being cruel or violent is a fucking video-game.
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.
"Mostly all I can hit is his feet.”
Ender turned to the boy next to him. "What about you?”
"I can see his body.”
It's going to be a dark day when a Ender trained soldier tries this is an actual engagement and the buggers explode his feet.
"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!”
Wow, this is a brilliant tactic... for Battle Room matches and nowhere else. You see, the buggers, and I assume most other sapient forces in the universe, field weapons that actually
injure you when they land a hit. In fact, bugger weapons seem quite good at that. I imagine it's hard to aim your laser when your pelvis has shot up like a champagne cork into your brain. Now, you
could argue this kind of thinking actually makes a
bit more sense for the spaceships Ender will one day command, seeing as they tend not to go into shock when you blow off their legs, but still.
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.
You know, statistically, at least some of these boys should've attended Ender's training sessions.
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.
We get it! Bean is you! Card's making a super-deep point about the cycle of abuse or whatever!
"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?”
If Card was going to write these kids like they're all fresh launchies, why didn't he just make them that? Surely it'd just make the aspect of the story hit harder.
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.
Again, really just teaching to the test here.
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.”
Please, Petra's the only ho here, and she's twice the you two are put together.
"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,”
If I showed you this paragraph without context, there is no way any of you would guess it was two boys under ten years old. One under
eight.
And what do you want, love and kisses?" Ender was getting angry now.
Bean looked unworried. "I want a toon.”
As probably one of the few Kiwis who enjoyed
My Adventure With Superman, I agree, toons are good.
(While I'm taking my credibility, I also liked the Krakoa era of X-Men, and I thought the Netflix
Lost in Space was a good show)
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.”
Shouldn't Bonzo be at least fifteen or so by now, the fuck is he still doing here?
"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 allnoticed 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.”
You'd think Graff would be panicing at the moment because Ender is acting more like him than the Shiny Chosen One who actually commands the fleet. Remember, the fleet is already en-route to the buggers' territory. Ender's not training them shit.
"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.”
I can't decide who I find more obnoxious, Ender, or Fun-Size Ender.
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.
The fuck was even the point of Valentine's letter?
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.
Didn't he outright admit that on the shuttle?
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.
This is what happens when you learn about war from military biopics and not... books.
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.
Wait, I thought the point was keeping Ender and Bean from falling in line than 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.
Making class is optional for under-tens, brilliant idea.
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.”
Graff does realise all this kids are meant to fight together or at least serve in the same fleet after graduation, right? Esprit de corps, what's that?
"You gave me a completely green army, Major Anderson, sir--”
"You have quite a few veterans.”
"They aren't any good.”
Then why are they still here?
"Nobody gets here without being brilliant, Ender. Make them good.”
They're not geniuses just because you say they are!
"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.”
And if there's one thing commanders don't do, its delegate.
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.
You mean that thing you dismissed as a crutch?
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.
What else is new?
Ender plays a video-game for launchies before bed.
"You'll never win that way.”
Ender smiled, "Missed you at practice, Alai.”
"I was there. But they had your army in a separate place. Looks like you're big time now, can't play with the little boys anymore.”
"You're a full cubit taller than I am.”
"Cubit! Has God been telling you to build a boat or something? Or are you in an archaic mood?”
Sadly, the bugger invasions destroyed all copies of
Bruce Almighty, but spared the sequel/spin-off thing
Evan Almighty.
"Not archaic, just arcane. Secret, subtle, roundabout. I miss you already, you circumcised dog.”
...Putting aside... well, just that line, you're telling me Islam is so taboo that saying "salaam" is like whispering "Hail Hydra" in Captain America's ear, but circumcision is still alright? And it's not like Card is just projecting contemporary American practises into the future, because by implication, Ender isn't cut.
It was banter, as always, but now there was too much truth behind it. Now when Ender heard Alai talk as if it were all a joke, he felt the pain of losing a friend, and the worse pain of wondering if Alai really felt as little pain as he showed.
Maybe Alai realises this is just school sports teams and none of it matters.
"You can try," said Ender. "I taught you everything you know. But I didn't teach you everything I know.”
"And I'm the only one at space battle school to have a talent for space battle."
"Salaam, Alai.”
"Alas, it is not to be.”
"What isn't?”
"Peace. It's what salaam means. Peace be unto you.”
"I know, Muslims having a word for 'peace'
seems strange..."
The words brought forth an echo from Ender's memory. His mother's voice reading to him softly, when he was very young. Think not that I came to send peace on earth. I came not to send peace, but a sword.
...Are we sure Ender's mother wasn't trying to rear him as a Mormon sleeper agent? Also, didn't we have this exact scene earlier?
Ender had pictured his mother piercing Peter the Terrible with a bloody rapier, and the words had stayed in his mind along with the image.
Of course the Bible verse that ressonated with Ender was Jesus revealing his Khornate tendencies.
In the silence, the bear died. It was a cute death, with funny music. Ender turned around. Alai was already gone. He felt like part of himself had been taken away, an inward prop that was holding up his courage and confidence. With Alai, to a degree impossible even with Shen, Ender had come to feel a unity so strong that the word we came to his lips much more easily than I.
But Alai had left something behind. Ender lay in bed, dozing into the night, and felt Alai's lips on his cheek as he muttered the word peace.
He was naked, wasn't he?
The next day he passed Alai in the corridor, and they greeted each other, touched hands, talked, but they both knew that there was a wall now. It might be breached, that wall, sometime in the future, but for now the only real conversation between them was the roots that had already grown low and deep, under the wall, where they could not be broken.
Remember when Mr. Garrison tried publishing a romance novel for women, but it became a bestseller among gay men, and he goes mad and runs away to the mountains?
It made him sorrowful, but Ender did not weep. He was done with that. When they had turned Valentine into a stranger, when they had used her as a tool to work on Ender, from that day forward they could never hurt him deep enough to make him cry again. Ender was certain of that.
And with that anger, he decided he was strong enough to defeat them--the teachers, his enemies.
I'm guessing this war will be prosecuted by continuing to do exactly what they want at all times.
