Ender's Game Part 25

"They took away my old locker and bunk and desk, a.s.signed me to a commander cabin and gave me an army. But I just stayed in the cabin until they gave in and put me back into somebody else's army."

"Why?"

"Because I won't let them do it to me. I can't believe you haven't seen through all this c.r.a.p yet, Ender. But I guess you're young. These other armies, they aren't the enemy. It's the teachers, they're the enemy. They get us to fight each other, to hate each other. The game is everything. Win win win, it amounts to nothing. We kill ourselves, go crazy trying to beat each other, and all the time the old b.a.s.t.a.r.ds are watching us, studying us, discovering our weak points, deciding whether we're good enough or not. Well, good enough for what? I was six years old when they brought me here. What the h.e.l.l did I know? They decided I was right for the program, but n.o.body ever asked me if the program was right for me."

"So why don't you go home?"

d.i.n.k smiled crookedly. "Because I can't give up the game." He tugged at the fabric of his flash suit, which lay on the bunk beside him. "Because I love this."

"So why not be a commander?"

d.i.n.k shook his head. "Never. Look what it does to Rosen. The boy's crazy. Rose de Nose. Sleeps in here with us instead of in his cabin. Why? Because he's scared to be alone, Ender. Scared of the dark."

"Rose?"

"But they made him a commander and so he has to act like one. He doesn't know what he's doing. He's winning, but that scares him worst of all, because he doesn't know why he's winning, except that I have something to do with it. Any minute somebody could find out that Rosen isn't some magic Israeli general who can win no matter what. He doesn't know why anybody wins or loses. n.o.body does."

"It doesn't mean he's crazy, d.i.n.k."

"I know, you've been here a year, you think these people are normal. Well, they're not. We're not. I look in the library, I call up books on my desk. Old ones, because they won't let us have anything new, but I've got a pretty good idea what children are, and we're not children. Children can lose sometimes, and n.o.body cares. Children aren't in armies, they aren't commanders, they don't rule over forty other kids, it's more than anybody can take and not get a little crazy."

Ender tried to remember what other children were like, in his cla.s.s at school, back in the city. But all he could think of was Stilson.

"I had a brother. Just a normal guy. All he cared about was girls. And flying. He wanted to fly. He used to play ball with the guys. A pickup game, shooting b.a.l.l.s at a hoop, dribbling down the corridors until the peace officers confiscated your ball. We had a great time. He was teaching me how to dribble when I was taken."

Ender remembered his own brother, and the memory was not fond.

d.i.n.k misunderstood the expression on Ender's face. "Hey, I know, n.o.body's supposed to talk about home. But we came from somewhere. The Battle School didn't create us, you know. The Battle School doesn't create anything. It just destroys. And we all remember things from home. Maybe not good things, but we remember and then we lie and pretend that-- look, Ender, why is that n.o.body talks about home, ever? Doesn't that tell you how important it is? That n.o.body even admits that-- oh h.e.l.l."

"No, it's all right," Ender said. "I was just thinking about Valentine. My sister."

"I wasn't trying to make you upset."

"It's OK. I don't think of her very much, because I always get like this."

"That's right, we never cry. Christ, I never thought of that. n.o.body ever cries. We really are trying to be adult. Just like our fathers. I bet your father was like you. I bet he was quiet and took it, and then busted out and--"

"I'm not like my father."

"So maybe I'm wrong. But look at Bonzo, your old commander. He's got an advanced case of Spanish honor. He can't allow himself to have weaknesses. To be better than him, that's an insult. To be stronger, that's like cutting off his b.a.l.l.s. That's why he hates you, because you didn't suffer when he tried to punish you. He hates you for that, he honestly wants to kill you. He's crazy. They're all crazy."

"And you aren't?"

"I be crazy too, little buddy, but at least when I be craziest, I be floating all alone in s.p.a.ce and the crazy, she float out of me, she soak into the walls, and she don't come out till there be battles and little boy's b.u.mp into the walls and squish out de crazy."

Ender smiled.

"And you be crazy too," said d.i.n.k. "Come on, let's go eat."

"Maybe you can be a commander and not be crazy. Maybe knowing about the craziness means you don't have to fall for it."

"I'm not going to let the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds run me, Ender. They've got you pegged, too, and they don't plan to treat you kindly, look what they've done to you so far."

"They haven't done anything except promote me."

"And she make you life so easy, neh?"

Ender laughed and shook his head. "So maybe you're right."

"They think they got you on ice. Don't let them."

"But that's what I came for," Ender said. "For them to make me into a tool. To save the world."

"I can't believe you still believe it."

"Believe what?"

"The b.u.g.g.e.r menace. Save the world. Listen. Ender, if the b.u.g.g.e.rs were coming back to get us, they'd be here. They aren't invading again. We beat them and they're gone.

"But the videos--"

"All from the First and Second Invasions. Your grandparents weren't born yet when Mazer Rackham wiped them out. You watch. It's all a fake. There is no war, and they're just s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g around with us."

"But why?"

"Because as long as people are afraid of the b.u.g.g.e.rs, the I.F. can stay in power, and as long as the I.F. is in power, certain countries can keep their hegemony. But keep watching the vids, Ender. People will catch onto this game pretty soon, and there'll be a civil war to end all wars. That's the menace, Ender, not the b.u.g.g.e.rs. And in that war, when it comes, you and I won't be friends. Because you're American, just like our dear teachers. And I am not."

They went to the mess hall and ate, talking about other things. But Ender could not stop thinking about what d.i.n.k had said. The Battle School was so enclosed, the game so important in the minds of the children, that Ender had forgotten there was a world outside. Spanish honor. Civil war. Politics. The Battle School was really a very small place, wasn't it?

But Ender did not reach d.i.n.k's conclusions. The b.u.g.g.e.rs were real. The threat was real. The I.F. controlled a lot of things, but it didn't control the videos and the nets. Not where Ender had grown up. In d.i.n.k's home in the Netherlands, with three generations under Russian hegemony, perhaps it was all controlled, but Ender knew that lies could not last long in America. So he believed.

Believed, but the seed of doubt was there, and it stayed, and every now and then sent out a little root. It changed everything, to have that seed growing. It made Ender listen more carefully to what people meant, instead of what they said. It made him wise.

There weren't as many boys at the evening practice, not by half.

"Where's Bernard?" asked Ender.

Alai grinned. Shen closed his eves and a.s.sumed a look of blissful meditation.

"Haven't you heard?" said another boy, a Launchy from a younger group. "Word's out that any Launchy who comes to your practice sessions won't ever amount to anything in anybody's army. Word's out that the commanders don't want any soldiers who've been damaged by your training."

Ender nodded.

"But the way I brain it," said the Launchy, "I be the best soldier I can, and any commander worth a d.a.m.n, he take me. Neh?"

"Eh," said Ender, with finality.

They went on with practice. About a half hour into it, when they were practicing throwing off collisions with frozen soldiers, several commanders in different uniforms came in. They ostentatiously took down names.