Ender's Shadow ew-6

by Orson Scott Card

  Wiggin assembled them in four files along the corridor and ordered them to jump up and use the ceiling handholds to fling their bodies into the room. "Assemble on the far wall, as if you were going for the enemy's gate." To the veterans that meant something. To the launchies, who had never been in a battle and had never, for that matter, entered through the upper door, it meant nothing at all. "Run up and go four at a time when I open the gate, one group per second." Wiggin walked to the back of the group and, using his hook, a controller strapped to the inside of his wrist and curved to conform to his left hand, he made the door, which had seemed quite solid, disappear.

  "Go!" The first four kids started running for the gate. "Go!" The next group began to run before the first had even reached it. There would be no hesitation or somebody would crash into you from behind. "Go!" The first group grabbed and swung with varying degrees of clumsiness and heading out in various directions. "Go!" Later groups learned, or tried to, from the awkwardness of the earlier ones. "Go!"

  Bean was at the end of the line, in the last group. Wiggin laid a hand on his shoulder. "You can use a side handhold if you want."

  Right, thought Bean. Now you decide to baby me. Not because my meshugga flash suit didn't fit together right, but just because I'm short. "Go suck on it," said Bean.

  "Go!"

  Bean kept pace with the other three, though it meant pumping his legs half again as fast, and when he got near the gate he took a flying leap, tapped the ceiling handhold with his fingers as he passed, and sailed out into the room with no control at all, spinning in three nauseating directions at once.

  But he didn't expect himself to do any better, and instead of fighting the spin, he calmed himself and did his anti-nausea routine, relaxing himself until he neared a wall and had to prepare for impact. He didn't land near one of the recessed handholds and wasn't facing the right way to grab anything even if he had. So he rebounded, but this time was a little more stable as he flew, and he ended up on the ceiling very near the back wall. It took him less time than some to make his way down to where the others were assembling, lined up along the floor under the middle gate on the back wall – the enemy gate.

  Wiggin sailed calmly through the air. Because he had a hook, during practice he could maneuver in midair in ways that soldiers couldn't; during battle, though, the hook would be useless, so commanders had to make sure they didn't become dependent on the hook's added control. Bean noted approvingly that Wiggin seemed not to use the hook at all. He sailed in sideways, snagged a handhold on the floor about ten paces out from the back wall, and hung in the air. Upside down.

  Fixing his gaze on one of them, Wiggin demanded, "Why are you upside down, soldier?"

  Immediately some of the other soldiers started to turn themselves upside down like Wiggin.

  "Attention!" Wiggin barked. All movement stopped. "I said why are you upside down!"

  Bean was surprised that the soldier didn't answer. Had he forgotten what the teacher did in the shuttle on the way here? The deliberate disorientation? Or was that something that only Dimak did?

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

  Wiggin didn't look at Bean in particular, and this was one question Bean didn't want to answer. There was no assurance of which particular correct answer Wiggin was looking for, so why open his mouth just to get shut down?

  It was a kid named Shame – short for Seamus – who finally spoke up. "Sir, this is the direction we were in coming out of the door." Good job, thought Bean. Better than some lame argument that there was no up or down in null-G.

  "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, they all murmured.

  "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 gate. Up is toward your own gate. North is that way" – he pointed toward what had been the ceiling – "south is that way, east is that way, west is – what way?"

  They pointed.

  "That's what I expected," said Wiggin. "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."

  Bean watched, amused. So Wiggin subscribed to the you're-so-stupid-you-need-me-to-wipe-your-butts school of basic training. Well, maybe that was necessary. One of the rituals of training. Boring till it was over, but ... commander's choice.

  Wiggin glanced at Bean, but his eyes kept moving.

  "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!"

  Bean knew what the trap was and launched for the wall they had just entered through before Wiggin had even finished talking. Most of the others also got what the test was, but a fair number of them launched the wrong way – toward the direction Wiggin had called north instead of the direction he had identified as up. This time Bean happened to arrive near a handhold, and he caught it with surprising ease. He had done it before in his launch group's battleroom practices, but he was small enough that, unlike the others, it was quite possible for him to land in a place that had no handhold within reach. Short arms were a definite drawback in the battleroom. On short bounds he could aim at a handhold and get there with some accuracy. On a cross-room jump there was little hope of that. So it felt good that this time, at least, he didn't look like an oaf. In fact, having launched first, he arrived first.

  Bean turned around and watched as the ones who had blown it made the long, embarrassing second leap to join the rest of the army. He was a little surprised at who some of the bozos were. Inattention can make clowns of us all, he thought.

  Wiggin was watching him again, and this time it was no passing glance.

  "You!" Wiggin pointed at him. "Which way is down?"

  Didn't we just cover this? "Toward the enemy door."

  "Name, kid?"

  Come on, Wiggin really didn't know who the short kid with the highest scores in the whole damn school was? Well, if we're playing mean sergeant and hapless recruit, I better follow the script. "This soldier's name is Bean, sir."

  "Get that for size or for brains?"

  Some of the other soldiers laughed. But not many of them. They knew Bean's reputation. To them it was no longer funny that he was so small – it was just embarrassing that a kid that small could make perfect scores on tests that had questions they didn't even understand.

  "Well, Bean, you're right onto things." Wiggin now included the whole group as he launched into a lecture on how coming through the door feet first made you a much smaller target for the enemy to shoot at. Harder for him to hit you and freeze you. "Now, what happens when you're frozen?"

  "Can't move," somebody said.

  "That's what frozen means," said Wiggin. "But what happens to you?"

  Wiggin wasn't phrasing his question very clearly, in Bean's opinion, and there was no use in prolonging the agony while the others figured it out. So Bean spoke up. "You keep going in the direction you started in. At the speed you were going when you were flashed."

  "That's true," said Wiggin. "You five, there on the end, move!" He pointed at five soldiers, who spent long enough looking at each other to make sure which five he meant that Wiggin had time to flash them all, freezing them in place. During practice, it took a few minutes for a freeze to wear off, unless the commander used his hook to unfreeze them earlier.

  "The next five, move!"

  Seven kids moved at once – no time to count. Wiggin flashed them as quickly as he flashed the others, but because they had already launched, they kept moving at a good clip toward the walls they had headed for.

  The first five were hovering in the air near where they had
been frozen.

  "Look at these so-called soldiers. 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."

  We all understand it, Wiggin. It's not like they bring stupid people up here to Battle School. It's not like I didn't pick you the best available army.

  "And no doubt Bean is one of them. Right, Bean?"

  Bean could hardly believe that Wiggin was singling him out again.

  Just because I'm little, he's using me to embarrass the others. The little guy knows the answers, so why don't you big boys.

  But then, Wiggin doesn't realize yet. He thinks he has an army of incompetent launchies and rejects. He hasn't had a chance to see that he actually has a select group. So he thinks of me as the most ludicrous of a sad lot. He's found out I'm not an idiot, but he still assumes the others are.

  Wiggin was still looking at him. Oh, yeah, he had asked a question. "Right, sir," said Bean.

  "Then what is the point?"

  Spit back to him exactly what he just said to us. "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."

  Bean was disgusted. This was the commander who was supposed to turn Dragon into a legendary army? Wiggin was supposed to be the alpha and omega of the Battle School, and he's playing the game of singling me out to be the goat. Wiggin didn't even find out our scores, didn't discuss his soldiers with the teachers. If he did, he'd already know that I'm the smartest kid in the school. The others all know it. That's why they're looking at each other in embarrassment. Wiggin is revealing his own ignorance.

  Bean saw how Wiggin seemed to be registering the distaste of his own soldiers. It was just an eyeblink, but maybe Wiggin finally got it that his make-fun-of-the-shrimp ploy was backfiring. Because he finally got on with the business of training. He taught them how to kneel in midair – even flashing their own legs to lock them in place – and then fire between their knees as they moved downward toward the enemy, so that their legs became a shield, absorbing fire and allowing them to shoot for longer periods of time out in the open. A good tactic, and Bean finally began to get some idea of why Wiggin might not be a disastrous commander after all. He could sense the others giving respect to their new commander at last.

  When they'd got the point, Wiggin thawed himself and all the soldiers he had frozen in the demonstration. "Now," he said, "which way is the enemy's gate?"

  "Down!" they all answered.

  "And what is our attack position?"

  Oh, right, thought Bean, like we can all give an explanation in unison. The only way to answer was to demonstrate – so Bean flipped himself away from the wall, heading for the other side, firing between his knees as he went. He didn't do it perfectly – there was a little rotation as he went – but all in all, he did OK for his first actual attempt at the maneuver.

  Above him, he heard Wiggin shout at the others. "Is Bean the only one who knows how?"

  By the time Bean had caught himself on the far wall, the whole rest of the army was coming after him, shouting as if they were on the attack. Only Wiggin remained at the ceiling. Bean noticed, with amusement, that Wiggin was standing there oriented the same way he had been in the corridor – his head "north," the old "up." He might have the theory down pat, but in practice, it's hard to shake off the old gravity-based thinking. Bean had made it a point to orient himself sideways, his head to the west. And the soldiers near him did the same, taking their orientation from him. If Wiggin noticed, he gave no sign.

  "Now come back at me, all of you, attack me!"

  Immediately his flash suit lit up with forty weapons firing at him as his entire army converged on him, firing all the way. "Ouch," said Wiggin when they arrived. "You got me."

  Most of them laughed.

  "Now, what are your legs good for, in combat?"

  Nothing, said some boys.

  "Bean doesn't think so," said Wiggin.

  So he isn't going to let up on me even now. Well, what does he want to hear? Somebody else muttered "shields," but Wiggin didn't key in on that, so he must have something else in mind. "They're the best way to push off walls," Bean guessed.

  "Right," said Wiggin.

  "Come on, pushing off is movement, not combat," said Crazy Tom. A few others murmured their agreement.

  Oh good, now it starts, thought Bean. Crazy Tom picks a meaningless quarrel with his commander, who gets pissed off at him and ...

  But Wiggin didn't take umbrage at Crazy Tom's correction. He just corrected him back, mildly. "There is no combat without movement. Now, with your legs frozen like this, can you push off walls?"

  Bean had no idea. Neither did anyone else.

  "Bean?" asked Wiggin. Of course.

  "I've never tried it," said Bean, "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?"

  The group laughed. For the first time, Bean realized that maybe Wiggin wasn't being stupid to get the whole group laughing at the little guy. Maybe Wiggin knew perfectly well that Bean was the smartest kid, and had singled him out like this because he could tap into all the resentment the others felt for him. This whole session was guaranteeing that the other kids would all think it was OK to laugh at Bean, to despise him even though he was smart.

  Great system, Wiggin. Destroy the effectiveness of your best soldier, make sure he gets no respect.

  However, it was more important to learn what Wiggin was teaching than to feel sullen about the way he was teaching it. So Bean watched intently as Wiggin demonstrated a frozen-leg takeoff from the wall. He noticed that Wiggin gave himself a deliberate spin. It would make it harder for him to shoot as he flew, but it would also make it very hard for a distant enemy to focus enough light on any part of him for long enough to get a kill.

  I may be pissed off, but that doesn't mean I can't learn.

  It was a long and grueling practice, drilling over and over again on new skills. Bean saw that Wiggin wasn't willing to let them learn each technique separately. They had to do them all at once, integrating them into smooth, continuous movements. Like dancing, Bean thought. You don't learn to shoot and then learn to launch and then learn to do a controlled spin – you learn to launch-shoot-spin.

  At the end, all of them dripping with sweat, exhausted, and flushed with the excitement of having learned stuff that they'd never heard of other soldiers doing, Wiggin assembled them at the lower door and announced that they'd have another practice during free time. "And don't tell me that free time is supposed to be free. I know that, and you're perfectly free to do what you want. I'm inviting you to come to an extra, voluntary practice."

  They laughed. This group consisted entirely of kids who had not chosen to do extra battleroom practice with Wiggin before, and he was making sure they understood that he expected them to change their priorities now. But they didn't mind. After this morning they knew that when Wiggin ran a practice, every second was effective. They couldn't afford to miss a practice or they'd fall significantly behind. Wiggin would get their free time. Even Crazy Tom wasn't arguing about it.

  But Bean knew that he had to change his relationship with Wiggin right now, or there was no chance that he would get a chance for leadership. What Wiggin had done to him in today's practice, feeding on the resentment of the other kids for this little pipsqueak, would make it even less plausible for Bean to be made a leader within the army – if the other kids despised him, who wou
ld follow him?

  So Bean waited for Wiggin in the corridor after the others had gone on ahead.

  "Ho, Bean," said Wiggin.

  "Ho, Ender," said Bean. Did Wiggin catch the sarcasm in the way Bean said his name? Was that why he paused a moment before answering?

  " Sir," said Wiggin softly.

  Oh, cut out the merda, I've seen those vids, we all laugh at those vids. "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." Not that Bean expected Wiggin to understand what he meant by that. How Bean could only be effective if he had Wiggin's trust and respect, how otherwise he'd just be the little kid, useful for nothing. Wiggin would probably take it to mean that Bean meant to cause trouble if Wiggin didn't use him. And maybe he did mean that, a little.

  "And what do you want?" asked Wiggin. "Love and kisses?"

  Say it flat out, put it in his mind so plainly he can't pretend not to understand. "I want a toon."

  Wiggin walked close to Bean, looked down at him. To Bean, though, it was a good sign that Wiggin hadn't just laughed. "Why should you get a toon?"

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

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

  Wiggin had got straight to the crux of the problem. But Bean didn't like the malicious way he said it. "They used to call you that, I hear. I hear Bonzo Madrid still does."

  Wiggin wasn't taking the bait. "I asked you a question, soldier."

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

  To his surprise, Wiggin grinned. "I'm helping you."

  "Like hell."

  "Nobody would notice you, except to feel sorry for the little kid. But I made sure they all noticed you today."

  You should have done your research, Wiggin. You're the only one who didn't know already who I was.