"What happens if we raise our heads?" asked Shen.
Alai answered before the teacher could. "Then you're talking to God."
After the laughter died down, the teacher said, "Almost right, Alai. When you raise your chin to speak, you'll be talking to your commander."
Several spoke at once. " Our commander?"
"You did not think we were training all of you to be supreme commander at once, did you? No no. For the moment, we will assign one of you at random to be that commander, just for practice. Let's say ... the little one. You. Bean."
"I'm supposed to be commander?"
"Just for the practices. Or is he not competent? You others will not obey him in battle?"
The others answered the teacher with scorn. Of course Bean was competent. Of course they'd follow him.
"But then, he never did win a battle when he commanded Rabbit Army," said Fly Molo.
"Excellent. That means that you will all have the challenge of making this little one a winner in spite of himself. If you do not think that is a realistic military situation, you have not been reading history carefully enough."
So it was that Bean found himself in command of the ten other kids from Battle School. It was exhilarating, of course, for neither he nor the others believed for one moment that the teacher's choice had been random. They knew that Bean was better at the simulator than anybody. Petra was the one who said it after practice one day. "Hell, Bean, I think you have this all in your head so clear you could close your eyes and still play." It was almost true. He did not have to keep checking to see where everyone was. It was all in his head at once.
It took a couple of days for them to handle it smoothly, taking orders from Bean and giving their own orders orally along with the physical controls. There were constant mistakes at first, heads in the wrong position so that comments and questions and orders went to the wrong destination. But soon enough it became instinctive.
Bean then insisted that others take turns being in the command position. "I need practice taking orders just like they do," he said. "And learning how to change my head position to speak up and sideways." The teacher agreed, and after another day, Bean had mastered the technique as well as any of the others.
Having other kids in the master seat had another good effect as well. Even though no one did so badly as to embarrass himself, it was clear that Bean was sharper and faster than anyone else, with a keener grasp of developing situations and a better ability to sort out what he was hearing and remember what everybody had said.
"You're not human," said Petra. " Nobody can do what you do!"
"Am so human," said Bean mildly. "And I know somebody who can do it better than me."
"Who's that?" she demanded.
"Ender."
They all fell silent for a moment.
"Yeah, well, he ain't here," said Vlad.
"How do you know?" said Bean. "For all we know, he's been here all along."
"That's stupid," said Dink. "Why wouldn't they have him practice with us? Why would they keep it a secret?"
"Because they like secrets," said Bean. "And maybe because they're giving him different training. And maybe because it's like Sinterklaas. They're going to bring him to us as a present."
"And maybe you're full of merda," said Dumper.
Bean just laughed. Of course it would be Ender. This group was assembled for Ender. Ender was the one all their hopes were resting on. The reason they put Bean in that master position was because Bean was the substitute. If Ender got appendicitis in the middle of the war, it was Bean they'd switch the controls to. Bean who'd start giving commands, deciding which ships would be sacrificed, which men would die. But until then, it would be Ender's choice, and for Ender, it would only be a game. No deaths, no suffering, no fear, no guilt. Just ... a game.
Definitely it's Ender. And the sooner the better.
The next day, their supervisor told them that Ender Wiggin was going to be their commander starting that afternoon. When they didn't act surprised, he asked why. "Because Bean already told us."
***
"They want me to find out how you've been getting your inside information, Bean." Graff looked across the table at the painfully small child who sat there looking at him without expression.
"I don't have any inside information," said Bean.
"You knew that Ender was going to be the commander."
"I guessed," said Bean. "Not that it was hard. Look at who we are. Ender's closest friends. Ender's toon leaders. He's the common thread. There were plenty of other kids you could have brought here, probably about as good as us. But these are the ones who'd follow Ender straight into space without a suit, if he told us he needed us to do it."
"Nice speech, but you have a history of sneaking."
"Right. When would I be doing this sneaking? When are any of us alone? Our desks are just dumb terminals and we never get to see anybody else log on so it's not like I can capture another identity. I just do what I'm told all day every day. You guys keep assuming that we kids are stupid, even though you chose us because we're really, really smart. And now you sit there and accuse me of having to steal information that any idiot could guess."
"Not any idiot."
"That was just an expression."
"Bean," said Graff, "I think you're feeding me a line of complete bullshit."
"Colonel Graff, even if that were true, which it isn't, so what? So I found out Ender was coming. I'm secretly monitoring your dreams. So what? He'll still come, he'll be in command, he'll be brilliant, and then we'll all graduate and I'll sit in a booster seat in a ship somewhere and give commands to grownups in my little-boy voice until they get sick of hearing me and throw me out into space."
"I don't care about the fact that you knew about Ender. I don't care that it was a guess."
"I know you don't care about those things."
"I need to know what else you've figured out."
"Colonel," said Bean, sounding very tired, "doesn't it occur to you that the very fact that you're asking me this question tells me there's something else for me to figure out, and therefore greatly increases the chance that I will figure it out?"
Graff's smile grew even broader. "That's just what I told the ... officer who assigned me to talk to you and ask these questions. I told him that we would end up telling you more, just by having the interview, than you would ever tell us, but he said, 'The kid is six, Colonel Graff.'"
"I think I'm seven."
"He was working from an old report and hadn't done the math."
"Just tell me what secret you want to make sure I don't know, and I'll tell you if I already knew it."
"Very helpful."
"Colonel Graff, am I doing a good job?"
"Absurd question. Of course you are."
"If I do know anything that you don't want us kids to know, have I talked about it? Have I told any of the other kids? Has it affected my performance in any way?"
"No."
"To me that sounds like a tree falling in the forest where no one can hear. If I do know something, because I figured it out, but I'm not telling anybody else, and it's not affecting my work, then why would you waste time finding out whether I know it? Because after this conversation, you may be sure that I'll be looking very hard for any secret that might be lying around where a seven-year-old might find it. Even if I do find such a secret, though, I still won't tell the other kids, so it still won't make a difference. So why don't we just drop it?"
Graff reached under the table and pressed something.
"All right," said Graff. "They've got the recording of our conversation and if that doesn't reassure them, nothing will."
"Reassure them of what? And who is 'them'?"
"Bean, this part is not being recorded."
"Yes it is," said Bean.
"I turned it off."
"Puh-leeze."
In fact, Graff was not altogether sure that the recording was off. Even if the machine he cont
rolled was off, that didn't mean there wasn't another.
"Let's walk," said Graff.
"I hope not outside."
Graff got up from the table – laboriously, because he'd put on a lot of weight and they kept Eros at full gravity – and led the way out into the tunnels.
As they walked, Graff talked softly. "Let's at least make them work for it," he said.
"Fine," said Bean.
"I thought you'd want to know that the I.F. is going crazy because of an apparent security leak. It seems that someone with access to the most secret archives wrote letters to a couple of net pundits who then started agitating for the children of Battle School to be sent home to their native countries."
"What's a pundit?" asked Bean.
"My turn to say puh-leeze, I think. Look, I'm not accusing you. I just happen to have seen a text of the letters sent to Locke and Demosthenes – they're both being closely watched, as I'm sure you would expect – and when I read those letters – interesting the differences between them, by the way, very cleverly done – I realized that there was not really any top secret information in there, beyond what any child in Battle School knows. No, the thing that's really making them crazy is that the political analysis is dead on, even though it's based on insufficient information. From what is publicly known, in other words, the writer of those letters couldn't have figured out what he figured out. The Russians are claiming that somebody's been spying on them – and lying about what they found, of course. But I accessed the library on the destroyer Condor and found out what you were reading. And then I checked your library use on the ISL while you were in Tactical School. You've been a busy boy."
"I try to keep my mind occupied."
"You'll be happy to know that the first group of children has already been sent home."
"But the war's not over."
"You think that when you start a political snowball rolling, it will always go where you wanted it to go? You're smart but you're naive, Bean. Give the universe a push, and you don't know which dominoes will fall. There are always a few you never thought were connected. Someone will always push back a little harder than you expected. But still, I'm happy that you remembered the other children and set the wheels in motion to free them."
"But not us."
"The I.F. has no obligation to remind the agitators on Earth that Tactical School and Command School are still full of children."
"I'm not going to remind them."
"I know you won't. No, Bean, I got a chance to talk to you because you panicked some of the higher-ups with your educated guess about who would command your team. But I was hoping for a chance to talk to you because there are a couple of things I wanted to tell you. Besides the fact that your letter had pretty much the desired effect."
"I'm listening, though I admit to no letter."
"First, you'll be fascinated to know the identity of Locke and Demosthenes."
"Identity? Just one?"
"One mind, two voices. You see, Bean, Ender Wiggin was born third in his family. A special waiver, not an illegal birth. His older brother and sister are just as gifted as he is, but for various reasons were deemed inappropriate for Battle School. But the brother, Peter Wiggin, is a very ambitious young man. With the military closed off to him, he's gone into politics. Twice."
"He's Locke and Demosthenes," said Bean.
"He plans the strategy for both of them, but he only writes Locke. His sister Valentine writes Demosthenes."
Bean laughed. "Now it makes sense."
"So both your letters went to the same people."
"If I wrote them."
"And it's driving poor Peter Wiggin crazy. He's really tapping into all his sources inside the fleet to find out who sent those letters. But nobody in the Fleet knows, either. The six officers whose log-ins you used have been ruled out. And as you can guess, nobody is checking to see if the only seven-year-old ever to go to Tactical School might have dabbled in political epistolary in his spare time."
"Except you."
"Because, by God, I'm the only person who understands exactly how brilliant you children actually are."
"How brilliant are we?" Bean grinned.
"Our walk won't last forever, and I won't waste time on flattery. The other thing I wanted to tell you is that Sister Carlotta, being unemployed after you left, devoted a lot of effort to tracking down your parentage. I can see two officers approaching us right now who will put an end to this unrecorded conversation, and so I'll be brief. You have a name, Bean. You are Julian Delphiki."
"That's Nikolai's last name."
"Julian is the name of Nikolai's father. And of your father. Your mother's name is Elena. You are identical twins. Your fertilized eggs were implanted at different times, and your genes were altered in one very small but significant way. So when you look at Nikolai, you see yourself as you would have been, had you not been genetically altered, and had you grown up with parents who loved you and cared for you."
"Julian Delphiki," said Bean.
"Nikolai is among those already heading for Earth. Sister Carlotta will see to it that, when he is repatriated to Greece, he is informed that you are indeed his brother. His parents already know that you exist – Sister Carlotta told them. Your home is a lovely place, a house on the hills of Crete overlooking the Aegean. Sister Carlotta tells me that they are good people, your parents. They wept with joy when they learned that you exist. And now our interview is coming to an end. We were discussing your low opinion of the quality of teaching here at Command School."
"How did you guess."
"You're not the only one who can do that."
The two officers – an admiral and a general, both wearing big false smiles – greeted them and asked how the interview had gone.
"You have the recording," said Graff. "Including the part where Bean insisted that it was still being recorded."
"And yet the interview continued."
"I was telling him," said Bean, "about the incompetence of the teachers here at Command School."
"Incompetence?"
"Our battles are always against exceptionally stupid computer opponents. And then the teachers insist on going through long, tedious analyses of these mock combats, even though no enemy could possibly behave as stupidly and predictably as these simulations do. I was suggesting that the only way for us to get decent competition here is if you divide us into two groups and have us fight each other."
The two officers looked at each other. "Interesting point," said the general.
"Moot," said the admiral. "Ender Wiggin is about to be introduced into your game. We thought you'd want to be there to greet him."
"Yes," said Bean. "I do."
"I'll take you," said the admiral.
"Let's talk," the general said to Graff.
On the way, the admiral said little, and Bean could answer his chat without thought. It was a good thing. For he was in turmoil over the things that Graff had told him. It was almost not a surprise that Locke and Demosthenes were Ender's siblings. If they were as intelligent as Ender, it was inevitable that they would rise into prominence, and the nets allowed them to conceal their identity enough to accomplish it while they were still young. But part of the reason Bean was drawn to them had to be the sheer familiarity of their voices. They must have sounded like Ender, in that subtle way in which people who have lived long together pick up nuances of speech from each other. Bean didn't realize it consciously, but unconsciously it would have made him more alert to those essays. He should have known, and at some level he did know.
But the other, that Nikolai was really his brother – how could he believe that? It was as if Graff had read his heart and found the lie that would penetrate most deeply into his soul and told it to him. I'm Greek? My brother happened to be in my launch group, the boy who became my dearest friend? Twins? Parents who love me?
Julian Delphiki?
No, I can't believe this. Graff has never dealt honestly with us. Graff was the on
e who did not lift a finger to protect Ender from Bonzo. Graff does nothing except to accomplish some manipulative purpose.
My name is Bean. Poke gave me that name, and I won't give it up in exchange for a lie.
***
They heard his voice, first, talking to a technician in another room. "How can I work with squadron leaders I never see?"
"And why would you need to see them?" asked the technician.
"To know who they are, how they think —"
"You'll learn who they are and how they think from the way they work with the simulator. But even so, I think you won't be concerned. They're listening to you right now. Put on the headset so you can hear them."
They all trembled with excitement, knowing that he would soon hear their voices as they now heard his.
"Somebody say something," said Petra.
"Wait till he gets the headset on," said Dink.
"How will we know?" asked Vlad.
"Me first," said Alai.
A pause. A new faint hiss in their earphones.
"Salaam," Alai whispered.
"Alai," said Ender.
"And me," said Bean. "The dwarf."
"Bean," said Ender.
Yes, thought Bean, as the others talked to him. That's who I am. That's the name that is spoken by the people who know me.
CHAPTER 23 – ENDER'S GAME
"General, you are the Strategos. You have the authority to do this, and you have the obligation."
"I don't need disgraced former Battle School commandants to tell me my obligations."
"If you do not arrest the Polemarch and his conspirators —"
"Colonel Graff, if I do strike first, then I will bear the blame for the war that ensues."
"Yes, you would, sir. Now tell me, which would be the better outcome – everybody blames you, but we win the war, or nobody blames you, because you've been stood up against a wall and shot after the Polemarch's coup results in worldwide Russian hegemony?"
"I will not fire the first shot."
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