Card, Orson Scott - Ender's Saga 5 - Ender's Shadow

by Orson Scott Card

  CHAPTER 18 — FRIEND

  "This boy's death was not necessary."

  "This boy's death was not foreseen."

  "But it was foreseeable."

  "You can always foresee things that already happened. These are children, after all. We did not anticipate this level of violence."

  "I don't believe you. I believe that this is precisely the level of violence you anticipated. This is what you set up. You think that the experiment succeeded."

  "I can't control your opinions. I can merely disagree with them.

  "Ender Wiggin is ready to move on to Command School. That is my report."

  "I have a separate report from Dap, the teacher assigned to watch him most closely. And that report — for which there are to be no sanctions against Captain Dap — tells me that Andrew Wiggin is 'psychologically unfit for duty.'"

  "If he is, which I doubt, it is only temporary."

  "How much time do you think we have? No, Colonel Graff, for the time being we have to regard your course of action regarding Wiggin as a failure, and the boy as ruined not only for our purposes but quite possibly for any other as well. So, if it can be done without further killings, I want the other one pushed forward. I want him here in Command School as close to immediately as possible."

  "Very well, sir. Though I must tell you that I regard Bean as unreliable."