The Ender Quintet (Omnibus)

by Card, Orson Scott

  Pol Slattery was furious, but there had been nothing unfair about it. Everyone in Leopard Army assumed that it had been a strategy of Bonzo’s, to leave a man till the last minute. It didn’t occur to them that little Ender had fired against orders. But Salamander Army knew. Bonzo knew, and Ender could see from the way his commander looked at him that Bonzo hated him for rescuing him from total defeat. I don’t care, Ender told himself. It will just make me easier to trade away, and in the meantime you won’t drop so far in the standings. Just trade me. I’ve learned all I’m ever going to learn from you. How to fail with style, that’s all you know, Bonzo.

  What have I learned so far? Ender listed things in his mind as he undressed by his bunk. The enemy’s gate is down. Use my legs as a shield in battle. A small reserve, held back until the end of the game, can be decisive. And soldiers can sometimes make decisions that are smarter than the orders they’ve been given.

  Naked, he was about to climb into bed when Bonzo came toward him, his face hard and set. I have seen Peter like this, thought Ender, silent with murder in his eye. But Bonzo is not Peter. Bonzo has more fear.

  “Wiggin, I finally traded you. I was able to persuade Rat Army that your incredible place on the efficiency list is more than an accident. You go over there tomorrow.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Ender said.

  Perhaps he sounded too grateful. Suddenly Bonzo swung at him, caught his jaw with a vicious open-handed slap. It knocked Ender sideways, into his bunk, and he almost fell. Then Bonzo slugged him, hard, in the stomach. Ender dropped to his knees.

  “You disobeyed me,” Bonzo said. Loudly, for all to hear. “No good soldier ever disobeys.”

  Even as he cried from the pain, Ender could not help but take vengeful pleasure in the murmurs he heard rising through the barracks. You fool, Bonzo. You aren’t enforcing discipline, you’re destroying it. They know I turned defeat into a draw. And now they see how you repay me. You made yourself look stupid in front of everyone. What is your discipline worth now?

  The next day, Ender told Petra that for her sake the shooting practice in the morning would have to end. Bonzo didn’t need anything that looked like a challenge now, and so she’d better stay clear of Ender for a while. She understood perfectly. “Besides,” she said, “you’re as close to being a good shot as you’ll ever be.”

  He left his desk and flash suit in the locker. He would wear his Salamander uniform until he could get to the commissary and change it for the brown and black of Rat. He had brought no possessions with him; he would take none away. There were none to have—everything of value was in the school computer or his own head and hands.

  He used one of the public desks in the game room to register for an earth-gravity personal combat course during the hour immediately after breakfast. He didn’t plan to get vengeance on Bonzo for hitting him. But he did intend that no one would be able to do that to him again.

  8

  RAT

  “Colonel Graff, the games have always been run fairly before. Either random distribution of stars, or symmetrical.”

  “Fairness is a wonderful attribute, Major Anderson. It has nothing to do with war.”

  “The game will be compromised. The comparative standings will become meaningless.”

  “Alas.”

  “It will take months. Years, to develop the new battlerooms and run the simulations.”

  “That’s why I’m asking you now. To begin. Be creative. Think of every stacked, impossible, unfair star arrangement you can. Think of other ways to bend the rules. Late notification. Unequal forces. Then run the simulations and see which ones are hardest, which easiest. We want an intelligent progression here. We want to bring him along.”

  “When do you plan to make him a commander? When he’s eight?”

  “Of course not. I haven’t assembled his army yet.”

  “Oh, so you’re stacking it that way, too?”

  “You’re getting too close to the game, Anderson. You’re forgetting that it is merely a training exercise.”

  “It’s also status, identity, purpose, name; all that makes these children who they are comes out of this game. When it becomes known that the game can be manipulated, weighted, cheated, it will undo this whole school. I’m not exaggerating.”

  “I know.”

  “So I hope Ender Wiggin truly is the one, because you’ll have degraded the effectiveness of our training method for a long time to come.”

  “If Ender isn’t the one, if his peak of military brilliance does not coincide with the arrival of our fleet at the bugger homeworlds, then it doesn’t really matter what our training method is or isn’t.”

  “I hope you will forgive me, Colonel Graff, but I feel that I must report your orders and my opinion of their consequences to the Strategos and the Hegemon.”

  “Why not our dear Polemarch?”

  “Everybody knows you have him in your pocket.”

  “Such hostility, Major Anderson. And I thought we were friends.”

  “We are. And I think you may be right about Ender. I just don’t believe you, and you alone, should decide the fate of the world.”

  “I don’t even think it’s right for me to decide the fate of Ender Wiggin.”

  “So you won’t mind if I notify them?”

  “Of course I mind, you meddlesome ass. This is something to be decided by people who know what they’re doing, not these frightened politicians who got their office because they happen to be politically potent in the country they come from.”

  “But you understand why I’m doing it.”

  “Because you’re such a short-sighted little bureaucratic bastard that you think you need to cover yourself in case things go wrong. Well, if things go wrong we’ll all be bugger meat. So trust me now, Anderson, and don’t bring the whole damn Hegemony down on my neck. What I’m doing is hard enough without them.”

  “Oh, is it unfair? Are things stacked against you? You can do it to Ender, but you can’t take it, is that it?”

  “Ender Wiggin is ten times smarter and stronger than I am. What I’m doing to him will bring out his genius. If I had to go through it myself, it would crush me. Major Anderson, I know I’m wrecking the game, and I know you love it better than any of the boys who play. Hate me if you like, but don’t stop me.”

  “I reserve the right to communicate with the Hegemony and the Strategoi at any time. But for now—do what you want.”

  “Thank you so very kindly.”

  “Ender Wiggin, the little farthead who leads the standings, what a pleasure to have you with us.” The commander of Rat Army lay sprawled on a lower bunk wearing only his desk. “With you around, how can any army lose?” Several of the boys nearby laughed.

  There could not have been two more opposite armies than Salamander and Rat. The room was rumpled, cluttered, noisy. After Bonzo, Ender had thought that undiscipline would be a welcome relief. Instead, he found that he had come to expect quiet and order, and the disorder here made him uncomfortable.

  “We doing OK, Ender Bender. I Rose de Nose, Jewboy extraordinaire, and you ain’t nothin but a pinheaded pinprick of a goy. Don’t you forget it.”

  Since the I.F. was formed, the Strategos of the military forces had always been a Jew. There was a myth that Jewish generals didn’t lose wars. And so far it was still true. It made any Jew in the Battle School dream of being Strategos, and conferred prestige on him from the start. It also caused resentment. Rat Army was often called the Kike Force, half in praise, half in parody of Mazer Rackham’s Strike Force. There were many who liked to remember that during the Second Invasion, even though an American Jew, as President, was Hegemon of the alliance, an Israeli Jew was Strategos in overall command of I.F. defense, and a Russian Jew was Polemarch of the fleet, it was Mazer Rackham, a little-known, twice-court-martialled, half-Maori New Zealander whose Strike Force broke up and finally destroyed the bugger fleet in the action around Saturn.

  If Mazer Rackham could save the world
, then it didn’t matter a bit whether you were a Jew or not, people said.

  But it did matter, and Rose the Nose knew it. He mocked himself to forestall the mocking comments of anti-semites—almost everyone he defeated in battle became, at least for a time, a Jew-hater—but he also made sure everyone knew what he was. His army was in second place, bucking for first.

  “I took you on, goy, because I didn’t want people to think I only win because I got great soldiers. I want them to know that even with a little puke of a soldier like you I can still win. We only got three rules here. Do what I tell you and don’t piss in the bed.”

  Ender nodded. He knew that Rose wanted him to ask what the third rule was. So he did.

  “That was three rules. We don’t do too good in math, here.”

  The message was clear. Winning is more important than anything.

  “Your practice sessions with half-assed little Launchies are over, Wiggin. Done. You’re in a big boys’ army now. I’m putting you in Dink Meeker’s toon. From now on, as far as you’re concerned, Dink Meeker is God.”

  “Then who are you?”

  “The personnel officer who hired God.” Rose grinned. “And you are forbidden to use your desk again until you’ve frozen two enemy soldiers in the same battle. This order is out of self-defense. I hear you’re a genius programmer. I don’t want you screwing around with my desk.”

  Everybody erupted in laughter. It took Ender a moment to understand why. Rose had programmed his desk to display and animate a bigger-than-lifesize picture of male genitals, which waggled back and forth as Rose held the desk on his naked lap. This is just the sort of commander Bonzo would trade me to, thought Ender. How does a boy who spends his time like this win battles?

  Ender found Dink Meeker in the game room, not playing, just sitting and watching. “A guy pointed you out,” Ender said. “I’m Ender Wiggin.”

  “I know,” said Meeker.

  “I’m in your toon.”

  “I know,” he said again.

  “I’m pretty inexperienced.”

  Dink looked up at him. “Look, Wiggin, I know all this. Why do you think I asked Rose to get you for me?”

  He had not been dumped, he had been picked up, he had been asked for. Meeker wanted him. “Why?” asked Ender.

  “I’ve watched your practice sessions with the Launchies. I think you show some promise. Bonzo is stupid and I wanted you to get better training than Petra could give you. All she can do is shoot.”

  “I needed to learn that.”

  “You still move like you were afraid to wet your pants.”

  “So teach me.”

  “So learn.”

  “I’m not going to quit my freetime practice sessions.”

  “I don’t want you to quit them.”

  “Rose the Nose does.”

  “Rose the Nose can’t stop you. Likewise, he can’t stop you from using your desk.”

  “So why did he order it?”

  “Listen, Ender, commanders have just as much authority as you let them have. The more you obey them, the more power they have over you.”

  “What’s to stop them from hurting me?” Ender remembered Bonzo’s blow.

  “I thought that was why you were taking personal attack classes.”

  “You’ve really been watching me, haven’t you?”

  Dink didn’t answer.

  “I don’t want to get Rose mad at me. I want to be part of the battles now, I’m tired of sitting out till the end.”

  “Your standings will go down.”

  This time Ender didn’t answer.

  “Listen, Ender, as long as you’re part of my toon, you’re part of the battle.”

  Ender soon learned why. Dink trained his toon independently from the rest of Rat Army, with discipline and vigor; he never consulted with Rose, and only rarely did the whole army maneuver together. It was as if Rose commanded one army, and Dink commanded a much smaller one that happened to practice in the battleroom at the same time.

  Dink started out the first practice by asking Ender to demonstrate his feet-first attack position. The other boys didn’t like it. “How can we attack lying on our backs?” they asked.

  To Ender’s surprise, Dink didn’t correct them, didn’t say, “You aren’t attacking on your back, you’re dropping downward toward them.” He had seen what Ender was doing, but he had not understood the orientation that it implied. It soon became clear to Ender that even though Dink was very, very good, his persistence in holding onto the corridor gravity orientation instead of thinking of the enemy gate as downward was limiting his thinking.

  They practiced attacking an enemy-held star. Before trying Ender’s feet-first method, they had always gone in standing up, their whole bodies available as a target. Even now, though, they reached the star and then assaulted the enemy from one direction only; “Over the top,” cried Dink, and over they went. To his credit, he then repeated the exercise, calling, “Again, upside down,” but because of their insistence on a gravity that didn’t exist, the boys became awkward when the maneuver was under, as if vertigo seized them.

  They hated the feet-first attack. Dink insisted that they use it. As a result, they hated Ender. “Do we have to learn how to fight from a Launchy?” one of them muttered, making sure Ender could hear. “Yes,” answered Dink. They kept working.

  And they learned it. In practice skirmishes, they began to realize how much harder it was to shoot an enemy who is attacking feet first. As soon as they were convinced of that, they practiced the maneuver more willingly.

  That night was the first time Ender had come to one of his launchy practice sessions after a whole afternoon of work. He was tired.

  “Now you’re really in an army,” said Alai, “you don’t have to keep practicing with us.”

  “From you I can learn things that nobody knows,” said Ender.

  “Dink Meeker is the best. I hear he’s your toon leader.”

  “Then let’s get busy. I’ll teach you what I learned from him today.”

  He put Alai and two dozen others through the same exercises that had worn him out all afternoon. But he put new touches on the patterns, made the boys try the maneuvers with one leg frozen, with both legs frozen, or using frozen boys for leverage to change directions.

  Halfway through the practice, Ender noticed Petra and Dink together, standing in the doorway, watching. Later, when he looked again, they were gone.

  So they’re watching me, and what we’re doing is known. He did not know whether Dink was his friend; he believed that Petra was, but nothing could be sure. They might be angry that he was doing what only commanders and toon leaders were supposed to do—drilling and training soldiers. They might be offended that a soldier would associate so closely with Launchies. It made him uneasy, to have older children watching.

  “I thought I told you not to use your desk.” Rose the Nose stood by Ender’s bunk.

  Ender did not look up. “I’m completing the trigonometry assignment for tomorrow.”

  Rose bumped his knee into Ender’s desk. “I said not to use it.”

  Ender set the desk on his bunk and stood up. “I need trigonometry more than I need you.”

  Rose was taller than Ender by at least forty centimeters. But Ender was not particularly worried. It would not come to physical violence, and if it did, Ender thought he could hold his own. Rose was lazy and didn’t know personal combat.

  “You’re going down in the standings, boy,” said Rose.

  “I expect to. I was only leading the list because of the stupid way Salamander Army was using me.”

  “Stupid? Bonzo’s strategy won a couple of key games.”

  “Bonzo’s strategy wouldn’t win a salad fight. I was violating orders every time I fired my gun.”

  Rose hadn’t known that. It made him angry. “So everything Bonzo said about you was a lie. You’re not only short and incompetent, you’re insubordinate, too.”

  “But I turned defeat into stalema
te, all by myself.”

  “We’ll see how you do all by yourself next time.” Rose went away.

  One of Ender’s toonmates shook his head. “You dumb as a thumb.”

  Ender looked at Dink, who was doodling on his desk. Dink looked up, noticed Ender watching him, and gazed steadily back at him. No expression. Nothing. OK, thought Ender, I can take care of myself.

  Battle came two days later. It was Ender’s first time fighting as part of a toon; he was nervous. Dink’s toon lined up against the right-hand wall of the corridor and Ender was very careful not to lean, not to let his weight slip to either side. Stay balanced.

  “Wiggin!” called Rose the Nose.

  Ender felt dread come over him from throat to groin, a tingle of fear that made him shudder. Rose saw it.

  “Shivering? Trembling? Don’t wet your pants, little Launchy.” Rose hooked a finger over the butt of Ender’s gun and pulled him to the forcefield that hid the battleroom from view. “We’ll see how well you do now, Ender. As soon as that door opens, you jump through, go straight ahead toward the enemy’s door.”

  Suicide. Pointless, meaningless self-destruction. But he had to follow orders now, this was battle, not school. For a moment Ender raged silently; then he calmed himself. “Excellent, sir,” he said. “The direction I fire my gun is the direction of their main contingent.”

  Rose laughed. “You won’t have time to fire anything, pinprick.”

  The wall vanished. Ender jumped up, took hold of the ceiling handholds, and threw himself out and down, speeding toward the enemy door.

  It was Centipede Army, and they only began to emerge from their door when Ender was halfway across the battleroom. Many of them were able to get under cover of stars quickly, but Ender had doubled up his legs under him and, holding his pistol at his crotch, he was firing between his legs and freezing many of them as they emerged.

  They flashed his legs, but he had three precious seconds before they could hit his body and put him out of action. He froze several more, then flung out his arms in equal and opposite directions. The hand that held his gun ended up pointing toward the main body of Centipede Army. He fired into the mass of the enemy, and then they froze him.