by Black, Jake
“As for the farm, it’s been struggling for years despite the family’s hard work, and is now near bankruptcy. Everything changes when the I.F. arrives. They’ve been observing Hyrum for some time now—following his movements on the nets, as well as through other means—and their offer is simple: they’ll give him a place at their prestigious Pre-command training school and pay a stipend to Hyrum’s family that will keep the farm afloat.
“Hyrum accepts, and at Pre-command, the I.F. recognizes that Hyrum’s skills exceed those of a would-be engineer: his greatest talent is bureaucracy, organizing and motivating people, managing systems, and helping others exceed their own expectations—precisely how he managed the migrant workers on the farm back home.
“But when a dignitary visits Pre-command, Hyrum discovers the truth about the fleet and a secret plot to destroy the ansible and force the fleet back to earth. Young, barely trained, and inexperienced, Hyrum and a small group of cadets must stop those behind the coup and keep the fleet on course.”
Graff, Lieutenant/Captain/Colonel Hyrum (PL, MP, EGS, EG, WG, ES, EE, SH, SP, SG)
Described as six-foot-two, and a little chubby, Hyrum Graff was a committed soldier. He loved his home planet and was determined to protect it from the attacks by the Formics. He would, he always knew, be responsible for saving the world from the “Buggers.” To accomplish this, he joined the military.
As part of his search for the child who would lead the armies of Earth into victory, Hyrum (while a lieutenant) contacted Mazer Rackham on board his private courier vessel, seeking his guidance and counsel regarding the attributes the future leader would need. Mazer was unable (or unwilling) to help him, however, leaving Hyrum to search on his own. In an effort to convince Mazer to help him, Hyrum located Mazer’s ex-wife and children, bringing them into communication with each other. Through these messages, Hyrum was able to gain Mazer’s trust and convince him to help train the new commander of the fleet who would lead the charge against the Formics. Mazer had set one condition: that the Fleet promote Hyrum and give him real authority. Knowing they needed Mazer on their side, the Fleet promoted Lt. Graff to Captain. Hyrum informed Mazer that his goal was not only to train the new commander, but to build an army that would be ready for an avenging Formic army a thousand years in the future. He described himself as a “big picture guy.”
A few years later, having been given the authority that Mazer insisted he be given, he was among the high-level leaders in the International Fleet who evaluated Battle School screening test results. The evaluation committee learned of a remarkable young boy named John Paul Wieczorek, living in Poland. John Paul had scored extremely well on the screening tests, and as the teacher of the school on this evaluation committee, it fell to Hyrum to make the final determination on John Paul’s readiness for Battle School.
In their meeting, John Paul and Hyrum discussed various options, which angered John Paul’s father, Brian, to the point that he hit Hyrum. Hyrum took advantage of the attack, threatening to arrest Brian for assault on a military officer if he didn’t back down and let John Paul speak. John Paul didn’t want to go to Battle School, but wanted to better his family’s situation. So he agreed he would go if Graff could move the family to America. Hyrum knew John Paul had no intention of going to Battle School, and told him so. John Paul all but confessed and modified the offer with the deal that the family go to America regardless of whether or not John Paul went to Battle School. Hyrum agreed, much to the confusion of Helena Rudolf who had accompanied him. Again referring to himself as a “big picture guy,” Hyrum told Helena that his goal now was not to get John Paul into Battle School, but to get the boy to marry someone equally brilliant, and then look to John Paul’s children (who would be exceptionally brilliant) for the Fleet’s longsought commander. The plan would work as Hyrum kept track of John Paul: the strong-willed Polish boy married Theresa Brown, and years later Hyrum recruited their son, one Andrew “Ender” Wiggin, for Battle School.
Hyrum, who had been promoted to director of primary training at Battle School, was upfront with Ender at their recruitment meeting. He told the six-year-old boy much of his family’s history. Surprisingly, he even told Ender how hard Battle School would be—that it would even be harder than staying on Earth and living life as the third child of a family when only two were permitted. Ender agreed to go with Graff.
As Hyrum and Ender traveled in space toward Battle School, Hyrum made an effort to ostracize Ender from the other students by making him a proverbial “teacher’s pet.” It was an effort to make Ender fight to be the best in the school. Hyrum told Ender that they weren’t friends, but later confessed to fellow teacher Anderson that he did think of Ender as a friend.
In his role as head of Battle School, Hyrum had to discipline students who broke school rules. Among them was Dink Meeker, who secretly gave gifts celebrating St. Nicholas Day. This action led to a much bigger problem of religious observance among other students—notably Ahmed the Muslim student and Zeck Morgan the Christian zealot. Hyrum didn’t want to deal with issues like these, but it was his job and so he did. He also knew that Ender would be the key to finding harmony among the students embroiled in the religious conflict, and he was correct. Ender bridged the gap between Zeck, Dink, and the others.
As Ender progressed in Battle School, Hyrum seemed to have doubts about using children as soldiers. He once referred to himself and the other teachers at Battle School as being similar to the Roman soldiers who had crucified Jesus. However, Hyrum knew in his heart that the fate of humanity depended on finding the right commander, and he believed that it was, in fact, Ender.
Hyrum was not pleased to learn that a nun named Sister Carlotta, who had assisted in finding students for Battle School, had sent him a five-year-old boy named Bean. He didn’t want to deal with a child as physically small as Bean, and resented his being sent to the school.
But Bean was proving to be an interesting challenge. He set up a secret, second identity, hid from the officers at school, and wrote diaries about a boy named Achilles. Hyrum contacted Sister Carlotta for an interpretation of Bean’s actions and learned that Bean was only trying to control his own circumstances. Hyrum angrily agreed to send Sister Carlotta information on Fleet-sponsored genetic research in exchange for her help with Bean.
The information Hyrum sent to Sister Carlotta led the nun to discover that Bean was likely a product of genetic manipulation, and she told Hyrum so. He grew concerned about it and made the decision to watch Bean more closely.
Meanwhile, three years after Ender entered Battle School, Hyrum was concerned that the boy had fallen into a deep depression. In an effort to pull Ender out of this emotional distress, Hyrum traveled to Earth and convinced Ender’s sister Valentine to write Ender a letter. She consented, and Hyrum delivered the letter to Ender, but it led to unintentional consequences. Ender came out of his depression, but essentially declared war on the officers of Battle School who had used Valentine as a puppet.
Hyrum felt, soon after Ender had read the letter from Valentine, that it was time to promote him to Commander. He was concerned, though, that the schedule for battles they had given him as a new commander would break Ender. Major Anderson reminded Hyrum that it was on his orders that Ender’s army received such a schedule. Hyrum spoke with Ender about his use of the vids of the previous Formic battles, telling Ender that the vids were only propaganda. This did not deter Ender from studying them, and only served to give Hyrum more cause for concern for the boy he considered his protégé and the future leader of the International Fleet.
When Ender’s life was threatened by Bonzo Madrid, Hyrum stepped back and allowed the natural course of events to unfold. Though this resulted in the death of Bonzo at Ender’s hands, Hyrum stood by his decision to let it happen. It proved Ender’s willingness to do anything to survive.
It was for this same purpose that Hyrum brought to Battle School Achilles Flandres, a known bully in his hometown of Rotterdam in the Netherland
s. Achilles was to Bean what Bonzo had been to Ender. Achilles’s presence on the station would challenge Bean and help him grow into a better soldier.
Ender continued to be dominant in command of his Dragon Army, and as a result Hyrum was responsible for getting Ender into Command School years before the traditional age of entry. Hyrum was reassigned from Battle School to personally watch out for Ender as he made the transition to Command School. He was succeeded in Battle School by Colonel Anderson.
Prior to taking him to Command School, Hyrum took Ender to Earth for a brief visit with his sister Valentine. During that time, Graff was investigated by the International Fleet. Had his actions with Bonzo been justified? A court-martial was pending.
He also spoke with Sister Carlotta and learned just how dangerous Achilles really was. Desperate to avoid another murder at Battle School, Graff contacted his former colleagues there to warn them about Achilles.
He then traveled with Ender to the Eros asteroid—the home of Command School.
After helping Ender train on the “simulators” at Command School for a year, Hyrum turned his protégé over to Mazer Rackham to complete his training. However, he still had responsibilities at Command School. Among them was speaking with Bean, who had been assigned to Command School as one of Ender’s unseen army in the simulators. He told Bean about his true parentage—that Bean was actually the son of a family in Greece and brother to the closest friend he’d had at Battle School, Nikolai Delphiki. Hyrum also told Bean that he was the backup plan in case Ender was unable to function during one of the exams.
Hyrum returned to observe Ender’s “final exam” at Command School. He tearfully cheered as Ender completed the final—which, like all the simulators, was an actual battle—and annihilated the Formic species by destroying their home world.
Following Ender’s victory, Hyrum and Mazer Rackham learned that war was about to begin on Earth, and Ender’s life was in jeopardy. Knowing that the governments of Earth would try to manipulate the hero of the Formic War, Hyrum sent a letter to Ender’s parents subtly encouraging them to ask that Ender not be sent home. Ender’s parents, Theresa and John Paul, understood Hyrum’s letter and sadly agreed. So the heads of the Wiggin family subtly manipulated Peter and Valentine, in their guises as Locke and Demosthenes, to write articles that would convince the world leaders to force Ender to stay in space.
In turn, the International Fleet, Hyrum among them, decided to hide Ender from Earth and put him into space as a governor of one of the new human colonies throughout the galaxy where he’d be safe. Hyrum also personally protected Bean from being used by either faction in the short-lived conflict on Earth.
Hyrum was tried for the deaths of two children Ender had killed, but was acquitted. He was given a position in the new Hegemony—Minister of Colonization. He and Ender communicated with each other after Ender’s assignment to the colony ship. It was Hyrum who revealed to Ender that his siblings were the politically influential essayists Locke and Demosthenes. Hyrum said good-bye to Ender and Valentine as the ship launched. Graff posed for a picture with Mazer Rackham and Ender. The photo of the three great war heroes was plastered all over the world.
Hyrum had been exonerated in his court-martial and tried to keep in touch with Sister Carlotta, but that proved problematic as she disappeared after the Formic War. He was able to track her down, though, and together they located Bean and his family, who were in hiding after a murder attempt on their lives. Hyrum took the Delphiki family deeper into hiding while Sister Carlotta was responsible for Bean. Hyrum was convinced that they needed to protect Bean from the would-be assassins.
In the meantime, Hyrum also communicated with Chamrajnagar, convincing him not to expose Peter Wiggin’s identity as Locke, for the good of the International Fleet. Once Peter, with Bean and Sister Carlotta’s help, chose to expose his true identity as Locke, Hyrum helped by calling for Locke to be the new Hegemon.
After Peter revealed his true identity, Graff continued to monitor Bean and Carlotta who had gone to Thailand. He fed intelligence information to Bean, including the withdrawal of Indian and Pakistani troops from their shared border and his belief that Petra had joined Achilles’s army as strategist.
Shortly before her murder, Sister Carlotta sent Hyrum and Peter Wiggin a message to forward to Bean if he did not hear from her again. Peter sent it on to Bean after she was killed.
When Peter Wiggin ascended to the Hegemony, he kept Hyrum on staff as the Minister of Colonization. When Hyrum learned that Peter was bringing Achilles to the Hegemony compound in Brazil, he helped the Delphiki and Arkanian families, who were threatened by Achilles, go into hiding. He tried to convince John Paul and Theresa Wiggin to also leave the compound, but they refused. Hyrum knew they would, and in his conversation with Theresa subtly helped her make the determination to assassinate Achilles.
Several months later, during an unsuccessful power grab in the Hegemony compound, Achilles tried to remove Hyrum from his position as the Minister of Colonization. Because Achilles was not the Hegemon—that remained with Peter—the move was soundly rejected by the leaders within the government.
To protect Peter and his parents from Achilles, Graff invited them to stay for a while at the Ministry of Colonization. The Ministry was housed in the orbiting space station that had been Battle School, and Graff continued in his role as head of the station.
The Wiggins’ arrival was leaked by someone on the station to someone on Earth. Hyrum and the Wiggins planned an escape that would allow Hyrum to expose the mole and to protect the Wiggins as promised.
The plan worked, and Hyrum discovered that the mole was the station’s chief of security, Uphanad. Achilles had blackmailed Uphanad into doing his bidding by capturing and threatening his family. Hyrum felt bad for the proud security chief and had to fire him from his position on the station.
The exposure out of the way, Hyrum proceeded with the rest of the plan that involved actually sending the Wiggins home to Earth, but using a variety of shuttles as distractions that had been loaned to him by Chamrajnagar. Achilles tried to shoot down the shuttles, thinking he’d kill Peter in the process. It allowed Graff and Chamrajnagar to authorize an assault on Achilles in Brazil.
After Achilles was defeated, Peter resumed his position as Hegemon in Brazil, and Hyrum visited Earth to celebrate their victory. A few weeks later, Hyrum dispatched Mazer Rackham to Earth to offer both Han Tzu and Bean, as well as the rest of Ender’s colleagues from Command School, spacecraft that would take them to space, protecting them from the political problems on Earth. Han Tzu rejected the offer, while Bean considered it, in exchange for helping Peter govern the world.
Bean asked Graff to use the Ministry’s Mind Game computer program to invest Ender’s pension. Peter had been embezzling his brother’s money, and Bean wanted it protected. Graff was doubtful that it would work as an investment software, but agreed to try. It proved tremendously successful as the program’s ability to predict trends in the market gave it the ability to make sound investments. Hyrum didn’t know this at the time, but the program would evolve to become Jane, Ender’s dearest companion in his journeys throughout space.
With the success of the investment program, Bean and Hyrum used the computer to track where Bean’s stolen embryos had gone, too. Hyrum located the first of these in Portugal. A girl named Bella had a 100 percent DNA match to Bean and Petra. Petra traveled there to retrieve her daughter.
As Peter built the Hegemony into the Free People of Earth, Hyrum again offered Ender’s colleagues the opportunity to leave Earth and govern a planet. It was his fear that Ender’s army would be used in the worldwide conflict, manipulated by whatever political power rose to prominence, and he wanted to prevent that. Every member who received the offer, which did not include Han Tzu, Petra Arkanian, or Alai, said no. The others were already too involved in matters on Earth to leave.
Hyrum helped Bean leave Earth to travel with three of his children as they awaited a cur
e for the genetic mutation that had affected their physical and mental development. Bean stayed in touch with Hyrum in space for a while.
Hyrum found the last of Bean and Petra’s missing embryos when a woman named Nichelle Firth spit on Hyrum at a launch of a colony ship. She carried with her a boy she thought was Achilles’s son. Hyrum notified Ender, who was soon to arrive at the colony he was going to govern. He asked his former protégé to, in a few years, travel to Ganges, the colony to which Nichelle and her stolen son had gone, and learn about Bean’s missing child.
As Ender approached the colony, he sought help from Hyrum, too. The commander of Ender’s colony ship wanted to usurp his authority in the colony. To prevent this, Hyrum and the new Polemarch sent the admiral a letter warning him that if he attempted anything that would detract from Ender’s standing in the government, he would be charged instantly with mutiny. The letter worked, and Ender became the governor without problem.
From a distant colony in space, Valentine Wiggin wrote the history of the Formic Wars. Peter Wiggin, as an adult, praised Valentine’s work, saying that he spent a lot of time with Hyrum before he died, and Valentine captured the essence of the Battle School Administrator and Minister of Colonization.
In his later years, Hyrum placed himself in stasis for ten months out of the year, prolonging his life. He worked as the Minister of Colonization during his two-month awakenings before being fired from the position for not fulfilling his duties. Left to live on his colonel’s pension, Hyrum retired to a small home he owned in Ireland. He sent Ender one last letter to say good-bye, admonishing the boy-governor to have a family.
Hyrum was grateful to receive a letter from Valentine telling him that Ender had found Bean and Petra’s last stolen embryo. He was gratified that Virlomi was also doing a good job as the governor of her colony.
The facts around Hyrum’s death are unknown. What is known, however, is that he loved the children he worked with at Battle School. He loved humanity, and longed for the day when the species would be united on Earth.
