Children of the Fleet

by Orson Scott Card

  “So is this how you’ll fulfil my request to let me go outside? Here? Without a suit?”

  “This is where I can answer your question: Nobody is listening, nobody is recording, especially now that I’ve turned off all the tracking in your suit. And in case you think it would be fun to turn the tracking off at any other time, I can assure you: The tracking system will not respond to your touch. Only to mine.”

  “Only yours?”

  “And your barracks officer. Urska Kaluza can’t even turn it off. Clear?”

  “So I may speak freely?”

  “If you mean, do I promise not to tell on you, absolutely not. If you’re an egotistical idiot—which all accounts say that you are—I’ll report whatever I want, to whoever I want. But if you have something of substance to ask or to tell, then I’ll do whatever a prudent and intelligent security officer would do. That’s the best I can do, and if it isn’t good enough, then back we go.”

  “She’s Slovene and you’re Russian,” said Dabeet.

  “She’s Slovene and I have a made-up Russian name. Sort of. Robot is Czech for ‘worker’ and Smirnov is a Russian name meaning ‘meek.’ My name means ‘docile worker.’ It’s ironic. I’m a Finn. There, now you know my dark secret. Finns have a long history of hating Russians and getting along with them anyway. But we have never cared a rat’s ass about Slovenes, and vice versa. She’s neither friend nor foe. Now say something worthwhile, Ochoa.”

  Dabeet wanted to go on with an explanation about how he wanted to know how to open doors and go outside so he could get some practice in the cold dark vacuum, but since that was all bullshit and a security officer probably had training in reading the microexpressions that betrayed even the best of liars, he closed his eyes, then reopened them and said, “I think Fleet School is being used as a base for smuggling, and I have no way of knowing how much of the current Fleet School administration is in on it.”

  “What if it’s station security that’s running the operation?” asked Robota. “What if you’re telling your suspicions to the person who would be most likely to put you out this door without a suit in order to keep you silent?”

  “If that were the case,” said Dabeet, “I’d already be on the other side of that door with the air getting pumped out.”

  “So you took a flying leap and decided to trust me.”

  “I took a flying leap and decided that if anyone could be trusted, it was you, and if you couldn’t be trusted, then we’re all dead anyway.”

  “What an interesting theory. How would we all be dead?”

  “Don’t you want to hear my evidence about smuggling?”

  “You were one of the tallyboys on a shipment several weeks ago. I’m betting you found several small and hidden crates that weren’t on the manifest, and they were off-loaded before you could get the numbers.”

  “I know the numbers,” said Dabeet. He repeated them, clearly articulating each number and letter.

  “Interesting,” said Robota. “Was this what you wanted to meet with MinCol about?”

  “The Minister of Colonization is aware of some of the circumstances I now have no choice but to tell you about. I thought that if I could speak to him first, there’d be less to explain, and less chance of getting myself in deeper jeopardy. But he hasn’t responded, and I thought I should report this to somebody before an unfortunate accident left me tetherless, slipping into the dark of space.”

  Robota nodded her understanding.

  “Before I was accepted to Fleet School, but after I was first visited by MinCol and challenged to prepare myself for leadership rather than mere intelligence tests, I was kidnapped and taken from my school, on an airplane manned by various latinoamericanos.”

  “From?”

  “They pretended to be from one country or another. Does it matter? Nothing they said was true, except this. They believed that some very dangerous weapons-grade bioagents were being smuggled to Earth—presumably to some nation or faction that they opposed—and these bioagents were passing through Fleet School Station.”

  “So they already know. What is the point of this?”

  “They didn’t know. They suspected. They also suspected that the IF officers running Fleet School were all complicit.”

  “So why didn’t they take their suspicions to MinCol?”

  “For all they knew, it was this smuggling operation that funded ColMin’s ambitious program of colony ship construction.”

  “They couldn’t trust anybody, but they trusted you.”

  “My mother is still on Earth. In effect, she’s a hostage to guarantee my obedience.”

  “I know she’s not your mother,” said Robota.

  “I know it, too,” said Dabeet, “in the genetic sense. But Rafa Ochoa is the woman who raised me and educated me and was proud of my achievements and ambitious for my future. That makes her my mother, as you must already have surmised. They’re waiting for my signal.”

  “Signal. You have some kind of enciphered message, then, to send in an email to Rafaella Ochoa?”

  “Codes and ciphers reveal themselves to those who know how to detect them,” said Dabeet. “It’s something much simpler. If I don’t respond at all, then my mother dies. If I do respond, I must send one of the following messages. ‘There is no smuggling here.’”

  “That’s absurd,” said Robota. “You could never find evidence that there was no trafficking.”

  “It’s not absurd,” said Dabeet. “I am who I am, and I detected the evidence of smuggling the first time I was involved in the loading and unloading process. If I had detected nothing—”

  “It would mean they were cleverer than they actually are.”

  “There’s no reason for them to be more than marginally clever, because it’s an inside system. They’ve already bribed the man. Or in this case, the woman.”

  “Me?” asked Robota.

  “Well, you’ll tell me if that’s true by what you do. But I didn’t mean you.”

  “You don’t like Urska.”

  “Nobody likes Urska,” said Dabeet. “But Urska likes money. Or whatever coin she’s being paid in.”

  “So one message is, no smuggling here.”

  “Which I think they wouldn’t believe,” said Dabeet. “The second signal is, smuggling is going on but there’s no authority I can appeal to.”

  “You’re appealing to me.”

  “The third signal is, I have found and reported the smuggling to the proper authorities, and it is being taken care of.”

  “Any more signals?”

  “Three seemed enough. Especially since, as you pointed out, the first one is absurd.”

  “Are you going to tell me the signals? I’m guessing they involve the disposition of doors on the outside of Fleet School Station, on the side where telescopes in Latin America can detect it.”

  “Two doors open, with no vehicles nearby, means that there’s no smuggling. Three doors open means that authority is dealing with it. One door open means that there is smuggling and nobody’s going to take action.”

  Robota nodded. “How long will they remain open?”

  “They assumed that I’d need to close the doors almost immediately, so to make sure they were observed, I’d wait for the next pass over Latin America and then the one after that. Then I open the same door or doors again.”

  “Very elaborate,” said Robota. “And extremely stupid. Every door here is part of a system of alarms. If someone as much as touches the palmpad of any outside portal, I know it and so does my entire team.”

  “I told them that was likely.”

  “And they said?”

  “They knew that I’d get caught, but they didn’t care. I was supposed to invent some bullshit reason and what would they do to me, send me back to Earth? I’m a kid.”

  “So they could kidnap you and threaten to kill your mother, but they’re counting on us to be nice?”

  “I’m a child of the Fleet,” said Dabeet. “They figured you weren’t
in the business of killing military children.”

  “A ruthless smuggling ring probably is in that business, or wouldn’t think twice about entering into it.”

  “I didn’t say that they cared about my life. Did I say that? No, they believe I care about my mother’s life.”

  “To the point that, as an eleven-year-old, you’d sacrifice your own life to save hers.”

  “What son wouldn’t do the same?” asked Dabeet.

  “How do I know these signals mean what you say they mean?”

  “Because I told you what they mean.”

  “And what signal do you mean to send?”

  “If I am able to open doors without setting off alarms and getting arrested, then that means I have the cooperation of the authorities. So it’s three doors.”

  “Three doors is ridiculous,” said Robota. “You see how far apart they are. You open one, you have to run to the next, and then another. Then you have to close them all for the next revolution around Earth, and then open them again, then close them again.”

  “I’m a child of Earth. I have more stamina than spaceborn children.”

  “Here’s what I think,” said Robota. “I think three doors is a signal for something. Perhaps for a prearranged attack ship to seize all the ships using Fleet School Station as a port of call. Perhaps for the smugglers, who really work for your kidnappers, to know that the jig is up and to get away quick.”

  “You might be right, for all I know,” said Dabeet. “They didn’t tell me what they’d do about any of the signals, except that if there wasn’t a signal within six months, my mother would die.”

  “So your little signals might be a far worse betrayal of the Fleet or of Fleet School than any petty smuggling operation.”

  “If they’re bringing in weapons-grade space-made bioagents, then I don’t see how my signals could be worse than that.”

  Robota had now positioned herself in such a way that Dabeet could not evade her close scrutiny of his face. He didn’t try.

  “Something that you’ve said is a lie,” she said.

  “Not as far as I know,” said Dabeet. “Not my lie—I can’t vouch for them.”

  “Their lie wouldn’t show up in your face,” said Robota.

  “It defies logic,” said Dabeet.

  “You came to me to open these doors for you,” said Robota, “because you knew that our security would be too good for you to accomplish it yourself.”

  “Yes,” said Dabeet. “If you open them, then I don’t get in trouble.”

  “Which means that you already planned to give the signal before you knew whether I’d believe you about the smuggling or betray you to the smugglers.”

  “I knew I had to give some signal to save my mother’s life. Talking to you, I figured I’d either get your cooperation or not. Cooperation means three doors.”

  “And if I hadn’t been cooperative?”

  “Then we wouldn’t still be having this conversation.”

  “And you believe that I’ve proven myself?” asked Robota.

  “Either you have or you haven’t. Either you’re a traitor and a smuggler yourself, or you’re a loyal officer who’s prepared to cooperate with a kid who’s being forced to accomplish an impossible task. If you want me to be able to concentrate on my studies up here, then you’ll help me assure that my mother doesn’t get killed.”

  “They’ll probably kill her anyway.”

  “They might,” said Dabeet. “I can’t control that. If they kill her regardless of what I do, then it’s on them alone. If it’s because I failed her, then it’s partly on me.”

  “What do the signals really mean?”

  “That’s what they told me they mean,” said Dabeet. He almost added: As far as I remember. But Robota had obviously read his file, and his file would include data about the near perfection of his memory. She would never believe him if he tried to cast any doubt on the accuracy of what he claimed to remember.

  “When do you have to open these doors?” asked Robota.

  “O Meek Worker,” said Dabeet, “I still have two months left.”

  “Exactly two months?”

  “I have to calculate the time zones,” said Dabeet.

  “Oh, don’t be a fool,” said Robota. “You have those tables memorized.”

  “I have another fifty-five days, plus nine hours. But I wanted to be early.”

  “And if I say no?”

  “Then I’ll find another way to get the doors open,” said Dabeet. “But this time, it will be only one door.”

  “I can keep opening doors randomly, in such numbers that your signal will be lost in the noise.”

  “What has my mother ever done to you?” asked Dabeet.

  “I’m going to think about this,” said Robota.

  “You’re going to consult with MinCol about this,” said Dabeet. “I urge you not to.”

  “You were trying to talk to him.”

  “Face to face,” said Dabeet. “Unrecorded. Whereas you will talk to him by ansible. And I doubt that Urska will miss out on anything you say by that means.”

  “You really are paranoid,” said Robota.

  “I have enemies,” said Dabeet. “And now, because of what I just told you, so do you.”

  Robota shook her head. “You think you’ve got everything figured out.”

  “I know that I don’t have anything figured out,” said Dabeet. “I also know I’m a powerless child who needs the help of adults to get anything done. I hope that when you’re through considering and consulting, you’ll come down on my side. On the side of the Fleet. On the side of stopping the flow of plague agents to Earth.”

  “I hope to God you never run for public office,” said Robota.

  “I’m too intellectual. I don’t have the common touch. I’d never win.”

  “You’ve given it some thought.”

  “Please don’t think I’m boasting, Robota Smirnova, but I’ve given everything some thought.”

  10

  —Are you who I think you are?

  —If you think I’m Andrew Wiggin, governor of a yet-to-be-named colony planet, then yes.

  —Ender Wiggin. What is—

  —If you think I’m Ender Wiggin, heroic savior of the human species, then I can’t believe we’re wasting valuable ansible time.

  —No, I’m just surprised, I’m—I didn’t ask to talk to you. I didn’t even know it was possible to talk to you.

  —I was told you needed my advice.

  —Maybe I do, I don’t know. I mean, I’m in a storm of trouble but the person I asked to talk to was MinCol, and I thought he was the one going to pop up in the holospace.

  —He’s the one who told me you needed my—

  —I can’t believe this. You’re the one he uses to blow me off?

  —I don’t know if you can call it—

  —It’s like I’m praying to Santiago and the saint says, not right now, Fleet boy, I’m going to send Jesus to talk to you instead. Here, make do with the Holy Mother.

  —Every comparison gets worse and worse.

  —Look, how secure is this?

  —On my end? Officially, completely dead to outside electronics and no recording devices.

  —Officially. That’s the worry. When the officials who tell you it’s totally private and secure are the very people you think are corrupt to the core and they hate you—

  —So we’re both taking this on trust. Trusting the untrustworthy.

  —People who have no reason to keep their word.

  —But MinCol thinks we should have this conversation, and since I don’t know anything about you except you beat my test scores, but not Bean’s test scores because that’s not, you know, possible, then you’re going to have to tell me things. Dangerous things, apparently. And live with the consequences if it isn’t as secure as MinCol thinks.

  —He wasn’t Minister of Colonization when you knew him.

  —He’s MinCol now, and I still know him. You don
’t keep calling a man “colonel” when he now outranks every officer in the Fleet.

  —Now, see, that answers one of my questions.

  —A trivial one, I hope, since anyone with a brain could figure that out for themselves.

  —Andrew. Ender. Governor Wiggin. What do I call you?

  —I’m the only one you could possibly be talking to, so I’ll assume that whenever you talk, you’re talking to me.

  —It’s polite to tell the other person what to call you, when you’re in the superior social position.

  —Andrew. And what do I call you?

  —I don’t have a bunch of names and titles.

  —And do you mind telling me what your unadorned name is?

  —MinCol didn’t tell you?

  —Is it a secret? If your name gets out, do puppies somewhere die?

  —Dabeet Ochoa.

  —And you’re at Fleet School. My alma mater with a name change. I can’t really ask you what’s different, because you weren’t there before the change. But … do they still have the battleroom?

  —Yes, but the win-loss record thing isn’t as competitive. They tell me.

  —But you know what your own record is, right?

  —Zero. I haven’t been in a battle yet. My team has, but I’m kind of doing my own thing. Me and a few others. Mostly Zhang He, he’s this kid from Luna, he saw what I was doing and kind of made me let him help.

  —What were you doing?

  —I don’t know if they had this before, but each panel of the battleroom walls can be pulled out to make up to four rigid boxes, joined or separate. You can throw them around but they get sticky and if they hit a wall or a star, they stay. You can build them into things. Pillars, pyramids. Walls. My team—if they’re really mine, it’s more like the team leader just ignores us—we’ve been learning how to build structures cooperatively, really fast, so that even though we’re not fighting when the battle starts, our structures might make a difference before it’s over.

  —Toguro. I don’t think the walls did that when I was there. If they did, nobody tried to use it, so nobody found out. I’m glad they have something to build with. So it isn’t all lasers and flash suits and metaphorical death. You don’t need my advice about that.