Children of the Fleet

by Orson Scott Card

  —Must you always see the worst?

  —I’m never disappointed. Pleasantly surprised sometimes. But not often.

  —I watched my son discover what kind of man he is, what kind he wants to be. I’m glad I have lived this long.

  —Living forever requires fabulous wealth. But in your absence, don’t expect your network of influence to endure. The people who cooperate with you will either die or will assume that you’ve died already. You’ll come out of your lightspeed voyage and discover that you’re powerless, but you can afford a good hotel.

  —I think you’ve depressed me enough for one day. I’m going to go see my son.

  —And tell him the gladsome tidings?

  —If you mean, tell him that I’m his father—I don’t think so. He wouldn’t be impressed, he’d be angry that I hadn’t told him before. And he’d be disappointed that I’m not smarter than I am.

  —But pleased that he’s smarter than you.

  —There is that. But I don’t think he cares as much about measured intelligence as he used to.

  —Ender Wiggin is more your son than Dabeet is. You spent so much more time with him.

  —He’s like a son to me, yes. And so is Julian. But neither of them is more my son than Dabeet. You’re forgetting the joy that comes from knowing that your genes have reproduced themselves in a person who is likely to survive.

  —I am forgetting that. I have reason to.

  —You love your grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

  —I don’t know them.

  —You still care about them. Whether they live or die. Whether they’re happy.

  —But I don’t love them as much as I love Ender Wiggin. Because I didn’t raise them, I didn’t teach them. But Ender—him I taught, and knew, and trained, and hurt, and tried to heal.

  —You guided him to victory.

  —For that I’m not sure he’ll be grateful for very long. Because I lied to him every bit as much as you’ve lied to Dabeet.

  —Keeping a secret is not telling a lie.

  —You tell yourself that, Hyrum. Chant it every night and every morning. I wonder if you’ll come to believe it.

  The kitchen staff had not stopped working through the entire raid. The invaders paid no attention to them, and the cooks recognized that no matter who won, people would be hungry.

  So after the IF relief ships had taken complete authority, and loaded the prisoners and the corpses into vessels and taken them wherever such people would be taken, the students and faculty of Fleet School were summoned to their various mess halls and fed an unusually flavorful supper. As if the cooks wanted to prove that they, too, had been worth saving.

  Dabeet sat at a table with Monkey, Zhang He, Ragnar, Timeon, and Ignazio, the original wall-building team. Bartolomeo joined them for part of the meal, but there were enough people crowding around to say whatever they had to say that Bartolomeo moved to another table to make room for them.

  It was hard to eat while making polite responses to all the kids with comments or questions. Dabeet still had half his food left when the others were done. Monkey leaned over and spoke into Dabeet’s ear. “You’re allowed to eat. You don’t have to answer everybody.”

  “Yes I do,” said Dabeet mildly. He had such a name for arrogance already that he couldn’t leave anybody to walk away saying, “I just wanted to congratulate him but he was too important to listen to me.”

  It was Zhang who took action. “People, come on, let the boy eat. He’s as hungry as anybody and he’s hardly eaten anything yet.”

  A few people backed away then, and Bartolomeo and some of the other team leaders came over and dispersed the crowd. Finally, Dabeet was able to eat his mostly-cold food and pass those five minutes without having to say anything to anybody. He finally looked around at his team and said, “You got enough to eat?”

  “Plenty,” said Monkey. “I don’t know how, but the harder the cooks try, the worse the food gets.”

  “She’s not used to spicy,” said Ignazio. “Poor child.”

  “This all began,” said Dabeet, “because you came over to help me build pillars and walls in the battleroom.”

  “That was the flame,” said Timeon. “We were the moths.”

  “You were willing to take me seriously when nobody else was. That’s how you ended up saving my life, and Monkey’s life.”

  “And everybody’s life on the whole station,” said Ignazio.

  “I’m just saying,” said Dabeet. “Thanks for giving me a chance.”

  “Biggest mistake of my life,” said Monkey. “Almost killed me.”

  “É, I know,” said Dabeet. “I’m a dangerous friend.”

  His words fell into a gathering silence in the mess hall. Had everyone left?

  Quite the opposite. All the students and faculty seemed to be there, which meant that they had been summoned. Supper had just turned into a meeting, and standing on a table near the main door was Robota Smirnova.

  “You all know,” said Robota, “how the bold action of the students of Fleet School forestalled the raid and prevented the bloodbath that someone intended. We don’t yet know who instigated this act of terrorism, but we do know it began on Earth. We also know that there were collaborators here on the Fleet School station, and we are happy to report that, upon receipt of our messages, the crew of the packet ship that carried off the commandant and training officers shortly before the attack arrested Urska Kaluza with charges of smuggling, conspiracy, and treason against the Fleet. We expect that all the training officers will be exonerated, and the packet ship is turning around and bringing them all back here.”

  There was applause and some cheering from the kids—they knew and liked their training officers more than anyone on the faculty. And the idea of Urska Kaluza being arrested pleased many.

  “As head of station security, I am assigned as acting commandant until the Fleet makes a temporary or permanent appointment. For those who are wondering why I was not here when the raid occurred, I was ordered to withdraw to an observing position on a nearby vessel several months ago. We were preparing a boarding operation against the terrorist vessel when several students took matters into their own hands, blew the airlock, ejected the ship, and then escaped from it before it blew up. We have every reason to believe that our boarding operation would have been observed from Earth and would have triggered a devastating explosion, probably killing every soul on this station. So the actions of the students involved were the only plan that could possibly have succeeded, and even then it depended on flawless execution, which was achieved.”

  To this, the assembled students and faculty erupted in deafening cheers and applause and arm-waving and a bit of food-tray-tossing. Only those at Dabeet’s table remained silent, grinning at the enthusiasm of their fellow students.

  Except Dabeet, who slid aside his food tray and lowered his head onto his arms.

  “Quiet, quiet,” said Robota Smirnova. “Quiet, please. Because there’s one more piece of information that I must deliver, and instead of waiting for a private meeting, let me say it now, so there’s no delay. Dabeet Ochoa, I am happy to inform you that Maria Rafaella Ochoa was rescued from hostile custody in a police action by Cuban authorities, who located her in an embassy in Havana. I don’t know which embassy or what the international repercussions will be, but she had been taken there when the terrorist ship was launched, and only the swift cooperation of several nations and the International Fleet allowed her to be located and rescued so quickly. Let me be clear, Dabeet Ochoa. Your mother is safe.”

  Again, some cheers, lots of applause. But Dabeet wept into his hands, great body-racking sobs that he could not control. He felt the hands of his friends touching him, patting him, gripping him. He felt Monkey’s arms around his body. Yet in the midst of all this emotion, he was able to think: The threat against Mother was real, but I did not fail her. The threat against Fleet School was real, but I did not fail my friends. I did not fail.

  Was this
how Ender Wiggin felt, when he stopped a war, won the war? Not the triumph of victory, but the deep relief of knowing that with everything at stake, he did not fail?

  Maybe Ender Wiggin didn’t expect to fail.

  No. The only person that arrogant was the Dabeet Ochoa who arrived at Fleet School about a year ago, planning to betray everyone here in order to save his mother. That boy expected to succeed at everything because nobody was as clever as he was.

  What a fool, thought Dabeet. And how hard it was to break that arrogance and find something useful to put in its place.

  It was these friends, with their hands on my shoulders, on my head, arms around my chest. It was this community of generous children who saw value in what I was doing, and eventually found—no, made—something valuable in me.

  He wept all the harder, and was even more grateful for the touch of their hands.

  * * *

  A few days later, everything was back to normal in the station. It took half a day to unbuild all the walls and pillars in the battlerooms and return the frames to their proper locations in the walls. And then a general tournament of all the teams, just to exhaust the pent-up energy in the children.

  But all of that came to an end, and there were the teachers in their classrooms, making assignments and reviewing material that the students had not learned well in the past weeks, as they waited and prepared for the coming of the raiders. A lot of ground to cover.

  Not for Dabeet, though. His memory still functioned as always, so that he had not actually lost any classroom time. So the review made him impatient, in part because he had no recourse: If he tried to get out of class, or even to do extra assignments, it would look to everyone, including Dabeet himself, like the old Dabeet, the one who had to show he was smarter than everybody.

  So it came as a relief when a message banner appeared on his desk, and the teacher’s voice came at the same time: “Dabeet, please report to the commandant’s office immediately.”

  Dabeet got up, blanked his desk, and carried it with him out of the room. Maybe he’d come back to this classroom, maybe not. But if he had to sit and wait somewhere, it was better to have the tools to accomplish something than to twiddle his thumbs. The one thing he didn’t want to do was sit and think, because inevitably his thoughts would run back to his nearly-disastrous expedition into the enemy ship. What if he’d tried to keep his suit on once he breached the ship? What if he hadn’t thought to open a box so he didn’t know about the Vacoplaz? What if the other kids hadn’t shown up to the rendezvous he called? What if those two older girls had failed to deliver the message?

  What if he had tried to jump the first time he saw the station, and gotten completely off course? As it was, he now knew that when Monkey reached him, she only had about a hundred meters of tether left. If his trajectory had made it so she couldn’t reach him with that length of cable, he would have died. And perhaps she as well, because the explosion would have caught her even closer to the ship, and there would have been no one to cover and plug any tears in her spacesuit.

  What if, what if. He knew that this was idiotic, to imagine all that could have gone wrong. Especially because it hadn’t gone wrong. But whenever he didn’t keep his mind busy with something, that was where it went.

  Robota Smirnova sat behind the commandant’s desk, where not that long ago Dabeet had sat eating snacks and drinking carbonated beverages with his friends. But after only a glance at her, Dabeet’s attention was drawn to the other person in the room.

  Dabeet walked to the Minister of Colonization and extended his hand. “I know I have you to thank for rescuing my mother, sir,” said Dabeet.

  Graff took his hand, but shook his head with a wry smile. “I did help prepare the ground a little, but it was all the officials in the IF and the various governments, not to mention the Cuban police, who did everything that mattered. I’m glad she’s safe, though. And you, too, Dabeet.”

  Dabeet glanced over at Robota.

  “I asked Robota to remain here for a short time,” said Graff. “She has been given a one-year appointment as interim commandant of Fleet School, and she wanted me to help train her in school administration, which is why I’m here.”

  Dabeet immediately thought: You came here to see me, and training Robota is only an excuse. But then he quashed that conclusion, because it was borderline narcissistic.

  “Congratulations,” said Dabeet to Robota.

  “And I wanted you to know that I was the one who arranged for Robota Smirnova to be withdrawn from Fleet School during the weeks before the arrival of the terrorists,” said Graff. “She wanted to be aboard the station with a beefed-up security force, but it was my belief that the only result of that would have been the needless death of many on both sides, including, in all likelihood, faculty and children.”

  “I think if there had been resistance of that kind, sir,” said Dabeet, “the explosives would have been detonated much sooner.”

  “That’s a reasonable conclusion,” said Graff.

  “Damn right,” said Robota. “I hated the orders I got, but I obeyed them, and because of you, Dabeet, everything worked out well. I’ll leave you two now, and go present my new credentials to the faculty and staff.” She was already at the door by the time she finished speaking. It closed behind her.

  “She’s a good officer,” said Graff. “When she helped you open a door, she was not acting under my orders. She made the right decision, don’t you think?”

  Dabeet could only shrug. She should have been court-martialed for it. But if it helped keep Mother alive, Dabeet was glad that Robota had done it.

  “I need to ask you to make a decision, and you don’t have much time to make it. Your position here in Fleet School has become complicated. There will be a court of inquiry and your name will be all over it. If you’re needed for examination or testimony, that will take priority, of course, but it shouldn’t interfere with your studies here.”

  Dabeet said nothing, as he tried to figure out where this was leading. He was trying not to jump to conclusions.

  “Details of your actions will be known throughout the Fleet, but not on Earth. I can return you to Earth at any time, to resume normal schooling there—if any schooling that involves you can be called ‘normal.’ In other words, you can escape from whatever public opinion gathers about you and your actions.”

  “But I can also stay here, if I choose?”

  Graff obviously understood that this was Dabeet’s immediate choice. “Why would you stay?” he asked.

  “I’d like to say something noble, like, ‘If Ender Wiggin couldn’t return to Earth after saving all of humanity from the Formics, how can it be right for me to go back when all I did was push a dangerous ship away from the school?’”

  “Very noble indeed,” said Graff. “And complete goffno, if I’m using the word correctly.”

  “I don’t want to leave here,” said Dabeet, “because for the first time in my life, I have friends.”

  “Not everybody will be your friend, after the inquiry’s results are published through the Fleet.”

  “I don’t need everybody to be my friend,” said Dabeet. “I’m pretty astonished that anybody is, and I like it, and I want to stay.”

  “They’re a good group,” said Graff.

  “Is it possible I could go home just long enough to see Mother?” asked Dabeet. “And then come back here?”

  “Let’s be reasonable,” said Graff. “Nobody else gets to go to Earth to—”

  “With all due respect, sir, people whose families are in space have the chance for annual visits, at least. And if I can’t go there, perhaps she could come here. Or somewhere nearby.”

  Graff studied Dabeet intently. “You do remember that she’s not actually your mother.”

  “She’s the only mother I have,” said Dabeet.

  “She’s an officer of the Fleet. She was assigned to you, Dabeet. The assignment is over, and she’ll be given new responsibilities somewhere else
.”

  Dabeet felt this as a slap in the face. But then he took time to think. “That’s bullshit, sir. She loved me. She cared about me. She didn’t just switch that off because she got a new assignment.”

  Graff raised his eyebrows. “You’re probably right. I’ll check with her and see what she wants to do. If she’s willing, then something can be arranged. But you must understand that there was never a legal adoption. You have no legal claim on her, nor she on you.”

  Dabeet sat down across from Graff. “Let me sort this out a little, sir. Am I to understand that I’m legally an orphan, a ward of the state? And my time being raised by Rafa Ochoa constituted kidnapping, under your authority?”

  “It was under Fleet authority, not mine,” said Graff.

  “A distinction without a difference, I’m guessing.”

  “You’re guessing incorrectly,” said Graff. “You are not an orphan.”

  “I don’t know of any living parents.”

  “You may feel like an orphan, and that’s tragic,” said Graff. “I weep for all the children who are in such a situation. The children of all the soldiers and pilots who traveled with the fleets that conquered the Formic empire grew up with no hope of ever seeing their missing parents.”

  “They knew who they were,” said Dabeet, “and they knew where they were, and what they were doing. They knew what their sacrifice was about.”

  “Then let me assure you of this. Your parents are alive. They both know that you’re alive. They are distressed at the necessity that keeps them from being a part of your life.”

  “You know who my parents are.”

  “Of course I do,” said Graff. “And I know why you have been deprived of their presence in your life, and I, and they, agree that this is your best chance for a normal life.”

  “Why?” said Dabeet. “Are they too famous to raise me? Famous people have had children before. They don’t all turn into horrible human beings.”

  “Fame doesn’t enter into it,” said Graff. “Beyond that, I will neither confirm nor disconfirm any guesses you make. Please don’t waste time.”