Decision Point (ARC)

by Bryan Thomas Schmidt

  “And you couldn’t have asked somebody else?”

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  Decision Points

  “Everybody else was busy,” said Zeck. Immediately he

  repented of the remark, because of course he hadn’t even tried

  anybody else, and he only said this in order to hurt Graff’s

  feelings by implying he was useless and had no work to do. “That

  was wrong of me to say that,” said Zeck, “and I ask your

  forgiveness.”

  “What’s your question,” said Graff impatiently, looking

  away.

  “When you informed me that nonviolence was not an option

  here, you said it was because my motive is religious, and there is

  no religion in Battle School.”

  “No open observance of religion,” said Graff. “Or we’d have

  classes constantly being interrupted by Muslims praying and

  every seventh day—not the same seventh day, mind you—we’d

  have Christians and Muslims and Jews celebrating one Sabbath

  or another. Not to mention the Macumba ritual of sacrificing

  chickens. Icons and statues of saints and little Buddhas and

  ancestral shrines and all kinds of other things would clutter up

  the place. So it’s all banned. Period. So please get to class before

  I have to give you a demerit.”

  “That was not my question,” said Zeck. “I would not have

  come here to ask you a question whose answer you had already

  told me.”

  “Then why did you bring up—never mind, what’s your

  question.”

  “If religious observance is banned, then why does Battle

  School tolerate the commemoration of the day of Saint

  Nicholas?”

  “We don’t,” said Graff.

  “And yet you did,” said Zeck.

  “No we didn’t.”

  “It was commemorated.”

  “Would you please get to the point? Are you lodging a

  complaint? Did one of the teachers make some remark?”

  “Filippus Rietveld put out his shoes for St. Nicholas. Dink

  Meeker put a Sinterklaas poem in the shoe and then gave Flip a

  pancake carved with the initial F. An edible initial is a traditional

  treat on Sinterklaas Day. Which is today, December sixth.”

  Graff sat down and leaned back in his chair. “A Sinterklaas

  poem?”

  Zeck recited it.

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  Graff smiled and chuckled a little.

  “So you think it’s funny when they have their religious

  observance, but my religious observance is banned.”

  “It was a poem in a shoe. I give you permission to write all

  the poems you want and insert them into people’s wearing

  apparel.”

  “Poems in shoes are not my religious observance. Mine is to

  contribute a small part to peace on Earth.”

  “You’re not even on Earth.”

  “I would be, if I hadn’t been kidnapped and enslaved to the

  service of Mammon,” said Zeck mildly.

  You’ve been here almost a year, thought Graff, and you’re

  still singing the same tune. Doesn’t peer pressure have any effect

  on you?

  “If these Dutch Christians have their St. Nicholas Day, then

  the Muslims should have Ramadan and the Jews should have the

  Feast of Tabernacles and I should be able to live the gospel of

  love and peace.”

  “Why are you even bothering with this?” said Graff. “The

  only thing I can do is punish them for a rather sweet gesture. It

  will make people hate you more.”

  “You mean you intend to tell them who reported them?”

  “No, Zeck. I know how you operate. You’ll tell them

  yourself, so they’ll be angry and people will persecute you and

  that will make you feel more purified.”

  For a man who didn’t recognized him when he came in, Graff

  certainly knew a lot about him. His face wasn’t known, but his

  ideas were. Zeck’s persistence in his faith was making an

  impression.

  “If Battle School bans my religion because it forbids all

  religion, then all religion should be forbidden, sir.”

  “I know that,” said Graff. “I also know you’re an insufferable

  twit.”

  “I believe that remark falls under the topic of ‘The

  commander’s responsibility to build morale,’ is that correct, sir?”

  asked Zeck.

  “And that remark falls under the category of ‘You won’t get

  out of Battle School by being a smartass,’” said Graff.

  “Better a smartass than an insufferable twit, sir,” said Zeck.

  “Get out of my office.”

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  *

  An hour later, Flip and Dink had been called in and

  reprimanded and the poem confiscated.

  “Aren’t you going to take his shoes, sir?” asked Dink. “And

  I’m sure we can recover his initial when he shits it out. I’ll

  reshape it for you so there’s no mistaking it, sir.”

  Graff said nothing, except to send them back to class. He

  knew that word of this would circulate throughout Battle School.

  But if he hadn’t done it, then Zeck would have made sure that

  word of how this “religious observance” had been tolerated

  would spread, and then there really would be a nightmare of kids

  demanding their holidays.

  It was inevitable. The two recusants, Zeck and Dink, both of

  whom refused to cooperate with the program here, were bound

  to become allies. Not that they knew they were allied. But in fact

  they were—they were deliberately stressing the system in order

  to try to make it collapse.

  Well, I won’t let you, dear genius children. Because nobody

  gives a rat’s ass about Sinterklaas Day, or about Christian

  nonviolence. When you go to war—which is where you’ve gone,

  believe it or not, Dink and Zeck—then childish things are put

  away. In the face of a threat to the survival of the species, all

  these planetside trivialities are put aside until the crisis passes.

  And it has not passed, whatever you little twits might think

  about it.

  *

  Dink left Graff’s office seething. “If they can’t seen the

  difference between praying eight times a day and putting a poem

  in a shoe once a year …”

  “It was a great poem,” said Flip.

  “It was dumb,” said Dink.

  “Wasn’t that the point? It was a great dumb poem. I just feel

  bad I didn’t write one for you.”

  “I didn’t put out my shoes.”

  Flip sighed. “I’m sorry I did that. I was just feeling homesick.

  I didn’t think anybody would do anything about it.”

  “Sorry.”

  “We’re both so very, very sorry,” said Flip. “Except that

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  we’re not sorry at all.”

  “No, we’re not,” said Dink.

  “In fact, it’s kind of fun to get in trouble for keeping

  Sinterklaas Day. Imagine what would happen if we celebrated

  Christm
as.”

  “Well,” said Dink, “we’ve still got nineteen days.”

  “Right,” said Flip.

  By the time they got back to Rat Army barracks, it was

  obvious that the story was already known. Everybody fell silent

  when Dink and Flip stood in the doorway.

  “Stupid,” said Rosen.

  “Thanks,” said Dink. “That means so much, coming from

  you.”

  “Since when did you get religion?” Rosen demanded. “Why

  make some kind of holy war out of it?”

  “It wasn’t religious,” said Dink. “It was Dutch. ”

  “Well, eemo, you be Rat Army now, not Dutch.”

  “In three months I won’t be in Rat Army,” said Dink. “But

  I’ll be Dutch until I die.”

  “Nations don’t matter up here,” said one of the other boys.

  “Religions neither,” said another.

  “Well it’s obvious religion does matter,” said Flip, “or we

  wouldn’t have been called in and reprimanded for cutting a

  pancake into an F and writing a funny poem and sticking it in a

  shoe.”

  Dink looked down the long corridor, which curved upward

  toward the end. Zeck, who slept at the very back of the barracks,

  couldn’t even be seen from the door.

  “He’s not here,” said Rosen.

  “Who?”

  “Zeck,” said Rosen. “He came in and told us what he’d done,

  and then he left.”

  “Anybody know where he goes when he takes off by

  himself?” asked Dink.

  “Why?” said Rosen. “You planning to slap him around a

  little? I can’t allow that.”

  “I want to talk to him,” said Dink.

  “Oh, talk,” said Rosen.

  “When I say talk, I mean talk,” said Dink.

  “I don’t want to talk to him,” said Flip. “Stupid prig.”

  “He just wants to get out of Battle School,” said Dink.

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  “If we put it to a vote,” said one of the other boys, “he’d be

  gone in a second. What a waste of space.”

  “A vote,” said Flip. “What a military idea.”

  “Go stick your finger in a dike,” the boy answered.

  “So now we’re anti-Dutch,” said Dink.

  “They can’t help it if they still believe in Santa Claus,” said

  an American kid.

  “Sinterklaas,” said Dink. “Lives in Spain, not the North Pole.

  Has a friend who carries his bag—Black Piet.”

  “Friend?” said a kid from South Africa. “Black Piet sounds

  like a slave to me.”

  Rosen sighed. “It’s a relief when Christians are fighting each

  other instead of slaughtering Jews.”

  That was when Ender Wiggin joined the discussion for the

  first time. “Isn’t this exactly what the rules are supposed to

  prevent? People sniping at each other because of religion or

  nationality?”

  “And yet we’re doing it anyway,” said the American kid.

  “Aren’t we up here to save the human race?” said Dink.

  “Humans have religions and nationalities. And customs. Why

  can’t we be humans too?”

  Wiggin didn’t answer.

  “Makes no sense for us to live like Buggers,” said Dink.

  “They don’t celebrate Sinterklaas Day, either.”

  “Part of being human,” said Wiggin, “is to massacre each

  other from time to time. So maybe till we beat the Formics we

  should try not to be so very very human.”

  “And maybe,” said Dink, “soldiers fight for what they care

  about, and what they care about is their families and their

  traditions and their faith and their nation—the very stuff they

  don’t allow us to have here.”

  “Maybe we fight so we can get back home and find all that

  stuff still there, waiting for us,” said Wiggin.

  “Maybe none of us are fighting at all,” said Flip. “It’s not like

  anything we do here is real.”

  “I’ll tell you what’s real,” said Dink. “I was Sinterklaas’s

  helper last night.” Then he grinned.

  “So you’re finally admitting you’re an elf,” said the

  American kid, grinning back.

  “How many Dutch kids are there in Battle School?” said

  Dink. “Sinterklaas is definitely a minority cultural icon, right?

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  Nothing like Santa Claus, right?”

  Rosen kicked Dink lightly on the shin. “What do you think

  you’re doing, Dink?”

  “Santa Claus isn’t a religious figure, either. Nobody prays to

  Santa Claus. It’s an American thing.”

  “Canadian too,” said another kid.

  “Anglophone Canadian,” said another. “Papa Noel for some

  of us.”

  “Father Christmas,” said a Brit.

  “See? Not Christian, national,” said Dink. “It’s one thing to

  stifle religious expression. But to try to erase nationality—the

  whole fleet is thick with national loyalties. They don’t make

  Dutch admirals pretend not to be Dutch. They wouldn’t stand for

  it.” “There aren’t any Dutch admirals,” said the Brit.

  It wasn’t that Dink let idiotic comments like this make him

  angry. He didn’t want to hit anybody. He didn’t want to raise his

  voice. But still, there was this deep defiance that could not be

  ignored. He had to do something that other people wouldn’t like.

  Even though he knew it would cause trouble and accomplish

  nothing at all, he was going to do it, and it was going to start right

  now.

  “They were able to stifle our Dutch holiday because there are

  so few of us,” said Dink. “But it’s time for us to insist on

  expressing our national cultures like any other soldiers in the

  International Fleet. Christmas is a holy day for Christians, but

  Santa Claus is a secular figure. Nobody prays to Saint Nicholas.”

  “Little kids do,” said the American, but he was laughing.

  “Santa Claus, Father Christmas, Papa Noel, Sinterklaas, they

  may have begun with a Christian feast day, but they’re national

  now, and people with no religion at all still celebrate the holiday.

  It’s the day of gift-giving, right? December 25th, whether you’re

  a believing Christian or not. They can keep us from being

  religious, but they can’t stop us from giving gifts on Santa Claus

  day.”

  Some of them were laughing. Some were thinking.

  “You’re going to get in such deep doodoo,” said one.

  “É,” said Dink. “But then, that’s where I live all the time

  anyway.”

  “Don’t even try it.”

  Dink looked up to see who had spoken so angrily.

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  Zeck.

  “I think we already know where you stand,” said Dink.

  “In the name of Christ I forbid you to bring Satan into this

  place.”

  All the smiles disappeared. Everyone fell silent.

  “You know, don’t you, Zeck,” said Dink, “that you just

  guaranteed that I’ll have support for my little Santa Claus

  movem
ent.”

  Zeck seemed genuinely frightened. But not of Dink. “Don’t

  bring this curse down on your own heads.”

  “I don’t believe in curses, I only believe in blessings,” said

  Dink. “And I sure as hell don’t believe I’ll be cursed because I

  give presents to people in the name of Santa Claus.”

  Zeck glanced around and seemed to be trying to calm

  himself. “Religious observances are forbidden for everybody.”

  “And yet you observe your religion all the time,” said Dink.

  “Every time you don’t fire your weapon in the Battle Room,

  you’re doing it. So if you oppose our little Santa Claus

  revolution, eemo, then we want to see you firing that gun and

  taking people out. Otherwise you’re a flaming hypocrite. A

  fraud. A pious fake. A liar.” Dink was in his face now. Close

  enough to make some of the other kids uncomfortable.

  “Back off, Dink,” one of them muttered. Who? Wiggin, of

  course. Great, a peacemaker. Again, Dink felt defiance swell up

  inside him.

  “What are you going to do?” said Zeck softly. “Hit me? I’m

  three years younger than you.”

  “No,” said Dink. “I’m going to bless you.”

  He set his hand in the air just over Zeck’s head. As Dink

  expected, Zeck stood there without flinching. That was what

  Zeck was best at: taking it whatever anybody dished out without

  even trying to get away.

  “I bless you with the spirit of Santa Claus,” said Dink. “I

  bless you with compassion and generosity. With the irresistible

  impulse to make other people happy. And you know what else?

  I bless you with the humility to realize that you aren’t any better

  than the rest of us in the eyes of God.”

  “You know nothing about God,” said Zeck.

  “I know more than you do,” said Dink. “Because I’m not

  filled with hate.”

  “Neither am I,” said Zeck.

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  “No,” murmured another boy. “You’re filled with kuso.”

  “Toguro,” said another, laughing.

  “I bless you,” said Dink, “with love. Believe me, Zeck, it’ll

  be such a shock to you, when you finally feel it, that it might just

  kill you. Then you can go talk to God yourself and find out where

  you screwed up.”

  Dink turned around and faced the bulk of Rat Army. “I don’t

  know about you, but I’m playing Santa Claus this year. We don’t