Ender’s Game

“The phrases, anyway.”

“That’s just the measure. Look, we’re having some influence. Nobody quotes us by name, yet, but they’re discussing the points we raise. We’re helping set the agenda. We’re getting there.”

“Should we try to get into the main debates?”

“No. We’ll wait until they ask us.”

They had been doing it only seven months when one of the west coast nets sent Demosthenes a message. An offer for a weekly column in a pretty good newsnet.

“I can’t do a weekly column,” Valentine said. “I don’t even have a monthly period yet.”

“The two aren’t related,” Peter said.

“They are to me. I’m still a kid.”

“Tell them yes, but since you prefer not to have your true identity revealed, you want them to pay you in network time. A new access code through their corporate identity.”

“So when the government traces me―”

“You’ll just be a person who can sign on through CalNet. Father’s citizen’s access doesn’t get involved. What I can’t figure out is why they wanted Demosthenes before Locke.”

“Talent rises to the top.”

As a game, it was fun. But Valentine didn’t like some of the positions Peter made Demosthenes take. Demosthenes began to develop as a fairly paranoid anti-Warsaw writer. It bothered her because Peter was the one who knew how to exploit fear in his writing―she had to keep coming to him for ideas on how to do it. Meanwhile, his Locke followed her moderate, empathic strategies. It made sense, in a way. By having her write Demosthenes, it meant he also had some empathy, just as Locke also could play on others fears. But the main effect was to keep her inextricably tied to Peter. She couldn’t go off and use Demosthenes for her own purposes. She wouldn’t know how to use him. Still, it worked both ways. He couldn’t write Locke without her. Or could he?

“I thought the idea was to unify the world. If I write this like you say I should, Peter, I’m pretty much calling for war to break up the Warsaw Pact.”

“Not war, just open nets and prohibition of interception. Free flow of information. Compliance with the League rules, for heaven’s sake.”

Without meaning to, Valentine started talking in Demosthenes’ voice, even though she certainly wasn’t speaking Demosthenes’ opinions. Everyone knows that from the begi

“You’re arguing Locke’s part, Val. Trust me. You have to call for the Warsaw Pact to lose official status. You have to get a lot of people really angry. Then, later, when you begin to recognize the need for compromise―”

“Then they stop listening to me and go off and fight a war.”

“Val, trust me. I know what I’m doing.”

“How do you know? You’re not any smarter than me, and you’ve never done this before either.”

“I’m thirteen and you’re ten.”

“Almost eleven.”

“And I know how these things work.”

“All right, I’ll do it your way. But I won’t do any of these liberty or death things.”

“You will too.”

“And someday when they catch us and they wonder why your sister was such a warmonger. I can just bet you’ll tell them that you told me to do it.”

“Are you sure you’re not having a period, little woman?”

“I hate you, Peter Wiggin.”

What bothered Valentine most was when her column got syndicated into several other regional newsnets, and Father started reading it and quoting from it at table. “Finally, a man with some sense,” he said. Then he quoted some of the passages Valentine hated worst in her own work. “It’s fine to work with these hegemonist Russians with the buggers out there, but after we win, I can’t see leaving half the civilized world as virtual helots, can you, dear?”

“I think you’re taking this all too seriously,” said Mother.

“I like this Demosthenes. I like the way he thinks. I’m surprised he isn’t in the major nets. I looked for him in the international relations debates and you know, he’s never taken part in any of them.”

Valentine lost her appetite and left the table. Peter followed her after a respectable interval.

“So you don’t like lying to Father.” he said. “So what? You’re not lying to him. He doesn’t think that you’re really Demosthenes, and Demosthenes isn’t saying things you really believe. They cancel each other out, they amount to nothing.”

“That’s the kind of reasoning that makes Locke such an ass.” But what really bothered her was not that she was lying to Father―it was the fact that Father actually agreed with Demosthenes. She had thought that only fools would follow him.

A few days later Locke got picked up for a column in a New England newsnet, specifically to provide a contrasting view for their popular column from Demosthenes. “Not bad for two kids who’ve only got about eight pubic hairs between them,” Peter said.

“It’s a long way between writing a newsnet column and ruling the world,” Valentine reminded him. “It’s such a long way that no one has ever done it.”

“They have, though. Or the moral equivalent. I’m going to say snide things about Demosthenes in my first column.”

“Well, Demosthenes isn’t even going to notice that Locke exists. Ever.”

“For now.”

With their identities now fully supported by their income from writing columns, they used Father’s access now only for the throwaway identities. Mother commented that they were spending too much time on the nets. “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy,” she reminded Peter.

Peter let his hand tremble a little, and he said, “If you think I should stop, I think I might be able to keep things under control this time. I really do.”

“No, no,” Mother said. “I don’t want you to stop. Just be careful, that’s all.”

“I’m careful, Mom.”

Nothing was different―nothing had changed in a year. Ender was sure of it, and yet it all seemed to have gone sour. He was still the leading soldier in the standings, and no one doubted that he deserved it now. At the age of nine he was a toon leader in the Phoenix Army, with Petra Arkanian as his commander. He still led his evening practice sessions, and now they were attended by an elite group of soldiers nominated by their commanders, though any Launchy who wanted to could still come. Alai was also a toon leader, in another army, and they were still good friends; Shen was not a leader, but that was no barrier. Dink Meeker had finally accepted command and succeeded Rose the Nose in Rat Army’s command. All is going well, very well, I couldn’t ask for anything better―

So why do I hate my life?

He went through the paces of the practices and games. He liked teaching the boys in his toon, and they followed him loyally. He had the respect of everyone, and he was treated with deference in his evening practices. Commanders came to study what he did. Other soldiers approached his table at mess and asked permission to sit down. Even the teachers were respectful.

He had so much damn respect he wanted to scream.

He watched the young kids in his army, fresh out of their launch groups, watched how they played, how they made fun of their leaders when they thought no one was looking. He watched the camaraderie of old friends who had known each other in the Battle School for years, who talked and laughed about old battles and long-graduated soldiers and commanders.

But with his old friends there was no laughter, no remembering. Just work. Just intelligence and excitement about the game, but nothing beyond that. Tonight it had come to a head in the evening practice. Ender and Alai were discussing the nuances of open-space maneuvers when Shen came up and listened for a few moments, then suddenly took Alai by the shoulders and shouted, “Nova! Nova! Nova!” Alai burst out laughing, and for a moment or two Ender watched them remember together the battle where open-room maneuvering had been for real, and they had dodged past the older boys and―