Ender’s Game

That was the world Ender lived in for many lifetimes during the five days of the League War.

When he awoke again he was lying in darkness. In the distance he could hear the thump, thump of explosions. He listened for a while. Then he heard a soft footstep.

He turned over and flung out a hand, to grasp whoever was sneaking up on him. Sure enough, he caught someone’s clothing and pulled him down toward his knees, ready to kill him if need be.

“Ender, it’s me, it’s me!”

He knew the voice. It came out of his memory as if it were a million years ago.

“Alai.”

“Salaam, pinprick. What were you trying to do, kill me?”

“Yes. I thought you were trying to kill me.”

“I was trying not to wake you up. Well, at least you have some survival instinct left. The way Mazer talks about it, you were becoming a vegetable.”

“I was trying to. What’s the thumping.”

“There’s a war going on here. Our section is blacked out to keep us safe.”

Ender swung his legs out to sit up. He couldn’t do it, though. His head hurt too bad. He winced in pain.”

“Don’t sit up, Ender. It’s all right. It looks like we might win it. Not all the Warsaw Pact people went with the Polemarch. A lot of them came over when the Strategos told them you were loyal to the I.F.”

“I was asleep.”

“So he lied. You weren’t plotting treason in your dreams, were you? Some of the Russians who came in told us that when the Polemarch ordered them to find you and kill you, they almost killed him. Whatever they may feel about other people, Ender, they love you. The whole world watched our battles. Videos, day and night. I’ve seen some. Complete with your voice giving the orders. It’s all there, nothing censored. Good stuff. You’ve got a career in the vids.”

“I don’t think so,” said Ender.

“I was joking. Hey, can you believe it? We won the war. We were so eager to grow up so we could fight in it, and it was us all the time. I mean, we’re kids Ender. And it was us.” Alai laughed. “It was you, anyway. You were good, bosh. I didn’t know how you’d get us out of that last one. But you did. You were good.”

Ender noticed the way he spoke in the past. I was good. “What am I now, Alai?”

“Still good.”

“At what?”

“At―anything. There’s a million soldiers who’d follow you to the end of the universe.”

“I don’t want to go to the end of the universe.”

“So where do you want to go? They’ll follow you.”

I want to go home, thought Ender, but I don’t know where it is.

The thumping went silent.

“Listen to that,” said Alai.

They listened. The door opened. Someone stood there. Someone small. “It’s over,” he said. It was Bean. As if to prove it, the lights went on.

“Ho, Bean,” Ender said.

“Ho, Ender.”

Petra followed him in, with Dink holding her hand. They came to Ender’s bed. “Hey, the hero’s awake,” said Dink.

“Who won?” asked Ender.

“We did, Ender,” said Bean. “You were there.”

“He’s not that crazy, Bean. He meant who won just now.” Petra took Ender’s hand. “There was a truce on Earth. They’ve been negotiating for days. They finally agreed to accept the Locke Proposal.”

“He doesn’t know about the Locke Proposal―”

“It’s very complicated, but what it means here is that the I.F. will stay in existence, but without the Warsaw Pact in it. So the Warsaw Pact marines are going home. I think Russia agreed to it because they’re having a revolt of the Slavic helots. Everybody’s got troubles. About five hundred died here, but it was worse on Earth.”

“The Hegemon resigned,” said Dink. “It’s crazy down there. Who cares.”

“You OK?” Petra asked him, touching his head. “You scared us. They said you were crazy, and we said they were crazy.”

“I’m crazy,” said Ender. “But I think I’m OK.”

“When did you decide that?” asked Alai.

“When I thought you were about to kill me, and I decided to kill you first. I guess I’m just a killer to the core. But I’d rather be alive than dead.”

They laughed and agreed with him. Then Ender began to cry and embraced Bean and Petra, who were closest. “I missed you,” he said. “I wanted to see you so bad.”

“You saw us pretty bad,” Petra answered. She kissed his cheek.

“I saw you magnificent,” said Ender. “The ones I needed most, I used up soonest. Bad pla

“Everybody’s OK now,” said Dink. “Nothing was wrong with any of us that five days of cowering in blacked-out rooms in the middle of a war couldn’t cure.”

“I don’t have to be your commander anymore, do I?” asked Ender. “I don’t want to command anybody again.”

“You don’t have to command anybody,” said Dink, “but you’re always our commander.”

Then they were silent for a while.

“So what do we do now?” asked Alai. “The bugger war’s over, and so’s the war down there on Earth, and even the war here. What do we do now?”

“We’re kids,” said Petra. “They’ll probably make us go to school. It’s a law. You have to go to school till you’re seventeen.”

They all laughed at that. Laughed until tears streamed down their faces.

15. Speaker for the Dead

The lake was still; there was no breeze. The two men sat together in chairs on the floating dock. A small wooden raft was tied up at the dock; Graff hooked his foot in the rope and pulled the raft in, then let it drift out, then pulled it in again.

“You’ve lost weight.”

“One kind of stress puts it on, another takes it off. I am a creature of chemicals.”

“It must have been hard.”

Graff shrugged. “Not really. I knew I’d be acquitted.”

“Some of us weren’t so sure. People were crazy for a while there. Mistreatment of children, negligent homicide―those videos of Bonzo’s and Stilson’s deaths were pretty gruesome. To watch one child do that to another.”

“As much as anything, I think the videos saved me. The prosecution edited them, but we showed the whole thing. It was plain that Ender was not the provocateur. After that, it was just a second-guessing game. I said I did what I believed was necessary for the preservation of the human race, and it worked; we got the judges to agree that the prosecution had to prove beyond doubt that Ender would have won the war without the training we gave him. After that, it was simple. The exigencies of war.”

“Anyway, Graff, it was a great relief to us. I know we quarreled, and I know the prosecution used tapes of our conversations against you. But by then I knew that you were right, and I offered to testify for you.”

“I know, Anderson. My lawyers told me.”

“So what will you do now?”

“I don’t know. Still relaxing. I have a few years of leave accrued. Enough to take me to retirement, and I have plenty of salary that I never used, sitting around in banks. I could live on the interest. Maybe I’ll do nothing.”

“It sounds nice. But I couldn’t stand it. I’ve been offered the presidency of three different universities, on the theory that I’m an educator. They don’t believe me when I say that all I ever cared about at the Battle School was the game. I think I’ll go with the other offer.”

“Commissioner?”

“Now that the wars are over, it’s time to play games again. It’ll be almost like vacation, anyway. Only twenty-eight teams in the league. Though after years of watching those children flying, football is like watching slugs bash into each other.”

They laughed. Graff sighed and pushed the raft with his foot.

“That raft. Surely you can’t float on it.”

Graff shook his head. “Ender built it.”

“That’s right. This is where you took him.”

“It’s even been deeded over to him. I saw to it that he was amply rewarded. He’ll have all the money he ever needs.”

“If they ever let him come back to use it.”