Well, they would both be someone else's problem now. Let Rackham watch out for Graff and kill him if he gets out of hand, which he probably won't. And let Father and Mother do their pathetic best to keep Peter from becoming the devil. Do they even realize that Peter's whole good-son attitude was an act? That Peter had obviously made the conscious decision several years back to pretend to be just like the boy Ender had been? All an act, dear parents — do you see it? Sometimes I think you do, but other times you are so oblivious.
You will be lost in the past by the time I get where I'm going, all of you. My present will be Ender and whatever he's doing. He is my whole flock, and I must shepherd him without ever letting him see the crook I use to guide him and protect him.
What am I thinking? Who's the megalomaniac here? I think I will know better than Ender what is good for him, where he should go, what he should do, and what he should be protected from?
Yet that is exactly what I think, because it's true.
Ender was so sleepy he could hardly stand, yet he stood, through all the pictures, making the smile as warm and real as he could. These are the pictures Mother and Father will see. The pictures for Peter's children, if he has any, to remember that once they had an Uncle Ender who did something very famous before he was in his teens and then went away. This is how he looked when he left. See? He's very happy. See, Mom and Dad? You didn't hurt me when you let them take me. Nothing has hurt me. I'm fine. Look at my smile. Don't see how tired I am, or how glad I am to go, when they let me go.
Then at last the pictures were done. Ender shook hands with Mazer Rackham and wanted to say, I wish you were coming. But he could not say he wished that, because he knew that Mazer did not want to go, and so it would be a selfish wish. So he said only this: 'Thank you for all you taught me, and for standing by me.' He did not add 'standing by me at the trial' because the words might be picked up by some stray microphone.
Then he shook hands with Hyrum Graff and said, 'I hope this new job works out for you.' It was a joke, and Graff got it, or at least enough to smile a little. Maybe the thinness of Graff's smile was because he had heard Ender thank Mazer and wondered why Ender had no thanks for him. But Graff had not been his teacher, only his master, and it was not the same. Nor had Graff stood by him, as far as Ender could tell. Hadn't Graff's whole program of teaching been to get Ender to believe to the depth of his soul that there would never be anyone standing by him?
'Thanks for the nap,' he said to Graff.
Graff chuckled out loud. 'May you always have as many as you need.'
Then Ender paused, looking at nothing, at the empty room, and thought, Good-bye, Mom. Good-bye, Dad. Good-bye, Peter. Good-bye, all the men and women and children of Earth. I've done all I could for you, and had all I could receive from you, and now someone else is responsible for you all.
Ender walked up the ramp to the shuttle, Valentine directly behind him.
The shuttle took them off Eros for the last time. Good-bye, Eros, and all the soldiers on it, the ones who fought for me and the other children, the ones who manipulated us and lied to us for the good of humanity, the ones who conspired to defame me and keep me from returning to Earth, all of you, good and bad, kind and selfish, good-bye to you, I am no longer one of you, neither your pawn nor your savior. I resign my commission.
Ender said nothing to Valentine beyond the trivial comments of travel. It was only about a half hour of jockeying until the shuttle was docked against the surface of the transport ship. It had been meant to carry soldiers and their weapons into war. Now it was carrying a vast amount of equipment and supplies for the agricultural and manufacturing needs of Shakespeare Colony, and more people to join them, to improve their gene pool, to help buy them enough productivity that there'd be leisure for science and creativity and luxury, a life closer to what the societies of Earth offered.
But all of that had been loaded, and all the people. Ender was last. Ender and Valentine.
At the bottom of the ladderway that would take them up into the ship, Ender stopped and faced Valentine. 'You can still go back now,' he said. 'You can see that I'll be fine. The people of the colony that I've met so far are very nice and I won't be lonely.'
'Are you afraid to go up the ladder first?' asked Valentine. 'Is that why you've stopped to make a speech?'
So Ender went up the ladder and Valentine followed, making her the last of the colonists to cut the thread connecting them to Earth.
Below them, the hatch of the shuttle closed, and then the hatch of the ship. They stood in the airlock until a door opened and there was Admiral Quincy Morgan, smiling, his hand already extended. How long did he strike that pose before the door opened, Ender wondered. Was he there, perhaps, for hours, posed like a mannequin?
'Welcome, Governor Wiggin,' said Morgan.
'Admiral Morgan,' said Ender, 'I'm not governor of anything until I set foot on the planet. On this voyage, on your ship, I'm a student of the xenobiology and adapted agriculture of Shakespeare Colony. I hope, though, that when you're not too busy, I'll have a chance to talk to you and learn from you about the military life.'
'You're the one who's seen combat,' said Morgan.
'I played a game,' said Ender. 'I saw nothing of war. But there are colonists on Shakespeare who made this voyage many years ago, and never had a hope of returning home to Earth. I want to get some idea of what their training was, their life.'
'You'll have to read books for that,' said Morgan, still smiling. 'This is my first interstellar voyage, too. In fact, as far as I know, no one has ever made two of them. Even Mazer Rackham only made a single voyage, which ended at its starting place.'
'Why, I believe you're right, Admiral Morgan,' said Ender. 'It makes us all pioneers together, here in your ship.' There — had he said 'your ship' often enough to reassure Morgan that he knew the order of authority here?
Morgan's smile was unchanged. 'I'll be happy to talk to you any time. It's an honor to have you on my ship, sir.'
'Please don't 'sir' me, sir,' said Ender. 'We both know that I'm an admiral in name only, and I don't want the colonists to hear anyone call me by a title other than Mr. Wiggin, and preferably not that. Let me be Ender. Or Andrew, if you want to be formal. Would that be all right, or would it interfere with shipboard discipline?'
'I believe,' said Admiral Morgan, 'that it won't interfere with discipline, and so it shall be entirely as you prefer. Now Ensign Akbar will show you and your sister to your stateroom. Since so few passengers are making the voyage awake, most families have quarters of similar size. I say this because of your memo requesting that you not have an exorbitantly oversized space on the ship.'
'Is your family aboard, sir?' asked Ender.
'I wooed my superiors and they gave birth to my career,' said Morgan. 'The International Fleet has been my only bride. Like you, I travel as a bachelor.'
Ender grinned at him. 'I think your bachelorhood and mine are both going to be much in question before long.'
'Our mission is reproduction of the species beyond the bounds of Earth,' said Morgan. 'But the voyage will go more smoothly if we guard our bachelorhood zealously while in transit.'
'Mine has the safety of ignorant youth,' said Ender, 'and yours the distance of authority. Thank you for the great honor of greeting us here. I've underslept a little the past few days, and I hope I'll be forgiven for indulging myself in about eighteen hours of rest. I fear I'll miss the beginning of acceleration.'
'Everyone will, Mr. Wiggin,' said Morgan. 'The inertia suppression on this ship is superb. In fact, we are already accelerating at the rate of two gravities, and yet the only apparent gravity is imparted by the centrifugal force of the spin of the ship.'
'Which is odd,' said Valentine, 'since centrifugal force is also inertial, and you'd think it would also be suppressed.'
'The suppression is highly directionalized, and affects only the forward movement of the ship,' said Morgan. 'I apologize for ignoring you so nearly completely, Ms. Wiggin. I'm afraid your brother's fame and rank have distracted me and I forgot courtesy.'
'None is owed to me,' said Valentine with a light laugh. 'I'm just along for the ride.'
With that they separated and Ensign Akbar led them to their stateroom. It was not a huge space, but it was well equipped, and it took the ensign several minutes to show them where their clothing, supplies, and desks had
