to choose an appropriate site.
— Andrew
In all eleven years of Abra's life, only one thing had ever happened that mattered: the arrival of Ender Wiggin.
Until then, it was all work. Children were expected to do whatever was within their ability, and Abra had the misfortune to be clever with his hands. He could untie knots and tie them before he could make sentences. He could see how machinery worked and when he became strong enough to use adult tools, he could fix it or adapt it. He understood the flow of power through the metal parts. And so there were jobs for him to do even when other children were playing.
His father, Ix, was proud of his son, and so Abra was proud of himself. He was glad to be a child who was needed for grownup tasks. He was much smaller than his older brother Po, who had gone along with Uncle Sel to find the gold bugs; but he was sent to help rig the low trolley that people rode into and out of the cave, and on which food was taken to the colony of bugs, and gold carcasses removed.
Yet Abra also looked wistfully as the children his age (he couldn't call them friends, because he spent so little time with them) headed for the swimming hole, or climbed trees in the orchard, or shot at each other with wooden weapons.
Only his mother, Hannah, saw him. She urged him sometimes to go with the others, to leave whatever job he was doing. But it was too late. Like a baby bird that a child has handled, so it has the scent of man on it, Abra was marked by his work with adults. There was no resentment on their part. They just didn't think of him as one of them. If he had tried to come along, it would have seemed to all of them as inappropriate as if some adult had insisted on playing their games with them. It would ruin things. Especially because Abra was secretly convinced that he would be very bad at children's games. When he was little, and tried to build with blocks, he would weep when other children knocked down his structures. But the other children couldn't seem to understand why he would build, if not to see things get knocked down.
Here is what Ender's coming meant to Abra: Ender Wiggin was the governor, and yet he was young, the same age as Po. Adults talked to Ender as if he were one of them. No, as if he were their superior. They brought problems to him for solutions. They laid their disputes before him and abided by his decisions, listening to his explanations, asking him questions, coming to accept his understanding.
I am like him, thought Abra. Adults consult me about their machines the way they consult Ender about their other problems. They stand and listen to my explanations. They do what I tell them they should do to fix the problem. He and I live the same life — we are not really children. We have no friends.
Well, Ender had his sister, of course, but she was a strange recluse, who would stay indoors all day, except for her morning walk in summer, her afternoon walk in winter. They said she was writing books. All the adult scientists wrote things and sent them off to the other worlds, and then read the papers and books that were sent back. But what she was writing wasn't science at all. It was history. The past. Why would that matter, when there was so much to do and discover in the present? Ender could not possibly be interested in such things. Abra could not even imagine what they would talk about. 'Today I gave Lo and Amato permission to divorce.' 'Did it happen a hundred years ago?' 'No.' 'Then I don't care.'
Abra also had siblings. Po treated him well. They all did. But they did not play with him. They played with each other.
Which was fine. Abra didn't want to 'play.' He wanted to do things that were real, things that mattered. He took as much pleasure from fixing machines and building things as they ever did from their games and mock fights and knocking-down. And now that Mother said he didn't have to go to school anymore, so there wouldn't be the constant humiliation of being unable to read and write, Abra spent his free time following Ender Wiggin everywhere.
Governor Wiggin noticed him, because he spoke to Abra from time to time — explaining things sometimes; just as often asking him questions. But mostly he let Abra tag along, and if other adults who were talking about serious matters sometimes glanced at Abra as if to ask Ender why he had this child with him, Ender simply ignored their silent question and soon they all carried on as if Abra were not there.
So when Ender left on his expedition to search for an appropriate site for the new starship to land and found another colony, no one even questioned the fact that Abra would be going with him. Father did take Abra aside and talk to him, though. 'This is a heavy responsibility,' he said. 'You are not to do anything dangerous. If something happens to the governor, your first responsibility is to report it to me by satfone. Your location will already be tracked and we'll send help at once. Don't try to deal with it yourself until we have been notified. Do you understand?'
Of course Abra understood. To Father, Abra was merely going along as backup. Mother's advice was a bit less pessimistic about Abra's value. 'Don't argue with him,' she said. 'Listen first, argue after.'
'Of course, Mom.'
'You say 'of course, but you aren't good at listening, Abra, you always think you know what people are going to say, and you have to let them say it because sometimes you're wrong.'
Abra nodded. 'I'll listen to Ender, Mother.'
She rolled her eyes — even though she yelled at the other children when they did that to her. 'Yes, I suppose you will. Only Ender is wise enough to know more than my Abra!'
'I don't think I know everything, Mom.' How could he get her to see that he only got impatient with adults when they thought they understood machinery and didn't? The rest of the time, he didn't speak at all. But since most of the time adults thought they knew what had gone wrong with a broken machine, and most of the time they were mistaken, most of his conversation with adults consisted of correcting them — or ignoring them. What else would they talk about except machinery, and Abra knew it better than they did. With Ender, though, it was almost never about machines. It was about everything, and Abra drank it all in.
'I'll try to keep Po from marrying Alessandra before you get home,' said Mom.
'I don't care,' said Abra. 'They don't have to wait for me. It's not like they'll need me for the wedding night.'
'Sometimes your face just needs slapping, Abra,' said Mom. 'But Ender puts up with you. The boy's a saint. Santo Andre.'
'San Ender,' said Abra.
'His Christian name is Andrew,' said Mom.
'But the name that makes him holy is Ender,' said Abra.
'My son the theologian. And you say you don't think you know everything!' Mother shook her heads, apparently disgusted with him.
Abra never understood how such arguments began, or why they usually ended with adults shaking their heads and turning away from him. He took their ideas seriously (except for their ideas about machinery); why couldn't they do the same for him?
Ender did. And he was going to spend days — weeks, maybe — with Ender Wiggin. Just the two of them.
They loaded the skimmer with supplies for three weeks, though Ender said he didn't think they'd be gone that long. Po came along to see them off, Alessandra clinging to him like a fungus, and he said, 'Try not to be a nuisance, Abra.'
'You're jealous that he's taking me and not you,' said Abra.
Alessandra spoke up. A talking fungus, apparently. 'Po doesn't want to go anywhere.' Meaning, of course, that he couldn't bear to be away from her for a single second.
Po's face stayed blank, however, so that Abra knew perfectly well that while he might be completely imasen over the girl, he would still rather go on the trip with Ender than stay behind with her. Contrary to Mother's opinion of him, however, Abra said nothing at all. He didn't even wink at Po. He just kept his face exactly as blank as Po's. It was the Mayan way of laughing at somebody right in front of them, without being rude or starting a fight.
The journey was a strange experience for Abra. At first, of course, they simply skimmed along above the fields of home. Familiar ground. Then they followed the road to Falstaff, which was due west of Miranda; this was also familiar, since Abra's married sister Alma lived there with her husband, that big stupid eemo Simon, who always tickled younger children until they wet themselves and then made fun of them for peeing themselves like babies. Abra was relieved that Ender only paused to greet the mayor of the village and then moved on without any
