Ender's Game

Yes, Ender thought. The system was too easily broken. They mean us to break it, or sections of it. They know it was me.

'Well, who, then?' Bernard shouted.

'Are you shouting at me, soldier?' asked Dap, very softly.

At once the mood in the room changed. From rage on the part of Bernard's closest friends and barely contained mirth among the rest, all became somber. Authority was about to speak.

'No, sir,' said Bernard.

'Everybody knows that the system automatically puts on the name of the sender.'

'I didn't write that!' Bernard said.

'Shouting?' asked Dap.

'Yesterday someone sent a message that was signed GOD,' Bernard said.

'Really?' said Dap. 'I didn't know he was signed onto the system.' Dap turned and left, and the room filled with laughter.

Bernard's attempt to be ruler of the room was broken—only a few stayed with him now. But they were the most vicious. And Ender knew that until he was through watching, it would go hard on him. Still, the tampering with the system had done its work, Bernard was contained, and all the boys who had some quality were free of him. Best of all, Ender had done it without sending him to the hospital. Much better this way.

Then he settled down to the serious business of designing a security system for his own desk, since the safeguards built into the system were obviously inadequate. If a six-year-old could break them down, they were obviously put there as a plaything, not serious security. Just another game that the teachers set up for us. And this is one I'm good at.

'How did you do that?' Shen asked him at breakfast.

Ender noted quietly that this was the first time another Launchy from his own class had sat with him at a meal. 'Do what?' he asked.

'Send a message with a fake name. And Bernard's name! That was great. They're calling him Buttwatcher now. Just Watcher in front of the teachers, but everybody knows what he's watching.'

'Poor Bernard,' Ender murmured. 'And he's so sensitive.'

'Come on, Ender. You broke into the system. How'd you do it?'

Ender shook his head and smiled. 'Thanks for thinking I'm bright enough to do that. I just happened to see it first, that's all.'

'OK, you don't have to tell me,' said Shen. 'Still, it was great.' They ate in silence for a moment. 'Do I wiggle my butt when I walk?'

'Naw.' Ender said. 'Just a little. Just don't take such big long steps, that's all.'

Shen nodded.

'The only person who'd ever notice was Bernard.'

'He's a pig.' said Shen.

Ender shrugged. 'On the whole, pigs aren't so bad.'

Shen laughed. 'You're right. I wasn't being fair to the pigs.'

They laughed together, and two other Launchies joined them. Ender's isolation was over. The war was just beginning.

6

The Giant's Drink

'We've had our disappointments in the past, hanging on for years, hoping they'll pull through, and then they don't. Nice thing about Ender, he's determined to ice within the first six months.'

'Oh?'

'Don't you see what's going on here? He's stuck at the Giant's Drink in the mind game. Is the boy suicidal? You never mentioned it.'

'Everybody gets the Giant sometime.'

'But Ender won't leave it alone. Like Pinual.'

'Everybody looks like Pinual at one time or another. But he's the only one who killed himself. I don't think it had anything to do with the Giant's Drink.'

'You're betting my life on that. And look what he's done with his launch group.'

'Wasn't his fault, you know.'

'I don't care. His fault or not, he's poisoning that group. They're supposed to bond, and right where he stands there's a chasm a mile wide.'

'I don't plan to leave him there very long, anyway.'

'Then you'd better plan again. That launch is sick, and he's the source of the disease. He stays till it's cured.'

'I was the source of the disease. I was isolating him, and it worked.'

'Give him time. To see what he does with it.'

'We don't have time.'

'We don't have time to rush a kid ahead who has as much chance of being a monster as a military genius.'

'Is this an order?'

'The recorders on, it's always on, your ass is covered, go to hell.'

'If it's an order, then I'll—'

'It's an order. Hold him where he is until we see now he handles things in his launch group. Graff, you give me ulcers.'

'You wouldn't have ulcers if you'd leave the school to me and take care of the fleet yourself.'

'The fleet is looking for a battle commander. There's nothing to take care of until you get me that.'

*

They filed clumsily into the battleroom, like children in a swimming pool for the first time, clinging to the handholds along the side. Null gravity was frightening, disorienting; they soon found that things went better if they didn't use their feet at all.

Worse, the suits were confining. It was harder to make precise movements, since the suits bent just a bit slower, resisted a bit more than any clothing they had ever worn before.

Ender gripped the handhold and flexed his knees. He noticed that along with the sluggishness, the suit had an amplifying effect on movement. It was hard to get them started, but the suit's legs kept moving, and strongly, after his muscles had stopped. Give them a push this strong, and the suit pushes with twice the force. I'll be clumsy for a while. Better get started.

So, still grasping the handhold, he pushed off strongly with his feet.

Instantly he flipped around, his feet flying over his head, and landed fiat on his back against the wall. The rebound was stronger, it seemed, and his hands tore loose from the handhold. He flew across the battleroom, tumbling over and over.

For a sickening moment he tried to retain his old up-and-down orientation, his body attempting to right itself, searching for the gravity that wasn't there. Then he forced himself to change his view. He was hurtling toward a wall. That was down. And at once he had control of himself. He wasn't flying, he was falling. This was a dive. He could choose how he would hit the surface.

I'm going too fast to catch ahold and stay, but I can soften the impact, can fly off at an angle if I roll when I hit and use my feet—

It didn't work at all the way he had planned. He went off at an angle, but it was not the one he had predicted. Nor did he have time to consider. He hit another wall, this time too soon to have prepared for it. But quite accidentally he discovered a way to use his feet to control the rebound angle. Now he was soaring across the room again, toward the other boys who still clung to the wall. This time he had slowed enough to be able to grip a