Ender's Game

'We can get on the nets as full-fledged adults with whatever net names we want to adopt, if Father gets us onto his citizen's access.'

'And why would he do that? We already have student access. What do you tell him, I need citizen's access so I can take over the world?'

'No, Val. I won't tell him anything. You'll tell him how you're worried about me. How I'm trying so very hard to do well at school, but you know it's driving me crazy because I can never talk to anybody intelligent, everybody always talks down to me because I'm young, I never get to converse with my peers. You can prove that the stress is getting to me.'

Valentine thought of the corpse of the squirrel in the woods and realized that even that discovery was part of Peter's plan. Or at least he had made it part of his plan, after it happened.

'So you get him to authorize us to share his citizen's access. To adopt our own identities there, to conceal who we are so people will give us the intellectual respect we deserve.'

Valentine could challenge him on ideas, but never on things like this. She could not say, What makes you think you deserve respect? She had read about Adolf Hitler. She wondered what he was like at the age of twelve. Not this smart, not like Peter that way, but craving honor, probably that. And what would it have meant to the world if in childhood he had been caught in a thresher or trampled by a horse?

'Val,' Peter said. 'I know what you think of me. I'm not a nice person, you think.'

Valentine threw a pine needle at him. 'An arrow through your heart.'

'I've been planning to come talk to you for a long time. But I kept being afraid.'

She put a pine needle in her mouth and blew it at him. It dropped almost straight down. 'Another failed launch.' Why was he pretending to be weak?

'Val, I was afraid you wouldn't believe me. That you wouldn't believe I could do it.'

'Peter, I believe you could do anything, and probably will.'

'But I was even more afraid that you'd believe me and try to stop me.'

'Come on, threaten to kill me again, Peter.' Did he actually believe she could be fooled by his nice-and-humble-kid act?

'So I've got a sick sense of humor. I'm sorry. You know I was teasing. I need your help.'

'You're just what the world needs. A twelve-year-old to solve all our problems.'

'It's not my fault I'm twelve right now. And it's not my fault that right now is when the opportunity is open. Right now is the time when I can shape events. The world is always a democracy in times of flux, and the man with the best voice will win. Everybody thinks Hitler got to power because of his armies, because they were willing to kill, and that's partly true, because in the real world power is always built on the threat of death and dishonor. But mostly he got to power on words—on the right words at the right time.'

'I was just thinking of comparing you to him.'

'I don't hate Jews, Val. I don't want to destroy anybody. And I don't want war, either. I want the world to hold together. Is that so bad? I don't want us to go back to the old way. Have you read about the world wars?'

'Yes.'

'We can go back to that again. Or worse. We could find ourselves locked into the Warsaw Pact. Now, there's a cheerful thought.'

'Peter, we're children, don't you understand that? We're going to school, we're growing up—' But even as she resisted, she wanted him to persuade her. She had wanted him to persuade her from the beginning.

But Peter didn't know that he had already won. 'If I believe that, if I accept that, then I've got to sit back and watch while all the opportunities vanish, and then when I'm old enough it's too late. Val, listen to me. I know how you feel about me, you always have. I was a vicious, nasty brother. I was cruel to you and crueler to Ender before they took him. But I didn't hate you. I loved you both, I just had to be—had to have control, do you understand that? It's the most important thing to me, it's my greatest gift, I can see where the weak points are, I can see how to get in and use them, I just see those things without even trying. I could become a businessman and run some big corporation, I'd scramble and maneuver until I was at the top of everything and what would I have? Nothing. I'm going to rule, Val, I'm going to have control of something. But I want it to be something worth ruling. I want to accomplish something worthwhile. A Pax Americana through the whole world. So that when somebody else comes, after we beat the buggers, when somebody else comes here to defeat us, they'll find we've already spread over a thousand worlds, we're at peace with ourselves and impossible to destroy. Do you understand? I want to save mankind from self-destruction.'

She had never seen him speak with such sincerity. With no hint of mockery, no trace of a lie in his voice. He was getting better at this. Or maybe he was actually touching on the truth. 'So a twelve-year-old boy and his kid sister are going to save the world?'

'How old was Alexander? I'm not going to do it overnight. I'm just going to start now. If you'll help me.'

'I don't believe what you did to those squirrels was part of an act. I think you did it because you love to do it.'

Suddenly Peter wept into his hands. Val assumed that he was pretending, but then she wondered. It was possible, wasn't it, that he loved her, and that in this time of terrifying opportunity he was willing to weaken himself before her in order to win her love. He's manipulating me, she thought, but that doesn't mean he isn't sincere. His cheeks were wet when he took his hands away, his eyes rimmed in red. 'I know,' he said. 'It's what I'm most afraid of. That I really am a monster. I don't want to be a killer but I just can't help it.'

She had never seen him show such weakness. You're so clever, Peter. You saved your weakness so you could use it to move me now. And yet it did move her. Because if it were true, even partly true, then Peter was not a monster, and so she could satisfy her Peter-like love of power without fear of becoming monstrous herself. She knew that Peter was calculating even now, but she believed that under the calculations he was telling the truth. It had been hidden layers deep, but he had probed her until he found her trust.

'Val, if you don't help me, I don't know what I'll become. But if you're there, my partner in everything, you can keep me from becoming—like that. Like the bad ones.'

She nodded. You are only pretending to share power with me, she thought, but in fact I have power over you, even though you don't know it. 'I will. I'll help you.'

***

As soon as Father got them both onto his citizen's access, they began testing the waters. They staved away from the nets that required use of a real name. That wasn't hard because real names only had to do with money. They didn't need money. They needed respect, and that they could earn. With false names, on the right nets, they could be anybody. Old men, middle-aged women, anybody, as long as they were careful about the way they wrote. All that anyone would see were their words, their ideas. Every citizen started equal, on the nets.

They used throwaway names with their early efforts, not the identities that Peter planned to make famous and influential. Of course they were not invited to take part in the great national and international political forums—they could only be audiences there until they were invited or elected to take part. But they signed on and watched, reading some of the essays published by the great names, witnessing the debates that played across their desks.

And in the lesser conferences, where common people commented about the great debates, they began to insert their comments. At first Peter insisted that they be deliberately inflammatory. 'We can't learn how our style of writing is working unless we get responses—and if we're bland, no one will answer.'

They were not bland, and people answered. The responses that got posted on the public nets were vinegar; the responses that were sent as mail, for Peter and Valentine to read privately, were poisonous. But they did learn what attributes of their writing were seized upon as childish and immature. And they got better.

When Peter was satisfied that they knew how to sound adult, he killed the old identities and they began to prepare to attract real attention.

'We have to seem completely separate. We'll write about different things at different times. We'll never refer to each other. You'll mostly work on the west coast nets, and I'll mostly work in the south. Regional issues, too. So do your homework.'

They did their homework. Mother and Father worried sometimes, with Peter and Valentine constantly together, their desks tucked under their arms. But they couldn't complain—their grades were good, and Valentine