Ender's Game (Ender's Saga, #1) - Orson Scott Card Page 0,43

long as people are afraid of the buggers, the I.F. can stay in power, and as long as the I.F. is in power, certain countries can keep their hegemony. But keep watching the vids, Ender. People will catch onto this game pretty soon, and there’ll be a civil war to end all wars. That’s the menace, Ender, not the buggers. And in that war, when it comes, you and I won’t be friends. Because you’re American, just like our dear teachers. And I am not.”

They went to the mess hall and ate, talking about other things. But Ender could not stop thinking about what Dink had said. The Battle School was so enclosed, the game so important in the minds of the children, that Ender had forgotten there was a world outside. Spanish honor. Civil war. Politics. The Battle School was really a very small place, wasn’t it?

But Ender did not reach Dink’s conclusions. The buggers were real. The threat was real. The I.F. controlled a lot of things, but it didn’t control the videos and the nets. Not where Ender had grown up. In Dink’s home in the Netherlands, with three generations under Russian hegemony, perhaps it was all controlled, but Ender knew that lies could not last long in America. So he believed.

Believed, but the seed of doubt was there, and it stayed, and every now and then sent out a little root. It changed everything, to have that seed growing. It made Ender listen more carefully to what people meant, instead of what they said. It made him wise.

There weren’t as many boys at the evening practice, not by half.

“Where’s Bernard?” asked Ender.

Alai grinned. Shen closed his eyes and assumed a look of blissful meditation.

“Haven’t you heard?” said another boy, a Launchy from a younger group. “Word’s out that any Launchy who comes to your practice sessions won’t ever amount to anything in anybody’s army. Word’s out that the commanders don’t want any soldiers who’ve been damaged by your training.”

Ender nodded.

“But the way I brain it,” said the Launchy, “I be the best soldier I can, and any commander worth a damn, he take me. Neh?”

“Eh,” said Ender, with finality.

They went on with practice. About a half hour into it, when they were practicing throwing off collisions with frozen soldiers, several commanders in different uniforms came in. They ostentatiously took down names.

“Hey,” shouted Alai. “Make sure you spell my name right!”

The next night there were even fewer boys. Now Ender was hearing the stories—little Launchies getting slapped around in the bathrooms, or having accidents in the mess hall and the game room, or getting their files trashed by older boys who had broken the primitive security system that guarded the Launchies’ desks.

“No practice tonight,” Ender said.

“The hell there’s not,” said Alai.

“Give it a few days. I don’t want any of the little kids getting hurt.”

“If you stop, even one night, they’ll figure it works to do this kind of thing. Just like if you’d ever backed down to Bernard back when he was being a swine.”

“Besides,” said Shen, “we aren’t scared and we don’t care, so you owe it to us to go on. We need the practice and so do you.”

Ender remembered what Dink had said. The game was trivial, compared to the whole world. Why should anybody give every night of his life to this stupid, stupid game?

“We don’t accomplish that much anyway,” Ender said. He started to leave.

Alai stopped him. “They scare you, too? They slap you up in the bathroom? Stick you head in the pissah? Somebody gots a gun up you bung?”

“No,” Ender said.

“You still my friend?” asked Alai, more quietly.

“Yes.”

“Then I still you friend, Ender, and I stay here and practice with you.”

The older boys came again, but fewer of them were commanders. Most were members of a couple of armies. Ender recognized Salamander uniforms. Even a couple of Rats. They didn’t take names this time. Instead, they mocked and shouted and ridiculed as the Launchies tried to master difficult skills with untrained muscles. It began to get to a few of the boys.

“Listen to them,” Ender said to the other boys. “Remember the words. If you ever want to make your enemy crazy, shout that kind of stuff at them. It makes them do dumb things, to be mad. But we don’t get mad.”

Shen took the idea to heart, and after each jibe from the older boys, he had a group of four Launchies recite the words, loudly, five or