Ender's Game (Ender's Saga, #1) - Orson Scott Card Page 0,63

littlest kid, the one who had been last out of the door, was the first to arrive at the correct wall, and he caught himself adroitly. They had been right to advance him. He’d do well. He was also cocky and rebellious, and probably resented the fact that he had been one of the ones Ender had sent naked through the corridors.

“You!” Ender said, pointing at the small one. “Which way is down?”

“Toward the enemy door.” The answer was quick. It was also surly, as if to say, OK, OK, now get on with the important stuff.

“Name, kid?”

“This soldier’s name is Bean, sir.”

“Get that for size or for brains?” The other boys laughed a little. “Well, Bean, you’re right onto things. Now listen to me, because this matters. Nobody’s going to get through that door without a good chance of getting hit. In the old days, you had ten, twenty seconds before you even had to move. Now if you aren’t already streaming out of the door when the enemy comes out, you’re frozen. Now, what happens when you’re frozen?”

“Can’t move,” one of the boys said.

“That’s what frozen means,” Ender said. “But what happens to you?”

It was Bean, not intimidated at all, who answered intelligently. “You keep going in the direction you started in. At the speed you were going when you were flashed.”

“That’s true. You five, there on the end, move!” Startled, the boys looked at each other. Ender flashed them all. “The next five, move!”

They moved. Ender flashed them, too, but they kept moving, heading toward the walls. The first five, though, were drifting uselessly near the main group.

“Look at these so-called soldiers,” Ender said. “Their commander ordered them to move, and now look at them. Not only are they frozen, they’re frozen right here, where they can get in the way. While the others, because they moved when they were ordered, are frozen down there, plugging up the enemy’s lanes, blocking the enemy’s vision. I imagine that about five of you have understood the point of this. And no doubt Bean is one of them. Right, Bean?”

He didn’t answer at first. Ender looked at him until he said, “Right, sir.”

“Then what is the point?”

“When you are ordered to move, move fast, so if you get iced you’ll bounce around instead of getting in the way of your own army’s operations.”

“Excellent. At least I have one soldier who can figure things out. “ Ender could see resentment growing in the way the other soldiers shifted their weight and glanced at each other, the way they avoided looking at Bean. Why am I doing this? What does this have to do with being a good commander, making one boy the target of all the others? Just because they did it to me, why should I do it to him? Ender wanted to undo his taunting of the boy, wanted to tell the others that the little one needed their help and friendship more than anyone else. But of course Ender couldn’t do that. Not on the first day. On the first day even his mistakes had to look like part of a brilliant plan.

Ender hooked himself nearer the wall and pulled one of the boys away from the others. “Keep your body straight,” said Ender. He rotated the boy in midair so his feet pointed toward the others. When the boy kept moving his body, Ender flashed him. The others laughed. “How much of his body could you shoot?” Ender asked a boy directly under the frozen soldier’s feet.

“Mostly all I can hit is his feet.”

Ender turned to the boy next to him. “What about you?”

“I can see his body.”

“And you?”

A boy a little farther down the wall answered. “All of him.”

“Feet aren’t very big. Not much protection.” Ender pushed the frozen soldier out of the way. Then he doubled his legs under him, as if he were kneeling in midair, and flashed his own legs. Immediately the legs of his suit went rigid, holding them in that position.

Ender twisted himself in the air, so that he knelt above the other boys.

“What do you see?” he asked.

A lot less, they said.

Ender thrust his gun between his legs. “I can see fine,” he said, and proceeded to flash the boys directly under him. “Stop me!” he shouted. “Try and flash me!”

They finally did, but not until he had flashed more than a third of them. He thumbed his hook and thawed himself and every other frozen soldier. “Now,” he said,