Ender's Game (Ender's Saga, #1) - Orson Scott Card Page 0,68

did computer simulations on probable results. And here is what the computer estimated Ender would do.”

“We want to teach him, not give him a nervous breakdown.”

“The computer knows him better than we do.”

“The computer is also not famous for having mercy.”

“If you wanted to be merciful, you should have gone to a monastery.”

“You mean this isn’t a monastery?”

“This is best for Ender, too. We’re bringing him to his full potential.”

“I thought we’d give him two years as commander. We usually give them a battle every two weeks, starting after three months. This is a little extreme.”

“Do we have two years to spare?”

“I know. I just have this picture of Ender a year from now. Completely useless, worn out, because he was pushed farther than he or any living person could go.”

“We told the computer that our highest priority was having the subject remain useful after the training program.”

“Well, as long as he’s useful—”

“Look, Colonel Graff, you’re the one who made me prepare this, over my protests, if you’ll remember.”

“I know, you’re right, I shouldn’t burden you with my conscience. But my eagerness to sacrifice little children in order to save mankind is wearing thin. The Polemarch has been to see the Hegemon. It seems Russian intelligence is concerned that some of the active citizens on the nets are already figuring how America ought to use the I.F. to destroy the Warsaw Pact as soon as the buggers are destroyed.”

“Seems premature.”

“It seems insane. Free speech is one thing, but to jeopardize the League over nationalistic rivalries—and it’s for people like that, short-sighted, suicidal people, that we’re pushing Ender to the edge of human endurance.”

“I think you underestimate Ender.”

“But I fear that I also underestimate the stupidity of the rest of mankind. Are we absolutely sure that we ought to win this war?”

“Sir, those words sound like treason.”

“It was black humor.”

“It wasn’t funny. When it comes to the buggers, nothing—”

“Nothing is funny, I know.”

Ender Wiggin lay on his bed staring at the ceiling. Since becoming commander, he never slept more than five hours a night. But the lights went off at 2200 and didn’t come on again until 0600. Sometimes he worked at his desk, anyway, straining his eyes to use the dim display. Usually, though, he stared at the invisible ceiling and thought.

Either the teachers had been kind to him after all, or he was a better commander than he thought. His ragged little group of veterans, utterly without honor in their previous armies, were blossoming into capable leaders. So much so that instead of the usual four toons, he had created five, each with a toon leader and a second; every veteran had a position. He had the army drill in eight-man toon maneuvers and four-man half-toons, so that at a single command, his army could be assigned as many as ten separate maneuvers and carry them out at once. No army had ever fragmented itself like that before, but Ender was not planning to do anything that had been done before, either. Most armies practiced mass maneuvers, preformed strategies. Ender had none. Instead he trained his toon leaders to use their small units effectively in achieving limited goals. Unsupported, alone, on their own initiative. He staged mock wars after the first week, savage affairs in the practice room that left everybody exhausted. But he knew, with less than a month of training, that his army had the potential of being the best fighting group ever to play the game.

How much of this did the teachers plan? Did they know they were giving him obscure but excellent boys? Did they give him thirty Launchies, many of them underage, because they knew the little boys were quick learners, quick thinkers? Or was this what any similar group could become under a commander who knew what he wanted his army to do, and knew how to teach them to do it?

The question bothered him, because he wasn’t sure whether he was confounding or fulfilling their expectations.

All he was sure of was that he was eager for battle. Most armies needed three months because they had to memorize dozens of elaboration formations. We’re ready now. Get us into battle.

The door opened in darkness. Ender listened. A shuffling step. The door closed.

He rolled off his bunk and crawled in the darkness the two meters to the door. There was a slip of paper there. He couldn’t read it, of course, but he knew what it was. Battle. How kind of them. I wish, and