inattentive, that was to be expected. For what Ender did not know was that at any moment, if the supervisor signaled him, Bean could take over and continue Ender's plan, watching over all of the squadron leaders, saving the game.
At first, that assignment seemed empty - Ender was healthy, alert. But then came the change.
It was the day after Ender mentioned to them, casually, that he had a different teacher from theirs. He referred to him as "Mazer" once too often, and Crazy Tom said, "He must have gone through hell, growing up with that name."
"When he was growing up," said Ender, "the name wasn't famous."
"Anybody that old is dead," said Shen.
"Not if he was put on a lightspeed ship for a lot of years and then brought back."
That's when it dawned on them. "Your teacher is the Mazer Rackham?"
"You know how they say he's a brilliant hero?" said Ender.
Of course they knew.
"What they don't mention is, he's a complete hard-ass."
And then the new simulation began and they got back to work.
Next day, Ender told them that things were changing. "So far we've been playing against the computer or against each other. But starting now, every few days Mazer himself and a team of experienced pilots will control the opposing fleet. Anything goes."
A series of tests, with Mazer Rackham himself as the opponent. It smelled fishy to Bean.
These aren't tests, these are setups, preparations for the conditions that might come when they face the actual Bugger fleet near their home planet.
The I.F. is getting preliminary information back from the expeditionary fleet, and they're preparing us for what the Buggers are actually going to throw at us when battle is joined.
The trouble was, no matter how bright Mazer Rackham and the other officers might be, they were still human. When the real battle came, the Buggers were bound to show them things that humans simply couldn't think of.
Then came the first of these "tests" - and it was embarrassing how juvenile the strategy was. A big globe formation, surrounding a single ship.
In this battle it became clear that Ender knew things that he wasn't telling them. For one thing, he told them to ignore the ship in the center of the globe. It was a decoy. But how could Ender know that? Because he knew that the Buggers would show a single ship like that, and it was a lie. Which means that the Buggers expect us to go for that one ship.
Except, of course, that this was not really the Buggers, this was Mazer Rackham. So why would Rackham expect the Buggers to expect humans to strike for a single ship?
Bean thought back to those vids that Ender had watched over and over in Battle School - all the propaganda film of the Second Invasion.
They never showed the battle because there wasn't one. Nor did Mazer Rackham command a strike force with a brilliant strategy. Mazer Rackham hit a single ship and the war was over. That's why there's no video of hand-to-hand combat. Mazer Rackham killed the queen. And now he expects the Buggers to show a central ship as a decoy, because that's how we won last time.
Kill the queen, and all the Buggers are defenseless. Mindless. That's what the vids meant. Ender knows that, but he also knows that the Buggers know that we know it, so he doesn't fall for their sucker bait.
The second thing that Ender knew and they didn't was the use of a weapon that hadn't been in any of their simulations till this first test. Ender called it "Dr. Device" and then said nothing more about it - until he ordered Alai to use it where the enemy fleet was most concentrated. To their surprise, the thing set off a chain reaction that leapt from ship to ship, until all but the most outlying Formic ships were destroyed. And it was an easy matter to mop up those stragglers. The playing field was clear when they finished.
"Why was their strategy so stupid?" asked Bean.
"That's what I was wondering," said Ender. "But we didn't lose a ship, so that's OK."
Later, Ender told them what Mazer said - they were simulating a whole invasion sequence, and so he was taking the simulated enemy through a learning curve. "Next time they'll have learned. It won't be so easy."
Bean heard that and it filled him with alarm. An invasion sequence? Why a scenario like that? Why