Ender in Exile

by Orson Scott Card

  "Oh, you'll be able to!" said Han Tzu. "You led the human race to victory, and everyone knows it. You can do whatever you want!"

  Except go home, said Ender silently. Out loud, he answered, "You don't know my parents."

  He had meant it to be in the same jocular tone that Han Tzu was using, but nothing came out right these days. Maybe there was a moroseness in him that colored all his speech without his knowing it. Or maybe it was Han Tzu who couldn't hear a joke coming from Ender's mouth; maybe he and the other kids all had too many memories of how it was near the end, when they worried that Ender might be losing his mind.

  But Ender knew that he wasn't losing it. He was finding it. The deep mind, the utter soul, the heartlessly compassionate man--able to love others so deeply he can understand them, yet remain so detached that he can use that knowledge to destroy them.

  "Parents," said Han Tzu joylessly. "Mine's in prison, you know. Or maybe he's out now. He set me up to cheat on my test, to make sure I got in here."

  "You didn't need to cheat," said Ender. "You're the real thing."

  "But my father needed to bestow it on me. It was no good if I earned it myself. It's how he made himself feel necessary. I understand that now. My plan is to be a better father than him. I am the Good Man-Parent!"

  Ender laughed and then embraced him and they said good-bye. But the conversation stuck with him. He realized that Han Tzu would take his training and turn himself into the perfect father. And much of what he had learned in Battle School and here in Command School would probably serve him well. Patience, absolute self-control, learning the capabilities of those under you so you can make up for their deficits through training.

  What was I trained for?

  I am Tribal Man, thought Ender. The chief. They can trust me utterly to do exactly what's right for the tribe. But that trust means that I am the one who decides who lives and dies. Judge, executioner, general, god. That's what they trained me for. They did it well; I performed as trained. Now I scan the help wanted ads on the nets and can't find a single job on offer for which those are the qualifications. No tribes applying for chieftains, no villages in search of a king, no religions in search of a warrior-prophet.

  Officially, Ender was never supposed to have been informed of the court martial proceedings against ex-colonel Hyrum Graff. Officially, Ender was too young and too personally involved and the juvenile psychologists declared, after several tedious psychological evaluations, that Ender was too fragile to be exposed to the consequences of his own actions.

  Oh, right, now you're worried.

  But that's what the trial was going to be about, wasn't it? Whether Graff and other officials--but mostly Graff--acted properly in the use they made of the children who were put in their care. It was all being taken very seriously, and from the way adult officers fell silent or looked away when Ender came into a room, Ender was reasonably sure that there had been some terrible consequence of something he had done.

  He came to Mazer just before the trial began and laid out his hypotheses about what was really going on. "I think Colonel Graff is being put on trial because they're holding him responsible for things I did. But I doubt that it's because I blew up the formics' home world and destroyed an entire sentient species--they approve of that."

  Mazer had nodded wisely but said nothing--his normal mode of response, left over from his days as Ender's trainer.

  "So it's something else I did," said Ender. "I can think of only two things I've done that they'd put a man on trial for letting me do them. One was a fight I was in at Battle School. A bigger kid cornered me in a bathroom. He'd been bragging that he was going to beat me till I wasn't so smart anymore, and he brought his gang with him. I shamed him into fighting me alone, and then I put him down in a single move."

  "Really," said Mazer.

  "Bonzo Madrid. Bonito de Madrid. I think he's dead."

  "Think?"

  "They took me out of Battle School the next day. They never spoke of him. I assumed that meant I had really hurt him. I think he's dead. That's the kind of thing they'd hold a court martial for, isn't it? They have to account to Bonzo's parents for why their son is dead."

  "Interesting line of thought," said Mazer. Mazer said that whether his guesses were right or wrong, so Ender didn't try to interpret it. "Is that all?" asked Mazer.

  "There are governments and politicians that would like to discredit me. There's a move to keep me from coming back to Earth. I read the nets, I know what they're saying, that I'll just be a political football, a target for assassins, or an asset that my country will use to conquer the world or some such nonsense. So I think there are those who intend to use Graff's court martial as a way to publish things about me that would ordinarily be kept under seal. Things that will make me look like some kind of monster."

  "You do know that it sounds suspiciously like paranoia, to think that Graff's trial is about you."

  "Which makes it all the more appropriate that I'm in this loony bin," said Ender.

  "You understand that I can't tell you anything," said Mazer.

  "You don't have to," said Ender. "I'm also thinking that there was another boy. Years ago. When I was just little. He was hardly that much bigger than me. But he had a gang with him. I talked him out of using them--made it personal, one-on-one. Just like Bonzo. I wasn't a good fighter then. I didn't know how. All I could do was go crazy on him. Hurt him so bad he'd never dare to come after me again. Hurt him so bad that his gang would leave me alone, too. I had to be crazy in order to scare them with how crazy I was. So I think that incident is going to be part of the trial, too."

  "Your self-absorption is really quite sweet--you really are convinced you're the center of the universe."

  "Center of the court martial," said Ender. "It's about me, or people wouldn't be so anxious to keep me from knowing about it. The absence of information is information."

  "You kids are so smart," said Mazer, with just enough sarcasm to make Ender smile.

  "Stilson's dead, too, isn't he," said Ender. It wasn't really a question.

  "Ender, not everyone you fight with dies." But there was just a titch of hesitation after he said it. And so Ender knew. Everyone he had fought with--really fought--was dead. Bonzo. Stilson. And all the formics, every hive queen, every bugger, every larva, every egg, however they reproduced, it was over.

  "You know," said Ender quietly, "I think about them all the time. How they'll never have any more children. That's what being alive is, isn't it? The ability to replicate. Even people without children, their bodies are still making new cells all the time. Replicating. Only that's over for Bonzo and Stilson. They never lived long enough to reproduce. Their line is cut off. I was nature, red in tooth and claw, for them. I determined their unfitness."

  Ender knew even as he said it that this was unfair. Mazer was under orders not to discuss these matters with him and even if he guessed right, not to confirm them. But ending the conversation would confirm it, and even denying the truth had confirmed it. Now Ender was practically forcing him to speak, to reassure him, to answer his perceived need. "You don't have to respond," said Ender. "I'm not really as depressed as I sound. I don't blame myself, you know."

  Mazer's eyes flickered.

  "No, I'm not insane," said Ender. "I regret their deaths. I know that I'm responsible for killing Stilson and Bonzo and all the formics in the universe. But I'm not to blame. I didn't seek out Stilson or Bonzo. They came to me, with a threat of real damage. A credible threat. Tell them that in the court martial. Or run the recording you're doubtless making of this conversation. My intention was not to kill them, but my intention was definitely to stop them from damaging me. And the only way to do that was to act brutally. I'm sorry that they died from their injuries. I'd undo that if I could. But I didn't have the skill to hurt them enough to prevent future attacks, and yet not kill them. Or whatever it was that I did to them. If they're mentally damaged or crippled, I'll do what I can for them, unless their fam
ilies would rather I stay away. I don't want to cause any more harm.

  "But here's the thing, Mazer Rackham: I knew what I was doing. It's ridiculous for Hyrum Graff to be on trial for this. He had no idea of the way I thought, when it came to Stilson. He couldn't have known what I'd do. Only I knew. And I meant to hurt him--I meant to hurt him bad. Not Graff's fault. The fault was Stilson's. If he had left me alone--and I gave him every chance to walk away. I begged him to leave me alone. If he'd done that, he'd be alive. He chose. Just because he thought I was weaker than him, just because he thought I couldn't protect myself, doesn't mean it stopped being his fault. He chose to attack me precisely because he thought there would be no consequences. Only there were consequences."

  Mazer cleared his throat a little. And then spoke. "This has gone far enough."

  "With Bonzo, however, Graff was taking a terrible risk. What if Bonzo and his friends hurt me? What if I died? Or was brain-damaged? Or was simply made fearful and timid? He would lose the weapon he was forging. Bean would have won the war even if I was out of the picture, but Graff couldn't know that. It was a terrible gamble. Because Graff also knew that if I got out of that confrontation with Bonzo alive--victorious--then I would believe in myself. My ability to win under any circumstances. The game didn't give me that--it was just a game. Bonzo showed me that in real life I could win. As long as I understood my enemy. You understand what that means, Mazer."

  "Even if anything you're saying were true..."

  "Take this vid and introduce it into evidence. Or if, by some remote chance, nobody's recording our conversation, then testify on his behalf. Let them know--the court martial--let them know that Graff acted properly. I was angry at him for doing it that way, and I suppose I still am. But if I were in his place, I would have done the same. It was part of winning the war. People die in war. You send your soldiers into combat and you know some of them won't come back. But Graff didn't send Bonzo. Bonzo was a volunteer for the duty he assigned himself--attacking me and allowing us all to learn that no, I would not allow myself to lose, ever. Bonzo volunteered. Just like the buggers volunteered by coming here and trying to wipe out human life. If they'd left us alone, we wouldn't have hurt them. The court martial has to understand. I am what Battle School was designed to create, what the whole world wanted it to create. Graff cannot be blamed for shaping and sharpening the weapon. He did not wield it. No one did. Bonzo found a knife and cut himself on it. That's how they have to look at it."

  "Are you done?" Mazer had asked.

  "Why, are you running out of recording room?"

  Mazer got up and left.

  When he came back, he said nothing about their discussion. But Ender was now free to come and go anywhere. They no longer tried to hide things from him. He was able to read the transcript of Graff's arraignment.

  He had been right on every point.

  Ender also understood that Graff would not be convicted of anything serious--he would not go to prison. The court martial existed only to damage Ender and make it impossible for America to use him as a military leader. Ender was a hero, yes, but he was now officially a really scary kid. The court martial would cement that image in the public mind. People might have rallied around the savior of the human race. But a monstrous kid who killed other children? Even if it was self-defense, it was just too terrible. Ender's political future on Earth was non ex is tent.

  Ender tracked how the commentator Demosthenes responded as things began to come out in the trial. For months--ever since it became clear that Ender was not being sent home immediately--the famous American chauvinist had been agitating on the nets to "bring the hero home." Even now, as Ender's private killings were being used against Graff at the trial, Demosthenes still declared, more than once, that Ender was a "weapon that belongs to the American people."

  This practically guaranteed that no one from any other nation would consent to that weapon getting into American hands.

  Ender thought at first that Demosthenes must be a complete idiot, playing his hand completely wrong. Then he realized that Demosthenes might be doing it on purpose, energizing the opposition, because the last thing Demosthenes wanted was a rival for American political leadership.

  Was the man that subtle? Ender pored over his essays--what else did he have to do?--and saw a pattern of self-defeat. Demosthenes was eloquent, but he always pushed a little too hard. Enough to energize the opposition, inside and outside America. Discrediting his own side of every argument.

  Deliberately?

  Probably not. Ender knew the history of leaders--especially of the original Demosthenes. Eloquence didn't imply intelligence or deep analysis. True believers in a cause often behaved in self-defeating ways because they expected other people to see the rightness of their cause if they just stated it clearly enough. As a result, they tipped their hand in every game and couldn't understand why everyone ganged up against them.

  Ender had watched the arguments unfold on the nets, watched the teams form, saw how the "moderates" led by Locke kept benefiting from Demosthenes' provocations.

  And now, as Demosthenes continued to agitate in support of Ender, he was actually the one doing Ender the most damage. To everyone who feared Demosthenes' movement--which was the whole world outside America--Ender would not be a hero, he'd be a monster. Bring him home, to lead America on a nuevo-imperialista rampage? Let him become an American Alexander, Genghis Khan, Adolf Hitler, conquering the world or forcing the world to unite in brutal war against him?

  Fortunately, Ender did not want to be a conqueror. So he wouldn't be hurt by missing out on the chance to try it.

  Still, he'd love to have a chance to explain things to Demosthenes.

  Not that the man would ever consent to be alone in a room with the killer hero.

  Mazer never discussed the actual court martial with Ender, but they could talk about Graff.

  "Hyrum Graff is the consummate bureaucrat," Mazer told him. "He's always thinking ten steps ahead of everyone else. It doesn't really matter what office he holds. He can use anybody--below him or above him or complete strangers who've never met him--to accomplish whatever he thinks is needful for the human race."

  "I'm glad he chooses to use this power of his for good."

  "I don't know that he does," said Mazer. "He uses it for what he believes is good. But I don't know that he's particularly good at knowing what 'good' is."

  "In philosophy class I think we finally decided that 'good' is an infinitely recursive term--it can't be defined except in terms of itself. Good is good because it's better than bad, though why it's better to be good than bad depends on how you define good, and on and on."

  "The things the modern fleet teaches to its admirals."

  "You're an admiral too, and look where it got you."

  "Tutor to a bratty boy who saves the human race but doesn't do his chores."

  "Sometimes I wish I were bratty," said Ender. "I dream about it--about defying authority. But even when I absolutely decide to, what I can't get rid of is responsibility. People counting on me--that's what controls me."

  "So you have no ambition except duty?" asked Mazer.

  "And I have no duties now," said Ender. "So I envy Colonel...Mister Graff. All those plans. All that purpose. I wonder what he plans for me."

  "Are you sure he does?" asked Mazer. "Plan anything for you, I mean?"

  "Maybe not," said Ender. "He worked awfully hard to shape this tool. But now that it will never be needed again, maybe he can set me down and let me rust and never think of me."

  "Maybe," said Mazer. "That's the thing we have to keep in mind. Graff is not...nice."

  "Unless he needs to be."

  "Unless he needs to seem to be," said Mazer. "He's not above lying his face off to frame things in such a way that you'll want to do what he wants you to do."

  "Which is how he got you here, to be my trainer during the war?"

  "Oh, yes," said Mazer, with a sigh.

  "Going home now?" asked
Ender. "I know you have family."

  "Great-grandchildren," said Mazer. "And great-great-grandchildren. My wife is dead and my only surviving child is gaga with senility, my grandchildren tell me. They say it lightly, because they've accepted that their father or uncle has lived a full life and he's getting really old. But how can I accept it? I don't know any of these people."

  "Hero's welcome won't be enough to make up for losing fifty years, is that it?" asked Ender.

  "Hero's welcome," muttered Mazer. "You know what the hero's welcome is? They're still deciding whether to charge me along with Graff. I think they probably will."

  "So if they charge you along with Graff," said Ender, "then you'll be acquitted along with him."

  "Acquitted?" said Mazer ruefully. "We won't be jailed or anything. But we'll be reprimanded. A note of censure placed in our files. And Graff will probably be cashiered. The people who brought this court martial can't be made to look foolish for doing it. They have to turn out to have been correct."

  Ender sighed. "So for their pride, you both get slapped. And Graff maybe loses his career."

  Mazer laughed. "Not so bad, really. My record was full of notes of reprimand before I beat the buggers in the Second Formic War. My career has been forged out of reprimands and censures. And Graff? The military was never his career. It was just a way to get access to the influence and power he needed in order to accomplish his plans. Now he doesn't need the military anymore, so he's willing to be drummed out of it."

  Ender nodded, chuckled. "I bet you're right. Graff is probably planning to exploit it somehow. The people who benefit from his being kicked out, he'll take advantage of how guilty they feel in order to get what he really wants. A consolation prize that turns out to be his real objective."

  "Well, they can't very well give him medals for the exact same thing that he was court-martialed for," said Mazer.

  "They'll give him his colonization project," said Ender.

  "Oh, I don't know if guilt goes that far," said Mazer. "It would cost billions of dollars to equip and refit the fleet into colony ships, and there's no guarantee that anyone from Earth will volunteer to go away forever. Let alone crews for the ships."