"They may have been copies, Volescu, but even dead they're worth more than the original."
He continued laughing as she walked down the corridor away from him, but it sounded forced. She knew his laughter was a mask for grief. But it wasn't the grief of compassion, or even of remorse. It was the grief of a damned soul.
Bean. God be thanked, she thought, that you do not know your father, and never will. You're nothing like him. You're far more human.
In the back of her mind, though, she had one nagging doubt. Was she sure Bean had more compassion, more humanity? Or was Bean as cold of heart as this man? As incapable of empathy? Was he all mind?
Then she thought of him growing and growing, from this too-tiny child to a giant whose body could no longer sustain life. This was the legacy your father gave you. This was Anton's key. She thought of David's cry, when he learned of the death of his son. Absalom! Oh Absalom! Would God I could die for thee, Absalom, my son!
But he was not dead yet, was he? Volescu might have been lying, might simply be wrong. There might be some way to prevent it. And even if there was not, there were still many years ahead of Bean. And how he lived those years still mattered.
God raises up the children that he needs, and makes men and women of them, and then takes them from this world at his good pleasure. To him all of life is but a moment. All that matters is what that moment was used for. And Bean would use it well. She was sure of that.
Or at least she hoped it with such fervor that it felt like certainty.
CHAPTER 12 – ROSTER
"If Wiggin's the one, then let's get him to Eros."
"He's not ready for Command School yet. It's premature."
"Then we have to go with one of the alternates."
"That's your decision."
" Our decision! What do we have to go on but what you tell us?"
"I've told you about those older boys, too. You have the same data I have."
"Do we have all of it?"
"Do you want all of it?"
"Do we have the data on all the children with scores and evaluations at such a high level?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"Some of them are disqualified for various reasons."
"Disqualified by whom?"
"By me."
"On what grounds?"
"One of them is borderline insane, for instance. We're trying to find some structure in which his abilities will be useful. But he could not possibly bear the weight of complete command."
"That's one."
"Another is undergoing surgery to correct a physical defect."
"Is it a defect that limits his ability to command?"
"It limits his ability to be trained to command."
"But it's being fixed."
"He's about to have his third operation. If it works, he might amount to something. But, as you say, there won't be time."
"How many more children have you concealed from us?"
"I have concealed none of them. If you mean how many have I simply not referred to you as potential commanders, the answer is all of them. Except the ones whose names you already have."
"Let me be blunt. We hear rumors about a very young one."
"They're all young."
"We hear rumors about a child who makes the Wiggin boy look slow."
"They all have their different strengths."
"There are those who want you relieved of your command."
"If I'm not to be allowed to select and train these kids properly, I'd prefer to be relieved, sir. Consider this a request."
"So it was a stupid threat. Advance them all as quickly as you can. just keep in mind that they need a certain amount of time in Command School, too. It does us no good to give them all your training if they don't have time to get ours."
***
Dimak met Graff in the battleroom control center. Graff conducted all his secure meetings here, until they could be sure Bean had grown enough that he couldn't get through the ducts. The battlerooms had their own separate air systems.
Graff had an essay on his desk display. "Have you read this? 'Problems in Campaigning Between Solar Systems Separated by Light-years.'"
"It's been circulating pretty widely among the faculty."
"But it isn't signed," said Graff. "You don't happen to know who wrote it, do you?"
"No, sir. Did you write it?"
"I'm no scholar, Dimak, you know that. In fact, this was written by a student."
"At Command School?"
"A student here."
At that moment Dimak understood why he had been called in. "Bean."
"Six years old. The paper reads like a work of scholarship!"
"I should have guessed. He picks up the voice of the strategists he's been reading. Or their translators. Though I don't know what will happen now that he's he's [sic – should be a single "he's"] been reading Frederick and Bulow in the original – French and German. He inhales languages and breathes them back out."
"What did you think of this paper?"
"You already know it's killing me to keep key information from this boy. If he can write this with what he knows, what would happen if we told him everything? Colonel Graff, why can't we promote him right out of Battle School, set him loose as a theorist, and then watch what he spits out?"
"Our job isn't to find theorists here. It's too late for theory anyway."
"I just think ... look, a kid so small, who'd follow him? He's being wasted here. But when he writes, nobody knows how little he is. Nobody knows how young he is."
"I see your point, but we're not going to breach security, period."
"Isn't he already a grave security risk?"
"The mouse who scutters through the ducts?"
"No. I think he's grown too big for that. He doesn't do those side-arm pushups anymore. I thought the security risk came from the fact that he guessed that an offensive fleet had been launched generations ago, so why were we still training children for command?"
"From analysis of his papers, from his activities when he signs on as a teacher, we think he's got a theory and it's wonderfully wrong. But he believes his false theory only because he doesn't know about the ansible. Do you understand? Because that's the main thing we'd have to tell him about, isn't it?"
"Of course."
"So you see, that's the one thing we can't tell him."
"What is his theory?"
"That we're assembling children here in preparation for a war between nations, or between nations and the I.F. A landside war, back on Earth."
"Why would we take the kids into space to prepare for a war on Earth?"
"Think just a minute and you'll get it."
"Because ... because when we've licked the Formics, there probably will be a little landside conflict. And all the talented commanders – the I.F. would already have them."
"You see? We can't have this kid publishing, not even within the I.F. Not everybody has given up loyalty to groups on Earth."
"So why did you call me in?"
"Because I do want to use him. We aren't running the war here, but we are running a school. Did you read his paper about the ineffectiveness of using officers as teachers?"
"Yes. I felt slapped."
"This time he's mostly wrong, because he has no way of knowing how nontraditional our recruitment of faculty has always been. But he may also be a little bit right. Because our system of testing for officer potential was designed to produce candidates with the traits identified in the most highly regarded officers in the Second Invasion."
"Hi-ho."
"You see? Some of the highly regarded were officers who performed well in battle, but the war was too short to weed out the deadwood. The officers they tested included just the kind of people he criticized in his paper. So ..."
"So he had the wrong reason, but the right result."
"Absolutely. It gives us little pricks like Bonzo Madrid. You've known officers like him, haven't you? So why sh
ould we be surprised that our tests give him command of an army even though he has no idea what to do with it. All the vanity and all the stupidity of Custer or Hooker or – hell, pick your own vain incompetent, it's the most common kind of general officer."
"May I quote you?"
"I'll deny it. The thing is, Bean has been studying the dossiers of all the other students. We think he's evaluating them for loyalty to their native identity group, and also for their excellence as commanders."
"By his standards of excellence."
"We need to get Ender the command of an army. We're under a lot of pressure to get our leading candidates into Command School. But if we bust one of the current commanders in order to make a place for Ender, it'll cause too much resentment."
"So you have to give him a new army."
"Dragon."
"There are still kids here who remember the last Dragon Army."
"Right. I like that. The jinx."
"I see. You want to give Ender a running start."
"It gets worse."
"I thought it would."
"We also aren't going to give him any soldiers that aren't already on their commanders' transfer list."
"The dregs? What are you doing to this kid?"
"If we choose them, by our ordinary standards, then yes, the dregs. But we aren't going to choose Ender's army."
"Bean?"
"Our tests are worthless on this, right? Some of those dregs are the very best students, according to Bean, right? And he's been studying the launchies. So give him an assignment. Tell him to solve a hypothetical problem. Construct an army only out of launchies. Maybe the soldiers on the transfer lists, too."
"I don't think there's any way to do that without telling him that we're on to his fake teacher log-in."
"So tell him."
"Then he won't believe anything he found while searching."
"He didn't find anything," said Graff. "We didn't have to plant anything fake for him to find, because he had his false theory. See? So whether he thinks we planted stuff or not, he'll stay deceived and we're still secure."
"You seem to be counting on your understanding of his psychology."
"Sister Carlotta assures me that he differs from ordinary human DNA in only one small area."
"So now he's human again?"
"I've got to make decisions based on something, Dimak!"
"So the jury's still out on the human thing?"
"Get me a roster of the hypothetical army Bean would pick, so we can give it to Ender."
"He'll put himself in it, you know."
"He damn well better, or he's not as smart as we've been thinking."
"What about Ender? Is he ready?"
"Anderson thinks he is." Graff sighed. "To Bean, it's still just a game, because none of the weight has fallen on him yet. But Ender ... I think he knows, deep down, where this is going to lead. I think he feels it already."
"Sir, just because you're feeling the weight doesn't mean he is."
Graff laughed. "You cut straight to the heart of things, don't you!"
"Bean's hungry for it, sir. If Ender isn't, then why not put the burden where it's wanted?"
"If Bean's hungry for it, it proves he's still too young. Besides, the hungry ones always have something to prove. Look at Napoleon. Look at Hitler. Bold at first, yes, but then still bold later on, when they need to cautious, to pull back. Patton. Caesar. Alexander. Always overreaching, never quite putting the finish on it. No, it's Ender, not Bean. Ender doesn't want to do it, so he won't have anything to prove."
"Are you sure you're not just picking the kind of commander you'd want to serve under?"
"That's precisely what I'm doing," said Graff. "Can you think of a better standard?"
"The thing is, you can't pass the buck on this one, can you? Can't say how it was the tests, you just followed the tests. The scores. Whatever."
"Can't run this like a machine."
"That's why you don't want Bean, isn't it? Because he was made, like a machine."
"I don't analyze myself. I analyze them."
"So if we win, who really won the war? The commander you picked? Or you, for picking him?"
"The Triumvirate, for trusting me. After their fashion. But if we lose ..."
"Well then it's definitely you."
"We're all dead then. What will they do? Kill me first? Or leave me till last so I can contemplate the consequences of my error?"
"Ender, though. I mean if he's the one. He won't say it's you. He'll take it all on himself. Not the credit for victory – just the blame for failure."
"Win or lose, the kid I pick is going to have a brutal time of it."
***
Bean got his summons during lunch. He reported at once to Dimak's quarters.
He found his teacher sitting at his desk, reading something. The light was set so that Bean couldn't read it through the dazzle.
"Have a seat," said Dimak.
Bean jumped up and sat on Dimak's bed, his legs dangling.
"Let me read you something," said Dimak. "'There are no fortifications, no magazines, no strong points ... In the enemy solar system, there can be no living off the land, since access to habitable planets will be possible only after complete victory ... Supply lines are not a problem, since there are none to protect, but the cost of that is that all supplies and ordnance must be carried with the invading fleet ... In effect, all interstellar invasion fleets are suicide attacks, because time dilation means that even if a fleet returns intact, almost no one they knew will still be alive. They can never return, and so must be sure that their force is sufficient to be decisive and therefore is worth the sacrifice.... Mixed-sex forces allow the possibility of the army becoming a permanent colony and/or occupying force on the captured enemy planet."
Bean listened complacently. He had left it in his desk for them to find it, and they had done so.
"You wrote this, Bean, but you never submitted it to anybody."
"There was never an assignment that it fit."
"You don't seem surprised that we found it."
"I assume that you routinely scan our desks."
"Just as you routinely scan ours?"
Bean felt his stomach twist with fear. They knew.
"Cute, naming your false log-in 'Graff' with a caret in front of it."
Bean said nothing.
"You've been scanning all the other students' records. Why?"
"I wanted to know them. I've only made friends with a few."
"Close friends with none."
"I'm little and I'm smarter than they are. Nobody's standing in line."
"So you use their records to tell you more about them. Why do you feel the need to understand them?"
"Someday I'll be in command of one of these armies."
"Plenty of time to get to know your soldiers then."
"No sir," said Bean. "No time at all."
"Why do you say that?"
"Because of the way I've been promoted. And Wiggin. We're the two best students in this school, and we're being raced through. I'm not going to have much time when I get an army."
"Bean, be realistic. It's going to be a long time before anybody's going to be willing to follow you into battle."
Bean said nothing. He knew that this was false, even if Dimak didn't. "Let's see just how good your analysis is. Let me give you an assignment."
"For which class?"
"No class, Bean. I want you to create a hypothetical army. Working only with launchies, construct an entire roster, the full complement of forty-one soldiers."
" No veterans?"
Bean meant the question neutrally, just checking to make sure he understood the rules. But Dimak seemed to take it as criticism of the unfairness of it. "No, tell you what, you can include veterans who are posted for transfer at their commanders' request. That'll give you some experienced ones."
The ones the commander couldn't work with. Some really were losers, but some were the
opposite. "Fine," said Bean.
"How long do you think it will take you?"
Bean already had a dozen picked out. "I can tell the list to you right now."
"I want you to think about it seriously."
"I already have. But you need to answer a couple of questions first. You said forty-one soldiers, but that would include the commander."
"All right, forty, and leave the commander blank."
"I have another question. Am I to command the army?"
"You can write it up that way, if you want."
But Dimak's very unconcern told Bean that the army was not for him. "This army's for Wiggin, isn't it?"
Dimak glowered. "It's hypothetical."
"Definitely Wiggin," said Bean. "You can't boot somebody else out of command to make room for him, so you're giving Wiggin a whole new army. I bet it's Dragon."
Dimak looked stricken, though he tried to cover it.
"Don't worry," said Bean. "I'll give him the best army you can form, following those rules."
"I said this was hypothetical!"
"You think I wouldn't figure it out when I found myself in Wiggin's army and everybody else in it was also on my roster?"
"Nobody's said we're actually going to follow your roster!"
"You will. Because I'll be right and you'll know it," said Bean. "And I can promise you, it'll be a hell of an army. With Wiggin to train us, we'll kick ass."
"Just do the hypothetical assignment, and talk to no one about it. Ever."
That was dismissal, but Bean didn't want to be dismissed yet. They came to him. They were having him do their work. He wanted to have his say while they were still listening. "The reason this army can be so good is that your system's been promoting a lot of the wrong kids. About half the best kids in this school are launchies or on the transfer lists, because they're the ones who haven't already been beaten into submission by the kiss-ass idiots you put in command of armies or toons. These misfits and little kids are the ones who can win. Wiggin will figure that out. He'll know how to use us."
"Bean, you're not as smart about everything as you think you are!"
"Yes I am, sir," said Bean. "Or you wouldn't have given this assignment to me. May I be dismissed? Or do you want me to tell you the roster now?"
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