"I don't believe you. I believe that this is precisely the level of violence you anticipated. This is what you set up. You think that the experiment succeeded."
"I can't control your opinions. I can merely disagree with them.
"Ender Wiggin is ready to move on to Command School. That is my report."
"I have a separate report from Dap, the teacher assigned to watch him most closely. And that report -- for which there are to be no sanctions against Captain Dap -- tells me that Andrew Wiggin is 'psychologically unfit for duty.'"
"If he is, which I doubt, it is only temporary."
"How much time do you think we have? No, Colonel Graff, for the time being we have to regard your course of action regarding Wiggin as a failure, and the boy as ruined not only for our purposes but quite possibly for any other as well. So, if it can be done without further killings, I want the other one pushed forward. I want him here in Command School as close to immediately as possible."
"Very well, sir. Though I must tell you that I regard Bean as unreliable."
"Why, because you haven't turned him into a killer yet?"
"Because he is not human, sir."
"The genetic difference is well within the range of ordinary variation."
"He was manufactured, and the manufacturer was a criminal, not to mention a certified loon."
"I could see some danger if his father were a criminal. Or his mother. But his doctor? The boy is exactly what we need, as quickly as we can get him."
"He is unpredictable."
"And the Wiggin boy is not?"
"Less unpredictable, sir."
"Very carefully answered, considering that you just insisted that the murder today was 'not foreseeable.'"
"Not murder, sir!"
"Killing, then."
"The mettle of the Wiggin boy is proved, sir, while Bean's is not."
"I have Dimak's report -- for which, again, he is not to be --"
"Punished, I know, sir."
"Bean's behavior throughout this set of events has been exemplary."
"Then Captain Dimak's report was incomplete. Didn't he inform you that it was Bean who may have pushed Bonzo over the edge to violence by breaking security and informing him that Ender's army was composed of exceptional students?"
"That was an act with unforeseeable consequences."
"Bean was acting to save his own life, and in so doing he shunted the danger onto Ender Wiggin's shoulders. That he later tried to ameliorate the danger does not change the fact that when Bean is under pressure, he turns traitor."
"Harsh language!"
"This from the man who just called an obvious act of self-defense 'murder'?"
"Enough of this! You are on leave of absence from your position as commander of Battle School for the duration of Ender Wiggin's so-called rest and recuperation. If Wiggin recovers enough to come to Command School, you may come with him and continue to have influence over the education of the children we bring here. If he does not, you may await your court-martial on Earth."
"I am relieved effective when?"
"When you get on the shuttle with Wiggin. Major Anderson will stand in as acting commander."
"Very well, sir. Wiggin will return to training, sir."
"If we still want him."
"When you are over the dismay we all feel at the unfortunate death of the Madrid boy, you will realize that I am right, and Ender is the only viable candidate, all the more now than before."
"I allow you that Parthian shot. And, if you are right, I wish you Godspeed on your work with the Wiggin boy. Dismissed."
Ender was still wearing only his towel when he stepped into the barracks. Bean saw him standing there, his face a rictus of death, and thought: He knows that Bonzo is dead, and it's killing him.
"Ho, Ender," said Hot Soup, who was standing near the door with the other toon leaders.
"There gonna be a practice tonight?" asked one of the younger soldiers.
Ender handed a slip of paper to Hot Soup.
"I guess that means not," said Nikolai softly.
Hot Soup read it. "Those sons of bitches! Two at once?"
Crazy Tom looked over his shoulder. "Two armies!"
"They'll just trip over each other," said Bean. What appalled him most about the teachers was not the stupidity of trying to combine armies, a ploy whose ineffectiveness had been proved time after time throughout history, but rather the get-back-on-the-horse mentality that led them to put more pressure on Ender at this of all times. Couldn't they see the damage they were doing to him? Was their goal to train him or break him? Because he was trained long since. He should have been promoted out of Battle School the week before. And now they give him one more battle, a completely meaningless one, when he's already over the edge of despair?
"I've got to clean up," said Ender. "Get them ready, get everybody together, I'll meet you there, at the gate." In his voice, Bean heard a complete lack of interest. No, something deeper than that. Ender doesn't want to win this battle.
Ender turned to leave. Everyone saw the blood on his head, his shoulders, down his back. He left.
They all ignored the blood. They had to. "Two fart-eating armies!" cried Crazy Tom. "We'll whip their butts!"
That seemed to be the general consensus as they got into their flash suits.
Bean tucked the coil of deadline into the waist of his flash suit. If Ender ever needed a stunt, it would be for this battle, when he was no longer interested in winning.
As promised, Ender joined them at the gate before it opened -- just barely before. He walked down the corridor lined with his soldiers, who looked at him with love, with awe, with trust. Except Bean, who looked at him with anguish. Ender Wiggin was not larger than life, Bean knew. He was exactly life-sized, and so his larger-than-life burden was too much for him. And yet he was bearing it. So far.
The gate went transparent.
Four stars had been combined directly in front of the gate, completely blocking their view of the battleroom. Ender would have to deploy his forces blind. For all he knew, the enemy had already been let into the room fifteen minutes ago. For all he could possibly know, they were deployed just as Bonzo had deployed his army, only this time it would be completely effective, to have the gate ringed with enemy soldiers.
But Ender said nothing. Just stood there looking at the barrier.
Bean had halfway expected this. He was ready. What he did wasn't all that obvious -- he only walked forward to stand directly beside Ender at the gate. But he knew that was all it would take. A reminder.
"Bean," said Ender. "Take your boys and tell me what's on the other side of this star."
"Yes sir," said Bean. He pulled the coil of deadline from his waist, and with his five soldiers he made the short hop from the gate to the star. Immediately the gate he had just come through became the ceiling, the star their temporary floor. Bean tied the deadline around his waist while the other boys unspooled the line, arranging it in loose coils on the star. When it was about one-third played out, Bean declared it to be sufficient. He was guessing that the four stars were really eight -- that they made a perfect cube. If he was wrong, then he had way too much deadline and he'd crash into the ceiling instead of making it back behind the star. Worse things could happen.
He slipped out beyond the edge of the star. He was right, it was a cube. It was too dim in the room to see well what the other armies were doing, but they seemed to be deploying. There had been no head start this time, apparently. He quickly reported this to Ducheval, who would repeat it to Ender while Bean did his stunt. Ender would no doubt start bringing out the rest of the army at once, before the time clicked down to zero.