Ender closed his eyes tightly. They waited. He said, Why didnt you tell me?
Maezr smiled. A hundred years ago, Ender, we found out some things. That when a commanders life is in danger he becomes afraid, and fear slows down his thinking. When a commander knows that hes killing people, he becomes cautious or insane, and neither of those help him do well. And when hes mature, when he has responsibilities and an understanding of the world, he becomes cautious and sluggish and cant do his job. So we trained children, who didnt know anything but the game, and never knew when it would become real. That was the theory, and you proved that the theory worked.
Graff reached out and touched Enders shoulder. We launched the ships so that they would all arrive at their destination during these few months. We knew that wed probably have only one good commander, if we were lucky. In history its been very rare to have more than one genius in a war. So we planned on having a genius. We were gambling. And you came along and we won.
Ender opened his eyes again and they realized that he was angry. Yes, you won.
Graff and Maezr Rackham looked at each other. He doesnt understand, Graff whispered.
I understand, Ender said. You needed a weapon, and you got it, and it was me.
Thats right, Maezr answered.
So tell me, Ender went on, how many people lived on that planet that I destroyed.
They didnt answer him. They waited awhile in silence, and then Graff spoke. Weapons dont need to understand what theyre pointed at, Ender. We did the pointing, and so were responsible. You just did your job.
Maezr smiled. Of course, Ender, youll be taken care of. The government will never forget you. You served us all very well.
Ender rolled over and faced the wall, and even though they tried to talk to him, he didnt answer them. Finally they left.
Ender lay in his bed for a long time before anyone disturbed him again. The door opened softly. Ender didnt turn to see who it was. Then a hand touched him softly.
Ender, its me, Bean.
Ender turned over and looked at the little boy who was standing by his bed.
Sit down, Ender said.
Bean sat. That last battle, Ender. I didnt know how youd get us out of it.
Ender smiled. I didnt. I cheated. I thought theyd kick me out.
Can you believe it! We won the war. The whole wars over, and we thought wed have to wait till we grew up to fight in it, and it was us fighting it all the time. I mean, Ender, were little kids. Im a little kid, anyway. Bean laughed and Ender smiled. Then they were silent for a little while, Bean sitting on the edge of the bed, Ender watching him out of half-closed eyes.
Finally Bean thought of something else to say.
What will we do now that the wars over? he said.
Ender closed his eyes and said, I need some sleep, Bean.
Bean got up and left and Ender slept.
GRAFF AND ANDERSON walked through the gates into the park. There was a breeze, but the sun was hot on their shoulders.
Abba Technics? In the capital? Graff asked.
No, in Biggock County. Training division, Anderson replied. They think my work with children is good preparation. And you?
Graff smiled and shook his head. No plans. Ill be here for a few more months. Reports, winding down. Ive had offers. Personnel development for DCIA, executive vice-president for U and P, but I said no. Publisher wants me to do memoirs of the war. I dont know.
They sat on a bench and watched leaves shivering in the breeze. Children on the monkey bars were laughing and yelling, but the wind and the distance swallowed their words. Look, Graff said, pointing. A little boy jumped from the bars and ran near the bench where the two men sat. Another boy followed him, and holding his hands like a gun he made an explosive sound. The child he was shooting at didnt stop. He fired again.
I got you! Come back here!
The other little boy ran on out of sight.
Dont you know when youre dead? The boy shoved his hands in his pockets and kicked a rock back to the monkey bars. Anderson smiled and shook his head. Kids, he said. Then he and Graff stood up and walked on out of the park.
Orson Scott Card
Orson Scott Cards landmark novels Enders Game and its sequel, Speaker for the Dead, made science fiction history when they became the first books ever to win both the Hugo and Nebula Awards in successive years. With Xenocide and Children of the Mind, they make up one of the most celebrated sagas of modern science fiction, a richly imagined and morally complex inquiry into issues of war, genocide, and human responsibility. Much of Cards fantasy and science fiction interconnects to form inventive extended series, including The Worthing Chronicle, a linked group of stories related as the experiences as a messianic leader of a space colony, and his lengthy Hatrick River sequence, a folk history of an alternate United States whose individual volumes include Seventh Son, Prentice Alvin, and Heartfire. Cards eloquent short fiction has been collected in Maps in a Mirror. He is also the author of the historical novel A Woman of Destiny, the dark fantasy novels Lost Boys, Treasure Box, and Homebody, and the Hugo Awardwinning guide How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy.
HANGMANDavid Drake
THE LIGHT IN the kitchen alcove glittered on Lt. Schillings blond curls; glittered also on the frost-spangled window beside her and from the armor of the tank parked outside. All the highlights looked cold to Capt. Danny Pritchard as he stepped closer to the infantry lieutenant.
Sal Pritchard began. From the orderly room behind them came the babble of the radios ranked against one wall and, less muted, the laughter of soldiers waiting for action. You cant think like a Dutchman anymore. Were Hammers Slammers, all of us. Were mercs. Not Dutch, not Frisians
Youre not, Lt. Schilling snapped, looking up from the cup of bitter chocolate she had just drawn from the urn. She was a short woman and lightly built, but she had the unerring instinct of a bully who is willing to make a scene for a victim who is not willing to be part of one. Youre a farmer from Dunstan, what dyou care about Dutch miners, whatever these bleeding French do to them. But a lot of us do care, Danny, and if you had a little compassion
But Sal Pritchard repeated, only his right arm moving as he touched the blond girls shoulder.
Get your hands off me, Captain! she shouted. Thats over! She shifted the mug of steaming chocolate in her hand. The voices in the orderly room stilled. Then, simultaneously, someone turned up the volume of the radios and at least three people began to talk loudly on unconnected subjects.
Pritchard studied the back of his hand, turned it over to examine the calloused palm as well. He smiled. Sorry, Ill remember that, he said in a normal voice. He turned and stepped back into the orderly room, a brown-haired man of 34 with a good set of muscles to cover his moderate frame and nothing at all to cover his heart. Those who knew Danny Pritchard slightly thought him a relaxed man, and he looked relaxed even now. But waiting around the electric grate were three troopers who knew Danny very well indeed: the crew of The Plow, Pritchards command tank.
Kowie drove the beast, a rabbit-eyed man whose fingers now flipped cards in another game of privy solitaire. His deck was so dirty that only familiarity allowed him to read the pips. Kowies hands and eyes were just as quick at the controls of the tank, sliding its bulbous hundred and fifty metric tons through spaces that were only big enough to pass it. When he had to, he drove nervelessly through objects instead of going around. Kowie would never be more than a tank driver; but he was the best tank driver in the Regiment.
Rob Jenne was big and as blond as Lt. Schilling. He grinned up at Pritchard, his expression changing from embarrassment to relief as he saw that his captain was able to smile also. Jenne had transferred from combat cars to tanks three years back, after the Slammers had pulled out of Squires World. He was sharp-eyed and calm in a crisis. Twice after his transfer Jenne had been offered a blower of his own to command if he would return to combat cars. He had refused both promotions, saying he would stay with tanks or buy back his contract, that there was no way he was going back to those open-topped coffins again. When a tank commanders slot came open, Jenne got it; and Pritchard had made the blond sergeant his own blower chief when a directional mine had retired the previous man. Now Jenne straddled a chair backwards, his hands flexing a collapsible torsion device that kept his muscles as dense and hard as they had been the day he was recruited from a quarry on Burlage.
Line tanks carry only a driver and the blower chief who directs the tank and its guns when they are not under the direct charge of the Regiments computer. In addition to those two and a captain, command tanks have a Communications Technician to handle the multiplex burden of radio traffic focused on the vehicle. Pritchards commo tech was Margritte DiManzo, a slender widow who cropped her lustrous hair short so that it would not interfere with the radio helmet she wore most of her waking hours. She was off duty now, but she had not removed the bulky headgear which linked her to the six radios in the tank parked outside. Their simultaneous sound would have been unintelligible babbling to most listeners. The black-haired womans training, both conscious and hypnotic, broke that babbling into a set of discrete conversations. When Pritchard reentered the room, Margritte was speaking to Jenne. She did not look up at her commander until Jennes brightening expression showed her it was safe to do so.
Two commo people and a sergeant with Intelligence tabs were at consoles in the orderly room. They were from the Regiments HQ Battalion, assigned to Sector Two here on Kobold but in no sense a part of the sectors combat companies: Capt. Riis S Companyinfantryand Pritchards own tanks.
Riis was the senior captain and in charge of the sector, a matter which neither he nor Pritchard ever forgot. Sally Schilling led his first platoon. Her aide, a black-haired corporal, sat with his huge boots up, humming as he polished the pieces of his field-stripped powergun. Its barrel gleamed orange in the light of the electric grate. Electricity was more general on Kobold than on some wealthier worlds, since mining and copper smelting made fusion units a practical necessity. But though the copper in the transmission cable might well have been processed on Kobold, the wire had probably been drawn off-world and shipped back here. Aurore and Friesland had refused to allow even such simple manufactures here on their joint colony. They had kept Kobold a market and a supplier of raw materials, but never a rival.
Going to snow tonight? Jenne asked.
Umm, too cold, Pritchard said, walking over to the grate. He pretended he did not hear Lt. Schilling stepping out of the alcove. I figure
Hold it, said Margritte, her index finger curling out for a volume control before the duty man had time to react. One of the wall radios boomed loudly to the whole room. Prodding another switch, Margritte patched the signal separately through the link implanted in Pritchards right mastoid.
guns and looks like satchel charges. Theres only one man in each truck, but theyve been on the horn too and we can figure on more Frenchies here any
Red Alert, Pritchard ordered, facing his commo tech so that she could read his lips. Where is this?
The headquarters radiomen stood nervously, afraid to interfere but unwilling to let an outsider run their equipment, however ably. Red Alert, Margritte was repeating over all bands. Then, through Pritchards implant, she said, Its Patrol Sigma three-nine, near Haacin. Dutch civiliansve stopped three outbound provisions trucks from Barthes Company.
Scramble First Platoon, Pritchard said, but tell em to hold for us to arrive. As Margritte coolly passed on the order, Pritchard picked up the commo helmet he had laid on his chair when he followed Lt. Schilling into the kitchen. The helmet gave him automatic switching and greater range than the bio-electric unit behind his ear.
The wall radio was saying, need some big friendlies fast or itll drop in the pot for sure.
Sigma three-niner, Pritchard said, this is Michael One.
Go ahead, Michael One, replied the distant squad leader. Pritchards commo helmet added an airy boundlessness to his surroundings without really deadening the ambient noise.
Hold what youve got, boys, the tank captain said. Theres help on the way.
The door of the orderly room stood ajar the way Pritchards crewmen had left it. The captain slammed it shut as he too ran for his tank. Behind in the orderly room, Lt. Schilling was snapping out quick directions to her own platoon and to her awakened commander.
The Plow was already floating when Danny reached it. Ice crystals, spewed from beneath the skirts by the lift fans, made a blue-white dazzle in the vehicles running lights. Frost whitened the ladder up the high side of the tanks plenum chamber and hull. Pritchard paused to pull on his gloves before mounting. Sgt. Jenne, anchoring himself with his left hand on the turrets storage rack, reached down and lifted his captain aboard without noticeable effort. Side by side, the two men slid through the hatches to their battle stations.
Ready, Pritchard said over the intercom.
Movin on, replied Kowie, and with his words the tank slid forward over the frozen ground like grease on a hot griddle.
The command post had been a district road-maintenance center before all semblance of central government on Kobold had collapsed. The orderly room and officers quarters were in the supervisors house, a comfortable structure with shutters and mottoes embroidered in French on the walls. Some of the hangings had been defaced by short-range gunfire. The crew barracks across the road now served the troopers on headquarters duty. Many of the Slammers could read the Dutch periodicals abandoned there in the break-up. The equipment shed beside the barracks garaged the infantry skimmers because the battery-powered platforms could not shrug off the weather like the huge panzers of M Company. The shed doors were open, pluming the night with heated air as the duty platoon ran for its mounts. Some of the troopers had not yet donned their helmets and body armor. Jenne waved as the tank swept on by; then the road curved and the infantry was lost in the night.