Ender in exile

CHAPTER 7

To: jpwiggin@gso.nc.pub, twiggin@uncg.edu

From: vwiggin%Colony1@colmin.gov/citizen

Subj: Ender is fine

By «fine» I mean of course that his body and mind seem to be functioning normally. He was happy to see me. We talked easily. He seems at peace about everything. No hostility toward anyone. He spoke of both of you with real affection. We shared lots of childhood memories.

But as soon as that conversation ended, I saw him almost visibly crawl inside a shell. He is obsessed with the formics. I think he's burdened with guilt over having destroyed them. He knows that this is not appropriate — that he did not know what he was doing, they were trying to destroy us so it was self-defense anyway — but the ways of conscience are mysterious. We evolved consciences so that we would internalize community values and police ourselves. But what happens when you have a hyperactive conscience and make up rules that nobody else knows about, just so you can punish yourself for breaking them?

Nominally, he is governor, but I have been warned by two different people that Admiral Quincy Morgan has no intention of letting Ender govern anything. If Peter were in such a position, he would already be conspiring to have Morgan removed before the voyage began. But Ender just chuckles and says, "Imagine that." When I pressed him, he said, "He can't have a contest if I won't play." And when I pressed him harder, he got irritable and said, "I was born for one war. I won it and I'm done."

So now I'm torn. Do I try to maneuver for him? Or do what he asks and ignore the whole situation? He thinks I should spend my time on the voyage either in stasis, so we'd be the same age when we arrived, both fifteen — or, if I'm awake, then I should write a history of Battle School. Graff has promised to give me all the documents about Battle School — though I can get those from the public records, since they all came out in the court martial.

Here's my philosophical question: What is love? Does my love for Ender mean that I do what I think is good for him, even if he asks me not to? Or does love mean I do what he asks, even though I think he would find being a figurehead governor a hellish experience?

It's like piano lessons, dear parents. So many adults complain about the hideous experience of being forced to practice and practice. And yet there are others who say to their parents, "Why didn't you MAKE me practice so today I'd be able to play well?"

Love, Valentine

To: vwiggin%Colony1@colmin.gov/citizen

From: Twiggin@uncg.edu

Subj: re: Ender is fine

Dear Valentine,

Your father says that you will be irritated if I say how shocking it is to discover that one of my children does not know everything, and admits it, and even asks her parents for advice. For the past five years, you and Peter have been as closed off as twins with a private language. Now, only a few weeks out from under Peter's influence, you have discovered parents again. I find this gratifying. I hereby declare you to be my favorite child.

We continue to be devastated — a slow, corrosive kind of devastation — that Ender chooses not to write to us. You say nothing of anger toward us. We do not understand. Doesn't he realize we were forbidden to write to him? Why doesn't he read our letters now? Or does he read them and then choose not to poke the reply box and say even as little as "Got your letters"?

As to your questions, the answers are easy. You are not his mother or father. We are the ones with the right to meddle and do what's good for him whether he likes it or not. You are his sister. Think of yourself as companion, friend, confidante. Your responsibility is to receive what he gives, and to give him what he asks only if you think it's good. You do not have either the right or the responsibility to give him what he specifically asks you not to give. That would be no gift; that is neither friend nor sister.

Parents are a special case. He has built a wall exactly in the place where Battle School first built it. It keeps us out. He thinks he does not need us. He is mistaken. I suspect we are exactly what he is hungry for. It is a mother who can provide the ineffable comfort to a wounded soul. It is a father who can say, "Ego te absolvo" and "well done, thou good and faithful servant" and be believed by the inmost soul.

If you were better educated and hadn't lived in an atheistic establishment, you would understand those references. When you look them up, please remember that I did not have to.

Love,

Your sarcastic, overly analytical,

deeply wounded yet quite satisfied,

Mother

To: jpwiggin@gso.nc.pub, twiggin@uncg.edu

From: vwiggin%Colony1@colmin.gov/citizen

Subj: Ender is fine

I know all about Father's confessionals and your King James Version and I did not have to look anything up either. Do you think your and Father's religions were a secret from your children? Even Ender knew, and he left home when he was six.

I am taking your advice because it is wise and because I have no better ideas. And I'm going to follow Ender's and Graff's advice, too, and write a history of Battle School. My goal is a simple one: to get it published as quickly as possible so it can be part of the task of erasing the vile slanders of the court martial, rehabilitating the reputations of the children who won this war and the adults who trained and aimed them. Not that I don't still hate them for taking Ender from us. But I find it quite possible to hate someone and still see their side of the argument between us. This is perhaps the only worthwhile gift Peter ever gave me.

Peter has not written to me, nor I to him. If he asks, tell him that I think about him often, I notice that I don't see him anymore, and if that counts as "missing him," then he is missed.

Meanwhile, I had a chance to meet Petra Arkanian in transit and I have spoken — well, literally WRITTEN — to "Bean," Dink Meeker, Han Tzu, and have letters out to several others. The better I understand from them what Ender went through (since Ender's not telling), the better I will know what I should be doing but am not because, as you point out, I am not his mother and he has asked me not to do it. Meanwhile, I am pretending that it's only about writing the book.

I am an astonishingly fast writer. Are you sure we have no genes of Winston Churchill in us? Some dalliance of his, for instance, with a Pole-in-exile during World War II? I feel him to be a kindred spirit of mine, except for the political ambitions, the constant blood alcohol level, and walking around the house naked. He did those things, by the way, not me.

Love,

Your equally sarcastic, just-analytical-enough,

not-yet-wounded-nor-satisfied daughter,

Valentine

Graff had disappeared from Eros soon after the court martial, but now he was back. It seems that as Minister of Colonization, he could not miss the opportunity for publicity that the departure of the first colony ship would offer.

"Publicity is good for the Dispersal Project," said Graff when Mazer laughed at him.

"And you don't love the camera?"

"Look at me," said Graff. "I've lost twenty-five kilos. I'm a mere shadow of myself."

"All through the war, you gain weight, bit by bit. You balloon during the court martial. And now you lose weight. Was it Earth gravity?"

"I didn't go to Earth," said Graff. "I was busy turning Battle School into the assembly point for the colonists. No one understood why I insisted that all the beds be adult-sized. Now they talk about my foresight."

"Why are you lying to me? You weren't in charge when Battle School was built."

Graff shook his head. "Mazer, I wasn't in charge of anything when I talked you into coming home, was I?"

"You were in charge of the get-Rackham-home-to-help-train-Ender-Wiggin project."

"But no one knew there was such a project."

"Except you."

"So I was also in charge of the make-sure-Battle-School-is-fitted-out-for-the-Human-Genome-Dispersal-Project project."

"And that's why you're losing weight," said Mazer. "Because you finally got the funding and authority to carry out the real project that you've had in mind all along."

"Winning the war was the most important thing. I had my mind on my job of training children! Who knew we'd win it in circumstances that gave us all these uninhabited already-terraformed completely habitable planets? I expected Ender to win, or Bean if Ender failed, but I thought we'd then be battling the buggers world to world, and racing to found new colonies in the opposite direction, so we wouldn't be vulnerable to their counterattack."

"So you're here to have your picture taken with the colonists."

"I'm here to have my smiling picture taken with you and Ender and the colonists."

"Ah," said Mazer. "The court martial crowd."

"The cruelest thing about that court martial was the way they savaged Ender's reputation. Fortunately, most people remember the victory, not the evidence from the court martial. Now we place another image in their minds."

"So you actually care about Ender."

Graff looked hurt. "I have always loved that boy. It would take a moral idiot not to. I know deep goodness when I see it. I hate having his name tied to the murder of children."

"He did kill them."

"He didn't know that he did."

"Those weren't like winning the war while thinking it was a game, Hyrum," said Mazer. "He knew he was in a real fight for his life, and he knew that he had to win decisively. He had to know that the death of his opponent was always a possibility."

"So you're saying he's as guilty as our enemies said he was?"

"I'm saying that he killed them and he knew what he was doing. Not the exact outcome, but that he was taking actions that could cause real and permanent damage to those boys."

"They were going to kill him!"

"Bonzo was," said Mazer. "Stilson was a petty bully."

"But Ender was so untrained he had no idea of the damage he was doing, or that his shoes had steel toes. Weren't we clever to keep him safe by insisting he wear shoes like that."

"Hyrum, I think Ender's actions were perfectly justified. He didn't choose to fight those boys, so the only choice he had was how thoroughly to win."

"Or lose."

"Ender never has the choice to lose, Hyrum. It's not in him, even when he thinks it is."

"All I know is that he promised to try to work a picture with me and you into his schedule."

Mazer nodded. "And you think that meant that he'd do it."

"He doesn't have a schedule. I thought he was being ironic. Except for hanging with Valentine, what does he have to do?"

Mazer laughed. "What he's been doing for more than a year — studying the formics so obsessively that we all worried about his mental health. Only I have to say that with the colonists' arrival, he's been preparing to be governor in more than just name."

"Admiral Morgan will be disappointed."

"Admiral Morgan expects to get his way," said Mazer, "because he doesn't realize Ender is serious about governing the colony. What Ender was doing was memorizing the dossiers of all the colonists — their test results, family relationships with other colonists and with family members who were left home, their towns and countries of origin and what those places look like and what's been going on there in the past year, during the time they were signing up."

"And Admiral Morgan doesn't get the point?"

"Admiral Morgan is a leader," said Mazer. "He gives orders and they're passed down the chain. Knowing the grunts is the job of the petty officers."

Graff laughed. "And people wonder why we used children to command the final campaign."

"Every officer learns how to function within the system that promoted him," said Mazer. "The system is still sick — it always has been and always will be. But Ender learned how real leadering is done."

"Or was born knowing it."

"So he's greeting every colonist by name and making a point of conversing with them all for at least a half hour."

"Can't he do that on the ship after they take off?"

"He's meeting the ones who are going into stasis. The ones who are staying awake he'll meet after launch. So when he says he'll try to fit you into his schedule, he was not being ironic. Most of the colonists are sleepers and he barely has time for a real conversation with all of them."

Graff sighed. "Isn't he even sleeping?"

"I think he figures he'll have time to sleep after launch — when Admiral Morgan is commanding his vessel and Ender will have no official duties that he doesn't assign to himself. At least that's how Valentine and I decode his behavior."

"He doesn't talk to her?"

"Of course he does. He just doesn't admit to having any plans or any reasons for the things he does."

"Why would he keep secrets from her?"

"I'm not sure they're secrets," said Mazer. "I think he might not know that he has plans of any kind. I think he's greeting the colonists because that's what they need and expect. It's a duty because it means a lot to them, so he does it."

"Nonsense," said Graff. "Ender always has plans within plans."

"I believe you're thinking of you."

"Ender is better at this than I am."

"I doubt it," said Mazer. "Peacetime bureaucratic maneuvering? Nobody does it better than you."

"I wish I were going with them."

"Then go," said Mazer, laughing. "But you wish nothing of the kind."

"Why not?" said Graff. "I can run ColMin by ansible. I can see firsthand what our colonists have accomplished during the years they've been waiting for relief. And the advantages of relativistic travel will keep me alive to see the end of my great project."

"Advantages?"

"To you, a horrible sacrifice. But you'll notice that I did not marry, Mazer. I had no secret reproductive dysfunction. My libido and my desire for a family are as strong as any man's. But I decided years ago to marry Mother Eve posthumously and adopt all her children as my own. They were all living in the same crowded house, where one bad fire would kill the whole bunch of them. My job was to move them out into widely dispersed houses so they'd go on living forever. Collectively, that is. So no matter where I go, no matter whom I'm with, I am surrounded by my adopted children."

"You really are playing God."

"I most certainly am not playing."

"You old actor — you think there were auditions and you got the part."

"Maybe I'm an understudy. When he forgets a bit of business, I fill in."

"So what are you going to do about getting a picture with Ender?"

"Simple enough. I'm the man who decides when the ship will go. There will be a technical malfunction at the last minute. Ender, having done his duty, will be encouraged to take a nap. When he wakes up, we'll take some pictures, and then the technical problems will be miraculously resolved and the ship will sail."

"Without you on board," said Mazer.

"I have to be here to keep fighting for the project," said Graff. "If I weren't here to stymie my enemies at every step, the project would be killed within months. There are so many powerful people in this world who refuse to see any vision they didn't think of."

Valentine enjoyed watching the way Graff and Rackham treated Ender. Graff was one of the most powerful men in the world; Rackham was still regarded as a legendary hero. Yet both of them quietly deferred to Ender. They never ordered him to do anything. It was always, "Will it be all right for you to stand here for the picture?" "Would 0800 be a good time for you?" "Whatever you're wearing will be fine, Admiral Wiggin."

Of course Valentine knew that calling him "Admiral Wiggin" was for the benefit of the admirals and generals and political brass who were watching, most of them seething because they weren't in the picture. But as she watched, she saw many instances of Ender expressing an opinion — or just seeming to be hesitant about something. Graff usually deferred to Ender. And when he didn't, Rackham smilingly made Ender's point for him, and insisted on it.

They were taking care of him.

It was genuine love and respect. They might have created him like a tool in a forge, they might have hammered him and ground him into the shape they wanted, and then plunged him into the heart of the enemy. But now they truly loved this weapon they had made, they cared about him.

They thought he was damaged. Dented from all he had been through. They thought his passivity was a reaction to trauma, to finding out what he had really done — the deaths of the children, of the formics, of the thousands of human soldiers who had perished during that last campaign when Ender thought he was playing a game.

They just don't know him the way I do, thought Valentine.

Oh, she knew the danger of such a thought. She was constantly on the alert, lest she entrap herself in a web of her own conceit. She had not assumed she knew Ender. She had approached him like a stranger, watching everything to see what he did, what he said, and what he seemed to mean by all he did and said.

Gradually, though, she learned to recognize the child behind the young man. She had seen him obeying his parents — immediately, without question, though he surely could have argued or pleaded his way out of onerous tasks. Ender accepted responsibility and accepted also the idea that he would not always get to decide which responsibilities were his, or when they needed to be carried out. So he obeyed his parents with few hesitations.

But it was more than that. Ender really was damaged, they were right. Because his obedience was more than that of the happy child springing up at his parents' request. It had strong overtones of the kind of obedience Ender had given to Peter — compliance in order to avoid conflict.

Somewhere between the two attitudes: eagerness versus resignation mixed with dread.

Ender was eager for the voyage, for the work he would do. But he understood that being governor was the price he was paying for his ticket. So he was acting the part, performing all his duties, including the pictures, including the formal good-byes, the speeches from the very commanders who had allowed his name to be so badly tarnished during the court martial of Graff and Rackham.

Ender stood there smiling — a real smile, as if he liked the man — while Admiral Chamrajnagar bestowed on him the highest medal the International Fleet could offer. Valentine watched the whole thing sourly. Why wasn't that medal given during the court martial, when it would have been an open repudiation of the terrible things being said about Ender? Why had the court martial been opened to the public, when Chamrajnagar had the complete power to suppress it all? Why was there even a court martial? No law required it. Chamrajnagar had never, for a moment, been Ender's friend — though Ender gave him the victory that he could not otherwise have achieved.

Unlike Graff and Rackham, Chamrajnagar showed no sign of real respect for Ender. Oh, he called him Admiral, too, with only a couple of instances of "my boy" — both immediately corrected by Rackham, to Chamrajnagar's visible annoyance. Of course, Chamrajnagar could do nothing about Rackham, either — except make sure he was in all the pictures, too, since having two heroes associated with the great Polemarch would be an even more memorable picture.

What was plain to Valentine was that Chamrajnagar was very happy, and the happiness clearly came from the prospect of having Ender get on that starship and go away. Things could not go quickly enough for Chamrajnagar.

Yet they all waited for the pictures to be printed out in physical form so that Ender, Rackham, and Chamrajnagar could all sign copies of that most excellent souvenir.

Rackham and Ender were each given signed copies with a great flourish, as if Chamrajnagar imagined he was honoring them.

Then, at last, Chamrajnagar was gone — "to the observation station, to watch the great vessel sail forth on its mission of creation instead of destruction." In other words, to have his picture taken with the ship in the background. Valentine doubted any of the press would be allowed to take pictures of the event that did not include Chamrajnagar's smiling face.

So it was actually a great concession that the picture of Graff, Rackham, and Ender had been allowed to exist at all. Perhaps Chamrajnagar did not even know it had been taken. It was the official fleet photographer, but perhaps he was disloyal enough to take a picture he knew that his boss would hate.

Valentine knew Graff well enough to know that appearances of the Polemarch's pictures would be rare compared to the picture of Graff, Rackham, and Ender, which would be pasted on every possible surface on Earth: electronic, virtual, and physical. It would serve Graff's purpose to have everyone on Earth reminded that the I.F. existed for only two purposes now — to support the colonization program, and to punish from space any power on Earth that dared to use, or threaten to use, nuclear weapons.

Chamrajnagar had not yet reconciled himself to the idea that most of the continued funding for the I.F. and its bases and stations came through Graff's hands as Minister of Colonization — MinCol. At the same time, Graff was perfectly aware that it was fear of what a disgruntled I.F. might do — like seizing worldwide power from the politicians, which the Warsaw Pact had tried to do — that kept the funding coming to his project.

What Chamrajnagar would never understand was why he was somehow the adjunct in all of this, why his lobbying came to nothing — except for allowing Ender's diminishment in the court martial.

Which led Valentine once again to her suspicion that Graff, too, could have prevented the court martial if he had wanted to, that perhaps it was a price he paid in order to gain some other advantage. Even if all it did for Graff was «prove» that not everything was going his way, that would be a great source of complacency for Graff's rivals and opponents, and Valentine well knew that complacency was the best possible attitude for one's rivals and opponents to have.

Graff loved and respected Ender, but he was not above allowing something very unfortunate to happen to him if it served the larger purpose. Hadn't Graff proved it over and over?

Well, my dear MinCol, by the time we get to Shakespeare Colony, you will almost certainly be either dead or very, very old. I wonder if you'll still be running everything then?

Poor Peter. Aspiring to rule the world, while Graff had already done it. The difference was that Peter needed to be known to rule the world; all the outward forms of government needed to be seen to lead to Peter's throne. Whereas Graff only needed to use his control of whatever he wanted to control in order to accomplish his single, lofty purpose.

But aren't they the same person, apart from that? Manipulators, letting anyone else pay whatever cost was required to accomplish the end in view. It was a good end, in Graff's case. Valentine agreed with it, believed in it, happily cooperated with it. But wasn't Peter's goal also a good one? The end of war, because the world was united under a single good government. If he brought it off, wouldn't it be as much a blessing to the human race as anything Graff accomplished?

She had to give both Peter and Graff credit for this: They weren't monsters. They didn't require that all costs be paid by others, none by themselves. They would also make whatever personal sacrifices were required. They really did serve a cause bigger than themselves.

But couldn't that also have been said of Hitler? Unlike Stalin and Mao, who wallowed in luxury while others did all the work and made all the sacrifices, Hitler lived sparingly and truly believed himself to be living for a cause greater than himself. That's precisely what made him such a monster. So Valentine was not quite sure that Peter's and Graff's self-sacrifices were quite enough to absolve them of monsterhood.

Well, they would both be someone else's problem now. Let Rackham watch out for Graff and kill him if he gets out of hand, which he probably won't. And let Father and Mother do their pathetic best to keep Peter from becoming the devil. Do they even realize that Peter's whole good-son attitude was an act? That Peter had obviously made the conscious decision several years back to pretend to be just like the boy Ender had been? All an act, dear parents — do you see it? Sometimes I think you do, but other times you are so oblivious.

You will be lost in the past by the time I get where I'm going, all of you. My present will be Ender and whatever he's doing. He is my whole flock, and I must shepherd him without ever letting him see the crook I use to guide him and protect him.

What am I thinking? Who's the megalomaniac here? I think I will know better than Ender what is good for him, where he should go, what he should do, and what he should be protected from?

Yet that is exactly what I think, because it's true.

Ender was so sleepy he could hardly stand, yet he stood, through all the pictures, making the smile as warm and real as he could. These are the pictures Mother and Father will see. The pictures for Peter's children, if he has any, to remember that once they had an Uncle Ender who did something very famous before he was in his teens and then went away. This is how he looked when he left. See? He's very happy. See, Mom and Dad? You didn't hurt me when you let them take me. Nothing has hurt me. I'm fine. Look at my smile. Don't see how tired I am, or how glad I am to go, when they let me go.

Then at last the pictures were done. Ender shook hands with Mazer Rackham and wanted to say, I wish you were coming. But he could not say he wished that, because he knew that Mazer did not want to go, and so it would be a selfish wish. So he said only this: "Thank you for all you taught me, and for standing by me." He did not add "standing by me at the trial" because the words might be picked up by some stray microphone.

Then he shook hands with Hyrum Graff and said, "I hope this new job works out for you." It was a joke, and Graff got it, or at least enough to smile a little. Maybe the thinness of Graff's smile was because he had heard Ender thank Mazer and wondered why Ender had no thanks for him. But Graff had not been his teacher, only his master, and it was not the same. Nor had Graff stood by him, as far as Ender could tell. Hadn't Graff's whole program of teaching been to get Ender to believe to the depth of his soul that there would never be anyone standing by him?

"Thanks for the nap," he said to Graff.

Graff chuckled out loud. "May you always have as many as you need."

Then Ender paused, looking at nothing, at the empty room, and thought, Good-bye, Mom. Good-bye, Dad. Good-bye, Peter. Good-bye, all the men and women and children of Earth. I've done all I could for you, and had all I could receive from you, and now someone else is responsible for you all.

Ender walked up the ramp to the shuttle, Valentine directly behind him.

The shuttle took them off Eros for the last time. Good-bye, Eros, and all the soldiers on it, the ones who fought for me and the other children, the ones who manipulated us and lied to us for the good of humanity, the ones who conspired to defame me and keep me from returning to Earth, all of you, good and bad, kind and selfish, good-bye to you, I am no longer one of you, neither your pawn nor your savior. I resign my commission.

Ender said nothing to Valentine beyond the trivial comments of travel. It was only about a half hour of jockeying until the shuttle was docked against the surface of the transport ship. It had been meant to carry soldiers and their weapons into war. Now it was carrying a vast amount of equipment and supplies for the agricultural and manufacturing needs of Shakespeare Colony, and more people to join them, to improve their gene pool, to help buy them enough productivity that there'd be leisure for science and creativity and luxury, a life closer to what the societies of Earth offered.

But all of that had been loaded, and all the people. Ender was last. Ender and Valentine.

At the bottom of the ladderway that would take them up into the ship, Ender stopped and faced Valentine. "You can still go back now," he said. "You can see that I'll be fine. The people of the colony that I've met so far are very nice and I won't be lonely."

"Are you afraid to go up the ladder first?" asked Valentine. "Is that why you've stopped to make a speech?"

So Ender went up the ladder and Valentine followed, making her the last of the colonists to cut the thread connecting them to Earth.

Below them, the hatch of the shuttle closed, and then the hatch of the ship. They stood in the airlock until a door opened and there was Admiral Quincy Morgan, smiling, his hand already extended. How long did he strike that pose before the door opened, Ender wondered. Was he there, perhaps, for hours, posed like a mannequin?

"Welcome, Governor Wiggin," said Morgan.

"Admiral Morgan," said Ender, "I'm not governor of anything until I set foot on the planet. On this voyage, on your ship, I'm a student of the xenobiology and adapted agriculture of Shakespeare Colony. I hope, though, that when you're not too busy, I'll have a chance to talk to you and learn from you about the military life."

"You're the one who's seen combat," said Morgan.

"I played a game," said Ender. "I saw nothing of war. But there are colonists on Shakespeare who made this voyage many years ago, and never had a hope of returning home to Earth. I want to get some idea of what their training was, their life."

"You'll have to read books for that," said Morgan, still smiling. "This is my first interstellar voyage, too. In fact, as far as I know, no one has ever made two of them. Even Mazer Rackham only made a single voyage, which ended at its starting place."

"Why, I believe you're right, Admiral Morgan," said Ender. "It makes us all pioneers together, here in your ship." There — had he said "your ship" often enough to reassure Morgan that he knew the order of authority here?

Morgan's smile was unchanged. "I'll be happy to talk to you any time. It's an honor to have you on my ship, sir."

"Please don't 'sir' me, sir," said Ender. "We both know that I'm an admiral in name only, and I don't want the colonists to hear anyone call me by a title other than Mr. Wiggin, and preferably not that. Let me be Ender. Or Andrew, if you want to be formal. Would that be all right, or would it interfere with shipboard discipline?"

"I believe," said Admiral Morgan, "that it won't interfere with discipline, and so it shall be entirely as you prefer. Now Ensign Akbar will show you and your sister to your stateroom. Since so few passengers are making the voyage awake, most families have quarters of similar size. I say this because of your memo requesting that you not have an exorbitantly oversized space on the ship."

"Is your family aboard, sir?" asked Ender.

"I wooed my superiors and they gave birth to my career," said Morgan. "The International Fleet has been my only bride. Like you, I travel as a bachelor."

Ender grinned at him. "I think your bachelorhood and mine are both going to be much in question before long."

"Our mission is reproduction of the species beyond the bounds of Earth," said Morgan. "But the voyage will go more smoothly if we guard our bachelorhood zealously while in transit."

"Mine has the safety of ignorant youth," said Ender, "and yours the distance of authority. Thank you for the great honor of greeting us here. I've underslept a little the past few days, and I hope I'll be forgiven for indulging myself in about eighteen hours of rest. I fear I'll miss the beginning of acceleration."

"Everyone will, Mr. Wiggin," said Morgan. "The inertia suppression on this ship is superb. In fact, we are already accelerating at the rate of two gravities, and yet the only apparent gravity is imparted by the centrifugal force of the spin of the ship."

"Which is odd," said Valentine, "since centrifugal force is also inertial, and you'd think it would also be suppressed."

"The suppression is highly directionalized, and affects only the forward movement of the ship," said Morgan. "I apologize for ignoring you so nearly completely, Ms. Wiggin. I'm afraid your brother's fame and rank have distracted me and I forgot courtesy."

"None is owed to me," said Valentine with a light laugh. "I'm just along for the ride."

With that they separated and Ensign Akbar led them to their stateroom. It was not a huge space, but it was well equipped, and it took the ensign several minutes to show them where their clothing, supplies, and desks had been stowed, and how to use the ship's internal communications system. He insisted on setting down both their beds and then raising them up again and locking them out of the way, so Ender and Valentine had seen a complete demonstration. Then he showed them how to lower and raise the privacy screen that turned the stateroom into two sleeping areas.

"Thank you," said Ender. "Now I think I'll take the bed down again so I can sleep."

Ensign Akbar was full of apologies and took both the beds down again, ignoring their protests that the point of his demonstration was so they could do it themselves. When he was finally done, he paused at the door. "Sir," he said, "I know I shouldn't ask. But. May I shake your hand, sir?"

Ender thrust out his hand and smiled warmly. "Thank you for helping us, Ensign Akbar."

"It's an honor to have you aboard this ship, sir." Then Akbar saluted. Ender returned the salute and the ensign left and the door closed behind him.

Ender went to his bed and sat down on it. Valentine sat on hers, directly across from him. Ender looked at her and started to laugh. She joined in his laughter.

They laughed until Ender was forced to lie down and rub the tears out of his eyes.

"May I ask," said Valentine, "if we're both laughing at the same thing?"

"Why? What were you laughing at?"

"Everything," said Valentine. "The whole picture-taking thing before we left, and Morgan greeting us so warmly, as if he weren't preparing to stab you in the back, and Ensign Akbar's hero worship despite your insistence that you were just 'Mr. Wiggin' — which is, of course, an affectation too. I was laughing at the whole of it."

"I see that all of that is funny, if you look at it that way. I was too busy to be amused with it. I was just trying to stay awake and say all the right things."

"So what were you laughing at?"

"It was pure delight. Delight and relief. I'm not in charge of anything now. For the duration of the voyage, it's Morgan's ship, and I'm a free man for the first time in my life."

"Man?" asked Valentine. "You're still shorter than me."

"But Val," said Ender, "I have to shave every week now, or the whiskers show."

They laughed again, just a little. Then Valentine spoke the command to bring down the barrier between their beds. Ender stripped down to his underwear, crawled under a single sheet — nothing more was needed in this climate-controlled environment — and in moments he was asleep.