Ender's Shadow (Shadow, #1)

by Orson Scott Card

If he could do this, thought Bean, if he’s this good at making people love him, why didn’t he do it before? Because these fools always look up for power. People above you, they never want to share power with you. Why you look to them? They give you nothing. People below you, you give them hope, you give them respect, they give you power, cause they don’t think they have any, so they don’t mind giving it up.

Bean was tired of talking about this. She looked so happy when she talked about God, but he hadn’t figured it out yet, what God even was. It was like, she wanted to give God credit for every good thing, but when it was bad, then she either didn’t mention God or had some reason why it was a good thing after all. As far as Bean could see, though, the dead kids would rather have been alive, just with more food. If God loved them so much, and he could do whatever he wanted, then why wasn’t there more food for these kids? And if God just wanted them dead, why didn’t he let them die sooner or not even be born at all, so they didn’t have to go to so much trouble and get all excited about trying to be alive when he was just going to take them to his heart. None of it made any sense to Bean, and the more Sister Carlotta explained it, the less he understood it. Because if there was somebody in charge, then he ought to be fair, and if he wasn’t fair, then why should Sister Carlotta be so happy that he was in charge? But when he tried to say things like that to her, she got really upset and talked even more about God and used words he didn’t know and it was better just to let her say what she wanted and not argue.

Then down another street, and another, until he would have been lost except he started out lost and when you start out completely lost, it’s hard to get loster.

I’m not stupid!” In Bean’s experience, that was a sentence never uttered except to prove its own inaccuracy.

“I want your program to succeed, Colonel Graff, even more than I want Bean to succeed. My priorities are not skewed by the fact that I do care about the child. I really have told you everything now. But I hope you’ll help me also.” “Information isn’t traded in the I.F., Sister Carlotta. It flows from those who have it to those who need it.”

For the sense of urgency in teacher evaluations was getting greater. The ordinary students—as if any child here were ordinary—were getting briefer and briefer notations. They weren’t being ignored, exactly. But the best were being identified and lifted out. The seeming best. For Bean began to realize that the teachers’ evaluations were often colored by which students they liked the best. The teachers pretended to be dispassionate, impartial, but in fact they got sucked in by the more charismatic children, just as the other students did. If a kid was likable, they gave him better comments on leadership, even if he was really just glib and athletic and needed to surround himself with a team. As often as not, they tagged the very students who would be the least effective commanders, while ignoring the ones who, to Bean, showed real promise. It was frustrating to watch them make such obvious mistakes. Here they had Wiggin right before their eyes—Wiggin, who was the real thing—and they still went on misreading everybody else. Getting all excited about some of these energetic, self-confident, ambitious kids even though they weren’t actually producing excellent work. Wasn’t this whole school set up in order to find and train the best possible commanders? The Earthside testing did pretty well—there were no real dolts among the students. But the system had overlooked one crucial factor: How were the teachers chosen? They were career military, all of them. Proven officers with real ...

“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 be 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?”

I probably shouldn’t have provoked him, thought Bean. Now it’s possible that he’ll fiddle with my roster just to prove he can. But that’s not the kind of man he is. If I’m not right about that, then I’m not right about anybody else, either. Besides, it felt good to speak the truth to someone in power.

That left him with nearly sixty kids who were good enough to be in the army. Bean was ranking them in order of value when he realized that he was about to make another mistake. Quite a few of these kids were in the group of launchies and soldiers that practiced with Wiggin during free time. Wiggin would know these kids best, and naturally he’d look to them to be his toon leaders. The core of his army. The trouble was, while a couple of them would do fine as toon leaders, relying on that group would mean passing over several who weren’t part of that group. Including Bean. So he doesn’t choose me to lead a toon. He isn’t going to choose me anyway, right? I’m too little. He won’t look at me and see a leader. Is this just about me, then? Am I corrupting this process just to get myself a chance to show what I can do? And if I am, what’s wrong with that? I know what I can do, and no one else really gets it. The teachers think I’m a scholar, they know I’m smart, they trust my judgment, but they aren’t making this army for me, they’re making it for him. I still have to prove to them what I can do. And if I really am one of the best, it would be to the benefit of the program to have it revealed as quickly as possible. And then he thought: Is this how idiots rationalize their stupidity to themselves?

despise him even though he was smart. Great system, Wiggin. Destroy the effectiveness of your best soldier, make sure he gets no respect. However, it was more important to learn what Wiggin was teaching than to feel sullen about the way he was teaching it. So Bean watched intently as Wiggin demonstrated a frozen-leg takeoff from the wall.

I may be pissed off, but that doesn’t mean I can’t learn.

The trouble was, innovation never resulted in victory over the long term. It was too easy for the enemy to imitate and improve on your innovations.

Bean even wrote to Colonel Graff about it, a snippy little note saying only, “It is one thing to train soldiers and quite another to wear them out.” He got no reply.

Since few of the other commanders understood why Dragon Army was winning, they kept imitating the nonce tactics used in a particular battle instead of seeing the underlying method Ender used in training and organizing his army. As Napoleon said, the only thing a commander ever truly controls is his own army—training, morale, trust, initiative, command and, to a lesser degree, supply, placement, movement, loyalty, and courage in battle. What the enemy will do and what chance will bring, those defy all planning. The commander must be able to change his plans abruptly when obstacles or opportunities appear. If his army isn’t ready and willing to respond to his will, his cleverness comes to nothing. The less effective commanders didn’t understand this. Failing to recognize that Ender won because he and his army responded fluidly and instantly to change, they could only think to imitate the specific tactics they saw him use.

have to decide whether I can put Achilles into Battle School while Bean is there, or give up one of them in order to keep the other. Now, from Bean’s response to Achilles’ face, what counsel can you give me.” “You won’t like it.” “Try me.” “From that incident, we can tell you that putting them together will be either a really really bad thing, or—” “I’m going to have to take a long, hard look at your budget.” “Sir, the whole purpose of the program, the way it works, is that the computer makes connections we would never think of, and gets responses we weren’t looking for. It’s not actually under our control.” “Just because a program isn’t out of control doesn’t mean intelligence is present, either in the program or the programmer.” “We don’t use the word ‘intelligence’ with software. We regard that as a naive idea. We say that it’s ‘complex.’ Which means that we don’t always understand what it’s doing. We don’t always get conclusive information.” “Have you ever gotten conclusive information about anything?” “I chose the wrong word this time. ‘Conclusive’ isn’t ever the goal when we are studying the human mind.” “Try ‘useful.’ Anything useful?” “Sir, I’ve told you what we know. The decision was yours before we reported to you, and it’s still your decision now. Use our information or not, but is it sensible to shoot the messenger?” “When the messenger won’t tell you what the hell the message is, my trigger finger gets twitchy. Dismissed.”

“There’s some of you here who need a reminder of a couple of points of I.F. law. If a soldier is ordered to do something illegal or improper by his commanding officer, he has a responsibility to refuse the order and report it. A soldier who obeys an illegal or improper order is fully responsible for the consequences of his actions. Just in case any of you here are too dim to know what that means, the law says that if some commander orders you to commit a crime, that’s no excuse. You are forbidden to obey.”

It was William Bee of Griffin Army who said what almost everyone was thinking. “Ender, if you’re on one side of the battle, it won’t be equal no matter what the conditions are.” The armies vocally agreed, many of the soldiers laughing, and Talo Momoe, not to be outclassed by Bee, started clapping his hands rhythmically. “Ender Wiggin!” he shouted. Other boys took up the chant. But Bean knew the truth—knew, in fact, what Ender knew. That no matter how good a commander was, no matter how resourceful, no matter how well-prepared his army, no matter how excellent his lieutenants, no matter how courageous and spirited the fight, victory almost always went to the side with the greater power to inflict damage. Sometimes David kills Goliath, and people never forget. But there were a lot of little guys Goliath had already mashed into the ground. Nobody sang songs about those fights, because they knew that was the likely outcome. No, that was the inevitable outcome, except for the miracles.

So yes, it was good, it was right for the soldiers of all three armies to cheer Ender, to chant his name as he drifted toward the enemy gate, where Bean and his squad waited for him. But in the end it meant nothing, except that everyone would have too much hope in Ender’s ability. It only made the burden on Ender heavier. I would carry some of it if I could, Bean said silently. Like I did today, you can turn it over to me and I’ll do it, if I can. You don’t have to do this alone. Only even as he thought this, Bean knew it wasn’t true. If it could be done, Ender was the one who would have to do it. All those months when Bean refused to see Ender, hid from him, it was because he couldn’t bear to face the fact that Ender was what Bean only wished to be—the kind of person on whom you could put all your hopes, who could carry all your fears, and he would not let you down, would not betray you. I want to be the kind of boy you are, thought Bean. But I don’t want to go through what you’ve been through to get there.

Of course he wants to be alone, thought Bean. He killed a kid today, and even if he doesn’t know the outcome, he knows what was at stake. These teachers were willing to let him face death without help. Why should he play along with them anymore? Good for you, Ender. Not so good for the rest of us, but it’s not like you’re our father or something. More like a brother, and the thing with brothers is, you’re supposed to take turns being the keeper. Sometimes you get to sit down and be the brother who is kept.

“You’re transferred?” asked Ender. His voice sounded dead. As if he’d been expecting it. “To Rabbit Army,” said Bean. Ender nodded. “Carn Carby’s a good man. I hope he recognizes what you’re worth.” The words came to Bean like a longed-for blessing. He swallowed the emotion that welled up inside him. He still had more of his message to deliver.

Spain. Pablo de Noches, who saved his life, came from Spain. And now a body was going back there, a boy who turned killer in his heart, and died for it. I must be losing it, thought Bean. What does it matter that Bonzo was Spanish and Pablo de Noches was Spanish? What does it matter that anybody is anything?

“Was it true he had a whole bunch of guys gang up on you?” Bean wanted to run from the room, he sounded so lame, even to himself. “No,” said Ender. “It was just him and me. He fought with honor.” Bean was relieved. Ender was turned so deeply inward right now that he didn’t even register what Bean was saying, how false it was. “I didn’t fight with honor,” said Ender. “I fought to win.” Yes, that’s right, thought Bean. Fought the only way that’s worth fighting, the only way that has any point. “And you did. Kicked him right out of orbit.” It was as close as Bean could come to telling him the truth.

The door closed. Bean was alone in Ender’s quarters. He looked around. Without Ender in it, the room was nothing. Being here meant nothing. Yet it was only a few days ago, not even a week, when Bean had stood here and Ender told him he was getting a toon after all. For some reason what came into Bean’s mind was the moment when Poke handed him six peanuts. It was life that she handed to him then. Was it life that Ender gave to Bean? Was it the same thing? No. Poke gave him life. Ender gave it meaning. When Ender was here, this was the most important room in Battle School. Now it was no more than a broom closet.

Bean didn’t really have anything left to prove. He’d do his best with Rabbit Army because maybe at some point in the future, when Ender was at the bridge of the flagship of the human fleet, Bean might have some role to play, some way to help. Some stunt that Ender might need him to pull to dazzle the Buggers. So he’d please the teachers, impress the hell out of them, so that they would keep opening doors for him, until one day a door would open and his friend Ender would be on the other side of it, and he could be in Ender’s army once again.

“Bonzo was crazy,” said William Bee. “So let’s not be crazy,” said Bean. “Let’s get those standings out of the game. Let’s take each battle one at a time, a clean slate. Try anything you can think of to win. And when the battle is over, both commanders sit down and explain what they were thinking, why they did what they did, so we can learn from each other. No secrets! Everybody try everything! And screw the standings!”

We don’t have to play their game. We can take charge of our own education and get ready to fight the real enemy. We have to remember, always, who the real enemy is.” “Yeah, the teachers,” said Dink Meeker. Everybody laughed. But then Dink Meeker stood up on the table beside Bean. “I’m the senior commander here, now they’ve graduated all the oldest guys. I’m probably the oldest soldier left in Battle School. So I propose that we adopt Bean’s proposal right now, and I’ll go to the teachers to demand that the boards be shut off. Is there anyone opposed?” Not a sound. “That makes it unanimous. If the boards are still on at lunch, let’s bring sheets to cover them up. If they’re still on at dinner, then forget using chairs to vandalize, let’s just refuse to take our armies to any battles until the boards are off.” Alai spoke up from where he stood in the serving line. “That’ll shoot our standings all to . . .” Then Alai realized what he was saying, and laughed at himself. “Damn, but they’ve got us brainwashed, haven’t they!”

For the first time, Bean understood the reason Ender had almost always acted as if he was oblivious to the danger from Bonzo. It was a simple choice, really. Either he could act to save himself, or he could act to maintain control over his army. In order to hold real authority, Bean had to insist on complete obedience and respect from his soldiers, even if it meant putting Achilles down, even if it meant increasing his personal danger. And yet another part of him thought: Achilles wouldn’t be here if he didn’t have the ability to be a leader. He performed extraordinarily well as our papa in Rotterdam. It’s my responsibility now to get him up to speed as quickly as possible, for the sake of his potential usefulness to the I.F. I can’t let my personal fear interfere with that, or my hatred of him for what he did to Poke. So even if Achilles is evil incarnate, my job is to turn him into a highly effective soldier with a good shot at becoming a commander. And in the meantime, I’ll watch my back.

If Bean was to win, he needed to take tighter control. When he tried to suggest this to Bean, the child only smiled knowingly—a maddeningly superior smile—and told him that the key to victory was for each toon leader and, eventually, each soldier to see the whole situation and act independently to bring about victory. It made Achilles want to slap him, it was so stupid, so wrongheaded. The one who knew how to order things did not leave it up to others to create their little messes in the corners of the world. He took the reins and pulled, sharp and hard. He whipped his men into obedience. As Frederick the Great said: The soldier must fear his officers more than he fears the bullets of the enemy. You could not rule without the naked exercise of power. The followers must bow their heads to the leader. They must surrender their heads, using only the mind and will of the leader to rule them. No one but Achilles seemed to understand that this was the great strength of the Buggers. They had no individual minds, only the mind of the hive. They submitted perfectly to the queen. We cannot defeat the Buggers until we learn from them, become like them. But there was no point in explaining this to Bean. He would not listen. Therefore he would never make Rabbit Army into a hive. He was working to create chaos. It was unbearable.

“Well, you could have told us what you were learning from us,” said Itú. They were all still a bit resentful. “I didn’t have to tell you. You learned it.” “At least you could have told us it was OK not to win.” “But you were supposed to try to win. I didn’t tell you because it only works if you think it counts. Like when the Buggers come. It’ll count then, for real. That’s when you get really smart, when losing means that you and everybody you ever cared about, the whole human race, will die. Look, I didn’t think we’d have long together. So I made the best use of the time, for you and for me. You guys are all ready to take command of armies.” “What about you, Bean?” asked Ambul. He was smiling, but there was an edge to it. “You ready to command a fleet?” “I don’t know. It depends on whether they want to win.” Bean grinned. “Here’s the thing, Bean,” said Ambul. “Soldiers don’t like to lose.” “And that,” said Bean, “is why losing is a much more powerful teacher than winning.” They heard him. They thought about it. Some of them nodded. “If you live,” Bean added. And grinned at them. They smiled back. “I gave you the best thing I could think of to give you during this week,” said Bean. “And learned from you as much as I was smart enough to learn. Thank you.” He stood and saluted them. They saluted back. He left.

“So maybe they’re about to launch this huge fleet against the Bugger world and you guys are supposed to grow up on the voyage.” “Maybe,” said Bean. “But the time to launch that fleet was right after the Second Invasion.” “Well, what if they didn’t find out where the Bugger home world was until now?” That stopped Bean cold. “Never crossed my mind,” said Bean. “I mean, they must have been sending signals home. All we had to do was track that direction. Follow the light, you know. That’s what it says in the manuals.” “What if they don’t communicate by light?” “Light may take a year to go a lightyear, but it’s still faster than anything else.” “Anything else that we know about,” said Nikolai. Bean just looked at him. “Oh, I know, that’s stupid. The laws of physics and all that. I just—you know, I keep thinking, that’s all. I don’t like to rule things out just because they’re impossible.”