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.

  Bean launched straight down from the ceiling. Above him, his toon was holding the other end of the deadline secure, making sure it fed out properly and stopped abruptly.

  Bean did not enjoy the wrenching of his gut when the deadline went taut, but there was kind of a thrill to the increase of speed as he suddenly moved south. He could see the distant flashing of the enemy firing up at him. Only soldiers from one half of the enemy’s area were firing.

  When the deadline reached the next edge of the cube, his speed increased again, and now he was headed upward in an arc that, for a moment, looked like it was going to scrape him against the ceiling. Then the last edge bit, and he scooted in behind the star and was caught deftly by his toon. Bean wiggled his arms and legs to show that he was none the worse for his ride. What the enemy was thinking about his magical maneuvers in midair he could only guess. What mattered was that Ender had not come through the gate. The timer must be nearly out.

  Ender came alone through the gate. Bean made his report as quickly as possible. “It’s really dim, but light enough you can’t follow people easily by the lights on their suits. Worst possible for seeing. It’s all open space from this star to the enemy side of the room. They’ve got eight stars making a square around their door. I didn’t see anybody except the ones peeking around the boxes. They’re just sitting there waiting for us.”

  In the distance, they heard the enemy begin catcalls. “Hey! We be hungry, come and feed us! Your ass is draggin’! Your ass is Dragon!”

  Bean continued his report, but had no idea if Ender was even listening. “They fired at me from only one half their space. Which means that the two commanders are not agreeing and neither one has been put in supreme command.”

  “In a real war,” said Ender, “any commander with brains at all would retreat and save this army.”

  “What the hell,” said Bean. “It’s only a game.”

  “It stopped being a game when they threw away the rules.”

  This wasn’t good, thought Bean. How much time did they have to get their army through the gate? “So, you throw ’em away, too.” He looked Ender in the eye, demanding that he wake up, pay attention, act.

  The blank look left Ender’s face. He grinned. It felt damn good to see that. “OK. Why not. Let’s see how they react to a formation.”

  Ender began calling the rest of the army through the gate. It was going to get crowded on the top of that star, but there was no choice.

  As it turned out, Ender’s plan was to use another of Bean’s stupid ideas, which he had watched Bean practice with his toon. A screen formation of frozen soldiers, controlled by Bean’s toon, who remained unfrozen behind them. Having once told Bean what he wanted him to do, Ender joined the formation as a common soldier and left everything up to Bean to organize. “It’s your show,” he said.

  Bean had never expected Ender to do any such thing, but it made a kind of sense. What Ender wanted was not to have this battle; allowing himself to be part of a screen of frozen soldiers, pushed through the battle by someone else, was as close to sleeping through it as he could get.

  Bean set to work at once, constructing the screen in four parts consisting of one toon each. Each of toons A through C lined up four and three, arms interlocked with the men beside them, the upper row of three with toes hooked under the arms of the four soldiers below. When everybody was clamped down tight, Bean and his toon froze them. Then each of Bean’s men took hold of one section of the screen and, careful to move very slowly so that inertia would not carry the screen out of their control, they maneuvered them out from above the star and slowly moved them down until they were just under it. Then they joined them back together into a single screen, with Bean’s squad forming the interlock.

  “When did you guys practice this?” asked Dumper, the leader of E toon.

  “We’ve never done this before,” Bean answered truthfully. “We’ve done bursting and linking with one-man screens, but seven men each? It’s all new to us.”

  Dumper laughed. “And there’s Ender, plugged into the screen like anybody. That’s trust, Bean old boy.”

  That’s despair, thought Bean. But he didn’t feel the need to say that aloud.

  When all was ready, E toon got into place behind the screen and, on Bean’s command, pushed off as hard as they could.

  The screen drifted down toward the enemy’s gate at a pretty good clip. Enemy fire, though it was intense, hit only the already-frozen soldiers in front. E toon and Bean’s squad kept moving, very slightly, but enough that no stray shot could freeze them. And they managed to do some return fire, taking out a few of the enemy soldiers and forcing them to stay behind cover.

  When Bean figured they were as far as they could get before Griffin or Tiger launched an attack, he gave the word and his squad burst apart, causing the four sections of the screen also to separate and angle slightly so they were drifting now toward the corners of the stars where Griffin and Tiger were gathered. E toon went with the screens, firing like crazy, trying to make up for their tiny numbers.

  After a count of three, the four members of Bean’s squad who had gone with each screen pushed off again, this time angling to the middle and downward, so that they rejoined Bean and Ducheval, with momentum carrying them straight toward the enemy gate.

  They held their bodies rigid, not firing a shot, and it worked. They were all small; they were clearly drifting, not moving with any particular purpose; the enemy took them for frozen soldiers if they were noticed at all. A few were partially disabled with stray shots, but even when under fire they never moved, and the enemy soon ignored them.

  When they got to the enemy gate, Bean slowly, wordlessly, got four of them with their helmets in place at the corners of the gate. They pressed, just as in the end-of-game ritual, and Bean gave Ducheval a push, sending him through the gate as Bean drifted upward again.

  The lights in the battleroom went on. The weapons all went dead. The battle was over.

  It took a few moments before Griffin and Tiger realized what had happened. Dragon only had a few soldiers who weren’t frozen or disabled, while Griffin and Tiger were mostly unscathed, having played conservative strategies. Bean knew that if either of them had been aggressive, Ender’s strategy wouldn’t have worked. But having seen Bean fly around the star, doing the impossible, and then watching this weird screen approach so slowly, they were intimidated into inaction. Ender’s legend was such that they dared not commit their forces for fear of falling into a trap. Only . . . that was the trap.

  Major Anderson came into the room through the teachergate. “Ender,” he called.

  Ender was frozen; he could only answer by grunting loudly through clenched jaws. That was a sound that victorious commanders rarely had to make.

  Anderson, using the hook, drifted over to Ender and thawed him. Bean was half the battleroom away, but he heard Ender’s words, so clear was his speech, so silent was the room. “I beat you again, sir.”

  Bean’s squad members glanced at him, obviously wondering if he was resentful at Ender for claiming credit for a victory that was engineered and executed entirely by Bean. But Bean understood what Ender was saying. He wasn’t talking about the victory over Griffin and Tiger armies. He was talking about a victory over the teachers. And that victory was the decision to turn the army over to Bean and sit it out himself. If they thought they were putting Ender to the ultimate test, making him fight two armies right after a personal fight for survival in the bathroom, he beat them—he sidestepped the test.

  Anderson knew what Ender was saying, too. “Nonsense, Ender,” said Anderson. He spoke softly, but the room was so silent that his words, too, could be heard. “Your battle was with Griffin and Tiger.”

  “How stupid do you think I am?” said Ender.

  Damn right, said Bean silently.

  Anderson spoke to the group at large. “After that little maneuver, the rules are being revised to require that all of the enemy’s soldiers must be frozen or disabled before the gate can be reversed.”

  “Rules?” murmured Ducheval as he came back through the gate. Bean grinned at him.

  “It could only work once anyway,” said Ender.

  Anderson handed the hook to Ender. Instead of thawing his soldiers one at a time, and only then thawing the enemy, Ender entered the command to thaw everyone at once, then handed the hook back to Anderson, who took it and drifted away toward the center, where the end-of-game rituals usually took place.

  “Hey!” Ender shouted. “What is it next time? My army in a cage without guns, with the rest of the Battle School against them? How about a little equality?”

  So many soldiers murmured their agreement that the sound of it was loud, and not all came from Dragon Army. But Anderson seemed to pay no attention.

  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.

  The Buggers wouldn’t know or care how legendary a commander Ender might be to his own men. The human ships wouldn’t have any magical tricks like Bean’s deadline to dazzle the Buggers with, to put them off their stride. Ender knew that. Bean knew that. What if David hadn’t had a sling, a handful of stones, and the time to throw? What good would the excellence of his aim have done him then?

  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.

  And then, as Ender passed through the gate and Bean followed behind him, Bean remembered falling into line behind Poke or Sergeant or Achilles on the streets of Rotterdam, and he almost laughed as he thought, I don’t want to have to go through what I’ve gone through to get here, either.

  Out in the corridor, Ender walked away instead of waiting for his soldiers. But not fast, and soon they caught up with him, surrounded him, brought him to a stop through their sheer ebullience. Only his silence, his impassivity, kept them from giving full vent to their excitement.

  “Practice tonight?” asked Crazy Tom.

  Ender shook his head.

  “Tomorrow morning then?”

  “No.”

  “Well, when?”

  “Never again, as far as I’m concerned.”

  Not everyone had heard, but those who did began to murmur to each other.

  “Hey, that’s not fair,” said a soldier from B toon. “It’s not our fault the teachers are screwing up the game. You can’t just stop teaching us stuff because—”

  Ender slammed his hand against the wall and shouted at the kid. “I don’t care about the game anymore!” He looked at other soldiers, met their gaze, refused to let them pretend they didn’t hear. “Do you understand that?” Then he whispered. “The game is over.”

  He walked away.

  Some of the boys wanted to follow him, took a few steps. But Hot Soup grabbed a couple of them by the neck of their flash suits and said, “Let him be alone. Can’t you see he wants to be alone?”

  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.

  Fly Molo led them back to the barracks. Bean followed along, wishing he could go with Ender, talk to him, assure him that he agreed completely, that he understood. But that was pathetic, Bean realized. Why should Ender care whether I understand him or not? I’m just a kid, just one of his army. He knows me, he knows how to use me, but what does he care whether I know him?

  Bean climbed to his bunk and saw a slip of paper on it.

  Transfer

  Bean

  Rabbit Army

  Commander

  That was Carn Carby’s army. Carn was being removed from command? He was a good guy—not a great commander, but why couldn’t they wait till he graduated?

  Because they’re through with this school, that’s why. They’re advancing everybody they think needs some experience with command, and they’re graduating other students to make room for them. I might have Rabbit Army, but not for long, I bet.

  He pulled out his desk, meaning to sign on as Graff and check the rosters. Find out what was happening to everybody. But the Graff log-in didn’t work. Apparently they no longer considered it useful to permit Bean to keep his inside access.

  From the back of the room, the older boys were raising a hubbub. Bean heard Crazy Tom’s voice rising above the rest. “You mean I’m supposed to figure out how to beat Dragon Army?” Word soon filtered to the front. The toon leaders and seconds had all received transfer orders. Every single one of them was being given command of an army. Dragon had been stripped.

  After about a minute of chaos, Fly Molo led the other toon leaders along between the bunks, heading toward the door. Of course—they had to go tell Ender what the teachers had done to him now.

  But to Bean’s surprise, Fly stopped at his bunk and looked up at him, then glanced at the other toon leaders behind him.

  “Bean, somebody’s got to tell Ender.”

  Bean nodded.

  “We thought . . . since you’re his friend . . .”

  Bean let nothing show on his face, but he was stunned. Me? Ender’s friend? No more than anyone else in this room.

  And then he realized. In this army, Ender had everyone’s love and admiration. And they all knew they had Ender’s trust. But only Bean had been taken inside Ender’s confidence, when Ender assigned him his special squad. And when Ender wanted to stop playing the game, it was Bean to whom he had turned over his army. Bean was the closest thing to a friend they had seen Ender have since he got command of Dragon.

  Bean looked across at Nikolai, who was grinning his ass off. Nikolai saluted him and mouthed the word commander.

  Bean saluted Nikolai back, but could not smile, knowing what this would do to Ender. He nodded to Fly Molo, then slid off the bunk and went out the door.

  He didn’t go straight to Ender’s quarters, though. Instead, he went to Carn Carby’s room. No one answered. So he went on to Rabbit barracks and knocked. “Where’s Carn?” he asked.

  “Graduated,” said Itú, the leader of Rabbit’s A toon. “He found out about half an hour ago.”