Ender's Shadow: 1, page 12
Pablo smiled. “No hay nada que Dios no puede hacer.”
“True,” she answered. “But that doesn’t mean we can’t figure out how God works his miracles. Or why.”
Pablo shrugged. “God does what he does. I do my work and live, the best man I can be.”
She squeezed his arm. “You took in a lost child and saved him from people who meant to kill him. God saw you do that and he loves you.”
Pablo said nothing, but Sister Carlotta could guess what he was thinking—how many sins, exactly, were washed away by that good act, and would it be enough to keep him out of hell?
“Good deeds do not wash away sins,” said Sister Carlotta. “Solo el redentor puede limpiar su alma.”
Pablo shrugged. Theology was not his skill.
“You don’t do good deeds for yourself,” said Sister Carlotta. “You do them because God is in you, and for those moments you are his hands and his feet, his eyes and his lips.”
“I thought God was the baby. Jesus say, if you do it to this little one, you do it to me.”
Sister Carlotta laughed. “God will sort out all the fine points in his own due time. It is enough that we try to serve him.”
“He was so small,” said Pablo. “But God was in him.”
She bade him good-bye as he got out of the taxi in front of his apartment building.
Why did I have to see that toilet with my own eyes? My work with Bean is done. He left on the shuttle yesterday. Why can’t I leave the matter alone?
Because he should have been dead, that’s why. And after starving on the streets for all those years, even if he lived he was so malnourished he should have suffered serious mental damage. He should have been permanently retarded.
That was why she could not abandon the question of Bean’s origin. Because maybe he was damaged. Maybe he is retarded. Maybe he started out so smart that he could lose half his intellect and still be the miraculous boy he is.
She thought of how St. Matthew kept saying that all the things that happened in Jesus’ childhood, his mother treasured them in her heart. Bean is not Jesus, and I am not the Holy Mother. But he is a boy, and I have loved him as my son. What he did, no child of that age could do.
No child of less than a year, not yet walking by himself, could have such clear understanding of his danger that he would know to do the things that Bean did. Children that age often climbed out of their cribs, but they did not hide in a toilet tank for hours and then come out alive and ask for help. I can call it a miracle all I want, but I have to understand it. They use the dregs of the Earth in those organ farms. Bean has such extraordinary gifts that he could only have come from extraordinary parents.
And yet for all her research during the months that Bean lived with her, she had never found a single kidnapping that could possibly have been Bean. No abducted child. Not even an accident from which someone might have taken a surviving infant whose body was therefore never found. That wasn’t proof—not every baby that disappeared left a trace of his life in the newspapers, and not every newspaper was archived and available for a search on the nets. But Bean had to be the child of parents so brilliant that the world took note of them—didn’t he? Could a mind like his come from ordinary parents? Was that the miracle from which all other miracles flowed?
No matter how much Sister Carlotta tried to believe it, she could not. Bean was not what he seemed to be. He was in Battle School now, and there was a good chance he would end up someday as the commander of a great fleet. But what did anyone know about him? Was it possible that he was not a natural human being at all? That his extraordinary intelligence had been given him, not by God, but by someone or something else?
There was the question: If not God, then who could make such a child?
Sister Carlotta buried her face in her hands. Where did such thoughts come from? After all these years of searching, why did she have to keep doubting the one great success she had?
We have seen the beast of Revelation, she said silently. The Bugger, the Formic monster bringing destruction to the Earth, just as prophesied. We have seen the beast, and long ago Mazer Rackham and the human fleet, on the brink of defeat, slew that great dragon. But it will come again, and St. John the Revelator said that when it did, there would be a prophet who came with him.
No, no. Bean is good, a good-hearted boy. He is not any kind of devil, not the servant of the beast, just a boy of great gifts that God may have raised up to bless this world in the hour of its greatest peril. I know him as a mother knows her child. I am not wrong.
Yet when she got back to her room, she set her computer to work, searching now for something new. For reports from or about scientists who had been working, at least five years ago, on projects involving alterations in human DNA.
And while the search program was querying all the great indexes on the nets and sorting their replies into useful categories, Sister Carlotta went to the neat little pile of folded clothing waiting to be washed. She would not wash it after all. She put it in a plastic bag along with Bean’s sheets and pillowcase, and sealed the bag. Bean had worn this clothing, slept on this bedding. His skin was in it, small bits of it. A few hairs. Maybe enough DNA for a serious analysis.
He was a miracle, yes, but she would find out just what the dimensions of this miracle might be. For her ministry had not been to save the children of the cruel streets of the cities of the world. Her ministry had been to help save the one species made in the image of God. That was still her ministry. And if there was something wrong with the child she had taken into her heart as a beloved son, she would find out about it, and give warning.
7
EXPLORATION
“So this launch group was slow getting back to their barracks.”
“There is a twenty-one-minute discrepancy.”
“Is that a lot? I didn’t even know this sort of thing was tracked.”
“For safety. And to have an idea, in the event of emergency, where everyone is. Tracking the uniforms that departed from the mess hall and the uniforms that entered the barracks, we come up with an aggregate of twenty-one minutes. That could be twenty-one children loitering for exactly one minute, or one child for twenty-one minutes.”
“That’s very helpful. Am I supposed to ask them?”
“No! They aren’t supposed to know that we track them by their uniforms. It isn’t good for them to know how much we know about them.”
“And how little.”
“Little?”
“If it was one student, it wouldn’t be good for him to know that our tracking methods don’t tell us who it was.”
“Ah. Good point. And . . . actually, I came to you because I believe that it was one student only.”
“Even though your data aren’t clear?”
“Because of the arrival pattern. Spaced out in groups of two or three, a few solos. Just the way they left the mess hall. A little bit of clumping—three solos become a threesome, two twos arrive as four—but if there had been some kind of major distraction in the corridor, it would have caused major coalescing, a much larger group arriving at once after the disturbance ended.”
“So. One student with twenty-one minutes unaccounted for.”
“I thought you should at least be aware.”
“What would he do with twenty-one minutes?”
“You know who it was?”
“I will, soon enough. Are the toilets tracked? Are we sure it wasn’t somebody so nervous he went in to throw up his lunch?”
“Toilet entry and exit patterns were normal. In and out.”
“Yes, I’ll find out who it was. And keep watching the data for this launch group.”
“So I was right to bring this to your attention?”
“Did you have any doubt of it?”
Bean slept lightly, listening, as he always did, waking twice that he remembered. He didn’t get up, just lay there listening to the breathing of the others. Both times, there was a little whispering somewhere in the room. Always children’s voices, no urgency about them, but the sound was enough to rouse Bean and kindle his attention, just for a moment till he was sure there was no danger.
He woke the third time when Dimak entered the room. Even before sitting up, Bean knew that’s who it was, from the weight of his step, the sureness of his movement, the press of authority. Bean’s eyes were open before Dimak spoke; he was on all fours, ready to move in any direction, before Dimak finished his first sentence.
“Naptime is over, boys and girls, time for work.”
It was not about Bean. If Dimak knew what Bean had done after lunch and before their nap, he gave no sign. No immediate danger.
Bean sat on his bunk as Dimak instructed them in the use of their lockers and desks. Palm the wall beside the locker and it opens. Then turn on the desk and enter your name and a password.
Bean immediately palmed his own locker with his right hand, but did not palm the desk. Instead, he checked on Dimak—busy helping another student near the door—then scrambled to the unoccupied third bunk above his own and palmed that locker with his left hand. There was a desk inside that one, too. Quickly he turned on his own desk and typed in his name and a password. Bean. Achilles. Then he pulled out the other desk and turned it on. Name? Poke. Password? Carlotta.
He slipped the second desk back into the locker and closed the door, then tossed his first desk down onto his own bunk and slipped down after it. He did not look around to see if anyone noticed him. If they did, they’d say something soon enough; visibly checking around would merely call attention to him and make people suspect him who would not otherwise have noticed what he did.
Of course the adults would know what he had done. In fact, Dimak was certainly noticing already, when one child complained that his locker wouldn’t open. So the station computer knew how many students there were and stopped opening lockers when the right total had been opened. But Dimak did not turn and demand to know who had opened two lockers. Instead, he pressed his own palm against the last student’s locker. It popped open. He closed it again, and now it responded to the student’s palm.
So they were going to let him have his second locker, his second desk, his second identity. No doubt they would watch him with special interest to see what he did with it. He would have to make a point of fiddling with it now and then, clumsily, so they’d think they knew what he wanted a second identity for. Maybe some kind of prank. Or to write down secret thoughts. That would be fun—Sister Carlotta was always prying after his secret thoughts, and no doubt these teachers would, too. Whatever he wrote, they’d eat it up.
Therefore they wouldn’t be looking for his truly private work, which he would perform on his own desk. Or, if it was risky, on the desk of one of the boys across from him, both of whose passwords he had carefully noticed and memorized. Dimak was lecturing them about protecting their desks at all times, but it was inevitable that kids would be careless, and desks would be left lying around.
For now, though, Bean would do nothing riskier than what he had already done. The teachers had their own reasons for letting him do it. What mattered is that they not know his own.
After all, he didn’t know himself. It was like the vent—if he thought of something that might get him some advantage later, he did it.
Dimak went on talking about how to submit homework, the directory of teachers’ names, and the fantasy game that was on every desk. “You are not to spend study time playing the game,” he said. “But when your studies are done, you are permitted a few minutes to explore.”
Bean understood at once. The teachers wanted the students to play the game, and knew that the best way to encourage it was to put strict limits on it . . . and then not enforce them. A game—Sister Carlotta had used games to try to analyze Bean from time to time. So Bean always turned them into the same game: Try to figure out what Sister Carlotta is trying to learn from the way I play this game.
In this case, though, Bean figured that anything he did with the game would tell them things that he didn’t want them to know about him. So he would not play at all, unless they compelled him. And maybe not even then. It was one thing to joust with Sister Carlotta; here, they no doubt had real experts, and Bean was not going to give them a chance to learn more about him than he knew himself.
Dimak took them on the tour, showing them most of what Bean had already seen. The other kids went ape over the game room. Bean did not so much as glance at the vent into which he had climbed, though he did make it a point to fiddle with the game he had watched the bigger boys play, figuring out how the controls worked and verifying that his tactics could, in fact, be carried out.
They did a workout in the gym, in which Bean immediately began working on the exercises that he thought he’d need—one-armed pushups and pullups being the most important, though they had to get a stool for him to stand on in order to reach the lowest chinning bar. No problem. Soon enough he’d be able to jump to reach it. With all the food they were giving him, he could build up strength quickly.
And they seemed grimly determined to pack food into him at an astonishing rate. After the gym they showered, and then it was suppertime. Bean wasn’t even hungry yet, and they piled enough food onto his tray to feed his whole crew back in Rotterdam. Bean immediately headed for a couple of the kids who had whined about their small portions and, without even asking permission, scraped his excess onto their trays. When one of them tried to talk to him about it, Bean just put his finger to his lips. In answer, the boy grinned. Bean still ended up with more food than he wanted, but when he turned in his tray, it was scraped clean. The nutritionist would be happy. It remained to be seen if the janitors would report the food Bean left on the floor.
Free time. Bean headed back to the game room, hoping that tonight he’d actually see the famous Ender Wiggin. If he was there, he would no doubt be the center of a group of admirers. But at the center of the groups he saw were only the ordinary prestige-hungry clique-formers who thought they were leaders and so would follow their group anywhere in order to maintain that delusion. No way could any of them be Ender Wiggin. And Bean was not about to ask.
Instead, he tried his hand at several games. Each time, though, the moment he lost for the first time, other kids would push him out of the way. It was an interesting set of social rules. The students knew that even the shortest, greenest launchy was entitled to his turn—but the moment a turn ended, so did the protection of the rule. And they were rougher in shoving him than they needed to be, so the message was clear—you shouldn’t have been using that game and making me wait. Just like the food lines at the charity kitchens in Rotterdam—except that absolutely nothing that mattered was at stake.
That was interesting, to find that it wasn’t hunger that caused children to become bullies on the street. The bulliness was already in the child, and whatever the stakes were, they would find a way to act as they needed to act. If it was about food, then the children who lost would die; if it was about games, though, the bullies did not hesitate to be just as intrusive and send the same message. Do what I want, or pay for it.
Intelligence and education, which all these children had, apparently didn’t make any important difference in human nature. Not that Bean had really thought they would.
Nor did the low stakes make any difference in Bean’s response to the bullies. He simply complied without complaint and took note of who the bullies were. Not that he had any intention of punishing them or of avoiding them, either. He would simply remember who acted as a bully and take that into account when he was in a situation where that information might be important.
No point in getting emotional about anything. Being emotional didn’t help with survival. What mattered was to learn everything, analyze the situation, choose a course of action, and then move boldly. Know, think, choose, do. There was no place in that list for “feel.” Not that Bean didn’t have feelings. He simply refused to think about them or dwell on them or let them influence his decisions, when anything important was at stake.
“He’s even smaller than Ender was.”
Again, again. Bean was so tired of hearing that.
“Don’t talk about that hijo de puta to me, bicho.”
Bean perked up. Ender had an enemy. Bean was wondering when he’d spot one, for someone who was first in the standings had to have provoked something besides admiration. Who said it? Bean drifted nearer to the group the conversation had come from. The same voice came up again. Again. And then he knew: That one was the boy who had called Ender an hijo de puta.
He had the silhouette of some kind of lizard on his uniform. And a single triangle on his sleeve. None of the boys around him had the triangle. All were focused on him. Captain of the team?
Bean needed more information. He tugged on the sleeve of a boy standing near him.
“What,” said the boy, annoyed.
“Who’s that boy there?” asked Bean. “The team captain with the lizard.”
“It’s a salamander, pinhead. Salamander army. And he’s the commander.”
Teams are called armies. Commander is the triangle rank. “What’s his name?”
“Bonzo Madrid. And he’s an even bigger asshole than you.” The boy shrugged himself away from Bean.
So Bonzo Madrid was bold enough to declare his hatred for Ender Wiggin, but a kid who was not in Bonzo’s army had contempt for him in turn and wasn’t afraid to say so to a stranger. Good to know. The only enemy Ender had, so far, was contemptible.
But . . . contemptible as Bonzo might be, he was a commander. Which meant it was possible to become a commander without being the kind of boy that everybody respected. So what was their standard of judgment, in assigning command in this war game that shaped the life of Battle School?
More to the point, how do I get a command?
That was the first moment that Bean realized that he even had such a goal. Here in Battle School, he had arrived with the highest scores in his launch group—but he was the smallest and youngest and had been isolated even further by the deliberate actions of his teacher, making him a target of resentment. Somehow, in the midst of all this, Bean had made the decision that this would not be like Rotterdam. He was not going to live on the fringes, inserting himself only when it was absolutely essential for his own survival. As rapidly as possible, he was going to put himself in place to command an army.
