Énouement

Chapter Sixty Eight

They stared at me in shock. All except Bean.

"They were all real," said Bean. "All the so-called tests. Real battles. Real victories. Right, Colonel Graff?  We were fighting the real war all along."
Fighting it for you, went unsaid.

"It's over now," said Graff. "The human race will continue. The Buggers won't." 

They all finally believed it, and became giddy with the realization. It's over. We won. We weren't practicing,  we were actually commanders.  And then, at last, a silence fell. 

"They're *all* dead?" asked Petra.  Bean nodded and I choked down a sob. Again they looked at Graff.

"We have reports. All life activity has ceased on all the other planets. They must  have gathered their queens back on their home planet. When the queens die, the Buggers die. There is no  enemy now."  Petra began to cry, leaning against the wall. Bean looked as though he wanted to reach out to her, but Dink was there. Dink was  the friend who held her, comforted her. 

The mixture of emotions on everyone's face, the somber, the pain, the happiness, they all blurred together. One by one, they went back to their barracks. Petra and I weren't the only ones crying now. But whether the tears were shed in anguish or in relief, no one could say for sure. 

Alai tried to lead me away, but Bean hadn't moved. I rooted my feet to the spot, gesturing for Alai to leave. He only shook his head, his face one of peace and acceptance. And there at the end, sadness. We turned towards Graffiti, waiting for Bean to speak.

  "How's Ender taking it?" 
"Badly," said Graff. "We should have broken it to him more carefully, but there was no holding back. In the  moment of victory."  I scoffed. Victory.

"All your gambles paid off," said Bean.  "I know what happened, Bean," said Graff. "Why did you leave control with him? How did you know he'd come up with a plan?"  I knew Bean had been given control as I had, suspected it anyway. But Alai did not. The sharp intake of breath to my side, the grip on my arm as his whole world turned.

"I didn't," said Bean. "I only knew that I had no plan at all." 

"But what you said -- 'the enemy's gate is down.' That's the plan Ender used. It was why neither you or Sophronia took control." 

"That wasn't a plan," I said. "It was a prayer of desperation. Of defeat."

"Maybe it made him think of a plan. But it was him. It was Ender. You put  your money on the right kid." Graff looked at Bean in silence, then reached out and put a hand on Bean's head, tousled his hair a little. "I think perhaps you pulled each other across the finish line." 

"It doesn't matter, does it?" said Bean. "It's finished, anyway. And so is the temporary unity of the human race."

"Yes," said Graff. He pulled his hand away, ran it through his own hair. "I believed in your analysis. I tried to give warning. *If* the Strategos heeded my advice, the Polemarch's men are getting arrested here on Eros and all over the fleet." Alai and I had been left in the dark about that particular development, but now wasn't the time to enlighten us. I trusted in Bean. I felt Alai's continued hold on me and hoped he would trust in me as well.

"Will they go peacefully?" asked Bean. "We'll see," said Graff. The sound of gunfire echoed from some distant tunnel. Alai took a step in front of me, and I reached for Bean's hand.

"Guess not," said Bean. They heard the sound of men running in step. And soon they saw them, a contingent of a dozen armed marines. We watched them approach. "Friend or foe?"

"They all wear the same uniform," said Graff. "You're the one who called it, Bean. Inside those doors" -- he gestured toward the doors to our barracks. Where our friends, our family, sat unaware of the chaos coming for them. -- "those children are the spoils of war. In command of armies back on Earth, they're the hope of victory. *You* are the hope." He pointedly looked at me, for a reason I didn't know. Hadn't we just established that Bean was still the brains behind us all? The soldiers came to a stop in front of Graff, as we tensed.