Énouement

Chapter Forty Seven

"I've assigned the destroyer Condor to take the group."
"How many do you want, sir?"
"We have need of a maximum of eleven at any one time. We have Carby, Bee, and Momoe on their way to Tactical already, but Graff tells me that of those three, only Carby is likely to work well with Wiggin. We do need to hold a slot for Ender, but it wouldn't hurt to have a spare. So send ten."

"*Which* ten?"
"How the hell should I know? Well... Bean, him for sure. I'm sure we can still use Victorie as well. And the eight others that you think would work best with either Bean or Ender in command, whichever one it turns out to be."

"One list for both possible commanders?" "With Ender as the first choice. We want them all to train together. Become a team."

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The orders came at 1700. I was supposed to board the Condor at 1800. It's not like I had anything to pack. An hour was more time than they gave Ender. So I went and told my army what was happening, where I was going. No one was particularly surprised, and they joked that I had been away from Ender long enough. I only gave a tight smile, not wanting to tell them that perhaps I would have to still be without him for a long while.

As I walked the corridors, trailing my hand against the walls of the place that had been my home, trying to stamp it into my memory the way I couldn't with my own home, I came upon Bean. He looked as he always did, calculating as the wheels constantly turned in his head. He looked at me and I knew without asking that they had graduated him as well.

"Did you say goodbye?" He nodded solemnly. He was thinking about Nikolai. "You think you won't see him again." It wasn't a question.
"Do you? If I die fighting in the war, or if I survive and go home, I'm just a street urchin from Rotterdam. Nikolai came from a home and a family in Greece." I smiled sadly and shoved his shoulder lightly.

"So then you could go see him. And maybe they'll have like a Battleschool reunion every ten years or so, like high schools. Or maybe someone will create a net site or program to reunite us all and keep us in contact with each other. They did that after WWII you know."

But Bean just shook his head. "They wouldn't allow it. The other nations. They'll treat us all as national resources, should a war ever break out. We won't be allowed to leave our respective a countries, and they'll want us loyal to them, not our comrades of space." I bit my lip, I knew he was right. We were possessions to the adults. And after we fought their war for them, they'd have us fight another. What else were we good for?

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"Arrested?"
"Well, it's a natural thought. General Pace is the head of the military police. There *was* a death in the Battle School."
"They didn't tell me whether Colonel Graff was being promoted or court-martialed. Just transferred, with orders to report to the Polemarch."

"Is that a good sign or bad?"
"Who knows? On the one hand, Ender Wiggin not only survived, he passed a threshold, he graduated in dazzlingly good shape, you have to give old Graff credit for that. On the other hand, there's the fourth passenger on the shuttle. The one traveling in a bag."

"Only the second death in the history of the school. At least it wasn't a suicide this time."
"How is murder better, Major Imbu?"
"It wasn't murder, Colonel. We have it on video from two angles. No one can blame Ender."

"But they might blame Graff. After all this is over, the civilians can rake over our files and decide what was right and what was not. Give us medals where they think we were rignt, take away our pensions and put us in jail where they decide we were wrong. At least they had the good sense not to tell Ender that the boy died."

"Its the second time, too."
"They didn't tell him about Stilson, either." "The kid is scary."
"Ender Wiggin isn't a killer. He just wins —thoroughly. If anybody's going to be scared, let it be the buggers"

"Makes you almost feel sorry for them, knowing Ender's going to be coming after them."
"The only one I feel sorry for is Ender. But not sorry enough to suggest they ought to let up on him. I just got access to the material that Graffs been geffing all this time. About fleet movements, that sort of thing. I used to sleep easy at night."

"Time's getting short?"
"I shouldn't have mentioned it. I can't tell you secured information."
"I know."
"Let's leave it at this: they didn't get him to Command School a day too soon. And maybe a couple of years too late."

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"Children?"
"Brother and sister. They had layered themselves five times through the nets —writing for companies that paid for their memberships, that sort of thing. Devil of a time tracking them down."

"What are they hiding?"
"Could be anything. The most obvious thing to hide, though, is their ages. The boy is fourteen, the girl is twelve."

"Which one is Demosthenes?"
"The girl. The twelve-year-old."

"Pardon me. I don't really think it's funny, but I can't help but laugh. All this time we've been worried, all the time we've been trying to persuade the Russians not to take Demosthenes too seriously, we held up Locke as proof that Americans weren't all crazy warmongers. Brother and sister, prepubescent—"

"And their last name is Wiggin."
"Ah. Coincidence?"
"*The* Wiggin is a third. They are one and two."
"Oh, excellent. The Russians will never believe--"

"That Demosthenes and Locke aren't as much under our control as *the* Wiggin."
"Is there a conspiracy? Is someone controlling them?"
"We have been able to detect no contact between these two children and any adutl who might be directing them."

"That is not to say that someone might not have invented some method you can't detect. It's hard to believe that two children--"

"I interviewed Colonel Graff when he arrived from the Battle School. It is his best judgment that nothing these children have done is out of their reach. Their abilities are virtually identical with —*the* Wiggin. Only their temperaments are different. What surprised him, however, was the orientation of the two personas. Demosthenes is definitely the girl, but Graff says the girl was rejected for Battle School because she was too pacific, too conciliatory, and above all, too empathic."

"Definitely not Demosthenes."
"And the boy has the soul of a jackal."
"Wasn't it Locke that was recently praised as 'The only truly open mind in America'?"

"It's hard to know what's really happening. But Graff recommended, and I agree, that we should leave them alone. Not expose them. Make no report at this time except that we have determined that Locke and Demosthenes have no foreign connections and have no connections with any domestic group, either, except those pubiicly declared on the nets."

"In other words, give them a clean bill of health,"
"I know Demosthenes seems dangerous, in part because he or she has such a wide following. But I think it's significant that the one of the two of them who is most ambitious has chosen the moderate, wise persona. And they're still just talking. They have influence, but no power."

"In my experience, influence is power."
"If we ever find them getting out of line, we can easily expose them."
"Only in the next few years. The longer we wait, the older they get, and the less shocking it is to discover who they are."
"You know what the Russian troop movements have been. There's always the chance that Demosthene is right. In which case--"

"We'd better have Demosthones around. All right. We'll show them clean, for now. But watch them. And I, of course, have to find ways of keeping the Russians calm."
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It's been forever but college and work takes a lot of my time.
I'm including a lot of the extra information the adults have about Earth, and Ender's siblings, etc. because it's needed for the squeal that I'm writing.

You'll see what Ender is up to in the next chapter! And meet his sister!
Thanks @Aewdragon @jaydonlondon @kenalya for commenting! And everyone for voting, but it's been so long I'm not sure who al did. Will update tonight or tomorrow

So please give me some feedback! I really appreciate it