ENDER'S GAME
By ORSON SCOTT CARD
A TOM DOHERTY ASSOCIATES BOOK
Copyright © 1991
Orson Scott Card
All right reserved.
ISBN: 0-812-55070-6
Contents
Acknowledgments..............................ix
Introduction.................................xi
1. Third.....................................1
2. Peter.....................................9
3. Graff.....................................16
4. Launch....................................27
5. Games.....................................37
6. The Giant's Drink.........................54
7. Salamander................................66
8. Rat.......................................97
9. Locke and Demosthenes.....................120
10. Dragon...................................154
11. Veni Vidi Vici...........................173
12. Bonzo....................................200
13. Valentine................................227
14. Ender's Teacher..........................255
15. Speaker for the Dead.....................305
Chapter One
Third
"I've watched through his eyes, I've listened through his ears,
and I tell you he's the one. Or at least as close as we're going
to get."
"That's what you said about the brother."
"The brother tested out impossible. For other reasons.
Nothing to do with his ability."
"Same with the sister. And there are doubts about him.
He's too malleable. Too willing to submerge himself in someone
else's will."
"Not if the other person is his enemy."
"So what do we do? Surround him with enemies all the
time?"
"If we have to."
"I thought you said you liked this kid."
"If the buggers get him, they'll make me look like his
favorite uncle."
"All right. We're saving the world, after all. Take him."
The monitor lady smiled very nicely and tousled his hair
and said, "Andrew, I suppose by now you're just absolutely
sick of having that horrid monitor. Well, I have good news
for you. That monitor is going to come out today. We're
going to take it right out, and it won't hurt a bit."
Ender nodded. It was a lie, of course, that it wouldn't
hurt a bit. But since adults always said it when it
was going
to hurt, he could count on that statement as an accurate
prediction of the future. Sometimes lies were more dependable
than the truth.
"So if you'll just come over here, Andrew, just sit right
up here on the examining table. The doctor will be in to see
you in a moment."
The monitor gone. Ender tried to imagine the little device
missing from the back of his neck. I'll roll over on my back
in bed and it won't be pressing there. I won't feel it tingling
and taking up the heat when I shower.
And Peter won't hate me anymore. I'll come home and
show him that the monitor's gone, and he'll see that I didn't
make it, either. That I'll just be a normal kid now, like him.
That won't be so bad then. He'll forgive me that I had my
monitor a whole year longer than he had his. We'll be-
Not friends, probably. No, Peter was too dangerous. Peter
got so angry. Brothers, though. Not enemies, not friends,
but brothers-able to live in the same house. He won't hate
me, he'll just leave me alone. And when he wants to play
buggers and astronauts, maybe I won't have to play, maybe
I can just go read a book.
But Ender knew, even as he thought it, that Peter wouldn't
leave him alone. There was something in Peter's eyes, when
he was in his mad mood, and whenever Ender saw that look,
that glint, he knew that the one thing Peter would
not do
was leave him alone. I'm practicing piano, Ender. Come
turn the pages for me. Oh, is the monitor boy too busy to
help his brother? Is he too smart? Got to go kill some
buggers, astronaut? No, no, I don't
want your help. I can
do it on my own, you little bastard, you little
Third.
"This won't take long, Andrew," said the doctor.
Ender nodded.
"It's designed to be removed. Without infection, without
damage. But there'll be some tickling, and some
people say they have a feeling of something
missing.
You'll keep looking around for something, something you
were looking for, but you can't find it, and you can't
remember what it was. So I'll tell you. It's the monitor
you're looking for, and it isn't there. In a few days that
feeling will pass."
The doctor was twisting something at the back of Ender's
head. Suddenly a pain stabbed through him like a needle
from his neck to his groin. Ender felt his back spasm, and
his body arched violently backward; his head struck the
bed. He could feel his legs thrashing, and his hands were
clenching each other, wringing each other so tightly that
they arched.
"Deedee!" shouted the doctor. "I need you!" The nurse
ran in, gasped. "Got to relax these muscles. Get it to me,
now! What are you waiting for!"
Something changed hands; Ender could not see. He
lurched to one side and fell off the examining table. "Catch
him!" cried the nurse.
"Just hold him steady-"
"You hold him, doctor, he's too strong for me-"
"Not the whole thing! You'll stop his heart-"
Ender felt a needle enter his back just above the neck of
his shirt. It burned, but wherever in him the fire spread, his
muscles gradually unclenched. Now he could cry for the
fear and pain of it.
"Are you all right, Andrew?" the nurse asked.
Andrew could not remember how to speak. They lifted
him onto the table. They checked his pulse, did other things;
he did not understand it all.
The doctor was trembling; his voice shook as he spoke.
"They leave these things in the kids for three years, what
do they expect? We could have switched him off, do you
realize that? We could have unplugged his brain for all
time."
"When does the drug wear off?" asked the nurse.
"Keep him here for at least an hour. Watch him. If he
doesn't start talking in fifteen minutes, call me. Could have
unplugged him forever. I don't have the brains of a bugger."
* * *
He got back to Miss Pumphrey's class only fifteen minutes
before the closing bell. He was still a little unsteady on
his feet.
"Are you all right, Andrew?" asked Miss Pumphrey.
He nodded.
"Were you ill?"
He shook his head.
"You don't look well."
"I'm OK."
"You'd better sit down, Andrew."
He started toward his seat, but stopped. Now what was I
looking for? I can't think what I was looking for.
"Your seat is over there," said Miss Pumphrey.
He sat down, but it was something else he needed, something
he had lost. I'll find it later.
"Your monitor," whispered the girl behind him.
Andrew shrugged.
"His monitor," she whispered to the others.
Andrew reached up and felt his neck. There was a band-aid.
It was gone. He was just like everybody else now.
"Washed out, Andy?" asked a boy who sat across the
aisle and behind him. Couldn't think of his name. Peter.
No, that was someone else.
"Quiet, Mr. Stilson," said Miss Pumphrey. Stilson
smirked.
Miss Pumphrey talked about multiplication. Ender doodled
on his desk, drawing contour maps of mountainous
islands and then telling his desk to display them in three
dimensions from every angle. The teacher would know, of
course, that he wasn't paying attention, but she wouldn't
bother him. He always knew the answer, even when she
thought he wasn't paying attention.
In the corner of his desk a word appeared and began
marching around the perimeter of the desk. It was upside
down and backward at first, but Ender knew what it said
long before it reached the bottom of the desk and turned
right side up.
THIRD
Ender smiled. He was the one who had figured out how
to send messages and make them march-even as his secret
enemy called him names, the method of delivery praised
him. It was not
his fault he was a Third. It was the government's
idea, they were the ones who authorized it-how
else could a Third like Ender have got into school? And
now the monitor was gone. The experiment entitled Andrew
Wiggin hadn't worked out after all. If they could, he was
sure they would like to rescind the waivers that had allowed
him to be born at all. Didn't work, so erase the experiment.
The bell rang. Everyone signed off their desks or hurriedly
typed in reminders to themselves. Some were dumping
lessons or data into their computers at home. A few
gathered at the printers while something they wanted to
show was printed out. Ender spread his hands over the child-size
keyboard near the edge of the desk and wondered what
it would feel like to have hands as large as a grown-up's.
They must feel so big and awkward, thick stubby fingers
and beefy palms. Of course, they had bigger keyboards-but
how could their thick fingers draw a fine line, the way
Ender could, a thin line so precise that he could make it
spiral seventy-nine times from the center to the edge of the
desk without the lines ever touching or overlapping. It gave
him something to do while the teacher droned on about
arithmetic. Arithmetic! Valentine had taught him arithmetic
when he was three.
"Are you all right, Andrew?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"You'll miss the bus."
Ender nodded and got up. The other kids were gone. They
would be waiting, though, the bad ones. His monitor wasn't
perched on his neck, hearing what he heard and seeing what
he saw. They could say what they liked. They might even
hit him now-no one could see them anymore, and so no
one would come to Ender's rescue. There were advantages
to the monitor, and he would miss them.
It was Stilson, of course. He wasn't bigger than most
other kids, but he was bigger than Ender. And he had some
others with him. He always did.
"Hey Third."
Don't answer. Nothing to say.
"Hey, Third, we're talkin to you, Third, hey bugger-lover,
we're talkin to you."
Can't think of anything to answer. Anything I say will
make it worse. So will saying nothing.
"Hey, Third, hey, turd, you flunked out, huh? Thought
you were better than us, but you lost your little birdie,
Thirdie, got a bandaid on your neck."
"Are you going to let me through?" Ender asked.
"Are we going to let him through? Should we let him
through?" They all laughed. "Sure we'll let you through.
First we'll let your arm through, then your butt through,
then maybe a piece of your knee."
The others chimed in now. "Lost your birdie, Thirdie.
Lost your birdie, Thirdie."
Stilson began pushing him with one hand; someone behind
him then pushed him toward Stilson.
"See-saw, marjorie daw," somebody said.
"Tennis!"
"Ping-pong!"
This would not have a happy ending. So Ender decided
that he'd rather not be the unhappiest at the end. The next
time Stilson's arm came out to push him, Ender grabbed at
it. He missed.
"Oh, gonna fight me, huh? Gonna fight me, Thirdie?"
The people behind Ender grabbed at him, to hold him.
Ender did not feel like laughing, but he laughed. "You
mean it takes this many of you to fight one Third?"
"We're
people, not
Thirds, turd face. You're about as
strong as a fart!"
But they let go of him. And as soon as they did, Ender
kicked out high and hard, catching Stilson square in the
breastbone. He dropped. It took Ender by surprise-he
hadn't thought to put Stilson on the ground with one kick.
It didn't occur to him that Stilson didn't take a fight like
this seriously, that he wasn't prepared for a truly desperate
blow.
For a moment, the others backed away and Stilson lay
motionless. They were all wondering if he was dead. Ender,
however, was trying to figure out a way to forestall vengeance.
To keep them from taking him in a pack tomorrow.
I have to win this now, and for all time, or I'll fight it every
day and it will get worse and worse.
Ender knew the unspoken rules' of manly warfare, even
though he was only six. It was forbidden to strike the opponent
who lay helpless on the ground; only an animal would
do that.
So Ender walked to Stilson's supine body and kicked him
again, viciously, in the ribs. Stilson groaned and rolled away
from him. Ender walked around him and kicked him again,
in the crotch. Stilson could not make a sound; he only
doubled up and tears streamed out of his eyes.
Then Ender looked at the others coldly. "You might be
having some idea of ganging up on me. You could probably
beat me up pretty bad. But just remember what I do to
people who try to hurt me. From then on you'd be wondering
when I'd get you, and how bad it would be." He kicked
Stilson in the face. Blood from his nose spattered the ground
nearby. "It wouldn't be this bad," Ender said. "It would
be worse."
He turned and walked away. Nobody followed him. He
turned a corner into the corridor leading to the bus stop. He
could hear the boys behind him saying, "Geez. Look at
him. He's wasted." Ender leaned his head against the wall
of the corridor and cried until the bus came. I am just like
Peter. Take my monitor away, and I am just like Peter.
Chapter Two
Peter
"All right, it's off. How's he doing."
"You live inside somebody's body for a few years, you get
used to it. I look at his face now. I can't tell what's going on.
I'm not used to seeing his facial expressions. I'm used to
feeling them."
"Come on, we're not talking about psychoanalysis here.
We're soldiers, not witch doctors. You just saw him beat
the guts out of the leader of a gang."
"He was thorough. He didn't just beat him, he beat him
deep. Like Mazer Rackham at the-"
"Spare me. So in the judgment of the committee, he
passes."
"Mostly. Let's see what he does with his brother, now
that the monitor's off."
"His brother. Aren't you afraid of what his brother will
do to
him?"
"You were the one who told me that this wasn't a no-risk
business."
(Continues...)
Excerpted from ENDER'S GAME
by ORSON SCOTT CARD
Copyright © 1991 by Orson Scott Card.
Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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