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". . .then one day in practice, as Ender was drilling his squadron leaders, the room went black and he woke up on the floor with his face bloody where he had hit the controls. They put him to bed then, and for three days he was very ill. . ."
- "Ender's Game"
Of all of Ender's squadron leaders bent over simulators and shouting war orders from rooms sequestered away in the back corners of the hollowed-out rock that used to be Eros, it was a generally accepted fact that Bean was the least likely to get his heart rate up. He had seen too many things, witnessed too many murders, to be brought to the edge of panic by moving pinpricks of light on a simulator screen. No, Bean was rational, he was calm, even as he systemically destroyed an intelligent species and bore the brunt of the genocide (for none of the other children had any idea when or even that they had become murderers). During the three months they spent on Eros in exhausting practices and hours-long battles, Bean never would have thought to describe himself as anything even approaching scared.
Never, that is, until that grueling midafternoon practice when the voice issuing a steady stream of commands in his ear stumbled, stuttered over a single word, and then quite suddenly went out. Bean jolted alert, every nerve surging with new electricity: this was not good.
"Ender?" he said, hoping his anxiety wasn't so embarrassingly obvious, and then again – "Ender, are you there?"
Silence for a moment that lasted eternity – then the other squadron leaders' voices calling out for their commander – then their microphones went dead and their simulator screens turned black. They ripped off their headsets then, and a babble of talk rose, the panic just beneath the surface where everyone could pretend they didn't hear it.
They milled about nervously for some time – maybe fifteen minutes, maybe more – until Graff came to get them. "Practice is over," he told them, and then he refused to say anything more.
Bean cornered him in the hallway as the others made their aimless ways back to the barracks. "Tell me," he said shortly, and Graff sighed.
"None of your concern, Bean." It was weary, bordering on hopelessness, and Bean's pulse picked up even more.
"Of course it's my concern. I'm the one you assigned to make sure he's okay, to take over when he's not, I'm the one ultimately holding the Fleet in my hands because nobody's looking out for me. I need the full dossier of information on my Fleet Commander."
Graff just stared at him. "No, Bean."
"What, so you tell me to monitor Ender but not what to look for? How can I possibly do that effectively?"
Graff exhaled through his nose. "He collapsed. Okay, Bean? I don't know, his brain switched off, something. We heard his voice cut off, exactly the same as you did, and we found him on the ground with a broken nose. He collapsed and he hit the simulator. That's all we know. You heard everything we heard, we didn't have any secret information you didn't have, we – "
"Is he awake?" Bean had decided that these ramblings were irrelevant.
Graff stared, then sighed. "No. Mazer's with him. He's completely comatose. The Fleet doctor says to let him sleep, but we have another . . . test . . . scheduled for tomorrow. We'll have to wake him. You can question him then, Bean." And he turned away.
Bean reached up, stretched, managed to grab Graff's shirtsleeve and hold him back. "He collapsed of fatigue today and you want him to command a battle tomorrow? This is your Fleet Commander we're talking about, humanity's one hope of victory. Are you completely insane?"
"So what do you propose we do, Bean?" It was defeated, obviously rhetorical, but Bean answered anyway.
"Postpone the battle."
"Bean, you and I both know that these aren't simulations. We have sixty ships hurtling towards a bugger colony right now. We can't just get there and wait."
"But you could pull back now."
"They can already see us coming. They would pursue. No, we need to fight this battle tomorrow, Bean. We need Ender. End of story, his happiness be damned, this is the fate of the world."
"You don't need Ender."
"Have you been paying the slightest attention, Bean?"
"You need a commander. This is a colony, not the homeworld, you don't need the best, you just need a commander. Find someone else and let Ender sleep so that he'll still be a functional commander and not completely mad or vegetative when we finally reach the homeworld."
"Bean, there is no one else."
"There's his backup. There's me."
"Bean, you're seven."
"I've done this before, sir. Before he arrived. I commanded the group through those early games, I know how."
"That was different. That was simulated."
"Sir, Ender is the best hope of all of humanity. If you want to break him down over an outpost colony, then be my guest. But if not, you know where to find me."
He left then, with Graff's dismissiveness ringing in his ears. But he didn't mind. He was right. He knew it, and he knew that Graff knew it too.
The next day they had the battle, and they did it with Bean in command. To the other it was just a test – to see how they responded to unexpected changes, Graff said – but Bean knew that for the first time he had human lives in his hands, lives that would be spared or sacrificed as the direct results of choices that he himself made, and it made him tremble. How does Ender do this, he wondered, and then he remembered: Ender doesn't know. And then he thought of Ender, the hopes and prayers of the I.F., exhausted and unconscious, perhaps forever, and his hands shook more –
Enough, Bean thought. Focus. And he did.
The battle was harder than the simulated ones he'd commanded before Ender arrive, but easier than some recent ones that he'd watched Ender take control of. The enemy fleet outnumbered them about two to one, but Bean had six well-made battleships to make good work of. He tried something new, sent a few of his injured fighters into the midst of the battle, pulled them back, drew the bugger ships behind them in pursuit, then brought the battleships in from where they'd been waiting just out of range. The queen had forgotten about them, she had too many things to keep track of, and they destroyed half the bugger fleet before the queen realized where the losses were coming from. Bean surprised them from behind with a reserve force the buggers had forgotten. Like Ender did, Bean thought a bit ruefully, in that game he had with Salamander. I'm copying him. He's still commanding us, even now, when he's passed out in a locked room.
Except that it wasn't just Ender making these choices, because it was Bean and Bean alone who knew that the games he played on the simulator lead to the deaths of real pilots, light-years away. It was all well and good to command simulated ships, to pretend for the duration of the battle that these losses weren't real, but as soon as it was over he remembered. He had lost ships. Grown men had died. His strategy had led to human deaths. Could he have done it better? Could Ender have, even exhausted, even half-asleep, if Bean hadn't convinced Graff to let Ender sleep through this battle?
Bean's hands were shaking as he took of his headset. I'm glad they don't tell Ender, he thought, it would eat him alive more than it already does. And then he hurried off to a bathroom and sat trembling against the door as he waited for his breathing to slow down.
There was still an hour before dinner by the time Bean had composed himself, and so he sought out Graff in his colonel's quarters.
Graff stared dully at him when he walked in. "I'm not going to sit here and heap praise on you, Bean."
Bean was dumbfounded. "Have you met me? Why would I want that? You know that I want to know about Ender."
Graff sighed. "Nothing more to know, Bean. I told you it all yesterday."
"Are you kidding? It's been over a day. Something's got to have happened."
Graff's eyes bored into Bean's, then relented. "He's not in good shape, Bean. He's running a serious fever, he cries in his sleep, he seemed to wake up this morning but his eyes were glazed and he was rambling nonsense. We couldn't get any sense out of him before he lost consciousness again. He's on a feeding tube now, and we'll try to wake him again tomorrow, but you should expect to be in command again."
Bean almost said, see, I told you so, can you imagine what would've happened if you tried to put him in command of a battle – but then the last part of Graff's monologue hit him. He stopped himself just in time from wincing – can't let them see that he's worried – but his heart was sinking. More human lives were in his hands; tomorrow he would be sentencing more I.F. pilots to death.
But then Bean caught himself being selfish, being worried about his own responsibilities when it wasn't him who mattered. There were only two possible commanders, and one of them would collapse for good under the pressure. For tomorrow, at least, it was better Bean than Ender.
Better me than him. Bean nodded. "Good choice, Colonel."
Graff didn't move, but something told Bean that he was hesitating, considering adding something else. Bean sighed. "Tell me."
Did Graff almost smile? No. No chance. "Perceptive as ever, Bean. If you insist. Today Ender had the worst nightmare we've ever seen. Mazer had to hold him down, he was thrashing so bad. The curious thing is that it started right when your battle did and ended at the same time. Nobody has any explanation, and clearly you can't have one either, so now you have more information than you're authorized to have. Somehow you keep weaseling this out of us. I hope you're happy."
Bean's mind was reeling, and he opened his mouth to begin a new barrage of questioning, but Graff cut him off. "That's enough, Bean."
"But sir, you have to – "
"Bean. I said enough."
The next day there was another battle, again with Bean in command. The other squadron leaders were getting nervous: they had all heard Ender collapse too, and now it had been two days, two battles with a different commander. They followed Bean well enough, but he would be a fool to think he had the love and respect and utter devotion that Ender had from them. He would be a fool to think he could lead this group effectively into battles that were more difficult than yesterday's.
And today's was more difficult than yesterday's. Bean's forces were outnumbered three to one, and their starships were old and sluggish models. Alai and Shen and Crazy Tom took the core force; Petra and Dink had the smaller fighters, maneuvering and feinting and adapting to whatever the buggers threw at them. But they were still outnumbered, they were still tired, they were still just a bit resentful towards Bean, and the battle took much longer than it should have. They won, but with even heavier losses than yesterday.
Bean went back to his bed when all the others went to dinner, and he lay on his back with the palms of his heels pressed hard against his eyes. Twenty-nine human ships had been destroyed; that meant at least twenty-nine human losses. And if the others hadn't been just a bit less used to their commander – if they had been fighting under Ender – that number would have been lower. Bean had led to more human losses than necessary. He was a murderer.
He brooded until the others came in, and then he sat up and bantered with them a little, but it was halfhearted. There was an awkwardness between Bean and the others now, and they all knew it. He was exhausted – they all were. Without much pretense, Bean stripped off his clothes and clambered into bed for a dark and dreamless sleep.
The next day there was no practice in the morning. There might be a battle in the afternoon, but Bean was sure they were trying to postpone it as long as possible. For the first time in their memories, the children had a free morning. Bean spent it wandering through places he probably shouldn't be, mulling over the thoughts that had threatened to overwhelm him yesterday.
He was so lost inside his own head that he didn't pay attention when he rounded the corner, didn't see the man until he was bumping into his legs. Bean jerked back; the man simply took a calm step backwards and raised a single eyebrow a fraction of an inch. "Hello, Bean," he said, and then he was stepping around him and striding down the passage.
Bean was after him in a flash. "Sir! Wait! Wait, please, sir, tell me who you are—"
The man didn't stop, only walked faster. Bean lengthened his stride into a full-on sprint, darted in front of the man. "Sir," he said, barely out of breath, "who are you?"
A muscle twitched in the man's jaw. "My name is Mazer Rackham," he said simply, then raised that eyebrow again. "Do you have more questions, or are you simply blocking the passageway for the fun of it?"
Bean flushed, then wished he hadn't. He didn't answer immediately, instead combing through Mazer's face. The creases in his forehead. The weariness of his hunched shoulders. The tiniest hint of deep concern in his eyes. "You've just been with Ender."
"That's neither an answer nor a question."
"Well, then, have you?"
"You just told me I have. Are you asking or telling, Bean?"
Bean couldn't decide whether to be amused or frustrated. "I— I'm asking, sir."
"Why would you ask something that you already know? No. Ask your real question, Bean, or let me through."
"Can I see him?"
There it was, the real question that they both knew was coming.
Mazer shook his head. "He's unconscious."
"I don't care."
"He's feverish. He's delusional. You'll accomplish nothing."
Time to change tactics, then. "Graff said he had a nightmare."
"He has them almost every night now."
"A bad one, though."
"Yes. Two particularly violent episodes, yesterday and the day before. Coinciding exactly with the timing of your battles."
"Can the psychologists explain them?"
"Not at the moment."
"So clearly there are things that can be learned from a feverish, unconscious Ender. Come on, Mazer. What harm could it do?"
This time Bean definitely saw a smile, if only for half a moment. But sure enough Mazer turned and led him back along the passageway. They walked for about three minutes in silence; the walls began to be lined by smaller, more utilitarian doors. There was a soldier posted outside one of the doors, body alert but eyes board; Mazer went up to him and told him to let them through. He saluted and swung the door open.
And there. After all of the intervening months, it was strangely anticlimactic to see Ender again. He was curled in a fetal position on his bunk, fast asleep but twitching. He was taller than Bean remembered, but somehow smaller; more muscular, but somehow more timid. He was chewing anxiously at his fingers, muttering softly, too quickly to be making any sense.
Bean turned to Mazer, aghast. "What are you doing to him?"
Mazer shrugged. "No more than needs to be done. You know, for the preservation of humanity and all that."
"You're killing him."
"Bean, nobody can come out of war completely unscathed. This fatigue is the damage we're choosing to do. He might be more engaged, alert, if he knew there were human lives at risk, but the psychological damage that that information would cause him could very well render him useless as a commander for the rest of the war. So we chose the least permanent damage and crossed our fingers."
"I can't believe that you think this won't be permanent."
"Have a bit of faith in him, Bean."
"He's a child having nightmares and you've put him in charge of your fleet."
"Don't play the 'poor kid' card for him, Bean. You're barely half his age and we all know what you can do. No, this is the unfortunate result of interstellar war, and if you think that bad dreams will break Ender beyond repair, then you have severely underestimated the tenacity of your commander."
"But why the nightmares? I don't understand. Why during battles?"
"The planet's top xenopsychologists and xenobiologists are wondering this, Bean. If they cared about my opinions, I'd tell them that the buggers communicate telepathically and that Ender has the most psychologically sensitive and open mind that the Fleet has ever seen. But they don't ask me."
Bean stared in horror. "The buggers are talking to him."
"Not consciously. Not in a way that he can understand or even recognize. But they are sharing his emotions with him telepathically, yes."
"And he's feeling all of that. Their death pain. Their anguish."
"Yes."
"And he doesn't know where it's from. Or what it is."
"And he can't know. Because then he would know that this is real. After all, Bean, we're only just playing games here."
Bean didn't – couldn't – laugh at that. Instead he just walked over to the child-sized bed and touched Ender's hand, held it, squeezed it. Ender's feet, tangled agitatedly in his bedsheets, slowed slightly in their frenzied kicking.
Bean just watched Ender, not even glancing at Mazer as he spoke. "Does he feel this when he's fighting?"
"Not as far as anyone can tell. Just when he's asleep, when his mind is empty and defenseless."
Bean, for the first time, felt his heart ache for Ender – deeper than shock or outrage. No, this was sorrow. I feel guilty for perhaps causing the deaths of a dozen soldiers. Ender feels the guilt and pain of an entire species. No wonder he's breaking down.
Bean was about to open his mouth, ask another question, when Ender's door slammed open. Ender twitched just a bit under Bean's hand but didn't respond.
It was Graff; he beckoned Mazer outside. There was a quick, heated exchange of words; then Mazer came back in.
"Time to go," he said, too lightly for Bean's liking, and then, "You have a battle to fight."
"Now?"
"Do you think I'm talking about years from now? Yes, now. Your army is waiting for their commander."
"I'm commanding again? Right now?"
Mazer just watched him. "Would you rather it be Ender?"
"No."
"You're right. Not today."
"Not ever again."
"Bean, you underestimate Ender's strength. And overestimate our cruelty. We could make him get up right now. He could win battles, be a functional commander. But we're letting him rest."
"Rest? Look at him, Mazer, he's not getting any rest."
"I can't stop his dreams."
"But you can drug him. Now. You know he's going to get another horrible nightmare when we start fighting. You can drug him, let him get some real sleep. Just because you have to be hard on him to make him a good commander doesn't mean you have to be heartless. He'll be better with sleep."
There it was again, that half-second glimmer of a smile before Mazer's face was hard again. "I'll consider it."
That wasn't denial; it meant he would listen to Bean. Victory. Bean grinned. "Good to know that our commander will finally be allowed to rest."
"Don't get ahead of yourself. Ender's not on vacation. We'll wake him up tomorrow, get him to fight."
"Well, at least you gave him three days. Really the lap of luxury."
"Because of you, Bean. These battles couldn't wait. He would be on his feet right now, commanding them, half-asleep and feverish, if it wasn't for you."
And there it was, what Bean had wanted for as long as he could remember: for a teacher to look at him, see him, praise him for what he was doing and not just what was in his head. Bean smiled, was about to reply –
The door banged open. Graff again. "Bean, you need to come now," he snapped.
Ender winced at the noise, whined as Bean pulled his hand away. He was muttering again, loudly, more agitatedly. The buggers are getting anxious, Bean thought, and they're feeding that fear to Ender.
But Bean had no choice, and so he left Ender's bedside, turned his back on his sleeping commander. Mazer stood silently, watching. "Drug him," Bean said to Mazer, and then he left, closing the door behind him.
Today's battle was hard, but Bean was more energized than he ever had been. Mazer had praised him for what he was doing. Him commanding this battle let Ender sleep, let Ender recuperate, let Ender stand a chance of being a productive and effective commander through the end of the war. Because heaven knew that they needed Ender in command when they finally reached the bugger homeworld.
This, Bean thought, I can do. I can do this today, so that Ender can command tomorrow.
And if that is my contribution to this war, then that is enough – that is something I can be proud of. I will carry the burden when Ender can't, so that when it finally gets too complicated for me, Ender will be there, ready to take back over.
Ender was back the next day, but he wasn't quite the same as any of the squadron leaders remembered him. His voice seemed a bit thinner, somehow; his orders came after the longest pause they could remember, and when he did speak, his words were slurred. He barely congratulated them after they won, just let out an exhausted exhale and disconnected his headset.
They fought only one battle that day. That had been their pattern with Bean, but under Ender they had most recently been fighting two.
He approached Graff after the battle. "I don't think Ender can keep doing this," he said.
But Graff shook his head. "He can. We know he can. We would put you in command if he couldn't."
"But – "
"We trusted you with an entire fleet, Bean. It's time for you to trust us."
"Ender's already exhausted."
"Three more games, Bean, and then the homeworld, and then you're done. He's done."
"Three games is a lot."
"That's what you commanded, Bean. If you can do it, then so can he. Stop thinking you're the only child in this school with some strength or some military genius. Now shut up and go back to the barracks."
Bean shut up and went back to the barracks, pondering that. He had commanded three games, and came out not that much worse for wear. Surely Ender could do the same. Three games, if not much more.
Three games, but not six, Bean thought. Ender is close to his limits, Mazer and Graff knew that even if they wouldn't say. Maybe he can manage three games before the homeworld, but he couldn't manage that and the ones he'd missed while unconscious.
That's okay, Ender, Bean thought as he lay in bed that night, contemplating the ceiling, because I'll be here when Ender falters, I was before and I will be again.
But just as certainly as he knew that, he knew that Ender would not falter, not now, not before the homeworld. Bean would wake up and fight another battle, maybe another two, and Ender would be in command just as he should be, and maybe he'd be tired and maybe he'd be slower than normal, but he would command them through the battles and there would be three days, maybe four days, of hell, and then the buggers would be gone and the world would be okay.
Sleep tight, Ender, Bean prayed, and with that thought his eyes closed and his breathing slowed, and for a few hours he was not a soldier, not a squadron leader, not anything more than a seven-year-old child curled on a bed in a room carved out from the inside of a rock hurtling through outer space.