A War of Gifts (Ender's Saga 1.10)

Dink was the better commander, and he knew it--he had been offered Rat Army and Rosen only got it when Dink turned down the promotion. Nobody knew that, of course, except Dink and Colonel Graff and whatever other teachers might have known. There was no reason to tell it--it would only weaken Rosen and also make Dink look like a braggart or a fool, depending on whether people believed his claim. So he made no claim.

This was Rosen's show. Let him write the script.

"That's the great Ender Wiggin?" asked Flip. His name was short for Filippus, and, like Dink, he was Dutch. He was also very young and had yet to do anything impressive. It had to gall a young kid like Flip that Ender Wiggin had been placed into the Battle Room early and then rose to the very top of the standings almost instantly.

"I told you," said Dink, "he's number one because his commander wouldn't let him shoot his weapon. So when he finally did it--disobeying his commander, I might add--he got this incredible kill ratio. It's a fluke of how they keep the stats."

"Kuso," said Flip. "If Ender's such a big nothing, why did you go out of your way to get him in your toon?"

So somebody had overheard Dink ask Rosen to assign Ender to his toon, and word had spread. "Because I needed somebody smaller than you," said Dink.

"And you've been watching him. I've seen you. Watching him."

It was easy to forget sometimes that every kid in this place was brilliant. Observant. Clear memory and sharp analytical skills. Even the ones who were still too timid to have done much of anything. Not a good place for doing anything surreptitious.

"E," said Dink. "I think he's got something."

"What's he got that I don't got?"

"Command of English grammar," said Dink.

"Everybody talks like that," said Flip.

"Everybody's a sheep," said Dink. "I'm getting out of here." Moments later, Dink pushed past Rosen and Ender and left the room.

He didn't want to talk to Ender right away. Because this genius kid probably remembered the first time they met. In a bathroom, right after Ender was put in Salamander Army's uniform, his first day in the game. Dink had seen how small he was and said something like, "He's so small he could walk between my legs without touching my balls." It didn't mean anything, and one of his friends had immediately said, "Cause you got none, Dink, that's why," so it's not like Dink had scored any points.

But it was a stupid thing to say, which was fine; you could be stupid around new kids. Except it had been Ender Wiggin, and Dink now knew that this kid was something else, someone important, and he deserved better. Dink wanted to be the guy who knew right away what Ender Wiggin was. Instead, he'd been the idiot who made a stupid joke about how short Ender was.

Short? Ender was small because he was young. It was a mark of brilliance, to be brought to Battle School a year younger than other kids. And then he was advanced to Salamander Army while all the rest of his launch group were still in basic. So he was really under age. And therefore small. So what kind of idiot would mock the kid for being smarter than anybody else?

Oh, suck it up, oomay, he told himself. What does it matter what Wiggin thinks of you? Your job is to train him. To make up for the weeks he wasted in Bonzo Madrid's stupid Salamander Army and help this kid become what he's supposed to become.

Not that Wiggin had really wasted the time. The kid had been running practice sessions for launchies and other rejects during free time, and Dink had come and watched. Wiggin was doing new things. Moves that Dink had never seen before. They had possibilities. So Dink was going to use those techniques in his toon. Give Wiggin a chance to see his ideas played out in combat in the Battle Room.

I'm not Bonzo. I'm not Rosen. Having a soldier under me who's better than I am, smarter, more inventive, doesn't threaten me. I learn from everybody. I help everybody. It's about the only way I can be rebellious in this place--they chose us for our ambition and they prod us to be competitive. So I don't compete. I cooperate.

Dink was sitting in the game room, watching the other players--he had beaten all the games in the room, so he had nothing left to prove--when Wiggin found him. If Wiggin remembered Dink's first dumb joke about his height, Wiggin didn't show it. Instead, Dink let him know which of Rosen's rules and orders he had to obey, and which he didn't. He also let him know that Dink wouldn't be playing power games with him--he was going to get Ender into the battles from the start, pushing him, giving him a chance to learn and grow.

Wiggin clearly understood what Dink was doing for him. He left, satisfied.

There's my contribution to the survival of the human race, thought Dink. I'm not what great commanders are made of. But I know a great commander when I see one, and I can help get hi

m ready. That's good enough for me. I can take this stupid, ineffective school and accomplish something that actually might help us win this war. Something real.

Not this stupid make-believe. Battle School! It was children's games, but structured by adults in order to manipulate the children. But what did it have to do with the real war? You rise to the top of the standings, you beat everybody, and then what? Did you kill a single Bugger? Save a single human life? No. You just go on to the next school and start over as nothing again. Was there any evidence that Battle School accomplished anything?

Sure, the graduates ended up filling important positions throughout the fleet. But then, Battle School only admits kids that are brilliant in the first place, so they would have been command material already. Was there any evidence that Battle School made a difference?

I could have been home in Holland, walking by the North Sea. Watching it pound against the shore, trying to wash over and sweep away the dikes, the islands, and cover the land with ocean, as it used to be, before humans started their foolish terraforming experiment.

Dink remembered reading--back on Earth, when he could read what he wanted--the silly claim that the Great Wall of China was the only human artifact that could be seen from space. In fact the claim wasn't even true--at least not from geosynchronous orbit or higher. The wall didn't even cast enough of a shadow to be seen.

No, the human artifact that could be seen from space, that showed up in picture after picture without exciting any comment at all, was Holland. It should have been nothing but barrier islands with wide saltwater sounds behind them. Instead, because the Dutch built their dikes and pumped out the salt water and purified the soil, it was land. Lush, green land--visible from space.

But nobody recognized it as a human artifact. It was just land. It grew plants and fed dairy cattle and held houses and highways, just like any other land. But we did it. We Dutch. And when the sea levels rose, we raised our dikes higher and made them thicker and stronger, and nobody thought, Wow, look at the Dutch, they created the largest human artifact on Earth, and they're still making it, a thousand years later.

I could have been home in Holland until they were actually ready to have me do something real. As real as the land behind the dikes.