&
nbsp; "Ready?" said Alai. "Go."
Since they pushed off with different amounts of force, they began to circle each other. Ender made some small hand movements, then shifted a leg. They slowed. He did it again. They stopped orbiting. Now they were drifting evenly.
"Packed head, Ender," Alai said. It was high praise. "Let's push off be-fore we run into that bunch."
"And then let's meet over in that corner." Ender did not want this bridge into the enemy camp to fail.
"Last one there saves farts in a milk bottle," Alai said.
Then, slowly, steadily, they maneuvered until they faced each other, spread-eagled, hand to hand, knee to knee.
"And then we just scrunch?" asked Alai.
"I've never done this before either," said Ender.
They pushed off. It propelled them faster than they expected. Ender ran into a couple of boys and ended up on a wall that he hadn't expected. It took him a moment to reorient and find the corner where he and Alai were to meet. Alai was already headed toward it. Ender plotted a course that would include two rebounds, to avoid the largest clusters of boys.
When Ender reached the corner, Alai had hooked his arms through two adjacent handholds and was pretending to doze.
"You win."
"I want to see your fart collection," Alai said.
"I stored it in your locker. Didn't you notice?"
"I thought it was my socks."
"We don't wear socks anymore."
"Oh yeah." A reminder that they were both far from home. It took some of the fun out of having mastered a bit of navigation.
Ender took his pistol and demonstrated what he had learned about the two thumb buttons.
"What does it do when you aim at a person?" asked Alai.
"I don't know."
"Why don't we find out?"
Ender shook his head. "We might hurt somebody."
"I meant why don't we shoot each other in the foot or something. I'm not Bernard, I never tortured cats for fun."
"Oh."
"It can't be too dangerous, or they wouldn't give these guns to kids."
"We're soldiers now."
"Shoot me in the foot."
"No, you shoot me."
"Let's shoot each other."
They did. Immediately Ender felt the leg of the suit grow stiff, immobile at the knee and ankle joints.