Read 1 Ender's Game for Free Online Page B

had already won.”
      “Knocking him down won the first fight. I wanted to win all the next ones, too, right then, so they'd leave me alone.” Ender couldn't help it, he was too afraid, too ashamed of his own acts: though he tried not to, he cried again. Ender did not like to cry and rarely did; now, in less than a day, he had done it three times. And each time was worse. To cry in front of his mother and father and this military man, that was shameful. “You took away the monitor,” Ender said. "I had to take care of myself, didn't I?”
     
      “Ender, you should have asked a grown-up for help,” Father began.
      But the officer stood up and stepped across the room to Ender. He held out his hand. "My name is Graff. Ender. Colonel Hyrum Graff. I'm director of primary training at Battle School in the Belt. I've come to invite you to enter the school.”
      After all. "But the monitor--”
      "The final step in your testing was to see what would happen if the monitor comes off. We don't always do it that way, but in your case--”
      "And I passed?”
      Mother was incredulous. "Putting the Stilson boy in the hospital? What would you have done if Andrew had killed him, given him a medal?”
      “It isn't what he did, Mrs. Wiggin. It's why.” Colonel Graff handed her a folder full of papers. "Here are the requisitions. Your son has been cleared by the I.F. Selective Service. Of course we already have your consent, granted in writing at the time conception was confirmed, or he could not have been born. He has been ours from then, if he qualified.”
      Father's voice was trembling as he spoke. "It's not very kind of you, to let us think you didn't want him, and then to take him after all.”
      “And this charade about the Stilson boy,” Mother said.
      "It wasn't a charade, Mrs. Wiggin. Until we knew what Ender's motivation was, we couldn't be sure he wasn't another-- we had to know what the action meant. Or at least what Ender believed that it meant.”
      “Must you call him that stupid nickname?” Mother began to cry.
      "I'm sorry, Mrs. Wiggin. But that's the name he calls himself.”
      “What are you going to do, Colonel Graff?” Father asked. "Walk out the door with him now?”
      “That depends,” said Graff.
      "On what?”
      "On whether Ender wants to come.”
      Mother's weeping turned to bitter laughter. "Oh, so it's voluntary after all, how sweet!”
      "For the two of you, the choice was made when Ender was conceived. But for Ender, the choice has not been made at all. Conscripts make good cannon fodder, but for officers we need volunteers.”
      “Officers?” Ender asked. At the sound of his voice, the others fell silent.
      “Yes,” said Graff. "Battle School is for training future starship captains and commodores of flotillas and admirals of the fleet.”
      “Let's not have any deception here!” Father said angrily. "How many of the boys at the Battle School actually end up in command of ships!”
      "Unfortunately, Mr. Wiggin, that is classified information. But I can say that none of our boys who makes it through the first year has ever failed to receive a commission as an officer. And none has served in a position of lower rank than chief executive officer of an interplanetary vessel. Even in the domestic defense forces within our own solar system, there's honor to be had.”
      “How many make it through the first year?” asked Ender.
      “All who want to,” said Graff.
      Ender almost said, I want to. But he held his tongue. This would keep him out of school, but that was stupid, that was just a problem for a few days. It would keep him away from Peter-- that was more important, that might be a matter of life itself. But to leave Mother and Father, and above all, to leave Valentine. And become a soldier. Ender didn't like fighting. He didn't like Peter's kind, the strong against the weak, and he didn't like his own kind either, the smart against the