A War of Gifts: An Ender Story

talking to you, when you first came into Rat Army, it was always, Your father this, your father that.”
    “You only just joined Rat yourself.”
    “People talk outside their armies,” said Wiggin. “And I listen. Always your father. Like your father was some kind of prophet. And I thought, I bet his mother’s glad he isn’t under his father’s influence anymore.”
    “My mother wants me to respect my father.”
    “She just doesn’t want you to live with him. He beat you, didn’t he?”
    Zeck shoved Wiggin. Before he even thought of doing it, there was his hand, shoving the kid away.
    “Come on,” said Wiggin. “You shower. People see the scars. I’ve seen the scars.”
    “It was purification. There’s no way a pagan like you would understand that.”
    “Purification of what?” asked Wiggin. “You were the perfect son.”
    “Graff’s been feeding you information from their observation of me, hasn’t he! That’s illegal!”
    “Come on, Zeck. I know you. If you decide something’s right, then that’s the thing you’ll do, no matter what it costs you. You believe in your father. Whatever he says, you’ll do. So what have you done wrong that makes it so you need all this purification?”
    Zeck didn’t answer. He just closed down. Refused to listen. He let his mind go off somewhere else. To the place where it always went when Father purified him. So he wouldn’t scream. So he wouldn’t feel anything at all.
    “There it is,” said Wiggin. “That’s the Zeck he made you into. The Zeck who isn’t really here. Doesn’t really exist.”
    Zeck heard him without hearing.
    “And that’s why you have to get home,” said Wiggin. “Because without you there, he’ll have to find somebody else to purify, won’t he? Do you have a brother? A sister? Some other kid in the congregation?”
    “He never touched any other kid,” murmured Zeck. “I’m the impure one.”
    “Oh, I know. It’s your mother, isn’t it? Do you think he’ll try to purify your mother?”
    At Wiggin’s cue, Zeck started thinking about his mother. And not just any picture of her. It was his mother saying to him, “Satan does not give good gifts. So your good gift comes from God.”
    And then Father, saying, “There are those who will tell you that a thing is from God, when it’s really from the devil.”
    Zeck had asked him why.
    “They are deceived by their own desire,” Father had said. “They wish the world were a better place, so they pretend that polluted things are pure, so they don’t have to fear them.”
    He couldn’t let Father know what Mother had said, because it was so impure of her. Can’t let Father know.
    If he whips Mother I’ll kill him.
    The thought struck him with such force he gasped and stumbled against the wall. If he whips Mother I’ll kill him.
    Wiggin was still there, talking. “Zeck, what’s wrong?” Wiggin touched him. Touched his arm. The forearm.
    Zeck couldn’t help himself. He yanked his arm away, but that wasn’t enough. He lashed out with his right leg and kicked Wiggin in the shin. Then shoved him backward. Wiggin fell against the wall, then to the floor. He looked helpless. Zeck was so filled with rage at him that he couldn’t contain it. It was all the weeks of isolation. It was all his fear for his mother. She really wasn’t pure. He should hate her for it. But he loved her. That made him evil. That made him deserve all the purification Father ever gave himbecause he loved someone as impure as Mother. And for some reason, with all of this rage and fear, Zeck threw himself down on Wiggin and pummeled him in the chest and stomach.
    “Stop it!” cried Wiggin, trying to turn away from him. “What do you think you’re doing, purifying me?”
    Zeck stopped and looked at his own hands. Looked at Wiggin’s body, lying there helpless. The very helplessness of him, his wormlike, fetal pose, infuriated Zeck. He knew from class what this was. It was blood lust. It was the animal fever that took a soldier over and made him strong beyond his strength. It was what Father must have felt, purifying him. The smaller body, helpless, complete subject to his will. It filled a certain kind of man with rage that had to tear into its prey. That had to inflict pain, break the skin, draw blood and tears and screaming from the victim.
    It was something dark and evil. If anything was from Satan, this was.
    “I thought you were a pacifist,” said Wiggin softly.
    Zeck could hear his