A War of Gifts: An Ender Story

apparently going to win. Zeck could hardly get the words out. “I have to go home.”
    “And do what?” asked Wiggin. “Stand between your mother and father until your father finally loses control and kills you?”
    “If that’s what it takes!”
    “You know my biggest fear?” said Wiggin.
    “I don’t care about your fear,” said Zeck.
    “As much as I hate my brother, what I’m afraid of is that I’m just like him.”
    “I don’t hate my father.”
    “You’re terrified of him,” said Wiggin, “and you should be. But I think what you’re really planning to do when you go home is kill the old son of a bitch.”
    “No I’m not!” cried Zeck. The rage filled him again, and he couldn’t stop himself from lashing out, but at least he aimed his blows at the wall and the floor, not at Wiggin. So it hurt only Zeck’s own hands and arms and elbows. Only himself.
    “If he laid one hand on your mother-” said Wiggin.
    “I’ll kill him!” Then Zeck hurled himself backward, threw himself to the floor away from Wiggin and beat on the floor and kept beating on it till the skin of the palm of his left hand broke open and bled. And even then, he only stopped because Wiggin took hold of his wrist. Held it and then put something in his palm and closed Zeck’s fist around it.
    “You’ve done enough bleeding,” said Wiggin. “In my opinion, anyway.”
    “Don’t tell,” whispered Zeck. “Don’t tell anybody.”
    “You haven’t done anything wrong,” said Wiggin, “except try to get home to protect your mother. Because you know your father is crazy and dangerous.”
    “Just like me,” said Zeck.
    “No,” said Wiggin. “The opposite of you. Because you controlled it. You stopped yourself from beating the little kid. Even when he deliberately provoked you. Your father couldn’t stop himself from beating you-even when you did absolutely nothing wrong at all. You are not alike.”
    “The rage,” said Zeck.
    “One of the soldierly virtues,” said Wiggin. “Turn it on the Buggers instead of on yourself or your father. And especially instead of me.”
    “I don’t believe in war.”
    “Not many soldiers do,” said Wiggin. “You could get killed doing that stuff. But you train to fight well, so that when a war does come, you can win and come home and find everything safe.”
    “There’s nothing safe at home.”
    “I bet that things are fine at home,” said Wiggin. “Because, see, with you not there, your mother doesn’t have any reason to stay with your father, does she? So I think she’s not going to put up with any more crap from him. Don’t you think so? She can’t be weak. If she were weak, she could never have produced somebody as tough as you. You couldn’t have gotten your toughness from your father-he doesn’t have much, if he can’t even keep himself from doing what he did. So your toughness comes from her, right? She’ll leave him if he raises his hand against her. She doesn’t have to stay to look out for you anymore.”
    It was as much the tone of Wiggin’s voice as the words he said that calmed him. Zeck pulled his body together, rolled himself up into a sitting position. “I keep expecting to see some teacher rush down the corridor demanding to know what’s going on.”
    “I don’t think so,” said Wiggin. “I think they know exactly what’s going on-probably watching it on a holo somewhere-and maybe they’re keeping any other kids from coming along here to see. But they’re going to let us work it out on our own.”
    “Work what out?” said Zeck. “I got no quarrel with you.”
    “You had a quarrel with everybody who stood between you and going home.”
    “I still hate this place. I want to get out of here.”
    “Welcome to the club,” said Wiggin. “Look, we’re missing lunch. You can do what you want, but I’m going to go eat.”
    “You still planning to limp on that left ankle?”
    “Yes,” said Wiggin. “After you kicked me? I won’t have to act.”
    “Chest okay? I didn’t break any ribs, did I?”
    “You sure have an inflated opinion of your own strength,” said Wiggin. Then he stepped into the elevator and held the bar as it drifted upward, carrying him along with it. Zeck sat there awhile longer, looking at nothing, thinking about what just happened. He wasn’t sure if anything had been decided. Zeck still hated Battle School. And everybody in Battle School hated him. And now he hated his father and didn’t believe in his