Ender's Game (Ender Wiggins Saga)

stunning, especially when you didn't know where to look for the twine, When he used the twine to wrap himself around a star, he attained speeds no one had ever seen before.
      It was 2140 when Ender dismissed the evening practice. Weary but delighted at having seen something new, his army walked through the corridors back to the barracks. Ender walked among them, not talking, but listening to their talk. They were tired, yes -- a battle every day for more than four weeks, often in situations that tested their abilities to the utmost. But they were proud, happy, close -- they had never lost, and they had learned to trust each other. Trust their fellow soldiers to fight hard and well; trust their leaders to use them rather than waste their efforts; above all trust Ender to prepare them for anything and everything that might happen.
      As they walked the corridor, Ender noticed several older boys seemingly engaged in conversations in branching corridors and ladderways; some were in their corridor, walking slowly in the other direction. It became too much of a coincidence, however, that so many of them were wearing Salamander uniforms, and that those who weren't were often older boys belonging to armies whose commanders most hated Ender Wiggin. A few of them looked at him, and looked away too quickly; others were too tense, too nervous as they pretended to be relaxed. What will I do if they attack my army here in the corridor? My boys are all young, all small, and completely untrained in gravity combat. When would they learn?
      "Ho, Ender!" someone called. Ender stopped and looked back, It was Petra. "Ender, can I talk to you?”
      Ender saw in a moment that if he stopped and talked, his army would quickly pass him by and he would be alone with Petra in the hallway. "Walk with me," Ender said.
      "It's just for a moment.”
      Ender turned around and walked on with his army. He heard Petra running to catch up. "All right, I'll walk with you." Ender tensed when she came near. Was she one of them, one of the ones who hated him enough to hurt him?
      "A friend of yours wanted me to warn you. There are some boys who want to kill you.”
      "Surprise," said Ender. Some of his soldiers seemed to perk up at this. Plots against their commander were interesting news, it seemed.
      "Ender, they can do it. He said they've been planning it ever since you went commander.”
      "Ever since I beat Salamander, you mean.”
      "I hated you after you beat Phoenix Army, too, Ender.”
      "I didn't say I blamed anybody.”
      "It's true. He told me to take you aside today and warn you, on the way back from the battleroom, to be careful tomorrow because--”
      "Petra, if you had actually taken me aside just now, there are about a dozen boys following along who would have taken me in the corridor. Can you tell me you didn't notice them?”
      Suddenly her face flushed. "No. I didn't. How can you think I did? Don't you know who your friends are?" She pushed her way through Dragon Army, got ahead of him, and scrambled up a ladderway to a higher deck.
      "Is it true?" asked Crazy Tom.
      "Is what true?" Ender scanned the room and shouted for two roughhousing boys to get to bed.
      "That some of the older boys want to kill you?”
      "All talk," said Ender. But he knew that it wasn't. Petra had known something, and what he saw on the way here tonight wasn't imagination.
      "It may be all talk, but I hope you'll understand when I say you've got five toon leaders who are going to escort you to your room tonight.”
      "Completely unnecessary.”
      "Humor us. You owe us a favor.”
      "I owe you nothing." He'd be a fool to turn them down. "Do as you want." He turned and left. The toon leaders trotted along with him. One ran ahead and opened his door. They checked the room, made Ender promise to lock it, and left him just before lights out.
      There was a message on his desk.
     
    DON'T BE ALONE. EVER. -- DINK
     
      Ender grinned. So Dink was still his friend. Don't worry. They won't do anything to me. I have my army.
      But in the darkness he did not have his army. He dreamed that night of Stilson, only he saw now how small Stilson was, only six years old, how ridiculous his tough-guy posturing was; and yet in the dream Stilson and his friends tied Ender so he couldn't fight back, and then everything that Ender had done to Stilson in life, they did to Ender in the dream. And afterward Ender saw himself babbling like an