Enders In Exile

he chooses to
use this power of his for good."
    "I don't know that he
does," said Mazer. "He uses it for what he believes is good. But I
don't know that he's particularly good at knowing what 'good' is."
    "In philosophy class I
think we finally decided that 'good' is an infinitely recursive
term—it can't be defined except in terms of itself. Good is
good because it's better than bad, though why it's better to be good
than bad depends on how you define good, and on and on."
    "The things the modern
fleet teaches to its admirals."
    "You're an admiral too,
and look where it got
you
."
    "Tutor to a bratty boy
who saves the human race but doesn't do his chores."
    "Sometimes I wish I
were bratty," said Ender. "I dream about it—about defying
authority. But even when I absolutely decide to, what I can't get rid
of is responsibility. People counting on me—that's what
controls me."
    "So you have no
ambition except duty?" asked Mazer.
    "And I have no duties
now," said Ender. "So I envy Colonel . . . Mister Graff. All those
plans. All that purpose. I wonder what he plans for
me
."
    "Are you sure he does?"
asked Mazer. "Plan anything for you, I mean?"
    "Maybe not," said
Ender. "He worked awfully hard to shape this tool. But now that it will
never be needed again, maybe he can set me down and let me rust and
never think of me."
    "Maybe," said Mazer.
"That's the thing we have to keep in mind. Graff is not . . .
nice
."
    "Unless he needs to be."
    "Unless he needs to
seem
to be," said Mazer. "He's not above lying his face off to frame things
in such a way that you'll
want
to do what he
wants you to do."
    "Which is how he got
you here, to be my trainer during the war?"
    "Oh, yes," said Mazer,
with a sigh.
    "Going home now?" asked
Ender. "I know you have family."
    "Great-grandchildren,"
said Mazer. "And great-great-grandchildren. My wife is dead and my only
surviving child is gaga with senility, my grandchildren tell me. They
say it lightly, because they've accepted that their father or uncle has
lived a full life and he's getting really old. But how can I accept it?
I don't know any of these people."
    "Hero's welcome won't
be enough to make up for losing fifty years, is that it?" asked Ender.
    "Hero's welcome,"
muttered Mazer. "You know what the hero's welcome is? They're still
deciding whether to charge me along with Graff. I think they probably
will."
    "So if they charge you
along with Graff," said Ender, "then you'll be acquitted along with
him."
    "Acquitted?" said Mazer
ruefully. "We won't be jailed or anything. But we'll be reprimanded. A
note of censure placed in our files. And Graff will probably be
cashiered. The people who brought this court martial can't be made to
look foolish for doing it. They have to turn out to have been correct."
    Ender sighed. "So for
their pride, you both get slapped. And Graff maybe loses his career."
    Mazer laughed. "Not so
bad, really. My record was full of notes of reprimand
before
I beat the buggers in the Second Formic War. My career has been forged
out of reprimands and censures. And Graff? The military was never his
career
.
It was just a way to get access to the influence and power he needed in
order to accomplish his plans. Now he doesn't need the military
anymore, so he's willing to be drummed out of it."
    Ender nodded, chuckled.
"I bet you're right. Graff is probably planning to exploit it somehow.
The people who benefit from his being kicked out, he'll take advantage
of how guilty they feel in order to get what he really wants. A
consolation prize that turns out to be his real objective."
    "Well, they can't very
well give him medals for the exact same thing that he was
court-martialed for," said Mazer.
    "They'll give him his
colonization project," said Ender.
    "Oh, I don't know if
guilt goes
that
far," said Mazer. "It would cost
billions of dollars to equip and refit the fleet into colony ships, and
there's no guarantee that anyone from Earth will volunteer to go away
forever. Let alone crews for the ships."
    "They have to do
something with this huge fleet and all its personnel. The ships have to
go somewhere. And there are those surviving I.F. soldiers on all the
conquered worlds. I think Graff's going to get his
colonies—we won't send ships to bring them home, we'll send
new colonists to join them."
    "I see you've mastered
all of Graff's arguments."
    "So have you," said
Ender. "And I bet you'll go with them."
    "Me? I'm too old to be
a colonist."
    "You'd pilot a ship,"
said