Enders In Exile

versa."
    "They'll love you,"
said Ender.
    "And you know this
because . . . ?"
    "Because
I
love you."
    She looked at him in
consternation. "How can I possibly answer a comment like
that
?"
    "Oh. What was I
supposed to say?"
    "I don't know. Am I
supposed to write scripts for you now?"
    "OK," said Ender.
"Should it have been banter? 'They'll love you because somebody has to,
and it sure isn't anybody up here.' Or maybe the ethnic slur: 'They'll
love you because hey, they're Armenian and you're a female.' "
    "What does
that
mean?"
    "I got that from an
Azeri I talked to during that whole flap about Sinterklaas Day back in
Battle School. Apparently the idea is that Armenians know that the only
people who think Armenian women are . . . I don't have to explain
ethnic insults, Petra. They're infinitely transferable."
    "When are they letting
you
go home?" asked Petra.
    Instead of sidestepping
the question or giving it a lazy answer, Ender answered truthfully for
once. "I'm thinking maybe it won't happen."
    "What do you mean? You
think this stupid court martial is going to end up convicting
you
?"
    "I'm the one on trial,
aren't I?"
    "Definitely
not.
"
    "Only because I'm a
child and therefore not responsible. But it's all about what an evil
little monster I am."
    "It is not."
    "I've seen the
highlights on the nets, Petra. What the world is seeing is that the
savior of the world has a little problem—he kills children."
    "You defended yourself
from bullies. Everybody understands that."
    "Except the people who
post comments about how I'm a worse war criminal than Hitler or Pol
Pot. A mass murderer. What makes you think I
want
to go home and deal with all that?"
    Petra wasn't playing
now. She sat down next to him and took his hands. "Ender, you have a
family."
    "Had."
    "Oh, don't say that!
You
have
a family. Families still love their
children even if they've been away for eight years."
    "I've only been away
for seven. Almost. Yes, I know they love me. Some of them at least.
They love who I was. A cute little six-year-old. I must have been so
huggable. Between killing other children, that is."
    "So is that what this
obsession with formic porn is?"
    "Porn?"
    "The way
you
study it. Classic addiction. Got to have more and more of it. Explicit
photos of rotting larva bodies. Autopsy shots. Slides of their
molecular structure. Ender, they're gone, and
you
didn't kill them. Or if you did, then
we
did. But
we didn't. We played a game! We were training for war, that's all it
was."
    "And if it had really
been just a game?" asked Ender. "And then they assigned us to the fleet
after we graduated, and we actually piloted those ships or commanded
those squadrons? Wouldn't we have done it for real?"
    "Yes," said Petra. "But
we didn't. It didn't happen."
    "It happened. They're
gone."
    "Well, studying the
structure of their bodies and the biochemistry of their cells is not
going to bring them back."
    "I'm not trying to
bring them back," said Ender. "What a nightmare
that
would be."
    "No, you're trying to
persuade yourself that you deserve the merdicious things they're saying
about you in the court martial, because if that's true, then you don't
deserve to go back to Earth."
    Ender shook his head.
"I want to go home, Petra, even if I can't stay. And I'm not conflicted
about the war. I'm glad we fought and I'm glad we won and I'm glad it's
over."
    "But you keep your
distance from everybody. We understood, or sympathized, or pretended we
did. But you've kept us all at arm's length. You make this show of
dropping everything whenever one of us comes around to chat, but it's
an act of hostility."
    What an outrageous
thing to say. "It's common courtesy!"
    "You never even say,
'Just a sec,' you just drop everything. It's so . . .
obvious.
The message is: 'I'm really busy but I still think you're my
responsibility
so I'll drop whatever I'm doing because you need my time.' "
    "Wow," said Ender. "You
sure understand a lot of things about me. You're so smart, Petra. A
girl like you—they could really make something out of you in
Battle School."
    "Now
that's
a real answer."
    "Not as real as what I
said before."
    "That you love me?
You're not my therapist, Ender. Or my priest. Don't coddle me, don't
tell me what you think I need to hear."
    "You're right," said
Ender. "I
shouldn't
drop everything when one of
my friends drops by." He picked his papers back up again.
    "Put those down."
    "Oh,
now
it's OK because you asked me so rudely."
    "Ender," Petra said,
"we