Enders In Exile

tell Ender what it was and
how it worked.
    My slaughter of the
formics—it's all here in the egg.
    "You've gone off
again," said the captain.
    "Thinking about what a
miracle starflight is. Whatever else we might think of the buggers,
they did give us our road to the stars."
    "I know," said the
captain. "I've thought of that before. If they had just bypassed our
system instead of coming in and trying to wipe Earth clean, we'd never
have known they existed. And at our level of technology, we probably
wouldn't have gotten out into the stars until so much later that we'd
have found every nearby planet completely occupied by formics."
    "Captain, this was a
most excellent and productive tour."
    "I know. How else would
you have learned how to find the head on every deck?"
    Ender laughed at the
joke. Partly because it was true. He'd need to find a bathroom several
times a day through the whole voyage.
    "I assume you're
staying awake for the flight," said the captain.
    "Wouldn't want to miss
any of the scenery."
    "Oh, there's no
scenery, because at lightspeed you—oh, a joke. Sorry, sir."
    "Got to work on my
sense of humor, when my jokes make other people apologize to me."
    "Begging your pardon,
sir, but you don't talk like a kid."
    "Do I talk like an
admiral?" asked Ender.
    "Since you
are
an admiral, however you talk is like an admiral, sir," said the captain.
    "Very cleverly
sidestepped, sir. Tell me, are you coming on the voyage with me?"
    "I have a family on
Earth, sir, and my wife doesn't want to join a colony on another world.
No pioneer spirit, I'm afraid."
    "You have a life. A
good reason for staying home."
    "But you're going,"
said the captain.
    "Have to see the formic
homeland," said Ender. "Or the next best thing, considering that their
home planet doesn't exist anymore."
    "Which I'm damned happy
about, sir," said the captain. "If you hadn't whupped them for good and
all, sir, we'd be looking over our shoulder through the next ten
thousand years of human history."
    There was a stab of
insight there. Ender caught it and then it immediately slipped away.
Something about the way the hive queens thought. Their purpose in
letting Ender kill them.
    Well, if it's true,
then I'll think of it again.
    Ender hoped that
optimistic thought was right.

    When all of Ender's
tours and training sessions were finished, he finally got an interview
with the Minister of Colonization.
    "Please don't call me
Colonel," said Graff.
    "I can't call you
MinCol."
    "Officially, a Hegemony
minister is addressed as 'Your Excellency.' "
    "With a straight face?"
    "Sometimes," said
Graff. "But we're colleagues, Ender. I call you by your first name. You
can call me by mine."
    "Never in my life,"
said Ender. "You're Colonel Graff to me, and that will never change."
    "Doesn't matter," said
Graff. "I'll be dead before you get to your destination."
    "Hardly seems fair.
Come with us."
    "I have to be here to
get my own work done."
    "My work
is
done."
    "I don't know about
that," said Graff. "The work
we
had for you is
done. But you don't even know yet what your own work is going to be."
    "I know it won't be
governing a colony, sir."
    "And yet you accepted
the job."
    Ender shook his head.
"I accepted the title. When I get to the colony,
then
we'll see just how much of a governor I'll be. The Constitution you
came up with is good, but the real constitution is always the same: The
leader only has as much power as his followers give him."
    "And yet you're going
to make the voyage awake instead of in stasis."
    "It's only a couple of
years," said Ender. "And it'll make me fifteen when we arrive. I'm
hoping I'll get taller."
    "I hope you're bringing
a lot of books to read."
    "They stocked a few
thousand titles for me in the ship's library," said Ender. "But what
matters to me is that you use the ansible to give us all the
information about the formics that comes out while we're in flight."
    "Of course," said
Graff. "That will be sent to all the ships."
    Ender smiled slightly.
    "All right, yes, of
course I'll send them directly to you as well. What, are you suspecting
that the ship's captain will try to control your access to information?"
    "If you were in his
place, wouldn't you do the same?"
    "Ender, I would never
let myself get in the position of trying to control you against your
will."
    "You just spent the
last six years doing that."
    "And got
court-martialed for it, you'll notice."
    "And your punishment
was to get the job you've wanted all along. Let me