Enders In Exile

to
read the columns.
    If he knew his sweet
naive little daughter was writing those essays, he'd poop petunias.
    She fumed into the
house, headed straight for her computer, scanned the news, and started
writing the essay she knew Peter would assign her—a diatribe
on how the I.F. should not have ended the hostilities with the Warsaw
Pact without first demanding that Russia surrender all her nukes,
because shouldn't there be
some
cost to waging a
nakedly aggressive war? All the usual spewings from her Demosthenes
anti-avatar.
    Or am I, as
Demosthenes, Peter's
real
avatar? Have I been
turned into a virtual person?
    Click. An email.
Anything would be better than what she was writing.
    It was from Mother. She
was forwarding an email from Colonel Graff. About Ender having a
bodyguard when he came home.
    "I thought you'd want
to see this," Mother had written. "Isn't it just THRILLING that
Andrew's homecoming is SO CLOSE?"
    Stop shouting, Mother.
Why do you use caps for emphasis like that? It's so—junior
high school. It's what she told Peter more than once. Mother is such a
cheerleader
.
    Mother's epistle went
on in the same vein. It'll take NO time at ALL to get Ender's room back
into shape for him and now there doesn't seem to be any reason to put
off cleaning the room a SECOND longer unless what do you think, would
Peter want to SHARE his room with his little brother so they could BOND
and get CLOSE again? And what do you think Ender will want for his VERY
FIRST meal home?
    Food, Mother. Whatever
it is will definitely be "SPECIAL enough to make him feel LOVED and
MISSED."
    Anyway. Mother was so
naive to take Graff's letter at face value. Val went back and read it
again. Surveillance. Bodyguard. Graff was sending her a warning, not
trying to get her all excited about Ender's homecoming. Ender was going
to be in danger. Couldn't Mother see that?
    Graff asked if they
should keep Ender in space till the inquiries were over. But that would
take months. How could Mother have gotten the idea that Ender was
coming home so soon it was time to clear out the junk that had gotten
stacked in his room? Graff was asking her to request that he
not
be sent home just yet. And his reason was that Ender was in danger.
    Instantly the whole
range of dangers that Ender faced loomed before her. The Russians would
assume that Ender was a weapon that America would
use against them. The Chinese would think the same—that
America, armed with this Ender-weapon, might become aggressive about
intruding into China's sphere of influence again. Both nations would
breathe easier if Ender were dead. Though of course they'd have to make
it look like the assassination had been carried out by some kind of
terrorist movement. Which meant that they wouldn't just snipe Ender out
of existence, they'd probably blow up his school.
    No, no, no, Val told
herself. Just because that's the kind of thing Demosthenes would say
doesn't mean it's what
you
have to think!
    But the image of
somebody blowing Ender up or shooting him or whatever method they
used—all the methods kept flashing through her mind. Wouldn't
it be ironic—yet typically human—for the person who
saved the human race to be assassinated? It was like the murder of
Abraham Lincoln or Mohandas Gandhi. Some people just didn't know who
their saviors were. And the fact that Ender was still a kid wouldn't
even slow them down.
    He can't come home, she
thought. Mother will never see it, I could never say it to her, but . .
. even if they weren't going to assassinate him, what would his life be
like here? Ender was never one to seek fame or status, and yet
everything he did would end up on the vids with people commenting on
how he did his hair (Vote! Like it or hate it?) and what classes he was
taking in school (What will the hero be when he grows up? Vote on the
career
you
think The Wiggin should prepare for!).
    What a nightmare. It
wouldn't be coming home. They could never bring Ender home anyway. The
home he left didn't exist. The kid who was taken out of that home
didn't exist either. When Ender was here—not even a whole
year ago—when Val went to the lake and spent those hours with
him, Ender seemed so old. Playful sometimes, yes, but he felt the
weight of the world on his shoulders. Now the burden had been taken
off—but the aftermath would cling to him, would tie him down,
tear down his life.
    The years of childhood
were gone. Period. Ender didn't get to be a little boy growing up into
an