Enders In Exile

Graff.
    Graff chuckled out
loud. "May you always have as many as you need."
    Then Ender paused,
looking at nothing, at the empty room, and thought, Good-bye, Mom.
Good-bye, Dad. Good-bye, Peter. Good-bye, all the men and women and
children of Earth. I've done all I could for you, and had all I could
receive from you, and now someone else is responsible for you all.
    Ender walked up the
ramp to the shuttle, Valentine directly behind him.
    The shuttle took them
off Eros for the last time. Good-bye, Eros, and all the soldiers on it,
the ones who fought for me and the other children, the ones who
manipulated us and lied to us for the good of humanity, the ones who
conspired to defame me and keep me from returning to Earth, all of you,
good and bad, kind and selfish, good-bye to you, I am no longer one of
you, neither your pawn nor your savior. I resign my commission.
    Ender said nothing to
Valentine beyond the trivial comments of travel. It was only about a
half hour of jockeying until the shuttle was docked against the surface
of the transport ship. It had been meant to carry soldiers and their
weapons into war. Now it was carrying a vast amount of equipment and
supplies for the agricultural and manufacturing needs of Shakespeare
Colony, and more people to join them, to improve their gene pool, to
help buy them enough productivity that there'd be leisure for science
and creativity and luxury, a life closer to what the societies of Earth
offered.
    But all of that had
been loaded, and all the people. Ender was last. Ender and Valentine.
    At the bottom of the
ladderway that would take them up into the ship, Ender stopped and
faced Valentine. "You can still go back now," he said. "You can see
that I'll be fine. The people of the colony that I've met so far are
very nice and I won't be lonely."
    "Are you afraid to go
up the ladder first?" asked Valentine. "Is that why you've stopped to
make a speech?"
    So Ender went up the
ladder and Valentine followed, making her the last of the colonists to
cut the thread connecting them to Earth.
    Below them, the hatch
of the shuttle closed, and then the hatch of the ship. They stood in
the airlock until a door opened and there was Admiral Quincy Morgan,
smiling, his hand already extended. How long did he strike that pose
before the door opened, Ender wondered. Was he there, perhaps, for
hours, posed like a mannequin?
    "Welcome, Governor
Wiggin," said Morgan.
    "Admiral Morgan," said
Ender, "I'm not governor of anything until I set foot on the planet. On
this voyage, on your ship, I'm a student of the xenobiology and adapted
agriculture of Shakespeare Colony. I hope, though, that when you're not
too busy, I'll have a chance to talk to you and learn from you about
the military life."
    "You're the one who's
seen combat," said Morgan.
    "I played a game," said
Ender. "I saw nothing of war. But there are colonists on Shakespeare
who made this voyage many years ago, and never had a hope of returning
home to Earth. I want to get some idea of what their training was,
their life."
    "You'll have to read
books for that," said Morgan, still smiling. "This is my first
interstellar voyage, too. In fact, as far as I know, no one has ever
made two of them. Even Mazer Rackham only made a single voyage, which
ended at its starting place."
    "Why, I believe you're
right, Admiral Morgan," said Ender. "It makes us all pioneers together,
here in your ship." There—had he said "your ship" often
enough to reassure Morgan that he knew the order of authority here?
    Morgan's smile was
unchanged. "I'll be happy to talk to you any time. It's an honor to
have you on my ship, sir."
    "Please don't 'sir' me,
sir," said Ender. "We both know that I'm an admiral in name only, and I
don't want the colonists to hear anyone call me by a title other than
Mr. Wiggin, and preferably not that. Let me be Ender. Or Andrew, if you
want to be formal. Would that be all right, or would it interfere with
shipboard discipline?"
    "I believe," said
Admiral Morgan, "that it won't interfere with discipline, and
so it shall be entirely as you prefer. Now Ensign Akbar will show you
and your sister to your stateroom. Since so few passengers are making
the voyage awake, most families have quarters of similar size. I say
this because of your memo requesting that you not have an exorbitantly
oversized space on the ship."
    "Is your family aboard,
sir?" asked Ender.
    "I wooed my superiors
and they gave birth to my career," said Morgan. "The