Ender's Shadow

Mazer Rackham's strike force in the heroic battle that broke the back of the Second Invasion.
      Bean watched them too, though not over and over again -- once he saw them, he remembered them perfectly and could replay them in his mind, with enough detail that he could notice things later that he hadn't realized at first. Was Wiggin seeing something new each time he went back to these vids? Or was he looking for something that he hadn't yet found?
      Is he trying to understand the way the Buggers think? Why doesn't he realize that the library here simply doesn't have enough of the vids to make it useful? It's all propaganda stuff here. They withheld all the terrible scenes of dead guys, of fighting and killing hand to hand when ships were breached and boarded. They didn't have vids of defeats, where the Buggers blew the human ships out of the sky. All they had here was ships moving around in space, a few minutes of preparation for combat.
      War in space? So exciting in the made-up stories, so boring in reality. Occasionally something would light up, mostly it was just dark.
      And, of course, the obligatory moment of Mazer Rackham's victory.
      What could Wiggin possibly hope to learn?
      Bean learned more from the omissions than from what he actually saw. For instance, there was not one picture of Mazer Rackham anywhere in the library. That was odd. The Triumvirates' faces were everywhere, as were those of other commanders and political leaders. Why not Rackham? Had he died in the moment of victory? Or was he, perhaps, a fictitious figure, a deliberately-created legend, so that there could be a name to peg the victory to? But if that were the case, they'd have created a face for him -- it was too easy to do that. Was he deformed?
      Was he really, really small?
      If I grow up to be the commander of the human fleet that defeats the Buggers, will they hide my picture, too, because someone so tiny can never be seen as a hero?
      Who cares? I don't want to be a hero.
      That's Wiggin's gig.
     
     
     
      Nikolai, the boy across from him. Bright enough to make some guesses Bean hadn't made first. Confident enough not to get angry when he caught Bean intruding on him. Bean was so hopeful when he came at last to Nikolai's file.
      The teacher evaluation was negative. "A place-holder." Cruel -- but was it true?
      Bean realized: I have been putting too much trust in the teachers' evaluations. Do I have any real evidence that they're right? Or do I believe in their evaluations because I am rated so highly? Have I let them flatter me into complacency?
      What if all their evaluations were hopelessly wrong?
      I had no teacher files on the streets of Rotterdam. I actually knew the children. Poke -- I made my own judgment of her, and I was almost right, just a few surprises here and there. Sergeant -- no surprises at all. Achilles -- yes, I knew him.
      So why have I stayed apart from the other students? Because they isolated me at first, and because I decided that the teachers had the power. But now I see that I was only partly right. The teachers have the power here and now, but someday I will not be in Battle School, and what does it matter then what the teachers think of me? I can learn all the military theory and history that I want, and it will do me no good if they never entrust me with command. And I will never be placed in charge of an army or a fleet unless they have reason to believe that other men would follow me.
      Not men today, but boys, most of them, a few girls. Not men, but they will be men. How do they choose their leaders? How do I make them follow one who is so small, so resented?
      What did Wiggin do?
      Bean asked Nikolai which of the kids in their launch group practiced with Wiggin.
      "Only a few. And they on the fringes, neh? Suckups and brags.”
      "But who are they?”
      "You trying to get in with Wiggin?”
      "Just want to find out about him.”
      "What you want to know?”
      The questions bothered Bean. He didn't like talking so much about what he was doing. But he didn't sense any malice in Nikolai. He just wanted to know.
      "History. He the best, neh? How he get that way?" Bean wondered if he sounded quite natural with the soldier slang. He hadn't used it that much. The music of it, he still wasn't quite there.
      "You find out, you tell me." He rolled his eyes in self-derision.
      "I'll tell you," said Bean.
      "I got a chance to be best like Ender?"