First meetings in the Enderverse

room. He recognized Graff and Anderson from Battle School, and vaguely remembered a few of the men from Command School-teachers for a few hours at some time or another. But most of the people he didn’t know at all.
    “Who are they?”
    Mazer shook his head and answered, “Observers. Every now and then we let observers come in to watch the battle. If you don’t want them, we’ll send them out.”
    Ender shrugged. Mazer began his explanation. “Today’s game, boy, has a new element. We’re staging this battle around a planet. This will complicate things in two ways. The planet isn’t large, on the scale we’re using, but the ansible can’t detect anything on the other side of it-so there’s a blind spot. Also, it’s against the rules to use weapons against the planet itself. All right?”
    “Why, don’t the weapons work against planets?”
    Mazer answered coldly, “There are rules of war, Ender, that apply even in training games.”
    Ender shook his head slowly. “Can the planet attack?”
    Mazer looked nonplussed for a moment, then smiled. “I guess you’ll have to find that one out, boy. And one more thing. Today, Ender, your opponent isn’t the computer. I am your enemy today, and today I won’t be letting you off so easily. Today is a battle to the end. And I’ll use any means I can to defeat you.”
    Then Mazer was gone, and Ender expressionlessly led his toon leaders through maneuvers. Ender was doing well, of course, but several of the observers shook their heads, and Graff kept clasping and unclasping his hands, crossing and uncrossing his legs. Ender would be slow today, and today Ender couldn’t afford to be slow.
    A warning buzzer sounded, and Ender cleared the simulator board, waiting for today’s game to appear. He felt muddled today, and wondered why people were there watching. Were they going to judge him today? Decide if he was good enough for something else? For another two years of grueling training, another two years of struggling to exceed his best? Ender was twelve. He felt very old. And as he waited for the game to appear, he wished he could simply lose it, lose the battle badly and completely so that they would remove him from the program, punish him however they wanted, he didn’t care, just so he could sleep.

    Then the enemy formation appeared, and Ender’s weariness turned to desperation. The enemy outnumbered him a thousand to one, the simulator glowed green with them, and Ender knew that he couldn’t win.
    And the enemy was not stupid. There was no formation that Ender could study and attack. Instead the vast swarms of ships were constantly moving, constantly shifting from one momentary formation to another, so that a space that for one moment was empty was immediately filled with a formidable enemy force. And even though Ender’s fleet was the largest he had ever had, there was no place he could deploy it where he would outnumber the enemy long enough to accomplish anything. And behind the enemy was the planet. The planet, which Mazer had warned him about. What difference did a planet make, when Ender couldn’t hope to get near it? Ender waited, waited for the flash of insight that would tell him what to do, how to destroy the enemy. And as he waited, he heard the observers behind him begin to shift in their seats, wondering what Ender was doing, what plan he would follow. And finally it was obvious to everyone that Ender didn’t know what to do, that there was nothing to do, and a few of the men at the back of the room made quiet little sounds in their throats. Then Ender heard Bean’s voice in his ear. Bean chuckled and said, “Remember, the enemy’s gate is down.” A few of the other toon leaders laughed, and Ender thought back to the simple games he had played and won in Battle School. They had put him against hopeless odds there, too. And he had beaten them. And he’d be damned if he’d let Mazer Rackham beat him with a cheap trick like outnumbering him a thousand to one. He had won a game in Battle School by going for something the enemy didn’t expect, something against the rules-he had won by going against the enemy’s gate. And the enemy’s gate was down.
    Ender smiled, and realized that if he broke this rule they’d probably kick him out of school, and that way he’d win for sure: He would never have to play a game again.
    He whispered into the microphone. His six commanders each took a part of the fleet and launched themselves against