A War of Gifts Read online

  Bridegan came into the kitchen. "Welcome to Battle School, soldier."

  Zeck did not answer. He was still reeling from what she had said. How can I convert anyone, when I'm still impure myself?

  "I have to talk to Father," said Zeck.

  "Not a chance," said Agnes. "It's the impure Zechariah Morgan that we want. Not the pure one who confessed everything to his father. Besides, we don't have time to wait for another set of lash wounds to heal."

  Bridegan laughed harshly. "If that bastard raises his hand against this boy one more time, I'll blast it off."

  Zeck whirled on him, filled with rage. "Then what would that make you?"

  Bridegan only kept on laughing. "It would make me what I've always been--a bloody-minded soldier. My job is defending the helpless against the cruel. That's what we're doing, fighting the Formics--and it's what I'd be doing if I took off your father's hands up to the elbows."

  In reply, Zeck recited from the book of Daniel. "'A stone was cut out without hands, which smote the image upon his feet that were of iron and clay, and brake them in pieces.'"

  "Without hands. A neat trick," said Bridegan.

  "'And the stone that smote the image became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth,'" said Zeck.

  "He's got the whole King James version by heart," said Agnes.

  "'And in the days of these kings,'" recited Zeck, "'shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever.'"

  "They're going to love him up in Battle School," said Bridegan.

  So Zeck spent that Christmas in space, heading up to the station that housed Battle School. He did nothing to cause disturbance, obeyed every order he was given. When his launch group first went into the Battle Room, Zeck learned to fly just like all the others. He even pointed his weapon at targets that were assigned.

  It took quite a while before anyone noticed that Zeck never actually hit anybody with his weapon. In every battle, he was zero for zero. Statistically, he was the worst soldier in the history of the school. In vain did the teachers point out that it was just a game.

  "'Neither shall they learn war any more,'" quoted Zeck in return. "I will not offend God by learning war." They could take him into space, they could make him wear the uniform, they could force him into the Battle Room, but they couldn't make him shoot.

  It took many months, and they still wouldn't send him home, but at least they left him alone. He belonged to an army, he practiced with them, but on every battle report, he was listed with zero effectiveness. There was no soldier in the school prouder of his record.

  4

  SINTERKLAAS EVE

  Dink Meeker watched as Ender Wiggin came through the door into Rat Army's barracks. As usual, Rosen was near the entrance, and he immediately launched into his "I Rose de Nose, Jewboy extraordinaire" routine. It was how Rosen wrapped himself in the military reputation of Israel, even though Rosen wasn't Israeli and he also wasn't a particularly good commander.

  Not a bad one, either. Rat Army was in second place in the standings. But how much of that was Rosen, and how much was the fact that Rosen relied so heavily on Dink's toon--which Dink had trained?

  Dink was the better commander, and he knew it--he had been offered Rat Army and Rosen only got it when Dink turned down the promotion. Nobody knew that, of course, except Dink and Colonel Graff and whatever other teachers might have known. There was no reason to tell it--it would only weaken Rosen and also make Dink look like a braggart or a fool, depending on whether people believed his claim. So he made no claim.

  This was Rosen's show. Let him write the script.

  "That's the great Ender Wiggin?" asked Flip. His name was short for Filippus, and, like Dink, he was Dutch. He was also very young and had yet to do anything impressive. It had to gall a young kid like Flip that Ender Wiggin had been placed into the Battle Room early and then rose to the very top of the standings almost instantly.

  "I told you," said Dink, "he's number one because his commander wouldn't let him shoot his weapon. So when he finally did it--disobeying his commander, I might add--he got this incredible kill ratio. It's a fluke of how they keep the stats."

  "Kuso," said Flip. "If Ender's such a big nothing, why did you go out of your way to get him in your toon?"

  So somebody had overheard Dink ask Rosen to assign Ender to his toon, and word had spread. "Because I needed somebody smaller than you," said Dink.

  "And you've been watching him. I've seen you. Watching him."

  It was easy to forget sometimes that every kid in this place was brilliant. Observant. Clear memory and sharp analytical skills. Even the ones who were still too timid to have done much of anything. Not a good place for doing anything surreptitious.

  "E," said Dink. "I think he's got something."

  "What's he got that I don't got?"

  "Command of English grammar," said Dink.

  "Everybody talks like that," said Flip.

  "Everybody's a sheep," said Dink. "I'm getting out of here." Moments later, Dink pushed past Rosen and Ender and left the room.

  He didn't want to talk to Ender right away. Because this genius kid probably remembered the first time they met. In a bathroom, right after Ender was put in Salamander Army's uniform, his first day in the game. Dink had seen how small he was and said something like, "He's so small he could walk between my legs without touching my balls." It didn't mean anything, and one of his friends had immediately said, "Cause you got none, Dink, that's why," so it's not like Dink had scored any points.

  But it was a stupid thing to say, which was fine; you could be stupid around new kids. Except it had been Ender Wiggin, and Dink now knew that this kid was something else, someone important, and he deserved better. Dink wanted to be the guy who knew right away what Ender Wiggin was. Instead, he'd been the idiot who made a stupid joke about how short Ender was.

  Short? Ender was small because he was young. It was a mark of brilliance, to be brought to Battle School a year younger than other kids. And then he was advanced to Salamander Army while all the rest of his launch group were still in basic. So he was really under age. And therefore small. So what kind of idiot would mock the kid for being smarter than anybody else?

  Oh, suck it up, oomay, he told himself. What does it matter what Wiggin thinks of you? Your job is to train him. To make up for the weeks he wasted in Bonzo Madrid's stupid Salamander Army and help this kid become what he's supposed to become.

  Not that Wiggin had really wasted the time. The kid had been running practice sessions for launchies and other rejects during free time, and Dink had come and watched. Wiggin was doing new things. Moves that Dink had never seen before. They had possibilities. So Dink was going to use those techniques in his toon. Give Wiggin a chance to see his ideas played out in combat in the Battle Room.

  I'm not Bonzo. I'm not Rosen. Having a soldier under me who's better than I am, smarter, more inventive, doesn't threaten me. I learn from everybody. I help everybody. It's about the only way I can be rebellious in this place--they chose us for our ambition and they prod us to be competitive. So I don't compete. I cooperate.

  Dink was sitting in the game room, watching the other players--he had beaten all the games in the room, so he had nothing left to prove--when Wiggin found him. If Wiggin remembered Dink's first dumb joke about his height, Wiggin didn't show it. Instead, Dink let him know which of Rosen's rules and orders he had to obey, and which he didn't. He also let him know that Dink wouldn't be playing power games with him--he was going to get Ender into the battles from the start, pushing him, giving him a chance to learn and grow.

  Wiggin clearly understood what Dink was doing for him. He left, satisfied.

  There's my contribution to the survival of the human race, thought Dink. I'm not what great commanders are made of. But I know a great commander when I see one, and I can help get hi
m ready. That's good enough for me. I can take this stupid, ineffective school and accomplish something that actually might help us win this war. Something real.

  Not this stupid make-believe. Battle School! It was children's games, but structured by adults in order to manipulate the children. But what did it have to do with the real war? You rise to the top of the standings, you beat everybody, and then what? Did you kill a single Bugger? Save a single human life? No. You just go on to the next school and start over as nothing again. Was there any evidence that Battle School accomplished anything?

  Sure, the graduates ended up filling important positions throughout the fleet. But then, Battle School only admits kids that are brilliant in the first place, so they would have been command material already. Was there any evidence that Battle School made a difference?

  I could have been home in Holland, walking by the North Sea. Watching it pound against the shore, trying to wash over and sweep away the dikes, the islands, and cover the land with ocean, as it used to be, before humans started their foolish terraforming experiment.

  Dink remembered reading--back on Earth, when he could read what he wanted--the silly claim that the Great Wall of China was the only human artifact that could be seen from space. In fact the claim wasn't even true--at least not from geosynchronous orbit or higher. The wall didn't even cast enough of a shadow to be seen.

  No, the human artifact that could be seen from space, that showed up in picture after picture without exciting any comment at all, was Holland. It should have been nothing but barrier islands with wide saltwater sounds behind them. Instead, because the Dutch built their dikes and pumped out the salt water and purified the soil, it was land. Lush, green land--visible from space.

  But nobody recognized it as a human artifact. It was just land. It grew plants and fed dairy cattle and held houses and highways, just like any other land. But we did it. We Dutch. And when the sea levels rose, we raised our dikes higher and made them thicker and stronger, and nobody thought, Wow, look at the Dutch, they created the largest human artifact on Earth, and they're still making it, a thousand years later.

  I could have been home in Holland until they were actually ready to have me do something real. As real as the land behind the dikes.

  Free time was over. Dink went to practice. Then he ate with the rest of Rat Army--complete with the ritual of pretending that all their food was rat food. Dink noticed how Wiggin observed and seemed to enjoy the game--but didn't take part. He stayed aloof, watching.

  That's something else we have in common.

  Something else? Why had he thought of it that way? What was the first thing they had in common, that made it so standing aloof was something else?

  Oh, that's right. I almost forgot. We're the smartest kids in the room.

  Dink silently laughed at himself with perfect scorn. Right, I'm not competitive. I know I'm not the best--but without even thinking about it, I assume that I'm therefore second best. What an eemo.

  Dink went to the library and studied awhile. He hoped that Petra would come by, but she didn't. Instead of talking to her--the only other kid he knew who shared his contempt for the system--he actually finished his assignments. It was history, so it mattered that he do well.

  He got back to the barracks a little early. Maybe he'd sleep. Maybe play some game on his desk. Maybe there'd be somebody in a talkative mood and Dink would have a conversation. No plans. He refused to care.

  Flip was there, too. Already getting undressed for bed. But instead of putting his shoes in his locker with the rest of his uniform and his flash suit and the few other possessions a kid could have in Battle School, he had set his shoes down on the floor near the foot of his bed, toes out.

  There was something familiar about it.

  Flip looked at him and smiled wanly and rolled his eyes. Then he swung up onto his bed and started reading something on his desk, scrolling through what must be homework, because now and then he'd run his finger across some section of the text to highlight it.

  The shoes. This was December fifth. It was Sinterklaas Eve. Flip was Dutch, so of course he had set out his shoes.

  Tonight, Sinterklaas--Sint Nikolaas, patron saint of children--would come from his home in Spain, with Black Peter carrying his bag of presents, and listen through the chimneys of the houses throughout Holland, checking to see if children were quarreling or disobedient. If the children were good, then they would knock on the door and, when it was opened, fling candy into the house. Children would rush out the door and find presents left in baskets--or in their shoes, left by the front door.

  And Flip had set his shoes out on Sinterklaas Eve.

  For some reason, Dink found his eyes clouding with tears. This was stupid. Yes, he missed home--missed his father's house near the strand. But Sinterklaas was for little children, not for him. Not for a child in Battle School.

  But Battle School is nothing, right? I should be home. And if I were home, I'd be helping to make Sinterklaas Day for the younger children. If there had been any younger children in our house.

  Without really deciding to do it, Dink took out his desk and started to write.

  His shoes will sit and gather moss

  Without a gift from Sinterklaas

  For when a soldier cannot cross

  The battle room without a loss

  Then why should Sinterklaas equip

  A kid who cannot fly with zip

  But crawls instead just like a drip

  Of rain on glass, not like a ship

  That flies through space: I speak of Flip.

  It wasn't a great poem, of course, but the whole idea of Sinterklaas poems was that they made fun of the recipient of the gift without giving offense. The lamer the poem, the more it made fun of the giver of the gift rather than the target of the rhyme. Flip still got teased about the fact that when he first was assigned to Rat Army, a couple of times he had bad launches from the wall of Battle Room and ended up floating like a feather across the room, a perfect target for the enemy.

  Dink would have written the verse in Dutch, but it was a dying language, and Dink didn't know if he spoke it well enough to actually use it for poem-writing. Nor was he sure Flip could read a Dutch poem, not if there were any unusual words in it. Netherlands was just too close to Britain. The BBC had made the Dutch bilingual; the European Community had made them mostly anglophone.

  The poem was done, but there was no way to extrude printed paper from a desk. Ah well, the night was young. Dink put it in the print queue and got up from bed to wander the corridors, desk tucked under his arm. He'd pick up the poem before the printer room closed, and he'd also search for something that might serve as a gift.

  In the end he found no gift, but he did add two lines to the poem:

  If Piet gives you a gift today,

  You'll find it on your breakfast tray.

  It's not as if there were a lot of things available to the kids in Battle School. Their only games were in their desks or in the game room; their only sport was in the Battle Room. Desks and uniforms; what else did they need to own?

  This bit of paper, thought Dink. That's what he'll have in the morning.

  It was dark in the barracks, and most kids were asleep, though a few still worked on their desks, or played some stupid game. Didn't they know the teachers did psychological analysis on them based on the games they played? Maybe they just didn't care. Dink sometimes didn't care either, and played. But not tonight. Tonight he was seriously pissed off. And he didn't even know why.

  Yes he did. Flip was getting something from Sinterklaas--and Dink wasn't. He should have. Dad would have made sure he got something from Black Piet's bag. Dink would have hunted all over the house for it on Sinterklaas morning until he finally found it in some perverse hiding place.

  I'm homesick. That's all. Isn't that what the stupid counselor told him? You're homesick--get over it. The other kids do, said the counselor.

  But they don't, thought Dink. They just hide i
t. From each other, from themselves.

  The remarkable thing about Flip was that tonight he didn't hide it.

  Flip was already asleep. Dink folded the paper and slipped it into one of the shoes.

  Stupid greedy kid. Leaving out both shoes.

  But of course that wasn't it at all. If he had left only one shoe, that would have been proof positive of what he was doing. Someone might have guessed and then Flip would have been mocked mercilessly for being so homesick and childish. So...both shoes. Deniability. Not Sinterklaas Day at all--I just left my shoes by the side of my bed.

  Dink crawled into his own bed and lay there for a little while, filled with a deep and unaccountable sadness. It wasn't homesickness, not really. It was the fact that Dink was no longer the child; now he was the one who helped Sinterklaas do his job. Of course the old saint couldn't get from Spain to Battle School, not in the ship he used. Somebody had to help him out.

  Dink was being, not the child, but the dad. He would never be the child again.

  5

  SINTERKLAAS DAY

  Zeck saw the shoes. He saw Dink put something into the shoe in the darkness, when most kids were asleep. But it meant nothing to him, except that these two Dutch boys were doing something weird.

  Zeck wasn't in Dink's toon. He wasn't really in any toon. Because nobody wanted him, and it wouldn't matter if they had. Zeck didn't play.

  Which made it all the more remarkable that Rat Army was in second place--they won their battles with one less active soldier than anybody else.

  At first Rosen had threatened him and tried to take away privileges--even meals--but Zeck simply ignored him, like he ignored other kids who shoved him and jostled him in the corridors. What did he care? Their physical brutality, mild as it might be, showed what kind of people they were--the impurity of their souls--because they rejoiced in violence.

  Genesis, chapter six, verse thirteen: "And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth."