Chapter 1:
“In the Giants Shadow”
The starship Herodotus left Earth in 2210 with four passengers. It accelerated nearly to lightspeed as quickly as it could, and then stayed at that speed, letting relativity do its work.
On Herodotus, just over five years had passed; it had been 421 years on Earth.
On Herodotus, the three thirteen- month- old babies had turned into six- year- olds, and the Giant had outlived his life expectancy by two years.
On Earth, starships had been launched to found ninetythree colonies, beginning with the worlds once colonized by the Formics and spreading to other habitable planets as soon as they were found.
On Herodotus, the six- year- old children were small for their age, but brilliant beyond their years, as the Giant had been when he was little, for in all four of them, Antons Key had been turned, a genetic defect and a genetic enhancement at the same time. Their intelligence was beyond the level of savants in every subject matter, without any of the debilitations of autism. But their bodies never stopped growing. They were small now, but by age twentytwo, they would be the size of the Giant, and the Giant would be long dead. For he was dying, and when he died, the children would be alone.
In the ansible room of Herodotus, Andrew “Ender” Delphiki sat perched on three books atop a seat designed for adults. This was how the children operated the main computer that processed communication through the ansible, the instant communicator that kept Herodotus linked to all the computer networks of the ninety- four worlds of Starways Congress.
Ender was reviewing a research report on genetic therapy that showed some promise, when Carlotta came into the ansible room. “Sergeant wants a sibmoot.”
“You found me,” said Ender. “So can he.”
Carlotta looked over his shoulder at the holodisplay. “Why do you bother?” she said. “Theres no cure. Nobodys even looking for it anymore.”
“The cure is for us all to die,” said Ender. “Then Anton syndrome disappears from the human species.”
“Well die eventually,” said Carlotta. “The Giant is dying now.”
“You know thats all Sergeant wants to talk about.”
“Well, we have to talk about it, dont we?”
“Not really. Itll happen, and then well deal with it.” Ender did not want to think about the Giants death. It was overdue, but as long as the Giant lived, Ender could hope to save him. Or at least bring him good news before he died.
“We cant talk in front of the Giant,” said Carlotta.
“Hes not here in the ansible room,” said Ender.
“You know he can hear us here if he wants.”
The more time Carlotta spent with Sergeant, the more she sounded like him. Paranoid. The Giant is listening.
“If hes hearing us now, he knows were having a meeting, and what its about, and so hell listen wherever we are.”
“Sergeant feels better about it when we take precautions.”
“I feel better when Im allowed to do my work.”
“Nobody in the universe has Anton syndrome except us,” Carlotta said, “so the researchers have all stopped working on it even though theres perpetual funding. Get over it.”
“Theyve stopped and I havent,” said Ender.
“How can you research it without lab equipment, without test subjects, without anything?”
“I have this incredibly brilliant mind,” said Ender cheerfully. “I look at all the genetic research theyre doing and Im connecting it with what we already know about Antons Key from back in the days when top scientists were working hard on the problem. I connect things that the humans could never see.”
“Were humans,” said Carlotta wearily.
“Our children wont be, if I can help it,” said Ender.
“ ‘Our children is a concept that will never have a realworld example,” said Carlotta. “Im not mating with either of my male sibs, which includes you. Period. Ever. It makes me want to puke.”
“The idea of sex is what makes you puke,” said Ender. “But Im not talking about ‘our children in the sense of any of us reproducing together. Im talking about the children well have when we rejoin the human race. Not the normal children, like our long- dead sibs who stayed with Mother and mated and had human children of their own. Im talking about the children with turned Keys, the children who are little and smart like us. If I can find a way to cure them—”
“The cure is to discard all the children like us, and keep the normal ones, and poof, Anton syndrome is gone.” Carlotta always came back to the same argument.
“Thats not a cure, thats extinction of our new species.”
“Were not a species if we can still interbreed with humans.”
“Were a species as soon as we find a way to pass along our brilliant minds without the fatal giantism.”
“The Giants supposedly as brilliant as we are. Let him work on Antons Key. Now come along so Sergeant doesnt get mad.”
“We cant let Sergeant boss us around just because he gets so angry when we dont obey.”
“Oh, brave talk,” said Carlotta. “Youre always the first to give in.”
“Not at this moment.”
“If Sergeant walked in here himself, youd apologize and drop everything and come. Youre only delaying because youre not afraid to annoy me.”
“Just as youre not afraid to annoy me.”
“Come on.”
“Where? Ill join you later.”
“If I say it, the Giant will listen in.”
“The Giant will track us anyway. If Sergeant is right and the Giant spies on us all the time, then theres nowhere to hide anyway.”
“Sergeant thinks there is.”
“And Sergeants always right.”
“Sergeant might be right and we can humor him and it costs us nothing.”
“I hate crawling through the air ducts,” said Ender. “You two love it, and thats fine, but I hate it.”
“Sergeant is being so nice today that he picked a place we can get to without going through ducts.”
“Where?”
“If I tell you, I have to kill you,” said Carlotta.
“Every minute you take me away from my genetic research youre bringing us that much closer to death.”
“You already made your point, and its an excellent point, and Im ignoring you because you are coming to our meeting if I have to drag you there in small pieces.”
“If you regard me as expendable, have the meeting without me.”
“Will you abide by whatever Sergeant and I decide?”
“If by ‘abide by you mean ‘ignore completely, then yes. Thats what your plans deserve.”
“We havent made plans yet.”
“Today. You havent made plans yet today.”
“Our other plans all failed because you didnt follow them.”
“I followed every plan I agreed with.”
“We outvoted you, Ender.”
“Thats why I never agreed to majority rule.”
“Whos in charge, then?”
“Nobody. The Giant.”
“He cant leave the cargo bay. Hes not in charge of anything.”
“Then why are you and Sergeant so afraid he might be listening in?”
“Because all he cares about is us, and he has nothing to do but spy on us.”
“He does research, just like me,” said Ender.
“Thats what Im afraid of. Results: zero. Time wasted: all of it.”
“You wont feel that way when I come up with the invasovirus that carries the cure to our giantism into every cell of your body and allows you to reach a normal human height and stop growing.”
“With my luck, youll switch off Antons Key and make us all stupid.”
“Normal humans arent stupid. Theyre just normal.”
“And they forgot us,” said Carlotta bitterly. “If they saw us again, theyd think we were nothing but children.”
“We are children.”
“Children our age are just learning to read and write and do their numbers,” said Carlotta. “We are more than a quarter of the way through our expected life span. Were the equivalent of twenty- five years old, in their species.”
Ender hated it when she threw his own arguments back at him. He was the one who argued that they were a new species, the next stage in human evolution, Homo antoninis, or perhaps Homo leguminensis, after the Giant, who had used the name “Bean” for most of his childhood. “They wont see us again, so they wont treat us like children,” said Ender. “Im not content with a life span of twenty years, nor with death by overgrowing the capacity of our own hearts. I dont intend to die gasping for breath while my brain dies because my heart cant get enough blood to it. I have work to do and an absolute deadline for doing it.”
Carlotta apparently was tired of bandying words. She leaned in close and whispered. “The Giant is dying. We have things to decide. If you dont want to be included in the decisions, ever, then by all means skip this meeting.”
Ender hated thinking about the Giants death. It would mean that Ender had failed, that whatever he learned later would have come too late.
And something else, too. A deeper feeling than frustration at failing to reach a goal. Ender had read about human feelings, and the words he thought came closest were “anguish” and “grief.” He could not speak of this, however, because he knew what Sergeant would say. “Why, Ender, I believe youre saying that you love the old monster.” And love, they knew, was a thing that came from the human side, from Mother, and
Mother had chosen to stay behind on Earth so her ordinary human children could lead ordinary human lives.
If love meant anything, the children had long ago concluded, it would have kept Mother with them, and their ordinary siblings, all of them on this ship, all of them looking together for a cure, for a new world, for a life together as a family.
When they were not yet two years of age, they said this to Father. He was so angry he forbade them to criticize their mother again. “It was the right choice,” he said. “You have no understanding of love.”
That was when they stopped calling him Father. As Sergeant said, “It was their decision to break the family. If we have no mother, then we have no father, either.” He was “the Giant” from then on. And they did not speak of Mother at all.
But Ender thought of her. Did she feel, when we left, what I feel now, thinking of the Giants dying? Anguish? Grief? They decided what they thought was best for their children. What would the life of the normal siblings be on this ship, if they had kept the family together? They would be larger than Sergeant, Carlotta, and Ender, but they would feel like great stupid oafs, never able to keep up with the antonines, the leguminotes, whatever they decided to call themselves. Mother and the Giant were right to divide the family. They were right about everything. But Ender could never say that to Sergeant. You could never say anything to Sergeant that he didnt want to hear.
It was a recapitulation of human history, right here on the Herodotus, that the most angry, aggressive, and violent of the three children was the one who always got his way. If were a new species, were only somewhat improved. All the alpha- male nonsense of the chimps and gorillas is still preserved in us.
Carlotta turned her back on him and started out of the room.
“Wait,” said Ender. “Cant you tell me what this is really about? Why are you always in on it, and I get things sprung on me with the two of you already in agreement, and no time for me to research anything or even come up with a decent argument?”
To her credit, Carlotta looked a little embarrassed. “Sergeant does what he wants.”
“But he always has you for an ally,” said Ender.
“He could have you, too, if you didnt always resist him.”
“He doesnt give me a chance to resist, he doesnt listen. Im the other male, dont you see? He has you under his control and me off balance because he intends to be the alpha.”
Carlotta frowned. “Mating is still a long way off.”
“Its already being determined by our choices now. Do you think Sergeant will take no for an answer?”
“We wont let him have his way on that.”
“We?” said Ender. “Whats this we? Theres you and him, and then theres me. Do you think you and I will suddenly become we just because you dont want to have his incestuous babies? If were not we now, not ever, then why do you think Ill risk my own survival to save you then?”
Carlotta blushed. “I will not talk about this.”
But youll think about it, Ender said silently. I made you think about it, and you wont let go of it. The alliances we make now will be the alliances then. Hell be the alpha male, youll be the devoted mate, and Ill be the nonmating subjugated male, powerless to do anything but what the alpha commands. If he hasnt killed me first. Thats the choice youre making now.
“Lets go hear what Sergeant has to say,” said Ender. “Not that you dont already know.”
“I really dont,” said Carlotta. “He doesnt let me in on what hes thinking any more than he does you.”
Ender didnt bother arguing with her, but it simply wasnt true. Or if she really didnt know, then she was always quick to come up with arguments to justify whatever nonsense Sergeant was trying to put forward. She always sounded as if she had agreed with Sergeants program even before he presented it.
Were still primates, only a few genes away from the hairless chimps that began to cook their food so that women stayed by the fi re to do the cooking while their monogamous mates ranged and hunted to bring home meat. And only a few genes farther from the hairy chimps that mated whenever they could, usually by force, and lived in terror of displeasing the alpha male.
The main difference is we come up with justifications and explanations, and we manipulate each other with words instead of violent displays or affectionate grooming. Or rather, our violent displays and affectionate grooming are words, so they take less energy, but do the same job.
“Ill pretend to believe you,” said Ender aloud, “in order to pretend that I think my presence at Sergeants meeting will do anything but prove his dominance over our pathetic little tribe.”
“Were a family,” said Carlotta.
“Our species hasnt existed long enough to evolve the family yet,” said Ender. But it was mere grumbling. He followed her into the bridge, where she pushed the manual lever to open the trap down to the maintenance shafts surrounding the plasma conductors, the ramscoop collector, and the gravity lens.
“Yes, lets spend hours here, and the whole question of founding a species becomes moot,” said Ender.
“The shielding works, were not scooping much anyway, and shut up,” said Carlotta
They went on down to engineering, which was Carlottas bailiwick. While Ender persisted with the gene tic research that was the whole reason for this voyage, Carlotta had become the onboard expert on mechanics, plasmatics, gravity lensing, and everything else to do with the workings of the ship. “Its our world,” she often said, “we might as well know how it works.” And more recently she had bragged, “If I had to, I could build the whole thing from scratch.”
From parts, you mean,” Sergeant had said.
“From ore in the mountains of some undiscovered planet,” said Carlotta. “From the metals in two asteroids and a comet. From the wreckage of this ship after a collision with a meteor.” Sergeant had laughed, but Ender believed her.
Carlotta led the way back to the lower lab.
“We could have walked down the corridor to the upper lab and skipped the whole trap door business,” Ender pointed out.
“The Giant can hear our footsteps from the upper lab.”
“Do you think he cant hear everything, everywhere?”
“I know he cant,” said Carlotta. “There are dead spots all over the ship where he cant hear anything.”
“That you know about.”
Carlotta didnt bother to answer. They both knew that Ender didnt actually care whether the Giant heard them or not— it was Sergeant who had to conceal everything, or at least believe that he was concealing himself.
Aft of the lower lab was the elevator shaft that led back to life support. During strong acceleration phases, the back of the ship became the bottom of a deep well, and the elevator made it possible to go down to life support at the base— and back up again. But in flight, gravity was polarized the other direction, so that the elevator became a simple walkway, at ten percent of Earth normal, leading aft to life support.
The payload area of the ship, where the Giant lived because he couldnt fi t anywhere else, was directly above them. So they walked slowly and lightly, being careful to make no noise. If Sergeant heard them, hed be furious because it meant the Giant could hear them, too.
Sergeant wasnt in life support, though he had the fans running full blast to pump freshly oxygenated air through the ducts and muffl e sound. Ender could never decide whether it smelled like fresh air or decay— the lichens and algae that lived in hundreds of large trays under fake sunlight were constantly dying, their protoplasm then getting incorporated into the next generation in a continuous cycle.
“You know what this place needs?” said Carlotta. “A dead fish. To improve the smell.”
“You dont know what a dead fish smells like,” said Ender.
“Weve never seen a fish.”
“Ive seen pictures, and all the books say fish smell bad when they rot.”
“Worse than rotting algae,” said Ender.
“You dont know that,” said Carlotta.
“If rotting algae smelled worse, then the saying would be, ‘Algae and visitors begin to stink after three days. ”
“None of us knows what were talking about,” said Carlotta.
“And yet we keep talking,” said Ender.
Ender expected to find Sergeant in the Puppy— the maintenance craft that was programmed by the Giant to remain within fi ve meters of the surface of Herodotus no matter what contrary instructions it might be given. Ender knew Carlotta had tried for months to untether the Puppy, but she couldnt defeat the programming.
Things like that made it clear to Ender, if to neither of the others, that the Giant was every bit as smart as they were, and he had years of experience behind him. All of Sergeants
precautions were pointless, because at his oversized console in the payload area, the Giant could do whatever he wanted, hear and see and probably smell whatever he wanted, and his children could do nothing about it, nor even detect his spying.
The others refused to believe it, but Ender understood that they were children. Antons Key meant their brains were still growing— and so was the Giants brain. His capacity was so far beyond theirs by now that it was a joke to think of outsmarting him. But such was Sergeants competitive nature that he not only believed he could outsmart the Giant, he believed he already had.
Delusional. One of your children is insane, O Giant, and it isnt me and it isnt the girl. What are you going to do about it?
All right, not insane. Just . . . warlike. While Carlotta studied the engineering of the ship and Ender studied the human genome and methods of altering it, Sergeant studied weapons, wars, and means of death. He came by it naturally— the Giant had been a great military commander on Earth, perhaps the best that ever lived, though if he was, Mother had not been far behind him. Bean and Petra— the most powerful weapons in the Hegemons arsenal as he united the world under a single government. It was only to be expected that some of their children would be warriors at heart, and that was Sergeant.
Even Carlotta was more warlike than Ender. Ender hated violence, hated confrontation. He just wanted to do his work and be left alone. He could see one of his sibs do something remarkable and he had no urge to match or surpass them— on the contrary, he was proud of them, or frightened for them, depending on whether he approved of whatever stunt they were attempting.
Carlotta removed a narrow panel from near the ceiling of the access shaft.
“Oh, not really,” said Ender.
“We fit just fine,” said Carlotta. “Youre not claustrophobic, are you?”
“Its the gravity lensing field,” said Ender. “And its active.”
“Its just gravity. Ten percent of Earth. And were sandwiched between two plates, its not like we can fall.”
“I hate the way it feels.” They had played in that space when they were two- year- olds. It was like spinning around until you were dizzy. Only worse.
“Get over it,” said Carlotta. “Weve tested it, and sound really does get nullified in here.”
“Right,” said Ender. “How are we going to hear each other speak?”
“Tin can telephones,” said Carlotta.
Of course they werent the toy sound transmitters that they had made when they were really little. Carlotta had long since reengineered them so that, without any power source, they transmitted sound cleanly along ten meters of fi ne wire, even around corners or pinched in doors.
Sure enough, there was Sergeant, his eyes closed, “meditating”— which Ender interpreted to mean that Sergeant was plotting how he would take over all the human
worlds before he died of giantism at age twenty.
“Nice of you to come,” said Sergeant. Ender couldnt hear him, but he could read his lips and besides, he already knew it was exactly what Sergeant was likely to say.
Soon they were hooked up in a three- way connection with Carlottas tin cans. They all had to lie in a line with their heads turned, Ender between Carlotta and Sergeant so he couldnt decide to end the conversation and slither out.
As soon as Ender crept into the gravity field, he had felt that sense of plunging over the top of a waterfall or leaping off a bridge. Down down down, said his sense of balance.
Falling! warned his limbic node, all in a panic. For the first few minutes in the gravity field, Ender couldnt stop himself from flailing about in the startle reflex every ten seconds or so, but thats why Carlotta taped his tin can to his face, so he couldnt knock it away in one of his paroxysms.
“Get on with it,” said Ender grimly. “Ive got work to do and this place feels like continuous death.”
“Its thrilling,” said Sergeant. “Humans spend money to get inside a gravity field for the adrenaline rush, and here we get this one for free.”
Ender said nothing. The more he demanded that they hurry, the more Sergeant would digress and delay.
“For once I agree with Ender,” said Carlotta. “I programmed turbulence into the lens and its getting to me.”
So Ender was right that it felt worse than usual. For only the ten- thousandth time in his life, Ender wished he had beaten the kuso out of Sergeant when they first met. It would have established a different pecking order.
Instead, Ender had paid attention when Mother kept telling him about how the other kids were “just as much our genuine children as you,” even though Ender had actually been born from Mothers body and the other kids had been implanted in the wombs of surrogates.
For the normal kids, that was no big deal— they would have no memories of living anywhere else. But the antonines, Sergeant and Carlotta, were aware of everything at six months instead of three years. They remembered their surrogate families and felt like strangers with Mother and Father.
Ender could have bullied and bossed them, but he didnt. He tried not to imply that he thought of himself as the “real” child, though at the age of twelve months, of course he felt that way. Sergeants reaction to the strange situation was to assert himself and try to take control. He must have been hell for his surrogate parents in the fi rst year of his life. They would have had no idea what to do with a child who talked in full sentences by six months, who climbed everywhere and got into everything by nine months, who was teaching himself to read at age one.
Carlotta, on the other hand, was reticent; her surrogate parents might not have known just how much she could do at such an early age. When Father and Mother brought her home, she responded to the new situation with shyness, and she and Ender quickly became friends. Sergeant, feeling threatened, had to turn everything into a contest— or a fight.
Ender mostly evaded Sergeants belligerency. Unfortunately, Sergeant took that to mean submission. Except when he took it as arrogance. “You dont compete because you think
youve already won everything.”
Ender didnt think hed won. He just thought of competition with Sergeant as a distraction. A waste of time. Its not fun playing with somebody who absolutely has to win, every single time.
“The Giant is taking a long time to die,” said Sergeant.
In that instant, Ender understood the entire meeting. Sergeant was getting impatient. He was son of the king and ready to inherit. How many times had this script been acted out in human history?
“So what do you propose?” asked Ender neutrally. “Evacuate the air from the payload area? Poison his water or his food? Or will you insist we all hold knives and stab him to
death?”
“Dont be melodramatic,” said Sergeant. “The bigger he gets, the harder it will be to deal with the carcass.”
“Open the cargo bay and jettison it into space,” said Carlotta.
“No,” said Sergeant. “More than half our nutrients are tied up in his body and its beginning to affect life support. We have to be able to reclaim those nutrients so we have something to eat and breathe as we get larger.”
“So we cut him up into steaks?” asked Ender.
“I knew youd react that way,” said Sergeant mildly. “We wont eat him, not directly, well slice him and put him in the trays. The bacteria will dissolve him and the lichen will
have a growth spurt.”
“And then double rations for everybody,” said Ender.
“All I propose is that we stop feeding him his full daily calories. By the time he notices, hell have become so feeble that he cant do anything about it.”
“He wont want to,” said Ender. “As soon as he realizes were trying to kill him, hell want to die.”
“Melodrama!” said Sergeant. “Nobody wants to die, unless theyre insane. The Giant wants to live. And he isnt sentimental like you, Ender. Hell kill us before hell let us kill him.”
“Dont assume that the Giant is as evil as you,” said Ender.
Carlotta tugged on his foot. “Play nice, Ender,” she said.
Ender knew how this would play out. Carlotta would express her regret but shed agree with Sergeant. If Ender tried to give the Giant extra calories, Sergeant would beat him and Carlotta would stand by, or even help hold him. Not that the beatings ever lasted long. Ender just had no interest in fighting, so he didnt defend himself. After a few blows, he always gave in.
But this was different. The Giant was dying anyway. That caused Ender enough anguish that the idea of hastening the process was unbearable.
Nothing unbearable had ever been proposed before. So Enders reaction surprised even him. No, especially him.
Sergeants head was right there, just above Enders own. Ender reached up, and with all the power of his arms, he rammed Sergeants head into the wall.
Sergeants hands immediately snaked out to begin the battle, but Ender had taken him by surprise— no one had ever actively hurt Sergeant before, and he wasnt used to dealing
with pain. By the time Sergeants hands were groping for Enders arms, Enders legs were braced on both sides of the field containment shaft and he was ramming the heel of his hand full strength into Sergeants nose.
Blood sprayed out and floated in globules that “fell” in every direction in the turbulent gravity field.
Sergeants grip faltered. This was serious pain. Ender could hear him shouting in fury into the tin can.
Ender shaped his hand into a fist and drove a knuck into Sergeants eye.
Sergeant screamed.
Carlotta twisted on Enders foot, shouting, “What are you doing? Whats going on?”
Ender braced himself against her grip and drove the edge of his hand into Sergeants throat.
Sergeant choked and gasped.
Ender did it again.
Sergeant stopped breathing, his eyes bugging out in terror.
Ender pulled himself along until his mouth was over Sergeants.
He locked their lips together and blew into Sergeants mouth, hard. He got blood and snot from Sergeants nose inside his mouth when he did, but he couldnt avoid that; he
hadnt yet decided whether to kill Sergeant. The rational part of Enders mind, which had always been in control till now, was beginning to reassert itself.
“Heres how its going to be,” said Ender. “Your reign of terror is over. You proposed murder and you meant it.”
“He didnt mean it,” said Carlotta.
Ender lashed back with his foot and caught her in the mouth. She cried out and then just cried.
“He meant it and you would have helped him with it,” said Ender. “Ive put up with this goffno till now but now you crossed the line. Sergeant, youre not in charge of anything.
If you try to give orders to anybody again, Ill kill you. Do you understand me?”
“Ender, hell kill you now!” cried Carlotta through her tears.
“Whats happened to you?”
“Sergeant will not kill me,” said Ender. “Because Sergeant knows that I just became his commanding officer. Hes been dying to have one, and the Giant wouldnt do it, so I will. Since you dont have a conscience of your own, Sergeant, you will have mine from now on. You dont do anything violent or dangerous without my permission. If you catch yourself thinking about harming me or anyone else, Ill know it because I can read your body like a big- print book.”
“No you cant,” said Carlotta.
“I can read the human body the way you read the machinery on the ship, Carlotta,” said Ender. “I always know what Sergeants planning, I just never cared enough to stop him
until now. When the Giant dies, of his own accord, in his own good time, then we will probably do something like what you proposed, Sergeant, because we cant lose the nutrients. But we dont need those nutrients now and we wont need them for years. Meanwhile, Ill do all I can to keep the Giant alive.”
“You would never kill me,” croaked Sergeant.
“Patricide is a thousand times worse than fratricide,” said Ender, “and I wont even hesitate. You didnt have to cross this line, but you did, and I think you knew what Id do. I think you wanted me to do it. I think youre terrifi ed by the fact that nobody ever stopped you from doing anything. Well, this is your lucky day. Im stopping you from now on. You and your weapons and your war games— I learned how to damage the human body and I can promise you, Sergeant, I have permanently changed your voice and your nose. Every time you look in the mirror, every time you hear yourself talk, youll remember— Ender is in charge and Sergeant will do as Ender tells him. Got it?”
As punctuation, Ender wrung Sergeants nose, which was definitely broken.
Sergeant cried out, but that hurt his throat terribly and he gurgled and choked and spat.
“The Giants going to ask what happened to Sergeant,” Carlotta said.
“He wont have to ask,” said Ender. “Im going to repeat our conversation to him, verbatim, and the two of you will be there to listen. Now, Carlotta, back down this shaft so I can drag Sergeants miserable body out to where we can get the bleeding stopped.”