Children of the Fleet (Fleet School #1)(28)

This seemed absurd to Dabeet, because anyone stationed in the solar system was an Onlooker, except the children in Ender Wiggin’s jeesh, who directed the operations of the real fleets many lightyears away. Yet the three children here who had an ancestor in one of the actual combat fleets were called “grandchildren,” because their IF relative had left after the Second Formic War several generations before. Apparently it wasn’t just about where your parent served, but also about how many generations you were removed from the pertinent forebear.

The True Children all carried themselves as if they bore special authority or status, despite the pecking order among them. But the other kids were not at all deferent to them. One group was called “Inks,” which, Dabeet learned from a quick inquiry on his desk, was derived from the American abbreviation for a corporation: “inc.” These children had parents who worked for the big multinational corporations that owned all the best real estate in the Asteroid Belt and on Mars and the various moons that had stations.

Then there were the “Miners”—or, as they called themselves, the “Freeborn,” whose families worked mostly in the Kuiper Belt as independent asteroid hunters. They were generally poor, compared to corporate families, but they had been crucial in the first two Formic Wars and had been granted full equality with the corporate and Fleet families by treaty after the Second Formic War.

Even within this lowest-status group, there were the children of the “Great” families—the rich, multi-ship free mining clans—and of the “Brave” families—the free mining families who had been most prominent in the first two Formic Wars, either by suffering terrible casualties or by astonishing feats of navigation and derring-do. There were only two of the Brave among the Freeborn, and they barely spoke to each other, since one of them, Delgado, did not believe that the other’s ancestors had done anything noteworthy in the earlier combat.

How could any of these children be classified as smart, or even educable? These meaningless distinctions only kept them from forming anything like a real army. Even Ender himself could not have made anything out of them, because it was clear they cared more about maintaining status derived from their parents’ positions than about anything they might accomplish here.

But Dabeet quickly learned that there was one other group, with only one member: “Dirt.” Because he was directly from Earth, and had never even been in zero-gee until yesterday, he was the most worthless person there.

Which made him amazingly valuable to them all, because as long as he was on the bottom, everybody else could look down on him. They didn’t persecute him, they mostly shunned him, except for those who, with exaggerated patience, answered his questions. Even when he managed to keep one of them engaged in conversation for more than a single answer, it was clear that they were being polite to him and nothing more. They got away as quickly as they could.

Dabeet had hoped to find a mentor in the group, someone who’d take pity on his plight and help speed up his learning process. Or if compassion failed, someone who would realize that this army’s place in the standings would depend on bringing Dabeet up to snuff as quickly as possible.

Here’s how that went.

“I’ll need some help learning how to navigate and maneuver in zero-gee.”

“No you won’t.”

“You’ve been doing it all your lives. I’m going to be terrible at it.”

“No doubt.”

“Don’t you care that I’ll damage your place in the standings?”

“Standings?” The boy—a Miner—laughed out loud and repeated what Dabeet had said.

“The war’s over,” said another boy. “This isn’t Battle School. We don’t care about the standings.”

“Then why do they still have battles?” asked Dabeet.

“Because teachers be crazy,” said a Veteran.

“Physical exercise,” said an Ink.

“Because it’s fun,” said Cabeza.

“Listen,” said Delgado, asserting a superiority over everyone that only he recognized, “nobody can teach you to navigate in zero-gee. You just do it. That’s what the battleroom is for. You can make stupid baby mistakes and you don’t drift off into space and get lost. So go in, fly around, make a kintama of yourself, and learn what you learn. It’s what we all did.”

“As little children,” said Dabeet.

“We didn’t make you do something as dumb as getting born on Earth,” said Timeon.

End of discussion. He was on his own.

So much for trying not to be the loner that Graff had accused him of being. As far as Dabeet could see, he was the most cooperative of the whole group.

Or were they testing him?

No. The teachers might test him, but these kids really were as shortsighted and narrow-minded as they seemed.

And if he hadn’t gotten the idea already that the battleroom combats weren’t all that important, Oddson told him not to go to practices in the battleroom until he was fully up to speed on his coursework. “We have to know where you are in the curriculum.”

So when the other kids went to the battleroom, Dabeet sat or lay on his bunk and read, taking little self-tests on the computer. He had no control over the testing, and had no idea what level he was revealing himself to be at. The tests were ludicrously simple at first, but finally got hard enough that he was actually having to think and work things out in his mind before writing.