Children of the Fleet (Fleet School #1)(46)

Zhang He thought about this. “So you need other people.”

“I was working on structures that you and I alone could make in under two minutes. They weren’t bad, depending on the configuration of stars in the room. But when these guys started actually paying attention and trying to improve, instead of just playing, I started designing more substantial structures, and pairs or trios of war machines.”

“War machines,” said Zhang He. “Sounds like catapults and trebuchets.”

“More like turtles and pontoon bridges,” said Dabeet, “but yes. War machines that can be made on the spot.”

“So it’s not that you suddenly became nice,” said Zhang.

“I’m nice,” said Dabeet, feeling a little hurt.

“You are,” said Zhang. “You just kept it secret.”

“It’s easy to be nice when we have a purpose in common, when we’re working together.”

“If you treated classes that way, working together instead of trying to crush everybody else on every test, you’d have more friends.”

“That kind of friend just distracts you from meaningful progress. If anybody really wanted help with classwork, I’d help them. But what would they do? Learn good habits of self-criticism so their work improved? So they could understand things without my help? Somehow I think not. Most of them just try to get the work over with so they can go off and ‘have friends.’”

Zhang laughed. “So if people don’t study as methodically as you do…”

“Then they’re not interesting to me. And I’m quite sure that I’m not interesting to them, either.”

That was their last private conversation at lunch, because starting the next day, the other kids on their team joined them, and they spent lunch hours planning structures and making assignments. “You have to memorize the dance you’re going to do,” said Dabeet. “This step, and the next step—it has to be out of your head and into your fingers and arms and feet and legs so that you move smoothly from one to the next without hesitation.”

“So it’s art,” said Ragnar.

“Yes,” said Dabeet. “Art that you do over and over again, perfectly each time. I want us to learn how to build six or seven really useful structures, and know the task so well that the moment the gate opens and reveals the configuration, I can say, ‘Two flying turtles and a picket fence,’ and all six of us know exactly the steps we’ll do. We’ll dance through it like a ballet company doing the same show for the fifteenth or fiftieth performance.”

“No,” said Timeon.

Everyone looked at him in startlement.

“I’m not disagreeing,” said Timeon, seeing the looks they gave him. “I’m just saying, it’s not really like ballet. Somebody else sets up the stage for dancers. But we’re making the stage.”

“We’re stagehands?” asked Monkey, the only girl who had joined Dabeet and Zhang.

“No,” said Timeon. “I just think we’re not dancing, we’re cooking. We’re like a team of chefs working in the same kitchen. We make the same dishes every single day, and they have to be exactly on time and exactly the same quality as every other time. Nothing different. And yet we have to do it from scratch, from the ingredients at hand.”

“é,” said Dabeet. “You’re right, that’s a better comparison. So next time we’re in the kitchen, we’ll know what’s on our very small menu and we’ll all be able to cook every dish.”

They laughed and used forks and chopsticks to toss their food a little ways upward from their trays. “May we be better chefs than these!” Zhang chanted, as if it were an ancient Chinese prayer.

“Careful,” said Ignazio. “If the cooks hear us abusing their food—”

“Then they’ll know we’re actually eating it,” said Dabeet.

When everybody laughed, he felt himself blushing and his eyes watering. He had never said anything spontaneous that made a group of people laugh with delight.

No, he told himself honestly. I’ve never had real friends before. This is what it feels like. This is why people will sacrifice so many accomplishments in order to stay with their friends instead of their tasks.

But I have these friends because I stayed with my task. So instead of dragging each other down, we’re building each other up. We’re not just good friends, we’re friends who do each other good.

And, for the first time, Dabeet thought of Ender Wiggin and wondered: Is this what it felt like for him to work with his famous jeesh? They weren’t famous when they did their work. They were just kids who were working together, not to save the world, but to solve whatever problems the adults set before them. Did they all master their individual skills, and then Ender would deploy them, the way I intend to deploy these kids? But they could only be relied on when Ender himself had helped them train, had guided them into becoming as close to perfect as they were willing to become.

And they took correction and criticism from Ender, even before he had any official authority over them. Why?

At that moment, for the first time, Dabeet realized that he needed to learn what Ender Wiggin knew.

I’m never going to be an official leader, because Urska Kaluza hates me. But I created a task that didn’t even exist, and worked hard to become good at it and to turn it into something useful for the whole army, the whole team. And by doing that, I accidentally drew these five people together.