Children of the Fleet (Fleet School #1)(51)

—But MinCol thinks we should have this conversation, and since I don’t know anything about you except you beat my test scores, but not Bean’s test scores because that’s not, you know, possible, then you’re going to have to tell me things. Dangerous things, apparently. And live with the consequences if it isn’t as secure as MinCol thinks.

—He wasn’t Minister of Colonization when you knew him.

—He’s MinCol now, and I still know him. You don’t keep calling a man “colonel” when he now outranks every officer in the Fleet.

—Now, see, that answers one of my questions.

—A trivial one, I hope, since anyone with a brain could figure that out for themselves.

—Andrew. Ender. Governor Wiggin. What do I call you?

—I’m the only one you could possibly be talking to, so I’ll assume that whenever you talk, you’re talking to me.

—It’s polite to tell the other person what to call you, when you’re in the superior social position.

—Andrew. And what do I call you?

—I don’t have a bunch of names and titles.

—And do you mind telling me what your unadorned name is?

—MinCol didn’t tell you?

—Is it a secret? If your name gets out, do puppies somewhere die?

—Dabeet Ochoa.

—And you’re at Fleet School. My alma mater with a name change. I can’t really ask you what’s different, because you weren’t there before the change. But … do they still have the battleroom?

—Yes, but the win-loss record thing isn’t as competitive. They tell me.

—But you know what your own record is, right?

—Zero. I haven’t been in a battle yet. My team has, but I’m kind of doing my own thing. Me and a few others. Mostly Zhang He, he’s this kid from Luna, he saw what I was doing and kind of made me let him help.

—What were you doing?

—I don’t know if they had this before, but each panel of the battleroom walls can be pulled out to make up to four rigid boxes, joined or separate. You can throw them around but they get sticky and if they hit a wall or a star, they stay. You can build them into things. Pillars, pyramids. Walls. My team—if they’re really mine, it’s more like the team leader just ignores us—we’ve been learning how to build structures cooperatively, really fast, so that even though we’re not fighting when the battle starts, our structures might make a difference before it’s over.

—Toguro. I don’t think the walls did that when I was there. If they did, nobody tried to use it, so nobody found out. I’m glad they have something to build with. So it isn’t all lasers and flash suits and metaphorical death. You don’t need my advice about that.

—I think MinCol wanted me to tell you about the thing that really has me scared.

—é. Speak.

—That’s the thing. I’m really scared.

—Been there. I was right to be scared. People wanted me dead, it was scary, and nobody came to the rescue. I certainly can’t come to your rescue from a ship that’s already accelerated to a significant percentage of c.

—They have my mother hostage back on Earth.

—They?

—The people who threatened her. The people who kidnapped me and told me what to do or else she would die.

—MinCol knows about this?

—Do you ever know what MinCol knows? I wanted to tell him but he sent me to you.

—What do you have to do?

—Maybe I’ve already done it, so she’s safe. But who thinks hostage takers will keep their word? She’s still there, they’re still there, so if they tell me to do something else what am I going to do?

—What did you already do that might be it so maybe she’s safe?

—I lied to the head of security, because she was the only person with door access who didn’t report to the Fleet School commandant.

—You don’t trust the commandant.

—I don’t trust Robota Smirnova, either—head of security—but the South Americans were going to kill my mother, so I had to trust somebody. And anyway I lied to her, said it was about the smuggling that goes on here—this place is so corrupt—but I got her to open some doors for me. It’s a signal to them back on Earth. They see it when Fleet School is directly over them.

—A signal saying what.

—Saying that I can get to the doors and open them to let in a small raiding force.

—They want to raid Fleet School?

—They want to raid it safely. So nobody gets killed. The way I understand it, the free-for-all that’s happening on Earth right now, with the Hegemon powerless, all the weak nations are afraid of getting crushed or absorbed by the strong nations. So some of them want to force the IF to get involved on Earth.

—Never happen.

—But if somebody from Earth takes the children of the Fleet hostage—

—Oh, they may come and pound the kuso out of whoever sent a raid against Fleet School. But they can’t get involved on Earth in favor of any nation because it tears the whole fleet apart. Maybe in twenty or fifty or a hundred years, all the old loyalties will be gone, but Dabeet, get sane here. The Fleet will never intervene. Retaliate, but not intervene.

—I only know what they told me. Maybe that’s what they actually believe. And maybe you’re right, and it won’t work the way they think. But they don’t know that yet, so they’re going to act as if they’re right, né? And maybe it’s all a lie, anyway, and they’re really coming here to take over the smuggling operation, or shut it down, or assassinate somebody, or outrage the whole fleet by killing every kid up here. I don’t know.