Children of the Fleet (Fleet School #1)(94)

Better that I did this alone.

I don’t want her to watch me do this till I’m a lot better.

I’ll never be good enough for her not to demand that I name my next grip before reaching for it. I’ll never be as good as her. As good as anybody else who grew up in space.

I never want her to watch me do this.

But then he realized: It won’t matter. Maybe whatever needs doing will require more than one of us. Her or somebody else. Somebody who hates me, somebody with disdain. Somebody I have contempt for. It won’t matter. I’ll concentrate and say my next grip out loud, just like a two-year-old, and they can think what they want. I’ll be alive. I’ll get where I’m going.





16

—Dabeet isn’t Ender, my friend, and he’s not facing a fellow student. Get him out of there.

—I can’t.

—You most certainly can. I know the disposition of the ships near the station, and you have three close enough to get there with hours to spare.

—Suppose only one person is saved from Fleet School, and he happens to be the very child that all the evidence is designed to point at. I think not.

—Alive is better than dead.

—I believe that’s almost certainly his opinion, too.

—He matters to you. Apparently more than you understand. Unless you have fifty more scions scattered around the solar system. Do you have a spare?

—He’s the only one.

—All your eggs in one basket. Doesn’t sound like you.

—Sounds exactly like me. It’s what I did with Ender.

—Get him off that station.

—Can I evacuate everybody?

—In a pinch, maybe.

—Count the ships, estimate the life support. And what would that teach Dabeet? All of them? Adults will step in and save you. These kids are supposed to go on exploratory missions, colonization, with no recourse closer than ten, fifteen, twenty years away. They can’t expect God to come out of the machine and save them. Ever.

—I wonder how useful that lesson will be to them when they’re dead.

—I wonder how many times that lesson will save their lives.

—Who saves their lives this time?

—Dabeet.

—You hesitated. Because you don’t believe he can do it.

—I know he can do it.

—Can, but it relies on luck, it relies on …

—He’s doing his best to prepare himself, isn’t he?

—How about giving them a serious security force to help.

—You know that won’t do any good. And it’s just another variant of adults stepping in to save them. They’ll all let down, they’ll all think, Now it’s up to them to protect us.

—I know you’re right. I do know that. But I also know what can go wrong.

—Everything can go wrong.

—Good. I wasn’t sure you knew the whole list.

—Tell you what. I’ll make you a bet. Let’s send a ship, demanding that he be removed for reassignment. If he goes willingly, then we also blow the raiders out of the sky, everybody’s safe, they don’t even know if the raiders would even have come.

—That sounds good.

—But I’m betting that he won’t go.

—You think you know him?

—Yes.

—You sure you’re not assuming that he’ll be like you?

—Oh, I would have taken the chance to leave. At that age? You have no idea how careful I already was.

—So you’re counting on his mother’s genes to—

—I’m counting on Dabeet. I’m counting on him. Is it a bet?

—If I win, you get Dabeet alive and safe and also all the kids in Fleet School. Safe. But what if you win? What kind of fool makes a bet where if he wins, he loses?

—We really shouldn’t bet on this, I get your point.

—I’m still going to give the orders and make a try to save him. Can you live with that?

—He won’t come.

*

Nobody treated Dabeet any differently in the mess hall or during classes, and from this Dabeet learned that Monkey hadn’t told anybody about his plan to become competent outside the safety of the station’s atmosphere. She kept her word. The way Zhang He also kept his word. You didn’t have to be a friend to be loyal. You only needed to have honor.

Do I have honor?

I do if I want it. All I have to do is keep my word.

No, I have to mean my promises when I make them. When I say I’ll do something, I mean to do it, and then I do it. That’s honor. Not to give your word unless you can keep it, unless you intend to keep it. To be the kind of person who, when they say they’ll do a thing, the other people can go about their business because that job is as good as done.

How did I get through this many years of life without understanding that?

Because I was always competing. Always working to win, to be best. Nobody to promise anything to.

Except Mother. Never promised her anything, but I knew my duty. I did whatever it took to keep her safe.

Only I don’t have it in my power to keep her safe.

Trying my best to be honorable, but it isn’t in my power. Finally told the truth to the others, so they could prepare, but … was that honor, or the need to tell them before they found out some other way? Leaving them ignorant would certainly have been a betrayal. So I could have been less honorable.