Dabeet wanted to strike out at that complacent face across the table. To scream at him for his smug decisions about what was good for Dabeet, without any attempt to let Dabeet be part of the decision.
“I can see that you are determined to deprive me of knowledge about my parentage, and to conspire in keeping me from having any kind of parent in my life.”
“You had years with Rafa Ochoa,” said Graff.
“And now those years have ended.”
“You were not deprived of love. You still aren’t.”
Dabeet thought immediately of his friends, and his eyes watered. He calmed himself and answered with a steady voice. “So my only family, here on forward, is whatever brothers and sisters I can find for myself.”
Graff nodded slightly. “A good way of looking at it.”
“And my real father and mother consent to this,” he said.
“They do,” said Graff. “Though not happily.”
“The fact that they gave consent at all means that part of my education must now include trying to overcome the soullessness they have bequeathed to me in my genes.”
“Yes,” said Graff.
Something flickered across his face and Dabeet wondered if it might be pain.
Why would Graff have felt pain at Dabeet’s words?
An answer came immediately to Dabeet’s mind. “Sir,” he asked, “are you my father?”
Graff immediately shook his head. “I am not,” he said. “But I would be proud to claim you as mine, if it were so.”
Graff pushed himself up from the table. Dabeet knew dismissal when he saw it, so he also got up from his chair. “Thank you for meeting with me, sir,” he said. “Thank you for being candid with me.”
“I suspect that you’re determined to go to great lengths to discover your parentage,” said Graff. “Don’t waste your time. If there’s any human being alive who knows better than me how to erase every trace of certain information from the databases and archives, I will hire him and make him check my work. You’ll never succeed, so I urge you not to try.”
“I’ll spend my life trying to figure out why you’re so grimly determined never to let me know who I really am,” said Dabeet.
“Speculate all you want,” said Graff. “Guessing is free. It’s also bound to fail.”
“Then you, sir, are my enemy,” said Dabeet. “I once counted you as my only friend.”
“Wrong on both counts,” said Graff. “You have until I leave Fleet School, probably near noon tomorrow, to change your mind and return to Earth.”
“Do you have a new mommy waiting to be assigned to me there?” asked Dabeet.
“Do you need a new mommy?” asked Graff.
Dabeet had no answer. Because the only true answer was: I need my real mommy and daddy, sir. Not another substitute.
“I didn’t think so,” said Graff. “But of course you would be assigned to a foster family of very high quality. With foster siblings who would welcome you.”
“If I were still the kind of boy who would accept that situation,” said Dabeet, “then they would be fools to welcome me. But I’m not that kind of boy. I’ll be staying here.”
Graff extended his hand. “You did well here, Dabeet, under very difficult circumstances.”
“Are you saying that I passed your test, sir?”
Dabeet watched as Graff seemed to puzzle over what he had been referring to.
So Dabeet quoted it back to him. “‘Why not apply your adequate intelligence to figuring out what qualities would make a good leader of an expedition, or a colony, or a scouting or reconnaissance mission? Then see which of those qualities you lack.’”
Graff nodded. “Do you know which of those qualities you lack?”
Dabeet replied instantly. “All of them,” he said. “But I’m getting better, and I’ll never learn them anywhere but here.”
“Was that the whole test?”
“You gave me advice,” said Dabeet. “‘Knowledge you have no use for is rarely worth having. The secret is not to avoid learning useless knowledge. It’s to make use of whatever knowledge you have.’”
“Have you followed my advice?” asked Graff.
“It was bad advice,” said Dabeet. “What I have lived by is this: Whatever I need to know, and don’t, I must learn. And if learning it fights against my natural inclinations, then it’s all the more important that I learn it anyway.”
“My advice was good enough,” said Graff. “You merely found a higher priority. Good for you. You learned to crawl around on the surface of space vehicles and how to jump from one to another without dying. Are you good at it now?”
“No sir, not compared to pretty much every other student in the school. But I was good enough for the job I had to do.”
“Well said. I spend my life doing things I was very bad at, starting out. So far, I’ve usually made myself skilled enough for the jobs I had to do. As long as you continue thinking and acting by that principle, your life will be worth something to you and, quite possibly, other human beings as well.”
“Am I dismissed, sir?”
“I assume that by ‘sir’ you mean, ‘My enemy’?”
“Yes, sir,” said Dabeet.
“Then yes, you are dismissed for now, my friend.”
Dabeet left the commandant’s quarters and managed to calm himself as he walked briskly back to the barracks that he shared with his friends. He was greeted warmly by the few who noticed him come in. They were all buzzing with the news that Robota Smirnova was the new commandant, and he gave them no hint that he already knew, or that he had spent fifteen minutes in a painful interview with the Minister of Colonization. It was better to let them tell him. It was comforting to know that they cared enough to tell him things.
Maybe making and keeping friends will always require me to think through the steps of it, the way I had to name what I was reaching for as I moved along the outside of the ship. Maybe it will never be natural for me, never reflexive, never easy. So be it. I can’t live without it, can’t accomplish anything without it, so I will become adequate at forcing myself, against my inclinations, to be a friend to my friends. If I’m good enough at it, they’ll never guess the effort that it requires.
In a day or two, we’ll stop talking about the raid, the explosion, the danger, the heroics, and the changes in the school. This will all become the new normal. But the new normal of Fleet School has a place for me in it. This is home now.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This novel began when Cameron Dayton found a likely sponsor for a game set in Battle School; but the game needed to be less warlike and more constructive than one based on Ender’s Game. That’s when I came up with the idea of the wall panels that pop up to form boxes, out of which the children could build structures in the battleroom. As for the school itself, it would now serve as a training ground, not for military leaders, but for explorers and colonizers of the new worlds to which humanity was spreading. The game never happened, because the would-be sponsor flaked on us; but it would have been a good one, Cameron! Meanwhile, the novel series about the children of Fleet School lives on. It’s odd that I keep writing novels based on games that never happen.
Cyndie Swindlehurst has proven over and over again that lawyers make superb proofreaders and editors. While I was writing this book, she dealt with a new edition of Ender’s Game. In proofreading it, she discovered that somehow the wrong version of the novel was being used. Her thoroughness saved us endless toil in more than one edition. Yet I didn’t have to give it a moment’s thought: Cyndie freed me to concentrate on Dabeet, leaving Ender to others. She then gave this book a superb copyedit.
People whom I have counted on for years—Kathleen Bellamy as our line of last defense, Kathy Kidd as one of my circle of first readers—died before they could contribute to this book. Yet I still feel the need to thank them, because they were part of all my work for so many years, and because it was hard not to type their email addresses into my sendings of
newly-completed chapters and my askings of questions about what had gone before in the Ender’s Game universe. I am grateful they were part of my life and my work for so many years.
Scott Allen kept my computers working, despite the mischief caused by Microsoft, with its carelessly-designed hardware and software. Good ideas, badly executed, can become very nearly worthless; but Scott Allen kept saving me from drowning in digital despair. Meanwhile, Nicholas and Sarah Allen joined him in keeping the wheels of our little factory turning. My thanks to all three.
Erin and Phillip Absher provided me with good counsel and encouragement, chapter by chapter, as I wrote this book. Charley and Gracie Rankin spent several weeks providing glorious distraction and inspiration. For a book that I had imagined would be easy to write, my editor for thirty-five years, Beth Meacham, provided me with the time and the guidance to complete a story that turned out, in many ways, to be the most challenging of my career.
As always, my wisest counselor, my constant support, and my firstest reader has been Kristine Allen Card. Because of her, I have a life worth living.
Orson Scott Card, Greensboro, 2 May 2017
By Orson Scott Card
From Tom Doherty Associates
Note: Within series, books are best read in listed order.
ENDER UNIVERSE
Ender Series
Ender Wiggin: The finest general the world could hope to find or breed.
Ender’s Game
Ender in Exile
Speaker for the Dead
Xenocide
Children of the Mind
Ender’s Shadow Series
Parallel storylines to Ender’s Game from Bean: Ender’s right hand, his strategist, and his friend.
Ender’s Shadow
Shadow of the Hegemon
Shadow Puppets
Shadow of the Giant
Shadows in Flight
The First Formic War Series
(with Aaron Johnston)
One hundred years before Ender’s Game, the aliens arrived on Earth with fire and death.
These are the stories of the First Formic War.
Earth Unaware
Earth Afire
Earth Awakens
The Second Formic War Series
(with Aaron Johnston)
The Swarm
Ender novellas
A War of Gifts
First Meetings
The Authorized Ender Companion by Jake Black
A complete and in-depth encyclopedia of all the persons, places, things, and events in Orson Scott Card’s Ender Universe.
THE MITHERMAGES SERIES
Danny North is different from his magical family. And when he discovers his gift, it is greater than he ever imagined—which could earn him a death sentence.
The Lost Gate
The Gate Thief
Gatefather
THE TALES OF ALVIN MAKER SERIES
Visit the magical America that might have been, marvel as the tale of Alvin Maker unfolds.
Seventh Son
Red Prophet
Prentice Alvin
Alvin Journeyman
Heartfire
The Crystal City
HOMECOMING SERIES
Earth has been rendered uninhabitable. But it is still vital.
The Memory of Earth
The Call of Earth
The Ships of Earth
Earthfall
Earthborn
WOMEN OF GENESIS SERIES
Fiction exploring the human side of Biblical women.
Sarah
Rebekah
Rachel & Leah
THE COLLECTED SHORT FICTION OF ORSON SCOTT CARD
Experience Card’s full versatility, from science fiction to fantasy, from traditional narrative poetry to modern experimental fiction.
Maps in a Mirror: The Short Fiction of Orson Scott Card
Keeper of Dreams
STAND-ALONE FICTION
Hart’s Hope: dark and powerful fantasy
Lovelock (with Kathryn H. Kidd): a startling look at the ethics of bioengineering
Pastwatch: In this novel of time travel, can the past be changed?
Saints: a novel of the early days of the Mormon Church
Songmaster: an SF classic and a haunting story of power and love
The Worthing Saga: the tale of a seed ship sent out to save the human race
Wyrms: the story of a young woman’s journey to confront her destiny, and her world’s
The Folk of the Fringe: When America is destroyed, it’s up to those on the fringes to rebuild.
——
www.tor-forge.com
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Orson Scott Card makes a powerful return to the universe of Ender’s Game with a new stand-alone novel—his first solo Ender novel since 2008. Card is the author of the novels Ender’s Game, Ender’s Shadow, and Speaker for the Dead, which are widely read by adults and younger readers and are increasingly used in schools. His fantasy Mithermages series (The Lost Gate, The Gate Thief, Gatefather) are taking readers in new directions.
Card currently lives in Greensboro, North Carolina, with his wife, Kristine Allen Card, where his primary activities are writing a review column for the local Rhino Times and feeding birds, squirrels, chipmunks, possums, and raccoons on the patio. Visit him online at hatrack.com and orsonscottcard.com, or sign up for email updates here.
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CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Acknowledgments
By Orson Scott Card From Tom Doherty Associates
About the Author
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
CHILDREN OF THE FLEET
Copyright © 2017 by Orson Scott Card
All rights reserved.
Cover art by John Harris
A Tor Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates
175 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10010
www.tor-forge.com
Tor® is a registered trademark of Macmillan Publishing Group, LLC.
The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
ISBN 978-0-7653-7704-3 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-250-16950-1 (international, sold outside the U.S., subject to rights availability)
ISBN 978-1-250-16214-4 (signed edition)
ISBN 978-1-4668-5340-9 (ebook)
eISBN 9781466853409
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[email protected] First Edition: October 2017
Orson Scott Card, Children of the Fleet
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