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I want to go home, he whispered

But his whisper was the whisper he used when he cried out in pain when Peter tormented him The sound didn't travel farther than his own ears, and sometimes not that far

And his tears could fall unwanted on his sheet, but his sobs were so gentle that they did not shake the bed, so quiet they could not be heard But the ache was there, thick in his throat and the front of his face, hot in his chest and in his eyes I want to go home

Dap ca the beds, touching a hand here, a forehead there Where he went there was htening place was enough to push soh When Dap ca was over, and his face was dry It was the lying face he presented to Mother and Father, when Peter had been cruel to him and he dared not let it show Thank you for this, Peter For dry eyes and silent weeping You taughtI felt More than ever, I need that now

This was school Every day, hours of classes Reading Numbers History Videos of the bloody battles in space, the Marines spraying their guts all over the walls of the bugger ships Holos of the clean wars of the fleet, ships turning into puffs of light as the spacecraft killed each other deftly in the deep night Many things to learn Ender worked as hard as anyone; all of theled for the first time in their lives, as for the first time in their

lives they coht as they

But the games--that hat they lived for That hat filled the hours betaking and sleeping

Dap introduced theame room on their second day It was up, way above the decks where the boys lived and worked They cliravity weakened, and there in the cavern they saw the dazzling lights of the games

Soames they knew; some they had even played at home Simple ones and hard ones Ender walked past the two-dier boys played, the holographic ga in the air He was the only Launchy in that part of the rooer boys would shove hi here? Get lost Fly off And of course he would fly, in the lower gravity here, leave his feet and soar until he ran into so or someone

Every tih, he extricated hiet a different angle on the gaaot thetunnels in the darkness, tunnels of light, which the enemy ships would search for and then follow ht the player's ship The player couldbombs, loops in the air that forced the enemy ships to repeat endlessly Some of the players were clever Others lost quickly

Ender liked it better, though, when two boys played against each other Then they had to use each other's tunnels, and it quickly becay of it

Within an hour or so, it began to pall Ender understood the regularities by then Understood the rules the co, so that he knew he could always, once he mastered the controls, outmaneuver the enemy Spirals when the enemy was like this; loops when the enemy was like that Lie in wait at one trap Lay seven traps and then lure thee to it, then, just a ot so fast that no human reflexes could overcome it That wasn't fun It was the other boys he wanted to play The boys who had been so trained by the coainst each other they each tried to emulate the computer Think like a machine instead of a boy

I could beat them this way I could beat them that way

"I'd like a turn against you," he said to the boy who had just won "Lawsy er?"

"A new flock of dwarfs just came aboard," said another boy