"He's not coming after you," said Dimak. "He's going home. Count on it. But don't talk about this to anyone else. Let them find out when the official word is given out. Got it?"

"Yes, sir," said Bean.

"And where did you get all that nonsense about not obeying a commander who gives illegal orders?"

"From the Uniform Code of Military Conduct," said Bean.

"Well, here's a little fact for you – nobody has ever been prosecuted for obeying orders."

"That," said Bean, "is because nobody's done anything so outrageous that the general public got involved."

"The Uniform Code doesn't apply to students, at least not that part of it."

"But it applies to teachers," said Bean. "It applies to you. Just in case you obeyed any illegal or improper orders today. By ... what, I don't know ... standing by while a fight broke out in a bathroom? Just because your commanding officer told you to let a big kid beat up on a little kid."

If that information bothered Dimak, he gave no sign. He stood in the corridor and watched as Bean went into the Dragon Army barracks.

It was crazy inside. Dragon Army felt completely helpless and stupid, furious and ashamed. Bonzo Madrid had outsmarted them! Bonzo had gotten Ender alone! Where were Ender's soldiers when he needed them?

It took a long time for things to calm down. Through it all, Bean just sat on his bunk, thinking his own thoughts. Ender didn't just win his fight. Didn't just protect himself and walk away. Ender killed him. Struck a blow so devastating that his enemy will never, never come after him again.

Ender Wiggin, you're the one who was born to be commander of the fleet that defends Earth from the Third Invasion. Because that's what we need – someone who'll strike the most brutal blow possible, with perfect aim and with no regard for consequences. Total war.

Me, I'm no Ender Wiggin. I'm just a street kid whose only skill was staying alive. Somehow. The only time I was in real danger, I ran like a squirrel and took refuge with Sister Carlotta. Ender went alone into battle. I go alone into my hidey-hole. I'm the guy who makes big brave speeches standing on tables in the mess hall. Ender's the guy who meets the enemy naked and overpowers him against all odds.

Whatever genes they altered to make me, they weren't the ones that mattered.

Ender almost died because of me. Because I goaded Bonzo. Because I failed to keep watch at the crucial time. Because I didn't stop and think like Bonzo and figure out that he'd wait for Ender to be alone in the shower.

If Ender had died today, it would have been my fault all over again.

He wanted to kill somebody.

Couldn't be Bonzo. Bonzo was already dead.

Achilles. That's the one he needed to kill. And if Achilles had been there at that moment, Bean would have tried. Might have succeeded, too, if violent rage and desperate shame were enough to beat down any advantage of size and experience Achilles might have had. And if Achilles killed Bean anyway, it was no worse than Bean deserved, for having failed Ender Wiggin so completely.

He felt his bed bounce. Nikolai had jumped the gap between the upper bunks.

"It's OK," murmured Nikolai, touching Bean's shoulder.

Bean rolled onto his back, to face Nikolai.

"Oh," said Nikolai. "I thought you were crying."

"Ender won," said Bean. "What's to cry about?"

CHAPTER 18 – FRIEND

"This boy's death was not necessary."

"This boy's death was not foreseen."

"But it was foreseeable."

"You can always foresee things that already happened. These are children, after all. We did not anticipate this level of violence."

"I don't believe you. I believe that this is precisely the level of violence you anticipated. This is what you set up. You think that the experiment succeeded."

"I can't control your opinions. I can merely disagree with them.

"Ender Wiggin is ready to move on to Command School. That is my report."

"I have a separate report from Dap, the teacher assigned to watch him most closely. And that report – for which there are to be no sanctions against Captain Dap – tells me that Andrew Wiggin is 'psychologically unfit for duty.'"

" If he is, which I doubt, it is only temporary."

"How much time do you think we have? No, Colonel Graff, for the time being we have to regard your course of action regarding Wiggin as a failure, and the boy as ruined not only for our purposes but quite possibly for any other as well. So, if it can be done without further killings, I want the other one pushed forward. I want him here in Command School as close to immediately as possible."

"Very well, sir. Though I must tell you that I regard Bean as unreliable."

"Why, because you haven't turned him into a killer yet?"

"Because he is not human, sir."

"The genetic difference is well within the range of ordinary variation."

"He was manufactured, and the manufacturer was a criminal, not to mention a certified loon."

"I could see some danger if his father were a criminal. Or his mother. But his doctor? The boy is exactly what we need, as quickly as we can get him."

"He is unpredictable."

"And the Wiggin boy is not?"

"Less unpredictable, sir."

"Very carefully answered, considering that you just insisted that the murder today was 'not foreseeable.'"

" Not murder, sir!"

"Killing, then."

"The mettle of the Wiggin boy is proved, sir, while Bean's is not."

"I have Dimak's report – for which, again, he is not to be —"

"Punished, I know, sir."

"Bean's behavior throughout this set of events has been exemplary."

"Then Captain Dimak's report was incomplete. Didn't he inform you that it was Bean who may have pushed Bonzo over the edge to violence by breaking security and informing him that Ender's army was composed of exceptional students?"

"That was an act with unforeseeable consequences."

"Bean was acting to save his own life, and in so doing he shunted the danger onto Ender Wiggin's shoulders. That he later tried to ameliorate the danger does not change the fact that when Bean is under pressure, he turns traitor."

"Harsh language!"

"This from the man who just called an obvious act of self-defense 'murder'?"

"Enough of this! You are on leave of absence from your position as commander of Battle School for the duration of Ender Wiggin's so-called rest and recuperation. If Wiggin recovers enough to come to Command School, you may come with him and continue to have influence over the education of the children we bring here. If he does not, you may await your court-martial on Earth."

"I am relieved effective when?"

"When you get on the shuttle with Wiggin. Major Anderson will stand in as acting commander."

"Very well, sir. Wiggin will return to training, sir."

" If we still want him."

"When you are over the dismay we all feel at the unfortunate death of the Madrid boy, you will realize that I am right, and Ender is the only viable candidate, all the more now than before."

"I allow you that Parthian shot. And, if you are right, I wish you Godspeed on your work with the Wiggin boy. Dismissed."

Ender was still wearing only his towel when he stepped into the barracks. Bean saw him standing there, his face a rictus of death, and thought: He knows that Bonzo is dead, and it's killing him.

"Ho, Ender," said Hot Soup, who was standing near the door with the other toon leaders.

"There gonna be a practice tonight?" asked one of the younger soldiers.

Ender handed a slip of paper to Hot Soup.

"I guess that means not," said Nikolai softly.

Hot Soup read it. "Those sons of bitches! Two at once?"