Ender's Saga 5 - Ender's Shadow

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ENDER'S

SHADOW

by Orson Scott Card

ENDER'S SHADOW ..................................................... 1

FOREWORD ............................................................... 3

PART ONE -- URCHIN.................................................. 6

CHAPTER 1 -- POKE .................................................................................................................... 6

CHAPTER 2 -- KITCHEN ........................................................................................................... 25

CHAPTER 3 -- PAYBACK.......................................................................................................... 52

CHAPTER 4 -- MEMORIES........................................................................................................ 77

PART TWO -- LAUNCHY ............................................ 102

CHAPTER 5 -- READY OR NOT ............................................................................................. 102

CHAPTER 6 -- ENDER'S SHADOW........................................................................................ 127

CHAPTER 7 -- EXPLORATION............................................................................................... 163

CHAPTER 8 -- GOOD STUDENT ............................................................................................ 197

PART THREE -- SCHOLAR ......................................... 220

CHAPTER 9 -- GARDEN OF SOFIA ....................................................................................... 220

CHAPTER 10 -- SNEAKY ........................................................................................................ 237

CHAPTER 11 -- DADDY .......................................................................................................... 255

CHAPTER 12 -- ROSTER ......................................................................................................... 288

PART FOUR -- SOLDIER ........................................... 316

CHAPTER 13 -- DRAGON ARMY........................................................................................... 316

CHAPTER 14 -- BROTHERS.................................................................................................... 337

CHAPTER 15 -- COURAGE ..................................................................................................... 362

CHAPTER 16 -- COMPANION ................................................................................................ 395

PART FIVE -- LEADER .............................................. 420

CHAPTER 17 -- DEADLINE .................................................................................................... 420

CHAPTER 18 -- FRIEND .......................................................................................................... 462

CHAPTER 19 -- REBEL ............................................................................................................ 495

CHAPTER 20 -- TRIAL AND ERROR ..................................................................................... 511

PART SIX -- VICTOR ................................................ 531

CHAPTER 21 -- GUESSWORK................................................................................................ 531

CHAPTER 22 -- REUNION....................................................................................................... 556

CHAPTER 23 -- ENDER'S GAME............................................................................................ 592

CHAPTER 24 -- HOMECOMING............................................................................................. 633

FOREWORD

This book is, strictly speaking, not a sequel, because it

begins about where Ender's Game begins, and also ends,

very nearly, at the same place. In fact, it is another telling

of the same tale, with many of the same characters and

settings, only from the perspective of another character.

It's hard to know what to call it. A companion novel? A

parallel novel? Perhaps a "parallax," if I can move that

scientific term into literature.

Ideally, this novel should work as well for readers who

have never read Ender's Game as for those who have read

it several times. Because it is not a sequel, there is nothing

you need to know from the novel Ender's Game that is not

contained here. And yet, if I have achieved my literary

goal, these two books complement and fulfill each other.

Whichever one you read first, the other novel should still

work on its own merits.

For many years, I have gratefully watched as Ender's

Game has grown in popularity, especially among school-

age readers. Though it was never intended as a young-

adult novel, it has been embraced by many in that age

group and by many teachers who find ways to use the

book in their classrooms.

I have never found it surprising that the existing sequels

-- Speaker for the Dead, Xenocide, and Children of the

Mind -- never appealed as strongly to those younger

readers. The obvious reason is that Ender's Game is

centered around a child, while the sequels are about

adults; perhaps more important, Ender's Game is, at least

on the surface, a heroic, adventurous novel, while the

sequels are a completely different kind of fiction, slower

paced, more contemplative and idea-centered, and dealing

with themes of less immediate import to younger readers.

Recently, however, I have come to realize that the 3,000-

year gap between Ender's Game and its sequels leaves

plenty of room for other sequels that are more closely tied

to the original. In fact, in one sense Ender's Game has no

sequels, for the other three books make one continuous

story in themselves, while Ender's Game stands alone.

For a brief time I flirted seriously with the idea of opening

up the Ender's Game universe to other writers, and went

so far as to invite a writer whose work I greatly admire,

Neal Shusterman, to consider working with me to create

novels about Ender Wiggin's companions in Battle School.

As we talked, it became clear that the most obvious

character to begin with would be Bean, the child-soldier

whom Ender treated as he had been treated by his adult

teachers.

And then something else happened. The more we talked,

the more jealous I became that Neal might be the one to

write such a book, and not me. It finally dawned on me

that, far from being finished with writing about "kids in

space," as I cynically described the project, I actually had

more to say, having actually learned something in the

intervening dozen years since Ender's Game first appeared

in 1985. And so, while still hoping that Neal and I can work

together on something, I deftly swiped the project back.

I soon found that it's harder than it looks, to tell the

same story twice, but differently. I was hindered by the

fact that even though the viewpoint characters were

different, the author was the same, with the same core

beliefs about the world. I was helped by the fact that in

the intervening years, I have learned a few things, and

was able to bring different concerns and a deeper

understanding to the project. Both books come from the

same mind, but not the same; they draw on the same

memories of childhood, but from a different perspective.

For the reader, the parallax is created by Ender and Bean,

standing a little ways apart as they move through the

same events. For the writer, the parallax was created by a

dozen years in which my older children grew up, and

younger ones were born, and the world changed around

me, and I learned a few things about human nature and

about art that I had not known before.

Now you hold this book in your hands. Whether the

literary experiment succeeds for you is entirely up to you

to judge. For me it was worth dipping again into the same

well, for the water was greatly changed this time, and if it

has not been turned exactly into wine, at least it has a

different flavor because of the different vessel that it was

carried in, and I hope that you will enjoy it as much, or

even more.

-- Greensboro, North Carolina, January 1999

PART ONE -- URCHIN

CHAPTER 1 -- POKE

"You think you've found somebody, so suddenly my

program gets the ax?"

"It's not about this kid that Graff found. It's about the low

quality of what you've been finding."

"We knew it was long odds. But the kids I'm working with

are actually fighting a war just to stay alive."

"Your kids are so malnourished that they suffer serious

mental degradation before you even begin testing them.

Most of them haven't formed any normal human bonds,

they're so messed up they can't get through a day without

finding something they can steal, break, or disrupt."

"They also represent possibility, as all children do."

"That's just the kind of sentimentality that discredits your

whole project in the eyes of the I.F."

***

Poke kept her eyes open all the time. The younger

children were supposed to be on watch, too, and

sometimes they could be quite observant, but they just

didn't notice all the things they needed to notice, and that

meant that Poke could only depend on herself to see

danger.

There was plenty of danger to watch for. The cops, for

instance. They didn't show up often, but when they did,

they seemed especially bent on clearing the streets of

children. They would flail about them with their magnetic

whips, landing cruel stinging blows on even the smallest

children, haranguing them as vermin, thieves, pestilence,

a plague on the fair city of Rotterdam. It was Poke's job to

notice when a disturbance in the distance suggested that

the cops might be running a sweep. Then she would give

the alarm whistle and the little ones would rush to their

hiding places till the danger was past.

But the cops didn't come by that often. The real danger

was much more immediate -- big kids. Poke, at age nine,

was the matriarch of her little crew (not that any of them

knew for sure that she was a girl), but that cut no ice with

the eleven- and twelve- and thirteen-year-old boys and

girls who bullied their way around the streets. The adult-

size beggars and thieves and whores of the street paid no

attention to the little kids except to kick them out of the

way. But the older children, who were among the kicked,

turned around and preyed on the younger ones. Any time

Poke's crew found something to eat -- especially if they

located a dependable source of garbage or an easy mark

for a coin or a bit of food -- they had to watch jealously

and hide their winnings, for the bullies liked nothing better

than to take away whatever scraps of food the little ones

might have. Stealing from younger children was much

safer than stealing from shops or passersby. And they

enjoyed it, Poke could see that. They liked how the little

kids cowered and obeyed and whimpered and gave them

whatever they demanded.

So when the scrawny little two-year-old took up a perch

on a garbage can across the street, Poke, being observant,

saw him at once. The kid was on the edge of starvation.

No, the kid was starving. Thin arms and legs, joints that

looked ridiculously oversized, a distended belly. And if

hunger didn't kill him soon, the onset of autumn would,

because his clothing was thin and there wasn't much of it

even at that.

Normally she wouldn't have paid him more than passing

attention. But this one had eyes. He was still looking

around with intelligence. None of that stupor of the

walking dead, no longer searching for food or even caring

to find a comfortable place to lie while breathing their last

taste of the stinking air of Rotterdam. After all, death

would not be such a change for them. Everyone knew that

Rotterdam was, if not the capital, then the main seaport of

Hell. The only difference between Rotterdam and death

was that with Rotterdam, the damnation wasn't eternal.

This little boy -- what was he doing? Not looking for food.

He wasn't eyeing the pedestrians. Which was just as well -

- there was no chance that anyone would leave anything

for a child that small. Anything he might get would be

taken away by any other child, so why should he bother? If

he wanted to survive, he should be following older

scavengers and licking food wrappers behind them, getting

the last sheen of sugar or dusting of flour clinging to the

packaging, whatever the first comer hadn't licked off.

There was nothing for this child out here on the street,

not unless he got taken in by a crew, and Poke wouldn't

have him. He'd be nothing but a drain, and her kids were

already having a hard enough time without adding another

useless mouth.

He's going to ask, she thought. He's going to whine and

beg. But that only works on the rich people. I've got my

crew to think of. He's not one of them, so I don't care

about him. Even if he is small. He's nothing to me.

A couple of twelve-year-old hookers who didn't usually

work this strip rounded a corner, heading toward Poke's

base. She gave a low whistle. The kids immediately drifted

apart, staying on the street but trying not to look like a

crew.

It didn't help. The hookers knew already that Poke was a

crew boss, and sure enough, they caught her by the arms

and slammed her against a wall and demanded their

"permission" fee. Poke knew better than to claim she had

nothing to share -- she always tried to keep a reserve in

order to placate hungry bullies. These hookers, Poke could

see why they were hungry. They didn't look like what the

pedophiles wanted, when they came cruising through.

They were too gaunt, too old-looking. So until they grew

bodies and started attracting the slightly-less-perverted

trade, they had to resort to scavenging. It made Poke's

blood boil, to have them steal from her and her crew, but

it was smarter to pay them off. If they beat her up, she

couldn't look out for her crew now, could she? So she took

them to one of her stashes and came up with a little

bakery bag that still had half a pastry in it.

It was stale, since she'd been holding it for a couple of

days for just such an occasion, but the two hookers

grabbed it, tore open the bag, and one of them bit off

more than half before offering the remainder to her friend.

Or rather, her former friend, for of such predatory acts are

feuds born. The two of them started fighting, screaming at

each other, slapping, raking at each other with clawed

hands. Poke watched closely, hoping that they'd drop the

remaining fragment of pastry, but no such luck. It went

into the mouth of the same girl who had already eaten the

first bite -- and it was that first girl who won the fight too,

sending the other one running for refuge.

Poke turned around, and there was the little boy right

behind her. She nearly tripped over him. Angry as she was

at having had to give up food to those street-whores, she

gave him a knee and knocked him to the ground. "Don't

stand behind people if you don't want to land on your

butt," she snarled.

He simply got up and looked at her, expectant,

demanding.

"No, you little bastard, you're not getting nothing from

me," said Poke. "I'm not taking one bean out of the

mouths of my crew, you aren't *worth* a bean."

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ENDER'SSHADOWbyOrsonScottCard(c)1999byOrsonScottCardENDER'SSHADOW.....................................................1FOREWORD...............................................................3PARTONE--URCHIN..................................................6CHAPTER1--POKE................................

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