I have never forgotten that I owe our victory, and therefore this second life, to you and the other children who led us in the war. I thank you again from this grave of mine.

With love and respect,

Vitaly Denisovitch Kolmogorov

"I don't like what you're doing to Alessandra," said Valentine.

Ender looked up from what he was reading. "And what would that be?"

"You know perfectly well that you've made her fall in love with you."

"Have I?"

"Don't pretend to be oblivious to it! She looks at you like a hungry puppy."

"I've never owned a dog. They didn't allow team mascots in Battle School, and there weren't any strays."

"And you deliberately made her do it."

"If I can make a woman fall in love with me at will, I should have bottled it and sold it and gotten rich on Earth."

"You didn't make a woman fall in love with you, you made an emotionally dependent, shy, sheltered girl fall in love with you, and that's pathetically easy. All it took was being extraordinarily nice to her."

"You're right. If I hadn't been so selfish, I would have slapped her."

"Ender, it's me you're talking to. Do you think I haven't been watching? You seek out opportunities to praise her. To ask her advice on the most meaningless things. To thank her all the time for nothing at all. And you smile at her. Has anyone ever mentioned that when you smile, it would melt steel?"

"Inconvenient, in a spaceship. I'll smile less."

"You switch it on like. like the stardrive! That smile — with your whole face, as if you were taking your soul out and putting it into her hands."

"Val," said Ender. "This is kind of an important letter. What is your point?"

"What are you planning to do with her, now that you own her?"

"I don't own anybody," said Ender. "I haven't laid a hand on her — literally. Not shaking hands, not a pat on the shoulder, nothing. No physical contact. I also haven't flirted with her. No sexual innuendoes. No inside jokes. And I haven't gone off alone with her, either. Month after month, as her mother conspires to leave us alone, I've simply not done it. Even if it took walking out of a room quite rudely. What part of that is making her fall in love with me, exactly?"

"Ender, I don't like it when you lie to me."

"Valentine, if you want an honest answer, write me an honest letter."

She sighed and sat down on her bed. "I can't wait for this voyage to end."

"A bit more than two months to go. Almost over. And you did finish your book."

"Yes, and it's very good," said Valentine. "Especially when you consider I barely met any of them and you were almost no help to me."

"I answered every question you asked."

"Except to evaluate the people, to evaluate the school, to —»

"My opinions aren't history. It wasn't supposed to be 'Ender Wiggin's School Days as told to his sister, Valentine.»

"I didn't come on this voyage to quarrel with you."

Ender looked at her with such overdone astonishment that she threw a pillow at him.

"For what it's worth," she said, "I've never been as mean to you as I was to Peter all the time."

"Then all's right with the world."

"But I'm angry at you, Ender. You shouldn't toy with a girl's feelings. Unless you really plan to marry her —»

"I do not," said Ender.

"Then you shouldn't lead her on."

"I have not," said Ender.

"And I say you have."

"No, Valentine," said Ender. "What I have done is exactly what is needed for her to have the thing she wants most."

"Which is you."

"Which is definitely not me." Ender sat beside her on her bed, leaned close to her. "You will help me most by scrutinizing someone else."

"I scrutinize everybody," said Val. "I judge everybody. But you're my brother. I get to boss you around."

"And you're my sister. I have to tickle you until you pee or cry. Or both." Which he proceeded to attempt, though he didn't really go quite that far. Or at least, she only peed a little. And then punched him hard in the arm and made him say, "Ow," in a really snotty, sarcastic way, so she knew he was pretending it didn't hurt, but it really did. Which he deserved. He really was being rotten to Alessandra, and he didn't even care, and worse yet, he thought he could deny it. Just pitiful.

All that afternoon, Ender thought about what Valentine said. He knew what he was planning, and it really was for Alessandra's good, but he had miscalculated if the girl was actually falling in love with him. It was supposed to be friendship, trust, gratitude maybe. Brother-and-sister. Only Alessandra wasn't Valentine. She couldn't keep up. She didn't leap to conclusions as quickly as Val — or at least not to the same conclusions. She couldn't really hold up her end.

Where am I going to find anyone I can marry? Ender wondered. Nowhere and never, if I compare them all to Valentine.

All right, yes, I knew I was causing Alessandra to have feelings. I like it when she looks at me like that. Petra never looked at me that way. Nobody did. It feels good. The hormones wake up and get excited. It's fun. I'm fifteen. I haven't said anything to mislead her about my intentions, and I haven't done anything, not ever, to signal any kind of physical attraction. So shoot me for liking that she likes me and doing the things that make her feel that way. What's the rule here? Either totally ignore her and grind her face in her nothingness, or marry her on the spot? Are those the only choices?

But gnawing at the back of his mind was this question: Am I Peter? Am I using other people for whatever plan I have? Does it make a difference that my intention is to have a result that will give her a chance at happiness? I'm not asking her, I'm not giving her a choice, I'm manipulating her. Shaping her world so she makes certain choices and takes certain actions that make other people do what I want them to do and.

And what? What's the other choice? To passively let things happen and then say, "Tut-tut, what a botch that was"? Don't we all manipulate people? Even if we openly ask them to make a choice, don't we try to frame it so they'll choose as we think they should?

If I tell her what I'm up to, she'll probably go along with me. Do it voluntarily.

But is she a good enough actor to keep her mother from knowing something's going on? Forcing it out of her? Alessandra was still so much her mother's creature that Ender didn't believe she could keep a secret from her mother, not for long. And if she does give away the game, then it will cost Alessandra nothing — she'll be right where she already is — while I will lose everything. Don't I have a right to count myself in the balance here, my own happiness, my own future? And on the off chance that I'd be a better governor than Admiral Morgan, don't I owe it to the colonists to make sure things work out to put me in as governor, rather than him?

It's still war, even if there are no weapons but smiles and words. I have to take the forces I have, the advantages of the terrain, and try to face a more powerful enemy under circumstances that neutralize his advantages. Alessandra is a person, yes — so is every soldier, every pawn in the great game. I was used to win a war. Now I'll use someone else. All for the "good of the whole."

But underneath all his moral reasoning, there was something else. He could feel it. An itch, a hunger, a yearning. It was his inner chimp, as he and Valentine called it. The animal that smelled womanhood on Alessandra. Did I choose this plan, these tools, because they were best? Or because they would put me near a girl who is pretty, who desires my affection?

So maybe Valentine was completely right.

But if she was. what then? I can't undo all the attention I've paid to Alessandra. Do I suddenly turn cold to her, for no reason at all? Is that any less manipulative?