"Interesting line of thought," said Mazer. Mazer said that whether his guesses were right or wrong, so Ender didn't try to interpret it. "Is that all?" asked Mazer.

"There are governments and politicians that would like to discredit me. There's a move to keep me from coming back to Earth. I read the nets, I know what they're saying, that I'll just be a political football, a target for assassins, or an asset that my country will use to conquer the world or some such nonsense. So I think there are those who intend to use Graff's court martial as a way to publish things about me that would ordinarily be kept under seal. Things that will make me look like some kind of monster."

"You do know that it sounds suspiciously like paranoia, to think that Graff's trial is about you."

"Which makes it all the more appropriate that I'm in this loony bin," said Ender.

"You understand that I can't tell you anything," said Mazer.

"You don't have to," said Ender. "I'm also thinking that there was another boy. Years ago. When I was just little. He was hardly that much bigger than me. But he had a gang with him. I talked him out of using them — made it personal, one-on-one. Just like Bonzo. I wasn't a good fighter then. I didn't know how. All I could do was go crazy on him. Hurt him so bad he'd never dare to come after me again. Hurt him so bad that his gang would leave me alone, too. I had to be crazy in order to scare them with how crazy I was. So I think that incident is going to be part of the trial, too."

"Your self-absorption is really quite sweet — you really are convinced you're the center of the universe."

"Center of the court martial," said Ender. "It's about me, or people wouldn't be so anxious to keep me from knowing about it. The absence of information is information."

"You kids are so smart," said Mazer, with just enough sarcasm to make Ender smile.

"Stilson's dead, too, isn't he," said Ender. It wasn't really a question.

"Ender, not everyone you fight with dies." But there was just a titch of hesitation after he said it. And so Ender knew. Everyone he had fought with — really fought — was dead. Bonzo. Stilson. And all the formics, every hive queen, every bugger, every larva, every egg, however they reproduced, it was over.

"You know," said Ender quietly, "I think about them all the time. How they'll never have any more children. That's what being alive is, isn't it? The ability to replicate. Even people without children, their bodies are still making new cells all the time. Replicating. Only that's over for Bonzo and Stilson. They never lived long enough to reproduce. Their line is cut off. I was nature, red in tooth and claw, for them. I determined their unfitness."

Ender knew even as he said it that this was unfair. Mazer was under orders not to discuss these matters with him and even if he guessed right, not to confirm them. But ending the conversation would confirm it, and even denying the truth had confirmed it. Now Ender was practically forcing him to speak, to reassure him, to answer his perceived need. "You don't have to respond," said Ender. "I'm not really as depressed as I sound. I don't blame myself, you know."

Mazer's eyes flickered.

"No, I'm not insane," said Ender. "I regret their deaths. I know that I'm responsible for killing Stilson and Bonzo and all the formics in the universe. But I'm not to blame. I didn't seek out Stilson or Bonzo. They came to me, with a threat of real damage. A credible threat. Tell them that in the court martial. Or run the recording you're doubtless making of this conversation. My intention was not to kill them, but my intention was definitely to stop them from damaging me. And the only way to do that was to act brutally. I'm sorry that they died from their injuries. I'd undo that if I could. But I didn't have the skill to hurt them enough to prevent future attacks, and yet not kill them. Or whatever it was that I did to them. If they're mentally damaged or crippled, I'll do what I can for them, unless their families would rather I stay away. I don't want to cause any more harm.

"But here's the thing, Mazer Rackham: I knew what I was doing. It's ridiculous for Hyrum Graff to be on trial for this. He had no idea of the way I thought, when it came to Stilson. He couldn't have known what I'd do. Only I knew. And I meant to hurt him — I meant to hurt him bad. Not Graff's fault. The fault was Stilson's. If he had left me alone — and I gave him every chance to walk away. I begged him to leave me alone. If he'd done that, he'd be alive. He chose. Just because he thought I was weaker than him, just because he thought I couldn't protect myself, doesn't mean it stopped being his fault. He chose to attack me precisely because he thought there would be no consequences. Only there were consequences."

Mazer cleared his throat a little. And then spoke. "This has gone far enough."

"With Bonzo, however, Graff was taking a terrible risk. What if Bonzo and his friends hurt me? What if I died? Or was brain-damaged? Or was simply made fearful and timid? He would lose the weapon he was forging. Bean would have won the war even if I was out of the picture, but Graff couldn't know that. It was a terrible gamble. Because Graff also knew that if I got out of that confrontation with Bonzo alive — victorious — then I would believe in myself. My ability to win under any circumstances. The game didn't give me that — it was just a game. Bonzo showed me that in real life I could win. As long as I understood my enemy. You understand what that means, Mazer."

"Even if anything you're saying were true.»

"Take this vid and introduce it into evidence. Or if, by some remote chance, nobody's recording our conversation, then testify on his behalf. Let them know — the court martial — let them know that Graff acted properly. I was angry at him for doing it that way, and I suppose I still am. But if I were in his place, I would have done the same. It was part of winning the war. People die in war. You send your soldiers into combat and you know some of them won't come back. But Graff didn't send Bonzo. Bonzo was a volunteer for the duty he assigned himself — attacking me and allowing us all to learn that no, I would not allow myself to lose, ever. Bonzo volunteered. Just like the buggers volunteered by coming here and trying to wipe out human life. If they'd left us alone, we wouldn't have hurt them. The court martial has to understand. I am what Battle School was designed to create, what the whole world wanted it to create. Graff cannot be blamed for shaping and sharpening the weapon. He did not wield it. No one did. Bonzo found a knife and cut himself on it. That's how they have to look at it."

"Are you done?" Mazer had asked.

"Why, are you running out of recording room?"

Mazer got up and left.

When he came back, he said nothing about their discussion. But Ender was now free to come and go anywhere. They no longer tried to hide things from him. He was able to read the transcript of Graff's arraignment.

He had been right on every point.

Ender also understood that Graff would not be convicted of anything serious — he would not go to prison. The court martial existed only to damage Ender and make it impossible for America to use him as a military leader. Ender was a hero, yes, but he was now officially a really scary kid. The court martial would cement that image in the public mind. People might have rallied around the savior of the human race. But a monstrous kid who killed other children? Even if it was self-defense, it was just too terrible. Ender's political future on Earth was nonexistent.

Ender tracked how the commentator Demosthenes responded as things began to come out in the trial. For months — ever since it became clear that Ender was not being sent home immediately — the famous American chauvinist had been agitating on the nets to "bring the hero home." Even now, as Ender's private killings were being used against Graff at the trial, Demosthenes still declared, more than once, that Ender was a "weapon that belongs to the American people."