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students trained him, step by step, in its use. At first, not knowing the awesome power of the game, he hadplayed only at the tactical level, controlling a single fighter in continuous maneuvers to find and destroy anenemy. The computer-controlled enemy was devious and powerful, and whenever Ender tried a tactic he foundthe computer using it against him within minutes.The game was a holographic display, and his fighter was represented only by a tiny light. The enemy wasanother light of a different color, and they danced and spun and maneuvered through a cube of space that musthave been ten meters to a side. The controls were powerful. He could rotate the display in any direction, so hecould watch from any angle, and he could move the center so that the duel took place nearer or farther from him.Gradually, as he became more adept at controlling the fighter's speed, direction of movement, orientation, andweapons, the game was made more complex. He might have two enemy ships at once; there might be obstacles,the debris of space; he began to have to worry about fuel and limited weapons; the computer began to assign himparticular things to destroy or accomplish, so that he had to avoid distractions and achieve an objective in orderto win.When he had mastered the one-fighter game, they allowed him to step back into the four-fighter squadron. Hespoke commands to simulated pilots of four fighters, and instead of merely carrying out the computer'sinstructions, he was allowed to determine tactics himself, deciding which of several objectives was the mostvaluable and directing his squadron accordingly. At any time he could take personal command of one of thefighters for a short time, and at first he did this often; when he did, however, the other three fighters in hissquadron were soon destroyed, and as the games became harder and harder he had to spend more and more of histime commanding the squadron. When he did, he won more and more often.By the time he had been at Command School for year, he was adept at running the simulator at any of fifteenlevels, from controlling an individual fighter to commanding a fleet. He had long since realized that as thebattleroom was to Battle School, so the simulator was to Command School. The classes were valuable, but thereal education was the game. People dropped in from time to time to watch him play. They never spoke -- hardlyanyone ever did, unless they had something specific to teach him. The watchers would stay, silently, watchinghim run through a difficult simulation, and then leave just as he finished. What are you doing, he wanted to ask.Judging me? Determining whether you want to trust the fleet to me? Just remember that I didn't ask for it.He found that a great deal of what he learned at Battle School transferred to the simulator. He would routinelyreorient the simulator every few minutes, rotating it so that he didn't get trapped into an up-down orientation,constantly reviewing his positoon from the enemy point of view. It was exhilarating at last to have such control第 272 页 共 340 页http://www.en8848.com.cn/ 原 版 英 语 阅 读 网