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emember how old he was. Eleven. How many years ago did he turn eleven? How many days? It must havehappened here at the Command School, but he couldn't remember the day. Maybe he didn't even notice it at thetime. Nobody noticed it, except perhaps Valentine.And as he waited for the game to appear, he wished he could simply lose it, lose the battle badly and completelyso that they would remove him from training, like Bonzo, and let him go home. Bonzo had been assigned toCartagena. He wanted to see travel orders that said Greensboro. Success meant it would go on. Failure meant hecould go home.No, that isn't true, he told himself. They need me, and if I fail there might not be any home to return to.But he did not believe it. In his conscious mind he knew it was true, but in other places, deeper places, hedoubted that they needed him. Mazer's urgency was just another trick. Just another way to make me do what theywant me to do. Another way to keep him from resting. From doing nothing, for a long, long time.Then the enemy formation appeared, and Ender's weariness turned to despair.The enemy outnumbered him a thousand to one, the simulator glowed green with them. They were grouped in adozen different formations shifting positions, changing shapes, moving in seemingly random patterns through thesimulator field. He could not find a path through them -- a space that seemed open would close suddenly, andanother appear, and a formation that seemed penetrable would suddenly change and be forbidding. The planetwas at the far edge of the field, and for all Ender knew there were just as many enemy ships beyond it, out of thesimulator's range.As for his own fleet, it consisted of twenty starships, each with only four fighters. He knew the four-fighterstarships they were old-fashioned, sluggish, and the range of their Little Doctors was half that of the newer ones.Eighty fighters, against at least five thousand, perhaps ten thousand enemy ships.He heard his squadron leaders breathing heavily; he could also hear, from the observers behind him, a quietcurse. It was nice to know that one of the adults noticed that it wasn't a fair test. Not that it made any difference.Fairness wasn't part of the game, that was plain. There was no attempt to give him even a remote chance atsuccess. All that I've been through, and they never meant to let me pass at all.第 306 页 共 340 页http://www.en8848.com.cn/ 原 版 英 语 阅 读 网