第一篇 回顾与展望 - the Educator Login page!

whispered, "Thank you, thank you Ender. Thank God for you, Ender."The others soon came, too, shaking his hand, congratulating him. He tried to make sense of this. Had he passedthe test after all? It was his victory, not theirs, and a hollow one at that, a cheat; why did they act as if he had wonwith honor?The crowd parted and Mazer Rackham walked through. He came straight to Ender and held out his hand."You made the hard choice, boy. All or nothing. End them or end us. But heaven knows there was no other wayyou could have done it. Congratulations. You beat them, and it's all over."All over. Beat them. Ender didn't understand. "I beat *you*."Mazer laughed, a loud laugh that filled the room."Ender, you never played *me*. You never played a *game* since I became your enemy."Ender didn't get the joke. He had played a great many games, at a terrible cost to himself. He began to getangry.Mazer reached out and touched his shoulder. Ender shrugged him off. Mazer then grew serious and said,"Ender, for the past few months you have been the battle commander of our fleets. This was the Third Invasion.There were no games, the battles were real, and the only enemy you fought was the buggers. You won everybattle, and today you finally fought them at their home world, where the queen was, all the queens from all theircolonies, they all were there and you destroyed them completely. They'll never attack us again. You did it. You."Real. Not a game. Ender's mind was too tired to cope with it all. They weren't just points of light in the air, theywere real ships that he had fought with and real ships he had destroyed. And a real world that he had blasted intooblivion. He walked through the crowd, dodging their congratulations, ignoring their hands, their words, theirrejoicing. When he got to his own room he stripped off his clothes, climbed into bed, and slept.第 310 页 共 340 页http://www.en8848.com.cn/ 原 版 英 语 阅 读 网