"So Dr. Device isn't a missile--I can't shoot around corners."
"That's right. Missiles wouldn't do any good now. We learned a lot from them in the First Invasion, but they also learned from us--how to set up the Ecstatic Shield, for instance."
"The Little Doctor penetrates the shield?"
"As if it weren't there. You can't see through the shield to aim and focus the beams, but since the generator of the Ecstatic Shield is always in the exact center, it isn't hard to figure it out."
"Why haven't I ever been trained with this?"
"You always have. We just let the computer tend to it for you. Your job is to get into a superior strategic position and choose a target. The shipboard computers are much better at aiming the Doctor than you are."
"Why is it called Dr. Device?"
"When it was developed, it was called a Molecular Detachment Device. M.D. Device."
Ender still didn't understand.
"M.D. The initials stand for Medical Doctor, too. M.D. Device, therefore Dr. Device. It was a joke." Ender didn't see what was funny about it.
They had changed the simulator. He could still control the perspective and the degree of detail, but there were no ship's controls anymore. Instead, it was a new panel of levers, and a small headset with earphones and a small microphone.
The technician who was waiting there quickly explained how to wear the headset.
"But how do I control the ships?" asked Ender.
Mazer explained. He wasn't going to control ships anymore. "You've reached the next phase of your training. You have experience in every level of strategy, but now it's time for you to concentrate on commanding an entire fleet. As you worked with toon leaders in Battle School, so now you will work with squadron leaders. You have been assigned three dozen such leaders to train. You must teach them intelligent tactics; you must learn their strengths and limitations; you must make them into a whole."
"When will they come here?"
"They're already in place in their own simulators. You will speak to them through the headset. The new levers on your control panel enable you to see from the perspective of any of your squadron leaders. This more closely duplicates the conditions you might encounter in a real battle, where you will know only what your ships can see."
"How can I work with squadron leaders I never see?"
"And why would you need to see them?"
"To know who they are, how they think--"
"You'll learn who they are and how they think from the way they work with the simulator. But even so, I think you won't be concerned. They're listening to you right now. Put on the headset so you can hear them."
Ender put on the headset.
"Salaam," said a whisper in his ears.
"Alai," said Ender.
"And me, the dwarf."
"Bean."
And Petra, and Dink; Crazy Tom, Shen, Hot Soup, Fly Molo, Cam Carby, all the best students Ender had fought with or fought against, everyone that Ender had trusted in Battle School. "I didn't know you were here," he said. "I didn't know you were coming."
/> "They've been flogging us through the simulator for three months now," said Dink.
"You'll find that I'm by far the best tactician," said Petra. "Dink tries, but he has the mind of a child."
So they began working together, each squadron leader commanding individual pilots, and Ender commanding the squadron leaders. They learned many ways of working together, as the simulator forced them to try different situations. Sometimes the simulator gave them a larger fleet to work with; Ender set them up then in three or four toons that consisted of three or four squadrons each. Sometimes the simulator gave them a single starship with its twelve fighters, and he chose three squadron leaders with four fighters each.
It was pleasure; it was play. The computer-controlled enemy was none too bright, and they always won despite their mistakes, their miscommunications. But in the three weeks they practiced together, Ender came to know them very well. Dink, who deftly carried out instructions but was slow to improvise; Bean, who couldn't control large groups of ships effectively but could use a few like a scalpel, reacting beautifully to anything the computer threw at him; Alai, who was almost as good a strategist as Ender and could be entrusted to do well with half a fleet and only vague instructions.