Ender's Shadow
At the age of four, Bean is living on the streets of Rotterdam. He is ostracized by the other children on the streets for his small size. Desperate for food, Bean talks to Poke, the leader of a small gang of children, called a crew. Poke names Bean when she flippantly tells him that he isn't worth a bean. But he proceeds to convince her to give him food in exchange for him giving her an idea. He advises Poke to have her crew gang up on one of the bullies who prowl the streets, and get him to work for her crew. When Poke agrees and attempts to attack Achilles (pronounced 'ah-SHEEL'), a bully with a crippled foot, Bean is struck with foreboding. Soon after, though Achilles makes a good 'papa' to the crew, getting them into the soup kitchen and protecting them, his insane need to kill anyone who has seen him in a vulnerable position causes him to murder Poke. This marks the end of Bean's street career.
Subsequently, Sister Carlotta, an unconventional nun, recognizes Bean's and Achilles' intelligence, and plucks them out of life on the street, to be trained at Battle School, though Achilles' entrance is delayed by his need for surgery to correct his leg. At school, Bean makes it clear that his abilities far exceed the possible—for a human. While Bean is studying at Battle School, Sister Carlotta does some research, and soon discovers that Bean is actually the son of Julian and Elena Delphiki, parents of Nikolai, a fellow Battle School student. Bean and 22 other fertilized eggs were stolen from a lab, genetically altered by his half Uncle, Constantine Volescu, then matured in artificial conditions. The 23 babies were then reared in a lab that was experimenting with augmented intelligence. When the lab was raided, the one-year-old Bean was able to hide in a toilet tank and escape being killed.
The alteration made was to turn a genetic key—called Anton's Key for the scientist who discovered it—which greatly enhanced Bean's mental powers, but will cost him the greater part of his life. Small as he is at age six, he will eventually die a giant before he turns 25, his half-uncle predicts.
At the Battle School, Bean knows nothing of these events except what he can glean from his expeditions through the ventilation system. As an extremely bright boy with a knack for extrapolation, he decides that to wait for the Formics (Buggers) to come and attack Earth would be strategic suicide. He states that the best idea would be a human invasion, The Third Invasion, and correctly guesses that such a fleet is already on its way to the Bugger home world.
Meanwhile, Bean does much work behind the scenes, putting together Ender's Dragon Army and helping as much as he can. In the final battle of the Third Invasion, it is Bean's wry remark in reaction to the impossible task ahead ("The enemy's gate is down") which trigger's Ender's ultimately successful venture.
The book ends with Bean being told of his past, and then meeting his parents for the first time.
Though Bean is only seven when the Buggers are eliminated, it is later stated that he does not return to Earth and his parents until age eleven. This four year difference is due to the turmoil that existed on Earth from the subsequent power play from the different Earth powers.
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