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and then called it a day. It was going to take me another
twelve hours to finish, so I’d get up early tomorrow and start again then.
    I set up a
small tent nearby, built a small fire and ate a light meal. Even though I’d
worked hard, I wasn’t that hungry because I was anxious. I still felt like I
was being watched. After eating, I pulled out the book I’d brought, Ender’s
Game , and read by the fire.
     
     
    I first read Ender’s Game when I was six. My dad had said that I’d love it, but I didn’t. He liked
science fiction and rated Ender’s Game one of his top five sci-fi books.
At the time, I thought, what’s the big deal? A kid saves the world. I’d already
read books with that plot and I didn’t find the specifics anything special.
Ender’s world was boring. It was a hyped-up version of school.
    A few years
later, after my dad was gone, I read it again and this time I loved it. I
understood it. The book wasn’t about Ender’s world. It was about Ender. His
classmates hated him, picked on him, and beat the crap out of him, all because
he was different. Like I was. I wasn’t brilliant like Ender, not even close,
and I never rose to the top either, but my classmates did hate me and kick the
crap out of me. And like Ender, I fought back even when I was outnumbered. Back
then, I’d wondered if my dad wanted me to read this book because he knew that
some day I’d identify with Ender, a boy who had few friends.
    I still wonder
about that.
    I read until
the fire died, the entire time planning to open that bottle of Curado. I wasn’t
a drinker, but a drink would’ve been a good defense against the dark. I never
opened the bottle.
    Before heading
into my tent, I looked up at the sky and saw a thin crescent moon between the
branches of the hemlocks. It offered almost no light. I maneuvered so I could
get a better look at the sky, hoping to catch a glimpse of a shooting star. My
dad had paid close attention to shooting stars. He’d said that, before the
Virus, people couldn’t see many stars. The ambient light created by thousands
of cities had made star gazing almost impossible. But now the stars shone
bright, millions of gold specks lighting up the night sky, a consolation prize
courtesy of the Virus. And the shooting stars were the brightest of all.
    I knew they
weren’t really stars, but meteors entering the earth’s atmosphere and burning
up. But on that cold dark night, I had no idea that they were also part of a
bigger connection between my life and Ender’s life.
    I couldn’t get
a clear angle on the sky, so I crawled into my tent, slid into my sleeping bag,
and tried to fall asleep.

 
Chapter Six
     
    The night sounds were louder than
I’d expected. Louder than the water rushing through the channel and louder than
the rhythmic beating of the three working pumps. The night was dominated by the
hoots of owls, the symphony of chirping crickets, and the scurrying of mice and
raccoons and every so often, the deer added their human-like snorts to the
blanket of sounds.
    I don’t know
how long it took me to fall asleep, but I do know that I awoke abruptly. Someone
was out there . I don’t know how I knew, it could’ve been the subtle change
in the sea of night sounds, but I knew. And I was guessing it was a marauder.
    I reached over
and grabbed the bowie knife I’d brought with me and I suddenly wished I’d made
the effort to acquire a gun. Guns were illegal Remnants, and expensive, and
only Fibs were allowed to own them.
    I slid out of
my sleeping bag, crouched low in my tent, and tried to pick out more hints of
the marauder. The cadence of scurrying mice and raccoons had changed and so had
the pitch of the owls’ hoots.
    Then I heard
silence take over the space behind my tent and I pictured the marauder standing
there, ready to attack.
    I crouched,
motionless, and realized that my heart was pumping wildly.
    I had a couple
of choices. I could race out of my tent, across the top of the