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the circus I saw out here! Did you call that forming up? Did you call that flying? Now everybody, launch and form up on the ceiling! Right now! Move!"
As Ender expected, a good number of them instinctively launched, not toward the wall with the door in it, but toward the wall that Ender had called north, the direction that had been up when they were in the corridor. Of course they quickly realized their mistakem, but too late -- they had to wait to change things until they had rebounded off the north wall.
In the meantime, Ender was mentally grouping them into slow learners and fast learners. The littlest kid, the one who had been last out of the door, was the first to arrive at the correct wall, and he caught himself adroitly. They had been right to advance him. He'd do well. He was also cocky and reheltious, and probably resented the fact that he had been one of the ones Ender had sent naked through the corridors.
"You!" Ender said, pointing at the small one. "Which way is down?"
"Toward the enemy door." The answer was quick. It was also surly, as if to say, OK, OK, now get on with the important stuff.
"Name, kid?"
"This soldier's name is Bean, sir."
"Get that for size or for brains?" The other boys laughed a little. "Well, Bean, you're right onto things. Now listen to me, because this matters. Nobody's going to get through that door without a good chance of getting hit. In the old days, you had ten, twenty seconds before you even had to move. Now if you aren't already streaming out of the door when the enemy comes out, you're frozen. Now, what happens when you're frozen?"
"Can't move," one of the boys said.
"That's what frozen means," Enden said. "But what happens to you?"
It was Bean, not intimidated at all, who answered intelligently. "You keep going in the direction you started in. At the speed you were going when you were flashed."
"That's true. You five, there on the end, move!"
Startled, the boys looked at each other, Ender flashed them all. "The next five, move!"
They moved. Ender flashed them, too, but they kept moving, heading toward the walls. The first five, though, were drifting uselessly near the main group.
"Look at these so-called soldiers," Ender said. "Their commander ordered them to move, and now look at them. Not only are they frozen, they're frozen right here, where