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toons. But when I need you. When there's something to be done that only you can do."
There was something else about these twelve. "These are all new. No veterans."
"After last week, Bean, all our soldiers are veterans. Don't you realize that on the individual soldier standings, all forty of our soldiers are in the top fifty? That you have to go down seventeen places to find a soldier who *isn't* a Dragon?"
"What if I can't think of anything?" asked Bean. "Then I was wrong about you."
Bean grinned. "You weren't wrong."
The lights went out.
"Can you find your way back, Bean?"
"Probably not."
"Then stay here. If you listen very carefully, you can hear the good fairy come in the night and leave our assignment for tomorrow."
"They won't give us another battle tomorrow, will they?" Bean meant it as a joke, but Ender didn't answer.
Bean heard him climb into bed.
Ender was still small for a commander. His feet didn't come near the end of the bunk. There was plenty of room for Bean to curl up at the foot of the bed. So he climbed up and then lay still, so as not to disturb Ender's sleep. If he was sleeping. If he was not lying awake in the silence, trying to make sense of ... what?
For Bean, the assignment was merely to think of the unthinkable -- stupid ploys that might be used against them, and ways to counter them; equally stupid innovations they might introduce in order to sow confusion among the other armies and, Bean suspected, get them sidetracked into imitating completely nonessential strategies. Since few of the other commanders understood why Dragon Army was winning, they kept imitating the nonce tactics used in a particular battle instead of seeing the underlying method Ender used in training and organizing his army. As Napoleon said, the only thing a commander ever truly controls is his own army -- training, morale, trust, initiative, command and, to a lesser degree, supply, placement, movement, loyalty, and courage in battle. What the enemy will do and what chance will bring, those defy all planning. The commander must be able to change his plans abruptly when obstacles or opportunities appear. If his army isn't ready and willing to respond to his will, his cleverness comes to nothing.