Nikolai helped Bean get his flash suit on for their practice. Bean’s flash suit had to be cut down to fit him, and in doing so, it made it harder to get on. During their practice, Ender teaches them the basics of battle in null-g. However, Bean is the only one who can answer Enders’ questions correctly or do what he asks well. Ender singles Bean out, just like he was singled out, and compares the rest of his army to bean. Their practice goes well, but afterwards Bean talks to Ender. He tells Ender that he wants a toon, but Ender said the only way that would happen was if he could prove his worth. Bean told that if Ender was fair, he’d be a toon leader in a month.

 

Ender had split his army in many directions to give it a better advantage in battle, so at any given time they could explode apart and make a lot more targets. Fly Molo (a toon leader) had called this a stupid formation; ‘everyone’ knows that that is a way to lose. Bean reacts to his insubordination and starts yelling at him, so Fly pushed him up against a bunk until Nikolai pushed him off. Bean and Fly apologize to each other, although neither really meant it.

Sister Carlotta traced Volescu’s family back a generation then forward a generation, and found a family that seemed to suit the query. This family, however, happens to have a son already in the IF, whose name is Nikolai. The only way to conceive Nikolai, though, was to make clones of the mothers’ eggs (six copies of each of the four) and to fertilize them with her husband. They had 24 eggs, used one for Nikolai, but they found out the other 23 are missing. Sister Carlotta tells them that one might be at battle school as well, but the others were killed. Later, Sister Carlotta is going to have a test run to see is Bean and Nikolai are related.