Xenocide (Ender's Saga 3)

"Have you talked to her about this?"

"'Sta brincando. Claro que falei. Ela quase me matou." You're joking--of course I talked to her. She nearly killed me.

"Has she successfully trained any viruses?"

"She's not even testing for that. It's like she's run to the window and hollered, 'They're coming to kill you!' She's not doing science, she's doing interspecies politics, only we don't know that the other side even has politics, we only know that with her help it might just kill us faster than we ever imagined."

"Nossa Senhora," murmured Ender. "It's too dangerous. She can't play around with something like this."

"It may already be too late--I can't guess whether she's done damage or not."

"Then we've got to stop her."

"How, break her arms?"

"I'll talk to her, but she's too old--or too young--to listen to reason. I'm afraid it'll end up with the Mayor, not with us."

Only when Novinha spoke did Ender realize that his wife had entered the room. "In other words, jail," said Novinha. "You plan to have my daughter locked up. When were you going to inform me?"

"Jail didn't occur to me," said Ender. "I expected he'd shut off her access to--"

"That isn't the Mayor's job," said Novinha. "It's mine. I'm the head xenobiologist. Why didn't you come to me, Elanora? Why to him?"

Ela sat there in silence, looking at her mother steadily. It was how she handled conflict with her mother, with passive resistance.

"Quara's out of control, Novinha," said Ender. "Telling secrets to the fathertrees was bad enough. Telling them to the descolada is insane."

"Es psicologista, agora?" Now you're a psychologist?

"I'm not planning to lock her up."

"You're not planning anything," said Novinha. "Not with my children."

"That's right," said Ender. "I'm not planning to do anything with children. I do have a responsibility, however, to do something about an adult citizen of Milagre who is recklessly endangering the survival of every human being on this planet, and maybe every human being everywhere."

"And where did you get that noble responsibility, Andrew? Did God come down to the mountain and carve your license to rule people on tablets of stone?"

"Fine," said Ender. "What do you suggest?"

"I suggest you stay out of business that doesn't concern you. And frankly, Andrew, that includes pretty much everything. You're not a xenobiologist. You're not a physicist. You're not a xenologer. In fact, you're not much of anything, are you, except a professional meddler in other people's lives."

Ela gasped. "Mother!"

"The only thing that gives you any power anywhere is that damned jewel in your ear. She whispers secrets to you, she talks to you at night when you're in bed with your wife, and whenever she wants something, there you are in a meeting where you have no business, saying whatever it was she told you to say. You talk about Quara committing treason--as far as I can tell, you're the one who's betraying real people in favor of an overgrown piece of software!"

"Novinha," said Ender. It was supposed to be the beginning of an attempt to calm her.

But she wasn't interested in dialogue. "Don't you dare to try to deal with me, Andrew. All these years I thought you loved me--"

"I do."

"I thought you had really become one of us, part of our lives--"

"I am."

"I thought it was real--"

"It is."