"That was an analogy. The image of Achilles was extraordinarily important to Bean."
"Important positive, or important negative?"
"That's too cut-and-dried. If it was negative, are his negative feelings because Achilles caused some terrible trauma in Bean? Or negative because having been torn away from Achilles was traumatic, and Bean longs to be restored to him?"
"So if we have an independent source of information that tells us to keep them apart . . ."
"Then either that independent source is really really right. . . ."
"Or really really wrong."
"I'd be more specific if I could. We only had a minute with him."
"That's disingenuous. You've had the mind game linked to all his work with his teacher-identity."
"And we've reported to you about that. It's partly his hunger to have control--that's how it began--but it has since become a way of taking responsibility. He has, in a way, become a teacher. He has also used his inside information to give himself the illusion of belonging to the community."
"He does belong."
"He has only one close friend, and that's more of a big brother, little brother thing."
"I have to decide whether I can put Achilles into Battle School while Bean is there, or give up one of them in order to keep the other. Now, from Bean's response to Achilles' face, what counsel can you give me."
"You won't like it."
"Try me."
"From that incident, we can tell you that putting them together will be either a really really bad thing, or--"
"I'm going to have to take a long, hard look at your budget."
"Sir, the whole purpose of the program, the way it works, is that the computer makes connections we would never think of, and gets responses we weren't looking for. It's not actually under our control."
"Just because a program isn't out of control doesn't mean intelligence is present, either in the program or the programmer."
"We don't use the word 'intelligence' with software. We regard that as a naive idea. We say that it's 'complex.' Which means that we don't always understand what it's doing. We don't always get conclusive information."
"Have you ever gotten conclusive information about anything?"
"I chose the wrong word this time. 'Conclusive' isn't ever the goal when we are studying the human mind."
"Try 'useful.' Anything useful?"
"Sir, I've told you what we know. The decision was yours before we reported to you, and it's still your decision now. Use our information or not, but is it sensible to shoot the messenger?"
"When the messenger won't tell you what the hell the message is, my trigger finger gets twitchy. Dismissed."
Nikolai's name was on the list that Ender gave him, but Bean ran into problems immediately.
"I don't want to," said Nikolai.
It had not occurred to Bean that anyone would refuse.
"I'm having a hard enough time keeping up as it is."
"You're a good soldier."
"By the skin of my teeth. With a big helping of luck."