She stalked to the door, but then thought better of the theatrical exit. She turned back to Ela and spoke with remarkable calm. “Elanora, I will take immediate steps to block Quara from access to records and equipment that she could use to help the descolada. And in the future, my dear, if I ever hear you discussing lab business with anyone, especially this man, I will bar you from the lab for life. Do you understand?”

Again Ela answered her with silence.

“Ah,” said Novinha. “I see that he has stolen more of my children from me than I thought.”

Then she was gone.

Ender and Ela sat in stunned silence. Finally Ela stood up, though she didn't take a single step.

“I really ought to go do something,” said Ela, “but I can't for the life of me think what.”

“Maybe you should go to your mother and show her that you're still on her side.”

“But I'm not,” said Ela. “In fact, I was thinking maybe I should go to Mayor Zeljezo and propose that he remove Mother as head xenobiologist because she has clearly lost her mind.”

“No she hasn't,” said Ender. “And if you did something like that, it would kill her.”

“Mother? She's too tough to die.”

“No,” said Ender. “She's so fragile right now that any blow might kill her. Not her body. Her– trust. Her hope. Don't give her any reason to think you're not with her, no matter what.”

Ela looked at him with exasperation. “Is this something you decide, or does it just come naturally to you?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Mother just said things to you that should have made you furious or hurt or– something, anyway– and you just sit there trying to think of ways to help her. Don't you ever feel like lashing out at somebody? I mean, don't you ever lose your temper?”

“Ela, after you've inadvertently killed a couple of people with your bare hands, either you learn to control your temper or you lose your humanity.”

“You've done that?”

“Yes,” he said. He thought for a moment that she was shocked.

“Do you think you could still do it?”

“Probably,” he said.

“Good. It may be useful when all hell breaks loose.”

Then she laughed. It was a joke. Ender was relieved. He even laughed, weakly, along with her.

“I'll go to Mother,” said Ela, “but not because you told me to, or even for the reasons that you said.”

“Fine, just so you go.”

“Don't you want to know why I'm going to stick with her?”

“I already know why.”

“Of course. She was wrong, wasn't she. You do know everything, don't you.”

“You're going to go to your mother because it's the most painful thing you could do to yourself at this moment.”

“You make it sound sick.”

“It's the most painful good thing you could do. It's the most unpleasant job around. It's the heaviest burden to bear.”

“Ela the martyr, certo? Is that what you'll say when you speak my death?”

"If I'm going to speak your death, I'll have to pre-record it. I intend to be dead long before you. "

“So you're not leaving Lusitania?”

“Of course not.”

“Even if Mother boots you out?”

“She can't. She has no grounds for divorce, and Bishop Peregrino knows us both well enough to laugh at any request for annulment based on a claim of nonconsummation.”

“You know what I mean.”

“I'm here for the long haul,” said Ender. “No more phony immortality through time dilation. I'm through chasing around in space. I'll never leave the surface of Lusitania again.”

“Even if it kills you? Even if the fleet comes?”

“If everybody can leave, then I'll leave,” said Ender. “But I'll be the one who turns off all the lights and locks the door.”

She ran to him and kissed him on the cheek and embraced him, just for a moment. Then she was out the door and he was, once again, alone.

I was so wrong about Novinha, he thought. It wasn't Valentine she was jealous of. It was Jane. All these years, she's seen me speaking silently with Jane, all the time, saying things that she could never hear, hearing things that she could never say. I've lost her trust in me, and I never even realized I was losing it.

Even now, he must have been subvocalizing. He must have been talking to Jane out of a habit so deep that he didn't even know he was doing it. Because she answered him.

“I warned you,” she said.

I suppose you did, Ender answered silently.

“You never think I understand anything about human beings.”

I guess you're learning.

“She's right, you know. You are my puppet. I manipulate you all the time. You haven't had a thought of your own in years.”

“Shut up,” he whispered. “I'm not in the mood.”

“Ender,” she said, “if you think it would help you keep from losing Novinha, take the jewel out of your ear. I wouldn't mind.”

“I would,” he said.

“I was lying, so would I,” she said. “But if you have to do it, to keep her, then do it.”

“Thank you,” he said. “But I'd be hard-pressed to keep someone that I've clearly lost already.”

“When Quim comes back, everything will be fine.”

Right, thought Ender. Right.

Please, God, take good care of Father Estevao.

They knew Father Estevao was coming. Pequeninos always did. The fathertrees told each other everything. There were no secrets. Not that they wanted it that way. There might be one fathertree that wanted to keep a secret or tell a lie. But they couldn't exactly go off by themselves. They never had private experiences. So if one fathertree wanted to keep something to himself, there'd be another close by who didn't feel that way. Forests always acted in unity, but they were still made up of individuals, and so stories passed from one forest to another no matter what a few fathertrees might wish.

That was Quim's protection, he knew. Because even though Warmaker was a bloodthirsty son of a bitch– though that was an epithet without meaning when it came to pequeninos– he couldn't do a thing to Father Estevao without first persuading the brothers of his forest to act as he wanted them to. And if he did that, one of the other fathertrees in his forest would know, and would tell. Would bear witness. If Warmaker broke the oath taken by all the fathertrees together, thirty years ago, when Andrew Wiggin sent Human into the third life, it could not be done secretly. The whole world would hear of it, and Warmaker would be known as an oathbreaker. It would be a shameful thing. What wife would allow the brothers to carry a mother to him then? What children would he ever have again as long as he lived?

Quirn was safe. They might not heed him, but they wouldn't harm him.

Yet when he arrived at Warmaker's forest, they wasted no time listening to him. The brothers seized him, threw him to the ground, and dragged him to Warmaker.

“This wasn't necessary,” he said. “I was coming here anyway.”

A brother was beating on the tree with sticks. Quim listened to the changing music as Warmaker altered the hollows within himself, shaping the sound into words.

“You came because I commanded.”

“You commanded. I came. If you want to think you caused my coming, so be it. But God's commands are the only ones I obey willingly.”

“You're here to hear the will of God,” said Warmaker.

“I'm hear to speak the will of God,” said Quim. “The descolada is a virus, created by God in order to make the pequeninos into worthy children. But the Holy Ghost has no incarnation. The Holy Ghost is perpetually spirit, so he can dwell in our hearts.”

“The descolada dwells in our hearts, and gives us life. When he dwells in your heart, what does he give you?”

“One God. One faith. One baptism. God doesn't preach one thing to humans and another to pequeninos.”

“We are not 'little ones.' You will see who is mighty and who is small.”

They forced him to stand with his back pressed against Warmaker's trunk. He felt the bark shifting behind him. They pushed on him. Many small hands, many snouts breathing on him. In all these years, he had never thought of such hands, such faces as belonging to enemies. And even now, Quim realized with relief that he didn't think of them as his own enemies. They were the enemies of God, and he pitied them. It was a great discovery for him, that even when he was being pushed into the belly of a murderous fathertree, he had no shred of fear or hatred in him.