Page 1246 - Enders_Game_Full_Book

The inspector looked at her blankly. As if he thought she was asking him to explain the facts of life.
"The organ farm," she said. "Where do they get the babies?"
The inspector shrugged. "Late-term abortions, usually. Some arrangement with the clinics, a kickback. That sort of thing."
"And that's the only source?"
"Well, I don't know. Kidnappings? I don't think that could be much of a factor, there aren't *that* many babies leaking through the security systems in the hospitals. People selling babies? It's been heard of, yes. Poor refugees arrive with eight children, and then a few years later they have only six, and they cry about the ones who died but who can prove anything? But nothing you can trace."
"The reason I'm asking," said Sister Carlotta, "is that this child is unusual. *Extremely* unusual."
"Three arms?" asked the inspector.
"Brilliant. Precocious. He escaped from this place before he was a year old. Before he could walk."
The inspector thought about that for a few moments. "He *crawled* away?" "He hid in a toilet tank."
"He got the lid up before he was a year old?"
"He said it was hard to lift."
"No, it was probably cheap plastic, not porcelain. You know how these institutional plumbing fixtures are."
"You can see, though, why I want to know about the child's parentage. Some miraculous combination of parents."
The inspector shrugged. "Some children are born smart."
"But there is a hereditary component in this, inspector. A child like this must have ... remarkable parents. Parents likely to be prominent because of the brilliance of their own minds."
"Maybe. Maybe not," said the inspector. "I mean, some of these refugees, they might be brilliant, but they're caught up in desperate times. To save the other children, maybe they sell a baby. That's even a *smart* thing to do. It doesn't rule out refugees as the parents of this brilliant boy you have. "