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"Of course I cannot say."
"But ... not Volescu, surely."
"No. As far as I'm concerned, he'll never hear that name. God bless you, Julian Delphiki. I will pray for you and your wife."
"Pray for our children's souls, too, Sister."
"I already have, and do, and will."
***
Major Anderson looked at the boy sitting across the table from him. "Really, it's not that important a matter, Nikolai."
"I thought maybe I was in trouble."
"No, no. We just noticed that you seemed to be a particular friend of Bean. He doesn't have a lot of friends."
"It didn't help that Dimak painted a target on him in the shuttle. And now Ender's gone and done the same thing. I suppose Bean can take it, but smart as he is, he kind of pisses off a lot of the other kids."
"But not you?"
"Oh, he pisses me off, too."
"And yet you became his friend."
"Well, I didn't mean to. I just had the bunk across from him in launchy barracks." "You traded for that bunk."
"Did I? Oh. Eh."
"And you did that before you knew how smart Bean was."
"Dimak told us in the shuttle that Bean had the highest scores of any of us." "Was that why you wanted to be near him?"
Nikolai shrugged.