Page 1409 - Enders_Game_Full_Book

CHAPTER 17 -- DEADLINE
"I don't even know how to interpret this. The mind game had only one shot at Bean, and it puts up this one kid's face, and he goes off the charts with -- what, fear? Rage? Isn't there anybody who knows how this so-called game works? It ran Ender through a wringer, brought in those pictures of his brother that it couldn't possibly have had, only it got them. And this one -- was it some deeply insightful gambit that leads to powerful new conclusions about Bean's psyche? Or was it simply the only person Bean knew whose picture was already in the Battle School files?"
"Was that a rant, or is there any particular one of those questions you want answered?"
"What I want you to answer is this question: How the hell can you tell me that something was 'very significant' if you have no idea what it signifies!"
"If someone runs after your car, screaming and waving his arms, you know that something significant is intended, even if you can't hear a word he's saying."
"So that's what this was? Screaming?"
"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."