Page 194 - Enders_Game_Full_Book

"So they knew about their defeat the moment it happened," said Ender. "I always figured -- everybody always said that they probably only found out they lost the battle twenty five years ago."
"It keeps people from panicking," said Graff. "I'm telling you things that you can't know, by the way, if you're ever going to leave IF Command. Before the war's over."
Ender was angry. "If you know me at all, you know I can keep a secret."
"It's a regulation. People under twenty-five are assumed to be a security risk. It's very unjust to a good many responsible children, but it helps narrow the number of people who might let something slip."
"What's all the secrecy for, anyway?"
"Because we've taken some terrible risks, Ender, and we don't want to have every net on earth second-guessing those decisions. You see, as soon as we had a working ansible, we tucked it into our best starships and launched them to attack the buggers home systems."
"Do we know where they are?"
"Yes."
"So we're not waiting for the Third Invasion."
"We *are* the Third Invasion."
"We're attacking them. Nobody says that. Everybody thinks we have a huge fleet of warships waiting in the comet shield--"
"Not one. We're quite defenseless here."
"What if they've sent a fleet to attack us?"
"Then we're dead. But our ships haven't seen such a fleet, not a sign of one."
"Maybe they gave up and they're planning to leave us alone."
"Maybe. You've seen the videos. Would you bet the human race on the chance of them giving up and leaving us alone?"
Ender tried to grasp the amounts of time that had gone by. "And the ships have been traveling for seventy years--"
"Some of them. And some for thirty years, and some for twenty. We make better ships now. We're learning how to play with space a lttle better. But every starship that is not