Page 233 - Enders_Game_Full_Book

there bleeding through the eyes and nose, saying, You have no honor. And always the dream ended with a mirror or a pool of water or the metal surface of ship, something that would reflect his face back to him.
At first it was always Peter's face, with blood and a snake's tail coming from the mouth. After a while, though, it began to be his own face, old and sad, with eyes that grieved for a billion, billion murders -- but they were his own eyes, and he was content to wear them.
That was the world Ender lived in for many lifetimes during the five days of the League War.
When he awoke again he was lying in darkness. In the distance he could hear the thump, thump of explosions. He listened for a while. Then he heard a soft footstep.
He turned over and flung out a hand, to grasp whoever was sneaking up on him. Sure enough, he caught someone's clothing and pulled him down toward his knees, ready to kill him if need be.
"Ender, it's me, it's me!"
He knew the voice. It came out of his memory as if it were a million years ago.
"Alai."
"Salaam, pinprick. What were you trying to do, kill me?"
"Yes. I thought you were trying to kill *me*."
"I was trying not to wake you up. Well, at least you have some survival instinct left. The way Mazer talks about it, you were becoming a vegetable."
"I was trying to. What's the thumping."
"There's a war going on here. Our section is blacked out to keep us safe."
Ender swung his legs out to sit up. He couldn't do it, though. His head hurt too bad. He winced in pain."
"Don't sit up, Ender. It's all right. It looks like we might win it. Not all the Warsaw Pact people went with the Polemarch. A lot of them came over when the Strategos told them you were loyal to the IF."
"I was asleep."
"So he lied. You weren't plotting treason in your dreams, were you? Some of the Russians who came in told us that when the Polemarch ordered them to find you and kill