Page 388 - Enders_Game_Full_Book

It worked. Olhado didn't get it. "Why would you have a password like that? It's like having a dirty word for your password, only the system won't accept any dirty words."
"I have an ugly sense of humor," the Speaker answered. "And my slave program, as you call it, has an even worse one."
Olhado laughed. "Right. A program with a sense of humor." The current balance in liquid funds appeared on the screen. Olhado had never seen so large a number in his life. "OK, so maybe the computer can tell a joke."
"That's how much money I have?"
"It's got to be an error."
"Well, I've done a lot of lightspeed travel. Some of my investments must have turned out well while I was en route."
The numbers were real. The Speaker for the Dead was older than Olhado had ever thought anybody could possibly be. "I'll tell you what," said Olhado, "instead of paying me a wage, why don't you just give me a percentage of the interest this gets during the time I work for you? Say, one thousandth of one percent. Then in a couple of weeks I can afford to buy Lusitania and ship the topsoil to another planet."
"It's not that much money."
"Speaker, the only way you could get that much money from investments is if you were a thousand years old."
"Hmm," said the Speaker.
And from the look on his face, Olhado realized that he had just said something funny. "Are you a thousand years old?" he asked.
"Time," said the Speaker, "time is such a fleeting, insubstantial thing. As Shakespeare said, 'I wasted time, and now doth time waste me.'"
"What does 'doth' mean?"
"It means 'does.'"
"Why do you quote a guy who doesn't even know how to speak Stark?"
"Transfer to your own account what you think a fair week's wage might be. And then start doing those comparisons of Pipo's and Libo's working files from the last few weeks before their deaths."
"They're probably shielded."