Page 401 - Enders_Game_Full_Book

He waited for her to catch up, then caught her by the arm and whispered fiercely, "Don't shout! Or don't you care whether the piggies hear us or not? Has the master Zenador decided that we can let them see everything now, even the master disciplining her apprentice?"
"I'm not the master, I--"
"That's right, you're not." He turned away from her and started walking again. "But Libo was my father, so of course I'm the--"
"Zenador by blood right," he said. "Blood right, is that it? So what am I by blood right? A drunken wife-beating cretin?" He took her by the arms, gripping her cruelly. "Is that what you want me to be? A little copy of my paizinho?"
"Let go!"
He shoved her away. "Your apprentice thinks you were a fool today," said Miro. "Your apprentice thinks you should have trusted his judgment of the Speaker, and your apprentice thinks you should have trusted his assessment of how serious the piggies were about this, because you were stupidly wrong about both matters, and you may just have cost Human his life."
It was an unspeakable accusation, but it was exactly what they both feared, that Human would end up now as Rooter had, as others had over the years, disemboweled, with a seedling growing out of his corpse.
Miro knew he had spoken unfairly, knew that she would not be wrong to rage against him. He had no right to blame her when neither of them could possibly have known what the stakes might have been for Human until it was too late.
Ouanda did not rage, however. Instead, she calmed herself visibly, drawing even breaths and blanking her face. Miro followed her example and did the same. "What matters," said Ouanda, "is to make the best of it. The executions have always been at night. If we're to have a hope of vindicating Human, we have to get the Speaker here this afternoon, before dark. "
Miro nodded. "Yes," he said. "And I'm sorry."
"I'm sorry too," she said.
"Since we don't know what we're doing, it's nobody's fault when we do things wrong." "I only wish that I believed a right choice were possible."
***