Page 403 - Enders_Game_Full_Book

"I know. Quim told me." She caught herself feeling just a little triumphant that Mother's protection system had bested him. Then she remembered that she was not on Mother's side in this. That she had been trying for years to get Mother to open those very files to her. But momentum carried her on, saying things she didn't mean to say. "Olhado's sitting in the house with his eyes shut off and music blasting into his ears. Very upset."
"Yes, well, he thinks I betrayed him."
"Didn't you?" That was not what she meant to say.
"I'm a Speaker for the Dead. I tell the truth, when I speak at all, and I don't keep away from other people's secrets."
"I know. That's why I called for a Speaker. You don't have any respect for anybody."
He looked annoyed. "Why did you invite me here?" he asked.
This was working out all wrong. She was talking to him as if she were against him, as if she weren't grateful for what he had already done for the family. She was talking to him like the enemy. Has Quim taken over my mind, so that I say things I don't mean?
"You invited me to this place on the river. The rest of your family isn't speaking to me, and then I get a message from you. To complain about my breaches of privacy? To tell me I don't respect anybody?"
"No," she said miserably. "This isn't how it was supposed to go."
"Didn't it occur to you that I would hardly choose to be a Speaker if I had no respect for people?"
In frustration she let the words burst out. "I wish you had broken into all her files! I wish you had taken every one of her secrets and published them through all the Hundred Worlds!" There were tears in her eyes; she couldn't think why.
"I see. She doesn't let you see those files, either."
"Sou aprendiz dela, nao sou? E porque choro, diga-me! O senhor tem o jeito."
"I don't have any knack for making people cry, Ela," he answered softly. His voice was a caress. No, stronger, it was like a hand gripping her hand, holding her, steadying her. "Telling the truth makes you cry."
"Sou ingrata, sou ma filha--"
"Yes, you're ungrateful, and a terrible daughter," he said, laughing softly. "Through all these years of chaos and neglect you've held your mother's family together with little help from her, and when you followed her in her career, she wouldn't share the most vital inforination with you; you've