Page 418 - Enders_Game_Full_Book

"Love them," said Ender.
"Yes!" said Ouanda defiantly.
"But if you left them, if you weren't here at all, they wouldn't disappear, would they?" "No," said Miro.
"I told you he'd be just like the committee," said Ouanda.
Ender ignored her. "What would it cost them if you left?"
"It's like--" Miro struggled for words. "It's as if you could go back, to old Earth, back before the Xenocide, before star travel, and you said to them, You can travel among the stars, you can live on other worlds. And then showed them a thousand little miracles. Lights that turn on from switches. Steel. Even simple things-- pots to hold water. Agriculture. They see you, they know what you are, they know that they can become what you are, do all the things that you do. What do they say-- take this away, don't show us, let us live out our nasty, short, brutish little lives, let evolution take its course? No. They say, Give us, teach us, help us."
"And you say, I can't, and then you go away."
"It's too late!" said Miro. "Don't you understand? They've already seen the miracles! They've already seen us fly here. They've seen us be tall and strong, with magical tools and knowledge of things they never dreamed of. It's too late to tell them good-bye and go. They know what is possible. And the longer we stay, the more they try to learn, and the more they learn, the more we see how learning helps them, and if you have any kind of compassion, if you understand that they're-- they're--"
"Human."
"Ramen, anyway. They're our children, do you understand that?"
Ender smiled. "What man among you, if his son asks for bread, gives him a stone?"
Ouanda nodded. "That's it. The Congressional rules say we have to give them stones. Even though we have so much bread."
Ender stood up. "Well, let's go on."
Ouanda wasn't ready. "You haven't promised--" "Have you read the Hive Queen and the Hegemon?" "I have," said Miro.