Page 425 - Enders_Game_Full_Book

"I hope," said Ela, "that you mean that you're sorry that you didn't mean to do it. I hope you aren't apologizing for helping the Speaker for the Dead."
"Of course he's apologizing for helping the spy," said Quim.
"Because," said Ela, "we should all help Speaker all we can."
Quim jumped to his feet, leaned across the table to shout in her face. "How can you say that! He was violating Mother's privacy, he was finding out her secrets, he was--"
To her surprise Ela found herself also on her feet, shoving him back across the table, shouting back at him, and louder. "Mother's secrets are the cause of half the poison in this house! Mother's secrets are what's making us all sick, including her! So maybe the only way to make things right here is to steal all her secrets and get them out in the open where we can kill them!" She stopped shouting. Both Quim and Ohado stood before her, pressed against the far wall as if her words were bullets and they were being executed. Quietly, intensely, Ela went on. "As far as I'm concerned, the Speaker for the Dead is the only chance we have to become a family again. And Mother's secrets are the only barrier standing in his way. So today I told him everything I knew about what's in Mother's files, because I want to give him every shred of truth that I can find."
"Then you're the worst traitor of all," said Quim. His voice was trembling. He was about to cry.
"I say that helping the Speaker for the Dead is an act of loyalty," Ela answered. "The only real treason is obeying Mother, because what she wants, what she has worked for all her life, is her own self-destruction and the destruction of this family."
To Ela's surprise, it was not Quim but Olhado who wept. His tear glands did not function, of course, having been removed when his eyes were installed. So there was no moistening of his eyes to warn of the onset of crying. Instead he doubled over with a sob, then sank down along the wall until he sat on the floor, his head between his knees, sobbing and sobbing. Ela understood why. Because she had told him that his love for the Speaker was not disloyal, that he had not sinned, and he believed her when she told him that, he knew that it was true.
Then she looked up from Olhado to see Mother standing in the doorway. Ela felt herself go weak inside, trembling at the thought of what Mother must have overheard.
But Mother did not seem angry. Just a little sad, and very tired. She was looking at Olhado. Quim's outrage found his voice. "Did you hear what Ela was saying?" he asked.
"Yes," said Mother, never taking her eyes from Olhado. "And for all I know she might be right." Ela was no less unnerved than Quim.
"Go to your rooms, children," Mother said quietly. "I need to talk to Olhado."