Page 457 - Enders_Game_Full_Book

Ender touched her hair, smoothed it. She accepted his touch, his consolation. He couldn't remember if his father or mother had ever touched him with such a gesture. They must have. How else would he have learned it?
"Ela, will you help me?"
"Help you what? You've done your work, haven't you?"
"This has nothing to do with Speaking for the dead. I have to know, within the hour, how the Descolada works."
"You'll have to ask Mother-- she's the one who knows."
"I don't think she'd be glad to see me tonight."
"I'm supposed to ask her? Good evening, Mamae, you've just been revealed to all of Milagre as an adulteress who's been lying to your children all our lives. So if you wouldn't mind, I'd like to ask you a couple of science questions."
"Ela, it's a matter of survival for Lusitania. Not to mention your brother Miro." He reached over and turned to the terminal. "Log on," he said.
She was puzzled, but she did it. The computer wouldn't recognize her name. "I've been taken off." She looked at him in alarm. "Why?"
"It's not just you. It's everybody."
"It isn't a breakdown," she said. "Somebody stripped out the log-on file."
"Starways Congress stripped all the local computer memory. Everything's gone. We're regarded as being in a state of rebellion. Miro and Ouanda are going to be arrested and sent to Trondheim for trial. Unless I can persuade the Bishop and Bosquinha to launch a real rebellion. Do you understand? If your mother doesn't tell you what I need to know, Miro and Ouanda will both be sent twenty-two lightyears away. The penalty for treason is death. But even going to the trial is as bad as life imprisonment. We'll all be dead or very very old before they get back."
Ela looked blankly at the wall. "What do you need to know?"
"I need to know what the Committee will find when they open up her files. About how the Descolada works. "
"Yes," said Ela. "For Miro's sake she'll do it." She looked at him defiantly. "She does love us, you know. For one of her children, she'd talk to you herself."
"Good," said Ender. "It would be better if she came herself. To the Bishop's chambers, in an hour."