Page 480 - Enders_Game_Full_Book

"Well, then," said the Bishop. "That solves our problem. If we tell them now, they won't even send a fleet to evacuate us."
"No," said Ender. "Bishop Peregrino, once they know what the Descolada will do, they'll see to it that no one leaves this planet, ever."
The Bishop scoffed. "What, do you think they'll blow up the planet? Come now, Speaker, there are no more Enders among the human race. The worst they might do is quarantine us here--"
"In which case," said Dom Crist o, "why should we submit to their control at all? We could send them a message telling them about the Descolada, informing them that we will not leave the planet and they should not come here, and that's it."
Bosquinha shook her head. "Do you think that none of them will say, 'The Lusitanians, just by visiting another world, can destroy it. They have a starship, they have a known propensity for rebelliousness, they have the murderous piggies. Their existence is a threat.'"
"Who would say that?" said the Bishop.
"No one in the Vatican," said Ender. "But Congress isn't in the business of saving souls."
"And maybe they'd be right," said the Bishop. "You said yourself that the piggies want starflight. And yet wherever they might go, they'll have this same effect. Even uninhabited worlds, isn't that right? What will they do, endlessly duplicate this bleak landscape-- forests of a single tree, prairies of a single grass, with only the cabra to graze it and only the xingadora to fly above it?"
"Maybe someday we could find a way to get the Descolada under control," said Ela.
"We can't stake our future on such a thin chance," said the Bishop.
"That's why we have to rebel," said Ender. "Because Congress will think exactly that way. Just as they did three thousand years ago, in the Xenocide. Everybody condemns the Xenocide because it destroyed an alien species that turned out to be harmless in its intentions. But as long as it seemed that the buggers were determined to destroy humankind, the leaders of humanity had no choice but to fight back with all their strength. We are presenting them with the same dilemma again. They're already afraid of the piggies. And once they understand the Descolada, all the pretense of trying to protect the piggies will be done with. For the sake of humanity's survival, they'll destroy us. Probably not the whole planet. As you said, there are no Enders today. But they'll certainly obliterate Milagre and remove any trace of human contact. Including killing all the piggies who know us. Then they'll set a watch over this planet to keep the piggies from ever emerging from their primitive state. If you knew what they know, wouldn't you do the same?"
"A Speaker for the Dead says this?" said Dom Crist o.
"You were there," said the Bishop. "You were there the first time, weren't you. When the buggers were destroyed."