Page 488 - Enders_Game_Full_Book

The piggies were all stopped, their backs to the humans, facing a clearing. In a moment Ender, Ouanda, and Ela caught up with them and looked over them into the moonlit glen. It was quite a large space, and the ground was beaten bare. Several log houses lined the edges of the clearing, but the middle was empty except for a single huge tree, the largest they had seen in the forest.
The trunk seemed to be moving. "It's crawling with macios," said Ouanda. "Not macios," said Human.
"Three hundred twenty," said Mandachuva.
"Little brothers," said Arrow.
"And little mothers," added Cups.
"And if you harm them," said Leaf-eater, "we will kill you unplanted and knock down your tree." "We won't harm them," said Ender.
The piggies did not take a single step into the clearing. They waited and waited, until finally there was some movement near the largest of the log houses, almost directly opposite them. It was a piggy. But larger than any of the piggies they had seen before.
"A wife," murmured Mandachuva.
"What's her name?" asked Ender.
The piggies turned to him and stared. "They don't tell us their names," said Leaf-eater.
"If they even have names," added Cups.
Human reached up and drew Ender down to where he could whisper in his ear. "We always call her Shouter. But never where a wife can hear."
The female looked at them, and then sang-- there was no other way to describe the mellifluous flow of her voice-- a sentence or two in Wives' Language.
"It's for you to go," said Mandachuva. "Speaker. You."
"Alone?" asked Ender. "I'd rather bring Ouanda and Ela with me."
Mandachuva spoke loudly in Wives' Language; it sounded like gargling compared to the beauty of the female's voice. Shouter answered, again singing only briefly.
"She says of course they can come," Mandachuva reported. "She says they're females, aren't they? She's not very sophisticated about the differences between humans and little ones."