Page 502 - Enders_Game_Full_Book

"Diga ao Falante pelos Mortos," said Olhado.
"What should we tell the Speaker?" asked Quim.
"You should sleep now and tell us later," said Novinha. "He won't be back for hours. He's negotiating a set of rules to govern relations between the piggies and us. To stop them from killing any more of us, the way they killed Pipo and L-- and your father."
But Miro refused to sleep. He continued spelling out his message as the terminal scanned. Together the three of them worked out what he was trying to get them to tell the Speaker. And they understood that he wanted them to go now, before the negotiations ended.
So Novinha left Dom Crist o and Dona Crist to watch over the house and the little children. On the way out of the house she stopped beside her oldest son. The exertion had worn him out; his eyes were closed and his breathing was regular. She touched his hand, held it, squeezed it; he couldn't feel her touch, she knew, but then it was herself she was comforting, not him.
He opened his eyes. And, ever so gently, she felt his fingers tighten on hers. "I felt it," she whispered to him. "You'll be all right."
He shut his eyes against his tears. She got up and walked blindly to the door. "I have something in my eye," she told Olhado. "Lead me for a few minutes until I can see for myself."
Quim was already at the fence. "The gate's too far!" he shouted. "Can you climb over, Mother?"
She could, but it wasn't easy. "No doubt about it," she said. "Bosquinha's going to have to let us install another gate right here."
***
It was late now, past midnight, and both Ouanda and Ela was getting sleepy. Ender was not. He had been on edge for hours in his bargaining with Shouter; his body chemistry had responded, and even if he had gone home right now it would have been hours before he was capable of sleep.
He now knew far more about what the piggies wanted and needed. Their forest was their home, their nation; it was all the definition of property they had ever needed. Now, however, the amaranth fields had caused them to see that the prairie was also useful land, which they needed to control. Yet they had little concept of land measurement. How many hectares did they need to keep under cultivation? How much land could the humans use? Since the piggies themselves barely understood their needs, it was hard for Ender to pin them down.
Harder still was the concept of law and government. The wives ruled: to the piggies, it was that simple. But Ender had finally got them to understand that humans made their laws differently, and that human laws applied to human problems. To make them understand why humans needed their own laws, Ender had to explain to them human mating patterns. He was amused to note that