Page 512 - Enders_Game_Full_Book

"Can we do it quickly? Not the slow and terrible way that--"
"And make me one of the silent trees? Never fathering? Without honor, except to feed my sap to the filthy macios and give my wood to the brothers when they sing to me?"
"Isn't there someone else who can do it?" asked Ender. "One of the brothers, who knows your way of life and death?"
"You don't understand," said Human. "This is how the whole tribe knows that the truth has been spoken. Either you must take me into the third life, or I must take you, or there's no covenant. I won't kill you, Speaker, and we both want a treaty."
"I'll do it," said Ender.
Human nodded, withdrew his hand, and returned to Shouter. "O Deus," whispered Ouanda. "How will you have the heart?"
Ender had no answer. He merely followed silently behind Arrow as he led them to the woods. Novinha gave him her own nightstick to lead the way; Arrow played with it like a child, making the light small and large, making it hover and swoop like a suckfly among the trees and bushes. He was as happy and playful as Ender had ever seen a piggy be.
But behind them, they could hear the voices of the wives, singing a terrible and cacophonous song. Human had told them the truth about Pipo and Libo, that they died the final death, and in pain, all so that they would not have to do to Mandachuva and Leaf-eater what they thought was murder. Only when they had gone far enough that the sound of the wives' keening was softer than their own footfalls and the wind in the trees did any of the humans speak.
"That was the mass for my father's soul," said Ouanda softly.
"And for mine," answered Novinha; they all knew that she spoke of Pipo, not the long-dead Venerado, Gusto.
But Ender was not part of their conversation; he had not known Libo and Pipo, and did not belong to their memory of grief. All he could think of was the trees of the forest. They had once been living, breathing piggies, every one of them. The piggies could sing to them, talk to them, even, somehow, understand their speech. But Ender couldn't. To Ender the trees were not people, could never be people. If he took the knife to Human, it might not be murder in the piggies' eyes, but to Ender himself he would be taking away the only part of Human's life that Ender understood. As a piggy, Human was a true raman, a brother. As a tree he would be little more than a gravestone, as far as Ender could understand, as far as he could really believe.
Once again, he thought, I must kill, though I promised that I never would again.