Page 513 - Enders_Game_Full_Book

He felt Novinha's hand take him by the crook of the arm. She leaned on him. "Help me," she said. "I'm almost blind in the darkness."
"I have good night vision," Olhado offered cheerfully from behind her.
"Shut up, stupid," Ela whispered fiercely. "Mother wants to walk with him."
Both Novinha and Ender heard her clearly, and both could feel each other's silent laughter. Novinha drew closer to him as they walked. "I think you have the heart for what you have to do," she said softly, so that only he could hear.
"Cold and ruthless?" he asked. His voice hinted at wry humor, but the words tasted sour and truthful in his mouth.
"Compassionate enough," she said, "to put the hot iron into the wound when that's the only way to heal it."
As one who had felt his burning iron cauterize her deepest wounds, she had the right to speak; and he believed her, and it eased his heart for the bloody work ahead.
***
Ender hadn't thought it would be possible to sleep, knowing what was ahead of him. But now he woke up, Novinha's voice soft in his ear. He realized that he was outside, lying in the capim, his head resting on Novinha's lap. It was still dark.
"They're coming," said Novinha softly.
Ender sat up. Once, as a child, he would have come awake fully, instantly; but he was trained as a soldier then. Now it took a moment to orient himself. Ouanda, Ela, both awake and watching; Olhado asleep; Quim just stirring. The tall tree of Rooter's third life rising only a few meters away. And in the near distance, beyond the fence at the bottom of the little valley, the first houses of Milagre rising up the slopes; the Cathedral and the monastery atop the highest and nearest of the hills.
In the other direction, the forest, and coming down from the trees, Human, Mandachuva, Leaf- eater, Arrow, Cups, Calendar, Worm, Bark-dancer, several other brothers whose names Ouanda didn't know. "I've never seen them," she said. "They must come from other brother-houses."
Do we have a covenant? said Ender silently. That's all I care about. Did Human make the wives understand a new way of conceiving of the world?
Human was carrying something. Wrapped in leaves. The piggies wordlessly laid it before Ender; Human unwrapped it carefully. It was a computer printout.
"The Hive Queen and the Hegemon," said Ouanda softly. "The copy Miro gave them."