Page 535 - Enders_Game_Full_Book

"I have a student by that name," said Ender, thinking back to conversations only a couple of months ago.
"Oh, yes, well, that was twenty years ago, Ender. And we're bringing several of Jakt's best men and their families. Something of an ark. It's not an emergency-- you have twenty-two years to prepare for me. Actually longer, more like thirty years. We're taking the voyage in several hops, the first few in the wrong direction, so that nobody can be sure we're going to Lusitania."
Coming here. Thirty years from now. I'll be older than she is now. Coming here. By then I'll have my family, too. Novinha's and my children, if we have any, all grown, like hers.
And then, thinking of Novinha, he remembered Miro, remembered what Olhado had suggested several days ago, the day they found the nesting place for the hive queen.
"Would you mind terribly," said Ender, "if I sent someone to meet you on the way?"
"Meet us? In deep space? No, don't send someone to do that, Ender-- it's too terrible a sacrifice, to come so far when the computers can guide us in just fine--"
"It's not really for you, though I want him to meet you. He's one of the xenologers. He was badly injured in an accident. Some brain damage; like a bad stroke. He's-- he's the smartest person in Lusitania, says someone whose judgment I trust, but he's lost all his connections with our life here. Yet we'll need him later. When you arrive. He's a very good man, Val. He can make the last week of your voyage very educational."
"Can your friend arrange to get us course information for such a rendezvous? We're navigators, but only on the sea."
"Jane will have the revised navigational information in your ship's computer when you leave."
"Ender-- for you it'll be thirty years, but for me-- I'll see you in only a few weeks." She started to cry.
"Maybe I'll come with Miro to meet you."
"Don't!" she said. "I want you to be as old and crabbed as possible when I arrive. I couldn't put up with you as the thirty-year-old brat I see on my terininal."
"Thirty-five."
"You'll be there when I arrive!" she demanded.
"I will," he said. "And Miro, the boy I'm sending to you. Think of him as my son."
She nodded gravely. "These are such dangerous times, Ender. I only wish we had Peter."