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Ender thought about it for a moment. "I can do that. I've been doing that since I was little."
Just a moment longer, Miro's hand on his shoulder. This is why I should have had a son of my own, thought Ender. To lean on me when he was small, and then for me to lean on when I'm old. But I never had a child from my own seed. I'm like old Marcao, Novinha's first husband. Surrounded by these children and knowing they're not my own. The difference is that Miro is my friend, not my enemy. And that's something. I may have been a bad husband, but I can still make and keep a friend.
"Stop pitying yourself and get back to work." It was Jane, speaking in his ear, and she had waited almost long enough before speaking, almost long enough that he was ready to have her tease him. Almost but not quite, and so he resented her intrusion. Resented knowing that she had been listening and watching all along.
"Now you're mad," she said.
You don't know what I'm feeling, thought Ender. You can't know. Because you're not human.
"You think I don't know what you're feeling," said Jane.
He felt a moment of vertigo, because for a moment it seemed to him that she had been listening to something far deeper than the conversation.
"But I lost you once, too."
Ender subvocalized: "I came back."
"Never completely," said Jane. "Never like it was before. So you just take a couple of those self- pitying little tears on your cheeks and count them as if they were mine. Just to even up the score."
"I don't know why I bother trying to save your life," said Ender silently.
"Me neither," said Jane. "I keep telling you it's a waste of time."
Ender turned back to the terminal. Miro stayed beside him, watching the display as it simulated the ansible network. Ender had no idea what Jane was saying to Miro-- though he was sure that she was saying something, since he had long ago figured out that Jane was capable of carrying on many conversations at once. He couldn't help it-- it did bother him a little that Jane had every bit as close a relationship with Miro as with him.
Isn't it possible, he wondered, for one person to love another without trying to own each other? Or is that buried so deep in our genes that we can never get it out? Territoriality. My wife. My friend. My lover. My outrageous and annoying computer personality who's about to be shut off at the behest of a half-crazy girl genius with OCD on a planet I never heard of and how will I live without Jane when she's gone?