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"We were going to do it no matter what Warmaker said or did," said Planter. "Look at us. Warmaker's group was preparing to spread out and plant new forests on other worlds. But when they killed Father Quim, the rest of us were so filled with rage that we planned to go and punish them. Great slaughter, and again, trees would grow. Still doing what the descolada demanded. And now that humans have burned our forest, Warmaker's people are going to prevail after all. One way or another, we must spread out and propagate. We'll snatch up any excuse we can find. The descolada will have its way with us. We're tools, pathetically trying to find some way to convince ourselves that our actions are our own idea."
He sounded so hopeless. Ender couldn't think of anything to say that Valentine or he hadn't already said, to try to wean him away from his conclusion that pequenino life was unfree and meaningless.
So it was Ela who spoke next, and in a tone of calm speculation that seemed incongruous, as if she had forgotten the terrible anxiety that Planter was experiencing. Which was probably the case, as all this discussion had led her back to her own specialty. "It's hard to know which side the descolada would be on, if it were aware of all this," said Ela.
"Which side of what?" asked Valentine.
"Whether to induce global cooling by having more forests planted here, or to use that same instinct for propagation to have the pequeninos take the descolada out to other worlds. I mean, which would the virus makers have wanted most? To spread the virus or regulate the planet?"
"The virus probably wants both, and it's likely to get both," said Planter. "Warmaker's group will win control of the ships, no doubt. But either before or after, there'll be a war over it that leaves half the brothers dead. For all we know, the descolada is causing both things to happen."
"For all we know," said Ender.
"For all we know," said Planter, "we may be the descolada."
So, thought Ender, they are aware of that concern, despite our decision not to broach it with the pequeninos yet.
"Have you been talking to Quara?" demanded Ela.
"I talk to her every day," said Planter. "But what does she have to do with this?"
"She had the same idea. That maybe pequenino intelligence comes from the descolada."
"Do you think after all your talk about the descolada being intelligent that it hasn't occurred to us to wonder that?" said Planter. "And if it's true, what will you do then? Let all of your species die so that we can keep our little second-rate brains?"
Ender protested at once. "We've never thought of your brains as--"