Page 841 - Enders_Game_Full_Book

vision, not sound-- just like their eyes. They think I should be a holographer and record it all for entertainment."
"I don't want to see what you see. I want to know what you think."
"Do you, now?"
"Yes, I do."
"I have no opinions. Not on anything you'd be interested in. I stay out of the family quarrels. I always have."
"And out of the family business. The only one of Novinha's children not to go into science."
"Science has brought everyone else so much happiness, it's hard to imagine why I wouldn't have gone into it."
"Not hard to imagine," said Valentine. And then, because she had found that brittle-sounding people will talk quite openly if goaded, she added a little barb. "I imagine that you simply didn't have the brains to keep up."
"Absolutely true," said Olhado. "I only have wit enough to make bricks."
"Really?" said Valentine. "But you don't make bricks."
"On the contrary. I make hundreds of bricks a day. And with everyone knocking holes in their houses to build the new chapel, I foresee a booming business in the near future."
"Lauro," said Valentine, "you don't make bricks. The laborers in your factory make bricks." "And I, as manager, am not part of that?"
"Brickmakers make bricks. You make brickmakers."
"I suppose. Mostly I make brickmakers tired."
"You make other things," said Valentine. "Children."
"Yes," said Olhado, and for the first time in the conversation he relaxed. "I do that. Of course, I have a partner."
"A gracious and beautiful woman."
"I looked for perfection, and found something better." It wasn't just a line of patter. He meant it. And now the brittleness was gone, the wariness too. "You have children. A husband."