Page 910 - Enders_Game_Full_Book

at least, meant life. And the algae, instead of breaking apart and dissolving completely away, remained in the thin strands and tendrils of life.
"Done, then," said Ender.
"At least we can hope," said Ela.
"Sit down," said Miro. "If we're done, she'll take us back."
Ender sat. He looked at the seat where Miro had been sitting. His old crippled body was no longer identifiably human. It continued crumbling, the pieces breaking up into dust or flowing away as liquid. Even the clothing was dissolving into nothing.
"It's not part of my pattern anymore," said Miro. "There's nothing to hold it together anymore."
"What about these?" demanded Ender. "Why aren't they dissolving?"
"Or you?" asked Peter. "Why don't you dissolve? Nobody needs you now. You're a tired old fart who can't even hold onto his woman. And you never even fathered a child, you pathetic old eunuch. Make way for a real man. No one ever needed you-- everything you've ever done I could have done better, and everything I did you never could have matched."
Ender buried his face in his hands. This was not an outcome he could have imagined in his worst nightmares. Yes, he knew they were going out into a place where things might be created out of his mind. But it had never occurred to him that Peter was still lingering there. He thought he had expunged that old hatred long ago.
And Valentine-- why would he create another Valentine? This one so young and perfect, sweet and beautiful? There was a real Valentine waiting for him back on Lusitania-- what would she think, seeing what he created out of his own mind? Perhaps it would be flattering to know how closely she was held in his heart; but she would also know that what he treasured was what she used to be, not what she was now.
The darkest and the brightest secrets of his heart would both stand exposed as soon as the door opened and he had to step back out onto the surface of Lusitania again.
"Dissolve," he said to them. "Crumble away."
"You do it first, old man," said Peter. "Your life is over, and mine is just beginning. All I had to try for the first time was Earth, one tired old planet-- it was as easy as it would be for me to reach out and kill you with my bare hands, right now, if I wanted to. Snap your little neck like a dry noodle."
"Try it," whispered Ender. "I'm not the frightened little boy anymore."