Page 97 - Enders_Game_Full_Book

school he acted as though he were excited about the puerile lesson of the day. Oh, wow, I never knew that frogs looked like this inside, he'd say, and then at home he studied the binding of celIs into organisms through the philotic collation of DNA. Peter was a master ot flattery, and all his teachers bought it.
Still, it was good. Peter never fought anymore. Never bullied. Got along well with everybody. It was a new Peter.
Everyone believed it. Father and Mother said it so often it made Valentine want to scream at them. It isn't the new Peter! It's the old Peter, only smarter!
How smart? Smarter than you, Father. Smarter than you, Mother. Smarter than anybody you have ever met.
But not smarter than me.
"I've been deciding," said Peter, "whether to kill you or what."
Valentine leaned against the trunk of the pine tree, her little fire a few smoldering ashes. "I love you, too, Peter."
"It would be so easy. You always make these stupid little fires. It's just a matter of knocking you out and burning you up. You're such a firebug."
"I've been thinking of castrating you in your sleep."
"No you haven't. You only think of things like that when I'm with you. I bring out the best in you. No, Valentine, I've decided not to kill you. I've decided that you're going to help me."
"I am?" A few years ago, Valentine would have been terrified at Peter's threats. Now, though, she was not so afraid. Not that she doubted that he was capable of killing her. She couldn't think of anything so terrible that she didn't believe Peter might do it. She also knew, though, that Peter was not insane, not in the sense that he wasn't in control of himself. He was in better control of himself than anyone she knew. Except perhaps herself. Peter could delay any desire as long as be needed to; he could conceal any emotion. And so Valentine knew that he would never hurt her in a fit of rage. He would only do it if the advantages outweighed the risks. And they did not. In a way, she actually preferred Peter to other people because of this. He always, always acted out of intelligent self-interest. And so, to keep herself safe, all she had to do was make sure it was more in Peter's interest to keep her alive than to have her dead.
"Valentine, things are coming to a head. I've been tracking troop movements in Russia." "What are we talking about?"