Children of the Mind (Ender, Book 4) (Ender Quartet)

her voice thick with contempt, as if she thought Jane were the stupidest person who ever lived, instead of arguably the most godlike in her brilliance. "But we're not going to build it. As long as it's just a graphic representation on a computer screen --"
    "That's it," said Ela.
    "What's it?" said Quara. It was her turn to be annoyed now, for obviously Ela was a step ahead of her on something.
    " They aren't taking these signals and putting them up on a computer screen. We do that because we have a language written with symbols that we see with the naked eye. But they must read these broadcast signals more directly. The code comes in, and they somehow interpret it by following the instruction to make the molecule that's described in the broadcast. Then they 'read' it by -- what, smelling it? Swallowing it? The point is, if genetic molecules are their language, then they must somehow take them into their body as appropriately as the way we get the images of our writing from the paper into our eyes."
    "I see," said Jane. "You're hypothesizing that they're expecting us to make a molecule out of what they send us, instead of just reading it on a screen and trying to abstract it and intellectualize it."
    "For all we know," said Ela, "this could be how they discipline people. Or attack them. Send them a message. If they 'listen' they have to do it by reading the molecule into their bodies and letting it have its effect on them. So if the effect is poison or a killing disease, just hearing the message subjects them to the discipline. It's as if all our language had to be tapped out on the back of our neck. To listen, we'd have to lie down and expose ourself to whatever tool they chose to use to send the message. If it's a finger or a feather, well and good -- but if it's a broadaxe or a machete or a sledgehammer, too bad for us."
    "It doesn't even have to be fatal," said Quara, her rivalry with Ela forgotten as she developed the idea in her own mind. "The molecules could be behavior-altering devices. To hear is literally to obey."
    "I don't know if you're right in the particulars," said Jane. "But it gives the experiment much more potential for success. And it suggests that they might not have a delivery system that can attack us directly. That changes the probable risk."
    "And people say you can't think well without your computer," said Miro.
    At once he was embarrassed. He had inadvertently spoken to her as flippantly as he used to when he subvocalized so she could overhear him through the jewel. But now it sounded strangely cold of him, to tease her about having lost her computer network. He could joke that way with Jane-in-the-jewel. But Jane-in-the-flesh was a different matter. She was now a human person. With feelings that had to be worried about.
    Jane had feelings all along, thought Miro. But I didn't think much about them because ... because I didn't have to. Because I didn't see her. Because she wasn't, in a sense, real to me.
    "I just meant ..." Miro said. "I just mean, good thinking."
    "Thank you," said Jane. There wasn't a trace of irony in her voice, but Miro knew the irony was there all the same, because it was inherent in the situation. Miro, this uniprocessing human, was telling this brilliant being that she had thought well -- as if he were fit to judge her.
    Suddenly he was angry, not at Jane, but at himself. Why should he have to watch every word he said, just because she had not acquired this body in the normal way? She may not have been human before, but she was certainly human now, and could be talked to like a human. If she was somehow different from other human beings, so what? All human beings were different from all others, and yet to be decent and polite, wasn't he supposed to treat everyone basically alike? Wouldn't he say, "Do you see what I mean?" to a blind person, expecting the metaphorical use of "see" to be taken without umbrage? Well, why not say, "Good thinking," to Jane? Just because her thought processes were unfathomably deep to a human didn't mean that a human couldn't use a standard expression of agreement and approval when speaking to her.
    Looking at her now, Miro could see a kind of sadness in her eyes. No doubt it came from his obvious confusion -- after joking with her as he always had, suddenly he was embarrassed, suddenly he backtracked. That was why her "Thank you" had been ironic. Because she wanted him to be natural with her, and he couldn't.
    No, he hadn't been natural,