Ender's Game (Ender Wiggins Saga)

ashamed. "You don't think you can beat the buggers unless you know them.”
      "It goes deeper than that. Being here alone with nothing to do, I've been thinking about myself, too. Trying to understand why I hate myself so badly.”
      "No, Ender.”
      "Don't tell me 'No, Ender.' It took me a long time to realize that I did, but believe me, I did. Do. And it came down to this: In the moment when I truly understand my enemy, understand him well enough to defeat him, then in that very moment I also love him. I think it's impossible to really understand somebody, what they want, what they believe, and not love them the way they love themselves. And then, in that very moment when I love them--”
      "You beat them." For a moment she was not afraid of his understanding.
      "No, you don't understand. I destroy them. I make it impossible for them to ever hurt me again. I grind them and grind them until they don't exist .”
      "Of course you don't." And now the fear came again, worse than before. Peter has mellowed, but you, they've made you into a killer. Two sides of the same coin, but which side is which?
      "I've really hurt some people, Val. I'm not making this up.”
      "I know, Ender." How will you hurt me?
      "See what I'm becoming, Val?" he said softly. "Even you are afraid of me." And he touched her cheek so gently that she wanted to cry. Like the touch of his soft baby hand when he was still an infant. She remembered that, the touch of his soft and innocent hand on her cheek.
      "I'm not," she said, and in that moment it was true.
      "You should be.”
      No. I shouldn't. "You're going to shrivel up if you stay in the water. Also, the sharks might get you.”
      He smiled. "The sharks learned to leave me alone a long time ago." But he pulled himself onto the raft, bringing a wash of water across it as it tipped. It was cold on Valentine's back.
      "Ender, Peter's going to do it. He's smart enough to take the time it takes, but he's going to win his way into power -- if not right now, then later. I'm not sure yet whether that'll be a good thing or a bad thing. Peter can be cruel, but he knows the getting and keeping of power, and there are signs that once the bugger war is over, and maybe even before it ends, the world will collapse into chaos again. The Warsaw Pact was on its way to hegemony before the First Invasion. If they try for it afterward--”
      "So even Peter might be a better alternative.”
      "You've been discovering some of the destroyer in yourself, Ender. Well, so have I. Peter didn't have a monopoly on that, whatever the testers thought. And Peter has some of the builder in him. He isn't kind, but he doesn't break every good thing he sees anymore. Once you realize that power will always end up with the sort of people who crave it, I think that there are worse people who could have it than Peter.”
      "With that strong a recommendation, I could vote for him myself.”
      "Sometimes it seems absolutely silly. A fourteen-year-old boy and his kid sister plotting to take over the world." She tried to laugh. It wasn't funny. "We aren't just ordinary children, are we. None of us.”
      "Don't you sometimes wish we were?”
      She tried to imagine herself being like the other girls at school. Tried to imagine life if she didn't feel responsible for the future of the world. "It would be so dull.”
      "I don't think so." And he stretched out on the raft, as if he could lie on the water forever.
      It was true. Whatever they did to Ender in the Battle School, they had spent his ambition. He really did not want to leave the sun-warmed waters of this bowl.
      No, she realized. No, he believes that he doesn't want to leave here, but there is still too much of Peter in him. Or too much of me. None of us could be happy for long, doing nothing. Or perhaps it's just that none of us could be happy living with no other company than ourself.
        So she began to prod again. "What is the one name that everyone in the world knows?”
      "Mazer Rackham.”
      "And what if you win the next war, the way Mazer did?”
      "Mazer Rackham was a fluke. A reserve. Nobody believed in him. He just happened to be in the right place at the right time.”
      "But suppose you do it. Suppose you beat the buggers and your name is known the way Mazer Rackham's name is known.”
      "Let somebody else be famous. Peter wants to be famous. Let him save the world.”
      "I'm not talking about fame, Ender.