Xenocide (Ender Wiggins Saga)

exactly a meeting between heads of state with a list of vital decisions to make. But he had to make some effort, if only not to seem hostile.
    "Your name, Miro-- it means 'I look,' doesn't it?"
    "'I look closely .' Maybe 'I pay attention.'"
    "It's really not that hard to understand you," said Valentine.
    He was startled that she addressed the matter so openly.
    "I think I'm having more problems with your Portuguese accent than with the brain damage."
    For a moment it felt like a hammer in his heart-- she was speaking more frankly about his situation than anyone except Andrew. But then she was Andrew's sister, wasn't she? He should have expected her to be plainspoken.
    "Or do you prefer that we pretend that it isn't a barrier between you and other people?"
    Apparently she had sensed his shock. But that was over, and now it occurred to him that he probably shouldn't be annoyed, that he should probably be glad that they wouldn't have to sidestep the issue. Yet he was annoyed, and it took him a moment to think why. Then he knew.
    "My brain damage isn't your problem," he said.
    "If it makes it hard for me to understand you, then it's a problem I have to deal with. Don't get prickly with me already, young man. I have only begun to bother you, and you have only begun to bother me. So don't get steamed up because I happened to mention your brain damage as being somehow my problem. I have no intention of watching every word I say for fear I'll offend an oversensitive young man who thinks the whole world revolves around his disappointments."
    Miro was furious that she had judged him already, and so harshly. It was unfair-- not at all what the author of Demosthenes' hierarchy ought to be like. "I don't think the whole world revolves around my disappointments! But don't you think you can come in here and run things on my ship!" That's what annoyed him, not her words. She was right-- her words were nothing. It was her attitude, her complete self-confidence. He wasn't used to people looking at him without shock or pity.
    She sat down in the seat next to him. He swiveled to face her. She, for her part, did not look away. Indeed, she pointedly scanned his body, head to toe, looking him over with an air of cool appraisal. "He said you were tough. He said you had been twisted but not broken."
    "Are you supposed to be my therapist?"
    "Are you supposed to be my enemy?"
    "Should I be?" asked Miro.
    "No more than I should be your therapist. Andrew didn't have us meet so I could heal you. He had us meet so you could help me . If you're not going to, fine. If you are, fine. Just let me make a few things clear. I'm spending every waking moment writing subversive propaganda to try to arouse public sentiment on the Hundred Worlds and in the colonies. I'm trying to turn the people against the fleet that Starways Congress has sent to subdue Lusitania. Your world, not mine, I might add."
    "Your brother's there." He was not about to let her claim complete altruism.
    "Yes, we both have family there. And we both are concerned about keeping the pequeninos from destruction. And we both know that Ender has restored the Hive Queen on your world, so that there are two alien species that will be destroyed if Starways Congress gets its way. There's a great deal at stake, and I am already doing all that I can possibly do to try to stop that fleet. Now, if spending a few hours with you can help me do it better, it's worth taking time away from my writing in order to talk with you. But I have no intention of wasting my time worrying about whether I'm going to offend you or not. So if you're going to be my adversary, you can sit up here all by yourself and I'll get back to my work."
    "Andrew said you were the best person he ever knew."
    "He reached that conclusion before he saw me raise three barbarian children to adulthood. I understand your mother has six."
    "Right."
    "And you're the oldest."
    "Yes."
    "That's too bad. Parents always make their worst mistakes with the oldest children. That's when parents know the least and care the most, so they're more likely to be wrong and also more likely to insist that they're right."
    Miro didn't like hearing this woman leap to conclusions about his mother. "She's nothing like you."
    "Of course not." She leaned forward in her seat. "Well, have you decided?"
    "Decided what?"
    "Are we working together or did you just unplug yourself from thirty years of human history for nothing?"
    "What do you want from me?"
    "Stories,