Xenocide (Ender Wiggins Saga)

Miro's turn to become impatient. "The descolada isn't the Indians."
    "It's a sentient species."
    "It isn't," said Miro.
    "Oh?" asked Quara. "And how are you so sure? Where's your certificate in microbiology and xenogenetics? I thought your studies were all in xenology. And thirty years out of date."
    Miro didn't answer. He knew that she was perfectly aware of how hard he had worked to bring himself up to speed since he got back here. It was an ad hominem attack and a stupid appeal to authority. It wasn't worth answering. So he sat there and studied her face. Waiting for her to get back into the realm of reasonable discussion.
    "All right," she said. "That was a low blow. But so is sending you to try to crack open my files. Trying to play on my sympathies."
    "Sympathies?" asked Miro.
    "Because you're a-- because you're--"
    "Damaged," said Miro. He hadn't thought of the fact that pity complicated everything. But how could he help it? Whatever he did, it was a cripple doing it.
    "Well, yes."
    "Ela didn't send me," said Miro.
    "Mother, then."
    "Not Mother."
    "Oh, you're a freelance meddler? Or are you going to tell me that all of humanity has sent you? Or are you a delegate of an abstract value? 'Decency sent me.'"
    "If it did, it sent me to the wrong place."
    She reeled back as if she had been slapped.
    "Oh, am I the indecent one?"
    "Andrew sent me," said Miro.
    "Another manipulator."
    "He would have come himself."
    "But he was so busy, doing his own meddling. Nossa Senhora , he's a minister, mixing himself up in scientific matters that are so far above his head that--"
    "Shut up," said Miro.
    He spoke forcefully enough that she actually did fall silent-- though she wasn't happy about it.
    " You know what Andrew is," Miro said. "He wrote The Hive Queen and-- "
    " The Hive Queen and the Hegemon and The Life of Human ."
    "Don't tell me he doesn't know anything."
    "No. I know that isn't true," said Quara. "I just get so angry. I feel like everybody's against me."
    "Against what you're doing, yes," said Miro.
    "Why doesn't anybody see things my way?"
    "I see things your way," said Miro.
    "Then how can you--"
    "I also see things their way."
    "Yes. Mr. Impartial. Make me feel like you understand me. The sympathetic approach."
    "Planter is dying to try to learn information you probably already know."
    "Not true. I don't know whether pequenino intelligence comes from the virus or not."
    "A truncated virus could be tested without killing him."
    " Truncated -- is that the word of choice? It'll do. Better than castrated . Cutting off all the limbs. And the head, too. Nothing but the trunk left. Powerless. Mindless. A beating heart, to no purpose."
    "Planter is--"
    "Planter's in love with the idea of being a martyr. He wants to die."
    "Planter is asking you to come and talk to him."
    "No."
    "Why not?"
    "Come on, Miro. They send a cripple to me. They want me to come talk to a dying pequenino. As if I'd betray a whole species because a dying friend-- a volunteer , too-- asks me with his dying breath."
    "Quara."
    "Yes, I'm listening."
    "Are you?"
    " Disse que sim! " she snapped. I said I am.
    "You might be right about all this."
    "How kind of you."
    "But so might they."
    "Aren't you the impartial one."
    "You say they were wrong to make a decision that might kill the pequeninos without consulting them. Aren't you--"
    "Doing the same thing? What should I do, do you think? Publish my viewpoint and take a vote? A few thousand humans, millions of pequeninos on your side-- but there are trillions of descolada viruses. Majority rule. Case closed."
    "The descolada is not sentient," said Miro.
    "For your information," said Quara, "I know all about this latest ploy. Ela sent me the transcripts. Some Chinese girl on a backwater colony planet who doesn't know anything about xenogenetics comes up with a wild hypothesis, and you all act as if it were already proved."
    "So-- prove it false."
    "I can't. I've been shut out of the lab. You prove it true ."
    "Occam's razor proves it true. Simplest explanation that fits the facts."
    "Occam was a medieval old fart. The simplest explanation that fits the facts is always, God did it. Or maybe-- that old woman down the road is a witch. She did it. That's all this hypothesis is-- only you don't even know where the witch is ."
    "The descolada is too sudden."
    "It didn't evolve, I know. Had to come from somewhere else. Fine. Even if it's artificial, that doesn't mean it isn't sentient now ."
    "It's trying to