Xenocide (Ender Wiggins Saga)

isn't with me."
    "Yes it is. Without what you know, humans and pequeninos will end up killing each other, one way or another. They'll have no choice. As long as the descolada can't be tamed, it will eventually destroy humanity or humanity will have to destroy it-- and us along with it."
    "They'll never destroy it," said Quara.
    "Because you won't let them."
    "Any more than I'd let them destroy you. Sentient life is sentient life."
    "No," said Planter. "With ramen you can live and let live. But with varelse, there can be no dialogue. Only war."
    "No such thing," Quara said. Then she launched into the same arguments she had used when Miro talked to her.
    When she was finished, there was silence for a while.
    "Are they talking still?" Ela whispered to the people who were watching in the visual monitors. Miro didn't hear an answer-- somebody probably shook his head no.
    "Quara," whispered Planter.
    "I'm still here," she answered. To her credit, the argumentative tone was gone from her voice again. She had taken no joy from her cruel moral correctness.
    "That's not why you're refusing to help," he said.
    "Yes it is."
    "You'd help in a minute if it weren't your own family you had to surrender to."
    " Not true!" she shouted.
    So-- Planter struck a nerve.
    "You're only so sure you're right because they're so sure you're wrong."
    "I am right!"
    "When have you ever seen someone who had no doubts who was also correct about anything?"
    "I have doubts," whispered Quara.
    "Listen to your doubts," said Planter. "Save my people. And yours."
    "Who am I to decide between the descolada and our people?"
    "Exactly," said Planter. "Who are you to make such a decision?"
    "I'm not," she said. "I'm withholding a decision."
    "You know what the descolada can do. You know what it will do. Withholding a decision is a decision."
    "It's not a decision. It's not an action ."
    "Failing to try to stop a murder that you might easily stop-- how is that not murder?"
    "Is this why you wanted to see me? One more person telling me what to do?"
    "I have the right."
    "Because you took it upon yourself to become a martyr and die?"
    "I haven't lost my mind yet," said Planter.
    "Right. You've proved your point. Now let them get the descolada back in here and save you."
    "No."
    "Why not? Are you so sure you're right?"
    "For my own life, I can decide. I'm not like you-- I don't decide for others to die."
    "If humanity dies, I die with them," said Quara.
    "Do you know why I want to die?" said Planter.
    "Why?"
    "So I don't have to watch humans and pequeninos kill each other ever again."
    Quara bowed her head.
    "You and Grego-- you're both the same."
    Tears dropped onto the faceplate of the suit. "That's a lie."
    "You both refuse to listen to anybody else. You know better about everything. And when you're both done, many many innocent people are dead."
    She stood up as if to go. "Die, then," she said. "Since I'm such a murderer, why should I cry over you?" But she didn't take a step. She doesn't want to go, thought Miro.
    "Tell them," said Planter.
    She shook her head, so vigorously that tears flipped outward from her eyes, spattering the inside of the mask. If she kept that up, soon she wouldn't be able to see a thing.
    "If you tell what you know, everybody is wiser. If you keep a secret, then everyone is a fool."
    "If I tell, the descolada will die!"
    "Then let it!" cried Planter.
    The exertion was an extraordinary drain on him. The instruments in the lab went crazy for a few moments. Ela muttered under her breath as she checked with each of the technicians monitoring them.
    "Is that how you'd like me to feel about you?" asked Quara.
    "It is how you feel about me," whispered Planter. "Let him die."
    "No," she said.
    "The descolada came and enslaved my people. So what if it's sentient or not! It's a tyrant. It's a murderer. If a human being behaved the way the descolada acts, even you would agree he had to be stopped, even if killing him were the only way. Why should another species be treated more leniently than a member of your own?"
    "Because the descolada doesn't know what it's doing," said Quara. "It doesn't understand that we're intelligent."
    "It doesn't care ," said Planter. "Whoever made the descolada sent it out not caring whether the species it captures or kills are sentient or not. Is that the creature you want all my people and all your people to die for? Are you so filled with hate for your family that you'll be on the side of a monster like the