"Orson Scott Card - Ender's Saga 03 - Xenocide" - читать интересную книгу автора (Card Orson Scott)

"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."