"You offered yourself to him, my dear, and he turned you down flat. It was quite humiliating, even if you didn't realize it."
Alessandra's face turned a bit red and she stalked to the door of their quarters. Then she whirled around, real pain and fury on her face. "You watched," she said. "Quincy recorded it and you watched!"
"Of course I did," said Dorabella. "If I hadn't, he or some crewman would have watched. Do you think I wanted them ogling your body?"
"You sent me to Ender expecting me to get naked with him, and you knew they were recording it, and you watched it. You watched me."
"You didn't get naked, did you? And so what if you had? I saw your naked body from angles you've never even thought of during the butt-wiping years."
"I hate you, Mother."
"You love me, because I always watch out for you."
"And Ender didn't humiliate me. Or reject me. He rejected you. He rejected the way you made me act!"
"What happened to, 'Oh thank you, Mother! Now I shall have the man I love'?"
"I never said that."
"You thanked me and giggled and thanked me again. You stood there and let me make you up like a whore to entice him. At what point did I force you to do something against your will?"
"You told me what I had to do if I wanted Ender to love me. Only a man like Ender doesn't fall for tricks like yours!"
"A man? A boy is what you mean. The only reason he didn't fall for that 'trick' was because he probably hasn't reached sexual maturity. If he's even a heterosexual."
"Listen to yourself, Mother," said Alessandra. "One minute Ender is the beginning and end of the world, the best chance for a great man that I'll ever have a chance to find. The next minute, he's a gay little boy who shamed me. You judge him according to whether he's useful to you."
"No, my pet. Whether he's useful to my little girl."
"Well, he isn't," said Alessandra.
"That was my point," said Dorabella. "And yet you gave me a tongue-lashing for saying so. Do make up your mind, my little Caliban." Then Dorabella burst into laughter, and, completely against her will, so did Alessandra. The girl was so angry at herself for laughing, or at Dorabella for making her laugh, that she fled from the room, slamming the door behind her. Or trying to—the pneumatics caught it and it closed quite gently.
Poor Alessandra. Nothing went the way she wanted.
Welcome to the real world, my child. Someday you'll see that my getting dear Quincy to fall in love with me was the best thing I ever did for you. Because I do everything for you. And all I ask in return is that you hold up your end and take the opportunities I get for you.
Valentine tried to walk normally into the room, to remain perfectly calm. But she was so disgusted with Ender that she could hardly contain herself. The boy was so busy making himself "available" to all the new colonists and old settlers, answering questions, chatting about things that he could not possibly remember from half-hour interviews two years ago, when he was so tired he could hardly speak. Yet when someone with whom he had a genuine personal relationship was looking for him, he was nowhere to be found.
It was just like the way he had refused to write to their parents. Well, he hadn't refused. He had always promised to do it. Then he simply never did.
For the past two years, he had promised—by implication, if not by word—that if the poor Toscano girl fell in love with him, it would not be unwelcome. Now she and her mother had come down to the planet's surface, to do some "sightseeing." The girl was obviously looking for only one sight: Ender Wiggin. And he was nowhere.
Valentine was fed up. The boy could be bold and brave indeed, except when there was something emotionally demanding that he didn't actually have to do. He could evade this girl, and maybe he thought that was some kind of clear message, but he owed her words. He owed her at least a good-bye. It didn't have to be a fond one, it just had to happen.
She finally found him in the XB's ansible room, writing something—probably a letter to Graff or someone equally irrelevant to their life on this new world.
"The fact that you're here," said Valentine, "leaves you without any excuse at all."
Ender looked up at her, seeming to be genuinely puzzled. Well, he probably wasn't faking it—he probably blocked the girl out of his mind so thoroughly that he had no clue what Valentine was talking about.
"You're looking through your mail. That means you got the passenger log for this shuttle trip."
"I already met the new colonists."
"Except one."
Ender raised an eyebrow. "Alessandra isn't a colonist anymore."
"She's looking for you."
"She could ask anybody where I am and they'll tell her. It's no secret."
"She can't ask."
"Well, then, how does she expect to find me?"
"Don't put on this stupid act. I'm not so stupid as to believe you're stupid, even if you're acting as stupid as can be."
"OK, I've got the stupid part. Can you be more specific?"
"Extremely stupid."
"Not the degree, dear sister."
"Emotionally insensitive."
"Valentine," said Ender, "doesn't it occur to you that I actually know what I'm doing? Can't you have a little faith in me?"
"I think you're evading an emotionally difficult confrontation."
"Then why don't I hide from you?"
She wasn't sure whether to be even more annoyed at him for turning the tables on her, or to be a bit relieved that he considered a confrontation with her to be emotional. She wasn't actually sure she had enough of a hold on him for their confrontations to be emotional—on his side, anyway.
Ender glanced at the time in the computer display and sighed. "Well, your timing, as usual, is impeccable, even if you don't have a clue."
"I'd have a clue if you gave me one," said Valentine.
Ender was standing now, and to her surprise, he really was taller than her. She had noticed he was getting tall, but hadn't realized that he had passed her. And it wasn't thick shoes—he wasn't wearing any.
"Val," he said softly. "If you looked at what I say and do, it would be obvious to you what's going on. But you don't analyze. You see something that doesn't look right, and you leap past all the thinking part and go straight to 'Ender is doing something wrong and I must put a stop to it.' "
"I think! I analyze!"
"You analyze everything and everybody. That's what makes your history of Battle School so wonderful and truthful."
"You've read it?"
"You gave it to me three days ago. Of course I've read it."
"You didn't say anything."
"This is the first time I've seen you since I finished it. Val, think, please."
"Don't patronize me!"
"Feeling patronized isn't thinking," he said, sounding irritated at last. That made her feel a little better. "Don't judge me until you understand me. You can't understand me if you've already judged me. You think I've treated Alessandra badly, but I haven't. I've treated her extremely well. I'm about to save her life. But you can't trust me to do the right thing. You don't even bother to think what the right thing is before you decide that I'm not doing it."