Shadow of the Hegemon (Shadow, #2)

by Orson Scott Card

They were good people, his mother and his father. They never made him feel as if he were an intruder, a stranger, even a visitor. It was as if he had always belonged with them. They liked him. They loved him. It was a strange, exhilarating feeling to be with people who didn’t want anything from you except your happiness, who were glad just to have you around.

He would always speak the language of the heart with an awkward foreign accent.

False

“We’ve been very proud of what you’ve accomplished,” said Father. “As proud as we’ve ever been of Ender,” Mother added. Peter almost staggered under the emotional blow. They had just told him the thing that he had wanted most to hear his entire life, without ever quite admitting it to himself. Tears sprang to his eyes.

His whole world was about to change, his life would be transformed, he might lose everything, he might win everything. But all he could feel that night, as he finally went to bed and drifted off to sleep, was utter, foolish happiness.

Someone touched his arm. “Bean,” whispered Suriyawong. “Bean, let’s get you out of here.” Bean focused and realized that there were tears running down his cheeks.

He did what he did, they saw what they saw, so be it. If Sister Carlotta wasn’t worth some tears from someone who owed her as much as Bean did, then what were tears for, and when should they be shed?

She closed the door behind her, and Bean cried silently until he was exhausted, and then, curled up on a mat on the floor, he went to sleep.

same. An email forwarded from Sister Carlotta herself. Both of them said the same thing. The message had arrived at nine in the morning, Thailand time. They were supposed to wait twelve hours in case Sister Carlotta herself contacted them to retract the message. But when they learned with independent confirmation that there was no chance she was alive, they decided not to wait. Whatever the message was, Sister Carlotta had set it up so that if she didn’t take an active step to block it, every day, it would automatically go to Graff and to Peter to send on to him. Which meant that every day of her life, she had thought of him, had done something to keep him from seeing this, and yet had also made sure that he would see whatever it was that this message contained.