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And above all, he wanted to know about the buggers

"We don't know much," said Graff "We've never had a live one in custody Even e caught one unarmed and alive, he died the moment it became obvious he was captured Even the he is uncertain--the er soldiers are feans We can't tell It's their psychology that would be most useful to you, and we haven't exactly had a chance to interview them"

"Tellthat I need" So Graff told hianiss had gone a different way a billion years ago At the enetic material was the same It was no accident that they looked insectlike to huans were n

ow much more complex and specialized than any insects, and they had evolved an internal skeleton and shed most of the exoskeleton, their physical structure still echoed their ancestors, who could easily have been very much like Earth's ants "But don't be fooled by that," said Graff "It's just as ful to say that our ancestors could easily have been very much like squirrels"

"If that's all we have to go on, that's so," said Ender "Squirrels never built starships," said Graff "There are usually a few changes on the way fro permanent research stations on the moons of Saturn"

The buggers could probably see about the sas, and there was artificial lighting in their ships and ground installations However, their antennae seeial There was no evidence fro were particularly important to them "Of course, we can't be sure But we can't see any way that they could have used sound for co of all was that they also don't have any co that could transnal"

"They communicate ship to ship I've seen the videos, they talk to each other"

"True But body to body,we learned from them Their cohtspeed is no barrier When Mazer Rackham defeated their invasion fleet, they all closed up shop At once There was no ti just stopped"

Ender re dead at their posts

"We knew then that it was possible To coo, and once we knehat could be done, we did it Not me, mind you, I wasn't born then"

"How is it possible?"

"I can't explain philotic physics to you Half of it nobody understands anyway What matters is we built the ansible The official name is Philotic Parallax Instantaneous Coed the naht on Not that most people even know the machine exists"

"That means that ships could talk to each other even when they're across the solar system," said Ender

"It means," said Graff, "that ships could talk to each other even when they're across the galaxy And the buggers can do it without machines"

"So they knew about their defeat the ured--everybody always said that they probably only found out they lost the battle twenty-five years ago"