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"They read you Uncle Remus stories at bedtime in Battle School?" asked Achilles

"Before I went there Did your mother read those tales to you?"

Achilles realized that he was being led off on a tangent He resolutely returned to the subject

"I said I'm not afraid to return to Earth," said Achilles "Nor do I think you've been pleading for me with Virlomi"

"Believe what you want," said Ender "You've been surrounded by lies all your life--who could expect you to notice when a true thing finally ca?"

Here it caoad Achilles into action What Ender could not understand was that Achilles caoaded, so that Ender could then kill him in "self-defense"

"Are you calling my mother a liar?"

"Haven't you wondered why you're so tall? Your mother isn't tall Achilles Flandres wasn't tall"

"We'll never kno tall he rown," said Achilles

"I knohy you're as big as you are," said Ender "It's a genetic condition You grow at a single, steady rate all your life Small as a child, then about normal size when suddenly all the other kids shoot up with the puberty growth spurt and you fall behind again But they stop growing; you don't On and on Eventually you'll die of it You're sixteen now; probably by twenty-one or twenty-two your heart will give out froe"

Achilles didn't kno to process this What was he talking about? Telling hi to die in his twenties? Was this some kind of voodoo to unnerve his opponent?

But Ender wasn't through "Some of your brothers and sisters had the condition; some didn't We didn't know about you, not with certainty Not until I saw you and realized that you were becoiant, like your father"

"Don't talk about ht: Why ary?

"But I was so glad to see you, anyway Even though your life will be tragically short, I looked at you--when you turned around like that,me--I saw your father, I saw your mother in you"

"Mylike my mother"