"You really care about what we do with Ender's money?"
"I care about Ender. Someday he may need that money. I once made a promise that I'd keep Peter from hurting Ender. Instead, I did nothing while Peter sent Ender away."
"For Ender's own good."
"Ender should have had a vote."
"He did," said Graff. "If he had insisted on going home to Earth, I would have let him. But once Valentine came up to join him, he was content."
"Fine," said Bean. "Has he given consent to have his pension pillaged?"
"I'll see about turning the mind game into a financial manager. The program is a complex one. It does a lot of self-programming and self-alteration. So maybe if we ask it to, it can rewrite its own code in order to become whatever you want it to be. It is magic, after all. This computer stuff."
"That's what I always thought," said Bean. "Like Santa Claus. You adults pretend he doesn't exist, but we know that he really does."
When he ended the conversation with Graff, Bean immediately called Ferreira. It was full daylight now, so Ferreira was actually awake. Bean told him about the plan to have the Mind Game program analyze the impossibly large database of vague and mostly useless information about the movements of pregnant women with low-birth-weight babies and Ferreira said he'd get right on it. He said it without enthusiasm, but Bean knew that Ferreira wasn't the kind of man to say he'd do something and not do it, just because he didn't believe in it. He'd keep his word.
How do I know that? Bean wondered. How do I know that I can trust Ferreira to go off on wild goose chases, once he gives his word to do it? While I know without even knowing that I know it, that Peter is partly financing his operations by stealing from Ender. That was bothering me for days before I understood it.
Damn, but I'm smart. Smarter than any computer program, even the Mind Game.
If only I could control it.
I may not have the capacity to consciously deal with a vast database and find patterns in it. But I could deal with the database of stuff I observe in the Hegemony and what I know about Peter and without my even asking the question, out pops an answer.
Could I always do that? Or is my growing brain giving me ever-stronger mental powers?
I really should look at some of the mathematical conundrums and see if I can find proofs of...whatever it is they can't prove but want to.
Maybe Volescu isn't so wrong after all. Maybe a whole world full of minds like mine...
Miserable, lonely, untrusting minds like mine. Minds that see death looming over them all the time. Minds that know they'll never see their children grow up. Minds that let themselves get sidetracked on issues like taking care of a friend's pension that he'll probably never need.
Peter is going to be so furious when he finds out that those pension checks aren't going to him anymore. Should I tell him it was my meddling? Or let him think the I.F. did it on their own?
And what does it say about my character that I am absolutely going to tell him I did it?
Theresa didn't actually see Peter until noon, when she and John Paul and their illustrious son sat down to a lunch of papaya and cheese and sliced sausage.
"Why do you always drink that stuff?" asked John Paul.
Peter looked surprised. "Guarana? It's my duty as an American to never drink Coke or Pepsi in a country that has an indigenous soft drink. Besides which, I like it."
"It's a stimulant," said Theresa. "It fuzzes your brain."
"It also makes you fart," said John Paul. "Constantly."
"Frequently would be the more accurate term," said Peter. "And it's sweet of you to care."
"We're just looking out for your image," said Theresa.
"I only fart when I'm alone."
"Since he does it in front of us," said John Paul to Theresa, "what exactly does that make us?"
"I meant 'in private,'" said Peter. "And flatulence from carbonated beverages is odorless."
"He thinks it doesn't stink," said John Paul.