First Meetings Read online

  “They’re all special,” said Graff. “But this one—his tests are good, top range. Not the very best we’ve seen, but the tests aren’t as predictive as we’d like. It’s his negotiating skill that impresses me.”

  Helena wanted to say, “Or Colonel Sillain’s lack of it.” But she knew that wasn’t fair. Sillain had tried a bluff, and the boy had called it. Who knew a child would have the wit to do that?

  “Well,” said the Indian, “it certainly shows the wisdom of opening Battle School to noncompliant nations.”

  “There’s only one problem, Captain Chamrajnagar,” said Graff. “In all these documents, on this vid, in our conversation, no one has even suggested that the boy is willing to go.”

  There was silence around the table.

  “Well, no, of course not,” said Col. Sillain. “This meeting came first. There is some hostility from the parents—the father stayed home from work when Helena—Captain Rudolf went to test three of the older brothers. I think there may be trouble. We needed to assess, before the conversation, just how much leverage I’m to be given.”

  “You mean,” said Graff, “leverage to coerce the family?”

  “Or entice,” said Sillain.

  “Poles are stubborn people,” said the Russian general. “It’s in the Slavic character.”

  “We’re so close,” said Graff, “to tests that are well over ninety percent accurate in predicting military ability.”

  “Do you have a test to measure leadership?” asked Chamrajnagar.

  “That’s one of the components,” said Graff.

  “Because this boy has it, off the charts,” said Chamrajnagar. “I’ve never even seen the charts, and I know that.”

  “The real training ground for leadership is in the game,” said Graff. “But yes, I think this boy will do well at it.”

  “If he goes,” said the Russian.

  “I think,” said Chamrajnagar, “that Colonel Sillain should not carry out the next step.”

  This left Sillain sputtering. Helena wanted to smile, but instead she said, “Colonel Sillain is the team leader, and according to protocol…”

  “He has already been compromised,” said Chamrajnagar. “I make no criticism of Colonel Sillain, please. I don’t know which of us would have fared any better. But the boy made him back down, and I don’t think there is a helpful relationship.”

  Sillain was careerist enough to know how to hand them his head, when asked for it. “Whatever is best to accomplish the mission, of course.” Helena knew how he had to be seething at Chamrajnagar, but he showed no sign of it.

  “The question Colonel Sillain asked still remains,” said Graff. “What authority will the negotiator be given?”

  “All the authority he needs,” said the Russian general.

  “But that’s precisely what we don’t know,” said Graff.

  Chamrajnagar answered. “I think my colleague from the Strategos’s office is saying that whatever inducement the negotiator feels is appropriate will be supported by the Strategos. Certainly the Polemarch’s office has the same view.”

  “I don’t think the boy is that important,” said Graff. “Battle School exists because of the need to begin military training during childhood in order to build appropriate habits of thought and movement. But there has been enough data to suggest—”

  “We know this story,” said the Russian general.

  “Let’s not begin this argument again here,” said Chamrajnagar.

  “There is a definite fall-off in outcomes after the trainees reach adulthood,” said Graff. “That’s a fact, however much we may not like the implications.”

  “They know more, but do worse?” said Chamrajnagar. “It sounds wrong. It is hard to believe, and even if we believe it, it is hard to interpret.”

  “It means that we don’t have to have this boy, because we won’t have to wait for a child to grow to adulthood.”

  The Russian general was scornful. “Put our war in the hands of children? I hope we are never that desperate.”

  There was a long silence, and then Chamrajnagar spoke. Apparently he had been receiving instructions through his earpiece. “The office of the Polemarch believes that because this data Captain Graff speaks of is incomplete, prudence suggests we act as if we do, in fact, have to have this boy. Time is growing short, and it is impossible to know whether he might be our last best chance.”

  “The Strategos concurs,” said the Russian general.

  “Yes,” said Graff. “As I said, the results are not final.”

  “So,” said Col. Sillain. “Full authority. For whoever it is who negotiates.”

  “I think,” said Chamrajnagar, “that the director of Battle School has already demonstrated whom he has the most confidence in right now, planetside.”

  All eyes went to Capt. Graff. “I would be glad to have Captain Rudolf accompany me. I believe we have it on record that this Polish boy prefers to have her present.”

  This time when the Fleet people came, Father and Mother were prepared. Their friend Magda was a lawyer, and even though she was forbidden, as a noncompliant, to practice law, she sat between them on the sofa.

  John Paul was not in the room, however. “Don’t let them bully the child,” Magda had said, and that was it. Mother and Father immediately banned him from the room, so he didn’t even get to see them come in.

  He could listen, however, from the kitchen. He realized at once that the man he didn’t like, the colonel, was not there, though the woman was. A new man was with her now. His voice didn’t have the sound of lying in it. Captain Graff, he was called.

  After the polite things were said—the sitting down, the offering of drinks—Graff got down to business quickly. “I see that you do not wish me to see the child.”

  Magda answered, quite imperiously, “His parents felt it best for him not to be present.”

  Silence for a long moment.

  “Magdalena Teczlo,” said Graff softly, “these good people may invite a friend over to sit with them today. But I’d hate to think you might be acting as their attorney.”

  If Magda answered, John Paul couldn’t hear.

  “I would like to see the boy now,” said Graff.

  Father started explaining that that would never happen, so if that’s all he wanted, he might as well give up and go home.

  Another long silence. There was no sound of Captain Graff getting up from the chair, an operation that could not be performed silently. So he must be sitting there, saying nothing—not leaving, but not trying to persuade them.

  That was a shame, because John Paul wanted to see what he would say to get them to do what he wanted. The way he silenced Magda was intriguing. John Paul wanted to see what was happening. He stepped from behind the dividing wall and watched.

  Graff was doing nothing. There was no threat on his face, no attempt to outface them. He gazed pleasantly at Mother, and then at Father, and then at Mother again, skipping right over Magda’s face. It was as if she didn’t exist—even her own body seemed to say, “Don’t notice me, I’m not really here.”

  Graff turned his head and looked right at John Paul.

  John Paul thought he might say something to get him in trouble, but Graff gazed at him only a moment and then turned back to Mother and Father. “You understand, of course,” he began.

  “No, I don’t understand,” said Father. “You aren’t going to see the boy unless we decide you’ll see him, and for that you have to meet our terms.”

  Graff looked blandly back at him. “He isn’t your breadwinner. What possible hardship can you claim?”

  “We don’t want a handout,” said Father furiously. “We aren’t looking for compensation.”

  “All I want,” said Graff, “is to converse with the boy.”

  “Not alone,” said Father.

  “With us here,” said Mother.

  “That’s fine with me,” said Graff. “But I think Magdalena is sitting in the boy’s place.”

>   Magda, after a moment’s hesitation, got up and left the house. The door banged shut just a little louder than usual.

  Graff beckoned to John Paul.

  He came in and sat on the couch between his parents.

  Graff began to explain to him about Battle School. That he would go up into space in order to study how to be a soldier so he could help fight against the Buggers when they came back with the next invasion. “You might lead fleets into battle someday,” said Graff. “Or lead marines as they blast their way through an enemy ship.”

  “I can’t go,” said John Paul.

  “Why not?” asked Graff.

  “I’d miss my lessons,” he said. “My mother teaches us, here in this room.”

  Graff didn’t answer, just studied John Paul’s face. It made John Paul uncomfortable.

  The Fleet lady spoke up. “But you’ll have teachers there. In Battle School.”

  John Paul did not look at her. It was Graff he had to watch. Graff was the one with all the power today.

  Finally Graff spoke. “You think it would be unfair for you to be in Battle School while your family still struggles here.”

  John Paul had not thought of that. But now that Graff had suggested it…

  “Nine of us,” said John Paul. “It’s very hard for my mother to teach us all at once.”

  “What if the Fleet can persuade the government of Poland—”

  “Poland has no government,” said John Paul, and then he smiled up at his father, who beamed down at him.

  “The current rulers of Poland,” said Graff cheerfully enough. “What if we can persuade them to lift the sanctions on your brothers and sisters.”

  John Paul thought about this for a moment. He tried to imagine what it would be like, if they could all go to school. Easier for Mother. That would be good.

  He looked up at his father.

  Father blinked. John Paul knew that face. Father was trying to keep from showing that he was disappointed. So there was something wrong.

  Of course. There were sanctions on Father, too. Andrew had explained to him once that Father wasn’t allowed to work at his real job, which should have been teaching at a university. Instead Father had to do a clerical job all day, sitting at a computer, and then manual labor by night, odd jobs off the books in the Catholic underground. If they would lift the sanctions on the children, why not on the parents?

  “Why can’t they change all the stupid rules?” said John Paul.

  Graff looked at Capt. Rudolf, then at John Paul’s parents. “Even if we could,” he said to them, “should we?”

  Mother rubbed John Paul’s back a little. “John Paul means well, but of course we can’t. Not even the sanctions against the children’s schooling.”

  John Paul was instantly furious. What did she mean, “of course?” If they had only bothered to explain things to him then he wouldn’t be making mistakes, but no, even after these people from the Fleet came to prove that John Paul wasn’t just a stupid kid, they treated him like a stupid kid.

  But he did not show his anger. That never got good results from Father, and it made Mother anxious so she didn’t think well.

  The only answer he made was to say, with wide-eyed innocence, “Why not?”

  “You’ll understand when you’re older,” said Mother.

  He wanted to say, “And when will you understand anything about me? Even after you realized I could read, you still think I don’t know anything.”

  But then, he apparently didn’t know everything he needed to, or he’d see what was obvious to all these adults.

  If his parents wouldn’t tell him, maybe this captain would.

  John Paul looked expectantly at Graff.

  And Graff gave the explanation he needed.

  “All of your parents’ friends are noncompliant Catholics. If your brothers and sisters suddenly get to go to school, if your father suddenly gets to go back to the university, what will they think?”

  So this was about the neighborhood. John Paul could hardly believe that his parents would sacrifice their children, even themselves, just so the neighbors wouldn’t resent them.

  “We could move,” said John Paul.

  “Where?” asked Father. “There are noncompliants like us, and there are people who gave up their faith. There’s only the two groups, and I’d rather go on as we are than to cross that line. It’s not about the neighbors, John Paul. It’s about our own integrity. It’s about faith.”

  It wasn’t going to work, John Paul could see that now. He had thought that his Battle School idea could be turned to help his family. He would have gone into space for that, gone away and not come home for years, if it would have helped his family.

  “You can still come,” said Graff. “Even if your family doesn’t want to be free of these sanctions.”

  Father erupted then, not shouting, but his voice hot and intense. “We want to be free of the sanctions, you fool. We just don’t want to be the only ones free of them! We want the Hegemony to stop telling Catholics they have to commit mortal sin, to repudiate the Church. We want the Hegemony to stop forcing Poles to act like…like Germans.”

  But John Paul knew this rant, and knew that his father usually ended that sentence by saying, “forcing Poles to act like Jews and atheists and Germans.” The omission told him that Father did not want the results that would come from talking in front of these Fleet people the way he talked in front of other Poles. John Paul had read enough history to know why. And it occurred to him that even though Father suffered greatly under the sanctions, maybe in his anger and resentment he had become a man who no longer belonged at the university. Father knew another set of rules and chose not to live by them. But Father also did not want educated foreigners to know that he did not live by those rules. He did not want them to know that he blamed things on Jews and atheists. But to blame them on Germans, that was all right.

  Suddenly John Paul wanted nothing more than to leave home. To go to a school where he wouldn’t have to listen in on someone else’s lessons.

  The only problem was, John Paul had no interest in war. When he read history, he skimmed those parts. And yet it was called Battle School. He would have to study war a lot, he was sure of it. And in the end, if he didn’t fail, he would have to serve in the Fleet. Take orders from men and women like these Fleet officers. To do other people’s bidding all his life.

  He was only six, but he already knew that he hated it when he had to do what other people wanted, even when he knew that they were wrong. He didn’t want to be a soldier. He didn’t want to kill. He didn’t want to die. He didn’t want to obey stupid people.

  At the same time, he didn’t want to stay in this situation, either. Crowded into their apartment most of the day. Mother always so tired. None of them learning all they could. Never quite enough to eat, nothing but shabby threadbare clothing, never warm enough in winter, always sweltering in summer.

  They all think we’re being heroes, like St. John Paul II under the Nazis and the Communists. Standing up for the faith against the lies and evils of the world, the way St. John Paul II did as pope.

  But what if we’re just being stubborn and stupid? What if everybody else is right, and we shouldn’t have had more than two children in our family?

  Then I wouldn’t have been born.

  Am I really here because God wants me to be? Maybe God wanted all kinds of children to be born, and all the rest of the world was blocking them from coming by their sins, because of the Hegemon’s laws. Maybe it was like the story of Abraham and Sodom, where God would be willing to save the city from destructions if twenty righteous people could be found, or even ten. Maybe we’re the righteous people who save the world just by existing, just by serving God and refusing to bow to the Hegemon.

  But existing is not all I want, thought John Paul. I want to do something. I want to learn everything and know everything and do every good thing. To have choices. And I want my brothers and sisters to have those choices
too. I will never have power like this again, to change the world around me. The moment these people from the Fleet decide they don’t want me anymore, I’ll never have another chance. I have to do something now.

  “I don’t want to stay here,” said John Paul.

  He could feel Father’s body stiffen on the couch next to him, and Mother gasped just the tiniest of gasps inside her throat.

  “But I don’t want to go into space,” said John Paul.

  Graff did not move. But he blinked.

  “I’ve never been to a school. I don’t know if I’ll like it,” said John Paul. “Everybody I know is Polish and Catholic. I don’t know what it’s like to be with people who aren’t.”

  “If you don’t go into the Battle School program,” said Graff, “there’s nothing we can do about the rest.”

  “Can’t we go somewhere and try it out?” asked John Paul. “Can’t we all go somewhere that we can go to school and nobody will care that we’re Catholics and there are nine of us children?”

  “There’s nowhere in the world like that,” said Father bitterly.

  John Paul looked at Graff questioningly.

  “Your father is partly right,” said Graff. “A family with nine children will always be resented, no matter where you go. And here, because there are so many other noncompliant families, you sustain each other. There’s solidarity. In some ways it would be worse if you left Poland.”

  “In every way,” said Father.

  “But we could set you up in a large city, and then send no more than two of your brothers and sisters to any one school. That way, if they are careful, no one will know that their family is noncompliant.”

  “If they become liars, you mean,” said Mother.

  “Oh,” said Graff, “forgive me. I didn’t know that your family never, ever told a lie to protect your family’s interests.”

  “You’re trying to seduce us,” said Mother. “To divide the family. To get our children into schools that will teach them to deny the faith, to despise the Church.”

  “Ma’am,” said Graff, “I’m trying to get a very promising boy to agree to come to Battle School because the world faces a terrible enemy.”