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But I already know what defeat looks like. And I'm not going to let you defeat me.
"There are still Catholics outside Poland?" asked John Paul. "Noncompliant ones, right?"
"Yes," said Graff.
"But not every nation is ruled by the Hegemony the way Poland is."
"Compliant nations continue to be governed by their traditional system."
"So is there some nation where we could be with other noncompliant Catholics, and yet still not have such bad sanctions that we can't even get enough food to eat, and Father can't work?"
"Compliant nations all have to have sanctions against overpopulators," said Graff. "That's what being compliant means."
"A nation," said John Paul, "where we could be an exception, and nobody would have to know it?"
"Canada," said Graff. "New Zealand. Sweden. America. Noncompliants who don't make speeches about it get along decently there. You wouldn't be the only ones who had children going to different schools, with the authorities looking the other way, because they hate punishing children for the sins of the parents."
"Which is best?" asked John Paul. "Which has the most Catholics?"
"America. The most Poles and the most Catholics. And Americans always think international laws are for other people anyway, so they don't take Hegemony rules quite as seriously."
"Could we go there?" asked John Paul.
"No," said Father. He was sitting up now, his head still bowed in pain and humiliation.
"John Paul," said Graff, "we don't want you to go to America. We want you to go to Battle School."
"I won't go unless my family is in a place where we won't be hungry and where my brothers and sisters can go to school. I'll just stay here."
"He's not going anyway," said Father, "no matter what you say, no matter what you promise, no matter what John Paul decides."
"Oh, yes, you," said Graff. "You just committed the felony of striking an officer of the International Fleet, for which the penalty is imprisonment for a term of not less than three years—but you know how the courts put much heavier penalties on noncompliants who are convicted of crime. My guess would be seven or eight years. It's all recorded, of course, the entire thing."
"You came into our house as a spy," said Mother. "You provoked him."
"I spoke the truth to you, and you didn't like hearing it," said Graff. "I did not raise a hand against Professor Wieczorek or anyone in your family."
"Please," said Father. "Don't send me to jail."
"Of course I won't," said Graff. "I don't want you in jail. But I also don't want you issuing foolish declarations of what will or will not happen, no matter what I say, no matter what I promise, no matter what John Paul decides."
This was why Graff had goaded Father, John Paul understood now. To make sure Father had no choice but to go along with whatever John Paul and Graff decided between them.
"What are you going to do to me to make me do what you want," said John Paul, "the way you did with Father?"
"It won't do me any good," said Graff, "if you come with me unwillingly."
"I won't come with you willingly unless my family is in a place where they can be happy."
"There is no such place in a world ruled by the Hegemony," said Father.
But now it was Mother who stopped Father from speaking more. With a gentle hand she touched his face. "We can be good Catholics in another place," she said. "For us to leave here, that doesn't take bread out of the mouths of our neighbors. It harms no one. Look what John Paul is trying to do for us." She turned to John Paul. "I'm sorry I didn't know the truth about you. I'm sorry I was such a bad teacher for you." Then she burst into tears.
Father put his arm around her, pulled her close, rocked her, the two of them sitting on the floor, comforting each other.
Graff looked at John Paul, eyebrows raised, as if to say, I've removed all the obstacles, so... do what I want.
But things weren't yet the way John Paul wanted them.
"You'll cheat me," said John Paul. "You'll take us to America but then if I still decide not to go, you'll threaten to send everybody back here, worse off than before, and that's how you'll force me to go."
Graff did not answer for a moment.
"So I won't go," said John Paul.
"You'll cheat me," said Graff. "You'll get me to move your family to America and set you up in a better life, and then you'll refuse to go anyway, and you'll expect the International Fleet to allow your family to continue to enjoy the benefits of our bargain without your living up to your end of it."
John Paul did not answer, because there was no answer. That was exactly what John Paul was pla
"I don't think he'll do that," said the woman.
But John Paul knew she was lying. She was quite concerned that he might do that. But she was even more concerned that Graff would walk away from the bargain John Paul was asking for. This was the confirmation John Paul needed. It really was very important to these people to get John Paul into Battle School. Therefore they would agree to a very bad bargain as long as it gave them some hope that he might go.
Or else they knew that no matter what they agreed to now, they could go back on their word whenever they wanted. After all, they were the International Fleet, and the Wieczoreks were just a noncompliant family in a noncompliant country.
"What you don't know about me," said Graff, "is that I think very far ahead."
That reminded John Paul of what Andrew had said when he was teaching him to play chess. "You have to think ahead, the next move, the next move, the next move, to see where it's all going to lead." John Paul understood the principle as soon as Andrew explained it. But he stopped playing chess anyway, because he didn't care what happened to little plastic figures on a board of sixty-four squares.
Graff was playing chess, but not with little plastic figures. His game board was the world. And even though Graff was only a captain, he obviously came here with more authority—and more intelligence
—than the colonel who had come before. When Graff said, "I think very far ahead," he was saying—
this had to be his meaning—that he was willing to sacrifice a piece now and then in order to win the game, just like chess.
Maybe that meant he was willing to lie to John Paul now, and cheat him later. But no, there would be no reason to say anything at all. The only reason to say that was because Graff did not intend to cheat him. Graff was willing to be cheated, to knowingly enter into a bargain where the other person could win, and win completely—as long as he could see a way, farther down the road, for even such a defeat to turn to his advantage.
"You have to make us a promise that you'll never break," said John Paul. "Even if I don't go into space after all."
"I have the authority to make that promise," said Graff.
The woman clearly did not think so, though she said nothing.
"Is America a good place?" asked John Paul.
"There are an awful lot of Poles living there who think so," said Graff. "But it's not Poland."
"I want to see the whole world before I die," said John Paul. He had never told this to anyone before.
"Before you die," murmured Mother. "Why are you thinking about dying?"
As usual, she simply didn't understand. He wasn't thinking about dying. He was thinking about learning everything, and it was a simple fact that he had only a limited time in which to do it. Why did people get so upset when somebody mentioned dying? Did they think that if they didn't mention it, it would skip a few people and leave them alive forever? And how much faith in Christ did Mother really have, if she feared death so much she couldn't bear even to mention it, or hear her sixyear- old child speak of it?