First Meetings (2 page)

“Why aren’t you testing me?” demanded Peter.

“I’m afraid you’re already too old,” she answered. “By the time the Fleet was able to gain access to noncompliant nations…” Her voice trailed off.

Peter got up and mournfully left the room.

“Why not girls?” said Catherine.

“Because girls don’t want to be soldiers,” said Anna.

And suddenly John Paul realized that this wasn’t like the regular government tests. This was a test that Peter
wanted
to take, and Catherine was jealous that it couldn’t be given to girls.

If this test was about becoming a soldier, it was dumb that Peter would be considered too old. He was the only one who had his man-height. What, did they think Andrew or Nicholas could carry a gun and kill people? Maybe Thomas could, but he was also kind of fat besides being tall and he didn’t look like any soldier John Paul had seen.

“Whom do you want first?” asked Mother. “And can you do it in a bedroom so I can keep their lessons going?”

“Regulations require that I do it in a room with street access, with the door open,” said the woman.

“Oh, for the love of—we aren’t going to hurt you,” said Father.

The woman only looked at him briefly, and then looked at Mother, and both of John Paul’s parents seemed to give in. John Paul realized: Somebody must have been hurt giving this test. Somebody must have been taken into a back room and somebody hurt them. Or killed them. This was a dan
gerous business. Some people must be even angrier about the testing than Father and Mother.

Why would Father and Mother hate and fear something that Peter and Catherine wished they could have?

It proved impossible to have a regular school day in the girls’ bedroom, even though it had the fewest beds, and soon Mother resorted to having a free-reading time while she nursed one of the babies.

And when John Paul asked if he could go read in the other room, she gave consent.

Of course, she assumed he meant the other bedroom, because whenever somebody in the family said “the other room” they meant the other bedroom. But John Paul had no intention of going in there. Instead he headed for the kitchen.

Father and Mother had forbidden the children to enter the parlor while the testing was going on, but that didn’t prevent John Paul from sitting on the floor just outside the parlor, reading a book while he listened to the test.

Every now and then he was aware that the woman giving the test was glancing at him, but she never said anything to him and so he just kept reading. It was a book about the life of St. John Paul II, the great Polish pope that he had been named for, and John Paul was fascinated because he was finally getting answers to some of his questions about why Catholics were different and the Hegemon didn’t like them.

Even as he read, he also listened to all of the testing. But it wasn’t like the government tests, with questions about facts and seeing if they could figure out math answers or
name parts of speech. Instead she asked each boy questions that didn’t really have answers. About what he liked and didn’t like, about why people did the things they did. Only after about fifteen minutes of those questions did she start the written test with more regular problems.

In fact, the first time, John Paul didn’t think those questions were part of the test. Only when she asked each boy the exact same questions and then followed up on the differences in their answers did he realize this was definitely one of the main things she was here to do. And from the way she got so involved and tense asking those questions, John Paul gathered that she thought these questions were actually more important than the written part of the test.

John Paul wanted to answer the questions. He wanted to take the test. He liked to take tests. He always answered silently when the older children were taking tests, to see if he could answer as many questions as they did.

So when she was finishing up with Andrew, John Paul was just about to ask if he could take the test when the woman spoke to Mother. “How old is this one?”

“We told you,” said Mother. “He’s only five.”

“Look what he’s reading.”

“He just turns the pages. It’s a game. He’s imitating the way he sees the older children read.”

“He’s reading,” said the woman.

“Oh, you’re here for a few hours and you know more about my children than I do, even though I teach them for hours every day?”

The woman did not argue. “What is his name?”

Mother didn’t want to answer.

“John Paul,” said John Paul.

Mother glared at him. So did Andrew.

“I want to take the test,” he said.

“You’re too young,” said Andrew, in Polish.

“I turn six in three weeks,” said John Paul. He spoke in Common. He wanted the woman to understand him.

The woman nodded. “I’m allowed to test him early,” she said.

“Allowed, but not required,” said Father, coming into the room. “What’s he doing in here?”

“He said he was going into the other room to read,” said Mother. “I thought he meant the other bedroom.”

“I’m in the kitchen,” said John Paul.

“He didn’t disturb anything,” said the woman.

“Too bad,” said Father.

“I’d like to test him,” the woman said.

“No,” said Father.

“Somebody will just have to come back in three weeks and do it then,” she said. “And disrupt your day one more time. Why not have done with it today?”

“He’s already heard the answers,” said Mother. “If he was sitting here listening.”

“The test isn’t like that,” said the woman. “It’s all right that he heard.”

John Paul could see already that Father and Mother were both going to give in, so he didn’t bother saying anything to try to influence them. He didn’t want to use his ability to say the right words too often, or somebody would catch on, and it would stop working.

It took a few more minutes of conversation, but then John Paul was sitting on the couch beside the woman.

“I really was reading,” said John Paul.

“I know,” said the woman.

“How?” asked John Paul.

“Because you were turning the pages in a regular rhythm,” she said. “You read very fast, don’t you?”

John Paul nodded. “When it’s interesting.”

“And St. John Paul II is an interesting man?”

“He did what he thought was right,” said John Paul.

“You’re named after him,” she said.

“He was very brave,” said John Paul. “And he never did what bad people wanted him to do, if he thought it was important.”

“What bad people?”

“The Communists,” said John Paul.

“How do you know they were bad people? Does the book say so?”

Not in words, John Paul realized. “They were making people do things. They were trying to punish people for being Catholic.”

“And that’s bad?”

“God is Catholic,” said John Paul.

The woman smiled. “Muslims think that God is a Muslim.”

John Paul digested this. “Some people think God doesn’t exist.”

“That’s true,” said the woman.

“Which?” he asked.

She chuckled. “That some people think he doesn’t exist. I don’t know, myself. I don’t have an opinion on the subject.”

“That means you don’t believe there is a God,” said John Paul.

“Oh, does it?”

“St. John Paul II said so. That saying you don’t know or
care about God is the same as saying you believe he doesn’t exist, because if you had even a hope that he existed, you would care very much.”

She laughed. “Just turning the pages, were you?”

“I can answer all your questions,” he said.

“Before I ask them?”

“I wouldn’t hit him,” said John Paul, answering the question about what he would do if a friend tried to take away something of his. “Because then he wouldn’t be my friend. But I wouldn’t let him take the thing either.”

The follow-up to this answer had been, How would you stop him? So John Paul went right on without pausing. “The way I’d stop him is, I’d say, ‘You can have it. I give it to you, it’s yours now. Because I’d rather keep you as a friend than keep that thing.’”

“Where did you learn that?” asked the woman.

“That’s not one of the questions,” said John Paul.

She shook her head. “No, it’s not.”

“I think sometimes you have to hurt people,” said John Paul, answering the next question, which had been, Is there ever a time when you have a right to hurt somebody else?

He answered every question, including the follow-ups, without her having to ask any of them. He did it in the same order she had asked them of his brothers, and when he was done, he said, “Now the written part. I don’t know those questions cause I couldn’t see them and you didn’t say them.”

They were easier than he thought. They were about shapes and remembering things and picking out right sentences and doing numbers, things like that. She kept looking at her watch, so he hurried.

When it was all done, she just sat there looking at him.

“Did I do it right?” asked John Paul.

She nodded.

He studied her face, the way she sat, the way her hands didn’t move, the way she looked at him. The way she was breathing. He realized that she was very excited, trying hard to stay calm. That’s why she wasn’t speaking. She didn’t want him to know.

But he knew.

He was what she had come here looking for.

“Some people might say that this is why women can’t be used for testing,” said Col. Sillain.

“Then those people would be mentally deficient,” said Helena Rudolf.

“Too susceptible to a cute face,” said Sillain. “Too prone to go ‘Aw’ and give a kid the benefit of the doubt on everything.”

“Fortunately, you don’t harbor any such suspicions,” said Helena.

“No,” said Sillain. “That’s because I happen to know you have no heart.”

“There we are,” said Helena. “We finally understand each other.”

“And you say this Polish five-year-old is more than just precocious.”

“Heaven knows, that’s the main thing our tests identify—general precociousness.”

“There are better tests being developed. Very specific for military ability. And younger than you might think.”

“Too bad that it’s already almost too late.”

Col. Sillain shrugged. “There’s a theory that we don’t actually have to put them through a full course of training.”

“Yes, yes, I read all about how young Alexander was. It helped that he was the son of the king and that he fought unmotivated armies of mercenaries.”

“So you think the Buggers are motivated.”

“The Buggers are a commander’s dream,” said Helena. “They don’t question orders, they just
do
. Whatever.”

“Also a commander’s nightmare,” said Sillain. “They don’t think for themselves.”

“John Paul Wieczorek is the real thing,” said Helena. “And in thirty-five years, he’ll be forty. So the Alexander theory won’t have to be tested.”

“Now you’re talking as if you’re sure he’ll be the one.”

“I don’t know that,” said Helena. “But he’s something. The things he says.”

“I read your report.”

“When he said, ‘I’d rather keep you as a friend than keep that thing,’ I about lost it. I mean, he’s
five
.”

“And that didn’t set off your alarms? He sounds coached.”

“But he wasn’t. His parents didn’t want any of them tested, least of all him, being underage and all.”

“They
said
they didn’t want.”

“The father stayed home from work to try to stop me.”

“Or to make you
think
he wanted to stop you.”

“He can’t afford to lose a day’s pay. Noncompliant parents don’t get paid vacations.”

“I know,” said Sillain. “Wouldn’t it be ironic if this John Paul Whatever—”

“Wieczorek.”

“Yes, that’s the one. Wouldn’t it be ironic if, after all our stringent population control efforts—for the sake of the war, mind you—it turned out that the commander of the fleet turned out to be the seventh child of noncompliant parents?”

“Yes, very ironic.”

“I think one theory was that birth order predicts that only firstborns would have the personality for what we need.”

“All else being equal. Which it isn’t.”

“We’re so ahead of ourselves here, Captain Rudolf,” said Sillain. “The parents are not likely to say yes, are they?”

“No, not likely,” said Helena.

“So it’s all moot, isn’t it?”

“Not if…”

“Oh, that would be so wise, to make an international incident out of this.” He leaned back in his chair.

“I don’t think it would be an international incident.”

“The treaty with Poland has very strict parental-control provisions. Have to respect the family and all.”

“The Poles are very anxious to rejoin the rest of the world. They aren’t going to invoke that clause if we impress on them how important this boy is.”

“Is he?” asked Sillain. “That’s the question. If he’s worth the gamble of making a huge stink about it.”

“If it starts to stink, we can back off,” said Helena.

“Oh, I can see
you’ve
done a lot of public relations work.”

“Come see him yourself,” said Helena. “He’ll be six in a few days. Come see him. Then tell me whether he’s worth the risk of an international incident.”