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"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."
"Does it?" said Mother. "I keep hearing about this terrible enemy, these Buggers, these monsters from space, but where are they?"
"The reason you don't see them," said Graff patiently, "is because we defeated their first two invasions. And if you ever do see them, it will be because we lost the third time. And even then you won't see them, because they will do such terrible things to the surface of the Earth that there will be no humans alive when the first of the Buggers sets foot her
e. We want your son to help us prevent that."
"If God sends these monsters to kill us, maybe it's as it was in the days of Noah," said Mother. "Maybe the world is so wicked it needs to be destroyed."
"Well, if that's so," said Graff, "then we'll lose the war, no matter what we do, and that's that. But what if God wants us to win, so we have more time to repent of our wickedness? Don't you think we ought to leave that possibility open?"
"Don't argue theology with us," said Father coldly, "as if you were a believer."
"You don't know what I believe," said Graff. "All you know is this: We will go to great lengths to get your son into Battle School, because we believe he is extraordinary, and we believe that in this house he has been and will continue to be frustrated. Wasted."
Mother lurched forward and Father bounded to his feet. "How dare you!" cried Father.
Graff also stood, and in his anger he looked dangerous and terrible. "I thought you were the ones who didn't like lying!"
There was a momentary silence, Father and Graff facing each other across the room.
"I said his life was being wasted and that's the simple truth," said Graff quietly. "You didn't even know that he was really reading. Do you understand what this boy was doing? He was reading with excellent comprehension, books that your college students would have had trouble with, Professor Wieczorek. And you didn't know it. He did it in front of you, he told you he was doing it, and you still refused to know it because it didn't fit into your picture of reality. And this is the home where a mind like his is going to be educated? In your list of sins, doesn't that count as perhaps a tiny little venial sin? To take this gift from God and waste it? Didn't Jesus say something disparaging about casting pearls before swine?"
At this, Father could not stand it. He lunged forward to strike a blow at Graff.
But Graff was a soldier, and blocked the blow easily. He did not strike back, but used only as much force as was needed to stop Father until he could calm himself. Even so, Father ended up on the floor, in pain, with Mother kneeling over him, crying.
John Paul knew, however, what Graff was doing. That Graff had deliberately chosen words that would cause Father to get angry and lose control of himself.
But why? What was Graff trying to accomplish?
Then he realized: Graff wanted to show John Paul this scene. Father humiliated, beaten down, and Mother reduced to weeping over him.
Graff spoke, as he gazed intensely into John Paul's eyes. "The war is a desperate struggle, John Paul. They nearly broke us. They nearly won. It was only because we had a genius, a commander named Mazer Rackham who was able to outguess them, to find their weaknesses, that we barely, barely won. Who will be that commander next time? Will he be there? Or will he still be somewhere in Poland, working two miserable jobs that are far beneath his intellectual ability, all because at the age of six he thought he didn't want to go into space."
Ah. That was it. The captain wanted John Paul to see what defeat looked like.
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?"
