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"In addition to those."
"Curious about what?"
"What was your quarrel with the Hegemony?"
"The I.F., actually. They thought I ought to go to Battle School."
"They can't force you to do that."
"I know. But as a condition of going to Battle School I got them to move my whole family out of Poland first and set things up so that the sanctions against oversized families didn't apply to us."
"Those sanctions are enforced in America, too."
"Yes, if you make a big deal about it," said John Paul. "Like your father. Like your whole church."
"Not my church."
"Right, of course, you're the only person in history who is completely immune to her religious upbringing."
She wanted to argue with him, but she knew the science his assertion was based on that showed the impossibility of escaping from the core worldview instilled in children by their parents. Even though she had long since repudiated it, it was still inside her, so that there was a constant argument, her parents' voices sniping at her, her own inner voice arguing with them. "Even people who just quietly have lots of children get zapped by the law," she said.
"My older sibs were set up with relatives. Enough of us were boarded out that there were never more than two children home. We were called nieces and nephews when we 'visited.' "
"And they still maintained all this for you, even after you refused to go to Battle School?"
"Sort of," said John Paul. "They actually made me go to ground school for a while, but I went on strike. And then they talked about sending us all back to Poland or getting sanctions against us here in America."
"So why didn't they?"
"I had the deal in writing."
"Since when has that ever stopped a determined government?"
"Oh, it wasn't because the contract was particularly enforceable. It was the fact that it existed at all. I merely threatened to make it public. And they couldn't deny that they had fiddled with the population laws because here we were, physical evidence that they had made an exception."
"Government can make all kinds of inconvenient evidence disappear."
"I know," said John Paul. "Which is why I think they still have an agenda. They couldn't get me into Battle School, but they let me stay here in America and my whole family, too. Like the devil in all the old sell-your-soul stories, they're going to collect sometime."
"And that doesn't bother you?"
"I'll deal with it when their plan emerges. So what about you? Their plan for you is already quite clear."
"Not really," she said. "On the surface, it looks like typical Hegemony behavior--punish the daughter to get the highly visible father to cease his rebellion against the population laws. Unfortunately, my father grew up on the movie 'A Man for All Seasons' and he thinks he's Thomas More. I think it only disappointed him that it was my head they cut off instead of his, professionally speaking."
"Only you think there's more to it than that?"
"The dean and my committee are still going to give me my degree and have me head the project--I'm just not going to get any credit for it. Well, that's annoying, yes, but in the long run it's trivial. Don't you think?"
"Maybe they think you're a careerist like they all are."
"But they know my father's not. They can't actually think this would make him give in. Or that it would even get me to try to pressure him."
"Don't underestimate the stupidity of the government."
"This is wartime," she said. "An emergency they really believe in. The tolerance for idiots in powerful positions is very low right now. No, I don't think they're stupid. I think I don't understand their plan yet."
He nodded. "So we're both waiting to see what they have in mind."
