First meetings in the Enderverse by Orson Scott Card Read Free Book Online

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 six-year-old child speak of it?
    “Going to America is a start,” said Graff. “And American passports aren’t restricted the way Polish passports are.”
    “We’ll talk about it,” said John Paul. “Come back later.”

    “Are you insane?” asked Helena as soon as they were out of earshot. “Isn’t it obvious what the boy is planning?”
    “No to the insanity, yes to the obviousness.”
    “These kids are going to be even more embarrassing for you than the earlier ones were for Sillain.”
    “Not really,” said Graff.
    “Why, because you intend to cheat the boy after all?”
    “If I did that, then I truly would be insane.” He stopped on the curb, apparently meaning to finish this conversation before getting back into the van with the others. Had he forgotten that what he was saying now was still being recorded?
    No, he knew it. He wasn’t speaking to her alone.
    “Captain Rudolf,” he said, “you saw, and everyone will see, that there was no way we could get that boy willingly into space. He doesn’t want to go. He doesn’t care about the war. That’s what we’ve accomplished with this stupid repressive policy in the noncompliant nations. We have the best we’ve ever seen, and we can’t use him because we’ve spent years creating a culture that hates the Hegemony and therefore the Fleet. We pissed on millions and millions of people in the name of some stupid population control laws, in defiance of their core beliefs and their community identity, and because the universe is statistically more likely to be ironic than not, of course our best chance at another commander like Mazer Rackham popped up among the ones we pissed on. I didn’t do that, and only fools would blame me for it.”
    “So what was that all about? This agreement you promised? What’s the point?”
    “To get John Paul Wieczorek out of Poland, of course.”
    “But what difference does that make, if he won’t go up to Battle School?”
    “He’s still… he still has a mind that processes human behavior the way some autistic savants process numbers or words. Don’t you think it’s a good thing to get him to a place where he can get a real education? And out of a place where he’ll be constantly indoctrinated with hatred for the Hegemony and the I.F.?”
    “I think that’s beyond the scope of your authority,” said Helena. “We’re with the Battle School, not some Committee to Shape a Better Future by Moving Children Around.”
    “I’m thinking of Battle School,” said Graff.
    “To which John Paul Wieczorek will never go, as you just admitted.”
    “You’re forgetting the research we’ve been conducting. It may not be final in some technical scientific sense, but it’s already conclusive. People reach their peak ability as military commanders much earlier than we thought. Most of them in their late teens. The same age when poets do their most passionate and revolutionary work. And mathematicians. They peak, and then it falls