She shushed him now, even though Father had already answered him. “Don’t pester your father with questions, he has important things on his mind.”

  “I have nothing on my mind,” said Father wearily. “I have no mind.”

  “Anyway,” said Mother.

  But John Paul had another question, and he had to ask it. “If everybody’s Catholic, why do the schools teach anti-Catholic?”

  Father looked at him like he was crazy. “How old are you?”

  He must not have understood what John Paul was asking, since it had nothing to do with ages. “I’m five, Father, don’t you remember? But why do the schools teach anti-Catholic?”

  Father turned to Mother. “He’s only five, why are you teaching him this?”

  “You taught him,” said Mother. “Always ranting about the government.”

  “It’s not our government, it’s a military occupation. Just one more attempt to extinguish Poland.”

  “Yes, keep talking, that’s how you’ll get cited again and you’ll lose your job and then what will we do?”

  It was obvious John Paul wasn’t going to get any answer and he gave up, saving the question for later, when he got more information and could connect it together.

  That was how life went on, the year John Paul was five: Mother working constantly, cooking meals and tending the babies even while she tried to run a school in the parlor, Father going away to work so early in the morning that the sun wasn’t even up, and all of the children awake so they could see their father at least once a day.

  Until the day Father stayed home from work.

  Mother and Father were both very quiet and tense at breakfast, and when Anna asked them why Father wasn’t dressed for work, Mother only snapped, “He’s not going today,” in a tone that said, “Ask no more questions.”

  With two teachers, lessons should have gone better that day. But Father was an impatient teacher, and he made Anna and Catherine so upset they fled to their rooms, and he ended up going out into the garden to weed.

  So when the knock came on the door, Mother had to send Andrew running out back to get Father. Moments later, Father came in, still brushing dirt from his hands. The knock had come twice more while he was coming, each time more insistent.

  Father opened the door and stood in the frame, his large strong body filling the space. “What do you want?” he demanded. He said it in Common rather than Polish, so they knew it was a foreigner at the door.

  The answer was quiet, but John Paul heard it clearly. It was a woman’s voice, and she said, “I’m from the International Fleet’s testing program. I understand you have three boys between the ages of six and twelve.”

  “Our children are none of your business.”

  “Actually, Mr. Wieczorek, the mandatory testing initiative is the law, and I’m here to fulfill my responsibilities under that law. If you prefer, I can have the military police come and explain it to you.” She said it so mildly that John Paul almost missed the fact that it wasn’t an offer she was making, it was a threat.

  Father stepped back, his face grim. “What would you do, put me in jail? You’ve passed laws that forbid my wife from working, we have to teach our children at home, and now you’d deprive my family of any food at all.”

  “I don’t make government policy,” said the woman as she surveyed the room full of children. “All I care about is testing children.”

  Andrew spoke up. “Peter and Catherine already passed the government tests,” he said. “Only a month ago. They’re up to grade.”

  “This isn’t about being up to grade,” said the woman. “I’m not from the schools or the Polish government—”

  “There is no Polish government,” said Father. “Only an occupying army to enforce the dictatorship of the Hegemony.”

  “I’m from the fleet,” said the woman. “By law we’re forbidden even to express opinions of Hegemony policy while we’re in uniform. The sooner I begin the testing, the sooner you can go back to your regular routines. They all speak Common?”

  “Of course,” said Mother, a little pridefully. “At least as well as they speak Polish.”

  “I watch the test,” said Father.

  “I’m sorry, sir,” said the woman, “but you do not watch. You provide me with a room where I can be alone with each child, and if you have only one room in your dwelling, you take everyone outside or to a neighbor’s house. I will conduct these tests.”

  Father tried to face her down, but he had no weapons for this battle, and he looked away. “It doesn’t matter if you test or not. Even if they pass, I’m not letting you take them.”

  “Let’s cross that bridge when we come to it,” said the woman. She looked sad. And John Paul suddenly understood why: Because she knew that Father would have no choice about anything, but she didn’t want to embarrass him by pointing it out. She just wanted to do her job and go.

  John Paul didn’t know how he knew these things, but sometimes they just came to him. It wasn’t like history facts or geography or mathematics, where you had to learn things before you knew them. He could just look at people and listen to them and suddenly he’d know things about them. About what they wanted or why they were doing the things they were doing. When his brothers and sisters quarreled, for instance. He usually got a clear idea of just what was causing the quarrel, and most of the time he knew, without even trying to think of it, just the right thing to say to make the quarreling stop. Sometimes he didn’t say it, because he didn’t mind if they quarreled. But when one of them was getting really angry—angry enough to hit—then John Paul would say the thing he needed to say, and the fight would stop, just like that.

  With Peter, it was often something like, “Just do what he says, Peter’s the boss of everybody,” and then Peter’s face would turn red and he’d leave the room and the argument would stop, just like that. Because Peter hated having people say he thought he was boss. But that didn’t work with Anna, with her it took something like, “Your face is getting all red,” and then John Paul would laugh, and she would go outside and screech and then come back inside and storm around the house, but the quarrel itself was over. Because Anna hated to think she ever, ever looked funny or silly.

  And even now, he knew that if he just said, “Papa, I’m scared,” Father would push the woman out of the house and then he would be in so much trouble. But if John Paul said, “Papa, can I take the test, too?” Father would laugh and he wouldn’t look so ashamed and unhappy and angry.

  So he said it.

  Father laughed. “That’s John Paul, always wants to do more than he’s able.”

  The woman looked at John Paul. “How old is he?”

  “Not six yet,” said Mother sharply.

  “Oh,” said the woman. “Well, then, I assume this is Nicholas, this is Thomas, and this is Andrew?”

  “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 dangerous 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.”