First meetings in the Enderverse

a computer, and then manual labor by night, odd jobs off the books in the Catholic underground. If they would lift the sanctions on the children, why not on the parents?
    “Why can’t they change all the stupid rules?” said John Paul.
    Graff looked at Capt. Rudolf, then at John Paul’s parents. “Even if we could,” he said to them, “should we?”
    Mother rubbed John Paul’s back a little. “John Paul means well, but of course we can’t. Not even the sanctions against the children’s schooling.”
    John Paul was instantly furious. What did she mean, “of course?” If they had only bothered to explain things to him then he wouldn’t be making mistakes, but no, even after these people from the Fleet came to prove that John Paul wasn’t just a stupid kid, they treated him like a stupid kid. But he did not show his anger. That never got good results from Father, and it made Mother anxious so she didn’t think well.
    The only answer he made was to say, with wide-eyed innocence, “Why not?”
    “You’ll understand when you’re older,” said Mother.
    He wanted to say, “And when will you understand anything about me? Even after you realized I could read, you still think I don’t know anything.”
    But then, he apparently didn’t know everything he needed to, or he’d see what was obvious to all these adults.
    If his parents wouldn’t tell him, maybe this captain would.
    John Paul looked expectantly at Graff.
    And Graff gave the explanation he needed.
    “All of your parents’ friends are noncompliant Catholics. If your brothers and sisters suddenly get to go to school, if your father suddenly gets to go back to the university, what will they think?”
    So this was about the neighborhood. John Paul could hardly believe that his parents would sacrifice their children, even themselves, just so the neighbors wouldn’t resent t hem.
    “We could move,” said John Paul.
    “Where?” asked Father. “There are noncompliants like us, and there are people who gave up their faith. There’s only the two groups, and I’d rather go on as we are than to cross that line. It’s not about the neighbors, John Paul. It’s about our own integrity. It’s about faith.”
    It wasn’t going to work, John Paul could see that now. He had thought that his Battle School idea could be turned to help his family. He would have gone into space for that, gone away and not come home for years, if it would have helped his family.
    “You can still come,” said Graff. “Even if your family doesn’t want to be free of these sanctions.”
    Father erupted then, not shouting, but his voice hot and intense. “We want to be free of the sanctions, you fool. We just don’t want to be the only ones free of them! We want the Hegemony to stop telling Catholics they have to commit mortal sin, to repudiate the Church. We want the Hegemony to stop forcing Poles to act like… like Germans.”
    But John Paul knew this rant, and knew that his father usually ended that sentence by saying, “forcing Poles to act like Jews and atheists and Germans.” The omission told him that Father did not want the results that would come from talking in front of these Fleet people the way he talked in front of other Poles. John Paul had read enough history to know why. And it occurred to him that even though Father suffered greatly under the sanctions, maybe in his anger and resentment he had become a man who no longer belonged at the university. Father knew another set of rules and chose not to live by them. But Father also did not want educated foreigners to know that he did not live by those rules. He did not want them to know that he blamed things on Jews and atheists. But to blame them on Germans, that was all right.
    Suddenly John Paul wanted nothing more than to leave home. To go to a school where he wouldn’t have to listen in on someone else’s lessons.
    The only problem was, John Paul had no interest in war. When he read history, he skimmed those parts. And yet it was called Battle School. He would have to study war a lot, he was sure of it. And in the end, if he didn’t fail, he would have to serve in the Fleet. Take orders from men and women like these Fleet officers. To do other people’s bidding all his life.
    He was only six, but he already knew that he hated it when he had to do what other people wanted, even when he knew that they were wrong. He didn’t want to be a soldier. He didn’t want to kill. He didn’t want to die.