First meetings in the Enderverse

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.”
    “John Paul Wieczorek is the real thing,” said Helena. “And in thirty-five years, he’ll be forty. So the Alexander theory won’t have to be tested.”
    “Now you’re talking as if you’re sure he’ll be the one.”
    “I don’t know that,” said Helena. “But he’s something. The things he says.”
    “I read your report.”
    “When he said, ‘I’d rather keep you as a friend than keep that thing,’ I about lost it. I mean, he’s five.”
    “And that didn’t set off your alarms? He sounds coached.”
    “But he wasn’t. His parents didn’t want any of them tested, least of all him, being underage and all.”
    “They said they didn’t want.”
    “The father stayed home from work to try to stop me.”
    “Or to make you think he wanted to stop you.”
    “He can’t afford to lose a day’s pay. Noncompliant parents don’t get paid vacations.”
    “I know,” said Sillain. “Wouldn’t it be ironic if this John Paul Whatever-”
    “Wieczorek.”
    “Yes, that’s the one. Wouldn’t it be ironic if, after all our stringent population control efforts-for the sake of the war, mind you-it turned out that the commander of the fleet turned out to be the seventh child of noncompliant parents?”
    “Yes, very ironic.”
    “I think one theory was that birth order predicts that only firstborns would have the personality for what we need.”
    “All else being equal. Which it isn’t.”
    “We’re so ahead of ourselves here, Captain Rudolf,” said Sillain. “The parents are not likely to say yes, are they?”
    “No, not likely,” said Helena.
    “So it’s all moot, isn’t it?”
    “Not if…”
    “Oh, that would be so wise, to make an international incident out of this.” He leaned back in his chair.
    “I don’t think it would be an international incident.”
    “The treaty with Poland has very strict parental-control provisions. Have to respect the family and all.”
    “The Poles are very anxious to rejoin the rest of the world. They aren’t going to invoke that clause if we impress on them how important this boy is.”
    “Is he?” asked Sillain. “That’s the question. If he’s worth the gamble of making a huge stink about it.”
    “If it starts to stink, we can back off,” said Helena.
    “Oh, I can see you’ve done a lot of public relations