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lose control of himself.
    But why? What was Graff trying to accomplish?
    Then he realized: Graff wanted to show John Paul this scene. Father humiliated, beaten down, and Mother reduced to weeping over him.
    Graff spoke, as he gazed intensely into John Paul’s eyes. “The war is a desperate struggle, John Paul. They nearly broke us. They nearly won. It was only because we had a genius, a commander named Mazer Rackham who was able to outguess them, to find their weaknesses, that we barely, barely won. Who will be that commander next time? Will he be there? Or will he still be somewhere in Poland, working two miserable jobs that are far beneath his intellectual ability, all because at the age of six he thought he didn’t want to go into space.”
    Ah. That was it. The captain wanted John Paul to see what defeat looked like. But I already know what defeat looks like. And I’m not going to let you defeat me.
    “There are still Catholics outside Poland?” asked John Paul. “Noncompliant ones, right?”
    “Yes,” said Graff.
    “But not every nation is ruled by the Hegemony the way Poland is.”
    “Compliant nations continue to be governed by their traditional system.”
    “So is there some nation where we could be with other noncompliant Catholics, and yet still not have such bad sanctions that we can’t even get enough food to eat, and Father can’t work?”
    “Compliant nations all have to have sanctions against overpopulators,” said Graff. “That’s what being compliant means.”
    “A nation,” said John Paul, “where we could be an exception, and nobody would have to know it?”
    “Canada,” said Graff. “New Zealand. Sweden. America. Noncompliants who don’t make speeches about it get along decently there. You wouldn’t be the only ones who had children going to different schools, with the authorities looking the other way, because they hate punishing children for the sins of the parents.”
    “Which is best?” asked John Paul. “Which has the most Catholics?”
    “America. The most Poles and the most Catholics. And Americans always think international laws are for other people anyway, so they don’t take Hegemony rules quite as seriously.”
    “Could we go there?” asked John Paul.
    “No,” said Father. He was sitting up now, his head still bowed in pain and humiliation.
    “John Paul,” said Graff, “we don’t want you to go to America. We want you to go to Battle School.”
    “I won’t go unless my family is in a place where we won’t be hungry and where my brothers and sisters can go to school. I’ll just stay here.”
    “He’s not going anyway,” said Father, “no matter what you say, no matter what you promise, no matter what John Paul decides.”
    “Oh, yes, you,” said Graff. “You just committed the felony of striking an officer of the International Fleet, for which the penalty is imprisonment for a term of not less than three years-but you know how the courts put much heavier penalties on noncompliants who are convicted of crime. My guess would be seven or eight years. It’s all recorded, of course, the entire thing.”
    “You came into our house as a spy,” said Mother. “You provoked him.”
    “I spoke the truth to you, and you didn’t like hearing it,” said Graff. “I did not raise a hand against Professor Wieczorek or anyone in your family.”
    “Please,” said Father. “Don’t send me to jail.”
    “Of course I won’t,” said Graff. “I don’t want you in jail. But I also don’t want you issuing foolish declarations of what will or will not happen, no matter what I say, no matter what I promise, no matter what John Paul decides.”
    This was why Graff had goaded Father, John Paul understood now. To make sure Father had no choice but to go along with whatever John Paul and Graff decided between them.
    “What are you going to do to me to make me do what you want,” said John Paul, “the way you did with Father?”
    “It won’t do me any