Read First meetings in the Enderverse for Free Online Page B

good,” said Graff, “if you come with me unwillingly.”
    “I won’t come with you willingly unless my family is in a place where they can be happy.”
    “There is no such place in a world ruled by the Hegemony,” said Father. But now it was Mother who stopped Father from speaking more. With a gentle hand she touched his face. “We can be good Catholics in another place,” she said. “For us to leave here, that doesn’t take bread out of the mouths of our neighbors. It harms no one. Look what John Paul is trying to do for us.”
    She turned to John Paul. “I’m sorry I didn’t know the truth about you. I’m sorry I was such a bad teacher for you.” Then she burst into tears.
    Father put his arm around her, pulled her close, rocked her, the two of them sitting on the floor, comforting each other.
    Graff looked at John Paul, eyebrows raised, as if to say, I’ve removed all the obstacles, so… do what I want.
    But things weren’t yet the way John Paul wanted them.
    “You’ll cheat me,” said John Paul. “You’ll take us to America but then if I still decide not to go, you’ll threaten to send everybody back here, worse off than before, and that’s how you’ll force me to go.”
    Graff did not answer for a moment.
    “So I won’t go,” said John Paul.
    “You’ll cheat me,” said Graff. “You’ll get me to move your family to America and set you up in a better life, and then you’ll refuse to go anyway, and you’ll expect the International Fleet to allow your family to continue to enjoy the benefits of our bargain without your living up to your end of it.”
    John Paul did not answer, because there was no answer. That was exactly what John Paul was planning to do. Graff knew it, and John Paul didn’t bother to deny it. Because knowing John Paul planned to cheat him did not change anything.
    “I don’t think he’ll do that,” said the woman.
    But John Paul knew she was lying. She was quite concerned that he might do that. But she was even more concerned that Graff would walk away from the bargain John Paul was asking for. This was the confirmation John Paul needed. It really was very important to these people to get John Paul into Battle School. Therefore they would agree to a very bad bargain as long as it gave them some hope that he might go.
    Or else they knew that no matter what they agreed to now, they could go back on their word whenever they wanted. After all, they were the International Fleet, and the Wieczoreks were just a noncompliant family in a noncompliant country.
    “What you don’t know about me,” said Graff, “is that I think very far ahead.”
    That reminded John Paul of what Andrew had said when he was teaching him to play chess. “You have to think ahead, the next move, the next move, the next move, to see where it’s all going to lead.”
    John Paul understood the principle as soon as Andrew explained it. But he stopped playing chess anyway, because he didn’t care what happened to little plastic figures on a board of sixty-four squares. Graff was playing chess, but not with little plastic figures. His game board was the world. And even though Graff was only a captain, he obviously came here with more authority-and more intelligence-than the colonel who had come before. When Graff said, “I think very far ahead,” he was saying-this had to be his meaning-that he was willing to sacrifice a piece now and then in order to win the game, just like chess.
    Maybe that meant he was willing to lie to John Paul now, and cheat him later. But no, there would be no reason to say anything at all. The only reason to say that was because Graff did not intend to cheat him. Graff was willing to be cheated, to knowingly enter into a bargain where the other person could win, and win completely-as long as he could see a way, farther down the road, for even such a defeat to turn to his advantage.
    “You have to make us a promise that you’ll never break,” said John Paul. “Even