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.