"On what grounds?"
"One of them is borderline insane, for instance. We're trying to find some structure in which his abilities will be useful. But he could not possibly bear the weight of complete command."
"That's one."
"Another is undergoing surgery to correct a physical defect."
"Is it a defect that limits his ability to command?"
"It limits his ability to be trained to command."
"Bui it's being fixed."
"He's about to have his third operation. If it works, he might amount to something. But, as you say, there won't be time."
"How many more children have you concealed from us?"
"I have concealed none of them. If you mean how many have I simply not referred to you as potential commanders, the answer is all of them. Except the ones whose names you already have."
"Let me be blunt. We hear rumors about a very young one."
"They're all young."
"We hear rumors about a child who makes the Wiggin boy look slow."
"They all have their different strengths."
"There are those who want you relieved of your command."
"If I'm not to be allowed to select and train these kids properly, I'd prefer to be relieved, sir. Consider this a request."
"So it was a stupid threat. Advance them all as quickly as you can. Just keep in mind that they need a certain amount of time in Command School, too. It does us no good to give them all your training if they don't have time to get ours."
Dimak met Graff in the battleroom control center. Graff conducted all his secure meetings here, until they could be sure Bean had grown enough that he couldn't get through the ducts. The battlerooms had their own separate air systems.
Graff had an essay on his desk display. "Have you read this? 'Problems in Campaigning Between Solar Systems Separated by Lightyears.' "
"It's been circulating pretty widely among the faculty."
"But it isn't signed," said Graff. "You don't happen to know who wrote it, do you?"
"No, sir. Did you write it?"
"I'm no scholar, Dimak, you know that. In fact, this was written by a student."
"At Command School?"
"A student here."
At that moment Dimak understood why he had been called in. "Bean."
"Six years old. The paper reads like a work of scholarship!"
"I should have guessed. He picks up the voice of the strategists he's been reading. Or their translators. Though I don't know what will happen now that he's been reading Frederick and Bulow in the original--French and German. He inhales languages and breathes them back out."
"What did you think of this paper?"
"You already know it's killing me to keep key information from this boy. If he can write this with what he knows, what would happen if we told him everything? Colonel Graff, why can't we promote him right out of Battle School, set him loose as a theorist, and then watch what he spits out?"