I remember Lucas telling us about the people who first colonized Undil. It took twenty generations to make the atmosphere breathable. I’d go crazy.

“Just political, I think.”

Chancellor Green marks an icon. “My next question is: how confident a writer are you?”

“Um, pretty good?”

He doesn’t seem satisfied. “Let me rephrase the question: if I asked you to structure a treatise, would you be able to provide a basic outline?”

Here we go: I can tell we’re beginning the questions that will determine if I succeed my father. This is where I have to be careful not to make myself look too capable of performing ambassadorial duties.

“I could try,” I say.

“How about speaking to a crowd, primarily one of Officials, both foreign and domestic?”

“Sort of.”

“Sort of what, Mr. Lance?”

“Like, if I had to, I would.”

He stares at me through the hologram, his head bobbing slowly in place. “How would you handle spending hours alone writing a treatise for presentation to a convention committee made up of foreign leaders?”

“I could handle it,” I say, shrugging.

Chancellor Green sighs, just the reaction I was hoping for. But then his face becomes more serious. He slides the hologram aside so there’s nothing between us.

“How familiar are you with expeditions, Mr. Lance? Did your father ever tell you about them?”

I think about Father’s stories: there’s Daliona, the planet with an ocean so huge that people live on chains of islands. Artaans, a volcanic planet discovered by Narviid that has the most fertile soil of any planet in the Embassy Program. Most of the galaxy’s produce is grown there. Belvun, Rygin, Yillos, and Husteng: all planets from which Father brought back stories. All planets I hope to one day experience for myself.

“He’d tell me about the planets,” I say at last. “What they looked like, what he did on them, what the people were like, what the food tasted—”

Chancellor Green stops me with a shake of his head. “What about the actual expeditions?” he asks. “The actual flight to the planets?”

“No, not really.”

“That’s the problem.” Chancellor Green leans forward and presses his fingers together again. “I’m not saying this to scare you. I’m saying this to prepare you. We call interstellar space the void. There’s nothing but you and the stars. You’ll see the same people every day and do the same work every day. Some people can handle that kind of isolation…others cannot. You either learn to cope with it, or you wait for it to end.”

Father never told me about the void. He never told me what it’s like to travel between planets. From what Chancellor Green is saying, this is a threat I’ve never considered until now. Why didn’t Victoria mention it? Or Lucas?

Why wouldn’t Father?