“What you’re saying,” Paul said, “is that this guy Cranach, dead as a doornail, could be legally immortal, at least in California, as long as his brain is not brain-dead. Even though it’s a machine.”

“Exactly,” Dor said. “And people like him, like it, are only the most extreme examples of, well, they call themselves ‘realists’ in North America.”

“As opposed to ‘humanists,’ ” Sam said. “It had started when we, and you, were young, in the mid-twenty-first. People who spent most of their waking hours in virtual reality.”

“Robonerds,” Meryl said. “Some of them even worked there, jobs piped in from the outside world.”

“We didn’t have much of that on Mars,” I said. “Except for school.”

“There still isn’t,” Sam said. “Mars is a hotbed of humanists.”

“But even on Earth,” Dor said, “most people are somewhere in the middle, using VR sometimes at play or work or study. Depends on where you live, too—lots of realists in Japan and China; lots of humanists in Latin America and Africa.”

Paul scratched his head. “They give the name ‘realist’ to people who escape normal life in VR?”

“Well, it is a higher reality,” Dor said. “The VR you have on your ship is antique. It’s a lot more . . . convincing now.”

Sam smiled broadly. “Yeah. You can tell when you’re unplugged because everything’s boring.”

“Guess who’s the realist here.” Dor patted her on the knee.

“Not really. I don’t spend even half my time plugged.”

“I’m curious about politics,” Paul said. “Mervyn Gold is president of what? What is this United Americas?”

“Let me see.” Sam moved her hands over the notebook. “It’s most of your old United States, except Florida and Cuba, which now are part of Caribbea, and South Texas (which is its own country) and Hawaii, which is the capital of Pacifica. The United Americas otherwise runs from Alaska down through English Canada, the old U.S., most of Mexico, and most of Spanish-speaking Central and South America down to the tip of Argentina. Not Costa Rica; not Baja California.”

“Thank God for that,” Dor said. “Baja’s such another world.”

“The United Americas are really not that united.” Sam continued. “It’s an economic coalition, like Common Europe and Cercle Socialisme.

“The smallest country in the world is the one we’re citizens of, Elevator.”

“The smallest country but the longest,” Dor said. “The Space Elevator Corporation declared sovereignty back when there was still a United Nations.”

“And now?” Namir said. “Instead of the UN?”

“All nations are united,” Sam said, echoing the commander. Her expression was a tight-lipped blandness.

United against the Others, I realized, through the fleet, which they couldn’t mention in public. Everyone else was probably thinking the same thing.

“I wonder who will pay my UN pension,” Namir muttered.

Sam overheard him. “You have all been well taken care of. The world is wealthy and grateful.”