'Well, he's just not taking his studies very seriously. He's not stupid; I could make him an A-4 if only he'd pay a little more attention. Those good looks of his are probably his downfall. Aged fifty-something as he is and what we call a "distinguished grey" archetype, I think he feels he doesn't need any depth – that he can get away with a good descriptive passage at introduction and then do very little.'

'And this is a problem because—?'

'I just want something a bit better for him,' sighed Dr Fnorp, who clearly had the best interest of his students at heart. 'He's failed his B-grade exams twice; once more and he'll be nothing but an incidental character with a line or two – if he's lucky.'

'Perhaps that's what he wants,' I suggested. 'There isn't enough room for all characters to be A-grade.'

'That's what's wrong with the system,' said Fnorp bitterly. 'If incidental characters had more depth the whole of fiction would be a lot richer – I want my students to enliven even the C-grade parts.'

I got the point. Even from my relative ignorance I could see the importance of fully rounded characters – the trouble was, for budgetary reasons, the Council of Genres had pursued a policy of minimum requirements for Generics for more than thirty years.

'They fear rebellion,' he said quietly. 'The C of G wants Generics to stay stupid; an unsophisticated population is a compliant one – but it's at the cost of the BookWorld.'

'So what do you want me to do?'

'Well,' sighed Fnorp, finishing his coffee, 'have a word with Randolph and see what you can do – try to find out why he is being so intransigent.'

I told him I would and saw him to the door.

I found Randolph asleep in bed. He was clutching his pillow. Lola had gone out early to meet some friends. A photo of her was on the bedside table next to him and he snored quietly to himself. I crept back to the door and banged on it.

'Wshenifyduh,' said a sleepy voice from within.

'I need to run one of the engines,' I told him. 'Can you give me a hand?'

There was a thump as he fell out of bed. I smiled to myself and took my coffee up to the flight deck.