“It’s not that kind of ambition. I don’t want to boss anyone around.” Like New New, ‘Home disqualified from public office people who had certain easily measurable, and potentially dangerous, psychological handicaps, such as an emotional hunger to have power over others, or to be a martyr. So no Hitlers, but no Gandhis, either.

“Then what do you think you want?”

“Learn the secrets of the universe. Do everything at least once. Bring peace to our time. Have more time to play the clarinet. What a question.”

“What an answer. Of course only simple people could give a straightforward answer.” He resumed his slow pacing, which might have looked dignified down on Level 1. In this gravity there was a certain sprightliness to it.

“A lot of people who are older than you think you have come too far, too fast. I trust I don’t have to name any.”

“No.”

“Among the people who will eventually be your rivals for my present job, there are very few who are not jealous of, or even afraid of, your charisma.”

“I’ve seen that. But nobody who really knew me would ever accuse me of charisma. I’ve just had a lot of things happen to me.”

He held up a finger. “That’s it. They are things that can never happen to anyone else. Nobody else aboard this isolated can will ever experience revolution, nuclear war, plague. Nobody will be kidnapped and flown to Las Vegas. Nobody—”

“I understand the direction you’re headed.”

“What you have to do is spend several years being deliberately quiet and well behaved.”

“Oh, come on. I can behave myself.”

“You can when you want to. You were a little angel at the meeting today—”

“I’ll try to do better.”

“You see? One word and you react.”

“We’re not in public.”

“But we are. You are. I may be the most important audience you’ll ever have.” He paused to let that sink in. He was right. Part of his legacy could be a vote of no confidence that I would drag around for a long time. “Your presentation today lasted only forty-two seconds and used the pronoun ‘I’ only once. I know you could have gone into more detail with no more substance, as Smith and Mancini did, or could have made your presentation more entertaining, more memorable. That you did neither shows a good level of political survival instinct. What I want to do is help you refine your instincts into a calculated strategy”

“A dishonest one?”