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businessman," Ogle said. "A lot of people start with image and then try to develop substance. But you are a techie and you hate all that superficial crap. You refuse to compromise."
    "Well, thank you for that vote of confidence," Aaron said, not entirely sarcastically.
    The flight attendant came through. They each ordered another drink.
    "You seem to have this all figured out," Aaron said.
    "Oh, no, not at all."
    "I don't mean that to sound resentful," Aaron said. "I was just wondering-"
    "Yes?" Ogle said, raising his eyebrows very high and looking at Aaron over his glasses, which he had slid down his nose.
    "What do you think? You think I have a chance?"
    "In L.A.?"
    "Yeah."
    "With the big media moguls?"
    "Yeah."
    "No. You don't have a chance."
    Aaron heaved a big sigh, closed his eyes, took a gulp of his drink. He had just met Ogle but he instinctively knew that everything that Ogle had said, all night long, was absolutely true.
    "Which doesn't mean that your company doesn't have a chance."
    "It doesn't?"
    "Course not. You got a good product there. It's just that you don't know how to market it."
    "You think I should have gone out and gotten a flashy logo."
    "Oh, no, I'm not saying that at all. I think your logo's fine. It's just that you have a misconception in your marketing strategy."
    "How so?"
    "You're aiming at the wrong people," Ogle said, very simply and plainly, as if he were getting annoyed at Aaron for not figuring this all out on his own.
    "Who else can I aim at with a product of this type?"
    Ogle squeezed his armrest again, leaned forward, allowed his seat to come upright. He put his drink on his tray table and sat up straight, as if getting down to work. "You're right in thinking that the media need to do people-metering kinds of stuff," he said. "The problem is that the kinds of people who run media companies are not going to buy your product."
    "Why not? It's the best thing like it. It's years ahead."
    Ogle cut him off with a dismissive wave of the hand. "Doesn't matter," he said flatly, and shook his head. "Doesn't matter."
    "It doesn't matter how good my product is?"
    "Not at all. Not with those people. Because you are selling to media people. And media people are either thugs, morons, or weasels. You haven't dealt very much with media people, have you?"
    "Very little."
    "I can tell. Because you don't have that kind of annoying, superficial quality that people get when they deal for a living with thugs, morons, and weasels. You are very earnest and sincere and committed to certain principles, as a scientist, and thugs and morons and weasels do not understand that. And when you give them an explanation of how brilliant your machine is, you'll just be putting them off."
    "I have spent a hell of a lot of time finding ways to explain this device in terms that almost anyone can understand," Aaron said.
    "Doesn't mater. Won't help. Because in the end, no matter how you explain it, it comes down to fine, subtle technicalities. Media people don't like that. They like the big, fabulous concept." Ogle pronounced "fabulous" with a mock-Hollywood gush.
    Aaron laughed rather hotly. He had seen enough media people to know this was true.
    "If you come to a media person and you want to do a miniseries about the Civil War, or Shakespeare, or the life of J.S. Bach, they will laugh in your face. Because nobody wants to watch that stuff. You know, intelligent stuff. They want pro wrestling. Media people who try to do Shakespeare get fired or go broke. The only ones who survived long enough to talk to you are the ones who backed pro wrestling. And when you come up to them talking about the fine points of your brilliant technology, it makes them think of Shakespeare and Leonardo da Vinci, which they hate and fear."
    "So I'm dead."
    "If you rely on selling to media people, you're dead."
    "But who else needs a device like this one except for media people?"
    "Well," Ogle said softly, sounding almost surprised, as if he hadn't