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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?”
    “Only in that it won’t be the course your ‘natural’ self would choose. You’re going to lose that self, at least as a public persona. You’re going to put your shoulders in the harness and for some years work on being a meek and helpful toiler in the political vineyard. Taking stupid orders from people you don’t respect. Learning to compromise so that stupidity appears to have been served, without sacrificing your eventual goal. Learning patience.”
    “Learning to be a political animal.”
    “You must.”
    “As you said, though, I could probably win an election just by being myself. I could probably win this one.”
    “That’s right. Which brings us to the other part of number three.”
    “The rational part, I assume.”
    “You’re paying attention, good. You hardly need that recorder.”
    “You … don’t know. You’re guessing.”
    “Not anymore.” He almost smiled. “Sandra and I disagreed on a number of things—some very basic, such as the right to accumulate wealth, to own property—”
    “I can understand that.”
    “But one thing we did agree on was you.”
    “In what sense?” Sandra
liked
me, I thought.
    “A general assessment of your abilities, your potential; that’s something anyone with any administrative experience would agree on. Including yourself; you can be objective. The most important thing, though, and one you’re almost certainly blind to, is that you are potentially the most dangerous individual aboard this vessel.”
    I laughed out loud. “Yeah. I was about to have myself locked up.”
    “Be serious and listen. We think of ’Home as being a kind of New New York in microcosm. It’s a heuristic convenience and a dangerous fallacy.”
    “Well, we’re no
Mayflower
.”
    “What flower?”
    “It was a colony ship that brought people from Puritan England to America. They didn’t have an Entertainment Director.”
    “I remember. That rock, the Ford Rock, the Plymouth. It’s not too good a comparison. They could breathe the air outside their ship, for instance; they could throw out fishing lines for food. If they didn’t like America, they could sail back home.”
    “All points well taken. Sorry to interrupt.”
    “Points salient to the problem at hand. You.
    “Think of New New York as an island, surrounded by other islands. There’s a mainland, Earth, that they can reach only with difficulty, and it’s a dangerous, uncomfortable place. But their island is pretty self-sufficient, and nearby islands—the Moon, the Deucalian remnants, and other asteroids—can provide all their needs. They’re stable.
    “By comparison, we’re a submarine. We’re incredibly well stocked with supplies, and even a surplus of materials for the creation of new supplies. We even have an Entertainment Director. But we can’t surface until we reach our destination, by which time most of us will be dead.”
    “We talked about all this years ago, even before Start-up.”
    “We have more data now. For instance, when Morales gave his Health Care report, he neglected to mention the hundred and twenty-seven suicides we’ve had since Launch Day.”
    Sudden feeling like a ball of ice in my stomach. “More than one percent.”
    “That’s right. If this rate continued, by the time we left the Solar System more than half of us would be dead.” He shook his head. “It’s happened before, a suicide epidemic. In New New, just after the war. We juggled the statistics as best we could. If there were no witnesses to the act, the death wound up in some other classification. We’re doing that here, but it’s more difficult, since quarters are more cramped.”
    “They expected a few suicides, didn’t they? Lot of stress.”
    “Between ten and twenty, going on