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“Or are they McPeople?”
    “Right the first time,” her chief of staff replied.
    “Do we own any shares in Applied People?”
    “No, AP isn’t publicly traded.”
    “Who owns it?”
    “Sole proprietor—Zoranna Albleitor.”
    “Hmm,” El said. “Add it to the watch list.”
     
     
    SO THE FLIGHT, so the honeymoon. Within hours of checking into the Sweetheart Suite of the Lunar Princess, Eleanor was conducting business meetings of a dozen or more holofied attendees. She apologized, but claimed there was nothing she could do to lighten her workload. I was left to take bounding strolls through the warren of interconnected habs by myself. I didn’t mind. I treasured my solitude.
    On the third day of our so-called honeymoon, I happened to be in our suite when Eleanor received “the call.” Her Calendar informed her of an incoming message from the Tri-Discipline Council.
    “The Tri-D?” El said. “Are you sure? What did we do now?”
    Calendar morphed into Cabinet’s attorney general who said, “Unknown. There’s no memo, and the connection is highly encrypted.”
    “Have we stepped on any important toes? Have any of our clients stepped on any important toes?”
    “All of the above, probably,” the attorney general said.
    After stalling as long as possible, El accepted the call. The stately though unimaginative seal of the Tri-Discipline Council—a globe gyrating on a golden axis—filled our living room. I asked El if I should leave.
    She gave me a pleading look, the first time I’d ever seen her unsure of herself. So I stayed as the overdone sig dissolved into thin air and Agnes Foldstein, herself, appeared before us sitting at her huge glass desk. Eleanor sucked in her breath. Here was no minor bureaucrat from some bottom tier of the organization but the very chair of the Board of Governors, one of the most influential people alive, parked at her trademark desk in our hotel suite. Both El and I stood up.
    “Greetings from the Council,” Foldstein said, looking at each of us in turn. “I apologize for interrupting your honeymoon, but Council business compels me.” She turned to me and praised the inventiveness of my work in packaging design. She spoke sincerely and at length and mentioned specifically my innovations in battlefield wrap for the Homeland Command as well as my evacuation blankets for victims of trauma and burns. Then she turned to El and said, “Myr Starke, do you know why I’m here?”
    Foldstein appeared to be in her late forties, an age compatible with her monstrous authority, while my El looked like a doe-eyed daughter. El shook her head. “No, Governor, I don’t.”
    But she must have had some inkling, because Henry whispered, Eleanor’s chief of staff says Eleanor asks twice if you know what this means .
    I puzzled over the message. Apparently, it had been flattened by its passage through two artificial minds. What Eleanor had probably said was, “Do you know what this means? Do you know what this means?” Well, I didn’t, and the whole thing was making me nervous.
    “After careful consideration,” Foldstein continued, “the Council has nominated you for a seat on the Board of Governors.”
    “Sorry?” El said and grasped my arm to steady herself.
    Foldstein chuckled. “I was surprised myself, but there you have it—I’m offering you a seat at the grown-ups’ table.”
     
     
    BY THE TIME we shuttled back to Earth, the confirmation process was well under way. Over the next few torturous weeks, El’s nomination was debated publicly and in camera by governments, corporations, the Homeland Command, labor charters, pundits, and ordinary putzes alike. Such a meteoric rise was unheard of, and conspiracy theories abounded. El, herself, was at a loss to explain it. It was like skipping a dozen rungs on the ladder to success. Nevertheless, at no time did she doubt her ability to fill the post, and she marched through our town house in splendiferous pomp, only to crash