“I hope so. Otherwise there’s no point in either of us working here.”

“Now suppose that I go off and do what my mother suggests. I’d have plenty of research funds — Ligon Industries is huge, and it’s all in the family. Vast available assets.”

“Richer than God, if you believe the media.”

“So I run my models, and suppose they produce surprising results. I come here, and say, look what I’ve discovered. What happens next?”

“We’d have to verify them before we could act.” Kate nodded. “Go on. I think I see where you’re leading.”

“You’d verify them. Of course. And verify with what? The other models you have floating around here, that I know are crap? No agreement, we can pretty much guarantee that. And it would be NIH for me — Not Invented Here. I could come in showing that the Sun would go supernova, and I wouldn’t be heard. I’m working on the most important question in the solar system, but what’s the point if I’m not taken seriously? And for that, I must be an insider. Does that take care of your first worry? I’m not going to leave, unless somebody higher up comes along and throws me out.”

“Which conveniently leads me to my second worry. You told me that you can’t easily describe your models in a way that I can understand.”

“It would take hours.”

“I believe you. But I can’t accept that answer. Because I have faith in you and your models, and I assume that soon — maybe starting tomorrow — they will start producing meaningful predictions, results that we really believe. So I take them up the line to Mischa Glaub. And the first thing I’m asked to do is explain what’s going on in a way that he can understand — and he has a lot less time to spend on this than I do. Then he has to brief his boss, Tomas De Mises. And he has to explain to anyone on the Council who shows interest.”

“You make it sound impossible.”