“Let me see it.”

He shook his head. “Although I have the offer with me in writing, I would rather first discuss it with you orally.”

“No. Let me look at it. Then maybe we will talk.”

With apparent reluctance, he reached into an inside pocket and handed over a thin packet of papers. Official state seal. Governor’s official letterhead, and below it a certification that Carmelo Diaz was empowered to meet with Oliver Guest and negotiate on behalf of the state. And, finally, an outline of the terms of the offer.

While I was reading, I felt sure that Carmelo Diaz’s eyes were in constant motion, flickering from me to walls, to floor, to ceiling, and finally — irresistibly — back to me.

I didn’t have to watch Diaz to know this. I had seen the same behavior in a hundred visitors. They were intrigued — and some offended — by the apparent opulence of my living quarters. The furnishings were massive, immovably attached to the floor, and finished in soft and expensive leather. The walls, all the way up to the ten-foot ceiling, were covered in rich dark red velvet. Shoes sank deep into the pile of the soft carpet. The lamps, all ceiling inlaid, could dim or brighten at the touch of a button.

Less obvious — not obvious at all to me, until I did my own experiments — was the room’s harmless nature. Harmless, in the specific sense that a person in the room would find nothing to permit self-damage or self-slaughter. Left to explore the room, as I had been free to explore it, any visitor would finally conclude that everything was innocuous with the exception — the eyes of Carmelo Diaz, ever and always, came back to me — of the occupant.

I had no pen, of course, to sign anything. Nor would he have. Guards would be brought in to provide a writing instrument if we reached some kind of agreement.