Julia wasn’t. "I ask only because I’ve been getting to know a lot of Arkies. I have nothing else to do. No duties. No applicable skills. I find that many of them crave a bit of society. It’s a natural human need, just as much as sleep and exercise. So I talk to them—in person here on our little heptad, or through the channels you mentioned, the Spacebook and the Scape. These young people find it at least a novelty to have a conversation with a lonely and bored ex-president. My point being, Major Petersen, that our system worked. The Casting of Lots and the training camps produced the brightest collection of young talent it has ever been my privilege to encounter. They are brimming over with energy and ideas. These are the scarcest resources in our universe right now—scarcer than water, scarcer than living space. And as such I’d consider it a shame if their energy was wasted and their ideas were not taken into account by whatever smoke-filled room Markus assembles to make his plan—assuming he even survives what sounds to me like a somewhat harebrained endeavor."