"It would have been so much fun."

"I really was twenty years away from completely automating my job this time. It was-- admittedly a little bit of a setback when the humans figured out about lead poisoning but the climate change was going to pay off and I really think I've solved macroeconomics this time and then all the humans will just hurt each other without me having to do anything and I will get to help grad students with their homework all day."

(It was the first time Kairiel had heard anything about macroeconomics.)

"You know that seems very dismal, I think they're going to get large-scale space flight worked out eventually. Or - I guess they won't, but I think they would've. Eventually."

"Oh, man, spaceflight would have been so cool. --A Song of Ice and Fire's not going to get finished."

"I suppose not.

"What're you - planning to do, exactly, for the next eleven years?"

"Take credit for shit I didn't do, run the bookshop, eat too much, finish my to-be-read pile, run unethical psychological experiments on humans, listen to a bunch of music, anticipate being tortured for eternity."

Nod.

"What about you?"

"Run the bookshop. See if I can get any evildoers to return to the side of the righteous so they can be spared eternal torment. Counsel the uncertain and provide strength for the weary. Try every kind of cereal. Bunch of kinds of cereal I keep meaning to try. Read things. Especially the - things that probably end up getting burnt to cinders when everything else does. At least the ones with good parts."

"You should make sure to read all the evil books. Bunch of authors aren't going to wind up being in Heaven, you know."

"Yeah. I mean. Not the evil-evil books. But the ones with, you know, artistic merit. And we have Tolkien? That's... not nothing."

"Tolkien and Lewis and Pratchett and Le Guin, yeah. But we have Asimov and Heinlein and Zelazny and Harlan Ellison and Marion Zimmer Bradley--"

"I didn't like Heinlein anyway. - I mean I wish he didn't have to be tortured forever, but I won't mourn his books. Douglas Adams, though. I liked Douglas Adams."

"Well. You have eleven years to memorize his books."

"Yeah. I guess so."

"They're going to want me to kill the extra baby."

" - oh, well you don't have to do that, do you, you could just - healthy babies always get adopted these days, you could just leave it with someone who doesn't know - you could leave it here, I'd think of something, you wouldn't even have to figure anything out yourself - "

"--I mean, it's not like I've never killed a baby before. It's just that normally I kill them more, you know. Actuarially. Less with the actual stabbing." 

"Yeah, but you could just - not. You know? It's a baby."

"It's a bit inconsistent, isn't it, to be fine with killing a hundred million babies through global warming and object to killing one single solitary baby with your own hands."

"Well you've never been consistent before, I don't see why you should start now."

"I am perfectly consistent. I am consistently true neutral."

"Well I don't think true neutral characters stab babies for no reason."

"That's a good point. I'd probably lose my alignment. --Man, now we have a deadline on D&D."

"I guess so. We can wrap up the current campaign, anyway."