When everything was finally sorted out, though, there was still one machine not-so-temporarily out of service. O’Hara retained it as an unofficial perquisite of office for Cabinet members, so that they could avail themselves of VR retreat with a minimum of scheduling bother. It also allowed O’Hara to use it on the spur of the moment—“I have a free hour, the machine’s free; let’s go to London”—as she had become accustomed to doing. She told herself she would not abuse it, and for some time she didn’t.

YEAR 6.26

AULD ACQUAINTANCE

1 January 2104 [23 Socrates 304]—I asked all of my crew to stay fairly sober last night, and had only two drinks myself, because I know what the park is going to look like. It’s not like the old days, when we could requisition 150 brain-dead GPs to pick up the mess after the party. That has now become an executive function. Of course it’s easier with no grass to hide bits of litter. No bushes to conceal copulators or lazy inebriates or, as happened once, a body.

The place was getting pretty scruffy when I turned in at one, and there were still several hundred people wandering around looking for something to break. But there were no emergency messages from Zdenek or Lewis when I woke up this morning, so I guess we were spared public lewdness or homicide.

The children were allowed to stay up until midnight, but most of them didn’t make it, including Sandra. (The creche parents wisely had them running and jumping all day.) Their pallets were lined up in an out-of-the-way corner by the fish pond, very orderly, but the kids just dropped at random, piled up snoring like a bunch of little drunks.

My not-so-little drunk poked me awake this morning with his persistent Alcoterm erection. It turns a man into a broomstick with but one purpose in life. Not the worst way to start the new year. It’s also his first day as Coordinator-elect, though; I hope the beast goes down before the afternoon meeting. Divert some of his bloodstream into the frontal lobes.

I wonder if other people were saddened by the size of the party last night. I guess people not professionally involved in crowd control might not have noticed how small the crowd was, compared to previous New Year’s Eves. I had to think of all those cryptos up in Level 4, though. Fastest Mausoleum in History, that’s us. Sylvine says it’s as reliable as any system aboard this boat—except for the 25 percent fatalities—but I look at our wonderful efficiency record in propulsion and information systems and am just as glad to be among the living.