Well, it’s 0745, and I guess I’d better be there before the rest of the crew, at least those who are also among the living this morning. Gunter didn’t look too good at 12:30, trying to cure his hiccups by standing on his head and singing “Die Gedanken sind frei.” It did seem to work, at least temporarily.

SOWING, REAPING

PRIME

New Year’s Day was the 112th day since the crops had died, and people were becoming accustomed to their new routines, forming new circles of friends, trying to get used to all the elbowroom. The extra space was uncomfortable for most of them, having lived all their lives unbothered by the forced intimacy of New New, Uchūden, or Tsiolkovski. The number of occupied rooms actually decreased in the first few months as people suddenly alone sought out roommates to argue with.

There were going to be more children. At least 1,400 cryptobiotes were going to die in the tanks, at the most optimistic estimate, so there would be thirty births each year to offset that future loss, plus ten or so to replace the “awake” people who will die during any year. That would also even out the age distribution over the next half-century, and provide fodder for aptitude induction.

For the first few months, O’Hara unexpectedly found herself with time on her hands. Part of it was because people were busy sorting out their new professional duties and personal lives. More of it was the fact that the type of person who normally took up most of her time was probably asleep upstairs: those with “minimal imperative function,” in Personnel’s euphemistic nomenclature. People whose primary job was to take up space and reproduce in hopes of chance improvement.

So she could allow herself a lot of clarinet practice and exercise, swimming and handball. There was also more physical labor connected with her job now. She lost 6.6 kilograms in 112 days, though that was probably diet as much as exercise. The yeast vats could produce substances that tasted like anything from asparagus to zucchini—or steak or lobster or alligator tail—but they all tasted just a little bit like yeast, which was not O’Hara’s favorite flavor.

There was also a lot of time for Sandra; more time than her creche parents wanted O’Hara to have. In a couple of years Sandra would turn eight, and O’Hara could opt to take the child home, to raise her according to whatever random unskilled method she came up with. Most creche parents would rather hold on to the children at least until puberty, which of course was only partly professionalism. If they didn’t become attached to their wards, they were in the wrong profession.