I don’t know whether to feel cheated or honored. I was going to wake up a couple of years after planetfall, let everybody else take care of the headache of setting things up. Now I get to be part of the great adventure. One year to Epsilon, one Earth year. About two of the new flavor.

I’m just tired. They say I’ll sleep a lot at first. That sounds like a great idea.

(Later, same day, somewhat refreshed) I knew it would take a while to get used to the new calendar. It’s not the physical strain we’d expected, since they have this drug Tempozine (sounds like a journal for jazz enthusiasts) that resets your various biological rhythms. ‘Home’s day-and-night cycle is set now on Epsilon’s short ten-hour day, which comes to about eighteen and a half REAL HUMAN hours.

A person who, like me, used to need six hours—REAL HUMAN hours—of sleep every night now needs a little over four and a half. But Epsilon hours are about ninety REAL HUMAN minutes. So I’ll only sleep a little over three hours, ship time. But that’s all I need, honest.

It remains to be seen what effect this is going to have on working, playing, eating, and so forth, I used to work a nine-hour day, at least in terms of being routinely accessible to other people. That’s six new-style hours, fine. But then add the three hours’ sleep, and hold it! There’s only one hour left for eating, drinking, sex, reading, exercise, VR, cube, hobbies, moonlit walks, and plotting to overthrow the government. Don’t forget two minutes for clarinet practice and forty-five seconds of quiet meditation.

So I have to cut down on the daily work hours. The simple fraction, 9 out of 24, gives me a 3.75-hour work cycle per 10-hour Epsilon day. Which would mean checking in to the office less than six Earth hours per day. I’ve spent that much time getting the rest of the day organized!

Guess I’ll study how other people have adapted, especially the oldsters. They switched fourteen years ago and seem to be doing okay; not especially rushed or disorganized. They’re more spread around the clock than we used to be, but our regularity was largely a vestigial holdover from Earth business practices. Shutting down labs and offices and classrooms while everybody rests is wasteful of space.

I wonder what will happen when we get to the planet, though. Almost nobody alive has experienced actual night. It does make you want to close your eyes.

Think I’ll like this new way of eating, one big meal and a lot of little nibbles. Like the tapas in Spain. See how fast I gain back the twelve kilos I lost in crypto.

Maybe not at all. I like wearing Medium again. I’ll like being youngest wife in the family, too.