It was sad to let go of Hermosa. He’s a brilliant musician and a good teacher. But I did talk Saijo, Gunter, and Lebovski into staying. From among the volunteers, I chose Bell, Lewis, and Zdenek. They’re all readers, and all but Lewis and Saijo are musical. We’re going to have more time on our hands, with only two thousand people to take care of, all of them presumably having less free time for our services. At least we won’t have to sit around the office playing darts. (That’s one thing you’re good at, Taylor; darts. Drive me nuts with that thunk… thunk… thunk.)

After I made my selections and notified everybody, I supervised the collection of all the sleepers’ personal belongings, which we stored in three of the auxiliary lockers in the net room. Then I herded them up to 2115 to turn them over to Sylvine’s technicians, and say our good-byes, some of them tearful. Chul’ kissed me on both cheeks and said that when I was an old woman he would play for me every day. But he couldn’t pass up a chance at the future, at being still young when we went down to tackle Epsilon.

I had a terrible premonition that he will be one of the 20 percent who don’t wake up.

THAT TIME OF YEAR THOU MAYE5T IN ME BEHOLD

21 September 2103 [23 Confucius 304]—At first it didn’t seem so different, when I got up this morning and walked around. That’s because there were a lot of people walking around, getting the feel of the place, who would not normally have strayed far from their keyboard or whatever.

The lack of people will be more obvious after a few days, I suppose. At noon I went to the park and it was absolutely crowded—crowded with strangers, looking for people they knew.

Two thirds of us are asleep, with another thousand just wrapping up their affairs. Twice today, I’ve tried to punch people up and found that they were no longer among the living. That will happen for a while.

My own emotional and social connections are fairly intact. John and Dan and Evy. Charlee stayed behind, too; she’s as afraid of going into that box as I am. Most of my Dixieland gang is still here, with the sad exception of Hermosa. Most of them are too old for cryptobiosis.

I’ll put an ad in the music section for a keyboard atavist. Somebody who will pound on an actual piano while other people blow through and strum and whack various instruments that aren’t plugged in.