“But what we really got is like a decay function, exponential decay. I mean, say, half those people get their shit wrapped up in a week, go in the can. That leaves a thousand people to munch on what’s left. If I can do arithmetic, that means they’ve got 146 to 306 days’ worth. Then after a month, half of them go in. The five hundred left have got 232 to 552 days. And so on. Not like those numbers are that exact, but you get the picture.”
“Well put, Eliot,” Sato said. “A few people could stay for as long as ten years before going into cryptobiosis.”
“It may be moot,” Nagasaki said. “We may be hard pressed to find two thousand who wish to stay awake. To what extent do we make it voluntary? As Dr. Mandell said, certain people must stay, to keep the ship running smoothly and safely.”
“They have to stay at least long enough to train replacements,” Sato said. “Morales, this might be your domain. It falls somewhere between public health and propaganda. You see what I mean?”
Indicio Morales was in charge of Health Care. “I think so. You’ve got these two classes of people—the ones we want to go and the ones we want to keep awake. But each class is divided into those who themselves want to go or stay. So you want us to come up with some approach whereby everybody thinks they’re being heroes by doing what we want them to do. To sleep or not to sleep.”
“Exactly.”
“Well, we have psychologists. People who know about motivation, people who know about crowd psychology. But if anybody has propagandists, it’s Kamal.”
“We don’t have any propagandists,” Kamal Muhammed said. He was in charge of Interior Communications. “We have ‘public opinion engineers.’” Some people did laugh. “You get your shrinks together and I’ll get my manipulators and let’s meet for lunch.” He checked his watch. “Studio One, eleven-thirty?” Morales nodded.
“Good,” Nagasaki said. “In the meantime—right now, I guess—you take Mandell and Hagen down to prepare a brief public explanation. Just the plain truth about the crops and the need for swift action. Sato and I will be along in a few minutes.”
The three of them went to the door, which opened on a small murmuring crowd, including two police officers and two of Muhammed’s reporters. He made shooing motions. “Later, boys. Public statement down in One.”
The door closed on eerie quiet. “Well,” Sato said, “we have to come up with criteria, go or stay. Within our own specialties and in general.”
O’Hara spoke up. “Women with children should be allowed to stay. Men, too. The idea of waking up and having your child suddenly older than you are—it’s grotesque.” Daniel looked at her and nodded slowly, perhaps deciding.
3. A WOMAN OF DISCRIMINATION
10 September 2103 [9 Confucius 304]—So ends one of the most hectic days of my life, of everyone’s life. I had until noon today to divide my staff into sleepers and wakers, trying for a four-to-one ratio. I canvassed them yesterday morning, and this is what I got (I’ll just copy in the memo):
TO: Sylvine
RE: The list
Okay, you said you wanted a preliminary list. Mine is nothing but trouble. This is what I have for raw material—
The guidelines allow me to keep seven people, including myself. I especially don’t want to lose Hermosa, Lebovski, and Saijo, and especially don’t want to spend the next half-century with Taylor and Grady. So I’ll spend the rest of the afternoon juggling people, and hope to give you a final list by tonight.
When all this dies down, let’s get together for a luscious yeastburger. Still play handball?When I was sixteen (and Sylvine twenty-six), she taught me handball at gym. That was not a sport that translated well to Earth. If you learn it in a rotating frame of reference, you expect the ball to drift consistently to the right or left. The one time I played it on Earth, I almost broke my wrist, overcompensating.
So I spent all day cajoling, and finally laying down the law. Of course I couldn’t force anyone who wanted cryptobiosis to stay awake, no matter how much I wanted their company, but I was able to invoke the common good to put Taylor and Grady safely to sleep.
It occurs to me that Taylor and Grady are going to outlive me, and if this diary is published they may read it, and have their feelings hurt. Okay… Taylor, you are the laziest person I’ve ever met. You would scheme for ten hours to get out of one hour’s work. Grady, you are a meanspirited, conniving bitch. A lot of women have slept with my husband, but I think you’re the only one who ever did it just to try to break up our marriage. For laughs, as far as I could tell, and with lies. I saw you do it to Shelly Cato and the Borsini triangle. But Daniel knows me too well to believe what you said about me.
What a feeling of power. Molesting people from the grave.
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.
4. 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.