"Looks like a star with a hoop around it," said Louis. "What is it?"

"You may keep it to study, if you wish. I can now tell you the reason I brought you here. I propose to form an exploration team of four members, including myself and including you."

"To explore what?"

"I am not yet at liberty to tell you that."

"Oh, come now. I'd have to be off my head to jump as blind as that."

"Happy two hundredth birthday," said the puppeteer.

"Thanks," Louis said, bewildered.

"Why did you leave your own birthday party?"

"That's not your concern."

"But it is. Indulge me, Louis Wu. Why did you leave your own birthday party?"

"I just decided that twenty-four hours weren't enough for a two hundredth birthday. So I went ahead and lengthened it by moving ahead of the midnight line. As an alien you wouldn't understand -"

"You were elated, then, at how well things were going?"

"No, not exactly. No …"

Not elated, Louis remembered. Quite the contrary. Though the party had gone well enough.

He'd started it at one minute past midnight that morning. Why not. His friends were in every time band. There was no reason to waste a single minute of this day. There were sleep sets all over the house for fast, deep cat naps. For those who hated to miss anything there were wakeup drugs, some with interesting side effects, others with none.

There were guests Louts hadn't seen in a hundred years, and others he met daily. Some had been Louis Wu's deadly enemies, long ago. There were women he had forgotten entirely, so that he was repeatedly amazed at how his taste had changed.

Predictably, too many hours of his birthday were spent performing introductions. The lists of names to be memorized beforehand! Too many friends had become strangers.

And a few minutes before midnight, Louis Wu had walked into a transfer booth, dialed, and disappeared.