angry. As I lay half-awake this morning, I thought I heard my parents'voices in the next room. No words. Just the sounds of their voices as I usedto hear them over my old intercom. They must be dead by now, despite allgeriatrics. I wonder if they thought of me much after I left? I couldn'teven shake my father's hand without the gauntlet, or kiss my mother goodbye.It is strange, the feeling, to be this alone, with only the throb of themachinery about me as it rearranges the molecules of the atmosphere,refrigerates the world, here in the middle of the blue place. Deadland.This, despite the fact that I grew up in a steel cave. I call the othernineteen stations every afternoon. I am afraid I am becoming something of anuisance. I won't call them tomorrow, or perhaps the next day.

"I went outside without my refrig-pack this morning, for a few moments.It is still deadly hot. I gulped a mouthful of air and choked. Our day isstill far off. But I can notice the difference from the last time I triedit, two and a half hundred years ago. I wonder what it will be like when wehave finished? --And I, an economist! What will my function be in our newAlyonal? Whatever, so long as Sanza is happy....

"The Worldchanger stutters and groans. All the land is blue for so faras I can see. The stones still stand, but their shapes are changed from whatthey were. The sky is entirely pink now, and it becomes almost maroon in themorning and the evening. I guess it's really a wine-color, but I've neverseen wine, so I can't say for certain. The trees have not died. They'vegrown hardier. Their barks are thicker, their leaves darker and larger. Theygrow much taller now, I've been told. There are no trees in Deadland.

"The caterpillars still live. They seem much larger, I understand, butit is actually because they have become woollier than they used to be. Itseems that most of the animals have heavier pelts these days. Some