On the stage the Fetersmoeller girls sang in their scratchy voices, and Stone wondered why he had come. Perhaps for no more reason than to avert a fine, it being mandatory for the residents to be here tonight. These amateur talent shows, put on so frequently, meant nothing to him; he recalled the old days when the TV set had carried entertainment, good shows put on by professionals. Now of course all the professionals who were any good were under contract to the White House, and the TV had become educational, not entertaining. Mr Stone thought of the glorious old golden age, long since gone, of great old movie comics such as Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine, and then he looked once more at the Fettersmoeller sisters and groaned.

Vince Strikerock, ever on duty, hearing him, glanced at him severely.

At least he had missed the prayer. He presented his identification to Vince's expensive new machine and it allowed him to pass -- lucky break! -- down the aisle towards a vacant seat. Was Nicole watching this, tonight? Was a talent scout present somewhere in the audience? He saw no unfamiliar faces. The Fetersmoeller girls were wasting their time. Seating himself, he closed his eyes and listened, unable to endure watching. They'll never make it, he thought.

They'll have to face it, and so will their ambitious parents, they're untalented, like the rest of us ... The Abraham Lincoln has added little to the cultural store of the USEA, despite its sweaty, strenuous determination, and you are not going to be able to alter that.

The hopelessness of the Fetersmoeller girls' position made him remember once more the test papers which Ian Duncan, trembling and waxen-faced, had pressed into his hands early that morning. If Duncan failed he would be even worse off than the Fetersmoeller girls because he would not even be living at The Abraham Lincoln; he would drop out of sight -- their sight, anyhow -- and would revert to a despised and ancient status: he would, in all probability, unless gifted with some special skills, find himself once more in a dorm, working on a manual gang as they all had done back in their teens.