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Bob’s typical day on the Flying Castle:

(Morning); waking is easy after the good sleep one gets at one third gee. The tricky part is remembering where I am.

You see, it isn’t because of amorous adventures that I don’t always spend the night in the same place, (more’s the pity), but because my responsibilities take me all over the station. It just seems convenient to crash (excuse the expression) wherever I happen to end up.

Today I woke up in my little cottage on the hill behind the Castle; My little getaway place where I occasionally try to write. I had a bit of fruit juice and then took the tube to the AM-PM in Habitat B. They specialize in the kind of no-frills coffee I like. They also know what I like as a nightcap before retiring.

Anyway, after the coffee and breakfast, I did a little “Management by walking around”, surveying the mood of the people and catching bits of conversation here and there. As you might expect, Hab B was quiet at the time and everything seemed to be going well.

I zipped over to Hab A, which was a little more lively, it being the shank of the evening there. There’s a great little jazz bistro on the fourth level Northaft where I usually stop for lunch, but I was just moving through. Research and hobbies seemed to be the gist of the conversation there, as everyone who isn’t doing mechanical mainteneance of some sort is involved in a food-growing enterprise. — By the way, the cheese shop on that level has a great variety.

My next area to check out was the Thrust Ring. As you know, most of our physics laboratories are on the Thrust Ring, since it offers the best variety of raw materials and energy to study them with. The Astronomy workshops are there as well. We’re getting some really stupendous images these days from the Thrust Ring Telescope Project.

Finally I drifted back to the Castle as activities there were getting into full swing. Besides the obvious farming and livestock centered work in the Castle Habitat, most of our entertainment activity occurs there as well. In the Castle, we have studios and film backdrops just aching to be photographed, along with all the aspiring actors and actresses, and of course “extras” can be obtained by simply tugging on someone’s sleeve.

The Castle is pretty much a social center too. Most of the people who recognize me on sight do so there.

I did eventually end up in my office. There’s not a lot of activity going on there, because my weather projects are currently on hiatus. We’ll need to put a lot of effort and expense into bringing those capabilities on line, and frankly we’ve lost much of our ambition in that regard.

Eventually, someone will invite us to begin our weather modification activity, if they ever get serious about the supposed calamity they swear is just around the corner. Meanwhile we continue to redesign the satellite system and other bits of our plan. And we take it easy a lot. It’s a pretty relaxed lifestyle, as I’m sure you’re aware.

After dinner, if nothing much is happening, I may end up back at my cottage. But if something strikes my interest, such as a new show, or a scientific experiment, or something popping up in the Astronomy lab, then I would probably nod off to sleep somewhere in the Castle, or even on my cot at the office, or perhaps some accommodation in the Thrust Ring.

I never know, and that’s what gets me a little confused sometimes in the morning. Until I have my coffee, that is.