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a physicist into a Shui-mo Master.”
    “That’s some kind of martial arts, isn’t it?”
    Xue bowed, in mock oriental style, and said in his most artificially polite tone of voice: “No, honored sir; it is freestyle, water-ink painting on silk paper. But to be honest, I would have ignored all the arts on our beloved home planet in exchange for my own personal particle accelerator.”
    “Still trying to catch those little things that buzz around faster than lightspeed?”
    “I would like to. Alas, no one has ten billion Uni to lend me for the proper butterfly net.”
    “Or to grant you”, said I, with a shake of the head. “Perhaps they don’t really understand the benefits to be derived from producing a black hole right here on Earth.”
    “I think you mean to say right there on Earth.”
    “Yes, right there.”
    We returned to gazing out the window.
    “Alas, indeed, Ao-li, you soar, but you remain established, standing firm.”
    (Note to future archivists, if there be any, ages and ages hence: The Mandarin root for his given name is Ao , to soar or to roam, and li , to stand or establish. As you can see, such a name readily lends itself to various interpretations. Between me and my old colleague, there was much wild and friendly jousting.)
    “Make no oxymorons, Neil, nor any of your Fermi jokes, or I will strike you with a martial art.”
    “All right. A truce, then.”
    “A felicitous truce.”
    We grinned and returned to our last view of a blue pearl floating in the infinite sea.
    “She dwindles and dwindles”, Xue said, in a reflective tone.
    “Good-bye, O fairest world, good-bye”, I soliloquized. “O blue gem in the heavens, where mankind dwells in love, and no man’s hand is lifted against another, and the gifted realize their every dream, and all things sing, and the light grows gold when the bells ring.”
    “Good poetry needn’t rhyme”, said Xue. “Besides, you shouldn’t tell lies.”
    “Lies? No, I was just dreaming.”
    Day 7 :
    I have spent two days exploring the ship from bow to stern, crow’s nest to bilge tanks, so to speak. Actually, I don’t have security clearance for the top and bottom levels.
    There are six decks. Four of these, Concourses A through D, are accessible to everyone on board. Above the topmost public deck, A, there is the flight deck KC ( Kosmos Command), which houses the control centers and crew quarters. Below D is the propulsion department and other services, recycling, atmosphere, electronics control, storage holds, gravity generators, etc. Titled PHM. Ordinary folk can’t get down that far without knowing a code for the elevators or emergency exits. Emergencies? And where, precisely, would we exit to in an emergency?
    There is a vast cafeteria on every concourse, A through D. Each has its industry-size kitchen and a battalion of cooks. Here, all meals are self-serve from a buffet, and free of charge. If one prefers to dine out and be served by a waiter, each concourse offers a large “restaurant”, artfully designed for a feeling of intimacy, with decor and food expressing European, Asian, African, and Indian themes, respectively.
    Bistros and theme-pubs abound. On deck D, there’s a pub devoted to British “fish and chips”, which are served in facsimile newspaper cones from the early twenty-first century, just for added effect. There’s an eternal line to get in. On deck C, there’s a single smallish cafe where you can order American-style hamburgers and fries. There’s always a line here too, despite the sad fact that the “meat” has never trotted about on four legs. It’s protein of some kind but manages nevertheless to sizzle and make the last remaining carnivores in the known universe (myself included) water at the mouth.
    Let it be noted that at every feeding place throughout the ship, all such traditional animal-source foods are ersatz, usually vegetable protein genetically altered for maximum nourishment, chemically enhanced for