Greenwich Mean Time

After a three day drunk, I wandered out of my hotel room and down towards the docks.....it was December 2nd in England, so it is also December 2nd here in Port Martini, thousands of light-years down from the old Solar System....down towards the dense heart of the Milky Way....down here on the frontier between the ancient Machine civilizations and the worlds of man.....It was getting on towards evening in London, so the illusion of day was turning towards the illusion of night here in the artificial environment of the big rock-mounted space station called Port Martini, the center of Frontier Region Five, as recognized by the Omnibus Treaty.....my way to the dockside dive bars led me through a large public plaza, which for some reason was more crowded than usual.....oh, they are getting ready to light the Christmas Tree.....there is a simulation of a children's choir......