The Crack Team breakfasted in the room again, and once more split up for separate activities. Because Saturday was the day leading up to the grand costume contest, the two younger members of the Crack Team wore their hall costumes: "Agent X" (an alien-fighting Man In Black), and the "Dalekette" (a Dalek-inspired showgirl outfit).
I spent my morning in the airplane-hanger-like Dealers' Room, buying books and meeting people. After lunch with Agent X, I was part of the tightly-packed mass of fans watching the "Secret History of SF" panel -- which consisted of science fiction eminences Robert Silverberg, Joe Haldeman, Mike Resnick, George R.R. Martin, and Gardner Dozois sharing stories about past Worldcons. Most of the stories centered on drunkenness, nudity, and long-winded speakers.
When that ended I slipped next door to be a panelist at the discussion of "The Prime Directive: Altruism or Survival Strategy?" My personal position is that a no-contact rule when dealing with less-advanced aliens would be impossible to enforce, and possibly immoral. Other panelists (which included space advocate John Strickland, Dale Cozort, Bill Thomasson, and Anaea Lay) disagreed, and we had a lively time.
After that the Crack Team headed out to the old wholesale district west of the Chicago River for dinner, accompanied by science fiction and fantasy superstar Jo Walton. When I lived in Chicago it was a gritty section devoted to food distribution and restaurant supply outfits; now it's a thriving area of restaurants and loft condos. We dined on Southern-style cooking at a place called Wishbone.
We returned to the hotel, put Agent X to bed, and then went up to the party hosted by Baen Books. When that got too noisy we sent the Dalekette to bed and toured some of the other parties, including the one hosted by next year's Worldcon organizers, and the obligatory stop at the SFWA suite.
Even though the people in the next room were having a small private party we crept into bed and collapsed.
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