Stice stuck to the window: the dawn shift of weeping bodies

A regimen-cost datum dropped as routine fact: through the subdorm doors Hal hears "early-morning weeping in certain rooms," because "lots of the top players start the A.M. with a quick fit of crying, then are basically hale and well-wrapped for the rest of the day." The bodies most highly developed by the academy have a shared daily symptom — a pre-dawn discharge of whatever the regimen loads into them — scheduled and survivable, like a maintenance cycle. The cost of the top ranking is a fit of crying you get out of the way before breakfast.