complied with eagerly and smoothly.

Everyone in the survey except McIlroy realized this, and even he accepted this without thinking about it. He had fallen into the habit of suggesting mildly anything that he wanted done, and writing orders he didn't particularly care to have obeyed.

For example, because of an order of his stating that there would be no alcoholic beverages within the survey building, the entire survey was assured of a constant supply of home-made, but passably good liquor. Even McIlroy enjoyed the surreptitious drinking.

"Good morning, Mr. McIlroy," said Mrs. Garth, his secretary. Morning to Mrs. Garth was simply the first four hours after waking.

"Good morning indeed," answered McIlroy. Morning to him had no meaning at all, but he thought in the strictest sense that it would be morning on the Moon for another week.

"Has the power crew set up the solar furnace?" he asked. The solar furnace was a rough parabola of mirrors used to focus the sun's heat on anything that it was desirable to heat. It was used mostly, from sun-up to sun-down, to supplement the nuclear power plant.

"They went out about an hour ago," she answered, "I suppose that's what they were going to do."

"Very good, what's first on the schedule?"

"A Mr. Phelps to see you," she said.

"How do you do, Mr. Phelps," McIlroy greeted him.

"Good afternoon," Mr. Phelps replied. "I'm here representing the Merchants' Bank Association."

"Fine," McIlroy said, "I suppose you're here to set up a bank."

"That's right, I just got in from Muroc last night, and I've been going over the assets of the Survey Credit Association all morning."

"I'll certainly be glad to get them off my hands," McIlroy said. "I hope they're in good order."

"There doesn't seem to be any profit," Mr. Phelps said.

"That's par for a nonprofit organization," said McIlroy. "But we're amateurs, and we're turning this operation over to professionals. I'm sure it will be to everyone's satisfaction."

"I know this seems like a silly question. What day is this?"

"Well," said McIlroy, "that's not so silly. I don't know either."

"Mrs. Garth," he called, "what day is this?"

"Why, September, I think," she answered.

"I mean what day."

"I don't know, I'll call the observatory."

There was a pause.

"They say what day where?" she asked.

"Greenwich, I guess, our official time is supposed to be Greenwich Mean Time."

There was another pause.

"They say it's September fourth, one thirty a.m."

"Well, there you are," laughed McIlroy, "it isn't that time doesn't mean anything here, it just doesn't mean the same thing."

Mr. Phelps joined the laughter. "Bankers' hours don't mean much, at any rate," he said.

The power crew was having trouble with the solar furnace. Three of the nine banks of mirrors would not respond to the electric controls, and one bank moved so jerkily that it could not be focused, and it threatened to tear several of the mirrors loose.

"What happened here?" Spotty Cade, one of the electrical technicians asked his foreman, Cowalczk, over the intercommunications radio. "I've got about a hundred pinholes in the cables out here. It's no wonder they don't work."

"Meteor shower," Cowalczk answered, "and that's not half of it. Walker says he's got a half dozen mirrors cracked or pitted, and Hoffman on bank three wants you to replace a servo motor. He says the bearing was hit."

"When did it happen?" Cade wanted to know.

"Must have been last night, at least two or three days ago. All of 'em too small for Radar to pick up, and not enough for Seismo to get a rumble."

"Sounds pretty bad."

"Could have been worse," said Cowalczk.

"How's that?"

"Wasn't anybody out in it."

"Hey, Chuck," another technician, Lehman, broke in, "you could maybe get hurt that way."

"I doubt it," Cowalczk