“But since there’s no logical Placet day and night we could use, we made ourselves slaves to a sun so far away we can’t see it. We use a twenty-four hour day. But midperiod occurs every twenty hours, regularly. We can use conditioner to adapt ourselves to a twenty-hour day—six hours sleep, twelve awake—with everybody blissfully sleeping through the period when their eyes play tricks on them. And in a darkened sleeping room so you couldn’t see anything, even if you woke up. More and shorter days per year—and nobody goes psychopathic on us. Tell me what’s wrong with it.”
His eyes went bleak and blank and he hit his forehead a resounding whack with the palm of his hand.
He said, “Too simple, that’s what’s wrong with it. So darned simple only a genius could see it. For two years I’ve been going slowly nuts and the answer so easy nobody could see it. I’ll put the order in right away.”
He started out and then turned back. “Now how do we keep the buildings up? Quick, while you’re fey or whatever you are.”
I laughed. I said, “Why not try that invisible steel of yours in the empty crates?”
He said, “Nuts,” and closed the door.
And the next day was a Wednesday and I knocked off work and took Michaelina on a walking tour around Placer. Once around is just a nice day’s hike. But with Michaelina Witt, any day’s hike would be a nice day’s hike. Except, of course, that I knew I had only one more full day to spend with her. The world would end on Friday.
Tomorrow the Ark would leave Earth, with the shipment of conditioner that would solve one of our problems—and with whomever Earth Center was sending to take my place. It would warp through space to a point a safe distance outside the Argyle I-II system and come in on rocket power from there. It would be here Friday, and I’d go back with it. But I tried not to think about that.
I pretty well managed to forget it until we got back to headquarters and Reagan met me with a grin that split his homely mug into horizontal halves. He said, “Chief, you did it.”
“Swell,” I said. “I did what?”