“No figures, Allan, there's a dear. You know I'm awfully bad at arithmetic. Tell me what it means, won't you?”
“Well, it means, for one thing, that we've maybe spent a far longer time on this earth since the cataclysm than we even dare suspect. It may be that what we've been calculating as about a thousand years, is twice that, or even five times that--no telling. For another thing, I'm convinced by all these changes, and by the diminution of gravity and by the accelerated rate of revolution of the earth--”
“Allan dear, please hand me those scissors, won't you?”
Stern laughed again.
“Here!” said he. “I guess I'm not much good as a lecturer. But I tell you one thing I'm going to do, and that's a one best bet. I'm going to have a try at some really big telescope before a year's out, and know the truth of this thing!”
“A big telescope! Build one, you mean?”
“Not necessarily. All I need is a chance to make some accurate observations, and I can find out all I need to know. Even though I have been out of college for--let's see--”
“Fifteen hundred years, at a guess,” she suggested.
“Yes, all of that. Even so, I remember a good bit of astronomy. And I've got my mind set on peeking through a first-class tube. If the earth has broken in two, or anything like that, and our part is skyhooting away toward the unknown regions of outer space beyond the great ring of the Milky Way and is getting into an unchartered place in the universe--as it seems to be--why, we ought to have a good look at things. We ought to know what's what, eh?
“Then there's the moon I want to investigate, too. No living man except myself has even seen the side that's now turned toward the earth. No telling what a good glass mightn't show.”