In Evanston, north of Chicago, the leaves changed from their riotous green to a somber brown, and fell to lay a blanket over the earth. Snow covered the dead leaves, and Christmas, with its holly, went into the past, followed closely by New Year's Eve with its hangover.
And on a roof by the shore of Lake Michigan, a group of men stood in overcoats beside a huge machine that towered above the great letters of the Terran Electric Company sign that could be seen all the way from Gary, Indiana.
It was a beautiful thing, this tube; a far cry from the haywire thing that had brought solar power to Venus Equilateral. It was mounted on gimbals, and the metal was bright-plated and perfectly machined. Purring motors caused the tube to rotate to follow the sun.
"Is she aligned?" asked the project engineer.
"Right on the button."
"Good. We can't miss with this one. There may have been something sour with the rest, but this one ran Venus Equilateral—the whole relay station—for ten days without interruption."
He faced the anxious men in overcoats. "Here we go," he said, and his hand closed upon the switch that transferred the big tube from test power to operating power.
The engineer closed the switch, and stepped over to the great, vaned, air-cooled ammeter shunt. On a panel just beyond the shunt the meter hung—
At Zero!
"Um," said the project engineer. "Something wrong, no doubt."