Halliday shook his head. "Sometimes it gets a little darker, sometimes it's lighter. When you're tired you go to bed. That's the only standard we have." He shaded his eyes with his hand and stared for a long moment at the bleak, depressing horizon.
Looking over his shoulder, Ward noticed swirling humid mists drifting in the air and, above, huge massive clouds of dense blackness were gathering. He felt a peculiar electric tightness in the atmosphere.
Halliday closed and locked the door carefully.
"Might as well have breakfast," he said. "There's nothing else we can do today."
"Do we have to stay cooped up here all day?" Ward asked.
"I'm afraid so. This weather is ready to break any minute now, and when it does I intend to be behind a well-locked door."
Ward's lips curled slightly.
"Okay," he said quietly, "we'll wait for the monsoon to blow over. Then, Raspers or not, I'm going to work."
But four long days dragged by and there was no indication that the monsoon weather was prepared to break. Low dense clouds were massed overhead and the air was gusty with flurries of humid wind.