, 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 answered, "most of these were pinhead size, and
they wouldn't go through a suit."

"It would