“Sure, but—”
“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?”
“Gave me the answer what to use for reinforcing foundations. You solved the problem.”
“Yeah?” I said.
“Yeah. Didn’t he, Mike?”
Michaelina looked as puzzled as I must have. She said, “He was kidding. He said to use the stuff in the empty crates, didn’t he?”
Reagan grinned again. “He just thought he was kidding. That’s what we’re going to use from now on.
Nothing. Look, chief, it’s like the conditioner—so simple we never thought of it. Until you told me to use what was in the empty crates, and I got to thinking it over.”
I stood thinking a moment myself, and then I did what Reagan had done the day before—hit myself a whack on the forehead with the heel of my palm.
Michaelina still looked puzzled.
“Hollow foundations,” I told her. “What’s the one thing widgie birds won’t fly through? Air. We can make buildings as big as we need them, now. For foundations, we sink double walls with a wide air space between. We can—”
I stopped, because it wasn’t “we” any more. They could do it after I was back on Earth looking for a job. And Thursday went and Friday came.
I was working, up till the last minute, because it was the easiest thing to do. With Reagan and Michaelina helping me, I was making out material lists for our new construction projects. First, a three-story building of about forty rooms for a headquarters building.
We were working fast, because it would be midperiod shortly, and you can’t do paper work when you can’t read and can write only by feel.
But my mind was on the Ark. I picked up the phone and called the radiotype shack to ask about it.
“Just got a call from them,” said the operator. “They’ve warped in, but not close enough to land before midperiod. They’ll land right after.”
“O.K.,” I said, abandoning the hope that they’d be a day late.
I got up and walked to the window. We were nearing midposition, all right. Up in the sky to the north I could see Placet coming toward us.
“Mike,” I said. “Come here.”
She joined me at the window and we stood there, watching. My arm was around her. I don’t remember putting it there, but I didn’t take it away, and she didn’t move.
Behind us, Reagan cleared his throat. He said, “I’ll give this much of the list to the operator. He can get it on the ether right after midperiod.” He went out and shut the door behind him.
Michaelina seemed to move a little closer. We were both looking out the window at Placet rushing toward us. She said, “Beautiful, isn’t it, Phil?”
“Yes,” I said. But I turned, and I was looking at her face as I said it. Then—I hadn’t meant to—I kissed her.
I went back, and sat down at my desk. She said, “Phil, what’s the matter? You haven’t got a wife and six kids hidden away somewhere, or something, have you? You were single when I had a crush on you at Earth Polytech—and I waited five years to get over it and didn’t, and finally wangled a job on Placet just to… Do I have to do the proposing?”
I groaned. I didn’t look at her. I said, “Mike, I’m nuts about you. But—just before you came, I sent a two-word radiotype to Earth. It said, ‘I quit.’ So I’ve got to leave Placet on this shuttle of the Ark, and I doubt if I can even get a teaching job, now that I’ve got Earth Center down on me, and—”
She said, “But, Phil!” and took a step toward me.
There was a knock on the door, Reagan’s knock. I was glad, for once, of the interruption. I called out for him to come in, and he opened the door.
He said, “You told Mike yet, chief?”
I nodded, glumly.
Reagan grinned. “Good,” he said, “I’ve been busting to tell her. It’ll be swell to see Ike again.”
“Huh?” I said. “Ike who?”
Reagan’s grin faded. He said, “Phil, are you slipping or something? Don’t you remember giving me the answer to that Earth Center radiotype four days ago, just before Mike got here?”
I stared at him with my mouth open. I hadn’t even read that radiotype, let alone answer it. Had Reagan gone psychopathic, or had I? I remembered shoving it in the drawer of my desk. I jerked open the drawer and pulled it out. My hand shook a little as I read it.
REQUEST FOR ADDITIONAL ASSISTANT GRANTED. WHOM DO YOU WANT FOR THE JOB?
I looked up at Reagan again. I said, “You’re trying to tell me I sent an answer to this?”
He looked as dumfounded as I felt.
“You told me to,” he said.
“What did I tell you to send?”
“Ike Witt.” He stared at me. “Chief, are you feeling all right?”
I felt so all right something seemed to explode in my head. I stood up and started for Michaelina. I said, “Mike, will you marry me?” I got my arms around her, just in time, before midperiod closed down on us, so I couldn’t see what she looked like, and vice versa. But over her shoulder, I could see what must be Reagan. I said, “Get out of here, you ape,” and I spoke quite literally because that’s exactly what he appeared to be. A bright yellow ape.
The floor was shaking under my feet, but other things were happening to Inc, too, and I didn’t realize what the shaking meant until the ape turned back and yelled, “A flight of birds going under us, chief! Get out quick, before—”
But that was as far as he got before the house fell down around us and the tin roof hit my head and knocked me out. Placet is a crazy place. I like it.