IN THE SUDDEN SCARLET of dawn, it was impossible to believe the night had even been frightening. Throughout the night, the Moseley clan huddled together there on the beach, waiting, silent, wondering. But when the sun burst over the horizon like a clamoring, brazen gong, they looked upon this land which was their new home—and found it good.
The night did not last long. But Pop had told them it would not.
“Eros rotates on its axis,” he explained, “in about ten hours, forty minutes, Earth time measurement. Therefore we shall have ‘days’ and ‘nights’ of five hours; short dawns or twilights. This will vary somewhat, you understand, with the change of seasons.”
Dick asked, “Isn’t that a remarkably slow rotation? For such a tiny planet, I mean? After all, Eros is only one hundred and eighty o
