I repeat, my lord, that I must see the Geos and the queen."
Another bow and the Jan disappeared, to return in a few moments
with the Geos.
"The Jan has told me, my lord, that you would go out."
"If possible. I want to see your world."
"I think it can be arranged. Is your lordship ready to go?"
"Presently." Watson laid a hand on the big globe he had already
puzzled over. "This represents the Thomahlia?"
"Yes, my lord."
"How long is your day, Geos?"
"Twenty-four hours,"
"I mean, how many revolutions in one circuit of the sun, in one
year-circle?"
As he uttered the question Chick held his breath. It had suddenly
struck him that he had touched an extremely definite point. The
answer might PLACE him!
"You mean, my lord, how long is a circle in term of days?"
"Yes!"
"Three hundred and sixty-five and a fraction, my lord."
Watson was dumbfounded. Could there be, in all the universe,
another world with precisely the same revolution period? But he
could not afford to show his concern. He said:
"Tell me, have you a moon?"
"Yes; it has a cycle of about twenty-eight days."
Watson drew a deep breath. Inconceivable though it appeared, he
was still on his own earth. For a moment he pondered, wondering if
he had been caught up in tangle of time-displacement. Could it be
that, instead of living in the present, he had somehow become
entangled in the past or in the future?
If so--and by now he was so accustomed to the unusual that he
considered this staggering possibility with equanimity--if the
time coefficient was at fault, then how to account for the picture
of the professor, in that leaf? Had they both been the victims of
a ghastly cosmic joke?
There was but one way to find out.
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