About this ebook
At first they had kept track of the days, checking each one off on their calendars, but the calendars had long since been mingled indistinguishably with the stuff of the planet itself—along with most of the rest of their equipment. By that time, however, they had learned that the cycle of wet and dry seasons was almost precisely equivalent to a pair of their own Terran years, so they had no more need for the calendars.
But at the beginning of this wet season Carnahan had begun marking off the days once again with scratches on the post of the hut in which he lived. The chronometers were gone, too, but one and three-quarters Earth days equalled one Serrengian day, and by that he could compute when the ships from Earth were due.
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About the author
Most of Jones' short fiction was published during the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, in magazines such as Thrilling Wonder Stories, Astounding Stories, and Galaxy. His sixteen novels were published between 1951 and 1978.
His short story "Rat Race", first published in the April 1966 issue of Analog Science Fiction and Fact, was nominated for a Hugo Award. In 1996, "Correspondence Course", first published in the April 1945 edition of Astounding Stories, was nominated for a Retro Hugo award for best short story. Another short story, "The Alien Machine", first published in the June 1949 edition of Thrilling Wonder Stories, was later combined with two other short stories, "The Shroud of Secrecy" and "The Greater Conflict", and expanded into the novel This Island Earth, upon which the movie of the same name was based.
Jones also wrote the story upon which a 1952 Tales of Tomorrow television program episode, titled "The Children's Room", was based.
