THE MORNING THE SUN DIDN'T RISE.
May the fifth was scheduled to be Police Inspector Hines's wedding day,
but it happened that on that morning the sun did not rise, and so the
wedding was postponed.
Otherwise it was just like every other morning. There were no storms,
no earthquakes, no unusual phenomena of any kind. A great many people,
as a matter of fact, simply disbelieved their clocks when they got up
and therefore yawned and went back to bed again.
Others, checking up with the telephone company's time, reasoned
sensibly that there was an eclipse or something of the sort, and
searched the morning newspapers for details while they breakfasted by
artificial light. But the morning newspapers, at least on the Atlantic
Coast, bore only their usual quotas of divorces, embezzlements, ax
murders and other diverting narratives. Having been printed during the
night, they were entirely silent about the sun's eccentric absence. So
it was quite a few hours before people became really alarmed.
Probably the first man in the United States to notice any oddity in
the morning was a man wearing a green celluloid eyeshade, in the
operating office of New York's gigantic uptown power station. He has no
importance in the affair other than that priority.
He sat in a very brilliantly lighted office with a huge instrument
board before him, on which were vast numbers of dials. A recording
ammeter ticked away at his left, tracing a graph of current-consumption
for one-half of the whole city. A master voltmeter and a visual master
ammeter were just before his eyes.
There were windows on two sides of the room. Through them he could
look out over the sleeping city. Long rows of unwinking street lights
glittered in deserted avenues. The forms of the East River bridges
were outlined in lines of fire. The city was silent and still,
sleeping heavily. What few noises came from the empty streets seemed
extraordinarily loud.
The man with the green eyeshade opened a window and took grateful
breaths of the cool morning air. He was in his shirt sleeves, with his
vest unbuttoned. It was hot in the office, with that peculiarly dry and
stuffy heat with which we Americans fill our office buildings.
From far below, in the vast halls of the power station, there came a
constant subdued, contented humming. Turbine-driven dynamos purred
softly, making the electric current which supplied alike the street
lamps and the buildings of half the city.
* * * * *
From the other windows he could see toward the east, over the sprawling
bulk of Brooklyn toward the sea. There was a faint, pale-grayish glow
in the sky. False dawn. Stars began to dim against its brightness.
Gradually, very gradually, the dark shapes of buildings began to
take form. There were no colors in the sky as yet, merely a subdued
gray radiance. But a paler reflection of that pale gray light made
rectangular shapes out of irregular bulks.
From the windows of the operating office the city ceased to be a
pattern of glittering lights against the dark. It acquired a third
dimension. Perspectives developed, and it was possible to discover that
this dim, ungainly shape was nearer or farther away than that one.
The man with the green eyeshade--his name does not matter--lowered
the window and went back to his seat. It was his task to forecast the
demand of the city for power, and to see to it that there were always
humming steel monster dynamos in readiness to supply that force.
An easy task, ordinarily. Framed upon the wall at his left, a typical
graph of the city's consumption of electricity showed the normal use
of current. From six to eight at night, when people dined and electric
signs flared, and all dwellings were lighted up, the demand was at
its peak. Then more lights burned. More cooking devices functioned.
More current was consumed by all the contrivances of an electrified
civilization.
The downtown power station had a lesser peak at this hour, but its
greatest load came when electrically-driven power devices of lofts and
factories were operating. Uptown, the peak load came from homes.
The man in the operating office rested his hand conveniently near a
certain switch. It would signal for the cutting off of certain dynamos,
assigned to run the street lighting system. He waited for those lights
to be extinguished. He did not look out the window for his information,
but at his master ammeter. When that needle flickered back to the
normal indication for this hour, the dynamos below would cease to run
until needed again. Most of the monster machines were idle now, anyhow.
Presently there would come a slow creeping upward, when a myriad early
risers turned on lights for their dressing. The master ammeter would
record that activity. And then ten thousand electric toasters would
perform their function, beginning with half an hour after sunrise, and
from then on would come the steady increase in the amount of current
used, until ten o'clock would see the last electric dish-washing device
turned off; and the normal load of elevators, curling irons, and other
trivia would require only two giant generators to run until the noon
hour approached.
The man with the green eyeshade waited. The needle held steady. The
street lights had not been turned off. Presently there was a slow climb
upward. A myriad early risers, wakened by their alarm clocks, had
turned on their lights. Time passed slowly. The load increased again.
Electric toasters were functioning, and eggs were being boiled.
The man in the operating office of the uptown power station could
follow the activities of a city by watching a single giant dial. But
he was frowning a little. The load was increasing. There was no drop.
His eyes sought a clock at hand. Just the time for sunrise. The load
continued to increase.
Frowning, he shifted his hand and swung another switch. A hitherto
silent, idle monster below began to hum contentedly. Watching the dial,
presently he threw another switch. Still another began to purr, down in
the echoful open space where metal monsters lay quiescent.
A telephone rang beside him. He spoke impatiently.
"I don't know. That's what the load calls for." He lifted his eyes and
searched a row of circuit ammeters. "No. Everything's all right. If you
have to start up another boiler, better go ahead."
A few minutes later, frowning more markedly than before, he lifted the
instrument and called himself.
"Get three extra boilers ready. I'm going to need them unless the load
falls off."
He watched his instruments in frowning, concentrated attention. He was
entirely too busy to glance out of the window. Twice he looked at a
clock and at the graph on the wall. Three times the normal demand for
power at this time. Now four times.
He called for more boilers to supply steam. Discipline in the power
plant is as strict, of course, as in any naval vessel. Orders are
obeyed. More and more of the metal monsters whirred and whined and
purred themselves into a contented humming.
Eight o'clock. The man with the green eyeshade bit at his nails. Then
he looked out of the window. Three seconds of incredulous gazing, and
he picked up the telephone instrument.
"Prepare for peak loading," he said curtly. "There's an eclipse or
something. It's still dark outdoors."
And from then on he glanced at the windows as often as at his
instruments. It was dark outside. At eight o'clock in the morning the
street lights of New York were glittering jewels set in rows. The East
River bridges were limned in lines of glowing lights. Puzzled people
began to appear upon the streets. Store fronts were lighted. Windows in
apartments and in private homes began to glow in vivid small rectangles.
At half past eight the man in the green eyeshade raised the window
and stared shakenly upward. The sky was a dull, dead, velvety black.
No stars were visible. No trace of illumination; no faintest ray of
light came down from above. The city lived and moved and had its being
in what would have been an entirely normal fashion--for night-time.
Nothing at all had happened. Nothing whatever had occurred. The only
oddity that could be discovered anywhere was simply the fact that on
that morning the sun had not risen.