noon
`` It is not the sun of the outer world that we see here . It is another sun -- an entirely different sun -- that casts its eternal noonday effulgence upon the face of the inner world . Look at it now , David -- if you can see it from the doorway of this hut -- and you will see that it is still in the exact center of the heavens . We have been here for many hours -- yet it is still noon . `` And withal it is very simple , David . The earth was once a nebulous mass . It cooled , and as it cooled it shrank .