midnight
Nea had screamed and protested against that . She had only agreed to stay upon one condition : That she be left one of the umbrella-skeletons . The nights , Odin learned , were about sixteen hours long on this dying planet . It was toward midnight when they started out from the ship toward the violet dome . The strange half-light still hovered over the ground . In the sky , splinters of mauve tore at curtains of purplish flame . Something like northern lights , they glinted and gleamed , wrestled and writhed .