"What difference does it make?"

"Your body has to know. Your body works on a timetable doesn't it? Your lungs, expanding, contracting regularly. Your heart beating so many times regularly--every minute. Your blood circulating regularly. Look here, Barton. You're a product of a specific environment, on a big scale, call it Earth, the Solar System. You claim it means nothing, time means nothing. But your heart beats regularly so many times every minute and that's why you're alive. Where did the arbitrary rhythm of that beat come from, Barton? You were born with it. It isn't anything you control, or had anything to do with developing, is it? What's a minute? On Earth, it has meaning. Sixty seconds part of a minute. Sixty minutes make up an hour. What's an hour but a segment of a 24 hour day. Where does that figure come from? The Earth, Barton. It rotates on its axis approximately every 24 hours. 24 hours make a day, seven days a week, so many weeks in a month, twelve months make up a year. A year, Barton, the Earth rotates around the sun once a year."

For the first time in the basketball, Barton began to feel some discomfort. He closed his eyes and while they were closed he became acutely aware of his heart beating, and the expanding and contracting of his lungs.

"You claim there is no Earth any more, Barton. No Earth rotating on its axis, no Earth rotating around the sun. No sun, no moon, no time. Why should your heart go on beating regularly so many times a minute--when there's nothing out here that gives a minute any meaning? Has time stopped here? Is there any time here, Barton, when there's nothing here to turn time into measurable segments? How can your heart beat so many times a minute, a year, a lifetime if there's no such thing here any more?"

Barton slowly opened his eyes. His hands felt wet.

"This basketball doesn't rotate, Barton. Doesn't move toward, away from, or around anything. It's moving with the Galaxy but that can't mean anything to you can it? Listen, Barton, your body operates largely on an unconscious level, but what if unconsciously your heart, your lungs, your bodily functions start to lose their conditioned memory of the Earth's rotation, the regularity of its movement on its axis and around the Sun that gave your birth? What will happen then, Barton? What happens to your heart-beat if your heart begins to forget how long a minute is?"

Von Ulrich leaned down close to Barton's damp face.

"What time is it, Barton?"

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