Chapter 18: Timing

It took the fleet the better part of 30 standard Earth minutes to form back up into their correct positions. Jim was gravely concerned about the problem.

"Loved one, why is this so important to you?" Terri asked, as she kneaded his shoulders, trying to relax him.

Jim relaxed some under her touch.

"Because timing can be everything in a battle. Besides, if Excelsior's position had been behind another ship when it went into warp early... Well, it wouldn't have been a very good day for either ship."

Terri, now having an understanding of his worry, increased her rub down on his back.

She said, "I see. So, pick a standard cycle of time you want to follow, and direct everyone to follow it."

Jim, "No, I see to many differences in the process. One mistake in understanding, and we will have a disaster on our hands."

Jason said, "Dad? We could create Star Date, now."

"That's a wonderful idea," Annette said.

Jennifer said, "You could start keeping Captain's logs, also."

Jim turned it over in his head, as Terri's ministrations caused the tension to leave his body.

"Tell me more about this Star Date idea," Jim said.

Leah said, "Oh. It's simple, Dad. You pick a significant date out of history, and start your calendar from there."

"That's the Star DATE. You still have to set a standardized time keeping system," Jason said.

"Based on what planet?"

"Why, none of them," Jason replied. "You create a perfect clock."

"Tell me what is your idea of a perfect clock is," Jim said.

Jason replied slowly, while thinking.

"Well, Earth clocks are based on a 24 hour day. One earth rotation equaling one day."

Terry said, "That's similar to Cycles, but we don't have hours, only cycles. And time is based on Prime's rotation, if you are from Prime."

"And other planets in the federation have their cycles based on their rotation?" Jim asked.

"Dad, the problem was caused because of communications. You may want to standardize the language, as well," Amber said.

"That would never work," Terri said. "People love their language so much. Besides, the interpreter can handle the language conversion nicely."

"Like it handled my order to go to warp in one cycle?"

"Oh! I guess I see your point."

"We could make the language English," Timmy said.

Jim looked at Timmy as if he was ready to wash his son's mouth out with soap.

Timmy, seeing his father look, offered, "Then again, maybe not."

"First, the time problem," Jim said.

"I know," Annette said, "we set the date to begin at the moment warp drive was first engaged."

The murmurs on the bridge were in agreement to this.

"Ok, that sound good," Jim said. "So what would that make today?"

"You have to set up the perfect clock first," Jennifer said.

"Your on, Jason," Jim said. "Let's hear your idea."

"Well, first, you need a standard unchanging base unit. Like say, the time it takes an electron to make one orbit of the nucleus of a hydrogen atom."

"What about temperature?"

"Simple. Set temperature at the beginning of the gaseous state: when hydrogen goes from its liquid state to a gas."

"An what would you call that?"

"An orb, for one orbit."

"Ok, that is a rather short time," Jim said wryly. "It might be kind of hard to express time in powers."

"Yes," Jason agreed. "'I will meet you in 10 to the 28th power', would not be the best of methods to use in speaking of time intervals."

Jim nodded, and many giggles could be heard on the bridge.

"So, then you set the next unit up to be 10 orbs of the electron. You would call that a micro-orb."

"I think I see where you are going. Base the set, at powers of 10, up until we have useful meanings to the passage of time."

"Correct. When we get to that point, we call each unit a mille-cycle."

"So what would a mille-cycle be equivalent to?" Jim asked.

"Almost a second, to us. Then we increase by a power of 10 and call it a centi-cycle. Followed by another power of 10, to a full cycle."

"And a full cycle would be about how much time?"

"A little over a minute, as we are used to it."

Jim nodded for him to continue.

"Another power of ten, and we have something about 1.4 times the length of our hour. We could call it... Damn! I can't think, Centauri has no concept of hours in their language."

"Well, what about the next power of ten, then?"

"Well, that would be what we would set as a standard day," Jason said. "We would call it a 'solar day'."

Jim frowned at the name, but liked the concept.