The Collection (17 page)

"We bring you next,
^"
said the screen,
^"
a
special visicast of the night sky of London, where it is now three o'clock in
the morning.
^"

The screen went black, with hundreds of tiny dots that were
stars. Roger leaned forward to watch and listen carefully—this would be a
broadcast and visicast of facts, not of verbose nothingness.

"The arrow," said the screen, as an arrow appeared
upon it, "is now pointing to Polaris, the pole star, which is now ten
degrees from the celestial pole in the direction of Ursa Major. Ursa Major
itself, the Big Dipper, is no longer recognizable as a dipper, but the arrow
will now point to the stars that formerly composed it."

Roger breathlessly followed the arrow and the voice.

^"
Alkaid and Dubhe,
^"
said the
voice. "The fixed stars are no longer fixed, but—
^"
the
picture changed abruptly to a scene in a modern kitchen—"the qualities and
excellences of Stellar's Stoves do not change. Foods cooked by the
superinduced vibratory method taste as good as ever. Stellar Stoves are
unexcelled."

Leisurely, Roger Phlutter stood up and made his way out into
the aisle. He took his pen-knife from his pocket as he walked toward the
screen. One easy jump took him up onto the low stage. His slashes into the
fabric were not angry ones. They were careful, methodical cuts and intelligently
designed to accomplish a maximum of damage with a minimum of expenditure of
effort.

The damage was done, and thoroughly, by the time three
strong ushers gathered him in. He offered no resistance either to them or to
the police to whom they gave him. In night court, an hour later, he listened
quietly to the charges against him.

"Guilty or not guilty?" asked the presiding
magistrate.

"Your Honor, that is purely a question of
epistemology," said Roger earnestly. "The fixed stars move, but Corny
Toastys, the world's greatest breakfast food, still represents the
peudo-position of a Diedrich quantum-
integer in relation to the seventh coefficient of curvature!
^"
Ten minutes later, he was sleeping soundly. In a cell, it is true, but soundly
nonetheless. Soundlessly, too, for the cell was padded. The police left him
there because they realized he needed sleep... .

Among other minor tragedies of that night can be included
the case of the schooner
Ransagansett,
off
the coast of
California. Well off the coast of California! A sudden squall had blown her
miles off course, how many miles the skipper could only guess.

The
Ransagansett
was an American vessel, with a German
crew, under Venezuelan registry, engaged in running booze from Ensenada, Baja
California, up the coast to Canada, then in the throes of a prohibition
experiment. The
Ransagansett
was an ancient craft with foul engines and
an untrustworthy compass. During the two days of the storm, her outdated radio
receiver—vintage of 1975—had gone haywire beyond the ability of Gross, the
first mate, to repair.

But now only a mist remained of the storm, and the remaining
shreds of wind were blowing it away. Hans Gross, holding an ancient astrolabe, stood
on the dock, waiting. About him was utter darkness, for the ship was running
without lights to avoid the coastal patrols.

"She clearing, Mister Gross?" called the voice of
the captain from below.

"Aye, sir. Idt iss Blearing rabbidly."

In the cabin, Captain Randall went back to his game of
blackjack with the second mate and the engineer. The crew—an elderly German
named Weiss, with a wooden leg—was asleep abaft the scuttlebutt—wherever that
may have been.

A half hour went by. An hour, and the captain was losing
heavily to the engineer.

"Mister Gross!
^"
he called out.

There wasn't any answer, and he called again and still
obtained no response.

"Just a minute, mein fine feathered friends," he
said to the second mate and engineer and went up the companionway to the deck.

Gross was standing there, staring upward with his mouth
open. The mists were gone.

^"
Mister Gross," said Captain Randall.

The first mate didn't answer. The captain saw that his first
mate was revolving slowly where he stood.

"Hans!" said Captain Randall. "What the
devil's wrong with you?
^"
Then he, too, looked up.

Superficially the sky looked perfectly normal. No angels
flying around, no sound of airplane motors. The Dipper—Captain Randall turned
around slowly, but more rapidly than Hans Gross. Where was the Big Dipper?

For that matter, where was anything? There wasn
^'
t
a constellation anywhere that he could recognize. No sickle of Leo. No belt of
Orion. No horns of Taurus.

Worse, there was a group of eight bright stars that ought to
have been a constellation, for they were shaped roughly like an octagon. Yet if
such a constellation had ever existed, he
^'
d never seen it, for he
^'
d
been around the Horn and Good Hope. Maybe at that—but no, there wasn't any
Southern Cross!

Dazedly, Captain Randall walked to the companionway.
"Mistress Weisskopf," he called. "Mister Helmstadt. Come on
deck."

They came and looked. Nobody said anything for quite a
while.

"Shut off the engines, Mister Helmstadt,
^"
said the captain. Helmstadt saluted—the first time he ever had—and went below.

^"
Captain, shall I wake opp Feiss?
^"
asked Weisskopf.

^"
What for?"

"I don't know."

The captain considered. "Wake him up," he said.

^"
I think ve are on der blanet Mars,"
said Gross.

But the captain had thought of that and had rejected it.

^"
No," he said firmly.
^"
From
any planet in the solar system the constellations would look approximately the
same."

"You mean ve are oudt of de cosmos?"

The throb of the engines suddenly ceased, and there was only
the soft familiar lapping of the waves against the hull and the gentle familiar
rocking of the boat.

Weisskopf returned with Weiss, and Helmstadt came on deck
and saluted again.

"Veil, Captain?"

Captain Randall waved a hand to the after deck, piled high
with cases of liquor under a canvas tarpaulin.
^"
Break out the
cargo,
^"
he ordered.

The blackjack game was not resumed. At dawn, under a sun
they had never expected to see again—and, for that matter, certainly were not
seeing at the moment—the five unconscious men were moved from the ship to the
Port of San Francisco Jail by members of the coast patrol. During the night the
Rarnsagansett
had drifted through the Golden Gate and bumped gently into
the dock of the Berkeley ferry.

In tow at the stern of the schooner was a big canvas
tarpaulin. It was transfixed by a harpoon whose rope was firmly tied to the
aftermast. Its presence there was never explained officially, although days
later Captain Randall had vague recollection of having harpooned a sperm whale
during the night. But the elderly able-bodied seaman named Weiss never did find
out what happened to his wooden leg, which is perhaps just as well.

Milton Hale, PH.D., eminent physicist, had finished
broadcasting and the program was off the air.

^"
Thank you very much, Dr. Hale,
^"
said the radio announcer. The yellow light went on and stayed. The mike was
dead.
^"
Uh—your check will be waiting for you at the window.
You—uh—know where."

"I know where," said the physicist. He was a
rotund, jolly-looking little man. With his busy white beard he resembled a
pocket edition of Santa Claus. His eyes winkled, and he smoked a short stubby
pipe.

He left the sound-proof studio and walked briskly Sown the
hall to the cashier
^'
s window. "Hello, sweet-heart," he
said to the girl on duty there. "I think you have two checks for Dr.
Hale."

"You are Dr. Hale?"

"I sometimes wonder,
^"
said the little
man.
^"
But I carry identification that seems to prove it.
^"

"Two checks?"

"Two checks. Both for the same broadcast, by special
arrangement. By the wav, there is an excellent revue at the Mabry Theater this
evening."

^"
Is there? Yes, here are your checks, Dr.
Hale. One for seventy-five and one for twenty-five. Is that correct?"

"Gratifyingly correct. Now about that revue at the
Mabry?"

^"
If you wish, I
^'
ll call my
husband and ask him about it,
^"
said the girl.
^"
He
^'
s
the doorman over there.
^"

Dr. Hale sighed deeply, but his eyes still twinkled. "I
think he'll agree," he said. "Here are the tickets, my dear, and you
can take him. I find that I have work to do this evening."

The girl's eyes widened, but she took the rickets.

Dr. Hale went into the phone booth and called this home. His
home, and Dr. Hale, were both run by his elder sister. "Agatha, I must
remain at the office this evening," he said.

"Milton, you know that you can work just as well in
your study here at home. I heard your broadcast, Milton. It was
wonderful."

"It was sheer balderdash, Agatha. Utter rot. What did I
say?"

^"
Why, you said that—uh—that the stars were—I
mean, you were not—"

"Exactly, Agatha. My idea was to avert panic on the
part of the populace. If I'd told them the truth, they'd have worried. But by
being smug and scientific, I let them get the idea that everything was—uh—under
control. Do you know, Agatha, what I mean by the parallelism of an
entropy-gradient?"

^"
Why—not exactly."

^"
Neither did I."

^"
Milton, tell me, have you been
drinking?"

"Not y— No, I haven't. I really can
^'
t come
home to work this evening, Agatha, I'm using my study at the university, because
I must have access to the library there, for reference. And the
starcharts."

^"
But, Milton, how about that money for your
broadcast? You know it isn't safe for you to have money in your pocket,
especially when you
^'
re feeling like this.
^"

"It isn
^'
t money, Agatha: It's a check, and
I'll mail it to you before I go to the office. I won't cash it myself. How's
that?"

"Well—if you must have access to the library, I suppose
you must. Good-by, Milton."

***

Dr. Hale went across the street to the drug store. There he
bought a stamp and envelope and cashed the twenty-five dollar check. The
seventy-five dollar one he put into the envelope and mailed.

Standing beside the mailbox, he glanced up at the early
evening sky—shuddered, and hastily lowered his eyes. He took the straightest
possible line for the nearest double Scotch.

"Y'ain't been in for a long time, Dr. Hale,
^"
said Mike, the bartender.

"That I haven
^'
t, Mike. Pour me another.
^"

"Sure. On the house, this time. We had your broadcast
tuned in on the radio just now. It was swell.
^"

^"
Yes.
^"

^"
It sure was. I was kind of worried what was
happening up there, with my son an aviator and all. But as long as you
scientific guys know what it
^'
s all about, I guess it
^'
s
all right. That was sure a good speech, Doc. But there's one question I'd like
to ask you."

^"
I
was afraid of that,
^"
said Dr. Hale.

^"
These stars. They're moving, going
somewhere. But where are they going? I mean, like you said, if they are.
^"

"There's no way of telling that, exactly, Mike."

"Aren
^'
t they moving in a straight line, each
one of them?"

For just a moment the celebrated scientist hesitated.

"Well—yes and no, Mike. According to spectroscopic
analysis, they
^'
re maintaining the same distance from us, each one of
them. So they're really moving—if they're moving—in circles around us. But the
circles are straight, as it were. I mean, it seems that we
^'
re in the
center of those circles, so the stars that are moving aren't coming closer to
us or receding."

"You could draw lines for those circles?
^"

^"
On a star-globe, yes. It's been done. They
all seem to be heading for a certain area of the sky, but not for a given
point. They don't intersect."

^"
What part of the sky they going to?
^"

^"
Approximately between Ursa Major and Leo,
Mike. The ones farthest from there are moving fastest, the ones nearest are
moving slower. But darn you, Mike, I came in here to forget about stars, not to
talk about them. Give me another."

^"
In a minute, Doc. When they get there, are
they going to stop or keep on going?"

"How the devil do I know, Mike? They started suddenly,
all at the some time, and with full original velocity-I mean, they started out
at the same speed they're going now—without warming up, so to speak—so I
suppose they could stop as unexpectedly."

He stopped just as suddenly as the stars might. He stared at
his reflection in the mirror back of the bar as though he'd never seen it
before.

^"
What
^'
s the matter Doc?"