“Is something wrong?” Beenay asked.
“Not in the least. But I need to get you to do the Voice of Science routine again. Mondior’s made another of his famous ‘Repent, repent, doom is coming’ speeches. Now he says he’s ready to reveal the exact hour when the world will be destroyed. In case you’re interested, it’s going to happen next year on the nineteenth of Theptar, as a matter of fact.”
“That madman! It’s a waste of space printing anything about him. Why does anyone pay the slightest bit of attention to the Apostles, anyway?”
Theremon shrugged. “The fact is that people do. A lot of people, Beenay. And if Mondior says the end is nigh, I need to get someone like you to stand up and say, ‘Not so, brothers and sisters! Have no fear! All is well!’ Or words to that effect. I can count on you, can’t I, Beenay?”
“You know you can.”
“This evening?”
“This evening? Oh, lord, Theremon, this evening’s a real mess. How much of my time do you think you’d have to have?”
“Half an hour? Forty-five minutes?”
“Look,” Beenay said, “I’ve got an urgent appointment right now—that’s why I’m here ahead of schedule. After that, I’ve sworn to Raissta that I’ll hustle back home and devote, well, an hour or two to her. We’ve been on such different tracks lately that we’ve hardly seen each other at all. And then later in the evening I’m supposed to be here at the Observatory again to supervise taking of a bunch of photographs of—”
“All right,” said Theremon. “I see I’ve picked the wrong time for this. Well, listen, no problem, Beenay. I’ve got until tomorrow afternoon to turn in my story. What if we talk in the morning?”
“The morning?” Beenay said doubtfully.
“I know morning’s an unthinkable concept for you. But what I mean is, I can get back up here at Onos-rise, just as you’re finishing up your evening’s work. If you could simply manage a little interview with me before you go home to go to sleep—”
“Well—”
“For a friend, Beenay.”
Beenay gave the journalist a weary look. “Of course I will. That’s not the issue. It’s just that I may be so groggy after a whole evening of work that I may not be of any use to you.”
Theremon grinned. “That doesn’t worry me. I’ve noticed that you’re capable of degroggifying pretty damned quickly when there’s anti-scientific nonsense for you to refute. Tomorrow at Onos-rise, then? In your office upstairs?”
“Right.”
“A million thanks, pal. I’ll owe you one for this.”
“Don’t mention it.”
Theremon saluted and began to head down the steps. “Give my best to that beautiful lady of yours,” he called. “And I’ll see you in the morning.”
“See you in the morning, yes,” Beenay echoed.
How odd that sounded. He never saw anybody—or anything—in the morning. But he’d make an exception for Theremon. That was what friendship was all about, wasn’t it?
Beenay turned and entered the Observatory.
Inside, all was dimly lit and calm, the familiar hush of the great hall of science where he had spent most of his time since his early university days. But the calm was, he knew, a deceptive one. This mighty building, like the more mundane places of the world, was constantly aswirl with conflicts of all sorts, ranging from the loftiest of philosophical disputes down to the pettiest of trivial feuds, spats, and backbiting intrigues. Astronomers, as a group, were no more virtuous than anyone else.
All the same, the Observatory was a sanctuary for Beenay and for most of the others who worked there—a place where they could leave most of the world’s problems behind and devote themselves more or less peacefully to the everlasting struggle to answer the great questions that the universe posed.
He walked swiftly down the long main hall, trying as always without success to muffle the clatter of his boots against the marble floor.
As he invariably did, he glanced quickly into the display cases along the wall to the right and left, where some of the sacred artifacts of the history of astronomy were on perpetual exhibit. Here were the crude, almost comical telescopes that such pioneers as Chekktor and Stanta had used, four or five hundred years before. Here were the gnarled black lumps of meteorites that had fallen from the sky over the centuries, enigmatic reminders of the mysteries that lay behind the clouds. Here were first editions of the great astronomical sky-charts and textbooks, and the time-yellowed manuscripts of some of the epoch-making theoretical works of the great thinkers.
Beenay paused for a moment before the last of those manuscripts, which unlike the others seemed fresh and almost new—for it was only a single generation old, Athor 77’s classic codification of the Theory of Universal Gravitation, worked out not very long before Beenay himself had been born. Though he was not a particularly religious man, Beenay stared at that thin sheaf of paper with something very much like reverence, and found himself thinking something very much like a prayer.
The Theory of Universal Gravitation was one of the pillars of the cosmos for him: perhaps the most basic pillar. He couldn’t imagine what he would do if that pillar were to fall. And it seemed to him now that the pillar might be tottering.
At the end of the hall, behind a handsome bronze door, was Dr. Athor’s own office. Beenay glanced at it quickly and hurried past it, up the stairs. The venerable and still formidable Observatory director was the last person in the world, absolutely the last, that Beenay wanted to see at this moment.
Faro and Yimot were waiting for him upstairs in the Chart Room, where they had arranged to meet.
“Sorry I’m a little late,” Beenay said. “It’s been a complicated afternoon so far.”
They gave him nervous, owlish smiles. What a strange pair they are, he thought, not for the first time. They both came from some backwater farming province—Sithin, maybe, or Gatamber. Faro 24 was short and roly-poly, with a languid, almost indolent way of moving. His general style was easygoing and casual. His friend Yimot 70 was incredibly tall and thin, something like a hinged ladder with arms, legs, and a face, and you practically needed a telescope to see his head, looming up there in the stratosphere above you. Yimot was as tense and twitchy as his friend was relaxed. Yet they were inseparable, always had been. Of all the young graduate students, one notch down the Observatory’s table of organization from Beenay’s level, they were by far the most brilliant.
“We haven’t been waiting long,” Yimot said at once.
“Only a minute or two, Dr. Beenay,” Faro added.
“Not quite ‘doctor’ yet, thanks,” Beenay said. “I’ve still got the final inquisition to go through. How did you manage with those computations?”
Yimot said, twitching and jerking his impossibly long legs around, “This is gravitational stuff, isn’t it, sir?”
Faro nudged him so vigorously in the ribs with his elbow that Beenay expected to hear the sound of crunching bone.
“That’s all right,” Beenay said. “Yimot’s correct, as a matter of fact.” He gave the tall young man a pale smile. “I wanted this to be a purely abstract mathematical exercise for you. But it doesn’t surprise me that you were able to figure out the context. You figured it out after you had your result, didn’t you?”