“The deuce with the photos, man. I need to see you.”
“Need to? Beenay, what’s happened? Is it something with Raissta?”
“It has nothing to do with Raissta in the slightest. Half past nine? At the Six Suns?”
“Six Suns, half past nine, yes,” Theremon said. “It’s a date.”
Beenay broke the contact and sat for a long moment staring at the rolled paper cylinder before him, somberly shaking his head. He felt fractionally calmer now, but only fractionally. Confiding in Theremon would make it easier to bear the burden of all this. He trusted Theremon completely. Newsmen were generally not noted for their trustworthiness, Beenay knew, but Theremon was a friend first, a journalist after that. He had never betrayed Beenay’s confidence, not once.
Even so, Beenay didn’t have any idea of his next move. Maybe Theremon would be able to come up with something. Maybe.
He left the Observatory by the back stairs, sneaking out by the fire escape like a thief. He didn’t dare risk the possibility of running into Athor by going out the main way. It was appalling to him to consider the possibility of seeing Athor now, having to confront him face to face, man to man.
He found the motor scooter ride home a terrifying one. At every moment he was afraid that the laws of gravity would cease to hold true, that he would go soaring off into the heavens. But at last Beenay reached the little apartment that he shared with Raissta 717.
She gasped when she saw him.
“Beenay! You’re white as a—”
“Ghost, yes.” He reached for her and pulled her close against him. “Hold me,” he said. “Hold me.”
“What is it? What happened?”
“I’ll tell you later,” he said. “Just hold me.”
8
Theremon was at the Six Suns Club a little after nine. It was probably a good idea to get a head start on Beenay, a quick drink or two first, just to lubricate his brain a little. The astronomer had sounded awful—as though he was keeping hysteria at bay only by some tremendous effort. Theremon couldn’t imagine what terrible thing could have happened to him, there in the seclusion and stillness of the Observatory, to make such a wreck out of him in so short a time. But plainly Beenay was in big trouble, and plainly he was going to need the highest-quality help Theremon could provide.
“Let me have a Tano Special,” Theremon told the waiter. “No, wait—make it a double. A Tano Sitha, okay?”
“Double white light,” the waiter said. “Coming up.”
The evening was mild. Theremon, who was well known here and received special treatment, had been given his regular warm-weather table on the terrace overlooking the city. The lights of downtown sparkled gaily. Onos had set an hour or two ago, and only Trey and Patru were in the sky, burning brightly in the east, casting harsh twin shadows as they made their descent toward morning.
Looking at them, Theremon wondered which suns would be in the sky tomorrow. It was different all the time, a brilliant ever changing display. Onos, certainly—you could always be sure of seeing Onos at least part of the time every day of the year, even he knew that—and then what? Dovim, Tano, and Sitha, to make it a four-sun day? He wasn’t sure. Maybe it was supposed to be just Tano and Sitha, with Onos visible only for a few hours at midday. That would be gloomy. But then, after a second sip, he reminded himself that this wasn’t the season for short Onos-rises. So it would be a three-sun day, most likely, unless it was going to be just Onos and Dovim tomorrow.
It was so hard to keep it all straight—
Well, he could ask to see an almanac, if he really cared. But he didn’t. Some people always seemed to know what tomorrow’s suns would be like—Beenay was one, naturally—but Theremon took a more happy-go-lucky approach to it all. So long as some sun was going to be up there the next day, Theremon didn’t especially care which one it was. And there always was one—two or three, actually, or sometimes four. You could count on that. Even five, once in a while.
His drink arrived. He took a deep gulp and exhaled in pleasure. What a delightful thing a Tano Special was! The good strong white rum of the Velkareen Islands, mixed with a shot of the even stronger product, clear and tangy, that they distilled on the coast of Bagilar, and just a dab of sgarrino juice to take the edge off—ah, magnificent! Theremon wasn’t a particularly heavy drinker, certainly not the way newspapermen were legendarily supposed to be, but he counted it a shabby day when he couldn’t find time for one or two Tano Specials in those quiet dusky hours after Onos had set.
“You look like you’re enjoying that, Theremon,” a familiar voice said behind him.
“Beenay! You’re early!”
“Ten minutes. What are you drinking?”
“The usual. A Tano Special.”
“Good. I think I’ll have one too.”
“You?” Theremon stared at his friend. Fruit juice was about Beenay’s speed, so far as he knew. He couldn’t recall ever having seen the astronomer drink anything stronger.
But Beenay looked strange this evening—haggard, weary, worn. His eyes had an almost feverish glow to them.
“Waiter!” Theremon called.
It was alarming to see Beenay gulp his drink. He gasped after the first slug, as though the impact was a lot greater than he’d been expecting, but then he went back to it quickly for a second deep pull, and a third.
“Easy,” Theremon urged. “Your head’ll be swimming in five minutes.”
“It’s swimming already.”
“You had a drink before you came here?”
“No, not a drink,” Beenay said. “A shock. An upset.” He put his drink down and peered balefully at the city lights. After a moment he picked it up again, almost absent-mindedly, and drained what was left.—“I shouldn’t have another one so soon, should I, Theremon?”
“I doubt it very much.” Theremon reached out and let his hand rest lightly on the astronomer’s wrist. “What’s going on, fellow? Tell me about it.”
“It’s—hard to explain.”
“Come on. I’ve been around the track a little, you know. You and Raissta—”
“No! I told you before, this has nothing to do with her. Nothing.”
“All right. I believe you.”
Beenay said, “Maybe I should have that second drink.”
“In a little while. Come on, Beenay. What is it?”
Beenay sighed. “You know what the Theory of Universal Gravitation is, don’t you, Theremon?”
“Of course I do. I mean, I couldn’t tell you what it means, exactly—there are only twelve people on Kalgash who truly understand it, isn’t that so?—but I can certainly tell you what it is—more or less.”
“So you believe that garbage too,” Beenay said, with a harsh laugh. “About the Theory of Gravitation being so complicated that only twelve people can understand its math.”
“That’s what I’ve always heard.”
“What you’ve always heard is ignorant folk wisdom,” said Beenay. “I could give you all the essential math in a sentence, and you’d probably understand what I was saying, too.”
“You could? I would?”
“No question of it. Look, Theremon: the Law of Universal Gravitation—the Theory of Universal Gravitation, I mean—states that there exists a cohesive force among all bodies of the universe, such that the amount of this force between any two given bodies is proportional to the product of their masses divided by the square of the distance between them. It’s that simple.”
“That’s all there is to it?”
“That’s enough! It took four hundred years to develop it.”