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."