Nightfall (7 page)

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?”

“Yes, sir,” said Yimot and Faro at the same time. “We ran all the calculations first,” Faro said. “Then we took a second look, and the context became apparent,” said Yimot.

“Ah. Yes,” Beenay said. These kids were sometimes a little unnerving. They were so young—only six or seven years younger than he, as a matter of fact, but he was an assistant professor and they were students, and to him and them both that was a vast barrier. Young as they were, though, they had such extraordinary minds! He wasn’t altogether pleased that they had guessed at the conceptual matrix within which these calculations were located. In fact, he wasn’t pleased at all. In another few years they’d be right up here on the faculty with him, perhaps competing for the same professorship he hoped to get, and that might not be fun. But he tried not to think about that.

He reached for their printout.

“May I see?” he asked.

Hands fluttering wildly, Yimot handed it over. Beenay scanned the rows of figures, calmly at first, then with rising agitation.

He had been pondering, all year long, certain implications of the Theory of Universal Gravitation, which his mentor Athor had brought to such a summit of perfection. It had been Athor’s great triumph, the making of his lofty reputation, to work out the orbital motions of Kalgash and all six of its suns according to rational principles of attractive forces.

Beenay, using modern computational equipment, had been calculating some aspects of Kalgash’s orbit around Onos, its primary sun, when to his horror he observed that his figures didn’t check out properly in terms of the Theory of Universal Gravitation. The theory said that at the beginning of the present year Kalgash should have been
here
in relation to Onos, when in undeniable fact Kalgash was
there.

The deviation was trivial—a matter of a few decimal places—but that wasn’t trivial at all, in the larger sense of things. The Theory of Universal Gravitation was so precise that most people preferred to refer to it as the
Law
of Universal Gravitation. Its mathematical underpinning was considered impeccable.
But a theory that purports to explain the movements of the world through space has no room for even small discrepancies. Either it is complete or it is not complete: no middle way was permissible. And a difference of a few decimal places in a short-range calculation would widen into a vast abyss, Beenay knew, if more ambitious computations were attempted. What good was the whole Theory of Universal Gravitation if the position that it said Kalgash was going to hold in the sky a century from now turned out to be halfway around Onos from the planet’s actual location then?

Beenay had gone over his figures until he was sick of reworking them. The result was always the same.

But what was he supposed to believe?

His numbers, or Athor’s towering master scheme?

His piddling notions of astronomy, or the great Athor’s profound insight into the fundamental structure of the universe?

He imagined himself standing right on top of the dome of the Observatory, calling out, “Listen to me, everybody! Athor’s theory is wrong! I’ve got the figures right here that disprove it!” Which would bring forth such gales of laughter that he’d be blown clear across the continent. Who was he to set himself up against the titanic Athor? Who could possibly believe that a callow assistant professor had toppled the Law of Universal Gravitation?

And yet—and yet—

His eyes raced over the printout sheets that Yimot and Faro had prepared. The calculations on the first two pages were unfamiliar to him; he had set up the data for the two students in such a way that the underlying relationships from which the numbers were derived were not at all obvious, and evidently they had approached the problem in a way that any astronomer trying to compute a planetary orbit would regard as quite unorthodox. Which was exactly what Beenay had wanted. The orthodox ways had led him only into catastrophic conclusions; but he had too much information at his own disposal to be able to work in any other mode but the orthodox ones. Faro and Yimot hadn’t been hampered in that fashion.

But as he followed along their line of reasoning, Beenay began to notice a discomforting convergence of the numbers. By
the third page they had locked in with his own calculations, which he knew by heart by this time.

And from there on, everything followed in an orderly way, step by step by step, to the same dismaying, shattering, inconceivable, totally unacceptable culminating result.

Beenay looked up at the two students, aghast.

“There’s no possibility, is there, that you’ve slipped up somewhere? This string of integrations here, for example—they look pretty tricky—”

“
Sir!
” Yimot cried, sounding shocked to the core. His face was bright red and his arms waved about as if moving of their own accord.

Faro said, more placidly, “I’m afraid they’re correct, sir. They tally frontwards and backwards.”

“Yes. I imagine they do,” said Beenay dully. He struggled to conceal his anguish. But his hands were shaking so badly that the printout sheets began to flutter in his grasp. He started to put them down on the table before him, but his wrist jerked uncontrollably in a very Yimot-like gesture and sent them scattering all over the floor.

Faro knelt to pick them up. He gave Beenay a troubled look.

“Sir, if we’ve upset you in any way—”

“No. No, not at all. I didn’t sleep well today, that’s the problem. But this is fine work, unquestionably very fine. I’m proud of you. To take a problem like this, one which has utterly no real-world resonance at all, which in fact is in total contradiction of real-world scientific truth, and to follow so methodically to the conclusion required by the data while succeeding in ignoring the fact that the initial premise is absurd—why, it’s a splendid job, an admirable demonstration of your powers of logic, a first-rate thought-experiment—”

He saw them exchange quick glances. He wondered if he was fooling them even slightly.

“And now,” he went on, “if you’ll excuse me, fellows—I have another conference—”

Rolling the damning papers into a tight cylinder, Beenay shoved them under his arm and rushed past them, out the door, down the hall, practically running, heading for the safety and privacy of his own tiny office.

My God, he thought. My God, my God, my God, what have I done? And what will I do now?

He buried his head in his hands and waited for the throbbing to stop. But it didn’t seem to be planning to stop. After a moment he sat up and jabbed his finger against the communicator button on his desk.

“Get me the Saro City
Chronicle
,” he told the machine. “Theremon 762.”

From the communicator came a long, maddening burst of cracklings and hissings. Then, suddenly, Theremon’s deep voice:

“Features desk, Theremon 762.”

“Beenay.”

“What’s that? I can’t hear what you’re saying!”

Beenay realized that he hadn’t managed to get out anything more than a croak. “It’s Beenay, I said! I—I want to change our appointment time.”

“To change it? Look, fellow, I understand how you feel about mornings, because so do I. But I’ve absolutely got to talk to you no later than noon tomorrow or I’ll have no story here. I’ll make it up to you any way I can, but—”

“You don’t understand. I want to see you sooner, not later, Theremon.”

“What?”

“This evening. Let’s say half past nine. Or ten, if you can’t make it.”

“I thought you had photographs to take at the Observatory.”

“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—”