Orbit 2

“All I know, it’s got a spectrum nobody ever saw before.”

“Then what are you griping about?” MacCready demanded. “That’s good. Maybe this object’s got the world’s biggest red shift. You’ve probably dredged up some lines buried thousands of angstroms deep in the ultraviolet.”

“Nope, won’t suit, Mac. Remember the Houston meeting? It was agreed we’re living in an exploding universe with a q-zero of 2.5. This thing’s way off the beam — much too bright.”

“You know what your problem is, Bill?” MacCready was suddenly serious. “You’ve always got to relate to somebody else. You’re afraid to take your results just as they stand.”

“But there must be an answer,” Bill protested. “What else can it be?”

MacCready shrugged and fell to scrutinizing the plate again.

“Wouldn’t surprise me if the answer’s staring us right in the face,” he said. “Only it’s so simple we can’t see it.”

He moved the plate carriage a bit.

“Now you take these three big lines I see here. . Why couldn’t the one on my left be that Hell line at — what is it? — 1640? And the one in the middle—”

“Oh, my gawd, don’t you think I’ve been all through that search list?” Bill said wearily. “None of ’em’s any good. I’ve tried a bunch of hundred-to-one shots. They’re no good either. Nothing fits.”

“Too bad.” MacCready frowned slightly. “Strange. . these lines are all in absorption, aren’t they?”

“Here’s my list of wavelengths,” Bill said, handing him a sheet of paper. “They’re the means of my measures on the machine and some runs with the electronic lineprofile comparator. They ought to be pretty good.”

“I’m sure they are,” MacCready murmured. He shot a sudden glance at Bill. “You sure you set the grating in the right order spectrum?”

“Mac, I couldn't make a mistake like that.”

“Congratulations. ”

There was a long silence broken only by an occasional motor starting up in the parking lot, and the steady rumble of traffic from the boulevard nearby. MacCready was the first to speak.

“After you got this plate, did you take another exposure on a familiar object, same spectrograph — same emulsion — same everything?”

“Yes.”

“All right?”

“Yes.”

“It was?”

“Yes!” Bill shouted. “In France it’s oui. In Spanish it’s si. In Russian it’s da.”

MacCready transferred his attention from the plate to Bill’s list of wavelengths.

“You know, these three big lines remind me of something,” he muttered. “But I’ll confess I haven’t the faintest notion what it is.”

Bill looked completely deflated. He began pacing the room again, clasping and unclasping his hands behind him. MacCready seemed to have forgotten his existence.

Bill tossed away his cigarette.

“Well, thanks for coming down, Mac. I’d gotten to the end of my rope. Thought perhaps you could suggest something.”

There was no response. Bill paced the floor for another five minutes.

“Well, I've got to go. We’re having company tonight.” “Yeah, you run along,” MacCready told him. “Leaving myself in a minute. . just want to check one thing.”

Bill was nearly out the door when MacCready called suddenly, “Bill.”

“Yeah?”

“Call my wife, will you? Tell her I’ll be a little late.”

Bill had to wait forever before he got a break in the traffic at Los Robles. Why did he keep coming this way? he asked himself. There was no answer. You saw an opening — you took a deep breath — uttered a prayer — and if you were lucky you made it.

Turning north toward Hillhurst he saw that the signal at Cordova was going to be red, as usual. The signal was always red at Cordova. In the past five years he must have crossed Cordova going north at least two thousand times. There had been just three times by actual count when he had hit the green light. His confidence in the theory of probability had been badly shaken.

Through the tangle of varicolored lights, leering Santa Clauses, liquor advertisements, and five-pointed stars* of Bethlehem, Bill perceived a huge sign looming ahead, VILLAGE MARKET. Click! What was he supposed to do? What was he supposed to — Helen’s grocery list, of course. Good old autohypnosis.

*Stars do not have points sticking out of them. Stars are spherical.

Within the Village Market the aisles were abustle with hausfrauen pushing metal carts, their vacant gaze reflecting the trancelike state induced by the sight of merchandise in profusion. Bill took a cart himself and went to work on Helen’s grocery list, tracking down the various items by the awkward process of taking them in the order written. Occasionally when it seemed like a good idea he tossed in an extra item or two. How often he had come in for a fifty-nine-cent piece of cheese and departed laden down with a lot of junk he never originally had the slightest intention of buying. But who were we? Mere puppets moving at the bidding of the vast formless things that operate these huge pleasure domes of produce.

Helen wrote her shopping items in a code that might have bailed the best brains in Interpol. This time, however, it had been pretty clear sailing. He now had in the cart the “6 nee rd rpe toms” and the “2 pkes Imn jlo,” and finally had reached the last item, “2 dz Ye Olde Eng Muffs.” This sounded almost too easy. On any rational distribution system Olde English Muffins could hardly be anywhere else but in the bread section. He glanced at the Store Guide. Bread?. . Bread?. . Section 5. Where was he? Way over in 21 among Frozen Desserts and Mouth Wash. He deftly changed course and started bearing toward smaller numbers. 2…3…4…6… 7. № 5! Must have missed it. Scan more carefully now… 2… 3… 4… 6… 7. Number 5 was absolutely and positively missing.

He looked around for a clerk but there was none in sight. Neither was there any bread. He explored one aisle after another as fast as traffic permitted. There were shelves and bins loaded with pickles and olives, wieners and knockwurst, yoghurt and horseradish. But no Olde English Muffins. Well, he couldn’t spend the evening pushing a metal cart around the Village Market. He picked up a box of Bixmix and headed for Checkers’ Row.

The porch lights were already burning when he turned in the driveway. That was bad. It meant that even now company was ominously near. Closing the garage door, he noticed the stars of Auriga rising over the mountains to the north. How odd Capella looked, reddened almost to the color of Mars by the smoke and haze. Auriga had always been his favorite constellation. All the constellations had a background rich in mythological lore — except Auriga. Auriga was known as “the Charioteer.” But where were his chariot and horse? Nobody knew. The stars of Auriga were meaningless.

“Well, where have you been?” Helen demanded, as he staggered into the kitchen with his load of groceries. She was a small woman whose early blond prettiness was beginning to show signs of wear under the ceaseless battering of suburbia: the Garden Club, the Art League, WAGS, 1 1 Women Against Smog, etc., etc.

“Where do you think?” Bill growled. “Picking up the stuff you forgot.”

She started sorting over the groceries. “It shouldn’t have taken— Where's the muffins?"

“Couldn’t find ’em. Got Mixbix instead.”

“Why couldn’t you find them?” “Hidden too well, I guess.” “Why, they’re right by the bread.” “Couldn’t find the bread either.”

“Did you ask a clerk?”

“Didn’t see any to ask.”

“But there’s always—”