"Right. Then I noticed that there were several rejects in the waste bin beside the counter. I picked out the best-looking one and held it up to the light. It was a pretty thing, just like the others. Paul smiled when he saw that I had it, and he said, ‘You like it?' I told him that I did. ‘Keep it,' he said."
"So you did. That's the way I remember it, too."
"Yes, but there was more to it than that," he said. "I took it back to the table with me and set it down next to my money-so that each time I reached over for some change, I automatically glanced at it. After a time I became aware of a tiny flaw, a little imperfection at the base of one of the limbs. It was quite insignificant, but it irritated me more and more each time that I looked at it. So, when you two left the room later, to bring in more cold beer and sodas, I took it over and switched it with one of those on the shelf."
"I begin to see."
"Okay, okay! I probably shouldn't have done it. I didn't see any harm in it at the time. They were just prototype souvenirs he was fooling with, and the difference wasn't even noticeable unless you were looking hard."
"He'd noticed it the first time around."
"Which was good reason for him to consider them perfect and not be looking again. And what difference did it make, really? Even in the absence of a six-pack the answer seems obvious."
"It sounds all right, I'll give you that. But the fact is that he did check-and it also seems that they were more important than he had indicated. I wonder why?"
"I've been doing a lot of thinking," he said. "The first thing that occurred to me was that the souvenir business was just a story he made up because he wanted to show them off to us and he had to tell us something. Supposing he had been approached by someone from the UN to produce a model-several models-for them? The original is priceless, irreplaceable and on display to the public. To guard against theft or someone with a compulsion and a sledgehammer, it would seem wisest to keep it locked away and put a phony one in the showcase. Paul would be a logical choice for the job. Whenever anyone talks crystallography, his name comes up."
"I could buy parts of that," I said, "but the whole thing doesn't hang together. Why get so upset over the flawed specimen when he could just manufacture another? Why not simply write off the one we've lost?"
"Security?"
"If that's so, we didn't break it. He did. Why shove us around and bring it to mind when we were doing a good job forgetting about it? No, that doesn't seem to jibe."
"All right, what then?"
I shrugged.
"Insufficient data," I said, getting to my feet. "If you decide to call the police, be sure to tell them that the thing he was looking for was something you'd stolen from him."
"Aw, Fred, that's hitting below the belt."
"It's true, though. I wonder what the intrinsic value of the thing was? I forget where they draw the misdemeanor felony line."
"Okay, you've made your point. What are you going to do?"
I shrugged. "Nothing, I guess. Wait and see what happens, I suppose. Let me know if you think of anything else."
"All right. You do the same?"
"Yes." I started toward the door.
"Sure you won't stay for dinner?" he said.
"No, thanks. I've got to run."
"See you, then."
"Right. Take it easy."
Walking past a darkened bakery. Play of night and light on glass. DO YOU TASTE ME BRED? I read. I hesitated, turned, saw where shadows had anagrammatized a bake sale, sniffed, hurried on.
Bits and pieces-
Near midnight, as I was trying a new route up the cathedral, I thought that I counted an extra gargoyle. As I moved closer, though, I saw that it was Professor Dobson atop the buttress. Drunk again and counting stars, I guessed.
I continued, coming to rest on a nearby ledge.
"Good evening. Professor."
"Hello, Fred. Yes, it is, isn't it? Beautiful night I was hoping you'd pass this way. Have a drink."
"Low tolerance," I said. "I seldom indulge."
"Special occasion," he suggested.
"Well, a little then."
I accepted the bottle he extended, took a sip.
"Good. Very good," I said, passing it back. "What is it? And what's the occasion?"
"A very, very special cognac I've been saving for over twenty years, for tonight. The stars have finally run their fiery routes to the proper places, positioned with elegant cunning, possessed of noble portent."
"What do you mean?"
"I'm retiring, getting out of this lousy rat race."
"Oh, congratulations. I hadn't heard."
"That was by design. Mine. I can't stand formal goodbyes. Just a few more loose ends to splice, and I'll be ready to go. Next week probably."
"Well, I hope you have an enjoyable time of it. It is not often that I meet someone with the interest we share. I'll miss you."
He took a sip from his bottle, nodded, grew silent. I lit a cigarette, looked out across the sleeping town, up at the stars. The night was cool, the breeze more than a little damp. Small traffic sounds came and went, distant, insect-like. An occasional bat interrupted my tracing of constellations.
"Alkaid, Mizar, Alioth," I murmured, "Megrez, Phecda ... "
"Merak and Dubhe," he said, finishing off the Big Dipper and surprising me, both for having overheard and for knowing the rest.
"Back where I left them so many years ago," he went on. "I've a very peculiar feeling now-the thing I set out to analyze tonight. Did you ever look back at some moment in your past and have it suddenly grow so vivid that all the intervening years seemed brief, dreamlike, impersonal-the motions of a May afternoon surrendered to routine?"
"No," I said.
"One day, when you do, remember-the cognac," he said, and he took another sip and passed me the bottle. I had some more and returned it to him.
"They did actually creep, though, those thousands of days. Petty pace, and all that," he continued. "I know this intellectually, though something else is currently denying it. I am aware of it particularly, because I am especially conscious of the difference between that earlier time and this present. It was a cumulative thing, the change. Space travel, cities under the sea, the advances in medicine-even our first contact with the aliens-all of these things occurred at different times and everything else seemed unchanged when they did. Petty pace. Life pretty much the same but for this one new thing. Then another, at another time. Then another. No massive revolution. An incremental process is what it was. Then suddenly a man is ready to retire, and this gives rise to reflection. He looks back, back to Cambridge, where a young man is climbing a building. He sees those stars. He feels the texture of that roof. Everything that follows is a blur, a kaleidoscopic monochrome. He is here and he is there. Everything else is unreal. But they are two different worlds, Fred-two completely different worlds-and he didn't really see it happen, never actually caught either one in the act of going or coming. And that is the feeling that accompanies me tonight."
"Is it a good feeling or a bad one?" I said.
"I don't really know. I haven't worked up an emotion to go with it yet."
"Let me know when you do, will you? You've got me curious." He chuckled. I did, too.