Roger looked upward, but only a few stars, faint in the early evening, were visible through the halation of the myriad neon and spiegel-light signs. Too early yet, he decided.
He had one drink at a nearby bar, but it didn’t taste quite right to him so he didn’t finish it. He hadn’t realized what was wrong, but he was punch-drunk from lack of sleep. He merely knew that he wasn’t sleepy any more and intended to keep on walking until he felt like going to bed. Anyone hitting him over the head with a well-padded blackjack would have been doing him a signal service, but no one took the trouble.
He kept on walking and, after a while, turned into the brilliantly lighted lobby of a cineplus theater. He bought a ticket and took his seat just in time to see the sticky end of one of the three feature pictures. Several advertisements followed which he managed to look at without seeing.
«We bring you next,» said the screen, «a special visicast of the night sky of London, where it is now three o’clock in the morning.»
The screen went black, with hundreds of tiny dots that were stars. Roger leaned forward to watch and listen carefully — this would be a broadcast and visicast of facts, not of verbose nothingness.
«The arrow,» said the screen, as an arrow appeared upon it, «is now pointing to Polaris, the pole star, which is now ten degrees from the celestial pole in the direction of Ursa Major. Ursa Major itself, the Big Dipper, is no longer recognizable as a dipper, but the arrow will now point to the stars that formerly composed it.»
Roger breathlessly followed the arrow and the voice.
«Alkaid and Dubhe,» said the voice. «The fixed stars are no longer fixed, but —» The picture changed abruptly to a scene in a modern kitchen, «— the qualities and excellences of Stellar’s Stoves do not change. Foods cooked by the super-induced vibratory method taste as good as ever. Stellar Stoves are unexcelled.»
Leisurely, Roger Phlutter stood up and made his way out into the aisle. He took his pen-knife from his pocket as he walked toward the screen. One easy jump took him up onto the low stage. His slashes into the fabric were not angry ones. They were careful, methodical cuts intelligently designed to accomplish a maximum of damage with a minimum expenditure of effort.
The damage was done, and thoroughly, by the time three strong ushers gathered him in. He offered no resistance either to them or to the police to whom they gave him. In night court, an hour later, he listened quietly to the charges against him.
«Guilty or not guilty?» asked the presiding magistrate.
«Your Honor, that is purely a question of epistemology,» said Roger, earnestly. «The fixed stars move, but Corny Toasties, the world’s greatest breakfast food, still represents the pseudo-position of a Diedrich quantum-integer in relation to the seventh coefficient of curvature!»
Ten minutes later, he was sleeping soundly. In a cell, it is true, but soundly nonetheless. The police left him there because they had realized he needed to sleep …
Among other minor tragedies of that night can he included the case of the schooner Ransagansett, off the coast of California. Well off the coast of California! A sudden squall had blown her miles off course, how many miles the skipper could only guess.
The Ransagansett was an American vessel, with a German crew, under Venezuelan registry, engaged in running booze from Ensenada, Baja California, up the coast to Canada, then in the throes of a prohibition experiment. The Ransagansett was an ancient craft with four engines and an untrustworthy compass. During the two days of the storm, her outdated radio receiver — vintage of 1955 — had gone haywire beyond the ability of Gross, the first mate, to repair.
But now only a mist remained of the storm, and the remaining shreds of wind were blowing it away. Hans Gross, holding an ancient astrolable, stood on the deck waiting. About him was utter darkness, for the ship was running without lights to avoid the coastal patrols.
«She clearing, Mister Gross?» called the voice of the captain from below.
«Aye, sir. Idt iss glearing rabidly.»
In the cabin, Captain Randall went back to his game of blackjack with the second mate and the engineer. The crew — an elderly German named Weiss, with a wooden leg — was asleep abaft the scuttlebutt — wherever that may have been.
A half hour went by. An hour, and the captain was losing heavily to Helmstadt, the engineer.
«Mister Gross!» he called out.
There wasn’t any answer and he called again and still obtained no response.
«Just a minute, mein fine feathered friends,» he said to the second mate and engineer, and went up the companionway to the deck.
Gross was standing there staring upward with his mouth open. The mists were gone.
«Mister Gross,» said Captain Randall.
The second mate didn’t answer. The captain saw that his second mate was revolving slowly where he stood.
«Hans!» said Captain Randall. «What the devil’s wrong with you?» Then he, too, looked up.
Superficially the sky looked perfectly normal. No angels flying around nor sound of airplane motors. The dipper — Captain Randall turned around slowly, but more rapidly than Hans Gross. Where was the Big Dipper?
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 companion-way.
«Mister 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 vake opp Veiss?» 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 rejected it.
«No,» he said firmly. «From any planet in the solar system the constellation would look approximately the same.»
«You mean ve are oudt of der 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.
«Vell, 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 Ransagansett 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 after-mast. 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.