Shortest Day (32 page)

“The charm of it is,” said the General Counsel, “we simply ignore Nifto. He'll be left high and dry.”

They finished their coffee and gathered up their coats. As they moved toward the door, the Dean of Faculty murmured in Ellery Beaver's ear, “What exactly is the state of your chief?”

“I'm afraid I don't know,” said Ellery, his voice deepening with sorrow. “He hasn't shown up in the office since Nifto dropped the old codger on his doorstep. I don't know what the hell's going on.”

CHAPTER 42

Ye winged seraphs, fly! Bear the news!

Ye winged seraphs, fly, like comets through the sky
,

Fill vast eternity with the news, with the news
,

Fill vast eternity with the news!

American folk hymn, “Wondrous Love”

G
retchen Milligan's baby was five days old when the supernova in the constellation Sagittarius was discovered, like an outrageously exaggerated star of Bethlehem.

It was Arlo Field's discovery. Of course, Arlo didn't know a supernova was waiting for him when he argued his way out of the hospital and walked straight down Cambridge Street to the Science Center and took the elevator to the astronomy lab on the eighth floor.

He felt fine. There was a thick bandage on his neck, and he had a bunch of pills to take, but he felt strong enough to work. He wanted to get on with his studies of reversing solar oscillations before he was fired.

And he wanted to see Sarah. He was confused about Sarah. Her husband was dead, he knew that, and it had been Morgan's sword that had landed Arlo in the hospital. And Morgan was responsible for the deaths of all those other guys. What did it mean for Sarah? Was she all right? She had not come to see him in the hospital, not once. Not even once.

“Well, look who's here,” said Harley Finch. “For a while we thought you were a goner.”

“What's up?” murmured Arlo, leaning over the solar image on the observation table, watching the slow change of the granular surface, inspecting the latest crop of sunspots foreshortened on the eastern limb.

“Chairman wants to see you whenever you can make it.”

“He does, does he?” breathed Arlo. “I can't guess why.”

Harley grinned. “Sorry, Arlo.”

Oh, well, he'd known it was coming. Arlo put his finger on a bright speck near the western limb of the sun. What was that? The sun was hot and fiery, but it didn't give off sparks. Could it be a planet, Venus or Jupiter, there on the path of the ecliptic, right next to the sun? He had never observed a planet so near the sun, not even with more powerful instruments.

His heart quickened. Turning, he snatched the
Nautical Almanac
off the shelf.

“What are you doing?” Harley Finch came closer and looked inquisitively at the solar image.

Oh, no, you don't, you bastard. That star is mine
.

Harley saw nothing. He looked blankly at the observing table, then drifted away and turned over his papers, keeping a cautious eye on Arlo.

No, the bright speck wasn't the planet Venus. Venus was in Capricorn. And it wasn't Jupiter either, because the sun had already passed Jupiter earlier in December. Saturn was out of the question too, moseying along through Aquarius.

Arlo went back to the observing table and looked again, fearful that the little spark would have disappeared, that it was some momentary anomaly. But it was still there, brighter than ever. It must be, it had to be, what else could it be but a nova, a supernova, a tremendously bright supernova, visible in the daytime smack up against the sun?

He didn't want to make his phone call with Harley listening. Somehow Harley would horn in, claim credit, say, Oh, yes, I saw that before you came in.

Arlo ambled out into the hall, shut the door, ran to the elevator, pressed the button, and waited in a fever of impatience. Suppose some other solar astronomer was already announcing the discovery of a supernova at right ascension eighteen hours, twenty-eight minutes, declination minus twenty-three degrees, thirty-two minutest? There must be hundreds of optical devices of one kind or another aimed at the sun right now on the daylight side of the planet.

The elevator arrived. Arlo dodged in and dropped to the ground floor, laughing at his own greed for recognition. But the supernova was his, damnit, it was all his.

Thank God, one of the public phones was free. Arlo dialed the number of the Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams with a trembling finger, muffed it, dialed again. “Hello, Johnny, has anybody reported a supernova?”

“Not lately. Is this Arlo? Aren't you supposed to be in the hospitals? But, hey, that's great. Why didn't you call it in right away? I've been here all night.”

“Because I only just found it—just now, in broad daylight—that's why. I mean, this must be some spectacular nova. It's right up against the sun.”

“God, Arlo, are you sure it's not a mistake? Some kind of drug you're taking? Because, Jesus, it would be the brightest goddamn nova in history. Oh, you bet, I'll phone Kitt Peak. Got to have confirmation before I tell everybody else. My God, Arlo, visible in the daytime! I hope to hell you're right. We'll both look like damn fools if it's just some fluke.”

Arlo hung up. His stitches hurt and he wanted to lie down, but he was overjoyed.

Before the day was out, his supernova was confirmed by the solar astronomers at Kitt Peak, and the news was flashed all over the world. His exploding star in the constellation Sagittarius was the brightest in recorded history. It was bright because it was near, only six hundred light-years away, within the galaxy, close enough to escape being veiled by interstellar gas and dust. It was brighter than Tycho's supernova, brighter than Kepler's, brighter than Supernova 1987A in the Large Magellanic Cloud. It might even be as bright as the exploding star Geminge, whose remnants enclosed the solar system, the supernova that must have astonished the Neanderthals. For a week or ten days before Arlo's star began to fade, it was brighter than the planet Venus.

Astronomers all over the world turned away from whatever they were doing to look at it. The shutters of observatory domes on a Chilean mountaintop rolled back, they rumbled open in Japan and Arizona and Switzerland and South Africa. NASA astronomers in Florida abandoned the regular schedule for their satellite and aimed it at the newly exploded star, and so did the men and women guiding the Hubble telescope poised seven miles above the earth. The Very Large Array in New Mexico aimed its twenty-seven dishes at Arlo's star. The X-ray satellite Rosat examined it too, from the emptiness of outer space. The rapidly changing spectrum, with its extraordinary alternation of dark and bright lines, was recorded by excited observers everywhere.

Since the supernova was discovered not long after Christmas, the
Boston Herald
proclaimed on page 1—

ASTRONOMER DISCOVERS CHRISTMAS STAR

Another
Herald
editor had a mawkish stroke of genius. Remembering the story about Gretchen Milligan's baby,
NO ROOM AT THE INN,
he combined it with the one about the star with stunning effect—

CHRISTMAS STAR SHINES ON HOMELESS CHILD

Arlo saw the
Herald
that day and thought sardonically that if the star had anything at all to proclaim it would be about some event 170,000 years ago, when the explosion had actually happened. And the burst of neutrinos shooting out of the star's surface would certainly have destroyed whatever life forms existed on its own planets, if there were any, frying everything, including any infant saviors who might happen to have been lying in Sagittarian mangers.

Chickie Pickett was thrilled about the supernova. “Golly, Arlo,” she said, “will they name it after you?”

“Oh, no. It's just Supernova 1995K.” But Arlo knew with a warm sense of vainglory that his name would always be linked with the brightest supernova in history. People were already calling it Field's Star.

The director of the observatory called him in and congratulated him.

“I understand you should have been in bed, you idiot,” he said, beaming. “But thank God you weren't. Nobody else might have noticed the thing until it had gone halfway through its cycle, and that would have been a terrible loss. Oh, by the way, we're about to appoint an associate professor in stellar photometry. Are you interested? Oh, I know you've been working on solar stuff, but the sun is a star, after all.”

“But I thought Harley was in line for that job,” said Arlo innocently.

“Harley?” The director seemed puzzled. “Oh, you mean Harley Finch? I—uh—think he's accepted a position at the university in Pancake Flat, Arizona.”

PART SEVEN

THE WOOING

Madame, I have come to court you
,

If your favor I should win
.

If you make me kindly welcome
,

Then perhaps I'll come again
.