East in the Morning

By DAVID E. FISHER
Illustrated by DICK FRANCIS
Natural laws are cliches— what must be must be, for instance—and what must be in this case was, of all people, Dr. Talbot!
The first thirty years of Henry Talbot's life were the most promising. He was a bright student through high school, and in college his fellow students often used the word brilliant in discussing his mentality; occasionally even his instructors echoed them.
Upon receiving his bachelor's degree, he went to graduate school and eventually received his Ph.D. as an experimental nuclear physicist. He applied for and got a research position at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, in the Electronuclear Research Division.
Dr. Henry Talbot, brilliant young scientist, began his career enthusiastically, and ran into a brick wall.
Rather, he crawled up to and against it, for it took several years for him to discover that his life's route lay not on an unobstructed downhill slide. Those years slithered past before he looked up and realized that he had not revolutionized the scientific world; he had discovered no principle of relativity, no quantum theory.
He stopped working for a moment and looked around. All his colleagues were enthusiastic and brilliant young scientists. Where at school, where throughout his life, he had been outstanding, now he was one of the crowd. What had passed for brilliance before was now merely competence.
Henry Talbot felt a vague need which he perceived liquor might fill. That afternoon he left work early for the first time since he had arrived at Oak Ridge. He had to buy the vodka from a bootlegger, Oak Ridge being in a dry county. But, as in most dry counties, that presented no problem. He stopped by Shorty's cab stand, across the street from the police department, and asked Shorty for a bottle. Shorty reached into the glove compartment and, for fifty cents over list price, the vodka changed hands. Henry didn't like to patronize the bootleggers, but he did feel the need for a quick one just this once.