“That depends upon the space-time frame from which one regards it,” he said judicially. “The difficulty is epistemological.”
To make up for that, he tipped her more than he should and left.
The world’s most eminent physicist, he realized, knew less of what was happening than did the general public. The public knew that the fixed stars were moving or that they weren’t. Obviously, Dr. Hale didn’t even know that. Under a smoke-screen of qualifications, Hale had hinted that they were doing both.
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, hut 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 sec the sticky end of one of the three feature pictures. Followed several advertisements which he managed to look at without seeing.
“We bring you next,” said the screen, “a special visi-cast 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.