Two Moons by Thomas Mallon

Author:Thomas Mallon [Mallon, Thomas]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-101-87254-3
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2015-02-03T05:00:00+00:00

Hugh read the injunction an hour or so later, and he did stay much later than he had intended, but only because he fell asleep at the little table near the 9.6-inch refractor. No one came in on him before or after the hour slipped past midnight and then 2 A.M. The high-pitched clamor of a mosquito, which hovered near his right ear before biting him on the wrist, roused him briefly, but it took a small, sudden clatter, coming shortly after four from the vicinity of the Great Equatorial, to wake him fully. He decided to investigate on his way out of the building.

“If that don’t take the rag off the bush!” cried Asaph Hall’s helper, George Anderson. Hugh found the two men taking turns looking into the giant telescope’s eyepiece, which they had slid out as far as it could go, probably to diminish the blaze of a bright body obscuring something of greater interest in its vicinity. The pair were too busy to take any notice of Hugh in the doorway.

“It’s a second one,” declared Anderson. “That’s for certain, Professor Hall!”

“Yes,” said the astronomer. “Smaller and closer in.” His quiet voice shook. “I had better make a fuller note.” He hurried, with his observer’s notebook, to a table at the far end of the room, but before he sat down, he dropped to his knees, thanking the heavens for their magnificent piece of self-revelation.

“Aw, now, Professor Hall,” said Anderson, gently scolding. “There’ll be time for that later.” Anderson was embarrassed, but only in a protective way. He had just spotted Mr. Allison taking notice and did not want this young fellow making sport of Asaph Hall with his mates. Otherwise Allison’s presence was no source of bother at all. What rivalrous problem could arise from such a rudderless lad’s being on the scene?

“Come take a look,” said Anderson, motioning him toward the eyepiece. “But you’ll have to be quick about it.”

As Hugh seated himself at the telescope, Anderson and Hall made plans for Professor Eastman and his assistants to measure this second Martian moon with the 9.6-inch during the coming week; the Great Equatorial would keep up the business of confirming the first one’s existence. By tomorrow night, Hugh knew, the Observatory would be a changed place. Like the moons, it would be discovered, and briefly famous even to men who had never touched a sextant or binoculars. Every scientific here who got in on the act would be flattered and laureled.

Hugh found the smaller of the two specks and held it in his vision just long enough to see that it most definitely moved, like something alive, with respect to the glaring orange circle. Stunned in spite of himself, he felt his own light fizzling into darkness and inconsequence.

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