THE CRUCIBLE OF TIME BY JOHN BRUNNER

“First: the stars do change position—very slowly, but unmistakably— and some have certainly grown brighter.

“Second: there are not just a few but many stars now discernible which were not known to the map-maker, and all of them have something most disconcerting in common. They are all deep red, and they all he in the same general area of the sky. Which leads me to the third point.

“What we have been accustomed to call the Smoke of the New Star can be nothing of the sort. We have traced the site of the New Star, which in the days when these old maps were prepared was still clearly visible, though now it takes a strong glass to detect it. Indeed, one does not so much see the star itself, as a faint and wispy cloud of glowing gas with a dot at its center. But this is not the large, widespread cloud we normally think of. It’s too far away—several degrees distant. On the other claw, within it there are some genuinely new stars, which must be far newer than that fabled one which burst out without warning and became brighter than the sun, as the old legends claim—though, strangely, no reference is made to heat from it.

“Within the Smoke, as I was saying, we have counted no fewer than ten stars of which there is no sign on the old maps. Moreover, what reference is made to the Smoke is cursory and vague, and no outline is indicated for it, though we can see one fairly clearly. All these ten new stars, what’s more, are reddish, even darker than the Smoke, as though they only recently lighted their fires. They are barely bright enough to make the surrounding cloud shine by reflection, and much too far away to account for the ending of the Freeze.

“And even that is not the most astonishing news.”

Having helped as best they could with the observations, Yockerbow and Barratong were primed for the final revelation, and glanced covertly around to see what impact it would have on the unforewarned.

Using an image which Barratong himself had supplied, Arranth said, “Imagine the Great Fleet keeping station on a calm sea, and yourselves aboard a solitary junq making haste towards it. Would you not see the nearest of the Fleet diverge to either side as you drew close, while the furthest remained at roughly the same angle?”

Puzzled at being reminded of something that everybody knew, her listeners signified comprehension.

“What disturbs and even frightens me,” concluded Arranth, “is that scores of stars whose positions we can check against the old maps appear to have diverged outward from a common center, and that center is located in or near the Smoke. Either we, with the sun and all its planets, are hurtling in that direction, or the Smoke and its associated stars are rushing towards us. It makes no difference which way you look at it; the outcome is the same. And if, as certain astronomers believe, stars begin because they accumulate surrounding matter, be it whole wandering planets or mere dust like what comes to us as meteorites and comets, then there must be incredible quantities of it in any zone where ten new stars have started to burn since these maps were drawn!”

As though to emphasize her words, a meteor brilliant enough to shine through the daytime sky slashed across the zenith, and immediately thereafter Barratong cried, “Get those maps under cover! The storm will be upon us any moment!”

An echo of thunder confirmed his warning, and they scattered, the sub-commanders to their respective junqs, Arranth, Ulgrim, Yockerbow and Barratong to huddle beneath the shelter offered by their own’s haodah.

Tucking the precious maps carefully into the tube again, Arranth said, “Do you think they understood?”

“Most of my fellow-navigators,” Ulgrim grunted, “have never thought about stars except to figure out what use they are in guiding us, and most of our lives that hasn’t been much, you know. The admiral’s right: a real change is working in the world. This is more the sort of weather I’d have expected here in the far north, not the clear bright land we’ve had since our arrival.”

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