to do,
partly because anything that excites Doc Shull that much is something
to think about.

We watched the star like two cats at a mouse-hole, but it didn't move
again. After a while a smaller one did, though, and later in the night
a whole procession of them streaked across the sky and fell into place
around the first one, forming a pattern that didn't make any sense to
us. They stopped moving around midnight and we went to bed, but
neither of us got to sleep right away.

"Maybe we ought to look for another interest in life ourselves instead
of drumming up one for Joey," Doc said. He meant it as a joke but it
had a shaky sound; "Something besides getting beered up every night,
for instance."

"You think we've got the d.t.'s from drinking _beer_?" I asked.

Doc laughed at that, sounding more like his old self. "No, Roy. No
two people ever had instantaneous and identical hallucinations."

"Look," I said. "I know this sounds crazy but maybe Joey--"

Doc wasn't amused any more. "Don't be a fool, Roy. If those stars
really moved you can be sure of two things--Joey had nothing to do
with it, and the papers will explain everything tomorrow."

He was wrong on one count at least.

The papers next day were packed with scareheads three inches high but
none of them explained anything. The radio commentators quoted every
authority they could reach, and astronomers were going crazy
everywhere. It just couldn't happen, they said.

Doc and I went over the news column by column that night and I learned
more about the stars than I'd learned in a lifetime. Doc, as I've said
before, is an educated man, and what he couldn't recall offhand about
astronomy the newspapers quoted by chapter and verse. They ran
interviews with astronomers at Harvard Observatory and Mount Wilson
and Lick and Flagstaff and God knows where else, but nobody could
explain why all of those stars would change position then stop.

It set me back on my heels to learn that Sirius was twice as big as
the Sun and more than twice as heavy, that it was three times as hot
and had a little dark companion that was more solid than lead but
didn't give off enough light to be seen with the naked eye. This
little companion--astronomers called it the "Pup" because Sirius was
the Dog Star--hadn't moved, which puzzled the astronomers no end. I
suggested to Doc, only half joking, that maybe the Pup had stayed put
because it wasn't bright enough to suit Joey's taste, but D