Astronomy(65)

Immediately east of Sirius flowed the Milky Way. Just a few degrees south, and 2,300 light years distant, lay the star cluster that would someday be known as M-41.

Something out there was aware of her. She could feel it coming this way. Its hunger raged and roiled—but not for Susan. Just a whiff of Its appetite made its way across the universe to brush at her collar like a spring zephyr.

The water in the gutter slowed, became languid. A Gauloises wrapper drifted across, then a crudely printed Nazi propaganda leaflet. Beneath the garbage, the water was mirror-still.

Charley pointed from the sky behind them to the sky’s reflection at their feet. “What do you make of that?”

The sky behind them was full of white smoke. The fire crew was inside the smoldering ruin that had been the Four Winds Bar. Smoke and steam boiled up through the blackened beams, filling the evening air.

Susan turned back to the water running in the gutter. She stared down in amazement. “I don’t know,” she said.

The gutter at her feet reflected stars.

A sky full of stars.