Year Of The Jackpot

triggered until the expanding wave front engulfed earth?
The mechanics couldn't be solved without a calculator even
though they were implicit in the equations in front of him.
Half an hour, for a horseback guess, from incitement until
the earth went phutti
It hit him with gentle melancholy. No more? Never
again? Colorado on a cool morning . . . the Boston Post
road with autumn wood smoke tanging the air . . . Bucks
county bursting in the spring. The wet smells of the Fulton
Fish Marketno, that was gone already. Coffee at the
Morning Call. No more wild strawberries on a hillside in
Jersey, hot and sweet as lips. Dawn in the South Pacific
with the light airs cool velvet under your shirt and never a
sound but the chuckling of the water against the sides of
the old rust bucketwhat was her name? That was a long
time agothe S. S. Mary Brewster.
No more moon if the earth was gone. Starsbut no one
to look at them.
He looked back at the dates bracketing Dynkowski's
probability yoke. "Thine Alabaster Cities gleam, undimmed
by-
He suddenly felt the need for Meade and stood up.
She was coming out to meet him. "Hello, Pottyl Safe to
come in nowI've finished the dishes."
"I should help."
"You do the man's work; I'll do the woman's work. That's
fair." She shaded her eyes. "What a sunsetl We ought to
have volcanoes blowing their tops every year."
"Sit down and we'll watch it."
She sat beside him and he took her hand. "Notice the
sun spot? You can see it with your naked eye."
She stared. "Is that a sun spot? It looks as if somebody
had taken a bite out of it."
He squinted his eyes at it again. Damned if it didn't look
bigger!
Meade shivered. "I'm chilly. Put your arm around me."
He did so with his free arm, continuing to hold hands with
the other. It was biggerthe thing was growing.
What good is the race of man? Monkeys, he thought,
monkeys with a spot of poetry in them, cluttering and wast-
ing a second-string planet near a third-string star. But some-
times they finish in style.
She snuggled to him. "Keep me warm."
"It will be warmer soon. I mean I'll keep you warm."
"Dear Potty."
She looked up. "Pottysomething funny is happening to
the sunset."
"No darlingto the sun."
"1m frightened."
"I'm here, dear."
He glanced down at the journal, still open beside him. He
did not need to add up the two figures and divide by two
to reach the answer. Instead he clutched fiercely at her
hand, knowing with an unexpected and overpowering burst
of sorrow that