Philip Latham

Philip Latham is the pseudonym of Robert S. Richardson (1902-81), a distinguished astronomer who occasionally wrote articles under his own name, but published fiction between the 1940s and 1960s only under the Latham name. His stories characteristically feature astronomers, and until his later years always focused on science, especially theoretical physics embodied as fact.

From the flamboyant, apocalyptic astronomical fiction of Camille Flammarion in the late 19th century to the works of Fred Hoyle and Gregory Benford, working astronomers and astrophysicists have contributed stories of broad scope and cosmic speculation to the development of science fiction. The word “astronomical” is, after all, a synonym for very large in number or scale. Cosmology and astronomy are primary repositories of images for the SF genre, as was nature for the Romantic poets. And, of course, it is the astronomers who investigate the environments that are the literal settings of much science fiction. But it is also the teasing, ambiguous border between the physical and the metaphysical that astronomical science fiction often confronts, and that gives depth and emotional force to the cold and the distant. As in this story.

* * * *

THE DIMPLE IN DRACO

T

here was never any doubt when quitting time came to the Institute for Cosmological Physics, Bill Backus reflected. Promptly at 4:53 P.M. the women all started heading for the powder room, whence shortly thereafter came the sound of water in turbulence. It was one of the zero points in this uneasy world.

For the third time he reached for the telephone and for the third time hesitated. It was 4:57 now. The girl at the switchboard always got sore if you kept her after five o’clock. Oh, well, the hell with her. He needed help. He seized the phone.

“Two-seven, please.”

No answer… no answer… no…

“MacCready,” came a noncommittal voice.

“Mac, this is Bill.”

“Bill! It’s so good to hear your voice!”

“Listen, Mac, I’ve got something down here in the measuring room I think will interest you.”

“So’s my wife. She’s probably mixing it now.”

“I’d like your opinion very much. Shouldn’t take ten minutes.”

One… two… three…

“All right. See you.”

A few minutes later MacCready sauntered into the measuring room, hoisted one leg over a corner of the bench that ran along the wall, and applied a match to his pipe. When the tobacco was going to his satisfaction, he folded his arms and gazed expectantly at Bill.

“Here I am. Interest me.”

Bill indicated the Toepfer measuring engine beside him.

“Plate’s on there. Got it last week with the prime focus spectrograph. Six-hour exposure in the second order blue. I nearly froze. Coldest night in the memory of man-”

“You don’t look so good,” MacCready remarked.

“Maybe that’s because I don’t feel so good,” Bill said. He rose and began pacing the floor. “Take a look at the plate, will you, and tell me what you think.”

“But your feet seem better,” MacCready added encouragingly.

“Yeah, they are better. Now will you look at the plate?”

MacCready laid aside his pipe and peered into the eyepiece.

“Nice spectrum,” he said. “Real sharp lines.”

“But what lines?” Bill cried. “I’ve been working on those lines for three days. Can’t identify a single one.” He ran his fingers through his black hair. “It’s driving me crazy.”

“Well, d’you have to get so dramatic about it?” MacCready asked. He gave the focusing screw a touch. “What is this famous object, anyhow?”

“Well, you see, that’s what I don’t know.”

“You don’t know!” MacCready stared at him. “Do you realize how much it cost the Institute to get this plate? Do you know that we have seventeen applications on file for time at this instrument? Applications from highly qualified individuals with no suspicion of insanity in their background. And then you take our giant eye, as the newspapers are pleased to call it, and bang away at any old-”

“Mac, shut up.” Bill lit a cigarette. “I was after NGC 2146, that way-north nebula in Cepheus, I guess it is. This new night assistant was on that evening. Poor guy got all balled up. My fault as much as his. You wouldn’t believe it possible, but he got set on the wrong side of the pole. Landed me over in Draco somewhere. I thought the setting looked kind of funny-”

“Couldn’t you tell from your star field?”

“Well, I should, but the fields weren’t so different. Anyhow-”

“-anyhow you goofed but you got something,” MacCready finished for him. “By any chance would you have the vaguest notion what it is? Radio source? Interloper? QSG? Haro-Luyten object? Humason-Zwicky star? Have I left out anything?”

“All I know, it’s got a spectrum nobody ever saw before.”

“Then what are you griping about?” MacCready demanded. “That’s good. Maybe this object’s got the world’s biggest red shift. You’ve probably dredged up some lines buried thousands of angstroms deep in the ultraviolet.”

“Nope, won’t suit, Mac. Remember the Houston meeting? It was agreed we’re living in an exploding universe with a q-zero of 2.5. This thing’s way off the beam - much too bright.”

“You know what your problem is, Bill?” MacCready was suddenly serious. “You’ve always got to relate to somebody else. You’re afraid to take your results just as they stand.”

“But there must be an answer,” Bill protested. “What else can it be?”

MacCready shrugged and fell to scrutinizing the plate again.

“Wouldn’t surprise me if the answer’s staring us right in the face,” he said. “Only it’s so simple we can’t see it.”

He moved the plate carriage a bit.

“Now you take these three big lines I see here… Why couldn’t the one on my left be that Hell line at - what is it? - 1640? And the one in the middle-”

“Oh, my gawd, don’t you think I’ve been all through that search list?” Bill said wearily. “None of ‘em’s any good. I’ve tried a bunch of hundred-to-one shots. They’re no good either. Nothing fits.”

“Too bad.” MacCready frowned slightly. “Strange… these lines are all in absorption, aren’t they?”

“Here’s my list of wavelengths,” Bill said, handing him a sheet of paper. “They’re the means of my measures on the machine and some runs with the electronic line-profile comparator. They ought to be pretty good.”

“I’m sure they are,” MacCready murmured. He shot a sudden glance at Bill. “You sure you set the grating in the right order spectrum?”

“Mac, I couldn’t make a mistake like that.”

“Congratulations.”

There was a long silence broken only by an occasional motor starting up in the parking lot, and the steady rumble of traffic from the boulevard nearby. MacCready was the first to speak.

“After you got this plate, did you take another exposure on a familiar object, same spectrograph - same emulsion - same everything?”

“Yes.”

“All right?”

“Yes.”

“It was?”

“Yes!” Bill shouted. “In France it’s oui. In Spanish it’s si. In Russian it’s da.”

MacCready transferred his attention from the plate to Bill’s list of wavelengths.

“You know, these three big lines remind me of something,” he muttered. “But I’ll confess I haven’t the faintest notion what it is.”

Bill looked completely deflated. He began pacing the room again, clasping and unclasping his hands behind him. MacCready seemed to have forgotten his existence.

Bill tossed away his cigarette.

“Well, thanks for coming down, Mac. I’d gotten to the end of my rope. Thought perhaps you could suggest something.”

There was no response. Bill paced the floor for another five minutes.

“Well, I’ve got to go. We’re having company tonight.”

“Yeah, you run along,” MacCready told him. “Leaving myself in a minute… just want to check one thing.”

Bill was nearly out the door when MacCready called suddenly, “Bill.”

“Yeah?”

“Call my wife, will you? Tell her I’ll be a little late.”

* * * *

Bill had to wait forever before he got a break in the traffic at Los Robles. Why did he keep coming this way? he asked himself. There was no answer. You saw an opening - you took a deep breath - uttered a prayer - and if you were lucky you made it.

Turning north toward Hillhurst he saw that the signal at Cordova was going to be red, as usual. The signal was always red at Cordova. In the past five years he must have crossed Cordova going north at least two thousand times. There had been just three times by actual count when he had hit the green light. His confidence in the theory of probability had been badly shaken.

Through the tangle of varicolored lights, leering Santa Clauses, liquor advertisements, and five-pointed stars [Stars do not have points sticking out of them. Stars are spherical.] of Bethlehem, Bill perceived a huge sign looming ahead, village market. Click! What was he supposed to do? What was he supposed to - Helen’s grocery list, of course. Good old autohypnosis.

Within the Village Market the aisles were abustle with hausfrauen pushing metal carts, their vacant gaze reflecting the trancelike state induced by the sight of merchandise in profusion. Bill took a cart himself and went to work on Helen’s grocery list, tracking down the various items by the awkward process of taking them in the order written. Occasionally when it seemed like a good idea he tossed in an extra item or two. How often he had come in for a fifty-nine-cent piece of cheese and departed laden down with a lot of junk he never originally had the slightest intention of buying. But who were we? Mere puppets moving at the bidding of the vast formless things that operate these huge pleasure domes of produce.

Helen wrote her shopping items in a code that might have baffled the best brains in Interpol. This time, however, it had been pretty clear sailing. He now had in the cart the “6 nee rd rpe toms” and the “2 pkes lmn jlo,” and finally had reached the last item, “2 dz Ye Olde Eng Muffs.” This sounded almost too easy. On any rational distribution system Olde English Muffins could hardly be anywhere else but in the bread section. He glanced at the Store Guide. Bread?… Bread?… Section 5. Where was he? Way over in 21 among Frozen Desserts and mouthwash. He deftly changed course and started bearing toward smaller numbers. 2… 3… 4… 6… 7. No 5! Must have missed it. Scan more carefully now…2…3…4…6…7. Number 5 was absolutely and positively missing.

He looked around for a clerk, but there was none in sight. Neither was there any bread. He explored one aisle after another as fast as traffic permitted. There were shelves and bins loaded with pickles and olives, wieners and knockwurst, yoghurt and horseradish. But no Olde English Muffins. Well, he couldn’t spend the evening pushing a metal cart around the Village Market. He picked up a box of Bixmix and headed for Checkers’ Row.

The porch lights were already burning when he turned into the driveway. That was bad. It meant that even now company was ominously near. Closing the garage door, he noticed the stars of Auriga rising over the mountains to the north. How odd Capella looked, reddened almost to the color of Mars by the smoke and haze. Auriga had always been his favorite constellation. All the constellations had a background rich in mythological lore-except Auriga. Auriga was known as “the Charioteer.” But where were his chariot and horse? Nobody knew. The stars of Auriga were meaningless.

“Well, where have you been?” Helen demanded, as he staggered into the kitchen with his load of groceries. She was a small woman whose early blond prettiness was beginning to show signs of wear under the ceaseless bartering of suburbia: the Garden Club, the Art League, WAGS, [Women Against Smog.] etc.. etc.

“Where do you think?” Bill growled. “Picking up the stuff you forgot.”

She started sorting over the groceries. “It shouldn’t have taken - where’s the muffins?”

“Couldn’t find ‘em. Got Bixmix instead.”

“Why couldn’t you find them?”

“Hidden too well, I guess.”

“Why, they’re right by the bread.”

“Couldn’t find the bread either.”

“Did you ask a clerk?”

“Didn’t see any to ask.”

“But there’s always-”

“It’s the truth!” he cried. “What do you want me to do? Lie to you?”

“Oh, do as you like. I don’t care.” With a resigned air she began putting away the various items. “Now hurry and change your clothes. They’ll be here any minute.”

He was scarcely halfway up the stairs when she came dashing after him. “Your feet! What’s happened to your feet?”

“Don’t know.” He shrugged. “They just didn’t hurt when I got up this morning-”

“What did I tell you,” Helen told him triumphantly. “You wouldn’t go to see Dr. Levine. He’s only the best orthopedic specialist in town but of course you know more than he does. If I hadn’t made an appointment for you, you’d never have gone. Now admit it. Those arch supporters did help, didn’t they?”

“If I’d worn those arch supporters one more day I wouldn’t be ambulant now.”

“But they must have done you some good.” She regarded him with despair. “If it wasn’t the arch supporters, what was it?”

Bill did not answer immediately. He leaned against the railing, gazing thoughtfully at some of Helen’s abstract artwork on the opposite wall.

“Last night.’’ he declared solemnly, “my feet were healed.”

“Healed?”

He nodded. “What they called a miracle in the old days.”

“So it was a miracle and not the arch supporters?”

“Why couldn’t I be cured by a miracle?” he demanded angrily. “Other people are. People with their stomach and lungs eaten up by cancer. Suddenly they’re all right. They rise from their bed and walk. They’ve got sworn medical testimony to prove it.”

Helen hesitated uncertainly. “But you’re not the miracle type.”

“What’s the matter with me?”

“I always supposed you had to be kind of on the saintly side.”

He dismissed her objection with a wave of his hand.

“Merely a technicality.” He closed his eyes for a few moments as if in meditation. “I hadn’t intended to say anything about it, but for your information, I was healed by an angel who appeared in my room last night.”

“So that was what I heard going on in there.”

“She appeared over by the filing cabinet,” Bill continued. “She was surrounded by a golden halo that illuminated the whole room. I thought I’d forgotten to turn the lights out at first.” His voice dropped almost to a whisper. “She was no ordinary angel, either.”

“It’s so nice you got special attention.”

“She had the most beautiful golden red hair.” There was a faraway look in his eyes. “Her name was Edna.”

“No last name?”

“Naturally I was somewhat startled at the sudden appearance of this apparition. ‘What do you want?’ I asked, in a voice that trembled.

“ ‘Have no fear, William,’ she replied, approaching the bed. ‘I have come to heal you. Not to harm you.’

“ ‘To heal me?’ I whispered.

“ ‘Move over, William,’ she said, ‘so that I may touch you.’

“So I shoved over in the bed a little-”

His narrative was interrupted by the flash of headlights and the sound of a car pulling up in the driveway.

“There they are now!” Helen exclaimed. “And here I’ve been wasting my time talking to you about your feet and this redheaded angel.”

Bill slowly mounted the stairs, his lips continuing to move inaudibly. In his room he stood for a while inspecting the place where he had recounted Edna’s appearance. From the lower depths came the shriek of feminine voices raised in greeting interspersed with occasional masculine rumbles. Evidently the Nortons had picked up Bernice and Clem on the way over. Clem Tuttle was in advertising and Jim Norton was an agent for Inertia Acres, a real-estate project for the retired. Bernice Tuttle and Dottie Norton were among his favorite wives, but he found it hard to work up much enthusiasm for their husbands. It was while struggling into his shirt that it occurred to him that all the people they saw were friends of Helen’s. Outside the office he had no friends.

Bill came downstairs, said hello all around, and made a quick exit to the kitchen to mix the cocktails. He put too much vodka into the martinis and had to drink a couple of glasses to provide more room for the vermouth. Back in the living room he had hoped to strike up a conversation with Bernice or Dottie, but the situation was hopeless. The girls were in ecstasy over Helen’s Christmas tree, which was not a Christmas tree at all but a dead limb salvaged from the oak in the back yard. She had adorned its gnarled branches with blue and silver balls, with here and there an aerodynamically inadequate angel in flight. Since the girls were engaged, he was thrown upon the company of Jim and Clem, who were discussing the situation that had developed at Anoakia U., their old alma mater. It appeared that the quality of the faculty and student body had been steadily deteriorating since their departure in ‘41. Since Bill had never attended Anoakia U., and never had had much use for the place anyhow, he found the conversation less than fascinating. He sipped his cocktail, and moodily contemplated Bernice Tuttle’s knees.

As if from a great distance he heard Helen calling him.

“Bill, telephone.” He went into the hall, taking his glass with him. As he expected, it was Mac.

“Bill, what’s your dispersion on that plate?”

“Hundred and ninety angstroms per millimeter.”

“What kind of plate was it?”

“Ila-O, baked. Why?”

“Just checking, was all.”

“Say, Mac, I explained to your wife it was my fault about getting home late.”

“Well, as a matter of fact, I’m still at the office.”

“Still at the office!” Bill went cold sober in an instant. “Mac, what do you know?”

“Nothing I want to talk about yet. But I think I’m gaining on it.”

“Give me a ring-” But he had hung up.

Bill’s mind was racing. Mac would never have called unless he was on to something big. A “critical” object that might settle the cosmological controversy once and for all. He gulped down the rest of his drink and casually strolled back to the living room. How petty they all were. Jim and Clem were thoroughly in agreement that autonomy was not for Anoakia U. The girls were deploring the Santa Claus situation that had developed at the various department stores around town. That Santa Claus at the Bon Marche, they must have got him from central casting! Did you get a whiff of his breath? And the way he talked to the children! Honestly, you’d have thought he was playing King Lear!

The soggy part of a Hillhurst evening came after dinner, when the guests were swollen with food, and the cocktails only a dull memory. There were two ways to endure the time till departure: (1) the men gathered at one end of the room and talked about their automobiles and their children, while the women went into a huddle at the other end and talked about their clothes and their children; or (2) somebody showed color slides of their trip to Hawaii last summer. One hostess had made a valiant attempt to break the pattern by handing out selected passages from Ovid and Chaucer to be read aloud, but some of the men had balked. But a few bold spirits still fought on. When her guests were comfortably relaxed over their coffee and liqueurs, Helen stepped to the center of the room and clapped her hands.

“Now I’m not going to let you sit around all evening,” she informed them. “We’re going to play a game called Three Answers. One person, called the Grand Inquisitor, asks the questions. The rest of us give the answers. We make up some sort of story and the Grand Inquisitor, by questioning us, tries to find the key to it.”

This announcement was followed by a brief silence.

“Sounds like one of these fun things,” Clem grunted, knocking the ashes from his cigar.

Jim raised his hand. “Mrs. Chairman, I would like to nominate my wife for Grand Inquisitor. She can beat any lie detector that was ever invented.”

Dottie had a question. “How do we know what answers to give?”

“We answer as a group,” Helen said. “The Grand Inquisitor can ask all the questions he likes. But we can only answer in three ways: yes, no, or maybe. I’ll explain the details later. Now who’ll be Grand Inquisitor?”

“I hereby nominate Bill Backus for G.I.,” Clem said.

“Second the motion,” Jim said promptly.

“Bill analyzes this deep space stuff all day,” Clem said. “Ought to be easy for him.

“I’d love to be analyzed by Bill,” Dottie cried.

“Well, darling, I guess you’re Grand Inquisitor,” Helen said. “Now go out in the kitchen and wait there till I call you.”

Bill shuffled out to the kitchen, where he began picking at the remains of the turkey. From the front room came snatches of conversation and bursts of stifled laughter, but he was unable to distinguish any words. His mind kept going back to Mac at the office. It was nearly eleven. He had hoped to hear from him by this time if he knew anything exciting. Probably the whole thing had collapsed and Mac was home in bed. He had half a notion to give him a ring when he heard Helen calling him, “All right, you can come now.”

Bill strode into the living room trying to assume the grim expression appropriate to a Grand Inquisitor. How to begin this crazy game? Try some questions of a general nature until he got a lead.

“Has Clem landed that brassiere account yet?”

“No,” they responded in unison.

“Have Jim and Bernice run off together?”

“No.”

“Was it some sort of crime?”

“Yes.”

“Was the crime committed in this city?”

“Maybe.”

“In this immediate area?”

“Yes.”

“Was it a murder?”

“No.”

“Something more ghastly?”

“Maybe.”

This was tougher than he had anticipated. Why had Helen ever gotten him into this thing? How to proceed? they were gazing at him expectantly… gleefully…

“Was the person involved a man?”

“No.”

“A woman?”

“No.”

“An animal, then?”

“No.”

No? What on earth… ? A suspicion began to dawn. Was it something on Earth?

“Was the victim a creature from outer space?”

“Yes!”

On the trail at last!

“Was it a creature from Mars?”

“No.”

“Was it from Venus?”

“No.”

“Mercury?”

“Maybe.”

Not what he had expected, but keep on.

“Was it from Jupiter? Saturn? Uranus?”

“No! No! No!”

Well… there weren’t many planets left. With elaborate casualness he inquired, “Did this creature, by any chance, come from Pluto?”

“Yes!” they shrieked.

At last!

“Is this Plutonian creature at present somewhere within the environs of this city?”

“Maybe.”

“So you don’t know?”

“Maybe.”

Perhaps it would help if he knew more about the creature itself.

“Have you seen this creature?”

“Yes.”

“Is it larger than man-size?”

“Yes.”

“Is this creature affected adversely by the heat?”

“No.”

A flash of inspiration.

“Is it in this house right now?”

“Maybe.”

They were hedging now.

“Is it in the basement?”

“No.”

“The attic?”

“No.”

“The refrigerator?”

“No.”

“Under the stairway?”

“Maybe.”

Relentlessly he pursued the phantom creature over the house. But despite his best efforts it eluded him. He fancied he detected a hint of scorn… even contempt… in their eyes. Suddenly he recalled Mac’s remark: The answer may be staring us right in the face. Only it’s so simple we can’t see it.

Go back… see if he had overlooked anything.

“You said this creature is also an inhabitant of Mercury?”

“Maybe.”

“Then it is capable of withstanding a high temperature?”

“Yes.”

He was groping for the next question when the telephone rang. Mac!

“Don’t go. Be back in a minute.”

It was Mac, all right.

“Well, Bill, I think I’ve got the answer.” He sounded more relaxed. “But I’ll be darned if I know what it means.”

“Let me have it anyhow.”

“Remember those three big lines I said reminded me of something? You naturally assumed they were ultraviolet lines Doppler-shifted into the visible. Only you couldn’t identify ‘em with anything in the UV. Neither could I. Wasted about two hours convincing myself of the fact.”

He took about a three count.

“So, since I was all alone, I decided to play a crazy hunch. Bill, do you know what those lines are?”

“How the hell-”

“They’re those three big ionized calcium lines in the infrared.”

“Infrared!”

“This thing’s got a velocity of about 0.6c.”

“That wouldn’t give so much of a redshift.”

“Who said anything about a redshift? This is a violetshift. Bill, this thing is coming our way.”

“Get out!”

“Fact!”

“Mac, you can’t screw up the whole universe that easy. Why, it contradicts everything we know. Besides, three lines aren’t enough. You could force an agreement… a pretty good agreement.”

“I’m sorry, Bill, but everything else fits, too. Your line at 3929 is 7699 of potassium… 4494 is 8806 of magnesium…”

“Mac, what does it mean?”

“From the geometry of the situation I would say it means there’s a dimple in the expanding universe in the direction of Draco.”

It was so long before he spoke again that Bill began to wonder if he’d hung up.

“I’m only giving you an answer, Bill. What it means is your problem.”

* * * *

Bill found his guests in various stages of relaxation when he returned to the living room. It was hard to get his mind on Hillhurst again.

“I’m afraid it’s getting late,” Bernice said. “Clem and I have to be up early tomorrow. We’re driving to Carmel, you know.”

“Oh, don’t go,” Helen protested.

“It’s been such a lovely evening,” Dottie told her. “But really-”

“Now wait a minute,” Jim boomed, coming from the bathroom. “We’ve got to put the Grand Inquisitor straight first.”

“Sure do,” Clem chuckled. “Bill would toss all night.”

Jim shook his head regretfully. “Bill, old boy, I’m afraid the game was rigged.”

“Rigged?” He had only been half listening.

“You see,” Jim went on, “if the last letter in the last word of a question was a vowel we all answered yes. If it was a consonant we answered no. And if it was a W or Y we answered maybe.” He grinned. “Get it?”

It took a while.

“So I could have gone on asking questions forever,” Bill said slowly. “And you could have gone on giving me answers forever. And I’d never have known any more than in the beginning.”

“Afraid that’s about the size of it,” Jim said. He crunched out his cigar. “Well, Dottie, go get your costly mink…”

Bill accompanied his guests to the door, dutifully went through the ritual of parting, and waved as they went down the driveway.

Back in the living room Helen gazed listlessly at the remains of the hors d’oeuvres and the cigarette trays. “No use cleaning up tonight, I guess.” She glanced at Bill standing by the north window. “What’s the matter? Aren’t you coming to bed?”

“I believe I’ll stay down here for a while,” he told her.

“I should think you’d be anxious to see your redheaded friend.”

“Perhaps I am.”

Helen paused at the stairs. “You didn’t exactly sparkle tonight, did you?” she remarked. “What was the matter?”

“Tired, I guess.”

“Who was it called?”

“MacCready.”

“What did he want?”

“Oh… nothing.”

“Nothing! When he calls after midnight!”

“It was about a dimple in Draco.”

“A dimple-”

“Object’s headed toward the Earth. Everything else is rushing away. Puts a dimple in the universe out in Draco.”

“Headed toward the Earth! Very fast?”

Bill shrugged. “About six-tenths c-hundred thousand miles a second.”

“You mean it’s going to hit us?”

“Afraid not. You see, it’s quite a ways off.”

“How far?”

“Oh, hell, I don’t know,” he said impatiently. “A billion light-years maybe.”

“Well, you don’t need to be so disagreeable about it. I can ask, can’t I?”

“It’s like Job asking the Voice out of the Whirlwind how much torque He’s got.”

Helen stood without speaking for several moments, then turned and went slowly up the stairs. Bill waited until he heard her door close. Then he switched out the lights and drew the curtains away from the window.

Capella was far above the haze now, shining in the stars of Auriga with a golden reddish glow, as bright as the glow of Edna’s hair. Suddenly Bill had the most intense sense of identity with Auriga. How lonely he must be up there among all those gods and monsters, the only one without a story. Did the old Charioteer ever ponder the meaning of his stars? If so, what were his answers? Or did he bother to ask questions anymore - when the answers had no meaning?