A MATTER OF ECLIPSES
P. Schyler Miller

	"Well, sir," said Old Man Mulligan, emptying another tumbler of spodlak down his lead-lined gullet, "when you been around for thirty-forty thousand years, like I have, you see a lot of mighty peculiar things. Like this business of eclipses—

	"Take the time I was on Mars with Pershing—or was it MacArthur? Anyway, I was off somewhere in the drylands by myself with a whole tribe of those runty little natives whoop-in' an' hollerin' after me, an' intendin' to lift my scalp. We'd been shootin' back an' forth at each other for quite a while, an' my water was runnin' a mite low, when this eclipse come on. Now you know well's I do how fast Phobos, the inside moon, moves, an' how quick the temperature drops soon's it gets dark. Matter of fact, Phobos slides in front of the Sun so all-fired fast 'at the eclipse is practically instantaneous, an' the air cools an' condenses so suddenlike that it gives off a crack like a rifle shot. Them drylanders heard this eclipse comin' across the desert like the rattle of a machine gun an' lit out like the whole Patrol was after 'em. Saved my life, it did."

	Mulligan reached for a full bottle and filled his glass to the brim. He scratched the top of his naked, bun-shaped skull thoughtfully. " 'Tain't only Mars," he observed. "You get some of the damnedest eclipses on Jupiter an' Saturn, what with all them different moons.

	"I r'member one time I was hidin' out in a portable dome when Black Lem Gulliver an' a bunch of his cutthroats jumped me. We was havin it hot an' heavy, an' my ammunition was `beginnin' to run a little low. There wasn't a Patrol ship inside of a million miles, an' I wouldn't have wanted to see it any more'n Gulliver did. Anyway, the situation was beginnin' to look sort of serious, with them creepin' up on me behind shields, blastin' away with everythin' from dynamite to heat rays, when along come this eclipse. It's so damn cold on Jupiter that the air freezes in the shadow of the moons, so's you have a column of ice sweepin' across the face of the planet at about thirty thousand miles an hour. Well, sir, that frozen shadow smashed right through Gulliver's gang like a solid tornado an' flattened 'em out like strawberry jam. Only thing saved me from bein' mashed was that two of the moons happened to be in conjunction just then, an' the second shadow come along just in the nick of time, busted right into the first one, an' knocked it out of the way. Didn't miss me by more'n a couple of feet."

	He took a long swallow and peered suspiciously at his audience over the top of the glass. "There was another time I was saved by an eclipse," he admitted. "On the Moon it was—only I don't like to tell about it. Anybody that don't have scientific trainin' is apt to think it couldn't happen. But I reckon you men here 't the University Club ought to be broad-minded about things like that. Anyway, you know what diffraction is

	"I don't have to tell you how it is with shadows. Average man looks at a shadow an' he'll tell you it breaks off straight an' sharp, but it doesn't. There's bands of shadow outside the edge, bright an' dark, like stripes, on account of the diffraction monkeyin' up the light waves when they go past some-thin'. You take on the Moon, when the Earth gets in front of the Sun an' eclipses it, those stripes of light an' dark are miles wide, on account of the whole thing's on such a big scale.

	"Time I'm talking about I was out by myself, prospectin'. Mare Serenitatis or Tycho or some place—don't matter. Well, sir, I'm pokin' around under a ledge when I get a funny feelin' an' look up. There's a scolloper headin' for me. Now you know well's I do there's no use shoot-in' at them things—they've got hides like solid rock. All I could do was run, with the scolloper right after me. On the rocks I could get a little bit ahead, but in the dust it could make ten feet to my one. Looked bad for me—an' then I looked up an' saw the Earth beginnin' to creep across the Sun. First thing you know the first strip of shadow come sailin' along, an' right then I knew I had a chance.

	"Thing was 'at I could move in the dark, but the scolloper couldn't. Moon animals freeze up in the dark. I'd fumble my way along for a piece, an' then along would come a bright band an' the critter would thaw out an' take after me again. Gain on it in the dark an' lose ground in the light—that's how it was. I figgered if I could keep ahead of it until the main shadow come along, I'd get clean away, but it was too far off an' the bright spaces was too wide. So I picked me a big rock, got my back up against it, an' got ready to fight.

	"Well, sir—you know what happened ? Like any of us, the Moon animals tell time by the passin' of light an' dark. It's born in 'em. An' with light an' dark stripes passin' over him one right after another like that, damned if that scolloper didn't shrivel up an' drop dead of old age, right there in front of me! Damnedest thing you ever saw! Diffraction was what did it."

	He set the empty bottle down reluctantly and picked up his massive oaken staff. "Gotta be goin'," he said. "Next time I'm up this way remind me to tell you about the time I was fightin' for General Joshua, down Jericho way. The time we made the Sun stand still. It ain't exactly an eclipse, but I figger it was a lot like one." 

The End