Professor Philo Holtzmann poured a double scotch and re-examined the data.

His fingers ran the numbers through the slide rule. No change. It was certain. The stars were not where they were supposed to be.

They had been in their ordered places during last night’s data run. But they were not tonight. Polaris was off by 4 arc-seconds, Arcturus by a full arc-minute, and Spica was off by nearly half a degree.

His grad students had double and triple checked the telescope alignment and instrumentation. They, at least, were spot-on.

The stars themselves seemed to be out of calibration.

Professor Philo Holtzmann poured a double scotch and re-examined the data.