Seven

Detective Constable Derek Hawkins sits at a desk and watches the clock. No call has come from the hospital. He has already gone an hour over his shift. The day shift has come and gone. Time enough now for the rest of the population to have got out of their beds.
He reaches for the phone and dials the first London number.
"Mrs Bofill? Sorry to trouble you so early. Detective Constable Hawkins of the Northampton Constabulary here. You reported your husband missing?"
"Four years ago," the women flatly says. She has a discernible London accent.
"I have his description before me. It fits a man we have who says he’s lost his memory. It’s probably not your husband. Could you add anything to your earlier description of your husband?"
The woman, hesitantly, having to stretch her memory back over four years, repeats the description already on record.
"I was hoping for something not on his file. An unusual mole... a small scar maybe? Something that would help us to either definitely identify him as your husband; or that would enable us to eliminate your husband altogether from our enquiries."
"What's he done?"
"Nothing, so far as we are aware. Just lost his memory."
"He had freckles on his chest," the woman says, "Not on his face, just on his chest."
DC Hawkins writes.
"Anything else? Did he have an accent, speech impediment, wear glasses occasionally, false teeth?"
"He wore glasses for reading."
"Did he smoke?"
"Yes. Not much though."
"So he could have easily given up?"
"He used to."
"That’s it? Nothing else?"
"It is four years ago."
"I understand. Now I’m afraid I won't be able to let you know one way or another until late this evening. We have several more lines of enquiry to pursue. But, if by this evening we can’t decide who he is, would you be prepared to come to Northampton to identify him?"
The woman is silent. He can hear traffic passing beyond her windows. Four years is time enough to have built several more lives. What does she owe a man who walked out on her four years ago? Who she could legally have divorced after two years?
"Yes," she says.
"Thank you."
Replacing the phone he reaches for the next sheet of paper, dials.
"Mrs Bekel?" Mrs Bekel has an eight year old daughter. Three years of her growing up the absent father has missed. Yet still Mrs Bekel wants to find him. To ask why? If DC Hawkins was to walk out on his wife, would she be distraught? Would she continue to seek him year after year? Were he to die would she grieve? Yes, she would grieve. But only according to convention; and he wants something beyond convention. These deserted women are beyond convention.
Of the five others he calls the Bolton woman has moved, has left no forwarding address. Her missing husband is one whose blood-group is not included in the description. Two of the others, along with Mrs Bekel's, have verifiable scars; and the Welsh woman’s seven year missing man has a pronounced Welsh accent.

Voice Off. Non-thought in humans is caused by their innate idleness. Thought for some human beings must always precede action — to think of something is to imagine doing it — and action inspires change, and change will lead to the unknown. The known, for human beings, no matter how miserable their lives, is always preferable to the unknown.

At 04:46 the scope completes its traverse of the line. At 05:11 Barry runs off a copy of the night's observations. At 05:26 he makes his last entry in the log and leaves the brick tower, staggers under the stacks of printout across the institution lawns to his office. There he makes his first cup of coffee since 11:15 the previous evening and he begins to study the printout. By 07:30 he is once more full of doubts. (The new is disconcerting, especially in a science as ancient as astronomy.) He craves further confirmation. No point, though, in calling Las Palmas: be only technicians there working on the scope, and none of then will have been looking at the sky.
At 07:38 Berry phones Brian Waters at Palomar. Barry Tappell and Brian Waters were undergraduates together. Brian Waters was lured by vast amounts of dollars and warm winters to join a Californian space zoo. Though, not being of that high an intellectual calibre, Brian Waters was relegated to Palomar, which pleased the convalescent Barry when he heard. Palomar, however, still has facilities above and beyond Herstmonceux.
Whenever Barry pictures Brian Waters he sees a lumpy dullard. Even his phone manner is stolidly slow; and, when finally Barry does succeed in identifying himself, Brian Waters displays not even polite pleasure.
"Yes?" It is late evening at Palomar.
"'I'm at Herstmonceux, and we've got a slight problem. Are you going to be looking anywhere in the direction of Lyrae tonight?"
"Not so far as I’m aware. No... I think I can tell you..." He would be security-minded, Barry thinks. "Yes... We've been concentrating on Sagittarius lately." Centre of the galaxy: needles and haystacks.
"I see. Well... I’m seeking confirmation of what I believe to be a new phenomena. Could you have a look to the East tonight? Let me know what you find there?"
"I'm not sure..." Brian Waters begins his slow cogitations, "It would take a much higher priority to interrupt our present scheduling."
"Nothing so official. Just a personal observation. Binoculars'll do. If you wouldn't mind?"
"If you could tell us what we’re supposed to be looking for?"
"I’d rather not. Don't want to prejudice your observations. If you could just look to the East..."
Returning the phone to its nest of buttons he snarls at it; then he sits back and tells himself to think. Sitting forward he pulls out a desk drawer, finds a phone pad and dials an Australian number. After two attempts he gets through to New South Wales, asks for Steve Church. While waiting he decides that it is lucky the Herstmonceux switchboard hasn't come on to query all these international calls.
"Yea?" a distinctly irate voice snaps in his ear.
"I don't know if you remember me, Barry Tappell? We met at that seminar in Paris last year." And, a pair of angry kindred spirits, they got paralytic together.
"You in Australia?"
"No. England."
"What can I do for you?"
"I was wondering if you were looking anywhere in the region of Pegasus last night. It's now about six in the afternoon there? Isn't it?"
"The answer to both questions is yes. Why d’you ask?"
"Did you notice anything peculiar?"
"Peculiar's putting it mildly. I’ve been up all bloody day trying to sort it out."
"Was it," Barry takes a deep breath, "because of a North-South line?"
"Yea. About 2 hours before dawn. Right across Scheat. Which spelt differently about sums up my mood. Why did... You mean to say you had it there too?"
"Through Vega at first."
"Shit! First of all I thought it was optics. Been checking all our bloody mirrors. Though I didn’t see how it could be. I was just about to put it down to a freak heat distortion."
"I got it logged at 11:05 GMT."
"So I've got the Tappell bloody line to thank for today."
Barry grins,
"Looks like." The Tappell Line.
"Any idea what's causing it?" Steve Church asks.
"Tentatively," Barry smirks, "I'll let you know."
Sitting back, Barry drums his feet on the floor, gives a whoop of delight. The Tappell Line.

Voice Off. Despite the emphasis placed by various human societies upon individuality, humanity’s is a collective intelligence: a thing is perceived as real only if it is a shared perception.