Scientists have lives outside their daily struggles with statistics, hypotheses, and theories. They, like everyone else, find mundanity in their daily existence, slogging through long hours of hard labor, juggling family and work responsibilities in an attampt to keep themselves ordered and sane. But for one scientist, an amazing realization that could change the course of humanity, all centered around a few simple telescope pictures he nearly throws away, may affect the descendants of humanity in apocalyptic ways. But despite this, life continues as before...

Published in Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, July 6, 1981. Reprinted in:

• In Alien Flesh, Tor 1986
• The Norton Book of Science Fiction (1993)
• The Ascent of Wonder (1994)
• The Road to Science Fiction #4, ed. James Gunn, White Wolf 1997