Syzygy

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Because Jupiter is the greatest of the planets, it is named after the greatest of the Roman gods. As a god, Jupiter is known as Fulgurator, the thrower of lightning; Imperator, the ruler; Optimus Maximus, the best and most high. As a planet, Jupiter is all of those things. Its swirling atmo­sphere is lanced with lightnings. Its huge mass, outweigh­ing all the other planets combined, rules the orbits of a thousand lesser worlds. And it is indeed Maximus. If it were any larger, it probably would not be a planet at all. It would be a star.

Wednesday, December 2d. 9:45 PM.

The party was beginning to slow down, but then it had never been a high-speed party. It was not meant to be. It was meant to mix the people who wanted money with the people who could give it to them, and the predominant mood was Cover Your Butt. The scientists had to be careful of the senators. The politicians had to be careful of the people from the news media. The news media people had no one to worry about, except perhaps each other. But they all had deadlines to make, because of the differ­ences in time between Puerto Rico and wherever their home bases were, and early sessions in the morning to wake up for. Ancient old Senator Bielowitz was the first to go, before ten, and some of the newspersons hitched a ride with him to the motel at the bottom of the hill. It was a terrible waste of a good party, Tib thought, considering that it was out of doors in the warm Caribbean night and the sky was a glory, but then he wasn't here to have fun. One more drink, he told himself, and then I too will walk over to the Visiting Scientists Quarters and read myself to sleep with the reports on the tilt rate of the Salton Sea.

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