“We’re quite new,” Daystar said.  “We’re a uniformed civilian service, like the old Surgeon General’s Corps. I’m here also to aid our Embassy in putting its archives, which extend over several centuries, into order; they’re currently unsorted.”

”So why do you want access to old First Empire star maps?” Rosenstein asked.  “Why not just use the Encyclopedia Astrographica?”

“The most famous literary quarrels,” Daystar answered, “mostly associated with the quantum retrodictive doctrine of the House of Pwill, are cases in which a warp link is to be inferred from literary allusions, and there is a dispute as to whether or not a particular link existed on the most likely dates of writing. My objective is to take the list of stars, show which stars had hyperlinks, and when the links came into being or disappeared.  So I am constructing a star map, but not the fixed map of the Encyclopedia. Instead I am constructing  a dynamic map that shows warp links, including links that came or went.  Once that map is complete, scholars interested in the history of literary-critical disputes will be able to determine which interpretations of allusions are plausible, thereby settling some disputes, and doubtless creating many new ones.”

“This literary criticism?  It’s from the Second Empire?” Rosenstein asked. 

“Early Second Empire,” Daystar answered.  “More often First Empire.  When the Imperial Senate met in the Hall of Ghosts, praise be its name, the Senate occasionally sat as judges in a literary-critical verbal disputations.”

Rosenstein shook his head.  “And what is your interest in more practical topics?” he asked.  “Starship design.  Construction of warp nodes.  Fusactor operation.”

“None,” Daystar answered.  “Adequate information on First-Empire starships is in ‘All the Galaxy’s Warships” and the matching merchant volumes.  I’m just looking for information on warp links as they come and go.”

“Honorable Commander Rosenstein,” Senior Librarian Luthcur said, “We can readily put filters on the files your fellow human is seeking to copy.  The process is very nearly foolproof, not to mention that First Empire starships were also quite primitive by  modern standards.  Their major trade routes were filled with starships having only beta drives.”

“Your project sounds remarkably worthless,” Rosenstein said.  “It is amazing that anyone would fund it.  Have you ever met Chelan?”

“Victor Chelan?” Daystar asked, rearranging her thoughts.  “I’m in the Seldon Legion. Someplace along the way we must have met, but that must have been quite some time ago.  My memory says he is not very much like the usual biographic sketches.  He may take command of a room, but he is not tall or large or loud.  He just has presence.”

“So what does he think of this project?” Rosenstein asked.

“If he has any interest in historical studies of literary criticism, I haven’t been told about it,” Daystar answered. That was technically true, she thought.

&&&&&

The sky was a bright blue over the University of California, Berkeley, Chemistry Building.  A fresh breeze blew through the Golden Gate and over the campus.  An unusual summer shower had freshened the lawns and put down the dust.  Within the building, Professor Watership conferred with his rara avis, a graduate assistant.

“Ah, Mister Chalmers,”  Professor Watership smiled.  “As always, your reports are excellent.  Berkeley Chemistry and Mineralogy is indeed fortunate to have you as my technician.  Our Department Head tells me that your grades are also first-rate.  Professor Hildebrand spoke up for your work doing library reading and research.  As a graduate student, you are approaching the point where you should write a Master’s Thesis and then begin work on a doctoral project. To some extent, you are expected to come up with your own doctoral research topic, but first I have something that will be entirely adequate if done quickly for a Master’s Thesis.”

“And that would be, Sir?” James Chalmers asked.  “This would be in addition to my paid work and courses?”

“It would be the equivalent of a course for a term or two. Hopefully a term or less, since I suspect there will be competition. You perhaps heard about the blasted heath in Arizona?”

“Yes, sir. It was terrible, what happened all those people. And no explanation as to how or why.” Chalmers frowned and shook his head.

“I have a contact in Prescott,” Watership explained.  “Karl Eisenhower says he is just an amateur gem dealer, but he has identified and sent off to here for analysis more new minerals than anyone else I would care to name.  In any event, the Associate Sheriff of the town, who as strange as it sounds has a doctorate in physics from Harvard, recognized two new minerals that are clearly associated with the Heath and that Karl has never seen before. He sent us samples of both of them and asks for analysis, so that they can be named.  He also sent us what is allegedly a piece of steel, if you ignore that it shatters like glass, which I took over to metallurgy.”

“That sounds truly interesting,” Chalmers responded.  “We have them already?”

“Some thoughtful clerk in the Prescott Post Office marked the box ‘Forensic Samples, Blasted Heath, Urgent” and they reached us in only two days.  The box then languished in the mail room over the weekend.”

“Remarkable! I look forward to starting,” Chalmers said enthusiastically.

“Some caution is needed,” Watership explained. “Arizona sent a troop of cavalry through the blasted heath, and most of the horses and men are now either sick or dead. I infer that something in one of the minerals or the area has become poisonous. I took the precaution of testing, the Roentgen test, key on photographic plate, to see if either sample is radio-active, but the answer seems to be in the negative. In any event, start with the orange sand. We have a lot of it. The violet transparent stones are very pretty, but there are not many of them and it is not clear that we can get more. Oh, there’s a cover letter from the physicist, describing exactly where the stones were found, and reporting the tests done by Mr. Eisenhower. As modern science, they leave a tad bit to be desired, but the tests were undoubtedly done carefully.”

“I can start on it now,” Chalmers said.

“Notwithstanding haste, go to lunch first.  A hungry hand is a careless hand.”

“I am indeed, Professor Daystar,” Trewlin answered. “I am here to review your request  for copies of certain obscure library files. Our guests are here, as per library rules, because they have additional, related questions.”

“I see,” she said as she took her chair, without asking their permission to sit, and leaned back.  “The requests, which refer to the First Empire, appeared to me to be quite innocuous: Lists of star positions.  However, sometimes others see in a request issues that you did not.”

“Indeed,” Trewlin  said. “That is the issue here, which is why our honored guests are Terran Navy Commander Isaac Rosenstein and Senior Librarian Jurseth Luthchur.”

“Senior Librarian,” Daystar said, nodding in respect. “Commander.”

“You saluted the Corporal outside,” Rosenstein snapped, “and not me?”

“I,” Daystar answered, “saluted the Star of Jinjur, the medal he wore, the highest Second Empire decoration.  After all, the Anglic Union maintained until the end pacific diplomatic relations with the Empire.”

“Yes, he did have some award or another.  Let’s get on with it.” Rosenstein announced.  “I’m here because we have certain questions for you, questions you will answer truthfully if you want library access.”

Daystar could read the looks on the faces of the two Jinjurians.  The research librarian was showing shocked astonishment.   Senior Librarian Luthchur showed the deep sadness of one who knows that there is a boot on his neck, a boot that will remain there forever.

“I am happy to give truthful answers,” Daystar said.  “That’s an obligation of my Service.”

“Your Service being?” Rosenstein asked.

“I am the Professor of Ancient History at June Moffat Memorial University,” Daystar answered.  “My current interest is studying First-Empire literary-critical quarrels arising from inadequate astrographic data, notably incorrect references to warp point connections.  I was…”

“First Empire literary criticism?” Rosenstein shouted.  “ Literary criticism from a thousand centuries ago?  What nonsense are you claiming? That’s obviously totally lacking in practical value.”

“As I was saying,” Daystar continued, oblivious to Rosenstein’s bellows, “I was seconded by my University to the Anglic Union Astrographic Service, so I could be sent here to do my research.”

“I’ve never heard of you people?” Rosenstein grumbled.  “Do you really exist?”

Bye and bye a State Police car arrived with passenger.

“Major Grigsby, Sir,” Cornelius said, “good to see you again.”

“And you also,” Charles Grigsby said.  “It’s still early, the air is cool, so I can look forward to the flight.”

“The waterskins are in the rear seat,” Cornelius observed, “and thank you for finding them.  Mind you, I very much do not want to have to walk out of that place, but with those we likely can.  I’d prefer not to fly over it at all, but he who pays the piper calls the tune.”

“I completely agree,” Charles said.  “And the first indication of airplane trouble, however small, I am happy if we turn around for home.  The militia squadron that rode across this place, their horses died, and the men are in hospitals.  Someone had the bright idea, drink absolutely all the water you can, eat sea-salty foods, and the poison seems to be flushing from their systems.  They’re getting better, not worse.”

“I looked at your map,” Cornelius said.  “The geologists’ route makes perfect sense. It gets them as close as possible to the glassy field before they enter the yellow sand.”

“Some slight controversy at the front end,” Grigsby observed,  “not in the newspapers.  They’re Prescott men, paid for by a Prescott businessman looking for new gemstones, but they started here, not there.  Prescott newspaper was upset.”

“The Prescott paper is always upset,” Cornelius responded politely.  “They want Prescott to be the state’s leading city, but that’s simply not going to happen.  Let’s get into the air.  It’s not getting any cooler.”

With a powerful drone of its engine, the Oriole took to the air and banked to fly north.

“We’ll be climbing for a while,” Cornelius said.  “I’m not pushing the engine toward full power if I don’t have to.   However, you should be able to see the Prescott road off to your left.”

“I can, indeed,” Charles said, “and we have another twenty miles before we head off to our right to follow the edge of the hills.  I’d say that should be about 060 magnetic, but I am warned that magnetic compasses have become unreliable.”

“Darn right they have,” Cornelius agreed.  “I positively will not do night flying any more, and not two days ago the night mail flight was lucky to find the Sky Harbor.  Fortunately  the pilot recognized the city lights before he ran out of fuel.”

The Oriole climbed ahead into the blue sky lifted by the first thermals of the morning.

“We should be coming up on the Date Creek Wash,” Charles finally said.

“I see it, so now we follow, staying this side of the hills.”  Cornelius gave a thumb’s up gesture.

“I’m tracking them against the map,” Charles responded. “Soon we take the gentle left.”

“It’s dead ahead,  but I see the glass field. We’ll stay a few hundred feet up.”

They circled the sea of glass, seeing nothing, then turned back.

“I see a trio of mules,” Charles announced, “slightly to our left, where they’ve found a bit of water, and, yes, I see two men lying on the ground.  They’re both face down.  They’re dead, or unconscious.  And there’s another mule…it’s lying on its side, must be dead.”

“OK, I will circle around,” Cornelius said,  “try to hold our speed at sixty, and we can do a timed flight from them back to the sand edge.”

A few minutes later, the distance measurement was complete.

“About a half mile of golden sand,” Charles said.  “They almost made it back out.  People wait until evening when it’s cool, go in with protective gear and gas mask, and bring out the bodies and the animals.”

“Not me, thank you,” Cornelius said.

“Nor I. Wearing a gas mask in this heat, even in the evening, will be hellish.”

&&&&&

“Yes?” Tara asked. “Espionage?”

“Once upon a time,” Sykes answered, “ there was an English dish known as Fish and Chips.  By custom, it was served wrapped in old newspaper.  As modernization advanced, this custom was abandoned.  However, before then, one fine day during a war, a senior clerk in one of the English colonies went out, bought fish and chips from a stand, and discovered that the junior clerk delegated to destroy paper had instead been giving it to relatives to be reused as wrapping paper. After all, it was very clean paper, clean except for the extended notes on successful cryptographic attacks on enemy codes.”

BIG GAP HERE

Imperial Historical Research Center

Patricia Daystar walked briskly up the stairs to the Imperial Historical Research Center.  Supposedly, she thought, it was the largest library in the Galaxy.  Imperial citizens could order research materials remotely.   Anglic Union diplomats had to go physically to the library, their requests for materials being examined carefully before being granted.  That was the point of this interview, to confirm that she was a legitimate diplomat and that her requests for materials did not touch on restricted topics.  There were many restricted topics.

Her wrist comp pointed her in the needed directions.   She finally reached a door secured by two Jinjurian soldiers.  Army, she thought, from the dress uniforms. Jinjurians had run the Second Empire.  After their catastrophic, unexpected defeat by the Stellar Republic, their military consisted of a ceremonial Guard Division, for protecting buildings on Mogado.  The restriction to bolt action rifles, brilliant orange dress uniforms, and training focused on ceremonial marches somewhat limited their military effectiveness, thought the sight of a divisional march, a dozen soldiers wide, executing a flawless echelon turn, impressed anyone who’d tried to practice echelon turns with their own military unit.

She stopped, six feet out from the door, executed a proper right face, and carefully did not show her teeth.  “I’m here to see Library Inspector Trewlin,” she announced.  “My wristcomp says this is the right room.”

“You would be Patricia Daystar?”  the shorter of the two Jinjurs asked. He clanked from his accumulation of medals when he turned to face her. He held up his arm and wristcomp.

“I am indeed.” She held up her left arm.  Wristcomps talked to each other. She took the moment to take in the other soldier, who wore a single medal.  It was, however, a Star of Jinjur, of which very few had ever been awarded, period.  “I am also Anglic Union Seldon Legion.” She faced the other soldier, and slammed her right fist against her chest.  “I honor your bravery.”  He returned the salute.

“Pass,” the first soldier said. “Pass with honor.”

“Extra folks inside,” the second soldier whispered. 

She nodded and opened the door.  Indeed, there was a somewhat long table with three beings sitting behind it.  Sitting in the center was a Jinjurian in the teal and lime robes that identified him as a Library Inspector.  To his right was another Jinjurian, this one in flat black robes.  That had, she thought, to be a senior librarian, someone who generally did not concern himself with individual loan requests. The third fellow, thin, pointed jaw, silver-grey hair, wore the uniform of a Stellar Republic intelligence officer.  What was going on here?

She focused her gaze on the library inspector.  “I’m Patricia Daystar,” she announced. “I was told to appear here to meet with a Library Inspector, the Noble and Wise Jurnaman Trewlin.  Would that be you, Noble Sir?”  She kept walking forward, aiming at the armchair they had set out in front of the table, presumably for her.   It wasn’t at all clear why the other two were here, so she would let them speak for themselves.  Or tell her that she was somehow in the wrong room, though that seemed improbable.

“What?” He looked up, saw her, and tipped his hat. “Good evening, ma’am.  I am Professor Bartholemew Martin, the astronomer.  We read about this airship, whatever it is, so I came down with a respectable telescope to photograph it. Mind you, the Prescott newspaper had a fine drawing – the Journal-Miner must have an excellent artist—but photographs bring out different details than the human eye catches.  Also, once I finish aligning it, I have a much better telescope.”

“You drove down by yourself?” she asked.  There was a nominally paved road, but here from Flagstaff was still adventurous.

“I sent my two assistants into town to find dinner, and bring me back something.  They helped with the heavy unpacking, but the last bit is a trifle fiddly.”

“I’m Melanie Hayes, the Journal-Miner artist,” she said. “I’d be interested in looking through your telescope, when you have it set up, if you would let me. That thing, whatever it is, is full of angles and lines, very hard to capture just right with pencil, not to mention the survey telescope wasn’t set up for an artist.”

“You did beautiful work,” Martin said.  “And I seem to be finished, so a few moments with the pointing telescope…done.  Here, take a look.  Yes, you have it right.  That’s the focusing screw.”

“Amazing.  All those rectangles.  And something on top seems to be rotating.”

Martin looked through the eyepiece.  “I’m going to need a respectable exposure time.  That thing on top.  It’s going to be blurred.”

“When do we get to see your pictures?” Melanie asked.

“Journal-Miner has a darkroom, said if I took pictures this evening they’d help me develop them.  In fact, I’m expecting their photographer to show up, soon enough.  They get the newspaper rights.  Observatory gets a bit of income if anyone wants to use them.  I gather they got a pretty penny nationally for your drawing.”

“Yes,” Melanie said, “and I got my cut fair and square.”

* * * * *

Cornelius Polk glared at his Curtis Oriole. Yesterday he’d helped the Sky Harbor mechanic do a full maintenance job, following which he’d taken it out for a long test flight.  Four days ago, two geologists with a train of mules had ridden into the Blasted Heath, planning to ride to the center, recover the strange minerals visible there, and return.  They should have been back yesterday, but were not.  Now the Governor wanted him to look for them, meaning he had to fly over the Heath, perhaps all the way to the center.  He’d take one passenger, and as much water as two men could readily carry.  If he was forced down, he was ready to walk out.  The heavy cloth masks he packed would hopefully protect him from whatever poison apparently lurked in the air.

Tara smiled. “Our security has detained a young man claiming to be one Pierre Descamps.  He claims to be a member of your embassy staff, but is carrying no identification. Also, he appears to have been carrying a substantial amount of spy equipment, contrary to our current treaty, for unclear purposes.  I would hope that the Senior Legate can clear the matter up. Otherwise, since he was carrying spy equipment, and admitted being a foreign national, he is likely to be tried and put up in front of a firing squad as a spy.  Put up, rather soon now. He seems to be a nice young man, with a rather thick little black book of girlfriends, so I would prefer to think he does not need to be shot. However, modern Union judicial proceedings are extremely efficient, so if the matter cannot be resolved reasonably promptly, in a few weeks he will probably be quite dead.  Now, misbehavior of diplomatic personnel is solely under the Senior Legate’s remit, so it is to him I must speak.”

“I see,” the embassy staffer said. “It may take me a few minutes to reach the Senior Legate. Please have him call you back as soon as possible? There is a person of this name on the staff. I happen to know him. The spy issue I have to pass up to the Senior Legate.”

“I’m here all afternoon, Northern California time, but please do get the Legate to call me back soon.  Have a good day.” She broke the connection.  Her next call was to the office of the Secretary for Foreign Relations, but that conversation was quite short.

Soon enough, the chime on her communicator rang. She opened the connection. Bronkowski’s not-smiling face appeared on the vid screen.

“Why are you detaining a member of the Stellar Republic’s diplomatic staff?” He shouted.

“Actually, I was attempting to determine if he is a member of your staff,” Tara answered, her voice is smooth as warm milk. “Whoever this person is, he forgot to carry his passport or any other identification with him.  He was found in the presence of a substantial amount of illegal technical equipment, illegal under our treaty with you, not under Union law.  He denies that the equipment is his.  Of course, he would be neither the first nor probably the last very junior member of some embassy’s staff who is subject to the misimpression that he is a latter-day Jane Note, and has gotten himself involved in water is far deeper than his extremely shallow depth.”

“I can confirm,” Bronkowski said, “that the person you are holding detained in your parking lot is indeed a member of my staff.”

Tara wondered how Bronkowski could possibly know where his staffer was standing. Either he was wired for sound, or there was someone watching from a distance.

“In that case,” Tara announced, “if someone from your embassy will show up with valid identification in an Embassy vehicle, we will be happy to turn the miscreant over to you. I imagine our Foreign Relations Office may have other words to say.. We are a private company, and don’t deal with that sort of issue.   Meanwhile, as he is probably on your clock cycle, I’ll see that he’s fed a good dinner.”

“That’s most kind of you,” Bronkowski said. “Would a pickup in two hours be workable?”

“Of course. Have a good day.”  She broke the connection and tapped in another number.

“Mr. Sykes, it seems that he probably is what he says he is. On one hand, I promised that we would feed him a good dinner at our expense, which I will cover in the interests of comity, and on the other hand in two hours you can turn him over to an Embassy vehicle so soon as they present you with his passport or duplicate. Oh yes, either he is wired for sound, one of those gadgets on the ground is active, or someplace out there someone is watching with telescope and probably a parabolic mike.”

“How interesting. We were about to have lunch delivered from the Travelers’ Residences, so we will add one more for his benefit. Fish and chips even has an espionage component.”

Reporters, Winston found, pretended to be suspicious souls.  They believed nothing that he said.  They were as bad as the examiners at his Doctoral defense.  How did he know the airship had anything to do with the Blasted Heath?  He  emphasized the location, right above the Heath’s dead center, and the timing, the Star not having been noticed before the Heath was formed.  Having said that, he called for Federal help – “We’re a sheriff’s department, not  the Army Flying Corps,” he stressed.

“Army Air Service,” one of the reporters corrected.

“Yes, the Army,” Winston continued.  “Except the object is well above the altitude ever reached by any airplane or balloon.”

“Why here?”  another reporter asked. Winston decided that there were too many reporters for him to keep track of.

“I have no idea,” Winston answered.  “But, but, there are large parts of the world not in regular contact with civilization.  Antarctica.  Arabia.  Central Greenland. Western Tibet. We might not have the only blasted heath.  Someone should go and look.”

“Thank you, Doctor Cooper.” 

That, Winston thought, was the New York Times reporter. He’d been told how his event would end. It had. He offered a silent prayer to its ending.

* * * * *

Late that evening, Melanie Hayes noticed a stranger by the far end of her corral.  He was well-dressed, standing by his truck, fiddling with something, looking to be a long tube on a tripod.  The shape was wrong for a machine gun, but what was it? She strolled across the corral, pausing to scratch behind a horse’s ears, checked that her revolver was loose in its holster, and vaulted the fence. “Hello, stranger,” she said as she approached.   Whoever he was, he had long-cut dark hair under simple cap, a bushy moustache, and the trousers and long-sleeved white shirt she associated with someone respectably well-to-do.

Tara turned to Descamps.  “You’re a diplomat?”

“Absolutely.  And I demand that my personal possessions be returned!”  Descamps did not quite raise his voice.

“If he’s a diplomat,” Sykes said, “ he is forbidden to possess eavesdropping devices, remote digital communications probes…that’s in our treaty with the Stellites.”

“Good point,” Tara said.  “Assuming he is a diplomat.  Of course if he’s not, Bulger is a defense installation, so he’s a spy, meaning he gets to be tried for espionage.  Do we have a location for the firing squad wall yet?”

“I am a diplomat!” Descamps answered.  “And I was not carrying any spy equipment.  These people put it on the ground, to make me look guilty of something!”

Tara noted that he had just switched claims a hundred eighty degrees without blinking an eye.  

“You’re with the New Washington embassy?” she asked.

“Yes, ma’am.  Please tell them to release me,”  Descamps asked.

Tara looked skyward. The sky was covered with  puffs of white cloud, the space in between being a brilliant blue.  She listened for a moment to the call of seagulls.  

“I’ll have to confirm that,” she announced. “I’ll call Legate Bronkowski, and see what he has to say about the situation.  Naturally, as the equipment is not yours, you say, Mr. Descamps, we will keep it. Guys, hold him here, politely.”  She returned to her office.

&&&&&

Ir was remarkable, she thought, how many times Bronkowski had called her, without her ever calling back.  No matter.  That record was about to come to an end.  Her card file did have the required telephone number for the Stellar Republic embassy.

After some delay, a face appeared on the vision screen, someone she did not know.

“Hello, I’m Tara Broadbent, Senior Counsel to Bulger Spaceways.  I need to speak to Senior Legate Bronkowski.”

“I’m sorry,” the nameless face said, “but the Senior Legate is extremely busy. Surely this matter is something someone else on our staff can deal with.”

“And you’re  Spencer’s older son, aren’t you?” Radnor asked.

“Yes, Sir,” Travis answered. “I’m Travis.  We did the surveying.  That funny star is one end of a flying machine.  We could see it through my theodolite.  Winston got a good sketch of it.”

“The young lady, Melanie Hayes, did a much better one,” Winston said.  “She may show up here with it.”

“So how far up is it?” Radnor asked.  “I can ask that airplane fellow to fly up, get a good look at it from up close.”

Travis bit his lips.  “I double-checked everything.  It’s not low.  It’s seventy thousand feet off the ground.”

“Seventy thousand feet?” a disbelieving Radnor said.  “That’s like half-way to the Moon, isn’t it?”

“Moon is two hundred thousand miles,” Winston interjected.  “This is only fourteen.”

“Still way too high for an airplane,” Travis said.  “World record is only seven miles up, plane or balloon.  That’s too high to breathe, air’s too thin.”

“Winston, you’re the smart one?” Radnor said.  “How do I persuade the Army, or the Navy, they’ve got good airplanes, to investigate?

“Had time to think about it,” Winston said. “We hold a ‘press conference’.  That’s a new Eastern idea.  I stand up on the front porch, reporters all face me, ask questions, and take photos.  We kill two birds with one stone, get the Journal-Miner reporter off our backs, and get Spencer Surveying some free publicity.”

“Fine idea,” Radnor said.  “You do it.  And if something goes wrong, I can say ‘My grandson is a really smart fellow, but he grew up back east and went to some Eastern college. What can you expect?’ That should do it.”

The next morning, the Journal-Miner put out its Extra edition.  “Mystery Airship!” the big headline read.  “Fourteen miles high.  It’s dead center above the Heath.”  The article went on at some length, emphasizing the precision surveying of Spencer and Sons, the careful work of Travis Spencer, and the good sense of Sheriff Radnor, letting his grandson Winston Cooper run with his investigation.  They printed a sharp copy of Melanie Hayes’ drawing, ‘the mystery airship revealed’, but did not mention how much they had paid her for her sketch.

At high noon, Winston found himself pressed into giving a genuine press conference, just the way President Harding did it.  There were a good dozen reporters there, with more arriving soon from the East Coast.   Gramps had dressed him in full sheriff’s regalia, complete with vest, shiny silver badge, and two six-guns.  Winston told himself he really needed to spend a little time on a firing range.  He knew how to pull the trigger, but he found that hitting a target was still something of a mystery.