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exclamation as he saw what Walt had done.
    Walt had computed a great circle course that took maximum advantage of prevailing winds and currents. Walt’s calculations even took into consideration the tidal effects of the phases of the moon.
    It was, in short, a brilliant piece of navigation. If Nobel Prizes or Pulitzer Prizes or Academy Awards were available in navigation, Walt’s course would have swept all of them. It was the finest piece of work the Captain had ever seen. The Captain immediately tried to hire Walt on as the ship’s navigator, but Walt kept insisting that he had no idea what he had done. Among Walt’s many apologies was one that intrigued the Captain. Walt said that he had not done any of this at all, the Easybeats had done it for him.
    The Captain ordered that Walt’s course be strictly followed from that moment on. He did not want to lose any of the advantages of the current moon phase, or other obscure factors which he may have missed in studying Walt’s course.
    Perhaps one very important detail has been omitted from all this talk about navigation. That detail is, of course, where the course finally wound up.
    Walt’s plotted trajectory for the ship intersected with land thirteen minutes south of the Thirty-Eighth Parallel. By Walt’s calculations, within ten days the San Geronimo would arrive in San Francisco.
    It may seem odd that the Captain acceded so easily to following Walt’s course. The reason for this was simple: the San Geronimo was bound for San Francisco anyway. Walt’s course would just bring them to their destination much faster and more efficiently.
    As Walt was escorted back to his bunk, the music in his head became louder than ever.

VII
    A t this point I find myself compelled to break into the flow of the narrative again. Since Walt is now approaching my home, and our inevitable meeting, I feel I should make some things clear.
    As probably everyone has guessed by now, the transmitter I had built on top of my apartment building was playing the Easybeats twenty-four hours a day. Walt was receiving the signal from my transmitter on his fillings. The amalgam of silver and mercury used in dental fillings can make a fine radio antenna if one has the right head shape, and is exposed to the proper frequencies.
    I submit here that I built the transmission unit without any thought or indication that it might one day bring a lobster fisherman to my door. I had actually built the thing in an attempt to communicate with other planets.
    I had felt for some time that the reason beings from other worlds never responded to official attempts at communication was that the government always sent such stupid, boring messages. I felt the need to send a message that would be bound to attract aliens actually interested in the commonalities of culture. I felt that any race sufficiently advanced to receive messages from another world would not really be interested in an endless loop of the first hundred-thousand digits of pi. That could only be old news, a clutter of the interplanetary void. No, music, I was certain, would make for much more interesting communication.
    I had long noticed the difficulty humans have in resisting good music, and had hoped that such a trait might be universal. My plan then was simple: beam a great song out into space as an invitation and wait to see who stopped by.
    I submit here also that of all the creatures I imagined responding to my hail, I never dreamt of one even remotely as strange as Walt.

VIII
    I n any case, the remainder of Walt’s journey was relatively uneventful. The members of the crew shied away from him whenever possible. Sailors are suspicious and superstitious people, and this batch was very uncomfortable with having a suddenly prodigious navigator in their midst.
    Some of the crewmen thought he had been possessed. Others thought he was an agent of a foreign government, or an agent of their own shipping line sent to test them. One or two thought he