But, well, it’s a bit more than the distribution. The two patterns also happen to be identical. They match up square for square. The slides that Teddy Bloat’s been taking of Slothrop’s map have been projected onto Roger’s, and the two images, girl-stars and rocket-strike circles, demonstrated to coincide.

Helpfully, Slothrop has dated most of his stars. A star always comes before its corresponding rocket strike. The strike can come as quickly as two days, or as slowly as ten. The mean lag is about 4½ days.

Suppose, Pointsman argues, that Jamf’s stimulus x was some loud noise, as it was in the Watson-Rayner experiment. Suppose that, in Slothrop’s case, the hardon reflex wasn’t completely extinguished. In that case he ought to be getting one on at any loud noise that’s preceded by the same kind of ominous buildup he would’ve found in Jamf’s lab—as dogs to this day find in Pointsman’s own lab. That points to the V-1: any doodle close enough to make him jump ought to be giving him an erection: the sound of the motor razzing louder and louder, then the cutoff and silence, suspense building up—then the explosion. Boing, a hardon. But oh, no. Slothrop instead only gets erections when this sequence happens in reverse. Explosion first, then the sound of approach: the V-2.

But the stimulus, somehow, must be the rocket, some precursor wraith, some rocket’s double present for Slothrop in the percentage of smiles on a bus, menstrual cycles being operated upon in some mysterious way—what does make the little doxies do it for free? Are there fluctuations in the sexual market, in pornography or prostitutes, perhaps tying in to prices on the Stock Exchange itself, that we clean-living lot know nothing about? Does news from the front affect the itch between their pretty thighs, does desire grow directly or inversely as the real chance of sudden death—damn it, what cue, right in front of our eyes, that we haven’t the subtlety of heart to see? …

But if it’s in the air, right here, right now, then the rockets follow from it, 100% of the time. No exceptions. When we find it, we’ll have shown again the stone determinacy of everything, of every soul. There will be precious little room for any hope at all. You can see how important a discovery like that would be.