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rhiannon_sFeedback desperately sought.
‘Asteroids don’t make course corrections!’.
Asteroids don’t make course corrections, the statement rang in Warren Moore’s ears as if it were afraid to make its way properly to his brain.
‘So what is it then, a comet?’ He asked, more to buy time than anything else.
Warren wasn’t precisely stupid, and he certainly knew –well, suspected, at least- that comets didn’t do that either, but he felt he was supremely under-equipped to handle the answer he suspected he was about to receive. He knew he was under equipped to deal with any of the more technical aspects of running a major astronomy site, he felt intimidated every time he drove past the rows and rows of radio dishes and antenna arrays to get to his office. The administrative side he understood, wages, budgets, health and safety (hardhats, that was the key, if anyone even went near the dishes or pylons they were to wear a hardhat), and paperwork of all shapes, sizes, and colours. Yes, that he understood. The actual astronomy, not at all. He’d once made the mistake of asking one of the astronomers, most of whom seemed to have scruffy bears and wear a variety of colourful shirts and had decorated their hardhats in a plethora of stickers, about the results they were getting and he’d been rewarded with a string of numbers and terms that was more foreign to him than the ancient cuneiform his flatmate at Cambridge had studied.
‘Comets don’t make bloody course corrections either, nothing natural does…,’ the young man blurted out, his face an unhealthy purple colour.
‘Could it be gaseous outpourings?’ Warren cut him off. Gaseous outpourings sounded good. He was pretty certain he was wrong about that too. However it had been mentioned in that film about the young reporter who drove a SAAB and had died in a tidal wave. That had had space things in it, and it sounded pretty scientific to him.
If he was being honest with himself, which most certainly was trying not to be, Warren would have admitted he was just buying time. He knew the answer already, in his heart of hearts, he just wanted to not have to say it. Or hear it. And certainly he didn’t want to have to report it on to someone else like the silly file they’d joked about when he took this job said he had to do. Maybe if he prevaricated long enough one of his colleagues in another site would make that call and spare him the duty. Maybe if he spun this out he’d be the one getting a call asking for confirmation, then he could be carefully professional and regretfully confirm rather than sound like the fool.
The young astronomer’s face had gone a deeper shade of purple now, Warren noted, clearly he wanted to get his point over. Probably he wanted to make sure he was the one who got the credit, and the fame, and the tv interviews, and probably a book deal which would be ghostwritten for him as he lay on some tropical beach. It was, after all, the sort of discovery that could make an astronomer’s name. Just that it was the sort of report that could break an administrator’s career and make him a laughing stock too.
‘Look, you dumb ass…,’ the young man started.
‘Please don’t be rude,’ Warren cut him off, again, ‘I just have to be sure. Have you double checked your numbers?’ Warren might not understand what the numbers meant, but he damn well knew that double checking them was an essential. It was one of the few points of commonality between their respective professions. Double checking the numbers, it was right up there with hardhats in Warren Moore’s world. He risked a small sideways glance at the phone on his desk, just in case he’d put it on silent and it was flashing the incoming call light instead of ringing. No, it wasn’t, the treacherous thing. Probably all his colleagues were having a similar conversation and doing much better at avoiding the inevitable outcome than he was.
There was a tentative knock on the office door, and a head popped around it. Sadly for Warren this didn’t belong to a smartly shaven and dressed visitor, but another bearded young man. This one had a dirty blond beard instead of a dark one. Slightly patchy too, Warren noted.
‘What’s the word?’ The new beard asked the current one.
‘He won’t bloody listen!’ Current beard replied. Warren would have objected to being talked about as if he weren’t there, but this at least would buy him time. Time for that damn phone to ring.
‘What!?’ New beard stepped fully into the office. He was clutching a tablet protectively to his chest in a way the partially obscured the picture of a scantily clad and over-proportioned Japanese cartoon character.
Warren had tried to ban T-shirts like that early on in his appointment, but had been so completely ignored that he’d just given up. There were only so many final official warnings you could administer to individuals you couldn’t afford to actually sack before you started looking silly. New beard shoved the tablet under Warren’s nose. The main image on it was just a page of formula that he had no idea how to interpret. The only thing he recognised was the blurry image of the object they’d been tracking for the last few days. The same damn blurry image they’d came up with every time, and the same one every other observation site from space telescopes down to the most amateur spod with a pair of binoculars had seen ever since it had been detected. The reason for the course corrections was almost certainly the same reason for the persistent blurriness, Warren suspected with a sinking heart.
‘You think we’re the only ones tracking this!’ New Beard almost shouted at him.
‘Fucking right,’ first beard backed him up, ‘if we don’t come out with it, someone else is going to beat us to the punch. You have to call someone, if you don’t we will!’
First beard leant across Warren’s desk, causing Warrant to scoot his chair back a bit. Warren mentally debated telling him to go ahead and do it. Then he’d be the one mocked for saying it was aliens. He internally winced a little at having actively thought the word. The damn genie was out of the bottle, in his mind at least, he couldn’t put it off much longer. Oh why, oh why, wouldn’t his phone ring? Something of that wince must have appeared on his face, as new beard now also leant across the desk.
‘You don’t want us to do that, then, do you?’ New beard turned to first beard, ‘he daren’t let someone leak it out, he’d be in the muck right enough then.’ Sadly, for Warren, that was also true.
He was beaten and he knew it. He sighed, pulled *that* file up on his own computer, checked the number and the code word on it, then reached for his own phone. ‘Get me the PM, we have a confirmed Code “Ottershaw”,’ he said resignedly.
The two beards stood on the other side of desk triumphantly, happiness and pride warring on their faces, their places and names in the history books all but assured, but for Warren Moore first confirmation of an extra-terrestrial object was a passport to ridicule and obscurity. After this no one in the civil service would even want to know his name.
‘Asteroids don’t make course corrections!’.
Asteroids don’t make course corrections, the statement rang in Warren Moore’s ears as if it were afraid to make its way properly to his brain.
‘So what is it then, a comet?’ He asked, more to buy time than anything else.
Warren wasn’t precisely stupid, and he certainly knew –well, suspected, at least- that comets didn’t do that either, but he felt he was supremely under-equipped to handle the answer he suspected he was about to receive. He knew he was under equipped to deal with any of the more technical aspects of running a major astronomy site, he felt intimidated every time he drove past the rows and rows of radio dishes and antenna arrays to get to his office. The administrative side he understood, wages, budgets, health and safety (hardhats, that was the key, if anyone even went near the dishes or pylons they were to wear a hardhat), and paperwork of all shapes, sizes, and colours. Yes, that he understood. The actual astronomy, not at all. He’d once made the mistake of asking one of the astronomers, most of whom seemed to have scruffy bears and wear a variety of colourful shirts and had decorated their hardhats in a plethora of stickers, about the results they were getting and he’d been rewarded with a string of numbers and terms that was more foreign to him than the ancient cuneiform his flatmate at Cambridge had studied.
‘Comets don’t make bloody course corrections either, nothing natural does…,’ the young man blurted out, his face an unhealthy purple colour.
‘Could it be gaseous outpourings?’ Warren cut him off. Gaseous outpourings sounded good. He was pretty certain he was wrong about that too. However it had been mentioned in that film about the young reporter who drove a SAAB and had died in a tidal wave. That had had space things in it, and it sounded pretty scientific to him.
If he was being honest with himself, which most certainly was trying not to be, Warren would have admitted he was just buying time. He knew the answer already, in his heart of hearts, he just wanted to not have to say it. Or hear it. And certainly he didn’t want to have to report it on to someone else like the silly file they’d joked about when he took this job said he had to do. Maybe if he prevaricated long enough one of his colleagues in another site would make that call and spare him the duty. Maybe if he spun this out he’d be the one getting a call asking for confirmation, then he could be carefully professional and regretfully confirm rather than sound like the fool.
The young astronomer’s face had gone a deeper shade of purple now, Warren noted, clearly he wanted to get his point over. Probably he wanted to make sure he was the one who got the credit, and the fame, and the tv interviews, and probably a book deal which would be ghostwritten for him as he lay on some tropical beach. It was, after all, the sort of discovery that could make an astronomer’s name. Just that it was the sort of report that could break an administrator’s career and make him a laughing stock too.
‘Look, you dumb ass…,’ the young man started.
‘Please don’t be rude,’ Warren cut him off, again, ‘I just have to be sure. Have you double checked your numbers?’ Warren might not understand what the numbers meant, but he damn well knew that double checking them was an essential. It was one of the few points of commonality between their respective professions. Double checking the numbers, it was right up there with hardhats in Warren Moore’s world. He risked a small sideways glance at the phone on his desk, just in case he’d put it on silent and it was flashing the incoming call light instead of ringing. No, it wasn’t, the treacherous thing. Probably all his colleagues were having a similar conversation and doing much better at avoiding the inevitable outcome than he was.
There was a tentative knock on the office door, and a head popped around it. Sadly for Warren this didn’t belong to a smartly shaven and dressed visitor, but another bearded young man. This one had a dirty blond beard instead of a dark one. Slightly patchy too, Warren noted.
‘What’s the word?’ The new beard asked the current one.
‘He won’t bloody listen!’ Current beard replied. Warren would have objected to being talked about as if he weren’t there, but this at least would buy him time. Time for that damn phone to ring.
‘What!?’ New beard stepped fully into the office. He was clutching a tablet protectively to his chest in a way the partially obscured the picture of a scantily clad and over-proportioned Japanese cartoon character.
Warren had tried to ban T-shirts like that early on in his appointment, but had been so completely ignored that he’d just given up. There were only so many final official warnings you could administer to individuals you couldn’t afford to actually sack before you started looking silly. New beard shoved the tablet under Warren’s nose. The main image on it was just a page of formula that he had no idea how to interpret. The only thing he recognised was the blurry image of the object they’d been tracking for the last few days. The same damn blurry image they’d came up with every time, and the same one every other observation site from space telescopes down to the most amateur spod with a pair of binoculars had seen ever since it had been detected. The reason for the course corrections was almost certainly the same reason for the persistent blurriness, Warren suspected with a sinking heart.
‘You think we’re the only ones tracking this!’ New Beard almost shouted at him.
‘Fucking right,’ first beard backed him up, ‘if we don’t come out with it, someone else is going to beat us to the punch. You have to call someone, if you don’t we will!’
First beard leant across Warren’s desk, causing Warrant to scoot his chair back a bit. Warren mentally debated telling him to go ahead and do it. Then he’d be the one mocked for saying it was aliens. He internally winced a little at having actively thought the word. The damn genie was out of the bottle, in his mind at least, he couldn’t put it off much longer. Oh why, oh why, wouldn’t his phone ring? Something of that wince must have appeared on his face, as new beard now also leant across the desk.
‘You don’t want us to do that, then, do you?’ New beard turned to first beard, ‘he daren’t let someone leak it out, he’d be in the muck right enough then.’ Sadly, for Warren, that was also true.
He was beaten and he knew it. He sighed, pulled *that* file up on his own computer, checked the number and the code word on it, then reached for his own phone. ‘Get me the PM, we have a confirmed Code “Ottershaw”,’ he said resignedly.
The two beards stood on the other side of desk triumphantly, happiness and pride warring on their faces, their places and names in the history books all but assured, but for Warren Moore first confirmation of an extra-terrestrial object was a passport to ridicule and obscurity. After this no one in the civil service would even want to know his name.
