The 21st of Bethas, 2020, Early morning Through Early Afternoon
The air was still, but all signs pointed to a falling glass and rising wind. Handy little diviners, barometers. Diviners. In all this work he felt like an augurer of old, marking the sacred space of his observations. There was little enough difference. A circular space for observation, and his own perch upon a high tripod set a precise distance from the center. Secular divinations. No gods would be invoked, no incense burned nor bay-leaves chewed. His only nod towards the entheogens of old was a strong pot of coffee, held in a vacuum flask to prevent it from going cold. The latter he had requisitioned from once of laboratories. They probably would not need it today. It had been gathering a noble dust at the back of a cabinet. And there was the note. A polite note too, explaining the situation. All very right and proper.
He had left the note. Had he? The mallet dropped to the frozen grass with a dull thud and he rose, patting his coat. A crinkle of paper. Fantastic. He’d done it again. A sigh escaped his lips and hung for a while in the freezing air. He reached in, and drew out the note.
You left the proper note you mindless idiot.
- U G B-S
Well, that either settled the matter of the vacuum flask, or it indicated he was even a greater woolen-headed fool that he had yet considered. It would have to remain a mystery. He had hours of preparation yet.
The observation tripod, an ancient thing, even it was a eight-hundred year old facsimile, was another concession to the old augury. It was one he had embraced for as long as he could remember, perhaps longer still. It had failed to sell at auction any number of times. Or so Uncle Gian had said. The truth was he’d never tried to sell the thing, one he saw how attached Umberto had been. An act, bluster and misdirection. Gian could hardly do otherwise. It was in his nature. Still, he had seen Umberto’s attachment and let him have the antique thing. It really was an excellent observation platform. High enough to give him a sweeping view of his field of inquiry, but neither unstable nor uncomfortable. True, the bronze would be a bit chilly today, but that was nothing a couple of cushions could not handle.
Those, and the coffee.
More markers, placed, checked for angles and tangents, for height and uniformity. Markers replaced, remeasured, and remeasured again.
It was a pity he could make use of the camera spectras. They would have been invaluable to serve as other eyes of observation. The monic fields of the machines would distort any observations. Purely mechanical cameras would have been far more useful. Still, the soulless minions of orthodoxy had decreed that magic should be required in the creations of images. Absurdities. Someone, somewhere, was probably hard at work on just such a machine. Do they require funding? Patronage? That was inevitable. And what funds did he have to support such an endeavour? Never mind finding the enterprising artisan who was working away at the problem.
The sun rising further now, and the hoarfrost had nearly vanished. Solar noon approaching and with it would come first the afternoon, and then would come his subject.
Miss Vauquelin, in all her sharp-edged precision, would arrive, and he was sure of this, punctual to the instant and probably slightly indignant. Well, she would have had neither breakfast nor lunch. Neither had he, unless the pot of coffee counted. He would not count it. He would hide the flask before Miss Vauquelin arrived. Solidarity in deprivations and all that.
The circle and the markers at last complete, all measured to the nth degree and checked against his notes, there was little enough to do but wait. He mounted to his tripod, poured one last cup of now lukewarm coffee, and settled in for what promised to be a long, and somewhat chilly, vigil.