Though she was wrapped in multiple layers of wool sweaters, the bitter cold of the morning air bit deep into Jennari's slight figure. She had not been able to sleep the previous afternoon, as was her practice on the days before she had telescope time, and the dull headache of sleep deprivation wore on her as the whirring motor moving the telescope droned into her skull. Finally the motor stopped and she checked to make sure that the telescope was in line with the coordinates of the Kitrep Paca.
Kitrep Paca was a red giant star. Although the star had been well observed for years, her advisor had asked her to take spectral readings of the star. As she checked the exposure time programmed into the telescope's computer, she sighed at the waste of hard won telescope time. The spectrum that she had taken for her dissertation the last time she had telescope time, three weeks ago, had been poorly exposed and her advisor had assigned her this rudimentary task to prove her competency.
She pulled the stray strands of her long golden hair away from her eyes and looked into the telescope's eyepiece. The telescope was cleanly centered on the red giant. As she peered at the star she was startled at the sound of footsteps approaching her across the bare pavement of the observatory floor. She looked up from the eyepiece to see her advisor approaching.
"Good morning Professor Laigle," she greeted him. Dr. Felix Laigle, who insisted that his students call him by his honorific, was a balding man in his fifties with a diminutive figure that even Jennari dwarfed. She cringed as he approached. She wondered why he would be awake this time of the morning just to check on her. More than likely the old lecher thinks he can come up here and seduce me, she thought.
"Good morning, Jennari. May I have a look at your settings?"
"Yes, sir," she said, putting her thoughts aside and getting out of the way, so that he could take a look at her preparations.
He took several seconds looking at the computer monitor and looking through the eyepiece, checking her work. "Looks like you are set up okay. Go ahead and start the exposure," he said getting out of the way and sitting down at one of the pair of white plastic patio chairs that sat away from the scope.
She got back into position behind the scope and after checking that she had an unexposed film plate in the camera, she used the computer mouse to push the button on the screen that began the exposure. She would have a wait while the telescope completed the exposure. Reluctantly, after starting the exposure, she sat down in the plastic chair adjacent the one that Dr. Laigle was sitting in.
"Would you care for a drink, Jennari?" said Dr. Laigle, pulling a thin, round bottle from a paper bag he had brought with him.
"Sure, what do you have?"
"Some calvados. I favor it on such cold nights up here," he said pouring a generous amount from the bottle into a red plastic cup and handing it to her.
Oh great, he is going to try to get me drunk, she thought, as she took a small sip of the sweet liquor. Dr. Laigle poured himself a large helping from the bottle and held his glass up to clink with hers. She held up her glass to the professor's and tapped it, then brought it down and took another small sip. As the liquor flowed down her gullet she felt it warming her insides. Maybe liquor was not such a bad idea on a cold night as this, she thought.
She watched as the professor took a generous swallow from his cup. Dr. Laigle was the only Astronomy professor at the small Repetige University, and this telescope was his baby. From the early years of his professorship he had worked to get government grants to pay for the small telescope and it was his life. Dr. Laigle was a widower, his wife having died ten years before and now he had nothing in his life but his job.
Jenarri relaxed in her seat and took another sip of her drink. There was nothing to do now but wait. It would take two hours for the exposure to complete.
As she flew over the hill Grimoire Mistrune was incensed. What had happened to her circle? It had only been a scant two hundred and fifty orbits of the mortal planet since she had been to her circle and now the mortals had built a cylindrical building with a hemispherical roof where it had once been. She had not been away that long. She had departed to visit her sister Furor Magickblatter the Fourth Priestess that Forgets Dreaming in her demesne on the largest of the Eight Hills of Forever and now her circle had been built over by mortals. It was enough to make her wings curl.
As she flew nearer to the building she sensed that there were two mortals inside. Using her telepathy she reached out to read the thoughts of the mortals. The first mortal was much younger than the other and female. The female was suspicious of what the older male mortal desired of her. The older male, although his thoughts were filled with images of lasciviousness, had warm, nurturing feelings for the younger female.
She wished that with her magic she could disintegrate the building that had been built over her circle. For the thousandth time she cursed herself that she had paid more attention when she had been learning magic as a young pixie. The only spells that she had mastered were limited to sensing and affecting the mental state of mortals. At the time she felt it did not matter, she could always get mortals to do her bidding, why should she waste her time learning all those superfluous spells. Although she could tell the two mortals were insufficient to tear down the building maybe if she could disgrace the older male, who she sensed had a proprietary feeling about the building, it could go away.
