Head In The Stars

A dry leaf crunched under my foot as I put my weight against the radar dome's wall. The wall did not move.

"The panels round the bottom all seem fine. Old, but nothing loose," I say loud enough for the microphone to pick up. I had my phone propped up on a handy protrusion on the side of the parabolic antenna's thick body.

My phone's speakers crackled in reply as my supervisor sighed. "You haven't been feeding the cats again, have you?"

I nearly trip on a bolt at the edge of the radome. "No, of course not." Thankfully it was not a video call. I actually haven't been feeding the cats. But I do know who has been and I can't keep a secret to save my life.

"Hmm…" My supervisor didn't sound convinced.

"Maybe some dirt's blown in," I suggest. "I'll get the ladder to check the panels higher up."

"Do that, but make a call to the maintenance crew anyway. If something is wrong, it's up to them to fix it."

"Will do."

I hung up then tapped open the camera app of my phone to snap a picture of the inside of the antenna dish. There were leaves and grubby smudges of dirt on its sterile white surface. They honestly did look uncannily like cat prints.

I pocketed my phone then got out my string of keys and went about unlocking the ladder that was kept padlocked to the floor.

Goose Peak Meteorological Station, once a critical component of the weather observatory's weather predicting arsenal, now it's little more than a rent out for researchers that can double as a tourist spot when needed.

Not that I'm complaining.

If it were any more special I wouldn't be able to get a job here as security-guard-slash-groundsman-slash-responsible-adult. As it stands, I can boast to be the only full-time staff here at the station, even if that does mean sometimes playing the role of tour guide, but thankfully, not today.

I finished taking a note of all the panels that looked to be needing a thorough cleaning on the maintenance clipboard, swept up the mess in the dish, then headed down to the main body of the weather station. As I reach the bottom of the stairs, I make sure to restring the plastic chain across the bottom stair with its little warning about non-ionising radiation facing outward. When it's just researchers here I rarely bother, but today…

"Hey! Give that back!"

"Make me!"

A boy barely up to my waist galloped past me with a model rocket ship held high above his head. Close behind him another boy scampered with hands outstretched and a face that looked like it was about to burst into tears.

Oh no.

"Please try not to run-" I began.

"No running!"

The three of us all froze and turned at the arrival of the primary school class' homeroom teacher. She was probably good-looking under normal circumstances but right now she had a haggard, hunted look.

"I'm so sorry," she said to me, her expression suddenly shifted from fury to embarrassment. "We're just getting ready to leave."

I began to think of something appropriate to say but instead, she whirled around and pointed with a sharp finger in the opposite direction.

"Don't touch that!"

Behind her a child with a hand outstretched toward some cables in the open data archival cabinet quickly retracted the offending paw and pretended to innocently wander off. I hurried over to lock the cabinet.

"This place is old. It smells funny." The boy, now that his model rocketship was safe, seemed to want to give some hard hitting visitor feedback.

He wasn't wrong about the smell.

"We're leaving," said the teacher commandingly.

"But…" started Rocket Ship Boy.

"Now."

The boy followed the rest of his classmates out the main entrance of the station. The teacher turned to me again. "I'm really so sorry about all this…"

"It's really been no trouble," I said. "I hope the trip was informative."

"Yeah, well…," her eyes wandered out the door and over to the backs of her young charges. "I hope you have a peaceful rest of the day."

I smiled. "Thanks. You too."

"I sincerely hope so." Then she turned and followed the children out the doors and down the steps that led to the parking lot and road. I could hear her yell a few more things as they descended. Sounded something like 'no running!'.

Must be tiring being a teacher.

I swung the doors shut and made sure they were secure.

"Is the nightmare over?"

And older, unkempt man appeared at my shoulder. He name is Paili Kai, Paili being his surname, no English name, and the station's current researcher in residence. I think he said he was working on his second PhD here at the station?

I sigh and nod. "Just about."

"Thank God…"

Though distant, the bays of the children and their woe begotten teacher still drifted through the reinforced doors. We normally get two, maybe three tour groups per year, but in just the time Kai's been here, we've already had four. Guess the man's just that lucky.

"Lunch?" asked Kai.

"Lunch," I responded.

Kai smiled, pushed up his glasses, and went to the kitchen. He's quiet, but friendly kind of guy and we take it in turns to make lunch. Some researchers I've had here spend all day and night staring at screens then keel over unconscious from lack of food. I'm glad Kai's different.

I slotted the maintenance clipboard in its rightful place by the stairs then decided that I could probably get some weeding done before lunch. No rest of the wicked or full-time staff. Not that I'm complaining.

--

I didn't get any weeding done before lunch. Turned out, Kai had cooked lunch at home before coming and only needed to warm it up! Such foresight! Whoever is or will marry him is very lucky.

Or maybe my taste buds died when I started cooking for myself. It was my turn to cook lunch the next day.

I loaded up my spoon with more chili sauce-infused egg fried rice as I scanned the maintenance clipboard laying on the table next to my food. Kai sat opposite me reading a thick technical manual with words on it that I could swear were in another language.

The station had only the one main area, the office space, so outside of fiddling with the equipment (Kai), or dusting, cleaning and weeding (me), we both spend most our time here. It's also the only place with enough room to eat lunch.

When I first started working here, I'd dragged an old table out of storage and put it in the center of the room to act as an interim dining table. It's now become permanent. Space in the station was at a premium but it's necessary to avoid any accidents involving food, drink and expensive electrical equipment.

There were a half dozen tables set up along one wall of the room, each outfitted with a desktop computer with a direct line to the data archival and transmission system as well as a connection to the greater internet. And with the right authentication, researchers can also link into the government's or any of the local university's systems. I'm not technical myself, but it seems pretty convenient, at least, that's what it says on the website.

The other side of the room was dedicated to large metal cabinets filled with servers and hard drives and other technically named bits of metal.

You'd think a place like this would look pretty high-tech, but the reality is that it just looked old. Well kept, thanks to yours truly, but old. Or, to be more diplomatic, 'retro'.

"Oh right," Kai mumbled. He reached under his book, flipped past a few loose sheafs of paper, then pulled out a thin notebook. I nearly choked on my food. "I found this over there," he said, nodding toward one of the workstations. "I think it's yours."

I swallowed hastily and took the book from him. "Sorry. Must have left it there earlier when I was cleaning…" Had he looked inside? I hoped not.

"You're a musician then?"

He had!

"Uhh…," I padded for time as I slid the notebook under my clipboard. "I dabble," I finally admitted.

Kai looked like he was gearing up for another question so I blurted out the first thing I could think of.

"Are you still feeding the cats?"

Kai looked blankly at me then nodded. "I am. Why?"

"Oh nothing," I replied. "No, actually, my supervisor thinks that they may have caused the glitch in the system last night."

Kai's surprised look shifted thoughtful. "Can that happen?" he asked.

How should I know? Aren't you the weather expert?

"Personally, I doubt it," I said truthfully.

This place was built long before either of us were born, if a little cat walking around as a cat does could make the whole system go down for ten minutes, then I don't know how human civilisation had made it this far.

"Hmm… I can try running some tests," said Kai. What a good-hearted civilian.

"Don't worry about it," I said as I began eating again, glad that the music topic had been successfully dropped. "It's probably just normal wear and tear. The maintenance crew'll be coming to have a look at it. I've already called them."

"Oh, alright." He nodded, seemingly satisfied with this conclusion. A worry suddenly presented itself to me.

"Your, uh, research wasn't affected, was it?"

"Mm?" Kai looked up again. "Oh, no. I take a weighted average of the target data over a period of time. Losing a few minutes here and there isn't critical."

"Ah, that's good then." I'm genuinely glad.

We fall into a peaceful silence as we eat and read our respective papers. Until Kai breaks the silence.

"What instrument do you play?"

Why?!

I took a swig of water from my mug. "Bit of this and that. Piano, guitar, you know, the usual." And a few more less usual things, but I don't want to get into that.

Kai nodded ponderously. "If you feel like playing anything, feel free to. It doesn't bother me. You don't need to wait until after hours."

"Huh?"

And at that, Kai stood, gathered his bowl and papers, and left.

--

How does he know about my guitar playing? Had he heard? No, but each time I was sure to wait until there was no one around…

I grabbed at a tuft of tall grasses growing out of a crack in the cement and bent it over to better get my shears around it.

Snip.

I chucked the freshly cut grass into the woven plastic sack beside me. It rained a few days ago and everything's grown at least a foot. I grabbed another handful and lopped it off. I'm working on clearing a section on the eastern side of the station of wild grasses and other things. No trees or bushes, just the fast growing stuff.

I pushed a gloved hand into my sack to get a sense of how much I could still cram in it before I had to head back. Not bad. I could probably make it to the edge of the tree line if I really squashed the stuff down.

I pushed back my broad straw hat and spent a moment just listening, to the buzzing insects, to the chittering sparrows, to the low hum of the station's myriad machines.

I got out my phone to record the song of the forest.

A welcome cool breeze brushed past me and, after a minute or two, I reluctantly put my phone away and continued on with my work.

The sun had just started slipping down behind the distant mountains by the time I got to the tree line. I'd had to make an extra trip back to empty my sack on the way here. It's not a popular hiking spot yet there's no shortage of empty cans, plastic bottles, and even a half eaten sandwich.

I get it, there aren't any rubbish bins, but surely the answer isn't to just ignore decency and litter all over the place?

As I mulled over my self-important speech about environmental protection, I suddenly straightened.

Sometimes, no more like often, a person's bodily instincts are faster than their mental reactions, so I wasn't initially sure what I was reacting to.

I froze and looked around.

No, there was no wild boar scrounging for a snack, no rudely awakened snake… There! There among the green grass and the brown roots and dirt was something red and white.

I sighed and made for it.

Some kid must have come down here earlier and… I stop in my tracks.

The red and white thing lying on the ground was no bit of discarded packaging, no, it was a little girl wearing a red dress.

A little girl with stark white hair.