The Need for Better Regulation of Outer Space Read Online Free

The Need for Better Regulation of Outer Space
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maybe they are just waiting for the next war. For there will be one soon, as everybody knows. Perhaps this is it.
    ‘Are the bombs the start of a new war?’ I ask him, ‘are we at war?’
    ‘Silly girl, you don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he puts down his teacup rather too quickly and the handle breaks off on his fingers.
    I stare at that loop of china made all blurry by the tears in my eyes. He has never called me silly before. But men are funny about their wars, they act as if they own them, and perhaps they do, for I don’t think women ever start them.
    ‘Which plates are we to measure today?’ I ask him, trying to sound efficient. I have never had to ask him this before, and he looks around him as if trying to work out why he is there.
    He lays the broken handle on our work table, ‘I do not thinkthere are any plates today,’ he says slowly, and I feel very afraid because I think that I have been right all along and we have been too quick in our measuring, me and Flora and Jeanie, and come to the end of all the stars and will lose our jobs. I begin to regret working so quickly, but I wanted to please him. And the Astronomer Royal.
    ‘Last night’s plates are not yet developed and there are no others. Look – why don’t you have a day’s holiday? We will pay you as usual and you can do what you like, go look at the shops.’
    Flora and Jeanie seem delighted at this, but I just think, well I have walked up the hill and am not so keen to walk down it and take a bus into town to look at things in shops that I cannot afford. And I don’t want to go home and help with the children again.
    They are already putting on their coats and looking ready to leave but I say, ‘Is there nothing else that I can do that might be helpful to you?’
    ‘I don’t think so,’ and he looks like he might almost laugh at my enthusiasm so I feel a bit blurry around the eyes again. I don’t want him to see so I fetch my coat.
    Flora and Jeanie go off to Jenners to see the new spring hats. I do not care about hats so I wander into the Old Town. I am keen to learn more about this morning’s explosions. And soon I find a building which has holes where its windows once were, and there is a neat pile of glittery glass on the pavement. I peer through the window holes, inside it is very dark and scorched-looking, with black soot marks spreading up the walls, and pictures hanging all crooked. A policeman is standing by the pile of glass so I walk over to him.
    ‘What happened?’
    He looks at me suspiciously, ‘and why would you want to know, Miss?’
    ‘I heard the noise this morning. Was it bombs?’
    This last word seems to be the right one for he flushes deepred. ‘Away with you,’ he says and flaps his hand at me, ‘off you go, young lady.’
    The building itself seems to be a ruin now. It’s impossible to imagine that it was ever anything else. Perhaps bombs are machines for speeding up what time always does anyway. For making us travel from the past into the future.
    The next morning when I get to the bottom of the hill and prepare myself for the daily battle with its curves, I am surprised to see another policeman.
    ‘Where are you going, Miss?’ he asks me.
    ‘Up there,’ I gesture at the towers, ‘I work at the Observatory.’
    He raises his eyebrows, ‘A maid? Go on, then, they’ll be expecting you.’
    ‘No, I’m not a maid,’ I mutter but he doesn’t hear and I am so curious about why there should be a policeman standing guard by the arch that I get up the hill in record time.
    As I round the bend near the top, all is commotion. The children race around, as normal, but the Astronomer Royal and Mr Storey are also pacing back and forth, pointing at the West Tower and at the ground. I walk over to the two men, picking my way across some broken bricks and masonry which are scattered all over the grass. A large crack has appeared in the brickwork at the base of the tower so that anyone can look in,
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