The Need for Better Regulation of Outer Space Read Online Free Page A

at pieces of twisted metal and smashed glass. It is like peering into an animal’s insides, and seeing everything all exposed. Somehow it is worse than the exploded building in the Old Town. Nearby is another policeman, writing something in a notebook.
    Mr Storey is the first to notice me, ‘Hullo! Look what has happened to our tower!’
    ‘What caused it?’ I ask, but I already know. There is the smell here too, the smell from yesterday. Something violent has happened here.
    The Astronomer Royal turns around and sees me, ‘Who are you?’ he asks and he doesn’t look very friendly. I always imagined having a conversation with him about the stars and our work, but before I can reply, he says, ‘I need to inspect the damage inside. I fear the clock may have taken the brunt of it.’
    I watch him walk away, and he seems to stumble over something lying on the ground, and then he kicks it. I see a flash of light as he sends a bit of broken glass flying through the air before it hits the ground again and breaks up into even smaller fragments.
    Behind Mr Storey I can see Flora and Jeanie struggling up the hill. They are still some way off so I will have a few moments alone with him before they arrive. ‘What happened?’ I ask.
    ‘Our work is destroyed,’ he glares at me, ‘all destroyed by the actions of stupid women.’
    ‘Do you know why they did it?’ I am keen to understand the reasons behind this action. I know the suffragettes are bombing railway carriages, slashing paintings in galleries, and destroying postboxes. I know they are doing this because they want the vote. But why did they come up here, to the Observatory? But my question just makes him even crosser.
    ‘Why?’ Even now, when he seems to be angry with me I notice how very green his eyes are. I wish I could stop noticing all these little things about him because they are no use to me. ‘Why?’ he repeats, ‘because they are not true women. They are false, hysterical. They are not ruled by decency or by sense.’
    Jeanie and Flora appear, and they gaze at all the debris, round-eyed.
    ‘It was a bomb,’ I tell them before Mr Storey can say anything, ‘the suffragettes have done it.’
    The Astronomer Royal appears again, holding a large broom. ‘Make yourself useful,’ he says, and he hands me the broom.
    He is right, I suppose, we may as well help. So I start tosweep, and Flora and Jeanie stack the broken bricks into neat piles. As I sweep, the maid appears. She stands on the edge of the drying green with the basket of laundry at her feet and watches. I feel like calling out to her but I don’t know what I would say. I have never spoken to her before now. But it seems she watches us very carefully the whole time we are sweeping, and the laundry is forgotten.
    Later, we make tea in our little room. We sit and drink it and talk about what we should do now. I am still hopeful that everything will be put back to how it was, all the damage will be mended, and we will be allowed to continue with our plates but the others are not so sure.
    ‘There may not be any more plates. The telescope itself may be destroyed,’ Flora gets up and peers out of the window but you cannot really see very much of the rest of the Observatory from our room, so she returns to her tea.
    Jeanie is doing calculations on a scrap of paper. ‘I can last three weeks on my savings,’ she announces, and I realise that I have made no provision for the future. I have given my mother nearly all my earnings, and spent the remainder on bus fares and biscuits.
    Mr Storey comes in to the room just as we are admiring Jeanie’s neat sums. ‘I need to see your hands,’ he says. We look at him. As usual, his shirtsleeves are rolled up, but even though I try not to look at his arms I can’t help noticing dirt smeared on their undersides. He is usually so clean.
    ‘Our hands?’ I automatically look down at my hands waiting in my lap for their next instructions, like pale, obliging