Percival's Planet (2010) by Byers Michael

Author:Byers, Michael [Michael, Byers,]
Format: epub
Publisher: Macmillan
Published: 2011-01-14T19:19:05.828000+00:00

Anyhow it is all going along, slowly but without a hitch, until one day when Dr. Payne asks him to bring up a set of plates from the stacks. He hefts up the leather plate satchel and rides the elevator to the basement to get a set of plates from Serpens, and as he is searching for them he spots a yellow slip in an odd place, high up on a shelf, in the ancient Draper plates of Gemini. No one bothers with those any longer; they are too old to be of much interest. But Gemini.

Who?

Then he suddenly knows.

Florrie.

He takes the paper down. There is her signature.

He turns and looks down the row. Yellow slips every so often, as though she knows just what she is looking for, and just where.

A sickly chill goes through him.

He has not considered what she would be like as a rival. An enemy. For an hour he stalks the plate library, his hands shaking and a fluttering dread in his gut. He notes all the plates she has checked out; without further study he can only determine that all of them are along the ecliptic—and therefore potential Planet X plates. When he returns to Payne’s office she says, “Did you slip out for a few, Mr. Barber? You look absolutely poisoned.” But he can’t joke, not yet. He settles unhumming into his chair.

It’s not fair, that’s all.

You can’t ridicule him and then go hunting for Planet X yourself, Florrie. It’s just not right.

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