Sacrifice

Chapter 8 - The Project

The next week and a half conspired to be kind to her. Social events were small and low-key since the Crown Prince was away from the capital, overseeing his Princely Project, and Feylanna was called from her side to provide comfort to a sick cousin. As a result, Kalli was able to put together her proposal, which was approved by Miriam, without having to hide it from her maid. She and Adir were also free to meet in the quiet gardens around the manor.

Her run of good luck waivered as she stood in her private study one afternoon and tried to overlay grids on a section of star chart she had projected along one of the walls. As Miriam had warned her, the position of most stars had a high level of error in their calculated position, and this made comparing grids next to impossible. Her problem had been eloquently summed up by a recent article.

"... given the ambient light generated by all earthly locations within which a proper Sigma-level telescope can operate, due to power requirements, it is concluded that further accuracy for space-based mapping will only occur with the introduction of a more sophisticated light-filter telescope."

"And you call yourself a scientist?" Kalli asked the paper's absent author. "There's never only one solution to a problem; you just need to change perspectives sometimes."

She took another look at her too-blurry star charts.

"There has to be somewhere on the planet I can see the stars."

She selected a blank portion of the wall that was meant for writing on and grabbed the stylus used to mark on it.

"OK, so variables are: distance I want to see, light output of the star, decrease in luminous intensity over space, power of the telescope and the telescope's light filter co-efficient. And I'm looking for the maximum amount of light pollution that can be tolerated." She considered the variables, "oh, yeah, I need correction percentages to compare to the capital's light pollution."

The creation of a coherent equation from such complex variables was quite the task, but Kalli promised herself there would be no rest until it was done. She wasn't sure how long it took, but eventually, she was able to set the computer to search for areas of the planet she could map from.

"My Lady, what on earth are you doing?"

Kalli spun around to see Feylanna at the door of her study.

"Is this? Is this science?"

Kalli ignored Feylanna's question. "What are you doing here? You're supposed to be gone for another two days."

She watched Feylanna survey the chaos of her work with a disapproving eye.

"My cousin is better," Feylanna answered. "And it's a good thing too when Lord dir Liran finds out about this ..."

Kalli felt as if the floor had dropped out from beneath her.

"Go get my grey pearls," she ordered, her voice hoarse.

"My Lady?" Feylanna's surprise gave Kalli the momentum she needed.

"The pearls. Go get them."

Kalli watched Feylanna head to her sitting room through the adjoining door. It would take only seconds for Feylanna to make it to her bedroom and back. Numbly, Kalli looked down at her hand; she had gripped the stylus so hard it had broken in two and was digging into the soft flesh of her palm.

She dropped it.

"They're gone," Faylanna's words announced her return, "my Lady, I don't understand. Has something happened to them?"

When Kalli managed to speak her voice was soft, not her own. "You stole them."

Feylanna paled. "My Lady I never-"