latest John John - tenth?

Barry knows that, before the Director agrees to an unscheduled meeting, he will check on what has been happening overnight in the observatory.
The Director is suspicious of his staff; he also likes to say 'I know' and 'I’m fully aware of that'. Authority, The Director believes, has to appear omniscient.
While he waits to be summoned, Barry puts his feet up on his own desk and, hands clasped in his groin, chin on his chest, he dozes; nods awake to note the passage of ten minutes, to stare at the printout pinned to the wall, and dozes.
Nine o'clock comes and goes with a queasy flutter of apprehension: the Director has arrived on the premises. He dozes. Ten o'clock moves forever into the past. He dozes. When the phone does finally ring it has him scrambling out of his chair and confusedly grappling the receiver upside down to his ear.
The hamstrings of both legs numbed by his peculiar sleeping position, Barry hobbles through the corridors to the Director's office carrying his printout and a sense of deja vu; seems like all his life he has been hurrying to confrontations.
Dumping his printout on the Director's desk, Barry drops into the chair opposite him. The Director raises one hairy eyebrow towards the naked expanse of his pink bald head.
"So..." he deliberately doesn’t look at the printout, instead leans away from it into his chair, "Convince me we haven't wasted a night's work."
Barry studies this ex-man of science become an administrator. Why is it, he wonders, that with every promotion these men, who enjoy authority, acquire another layer of subcutaneous fat? The physiognomy of administrators? Lifting his own thin hand he lays it, like a zealot bearing witness, upon the pile of printout, and he begins a reiteration of what he wrote in the log, explaining why the line could not have been a machine fault.
"Why should it not be an elaborate, entirely subjective, wish-fulfillment?"
"Wow!" Barry site back grinning, "Entirely subjective wish-fulfillment?"
Those in authority are suspicious of all humour. Humour is variously called insubordination, impertinence, mockery. The paranoia of petty power sees in every smile a threat. And, having been openly scoffed at, the Director now bridles, his ego puffing up, his pate flushing. Before he can let loose his indignation, though, Barry pats the printout,
"Wish-fulfillment might just explain my interpretation of the machine. It does not explain my viewing the line through binoculars."
"Only you saw it."
"Wrong."
"There was someone else here?"
The Director is springing a trap: no-one other than Barry was authorised to enter the observatory last night, and there'd been a fuss about his being allowed to be on his own.
"Not here. I checked with a friend in Teignmouth, as you must have read in the log. He saw it."
"After you told him what to look for. Autosuggestion?"
"And there's none so blind as those that won't see," Barry exposes his teeth in an attempt at an easy smile, "When I got off I phoned Woomera. Until my call they thought they'd had a fault in their optics. When they'd eliminated that, they thought it a freak heat distortion. When I phoned, they cursed; and they called their night's troubles the Tappell Line."
The Director’s expression has changed in a blink from narrow-eyed scepticism to eye-dancing speculation.
"I also phoned California," Barry says, to bring the Director now to earth, "They had no idea what I was talking about, hadn't seen anything, couldn’t be persuaded to even look in the right direction."
The Director brushes that aside — that someone hasn't seen something does not mean that it does not exist. Suddenly he is again the scientist, the discoverer, a pioneer prepared to lay his reputation on the line. On Tappell’s Line.
"What d'you think's causing it? Atmospheric phenomena?"
"Far too high. To be visible from here and from Australia, and to appear continuously more or less in the same place, it has to be way out. Way beyond the solar system."
"Then what is it?"
"Conjecture only. And a first guess at that. I'd say it's a galactic veil."
"Galactic veil?"
"Glue of the galaxies."
"They been known to move before?"
"Not out of station. Not so far as I’m aware. But, so far as science goes, we haven't known about them for that long. This sort of thing needs to be studied over centuries."
"Yes. But..." the Director runs a hand over his mouth, "Surely this has none of the characteristics normally associated with a galactic veil? What makes you suppose that it might be?"
The first intelligent question having been asked of him, Barry leans forward, the game behind him, earnest now.
"Simplistically it's this. Every view we’ve had so far of a galactic veil has been face on. Suppose you were to look along its side though. Like a curtain. A net curtain. Face on, flat on, a net curtain lets light through; and, if you focus beyond it, then it's as good as transparent. But if you stand to the side of the net curtain and look along its undulations, then it must appear as a solid straight line. Yes?"
"Yes..." the Director wiggles his bottom lip dubiously between thumb and forefinger.
"And that would also explain," Barry says, "Why we didn't see it coming. We were probably looking at it flat on; and looking right through it. And being comparatively close, it was, of course, easier to look through. Like a net curtain. The further away it is the denser it appears, the more visible it is. Chances are that if it hadn't turned end on we might never have noticed it. We need much more evidence of course. From various sources. Only then can we be sure."
"Do you," the Director portentously holds Barry's eyes, 'have any objections to going public with this? Though," the smile is paternal, "you might win more friends by having a shave first."
Barry knows that the Director requires the publicity to justify his claims for increased funding from their sole stingy patron; and increased funding will mean better facilities for Barry. And Barry has no objection to publicly advertising his discovery — but in scientific journals. What the Director wants, however, is to astound and to astonish the general public, make the line a news item. Barry is loath to be let out of his closed zoo, doesn't want to become yet another of the pursued freaks in the all-channels global freak show.
"I’d prefer further corroboration first. From a disinterested third party."
"Such as?"
"Mullard. They might also be able to enlighten us with regard to its constituents. And its distance."
The Mullard zoo receives a large government subsidy, in order that the government can lay rapid claim to anything of military benefit that Mullard might come up with. This makes the Mullard people, perversely, less secretive than those like Barry and the Director who are keenly aware of their zoomaster's egotistical motives. Such zoo owners, being already rich, they crave more than mere wealth: they want to lay claim to immortality in a star or a discovery being named after them. Such jealous vanity demands a watchful loyalty.
Barry’s suggestion makes safe sense to the Director: he no more wants to look a fool over a possible computer error than does Barry. Opening a desk drawer he removes a thick address book. When he is connected, he asks for an extension number. After the inevitable smalltalk; first name terms, the Director broaches the subject of last night's sighting, says that they are seeking corroboration.
The Director is asked to explain the nature of the sighting and does so, adding that he wants to go public with it.
"They haven't said yet," the Director holds his hand over the mouthpiece while the voice at the Mullard end consults with colleagues, "but they saw it. Only remains to find out when."
They wait. Eventually the Director says Hello, is handed to someone else, tells the newcomer once more of the sighting. Questions are asked.
"Hold on," the Director says, "I'll put us onto conference. My colleague here will be better able to answer your questions."
A button is pressed on the phone and the Director opens his palm to Barry.
"Good morning," Barry says sitting forward.
"I'm told you saw a line?" The voice says that it doesn’t want its time wasted.
Barry describes the line's position, how it moved throughout the night; and, lest they try to dismiss it as a machine fault, he tells them that he has already received independent confirmation from both Teignmouth and Woomera.
"I see," the voice says.
Barry realises that he is talking to his opposite number, the technician from last night.
"Did you see it?" Barry asks. Though ‘see’ is the wrong word: Mullard’s are radio scans.
"We saw something." The Mullard technician is also in the presence of his superior.
"Any idea to its composition?"
"What do you reckon?" the technician cagily throws the question back at him.
"A theory, and a theory only," Barry realises that he is trembling, "I think it’s a galactic veil viewed edge on."
"Yea. Or something along those lines. What distance did you make it?"
"I need more data. A reliable parallax. It's certainly way outside the solar system."
"It's between us and Sirius." The first direct confirmation, the first information.
"That close," Barry frowns.
"And closing."
Barry ponders that news. The Mullard technician gives him time.
"Is this from satellite. Or ground scans?"
"Both."
"What did you make of it?" Barry asks.
"Your galactic veil could well be right, So far as we can make out, at the moment, it's comprised of an unbroken band of heavily ionised gas and dust particles. Small particles."
"No ice?"
"Could be. That'll have to wait on spectroscopic. And then, the way it’s bending light, it'll probably be meaningless. Those small particles en masse are creating one helluva magnetic field. You said it was obscuring stars. It's not. It’s magnetism is so strong it's bending their light. And, as far as we can calculate, it's travelling at almost the speed of light."
"Is its mass changing?"
"No way of telling. It’s playing hell with all our instruments. We’re having to refocus on it all the time, and we can't get an objective measurement. Apart from anything else there are just too many lateral fluctuations. If it was a single solid body..."
The Director is tapping his watch.
"What time did you first see it?" Barry asks.
"Started giving us gyp all yesterday evening. 02:58 when we first focused on it."
"I've got it logged at 11:O5."
"So," the technician’s smile is audible, "it's yours."
"Woomera," Barry blushes, "calls it the Tappell Line."
"Good a name as any," the technician grunts, "At least now we know what to curse."
"Any objections to us going public with it?" the Director asks.
Mullard is silent.
"For the moment," the Director’s plummy opposite number replies, "we'd rather you didn't. Until we can be absolutely sure of its nature. And that it poses no threat. If you could hold fire for a couple of days? Until after the weekend? We will, of course, seeing as it's yours, keep you fully informed of all developments this end."
"Thank you," Barry says, before the Director can argue. Farewells are made.
Despite being thwarted at the last fence the Director sits back smugly,
"Now let them call this the polytech of astronomy." With an avuncular smile he studies Barry, "you'd better go home and get some sleep. I've got some urgent rescheduling to do. Angry voices to placate. From now on the Tappell/Schultz Line is The priority. See you tonight."

Voice Off. In human affairs novelty always takes precedence.