Prior parts: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

I hope you enjoy.

—

Harvey woke up to the sound of their alarm and, although feeling bleary-eyed, got out of bed and plodded about their room a bit. Their alarm was set away from them, forcing them to get up in order to switch it off, and they found this to be an effective tool for the purposes of getting things done. This particular morning, however? Going back to bed was not off the cards.

Eventually they settled on leaving their room and getting ready to go. Better without Cave, they thought. Far less annoying. Far less irritating.

About twenty minutes into getting ready and, rounding a corner Cave was right there.

“LETS DO THIS HARVEY!”

A moment of silence.

“No need to bellow. What are you doing awake so early anyway?”

“I had a good sleep. What, you think that just because I’ve been sleeping late I can’t sleep early?”

“We got back late. I’m surprised you’re awake at all.”

“I got stuff ready before going to sleep. Got a bit of extra sleep that way.”

“But wouldn’t you have gotten the same amount of sleep had you just gone to sleep and woken up a bit earlier?”

“Maybe, but the process makes it feel like more.”

Harvey hadn’t considered that. Regardless, they now were stuck with Cave for the day and this is not something that they desired.

Soon they were out of the house and on their way to the observatory. It was a walk as long as it needed to be and it was long enough to appreciate. Rush hour was past and so there was little worry of having to wait for traffic, and the breeze was nice and crisp and it felt cleaner than usual, though perhaps that was just Harvey feeling too tired to care enough about air quality. Perhaps they were living in some sort of small pocket filled with delusion and the indifference they indulged was allowing that delusion to come forward a little more than normal.

The sky seemed to hang in the air and clouds drifted on the way that clouds of a particular sized seemed to do, though it was difficult to tell if Harvey and Cave were walking in their shadows or not, thoguh it didn’t matter. For what they felt was something rather serious, the weather was uncharacteristically pleasant and so the weight that they were feeling was not reflected in their environment. Such is the way it was, really; what they felt they had to do didn’t require setting to match, so long as the weather was neither too hot nor too cold so as to make their movement a little more tolerable.

Harvey wondered if they would find answers, or if there would be nothing, but the more they thought about the whole thing, the more they felt that there was nothing to it and the more they thought about how they knew nothing about what they saw, or Mercury for that matter.

Eventually Harvey and Cave reached the observatory. For a moment they stopped to sit down and appreciate the scene, and it was one that was pretty in a way. They could see a fair bit around them and all seemed distant, separated by clusters of trees, yet still quite close. They appreciated what they saw, if only for a few moments as Harvey drifted elsewhere and thought about how this would be better with a bit more sleep under their belt.

Harvey wondered what Cave was thinking about, for despite the enthusiastic greeting a little earlier, they’d been relatively silent for most of the time. Occasional murmurings here and there, lines that seemed to go nowhere, nothing that Harvey found antagonising. It was strange. Maybe Cave was worried they had to reckon with something they didn’t want to have to. Maybe Cave didn’t want to be told that it was nothing; that all it meant was a thing that happened, and that it is interesting and more research needed to be done, but other than that it was just some sort of phenomena that has no impact on people.

Eventually Harvey and Cave got up and went in. They had a bit of a look around, seeing some displays and information on the history of astronomy, and eventually they looked for someone they could speak to to ask about Mercury Retrograde.

The person advised them, almost on auto-pilot, that it was a phenomenon where Mercury appears as though it is moving backward in the sky and that this was due to how it moved through the sky, then went on to explain that due to this sighting it had become associated as having some sort of meaning on a spiritual level, though beyond that it didn’t mean anything other than some sort of visual relevance, though the scientist wondered out loud as to how many people out there that believed that it had some sort of impact on us had actually seen the event, as whilst it was genuinely interesting, it was not actually anything overly important as far as they were aware.

Harvey asked for some more information related to any sort of special sightings and so the scientist advised that they would go and get someone who takes data about Mercury’s path through the sky.

Harvey and Cave waited for a while, or at least what felt like a while before thinking it’d be better to leave when another scientist approached them from wherever scientists come from.

—

They met up with the two people who looked unassuming enough, though one had a bit of a wilder look in their eyes and the three of them proceeded to discuss Mercury retrograde and why it occurs. They went into detail about how it appears and what happens as it travels across the sky, and how it is interesting that it appears in the sky even thoguh Mercury is a bit farther away, asking it seem much closer and smaller and more insignificant than it is even though we know it is largeish and much farther away.

One of the two asked about Mercury doing strange things doing retrograde, which Purvell met with silence initially, for they needed to think about the answer they were going to provide. To them this seemed like two other people saw what Purvell saw and perhaps this could lead to some sort of confirmation that there was something more to it, but three people hardly make a consensus strong enough to put something forward. On a personal level it meant that Purvell was assured that they weren’t going crazy in some manner. However, they still felt they could not say anything about it and so, after thinking for what felt like an additional eternity, they advised that there was no information they could provide, but they’d note that the two had seen what they saw.

After describing it to Purvell, Purvell invited them to check out more of the public access areas whilst they headed on back to their desk to note the information, then said their farewells.

—

As Harvey and Cave walked away from the observatory they felt some relief, or at least seemed to at first, because all they received was information that they had already received. It wasn’t long before Cave spoke up.

“Well, that seemed like a waste of time.”

“Why do you say that?”

“We learned nothing.”

“We just found out information about a planet and how it appears to us. We just learned something that made our world bigger and more insignificant, and you’re walking away from that thinking we learned nothing.”

“It just seemed so… banal.”

“What did you expect? That we were going to learn something about psychic manifestations?”

“I don’t know. It just wasn’t what I was expecting.”

“Well, you got something new and you can take something from that.”

“Did you notice how, when we talked about seeing what we saw, that second person hesitated for a moment?”

“Kind of.”

“You reckon they knew? You reckon they saw it themselves? Or do you reckon they were hiding something and weren’t expecting anyone to ask about it?”

“Who knows? Maybe they did see something. Maybe there is something that they are aware of but were not willing to share. Perhaps they saw something they hadn’t seen before.”

“Then why didn’t they say anything?”

“Why would they? If it’s some sort of unknown phenomena, they’re not going to just say something like “You know, it’s funny you should mention that as I saw something like that myself”. That’s now how this works. Scientists work there. They gather data together and see if it supports hypotheses and arguments, or if it tells us something at all. Maybe this is something involved in research but too early to talk about. There could be many reasons.”

“Thank you for explaining what scientists do. I was not aware.”

“Sometimes you say things that imply as much.”

“Well, maybe they know something more and they aren’t saying anything. I guess it’s not something I’ll find out and I should probably let go and just get on with things.”

“We did what you wanted to do here and that’s the end of it. At this point I just want to go home.”

“And do what?”

“I’m sure my interface will be ready this afternoon. I’ll probably go home and rest and then try to call through and see how it’s going. If I can’t get through I’ll just go over and that’ll be that. What are you going to do?”

“Research.”

As Harvey and Cave walked away they heard a loud sound disturb the idea of tranquility and peace that they held close to themselves. Something sounded like it broke at the observatory. Deciding to indulge their curiosity, the two headed on back to the observatory, hoping to get a view into what just happened. Besides which, something that loud usually means something pretty bad, and maybe they’d need the help, and maybe they’d be able to get some more information on the strange Mercury Retrograde.