Free Launch Pad by Jody Lynn Nye, Mike Brotherton Page B

it?
    But what if she stayed for more than one? Or even dinner?
    Bev’s thoughts bounced back and forth between her options, until she noticed that a half hour had passed. She smacked a firm palm down on her desktop.
    Enough already! She could not afford dithering, and was mad at herself for letting it happen. She replied.

    Hi Rodger,
    I’d love to, but I’m at a critical juncture with my research and need to see whether or not it pans out. Give me a raincheck?
    Thanks,
    Bev

    She hit “send” before she let herself rethink it again. There. It was done. Quick and painless. One thing at a time. One priority at time. No voluntary distractions. The ones that were part of her job description were bad enough.
    She glanced at the clock and berated herself. Look at how much time I’ve wasted already.
    Bev returned to her calculations.
    O O O
    All twenty-two professors in the department sat in the Fischer Room, where most of their grad classes were held, for the monthly faculty meeting. The room wasn’t ideal, as all the seats faced forward to where the department chair sat, leaving it difficult to see each other, but it was big enough without being too big.
    Bev was starting to realize why faculty meetings were universally dreaded. It wasn’t that they were bad, exactly. They were, however, an opportunity for some to have a captive audience for their pet projects, to be forced to confront departmental politics, as well as to be in the spotlight, and not always in a good way.
    She’d figured she had some leeway given how new she was, but there was an agenda item labeled “New Faculty Report” and she was the only recent hire in the astronomy department. Marty had caught her in the hallway and just told her to give an honest appraisal about how things were going when her turn came, and to try to take any comments or criticisms constructively.
    Bev did not look forward to it. The other professors were not only her de facto mentors to give her construct advice. They were also the first group of people who would vote whether or not to award her tenure. Being totally honest might not be the wisest first impression in all respects.
    She sat through the discussions about program assessment, a new electronics course for the upper-level physics and astronomy majors, and an announcement about the end-of-semester (formerly holiday, formerly Christmas) party, which would be held at the chair’s house as usual.
    “What’s next?” Marty asked, adjusting his glasses to read his agenda.
    “New faculty,” Rajiv, their cosmologist, offered, twisting his neck to look toward Bev.
    On the spot, yes. She cleared her throat and sat up straighter. “That would be me.”
    “How are things going?” Marty prompted.
    Rodger would make a joke, get everyone to laugh, and then breeze through this. Maybe she could try it herself. “Terrific,” she said, and took a pause to suck people in. Now the punchline, “I’m managing to get everything done in under eighty hours a week!”
    They chuckled, thankfully, despite what she thought was a poor delivery. It was a joke other professors who weren’t deadwood could appreciate, or at least the ones who hadn’t been associate professors too long. They didn’t need to know it wasn’t actually a joke in her case, and she suspected it might not be a joke in theirs, either. She hoped not, or she’d be alone among them.
    Bev recounted her progress and setbacks with her research, dealing with the recalibration issue in particular. Argus was a high-profile NASA mission, and in many respects her career would rise and fall with it. She reminded them how she was leading the first effort that had the potential to see what planets orbiting other stars actually looked like. She wished she had better results, and didn’t need to use the qualifier “potential.” After the Hubble and James Webb Space Telescopes people weren’t impressed with vague smudges in a circular shape, and she’d have to do better.