A Pillar of Stars by Night

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Dozing in his sleeping bag, Mark Willson heard a shrill, faint and unwelcome whine. Culex, as well as Saltmarsh and the Asian Tiger mosquitoes, thrived here, so he pulled the bag’s mosquito hood around his head. Just before he slid back into sleep, he vaguely realized that the sound was not a mosquito at all. It had an unpleasant metallic edge.

Later, a meadowlark singing woke Mark up for good. With a yawn, he turned his mind to the day ahead of him. He had work to do on his doctoral dissertation in ecology: “Restoration of a Coastal Tallgrass Prairie ” This morning he would do a species count in the J-3 plot of his grid of string laid across the grass. Writing up notes and analyzing data could wait for the heat of the afternoon.

His notebook computer trilled at him. The message window said CALL ECOL OFFICE.

Not yet, Mark thought.

urgent, the computer continued.

But it had said “urgent” two days ago, when the new department secretary wanted to know where he’d filed the Lepidoptera reference disk. He would call back later.

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