Dr Ethelberg dropped her pen and recoiled from the desk. She hadn't, had she?
She took off her glasses, peered at the page and deliberately blinked a couple of times. It was still there: 176.7864.
She must have gone wrong somewhere along the way, missed a decimal point, misread her handwriting, mistaken a dot for a dash...
She turned back to page one. Nothing wrong with any of that.
Page two? No, no problems there.
Page three? All fine.
Page four? Perfect.
The solution was at the top of page five. Dr Ethelberg could not identify any mistakes.
But surely 176.7864 was far too low. She'd been expecting it to come out somewhere around 182.51. No one had ever expected an exact figure, but the Department's plans had all been based on the estimate of 182.51.
This is extraordinary, thought Dr Ethelberg. Of course, if the real figure was indeed 176.7864, then the planet was almost certain to melt within the week. But that didn't matter to Dr Ethelberg. It might have been the end of everything, but her reputation was sure to be at an all-time high.
She sat back in her chair and poured herself a large glass of sherry. She was going to plummet into oblivion with the status her brilliance deserved.
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