Odd Prompt: Rock My World

This is just a bit of drabble for the prompt. 

***

The speaker up on the dias in front of the large screen cleared her throat. As if on cue, the screen lit up behind her, with the title of the talk, her name in smaller letting under that. She looked up and out, not at the small audience, but at the cameras. Her talk was, of course, being recorded. 

“My name is Professor...” 

Sam tuned her out. He’d gotten good, over the last three years in this godforsaken place, at reducing the brain-buzzes to a low drone. Scientists, at least the ones who’d been selected for this mission, were fond of their own voices. Having successfully retreated from the tedium of being in the audience to make it look like she wasn’t talking to an empty room, he contemplated the evening meal. 

It wouldn’t be a surprise. The meals out here on the dig were depressingly routine. The cook didn’t even try to vary them up a little. Tonight would be macaroni, with the leftovers of yesterday’s taco meat in it. That was about the most variation he could dream up - you never knew how people’s appetites would be, sometimes there was more meat on a Wednesday than others. 

Sam looked up at the speaker. Something she’d said had tripped his subconscious and he found he was listening again as she looked down at the podium as though she were reading from notes. 

“The relics found on Centauri V were almost identical to those found on Earth. In the following slides, I will show the subtle differences. Then,” She paused for effect, still looking at the cameras rather than her voluntold audience, “I will show the relics found here at Antares IX, and illustrate the startling similarities between all three sets.” 

Sam looked around. She had everyone’s attention, now. Like him, then, they didn’t know what she was talking about. 

“On my next image...” She glanced over her shoulder, as the screen behind her changed. 

Sam blinked. “Relic?” He muttered to himself. “Are you shitting me?” 

Above him on the speaker’s dias, she continued to talk serenely, using a laser pointer to indicated details on the image projected behind her. She hadn’t heard him. 

Jeff, in the seat behind him, had. Sam saw his shoulders heave in suppressed laughter. 

“That’s a crock.” Sam settled into his seat, grumpy. He’d been pulled out of his reverie, and it was not going to work to drag his attention away from what she was saying again. He couldn’t pull out his tablet and distract himself, either. The screen glow was too obvious and he’d get in trouble. 

No, he was just going to have to sit here and fume while the professor driveled on about the similarities and differences in... rocks. Those weren’t relics. They were plain old smooth river stones. But someone, in their drive for a grant most likely, had decided they were too regular to come from natural occurrences. Now he was going to have to sit here for an hour and watch her flash images of nodules on the screen. The stones of silence, they were not. 

His stomach rumbled. Jeff looked over his shoulder, grinning. Sam stuck his tongue out at his friend. Dinner when this slow torture was over at least. After that, free time until bed. In the morning? Back to the dig. Maybe tomorrow they’d find something that was an actual relic. Or maybe just more spheres of influence. 

***

This week's prompt came from Becky Jones with "The relics the archaeologists found on Centauri V were almost identical to relics found on Earth." 

I prompted 'Nother Mike with "While repairing the porch, they found a long-lost prepared microscope slide in the earth underneath."

You can read all the prompt responses, or take part in the fun yourself, over at More Odds Than Ends.