The Eyre Affair_ A Novel - Jasper Fforde [173]
I nodded.
“And you wouldn’t expect the gas to cramp itself up in the left-hand side again, would you?”
“No.”
“Ah!” replied Mycroft with a knowing smile. “Not quite right. You see, since every interaction of gas atom is reversible, sometime, sooner or later, the gas must cramp itself back into the left-hand side!”
“It must?”
“Yes; the key here is how much later. Since even a small box of gas might contain 1020 atoms, the time taken for them to try all possible combinations would take far longer than the age of the universe; a decrease in entropy strong enough to allow gas to separate, a shattered glass to re-form or the statue of St. Zvlkx outside to get down and walk to the pub is not, I think, against any physical laws but just fantastically unlikely.”
“So,” I said slowly, “what you are saying is that really really weird coincidences are caused by a drop in entropy?”
“Exactly so. But it’s only a theory. As to why entropy might spontaneously decrease and how one might conduct experiments into localized entropic field decreasement, I have only a few untried notions that I won’t trouble you with here, but look, take this—it could save your life.”
He picked up a jam jar from one of the many worktops and passed it to me. It seemed the contents were half rice and half lentils.
“I’m not hungry, thanks,” I told him.
“No, no. I call this device an entroposcope. Shake it for me.”
I shook the jam jar and the rice and lentils settled together in that sort of random clumping way that chance usually dictates.
“So?” I asked.
“Entirely usual,” replied Mycroft. “Standard clumping, entropy levels normal. Shake it every now and then. You’ll know when a decrease in entropy occurs as the rice and lentils will separate out into more ordered patterns—and that’s the time to watch out for ludicrously unlikely coincidences.”
Polly entered the workshop and gave her husband a hug.
“Hello, you two,” she said. “Having fun?”
“I’m showing Thursday what I’ve been up to, my dear,” replied Mycroft graciously.
“Did you show her your memory erasure device, Crofty?”
“No, he didn’t,” I said.
“Yes, I did,” replied Mycroft with a smile, adding: “You’re going to have to leave me, pet—I’ve work to do. I retire in fifty-six minutes precisely.”
My father didn’t turn up that evening, much to my mother’s disappointment. At five minutes to ten, Mycroft, true to his word and with Polly behind him, emerged from his laboratory to join us for dinner.
Next family dinners are always noisy affairs, and tonight was no different. Landen sat next to Orville and did a very good impression of someone who was trying not to be bored. Joffy, who was next to Wilbur, thought his new job was utter crap, and Wilbur, who had been needled by Joffy for at least three decades, replied that he thought the Global Standard Deity Faith was the biggest load of phony codswallop he had ever come across.
“Ah,” replied Joffy loftily, “wait until you meet the Brotherhood of Unconstrained Verbosity.”
Gloria and Charlotte always sat next to each other, Gloria to talk about something trivial—such as buttons—and Charlotte to agree with her. Mum and Polly talked about the Women’s Federation and I sat next to Mycroft.
“What will you do in your retirement, Uncle?”
“I don’t know, pet. I have some books I’ve been wanting to write for some time.”
“About your work?”
“Much too dull. Can I try an idea out on you?”
“Sure.”
He smiled, looked around, lowered his voice and leaned closer.
“Okay, here it is. Brilliant young surgeon Dexter Colt starts work at the highly efficient yet underfunded children’s hospital doing pioneering work on relieving the suffering of orphaned amputees. The chief nurse is the headstrong yet beautiful Tiffany Lampe. Tiffany has only recently recovered from her shattered love affair with anesthetist Dr. Burns, and—”
“—they fall in love?” I ventured.
Mycroft’s face fell.
“You’ve heard it then?”
“The bit about the orphaned amputees is good,” I said, trying not to dishearten