The Eyre Affair_ A Novel - Jasper Fforde [90]
“Afternoon,” said Victor, attempting to walk past. One of the gorillas stepped into his way and put a huge hand on his shoulder.
“Good afternoon, sir. Fine day. May I see your pass?”
“Of course,” said Victor, fumbling in his pocket. He produced the pass inserted behind the worn plastic window of his wallet. If the gorillas took it out and saw that it was a photocopy, then all would be lost.
“I haven’t seen you around before, sir,” said one of the men suspiciously.
“No,” replied Victor evenly, “you’ll see from my card that I belong to the Berwick-upon-Tweed spiral arm.”
The first man passed the wallet to his comrade.
“We’ve been having problems with infiltrators, isn’t that so, Mr. Europa?”
The second man grunted and passed the wallet back to Victor.
“Name?” asked the first, holding up a clipboard.
“I probably won’t be on the list,” said Victor slowly. “I’m a latecomer. I called Dr. Müller last night.”
“I don’t know of any Dr. Müller,” said the first, sucking in air through his teeth as he looked at Victor with narrowed eyes, “but if you are an Earthcrosser you will have no problem telling me which of the planets has the highest density.”
Victor looked from one to the other and laughed. They laughed with him.
“Of course not.”
He took a step forward but the smile on the men’s faces dropped. One of them put out another massive hand to stop him.
“Well?”
“This is preposterous,” said Victor indignantly. “I’ve been an Earthcrosser for thirty years and I’ve never had this sort of treatment before.”
“We don’t like infiltrators,” said the first man again. “They try to give us a bad name. Do you want to know what we do to bogus members? Now. Again. Which of the planets has the highest density?”
Victor looked at the two men, who looked back at him menacingly.
“It’s Earth. The lowest is Pluto, okay?”
The two security men were not yet convinced.
“Kindergarten stuff, mister. How long is a weekend on Saturn?”
Two miles away in Bowden’s car, Bowden and I were frantically calculating the answer and transmitting it down the line to the earpiece that Victor was wearing. The car was stuffed with all sorts of reference books on astronomy; all that we could hope was that none of the questions would be too obscure.
“Twenty hours,” said Bowden down the line to Victor.
“About twenty hours,” said Victor to the two men.
“Orbital velocity of Mercury?”
“Would that be aphelion or perihelion?”
“Don’t get smart, pal. Average will do.”
“Let me see now. Add the two together and—ah, good Lord, is that a ringed chaffinch?”
The two men didn’t turn to look.
“Well?”
“It’s, um, one hundred and six thousand miles per hour.”
“Uranus’ moons?”
“Uranus?” replied Victor, stalling for time. “Don’t you think it’s amusing that they changed the pronunciation?”
“The moons, sir.”
“Of course. Oberon, Titania, Umb—”
“Hold it! A real Earthcrosser would have logged the closest first!”
Victor sighed as Bowden reversed the order over the airwaves.
“Cordelia, Ophelia, Bianca, Cressida, Desdemona, Juliet, Portia, Rosalind, Belinda, Puck, Miranda, Ariel, Umbriel, Titania and Oberon.”
The two men looked at Victor, nodded and then stepped back to let him pass, their manner changed abruptly to acute politeness.
“Thank you, sir. Sorry about that but, as I’m sure you realize, there are very many people who would like to see us stopped. I’m sure you understand.”
“Of course, and may I congratulate you on your thoroughness, gentlemen. Good-day.”
As Victor walked by they stopped him again.
“Aren’t you forgetting something, sir?”
Victor turned. I had wondered about some sort of password, and if that was what they wanted now we were sunk. He decided to let them lead the situation.
“Leave it in the car, sir?” asked the first man after a pause. “Here, borrow mine.”
The security man