[For Chapter I click here.]
If the shuttle to the waystation had been cramped, hot, damp, and nausea-inducing, the elevator was much better in every respect – but it wasslow.
Several of the other passengers in Penrose’s compartment were crowded around the circle of screens in the center. These screens displayed the view outside the elevator, and most people were staring at the moon. Not wishing to look too obviously like a man who had never seen the inside of a space elevator, Penrose satisfied himself with the occasional surreptitious glance. When it became obvious to everyone in the compartment that the view of the moon wouldn’t change appreciably for several hours, the crowd dispersed into small floating knots of people. All told, Penrose estimated about one hundred people in the common room, even one or two whom he’d guessed to be minor nobility by their dress, bearing, and the presence of servants. Most of the people in the compartment were men. He wondered how many compartments an elevator like this had. Were they all full? How many people had business on the moon? Surely none of these people was a loonie.
He spotted the porter, his elbows hooked around a rail circling the entire compartment. Once he made eye contact, the porter jumped off the floor, still hanging on to the railing, and walked hand over hand around to Penrose, legs trailing behind him. Penrose had to turn his head to look back at the man.
“Yes sir, what can I help you with?” the porter asked, slowly bringing his feet to the floor.
“If I wanted to have meals brought to my cabin, who would I speak with? Yourself?”
“Let me see your ticket, sir. Ah, no, not in your class. If you’d like, I can upgrade you,” the porter said.
“Bit above my pay grade, I’m afraid. Just wondering.”
The porter handed Penrose his ticket back. “Is there anything else I can do for you while I’m here?”
“No. But maybe you can tell me something.” He glanced around and lowered his voice. “Do you know if there are any loonies in this compartment?”
The porter rubbed his chin and leaned in close to Penrose, speaking softly. “I don’t believe we get many of them, sir, not in this compartment or any. True loonies—that is to say, permanent lunar residents, sir—don’t often make the trip. Wouldn’t last long once they got off, you know. The gravity.”
“Yes. Yes of course. Forget I asked.” The porter was visibly relieved. “Well, thank you. That will be all.”
“Of course, sir,” the porter said, bobbing his head. “Let me know if I can do anything to make your trip more comfortable these next few days.” Penrose nodded, dismissing the porter, who swept his legs up and handwalked to a position antipodal to that of Penrose. Penrose turned his attention to the rest of the room. A few people were jetting around the room, seeking handholds on a wall or the ceiling by puffing air in one direction or another. There appeared to be no children in the compartment, though he had seen several families boarding the elevator ahead of himself.
He locked eyes with another man scanning the room, exactly as he was doing. Penrose broke eye contact first, checking his watch as if time mattered on the elevator. Sneaking a look up at the other man, Penrose noted with a sinking feeling that the other man was undoing his restraints. As he suspected, the other man grasped the railing and began handwalking in the direction of Penrose, but more clumsily than the porter had. Seeing no further sense in pretending not to notice the man, Penrose pocketed his watch and assumed what he hoped was a blandly welcoming expression.
The other man was wearing a suit of a similar quality to the one which Penrose himself wore and did not appear particularly high born, but in times like these it was best in assuming another’s station to err on the side of caution.
“Good morning, sir,” said Penrose, standing as the other man neared, keeping a hand on his chair.
“Good morning, or afternoon, or whatever it is on this elevator,” the other man said, settling to a stop and struggling to lower his legs. A light sheen of sweat lent a glow to his somewhat soft face, even though the air was quite cool. His feet on the floor, the man mopped his brow with a handkerchief and deposited it in his jacket, stuck out a hand. “My name is Lang. Stephen Lang. I noticed you were traveling alone.” His accent was North American, but Penrose could not place it.
Penrose took Lang’s hand. “Pleasure to meet you Mr. Lang, but why do you think that I’m traveling alone? I might be waiting for my wife to leave our cabin, or I could have a business partner using the, er, facilities.”
vLang gave Penrose a wry look. “You’re traveling alone. I saw you in the boarding queue. My family and I were several places ahead of you, but I watched you get in line. I never forget a face.”
Penrose thought he recognized the man now as one of the family men he had indeed seen. “Ah yes, I believe I saw you. Where are your family?”
Lang’s eyes widened momentarily, then he nodded to himself. “They’re down in the children’s compartment. Your first time in a space elevator, is it?”
“Yes it is,” Penrose admitted.
“Yes, that explains it,” Lang said. “They put small children and their mothers in a separate compartment for their safety.”
“It seems perfectly safe up here,” Penrose demurred.
“Yes, for adults. Down there – or maybe it’s up there, I don’t know; I’ve never been and they won’t let men in, you know – it’s padded, the jets aren’t as powerful, more primary colors in the décor, that sort of thing. A compartment for children and their mothers.”
“Ah, well. I suppose I had noticed that there weren’t many women and children about,” Penrose said. Lang had not let go of his hand. Penrose looked down at it. Lang’s eyes followed Penrose’s down to their hands, then back up to Penrose’s eyes. His grip tightened almost imperceptibly even as his smile broadened.
“And your name would be?” Lang asked him.
“Ah! Penrose. Thomas Penrose. Terribly sorry.” Looking satisfied, Lang loosed his grip and dropped his hand.
“And what is it you do, Mr. Penrose?”
“You can call me Tom. I’m an engineer,” Penrose said, glancing down. He had to be careful not to discuss anything too sensitive. “I work on energy for His Majesty’s government.”
“Aha! And you can call me Stephen. You know, from your accent I almost wouldn’t have pegged you as a fellow subject. But there’s something there I can hear. Are you from out west? Alberta maybe?”
“Well, yes and no. I was born in Colorado. I emigrated to the Kingdom when I was thirty. Met my wife and took the oath. We do live in Calgary now, though I’m in Toronto half the year. You have a good ear.”
Lang nodded knowingly. Emigrating to the Kingdom was a common enough thing for Americans to do. “I might have guessed. Voluntary subjects always emphasize phrases like ‘His Majesty’ and ‘the Kingdom.’ Trying to be more British than the British, eh? Meaning no disrespect, of course.”
“No, none taken,” Penrose said, finding himself warming up to the other man. “But I didn’t think I’d picked up enough of Alberta for it to be recognizable. How did you do that?”
Lang beamed. “It’s my business to have an excellent ear. I’m an organist. That’s what I’ve been doing up here. Did you know they’ve only just built a proper organ on the moon?”
“Can’t say that I did, no,” Penrose said.
Lang nodded violently. “By commission of the archbishop. About damned time, if you ask me. Sixty years of lunar settlement without a proper organ. I had the honor of being the first to play it in concert.”
“They brought someone all the way up from Earth for that?”
Lang scoffed. “‘Just for that,’ he says. After the installation of the first ever extraterrestrial pipe organ, they had better bring up a professional and his family so that he can play its maiden concert.”
Penrose held his hands up, palms out, in defense. “No disrespect intended on my part either, Stephen.” He felt himself beginning to drift and caught himself on the railing. “What, er, what did you play for the archbishop?”
“Bach, mostly,” Lang sighed. “Of course. If there were a proper orchestra up there, I would like to have played Saint-Saëns.”
“You don’t like Bach?” Penrose asked.
“I adore Bach,” Lang said. “But every dilettante says he adores Bach. I suppose there are worse things. He’ll never truly die, not so long as there are dilettantes in the world.” He paused for a moment. “‘The worlds,’ I suppose it is now.”
Penrose, who had been about to say that he enjoyed Bach, settled for a nod instead.
“Would you care for lunch?” Lang asked. “Or dinner? Or whatever the next meal is? You can meet my family. I’ll go speak with the porter about calling for them.”
“I’d be delighted,” Penrose said. Lang nodded. He brought his legs up, crouched on the wall, and kicked himself off, sailing through the room in the general direction of the porter, adjusting his course with puffs of air.
Penrose was not delighted. He was, in fact, filled with dread. This Lang was a very talkative man, and sooner or later his business in Edinburgh would come up. Penrose had a feeling Lang would not be satisfied with simply “old friends from school” and would press him for details. Penrose knew that he would probably not be able to come up with a consistent back story quickly enough. There was also the matter of the book. He had been counting on being able to spend enough time reading and deciphering it before touching down on Earth. He knew that he would not be the only friend that Lang would make, which would bring Penrose into contact with other people aboard the elevator, doubtless making for many social obligations over the coming days. Refuse too many of these and he might come off as immensely rude, which would make for a social black mark he could not afford.
Lang returned, smiling. “My children have already eaten, but they’re napping now. My wife will meet us up in the cafeteria. Are you ready?”
“Ready,” Penrose said.
Hand over hand, they walked themselves over to the ladder and climbed up out of the compartment.
[For Chapter III click here.]
