Inversion – III

[For Chapter II click here. To start at the beginning; click here.]

For such a nondescript man, this Stephen Lang had an unusually attractive wife, Penrose decided. Still, there was no accounting for tastes, he thought—especially the tastes of women.

“How did you enjoy the moon, Mr. Penrose?” asked Emmy Lang after introductions had been made.

“Well, like the old saying goes, it’s a nice place to visit,” Penrose said. “And please, call me Tom.” After a few moments’ silence had passed between them, Penrose observed that he had forgotten to politely reciprocate by asking Emmy the same question and hoped that she would continue as if he had.

She did. “Stephen and I enjoyed our time up there, I think, but I would probably agree with you, Tom,” she replied with a smile. Penrose thought he saw a flash in her eyes when said his name. “The children, of course, couldn’t get enough of being there.”

“How many children do you have?” Penrose asked. None were present. When he had seen Lang and his wife in queue, he hadn’t bothered counting which children belonged to whom, since most of the children waiting to board had shifted from one cluster to another, running to make and destroy new friendships for the upcoming days in the effortless way of children. It made getting an accurate assessment of maternity difficult, even if Penrose had been interested in that sort of thing, which he hadn’t been.

Lang and his wife looked at one another, each smiling broadly. “Four,” said Mrs. Lang finally. “They’re all in the CC, hopefully napping.” Penrose guessed the CC was the children’s compartment.

“And maybe a few more soon?” Lang said with a grin and a nudge to his wife, who swatted at him.

“Oh Stephen, an organist can only support so many children,” Emmy said, glancing at Penrose to see, he thought, if he was not uncomfortable with this discussion. For his part, Penrose was trying to work out whether it would be polite to interject at this point and ask whether Emmy worked.

Lang made no attempt to ascertain Penrose’s level of comfort with this discussion. “Catholics love children. Galois will give me a rise.” Looking at Penrose: “My patron is another bishop.” Penrose decided this meant that Emmy did not have to work and thought better of asking.

“You’re Catholic?” Penrose asked.

“No, no. C of E. But that may not matter soon,” said Lang with a wink. Penrose had no idea what Lang meant by that, but decided not to press him on it. Dinner was served.

The meal passed with mostly light conversation for accompaniment. Mercifully, his story about meeting friends in Edinburgh had satisfied the wife, so the husband had apparently seen no need to press it. Penrose decided from it that Emmy Lang was cordial enough but somewhat of an airhead. What these two had seen in each other, he couldn’t say. After dishes were cleared away and coffee was served, the chat continued apace until Lang let out a grunt of disgust. Penrose saw that Lang was looking past him and turned his head. Penrose knew exactly what Lang was looking at. A well-dressed man had his face buried in a mobile phone.

“Now, Stephen,” Emmy said, putting her hand on her husband’s arm. “It’s probably just someone’s butler.”

“Doesn’t mean I want to see that,” Lang said. The well-dressed man looked up from his device to catch Lang glaring at him. Mortified, the well-dressed man hastily stuffed it into a pocket in his jacket and pretended to look at something else.

“Nobody likes a snob, Stephen,” Emmy said. “Even if he’s right.” She smiled nervously at Penrose.

“It’s fine,” Penrose said. “Someone has to use them, and sometimes they can’t get away when they need to. His master’s social standing is probably in very real danger and that man is just doing his duty.”

“Yes, thank you Tom,” Emmy said. To Lang, she said, “Your friend here is right. You’re always going on about how wonderful it is that none of us has to – what is it you say – ‘waste our minds posturing for the wider social sphere’? Doesn’t that mean we need someone to make that possible for us? Look!” At this, she lowered her voice and pointed discreetly to the well-dressed man. He had his mobile phone out and was obviously trying to do his work without being seen.

“Well, as long as he’s got the decency to hide it,” Lang said, letting the matter drop. Penrose thought about mentioning the other, lower-class compartments where it was likely that everyone—men, women, children, all—were staring at similar devices, but decided it was wiser not to. The meal was finished anyway, and the coffee had run dry, and Penrose had a book to decipher.

“I’ve had a wonderful – what time is it? – evening,” Penrose declared, standing. “I think I’ll retire. Thank you for dining with me.” Reminded by the curvature of the floor that, despite the gravity, he was still in space, he stared instead at the table. The Langs rose with him.

“Do tell me what room you’re in,” Lang said. “We’ll have to call on you over the next few days. Reluctantly – hopefully not noticeably reluctantly, he thought – Penrose gave Lang the number. They said their goodbyes and Penrose left for his own room.

Not long after he had settled in with his book – a novel about cowboys with strange, anachronistic turns of phrase which Penrose guessed contained his code words – a chime sounded at the door. Undoing his straps, Penrose reached for a nearby bathrobe, shrugged it on, trying not to let his movements propel him across his chamber. He struggled to get upright. Finally, he found on his nightstand a button which – judging by its graphic – would lock or unlock his room. He pressed it, shouted, “Come in.”

The door slid open to reveal Emmy Lang. She floated in wordlessly and shut the door behind her. Her green-eyed stare was penetrating.

“Good evening, Mrs. Lang,” Penrose said, more weakly than he liked.

“Good evening, Tom,” Emmy said. Her voice, it seemed, had dropped by nearly an octave. “But you must still call me Emmy. We’re past that stage.”

“Emmy, then. What can I do for you?”

“Got anything to drink?” Emmy asked. “Stephen has a bottle of gin, but I prefer bourbon.”

“I have scotch,” Penrose said. “Blended, but better than nothing. We’d need to find somewhere with gravity if we were going to pour it” – at this, Emmy produced a straw from somewhere in her dress – “but I’m a bit confused. Why are you here and where is your husband?”

“My husband is probably asleep and I’m here because I’d like a drink.” This was not the Emmy Lang that Penrose had met in the dining carousel. “Are you going to get that scotch?” Before he realized what he was doing, Penrose had found his bottle of scotch and given it to Emmy. He watched in horror as she inserted the straw and took a long sip, filling her mouth with the stuff, pausing, then swallowing with only the barest hint of a shudder and a grimace.

“It isn’t ideal, but it’ll do,” she said, passing the bottle back to Penrose. She looked about for a chair and made her way for it. After a moment she sat and buckled herself into it, crossing her legs and turning her head to reestablish eye contact. “Relax, Penrose. I’m not here to try to seduce you or anything.”

After seeing Emmy had take her drink, Penrose had, he realized, been staring in shock at a corner of the floor in order to avoid meeting the eyes of this altogether transformed woman in his room. He relaxed somewhat and allowed himself to look at her. She had been of an average height standing, her black hair done up in a simple coiffure – she was undoing this now, running fingers through her hair to do the work of absent gravity—her nose small. Her dress was high-necked and long-sleeved, which was in style in the Kingdom these days, but it was cut to accentuate her figure. Penrose almost regretted that she wasn’t here to seduce him.

“If you’re done staring, Penrose, I have something to tell you.” Her tone was businesslike, her words clipped. “I know why you went to the moon and why you’re going to Edinburgh, and I can tell you right now that it’s a mistake.”

“I went to the moon to collaborate in person on an engineering project, I told you that,” Penrose protested. “And before I go home I’m seeing friends I knew at school. That’s all.”

“What are their names?” Emmy demanded. Penrose hesitated. “Don’t lie to me,” she said. “You don’t remember because they’re not your friends. What did Cantor tell you about them?”

“I don’t know any Cantor,” Penrose said.

“Stop lying to me, Penrose. You’re obviously not cut out for this line of work. I’ll tell you one more time: you’re making a terrible mistake in this business with the Conspiracy.”

At “Conspiracy,” Penrose was unmanned. Before he could stop himself, he whispered, “Why?” But before the woman could answer, the chamber door hissed open to admit Stephen Lang.

He looked furious.

[For Chapter IV click here.]

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