The Eyre Affair (Thursday Next 1)
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—”