’Ceno is a fake name. Jebba did some research on him when he was making a list of all the people connected with the Information Bureau. I got a real surprise when I looked out the window and saw him standing there, I tell you.’
The world around them went on moving, regardless of their desires or their feelings, like a huge river. Its surface might appear calm, but charging along its bottom was a fast, powerful current, exerting a silent pressure on them.
Emma was enveloped in a feeling of unbearable loneliness.
‘Take off your clothes,’ Sol instructed. Emma took off her jumper, then pulled down her tight-fitting slitted skirt. The type of clothing she wore was no longer in fashion. Nowadays, men and women alike wore boiler suits made of coarse fabric. On top they would wear metallic coats or chunky knitted mantles. Sol had once said the way she dressed was ‘wonderfully kinky’, but that ‘it would land even better with more of a 1930s twist’. He always expressed himself bluntly and honestly, which gave him an air of incredible innocence.
‘If only your stockings had seams. Have you heard of garters? Those wide elastic bands people used to wear to hold their stockings in place?’ Sol said, as he watched Emma taking off her clothes.
‘Yeah, I saw a picture of some in a book about fashion history. You see them in old films sometimes too.’
‘Black garters embroidered with red roses – ah, they drive me wild.’
‘Where did you hear about them?’
‘Oh, the same place as you,’ Sol said, caught off guard and seeming to panic slightly.
‘They’re expensive though, and really hard to track down. Get me some next time.’
‘Mmm,’ Sol hummed non-committally. From out of her melancholy, Emma gazed at the green face that came looming over her.
Emma hadn’t slept the previous night – Sol hadn’t come back to the apartment. Two months had passed since the smashed-screen incident, and the atmosphere between them had grown increasingly intolerable.
Thanks to her insomnia, she’d come over all sleepy in the afternoon. She eventually got into bed at six in the evening. She’d not been asleep twenty minutes when Sol woke her.
‘We’ve got to go. Leave everything behind.’
She understood what he meant.
Into a large bag, Emma stuffed a couple of books and some sleeping pills. Cinebooks would probably have been a better option than old-style paper – they were less bulky, which meant she could have taken more. But cinebooks required special contact lenses to read – if you ran out, you were done for. Emma had to remind herself: she didn’t know where she was going.
In the entranceway, she moved to step into her red high heels, but Sol stopped her. She pouted and went instead for some flats, although it seemed to her a terrible shame.
Sol didn’t utter a word during the heli-taxi trip. That fact alone conveyed the urgency of the situation.
When they arrived at Jebba’s apartment, he was waiting for them outside. There were two others there too, both Meelians.
‘We’re going to dye your hair and skin green. Don’t worry, it’s just stage foundation so you can easily remove it with this spray. It won’t come off if you sweat either,’ the woman explained in an accented voice.
‘What is this all for?’ Emma asked as she was surrounded by people preening and prodding her.
‘There’s a woman who died two days ago. A friend of mine. Her death hasn’t been reported to the Space Bureau, so you’re going to pretend to be her.’
Looking at the photo shown her, Emma saw the friend was a beauty of Vivian Leigh calibre. Her confidence instantly took a dive but the woman, who seemed to be some kind of beautician, set about doing her make-up.
While this was going on, the three men were busy contacting various people.
‘We’re leaving in three hours, on the last flight out of the spaceport.’
‘If our party is just Meelians, we should be okay. Although if they find out about her,’ he nodded toward Emma, ‘it could mean trouble.’
‘But if all the Meelians from the Tokyo area just up and vanish, they’ll get suspicious, no? All the Meelians on Earth are going to head home within the month, after all.’
‘If that’s what you’re worried about, I think our story about a seven-yearly pilgrimage should cover us. We’re also carrying out historical research, so the Terran government can hardly complain. The real trouble will occur when we get back to Meele.’
‘Yes, because none of the returnees have any intention of ever coming back to Earth. The Terran government might not like it, but they can hardly use that as a reason for starting an interplanetary war. The other planets wouldn’t stand for it.’
‘You say that, but the other planets have their own interests, and that complicates things.’
Emma was given Meelian-style clothes to put on.
‘Ooh, it’s Marianne de ma Jeunesse! Although the proportions are somewhat off,’ Sol said, making a theatrical gesture.
The screening process at the spaceport went smoothly. ‘That’s because they’re just temps,’ Jebba explained to Emma. ‘The regular employees are off with stomach complaints… They ate too much Mirinnian wild beef.’
‘You’re such a schemer, Jebba,’ Sol chipped in.
‘This is all for the sake of your grand old love story, Sol. One in Tokyo, one in Ginza…’ Jebba broke into the lyrics from an old song. There was barely anyone in the spaceport. Sol put a cigarette to his lips, shoved his hands in his pockets and began spouting excuses: ‘I’m telling you, it’s not like that.’
‘What line are we flying with? World New Space? Or Stardust Space Service?’ Emma asked quietly.
‘No, not one of the big ones. We’re taking Meele Space Line.’ Sol tossed away his final pack of cigarettes with a regretful expression.
‘Thank goodness. At least the captain and the engineer will be Meelians. I was afraid you were planning to space-jack the flight midway.’
‘If we did that, we’d be playing straight into Earth’s hands. I looked up the passenger list and was surprised to see Terrans on there, but it turns out they’ve all got some Meelian blood. It’s tough to get onto Meele these days. There are only two Terran groups that can get in: the Scientific Investigation Commission, which charters its own flights, and an agricultural products company. But even with them, there are just a very few Terrans in the upper ranks. The rest of the workers are people from other planets, like us.’
Anxiety rose up in Emma. She took Sol’s arm and made to ask him something.
‘Time to go.’ Glancing at the information screen, Sol patted her back, urging her forward. The announcement resonated across the empty waiting room. Around them, green-faced people slowly got to their feet and made their way over to the beltway entrance.
‘This is my first time on a spaceship,’ Emma said. ‘I’ve never even been to Mars. My sister went to Kamiroi on her honeymoon, though.’
‘Oh yeah?’
Sol seemed absorbed in his own thoughts. This was nothing new for him, but in this moment Emma found it particularly distressing. She squeezed his arm harder.
In front of them the huge silver form of the spaceship came into view.
And so began life in the cabin with a low cream ceiling. Emma was sharing a room with Sol, but he was always off doing something. On the rare occasions he did return to the cabin, he’d quickly disengage. Their conversations were fragmentary, and she had the feeling that he was trying to evade her in some way. At mealtimes, her meals, and hers alone, would be brought to her room on a tray like the ones used in hospitals.