The Winds of Marble Arch and Other Stories by Connie Willis Read Free Book Online Page B

identify? Coal smelled of sulfur.
    “The inversion layer makes it worse,” the admirer who’d suggested sushi said.
    “Inversionlayer?” I said.
    “Yes,” he said, pleased to have been noticed. “London’s in a shallow depression that causes inversion layers. That’s when a layer of warm air above the ground traps the surface air under it, so the smoke and particulates collect—”
    “I thought we were going to lunch,” the Old Man said petulantly.
    “Remember the time we tried to find out what had happened to Sherlock Holmes’ address?”I said. “This is an even stranger mystery.”
    “That’s
right,”
he said. “221B Baker Street. I’d forgotten that. Do you remember the time I took you on a tour of Sir Thomas More’s head? Elliott, tell them what Sara said in Canterbury.”
    Elliotttold them, and they roared with laughter, the Old Man included. I half expected somebody to say, “Those were the days.”
    “Tom, tell everybody about that timewe went to see
Kismet,”
the Old Man said.
    “We’ve got tickets for
Endgames
for the five of us for tomorrow night,” I said, even though I knew what was coming.
    He was already shaking his head. “I never go to plays anymore. The theatre’s gone to hell like everything else. Lot of modernist nonsense.” he smacked his hands on the arms of the easy chair. “Lunch! Did we decide where we’re going?”
    “What about the New Delhi Palace?” Elliott said.
    “Can’t handle Indian food,” the Old Man, who had once gotten us thrown out of the New Delhi Palace by dancing with the Tandoori chicken, said. “Isn’t there anywhere that serves plain, ordinary food?”
    “Wherever we’re going, we need to make up our minds,” the admirer said. “The afternoon session starts at two.”
    “We can’t miss that,” the Old Mansaid. He looked around the circle. “So where are we going? Tom, are you coming to lunch with us?”
    “I can’t,” I said. “I wish you’d come with me. It would be like old times.”
    “Speaking of old times,” the Old Man said, turning back to the group, “I still haven’t told you about the time I got thrown out of
Kismet.
What was that harem girl’s name, Elliott?”
    “Lalume,” Elliott said, turning to lookat the Old Man, and I made my escape.
    An inversion layer. Holding the air down so it couldn’t escape, trapping it belowground so that smoke and particulates, and smells, became concentrated, intensified.
    I took the tube back to Holborn and went down to the Central Line to look at the ventilation system. I found a couple of wall grates no larger than the size of a theatre handbill and a louveredvent two-thirds of the way down the west-bound passage, but no fans, nothing that moved the air or connected it with the outside.
    There had to be one. The deep stations went down hundreds of feet. They couldn’t rely on nature recirculating the air, especially with diesel fumes and carbon monoxide from the traffic up above. There must be ventilation. But some of these tube stations had been builtas long ago as 1880s, and Holborn looked like it hadn’t been repaired since then.
    I went outinto the large room containing the escalators and stood, looking up. It was open all the way to the ticket machines at the top, and the station had wide doors on three sides, all open to the outside.
    Even without ventilation, the air would eventually make its way up and out onto the streets of London.Wind would blow in from outside, and rain, and the movement of the people hurrying through the station, up the escalators, down the passages, would circulate it. But if there was an inversion layer, trapping the air close to the ground, keeping it from escaping—
    Pockets of carbon monoxide and deadly methane accumulated in coal mines. The tube was a lot like a mine, with its complicated bendingsand turnings of its tunnels. Could pockets of air have accumulated in the train tunnels, becoming more concentrated, more lethal as time went