Page 17 of Reinventing Cato
“Saturn.”
“Ah, because it’s mostly gas, but why Saturn and not Jupiter, Uranus or Neptune? And how would you test that out?”
“Saturn is the only one less dense than water. To prove it, well, I’d find a ginormous bath tub and drop Saturn in it.”
Vigge laughed. “Right.”
“Actually, though people say it would float, I don’t think it would. The gases would dissolve, the water would sink to the planet’s core and pressure would turn it to ice. That would likely set off nuclear fusion and blow the entire thing to kingdom come. But if youcouldfind a large enough body of water to drop it into, then itmightfloat. That’s one point to me.”
“When you’re asking the questions?”
“Well, you can ask next.”
“How old are you?”
“Guess.”
“Eleven?”
“No.”
“I give up.”
“About 13.8 billion years old.”
“And here was I thinking you were actually in your late twenties.”
“Thirty-three years since I emerged screaming into the world, but parts of me and you really are 13.8 billion years old. The heavier elements in our bodies were created in the heart of stars, the hydrogen inside us about three minutes after the big bang and some of our protons were formed a millionth of a second after the birth of the universe.”
“The universe created by God?”
“Hey, you took religion off the table.”
A sudden buffeting by the wind rocked the car and Cato tensed, pressing his foot on an invisible brake. Vigge was leaving a big gap between them and the car in front, but there were some lunatics passing them at speed.
“It should get better once we’re over Shap,” Vigge said.
“You think the snow is falling more heavily?”
“No.”
Cato laughed. It clearly was. Crossing the fells was like entering another world. Steep slopes either side, low visibility with the snow falling so thickly, there was no separation between land and sky.
“Are we mad doing this?” Cato asked.
“We both need to get south. You can keep me awake.”
“Do you have family in the north?”
“Yes.”
“Friends?”
“Not really.”
Oh God.“It’s like interrogating a prisoner.”
“Okay then. Interrogate me. Find out what I do for a living.”
