‘I’ve been thinking,’ said Nob.
‘Oh?’ I asked. ‘About what?’
‘About how globes are a silly idea for living on.’
He sipped his tea through a twirly straw, as was his usual choice. I took mine straight from the mug but he said the straw added a certain hint of something one can’t quite put one’s finger on, to the taste. I can’t say I noticed any different, although the straw did tend to sag a little from the heat after a while.
‘Do do on,’ I urged.
‘Well, the way I see it, you need to sit very still on top of a ball and you can’t sit on the bottom of a ball at all because then the ball is, effectively, sitting on you. Anyone on the sides would just slide off, too. Seems like an awful waste of space.’
‘You’re forgetting about gravity,’ I said. ‘Gravity hold people on to a globe, so you can live anywhere and not fall off.’
He looked at me like I had said something fundamentally wrong. ‘Live anywhere, you say?’
‘Pretty much.’
‘Even rivers?’
‘Well okay, not rivers. Or the sea for that matter.’
He nodded sagely. ‘Probably a bit too wet.’
