by Wil McCarthy
“Uh, affirmative,” Marlon said, noting Bruno’s change of mood with less-than-complete certainty. The resentment, Bruno saw, hadn’t really vanished. It was just better hidden.
“So we wrap them around!” he said, excited anyway, anxious to share the insight. “Send it home in a cast, letting sunlight and solar wind do the lifting for us! If the inertia is still too great, which I’m sure it is, we erect solar sails, hundreds of kilometers wide, to collect the necessary force. With perfect reflection, momentum should build fairly rapidly, at least as compared to the alternative. It should provide enough time for your additional grapples to be built and placed, to stabilize the structure. It should; I believe it will!”
“Uh, Declarant,” Sykes said, hesitantly and with visible reluctance, “the collapsiter is made of black holes. Universal superabsorbers. They’ll devour the wellstone sheets; we have no way to prevent this.”
“Indeed!” Bruno agreed, doffing his cap. “Indeed. But devour them how quickly? The holes are far narrower than a silicon nucleus. Semisafe, yes? Statistically, some erosion is bound to occur—bound to—but any resulting damage could be repaired locally, without interrupting the overall process.”
He thrust his fist against the top of his hat, thinking to burst it out, to create a model with which to demonstrate. The hat proved tougher than it looked, though. He punched it harder, with no better result.
Sykes glanced down at the hat and back up again, as if doubting Bruno’s sobriety. “Sir,” he said tightly, “the space between the silicon atoms is enormous compared to the size of a neuble-mass black hole. At best, the collapsium will pass right through.”
Bruno punched his hat again, aware that a crowd was building steadily all around, conscious of the weight of their collective gaze. “Will it, Declarant? After sucking electrons off the wellstone’s surface? The nuclei, being positively charged, will be attracted directly to the collapson nodes, blocking them partially, all but plugging them.” He looked at the hat, still good as new in his hands. “Blast. Look, you: I’m trying to remove your top.”
At that, to his astonishment, the hat’s crown separated all around, and fluttered end over end to the ground, leaving a flat ring of leather in his hands, a broad disc with a head-sized hole through its center.
Blinking, he said to it, “Er, assume a toroidal cross-section, please.”
Obligingly, the hat shrank one way and fattened the other, inflating to a kind of oversized, black leather donut in his hands. Still a bit surprised, he held this up for Marlon’s inspection.
“Imagine this as your Ring Collapsiter.” He held up a hand beside it, palm flat, fingers together. “This is your sheet of superreflector. When you wrap the one around the other—” He demonstrated by slowly grabbing the donut. “—and then rigidize it—” He tensed his fist. “—what you’re doing, effectively, is balancing a sheet of joined marbles on a bed of … I don’t know … small drains with tremendous suction behind them. Yes, each of your big marbles is really fourteen drain-sized marbles, and yes, the substance of the drains is somewhat pliable. Wait long enough, and despite the energy barriers their mouths will pull protons right off the nuclei, widen, pull some more, widen some more … But they won’t get big enough to suck whole marbles down, not in the time frame that concerns us. So the erosion will be slow, and the collapsium’s mass gain negligible. If there’s damage, we’ll just snip those collapsons out and replace them. It ought to work.”
Did Marlon’s face grow pale? In the twilight it was difficult to be sure.
“Good Lord, Bruno. I believe you’re right.”
“I haven’t tried the math, of course. I’m guessing.”
“As you guessed before? Phooey. I’ll begin the computations in the morning, and then we’ll know for certain. But at this point, I’d say you’re well within the bounds of decorum to leap and prance and shout ‘Eureka!’ You’ve banished my doubts, and that’s no mean accomplishment.”
Eureka. Hmm, well. With his Greek-philosopher haircut fluttering in the breeze, Bruno had no doubts how ridiculous that would look. Should he run naked down the stairs as well, carrying the Archimedes impersonation to its logical conclusion? Conscious of the news cameras at his back, framing his silhouette against the changeless sunset, he instead cocked his hand back and snapped it forward, sailing the leather donut of his hat out into the empty air, in the general direction of the Ring Collapsiter.
“Majesty,” he said quietly, “I believe we’ve found it.”
But his words echoed from the rocks, booming, repeated and amplified by some reportant mechanism aimed at him, or perhaps by wellstone devices buried in the mountain itself and activated surreptitiously. In any case, a great cheer went up from the crowd, and suddenly everyone was thronging around him, wanting to shake his hand, and neither Tamra nor Krogh interceded this time, for they were the first two in line.
chapter six
in which an historic ceremony is conducted
A week later, Bruno sat, chairless and alone, on the smooth, di-clad surface of Marlon’s work platform, gazing up at what he’d wrought. That haunting Cerenkov glow was gone, super-reflected back into the body of the Ring Collapsiter, which now arched overhead as a pinkie-thin ribbon of yellow-white light, a huge smeared reflection of the sun below. Not too bright to look at, not quite; the reflecting surface was large enough to diffuse the tremendous radiance of Sol here inside the orbit of Mercury. Spaced around the ring were great circular patches, the “sails” he’d described to Marlon, but from this vantage, none reflected anything but starlight, too dim to make out in the brightness as anything but a lighter shade of black.
Fortunately, this new structure was only temporary. The collapsiter’s fall had already slowed significantly, buying time and promising to buy still more, and once the new electromagnetic grapples were finally in place … Well. He supposed the superreflector “cast” had a raw, functional beauty of its own, like the skeleton of a building turned inside-out, but of course it was nothing compared to the hidden glory of the collapsium itself. He wondered if there were more aesthetic solutions, if he’d hit by chance on one of the grimmer, uglier routes to salvation. He hoped not; the eyes of the future—his own included—would have enough to criticize him for as it was. To look back and find that he was, after all, a bad collapsium engineer …
The notion troubled him for a few minutes, but finally faded until he was able to enjoy the peace here, the stillness, the absence of pressing gratitude and curiosity with which he knew no graceful way to cope. In the last seven days he’d been wined, dined, interviewed, and applauded without end. Without purpose, it seemed, for every demanded speech reinforced what the fax had taught him long ago: that his company was dull, that he had almost nothing witty or fascinating of his own to say, that in fact he had a penchant for offending and embarrassing the very people who offered him kindness. And yet they pressed on, offering more and greater kindness, until for their own sakes he felt compelled to withdraw. He didn’t mind being distressed half as much as he minded causing it in others, and he knew no other way to prevent it.
But eventually, this thought faded as well, and it might be said that Bruno meditated there on the platform, his mind drifting among the planets, untroubled. How long he sat there is not known, but after some interval had elapsed, he became aware of another presence on the platform with him, of Marlon Sykes settling down cross-legged next to him, following his gaze upward.
“I hear you’re leaving,” he said.
“Indeed,” Bruno agreed. “My work demands it.”
“Today?”
“Probably, yes. Does that please you?”
“A bit,” Marlon said, an admission for which Bruno respected him all the more. “It’s difficult, being confronted with the likes of you. I didn’t ask to be resentful; I don’t seek it. Things would be much easier if I could count you as a friend.”
“But you can’t.”
“No. Never. Least of all now. Go back to y
our brilliant arc de fin project, please. I’ve followed your work, you know, sometimes convinced myself I could have done likewise if you hadn’t been there first. I hate that it isn’t true. And of course there’s Tamra, who no longer pines for me, her First Philander, if indeed she ever did. I suppose I should keep these thoughts to myself, but I can’t quite manage such courtesy. For that, I apologize.”
“Unnecessary,” Bruno said. “I respect you, and would have you speak your heart.”
“Thank you, Declarant. That means … something to me, at least.”
They were silent for a while, looking up at their collapsium arch, each man alone in thought, until finally another voice called out behind them: Tamra’s. “Marlon, blast it, I told you to get him dressed. The ceremony is dress. Formal. He can’t wear that. Is it your goal to embarrass me?”
“Not you, Highness,” Marlon said innocently. “Why should I desire such a thing?”
“Ceremony?” Bruno asked, with rising alarm. The air, he realized, had been filling slowly with the buzz of news cameras.
“It’s a surprise,” Tamra said, “and we haven’t much time. Quickly, step over to the fax! We’ll … erect a privacy screen or something.” She was wearing the Diamond Crown, he noted, along with the Rings of Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, and a formal gown of deepest purple. Even her perfect golden robots seemed, somehow, to have been gussied up for the occasion.
Sighing, Bruno examined himself; the clothing he’d selected this morning was casual, comfortable, no doubt long out of fashion. Would the eyes of history care about such a thing, or even notice? Did it make, really, the slightest bit of difference? He’d trimmed his foliage back a bit and combed most of the gray out of it, casting aside the ridiculous cartoon sage’s facade, leaving only that measure of maturity that—in his estimation—he’d fairly earned. Surely that was enough.
Smirking uneasily, he spread his arms wide. “If you must take me, Majesty, I think it proper that you take me as I am. For this surprise of yours, which I do not seek.”
“I’m not ‘taking’ you anywhere. We’re doing this right here, in view of the collapsiter, and you do need to be properly dressed. Come on.”
He shook his head. “No, Tamra. I won’t.”
Her eyes narrowed, her expression sharpening, weapon-like. She was not accustomed to refusal; the last time it had happened, Bruno had knelt in the mud to placate her. But he was, after all, the man of the hour. He was, after all, leaving once more for his true home in the wilderness, and not in any stiff contrivance of cummerbunds and ribbon silk. She seemed, finally, to sense that he felt no compulsion to obey her. And by corollary, that she had no means to force him.
The standoff ended; she sighed. “My feral sorcerer. All right, have it your way. Do at least stand up straight. We’ll begin.”
On that cue, the sides of the dome came alive with holie screens, three-dimensional windows looking out as if from balconies, looking down on crowds of people thronging below skies of blue, of pink, of saffron yellow, beneath mirrored domes and huge, vaulted ceilings of rock, of plaster, of ice and wellstone and steel. The bottom of the work platform’s dome was soon covered; a new row started, like an igloo being constructed of video screens, until it seemed there must be at least one window open on every planet, moon, and drifting rock of the Queendom. Tens of millions of people, a goodly sampling of the Queendom’s billions, all planning ahead for this, knowing where and when to show up.
“Typical,” he muttered, looking from one screen to the next. “Everyone’s in on the joke but me.”
The responding laughter all but toppled him from his feet. Thousands of people laughing all at once, from something he’d said! Even Marlon Sykes was chuckling. Bruno could not have been more astonished. Or embarrassed—he felt his cheeks warming. And the laughter went on! The speed of light placed a moat of seconds or minutes between himself and each of these screens. But every few seconds, his remark reached another crowd, and provoked another explosion of cheer, even as the previous ones were dying out.
“I’ll make this as quick as light speed permits,” Tamra said tartly to the assembled millions, when the chain reaction had finally subsided. “De Towaji has business elsewhere, and doubtless we’ve taken enough of his time already. Declarant Sykes, do you have the medal?”
“I do,” Marlon said, stepping forward, a bronze-colored disc in his outstretched hand, trailing a loop of ribbon.
Tamra lifted it, took the ribbon in both hands, and said, “Declarant-Philander Bruno de Towaji, it is my privilege as monarch of this Queendom to present you with an honor devised specifically for this occasion: the Medal of Salvation. It has no special properties, save the love and gratitude which inspire it.”
Grudgingly, Bruno lowered his head and permitted her to loop the ribbon around his neck. She let the medal fall, so that when he stood up straight again it rested just over his heart.
“As the voice of all humanity, it is my privilege to say to you, ‘Thanks, Bruno. We owe you one.’ ”
It was Bruno’s turn to laugh, the Queendom’s millions falling in behind him, less deafening than before. To the crowds Tamra said, “Actually, that’s it. Thank you all for coming.”
And then, to Bruno’s relief, the holie sceens began winking out, the igloo unbuilding itself around the three of them. Half an hour later, the last of the crowds had vanished, leaving only the Ring Collapsiter itself to observe them.
“Leave us, please,” Her Majesty said to Marlon Sykes.
“Gladly,” he replied, walking to the fax, casting Bruno a pointed look before vanishing into it.
“So,” she said.
“So,” Bruno agreed.
“We’ve quarreled.”
“Indeed.”
“But we’re okay now. Friends again?”
He shrugged. “We always were.”
“Really,” she said, seeming to find that funny. She took his arm, and led him in the direction Marlon had gone. “Will it be another decade before I see you next? Longer, perhaps?”
Bruno shrugged. “I have no way of knowing, Majesty. My work is intricate.”
“Stow the formality, jerk. I’ve missed you.”
“I’ve missed you, too. Did you think otherwise?”
“But you don’t miss … this.” She gestured, somehow indicating the whole of the Queendom.
Startled, he replied. “Who said I didn’t miss it? Of course I do! Not all of it, but enough. I miss the smell of bread on a rainy street. I miss the laughter of children. Not court, of course. Not fortune or fame. Civilization demands things of me which I really don’t know how to provide. Perhaps I’ll learn someday, or people will stop asking, but for the moment I find it much simpler to be alone with my work.”
“Simpler, perhaps. But are you happier?”
He stopped walking for a moment to think about that, and finally decided he didn’t have an answer.
“You may kiss me good-bye,” she said, stopping beside him, turning her face up toward his.
On either side of them, her robots tensed slightly.
Ignoring them, he bent and kissed her, reflecting that this, at least, he treasured from his old life. This, at least, he could always treasure. How many knew the softness of her lips? How many Philanders could a Virgin Queen declare? Precious few.
“Good-bye, Tam,” he said, with unintended gruffness. And then, more softly, “I shouldn’t think it’s forever.”
And then he stepped through the fax gate, into the little spaceship she’d parked on his lawn.
Home again.
He took a moment to admire the ship’s red velvet interior, its burnished silver fittings and leather seats, superfluous since Tamra had no need to actually ride in this thing. But he supposed the ship would look strange without them. He drew a breath, then stepped out toward the little debarkation staircase and descended to his meadow below.
His sky was a much deeper blue than Earth’s, and much clearer than Venus’. The little clouds dri
fting through it seemed like toys; the horizon was so very close. Behind him, the little teardrop-shaped spaceship closed its hatch and began to hum as if warning him of impending liftoff. Very well. He strode purposefully toward his tiny house. His cottage, really.
“Door,” he said when he was close enough. Obligingly, the house opened up, and he entered. All was still neat and tidy and gaudily chandeliered from Tamra’s too-brief visit. Robots lined up in front of him, forming a corridor, bowing in twin waves as he passed.
“Stop it,” he ordered, refusing at least to put up with that sort of thing in his own home. “Unseal the bedroom,” he said after another moment.
Again, the house obliged immediately, but still Bruno looked around him, frowning, dissatisfied.
Outside, Tamra’s spaceship lifted silently from the ground, hurling a shadow at the horizon and then vanishing into the sky. Still, Bruno frowned.
“Is anything wrong, sir?” the house finally asked.
Bruno grunted, then threw himself down on the sofa and grudgingly shook his head. “No, it’s fine; everything’s fine. It just looks smaller, that’s all.”
Every known tradition of human folklore includes references to “ghosts,” lingering traces of people and events long past, and particularly to hauntings, the infusion of certain places with ghostly happenings. Such places are usually man-made, usually built of stone, and the images captured therein are typically unpleasant in character and almost always described in frightening terms regardless of content. A ghost is, to a first approximation, a multimedia record of human terror or anguish, impressed in cut stone and released gradually over time.
In the early ages of rationalism, even through the beginnings of space flight, disbelief in such phenomena was considered a fashionable—even obligatory—rejection of primitive and outmoded superstition. This despite the almost universal dread inspired by graveyards and mausoleums and ruined castles, most particularly at night, when their thermal infrared emissions stood out most prominently. This despite the discovery of semiconductors, the invention of cameras whose siliconoxide lenses channeled images onto arrays of silicon detectors and thence to silicon memories, from which they could be viewed through silicon-based video displays.
