Wil McCarthy - The Collapsium

The astronomer Tycho Brahe, he recalled, had died of a burst bladder at a dinner like this one, that being entirely more polite than barbarically excusing himself to go pee. Perhaps Bruno should do that in his cup as well, just to see if a head would turn or an eyebrow quirk somewhere in the room, but he’d noticed the lavatory door at the back of the chamber and went there instead, not bothering to ask permission like a child but simply standing, saying he’d be right back, and lurching off.

All these people’s lives hung in the balance, he realized suddenly. It was hard to believe he could help them, hard to believe they expected it of him. He’d been so rude, and they so patient.

On his way back he passed the gloomy staircase he’d seen earlier. He glanced up its length, curiously. The passage was steep, and curved away to the right. Reflecting from the pastry walls was the same twilight glow as the sky outside the gallery windows. A conservative sky, he thought, all but unchanging; Venus took thousands of hours to complete a rotation, its sidereal day actually slightly longer than its year. The sun followed it around like a child running alongside a merry-go-round, falling slowly behind but remaining stubbornly in view while the stars whirled beyond. This gloomy evening would probably last another four or five standard days, possibly longer, before fading to night.

‘’Will you be staying long?“ someone asked him, a while after he’d returned to his seat. In reply, he simply shrugged and looked to Tamra, and paid little attention to her answer.

In his absence, dessert had arrived: a light berry sorbet that looked as if it might ease his stomach a bit. He tried it; it did.

“Are you reachable by network again, Declarant?”

Again, he shrugged. So long as he remained in civilization, even with no fixed address, a message directed to him would eventually find its way. But why encourage the practice? Why rub these rotted social graces against the fabric of society any more than necessary? Surely society deserved better. He mumbled some reply, then leaned in and finished his dessert.

“Declarant,” Wenders Rodenbeck finally said to him, as part of some larger conversation, “how are we going to fix the Ring Collapsiter?”

He looked up. “Eh?”

Ernest Krogh clucked in distress. “No, no, Wenders. Mustn’t harass. Haven’t I mentioned? Leave the guests alone, all that?”

“It’s all right,” Bruno said, perking up. “Really.” It was, in fact, the most interesting subject he could think of. A matter— regardless of whether Tamra chose to admit it—of life and death. To Rodenbeck he said, “You know something about collapsium?”

A nod. “Enough.”

Bruno snorted. “Enough? Enough for what? I don’t know enough, and I’m allegedly the Queen’s expert. I’ve been trying to work out the equilibrium of the thing, never mind the dynamics. What keeps it even statically stable? The lattice points are all rigidly in phase, of course; that’s what we mean when we speak of collapsium. And imagining the structure as linear, as a long rectangular prism, it’s all very straightforward. But in twisting it around to a ring, a toroid, we have to worry about crosswise forces, every part of the structure exerting strange diagonal influences on every other part. It should throw the whole thing out of phase; a collapson swarm, chaotic and perilous and in no way useful as a telecom shunt.

“So what do we do? Adjust the ring size so that every node is an even wavelength away from every other? No, that wouldn’t work, would it? There’s no such size; the set is empty. You’d have to fiddle with the lattice rows, too, not so much circular rings as huge, frilly doilies of collapsium. Dimensionality… what? At least one-point-two. Would that work?”

“One-point-two-nine,” Marlon Sykes said, a stunned look on his face, “and yes, it does. Declarant, did you just work that out? In your head? Just now?”

“I’m only guessing.”

“Very intelligently,” Sykes insisted, all trace of rancor gone from his voice. “Do you know how long it took me to work out the same scheme? With Her Majesty’s finest computers at my disposal?”

Bruno grunted, unwilling to acknowledge the point. “I don’t recall seeing these… crenellations from your work platform.”

“No, you probably wouldn’t, not when you’re that close. And on the inside! Better, I suppose, to see the ring from afar, preferably a little out of the ecliptic plane.”

‘Venus is two degrees out of the ecliptic, isn’t it ? Can we see the ring from here?”

Sykes shrugged at that, so Bruno turned to Ernest Krogh, who said, “Expect you could, this time of year. Sun’s just set and all. Parts of the ring still above the horizon, yes, another couple of weeks at least. Yes. But you’re out of luck, I’m afraid; we’ve no fax gates on the other side of Skadi, which is where you’d see it.”

“Skadi?”

“The mountain.”

“I thought the mountain was Maxwell.”

Krogh squinched his lips up and shook his head. “On the continent of Ishtar, Maxwell is a prominence the size of Britain. Buckled plates, you see, very nearly a continent’s continent. Skadi, the Norse goddess of winter, is the highest of the peaks which crown her. It’s where the house is, you understand, on the north face. A poor decision in retrospect: gets cold at night, these days especially.”

Bruno, with a tingling of excitement, waved a hand at the staircase at the back of the room. “What about that? Where does it go? To the surface?”

“The rock face, you mean,” Krogh corrected uncertainly. “Stairs go all the way to the summit, lad, but it’s a steep climb. Over a kilometer.”

“Pish,” Bruno said, feeling his blood rising, feeling the strength in his limbs like a reservoir waiting to be tapped. “We’re young, aren’t we? Children. If we’re to live forever, shall we have nothing to look back on but the hills we declined to conquer? I, at least, shall climb.”

“The air is… unsuitable,” Krogh objected. “Smoggy, smelly, impure. Carbon dioxide of course, still more than we’d prefer, and residual traces of sulfuric acid. Not to mention all the intermediate hydrocarbons…”

“It’s breathable?”

“Well, yes, but—”

“Then I, at least, shall climb. Marlon? May I have the privilege of your company?”

Marlon nodded once. “An honor, Declarant. Try and stop me.”

Krogh squirmed in his seat. “I am responsible—”

“Nonsense,” Bruno said. “I am responsible. I absolve you of any liability for myself.”

“But you can’t—” Krogh stammered.

Her Majesty stood, eyeing Bruno and Sykes and Krogh himself in turn. “No, legally he can’t absolve you. I, however, can. Pray, let de Towaji do as he pleases; the responsibility is mine. Bruno, for our hosts’ sake I’ll need to keep a close eye on you.”

Bruno felt a wry grin creep onto his face. “In that dress, Majesty? I doubt—

“Pants,” Her Majesty whispered, apparently into her right shoulder strap. The dress pulled in around her, sliding, tucking, forming a crease between her legs that unzipped into two separate sleeves of material, one enclosing each leg. In moments, the dress had become a kind of coverall or jumpsuit. The odd thing was that the general cut and style of it had barely changed.

“Oh,” Bruno said. Neat trick. He wondered what his own clothing might turn into, if he accidentally whispered the wrong word. A cloak? A dress? A settling cloud of feathers?

Ernest Krogh cleared his throat. “Yes, well. If you insist. The way is clear enough, I should hazard. No need to be shown. Do let me accompany you, though. As host.”