Wil McCarthy - The Collapsium

“No,” a voice said from beyond the legs. They disappeared, Bruno saw, into a slot at the bottom of the closet’s back wall. Big enough to hold a human torso, though probably not comfortably, not unless the space opened up back there behind the wall.

“You realize we’re going to have to restart the calibration estimates from scratch,” Deliah complained. “You do realize that?”

“I do, yes. Thank you.” Presently, the owner of the legs shuffled and scooted and rocked out of the opening. Only when the face emerged was Bruno sure that this was, in fact, Declarant-Philander Marlon Sykes. Awkwardly, Sykes straightened himself up to his full height. He wiped his hands on the blue velvet and fine, gold-white embroidery of his vest, leaving black smudges there.

“Marlon!” Her Majesty snapped. “What on Earth are you doing?”

The Queen’s robots tensed on either side of her, but Sykes just flashed an easy grin and leaned back—carelessly, Bruno thought—against the madly shifting wall of the instrument room. “On Earth, I don’t believe I’m doing anything at the moment. I do have copies on half a dozen grapple stations, probably all doing the same thing right now.”

“Which is?” Tamra demanded, arching an eyebrow.

“Retrofitting the equipment, obviously.”

Her Majesty’s suede-booted foot tapped thrice on the decking. She seemed to consider for a moment before saying, “Declarant, the Queendom pays handsomely for your services. We expect handsome service in return. This—” She waggled a finger at his stained hands and clothing. “—is the best use of your talents right now? It must be, surely, or you’d be doing something else. Correct?”

“Ah.” Marlon’s smile faltered, then deepened. “Tamra, my pay is by the job, not the copy-hour. Consequently I find it easier to send my own copies to perform certain tasks, rather than having to explain these tasks to others, particularly since our laborers and technicians are operating at full legal capacity already.”

“I’ll issue a writ to waive the copy-hour limits,” Tamra said. “I should have done it already, I see. How long has this been going on?”

He shrugged. “Not long.”

“A week,” Deliah van Skeltering chipped in, her tone supportive and apologetic. “I may have requested… that is, my requests of Declarant Sykes may have been…”

“Be silent, Laureate-Director,” Tamra said to the woman. Then, less haughtily, “All my conversations are official. Speaking out of turn is disruptive.”

Reddening, Deliah bowed her head, saying nothing.

Bruno empathized: Deliah was no practiced courtier, after all, and she was—admirably—trying to take responsibility for her own job. But Tamra’s role was equally clear: bureaucrats and functionaries must not be permitted to undermine her authority even in these tiny, offhand ways. A Queen must exude power and influence from every pore, yes? Else what good was a Queendom at all?

“Er, shall we… proceed?” he asked, when a few pointed moments had passed. It was a calculated risk: even he couldn’t talk back to her in public. Not without paying.

“We shall,” Tamra said lightly. And that was that.

“What is it you’re doing there?” Bruno asked Marlon. “Manual labor? Couldn’t robots help?”

“They are helping,” Marlon snapped, in a rapid-fire voice. “Look, wellstone devices are almost infinitely configurable, but where no pathway exists at all between components A and B, as often happens when you’re configuring large machinery for unintended purposes, we have to physically lay a line of wellstone down. Or copper, or fibe-op glass, but rarely, because we can program the wellstone to emulate those. So robots do the coarse installation, point to point, and the delicate final connections are completed by hand. And as I say, explaining the process to a technician requires refinement in both the theory and detail of what I’m doing, which would consume precious time. Until / know precisely what needs connection to what, I find it easier simply to tinker. Perhaps in another week, I’ll have gained enough experience to pass instructions along.”

“Hmm,” Tamra said, unconvinced.

A touch of sullenness graced Marlon Sykes’ features. His gaze flicked to Bruno for a moment. “ His time costs you nothing, I suppose.”

“He donates it, yes.”

“I’ve little need for money,” Bruno almost said, but stopped himself, realizing in time that it would probably antagonize rather than soothe. Marlon, the father of the Ring Collapsiter, was just about as brilliant and wealthy and powerful a man as ever lived, his name writ large as any Edison or Franklin or Fuller. But through the twisting of fate, Bruno’s name had been writ much larger, ridiculously larger. Along with his bank account, yes. It was a sore point between two Declarant-Philanders, and understandably so. What he did say was, “It pleases me to visit with friends again. I do it so rarely. I almost feel / should pay for the privilege. It’s good to see you again, Marlon.”

The first reply to that was simply a glower, but finally Marlon put his smile back on and reached out a hand to be shaken. “Your manners exceed my own. I’ve been immersed here; I’m not really in a mood for interruptions. You know how that can be, I’m sure.”

“Indeed,” Bruno said, and chuckled a little. He took Marlon’s hand in his and clasped it warmly. It came away, of course, slick with machine grease, but that was of little consequence.

“You’re well?”

“Well enough, thank you. And you?”

Marlon grumbled, nodding toward the malfunctioning instrument walls. “Could be better, alas. Have you made progress in your research? Are we any closer to an arc defin ?”

“Ah, well, that’s difficult to say. Like you, I’ve been tinkering, although in my case the goal is True Vacuum. Results have been… mixed, I guess you’d say. Odd. I probably need some peer review at this point, isolation being an ideal breeding ground for foolish error. Perhaps we can discuss it while I’m here downsystem.”

“Perhaps,” Marlon said, not quite able to hide a sense of avarice and excitement. He wanted to share insights with Bruno, yes, but for whatever reason, he didn’t seem to want Bruno to know that.

Tamra began tapping her foot again. “Will you explain our problem to de Towaji please, Declarant?”

Marlon sighed and crossed his arms. “Must I, Highness? I really am quite busy here, and don’t want to lose the thread of it. Perhaps you could visit me at home.”

“When?” Tamra demanded coolly.

“Right now,” Marlon said, making a kind of facial shrug. “I’m there. It’s where I expected you, actually. Whatever possessed you to come here?”

“I don’t know; it seemed like an appropriate starting point.”

Marlon pursed his lips and shook his head. “Loud and smelly? For our dear friend de Towaji? His mind is a palace, Tam, a cathedral, unsullied by life’s grimy banalities. Send him home to me, I beg you. I’ll take proper care of him there.”

“I’m fine here,” Bruno protested mildly. “Banality and grime are novelties, remember. Though of course I’m happy to let you get back to work if that’s what you need. Could I leave a copy here to help?”

“No, thanks,” Marlon said too quickly, and though he clapped Bruno on the shoulder—leaving a noticeable smudge—there was little mirth in his eyes.

Sykes Manor was an exercise in water and white marble. Spin-gee habitats were common enough in the Queendom, spheres and cylinders that pressed their occupants to the inner walls by centrifugal force, in the age-old manner of carnival rides. Bruno had never seen a spin sphere crafted as a single residence, though, and he’d never seen one in the Athenian style before, nor imagined that such a thing might exist. Where the classical Greeks had favored straight lines and rectangles and squat isosceles triangles, Marlon’s architects had substituted sphere-mapped chords and pie wedges and truncated cones to good—though decidedly strange—effect. And where the inner surface of a typical kilometer-wide suburb cylinder might be dotted with homesteads and ringed with a greenbelt or two, draining into faux-natural streams and ponds, Marlon’s house, only forty meters across, contained a system of rigidly geometric gardens and fountains, zigzagging between looming walled structures that reached, in some cases, almost to the spin axis. There were no external windows looking out into planetary space, either; instead, bright, yellow-orange light slanted down from a tiny, illuminated dome at one of the hubs.