Wil McCarthy - The Collapsium

“Shiao?” Vivian prompted.

“Processing,” Shiao replied. A Shiao. His voice was deep, and if not completely humorless, then at least solidly professional. His tone made a promise of the word, a reassurance to the many victims of this crime. Light beams swept and flashed the ruins as evidence techs—apparently communicating on some channel of their own—swarmed to take the appropriate measurements.

“Patience is the hard part,” Vivian remarked, with a sidelong glance at Bruno.

But it was Shiao who replied. “Of course, Commandant-Inspector. I apologize for the delay. I’m refining the reconstruction, and should be finished right… now. I have the position: three AUs distant, in the asteroid belt. Referencing ephemeris data. Confirmed: no charted celestial object would have been in that location at that time.”

“A ship, then?” Vivian asked.

“Most likely, Commandant-Inspector. I’ll send out an all-points. Do either of you have suggestions regarding a description?”

“A solid battery somewhat larger than this house,” Bruno answered. “Either moving very slowly, or carrying an even bigger tank for tritium fuel. It should be fairly unmistakable, actually.”

And then Marlon’s voice came through. “Hello? Did we miss something? I believe we’re looking for a spaceship carrying large batteries, and a nasen projector.”

After that there was a great deal of radio traffic with Earth and Mars and a number of space traffic control stations, as the police sought a ship of the appropriate dimensions speeding— or drifting—away from the appropriate coordinates. But it was slow traffic, light-lagged, some of it routed the long way around the sun, to receivers way off on the other side. Bruno began to appreciate how the Bureaucracy, painfully efficient in so many other regards, could finally chafe against this barrier— the speed of light—that no persuasion or fiat or veto could soften for them.

It was as if Mars and Earth existed in a different time, in some parallel universe whose clocks ran perpetually behind. How distracting, when one’s work demanded prompt coordination! Hence the Ring Collapsiter, first link in a network of supraluminal conduits that might finally join the disparate worlds together in a single moment. Or an entirely smaller span of moments, at least.

“While they’re settling this,” Tamra said to Bruno, with an offhand wave at Vivian and Cheng Shiao and the evidence technicians, “would you please go have a word with the press? They’re massed outside by the thousands, understandably curious. I think a word from you at this point would be reassuring.”

Bruno opened his mouth to protest, to point out how generally poor he was at that sort of thing, but the words didn’t form. He couldn’t convey the idea, because in fact he didn’t believe the idea. How surprising! Yes, he was the expert here, the person who could best explain what had probably happened. Any claims to the contrary would go beyond modesty, into simple cowardice and obstruction. And anyway, the police were busy and Tamra herself was still consoling Marlon, while Bruno had no obvious duties just now.

Finally, he nodded. “Of course, Highness. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

He dithered for a moment, wondering where exactly he should go, until he spied starlight through the one of the gaping holes the nasen beam had left. He strode toward it, crunching over dust and rubble and swaths of bare metal hull, swinging wide around the now barely visible foundations of a couple of structures. The dissolution of Sykes Manor was still ongoing, the remaining bits and pieces slowly losing cohesion and joining the nebula of floating debris. As he approached the hole, he saw there was a good deal of garbage floating outside as well, slowly leaking from the hull’s double wound, forming expanding clouds that would, eventually, become rings encircling the sun itself, like a kind of miniature, invisibly diffuse asteroid belt.

The last few steps were more difficult; he couldn’t suppress the idea that the opening pointed dawn , that another few steps would cast him, screaming and helpless, into the infinity of space. Rubbish, of course; his boot grapples would simply swing him around, pulling in whatever direction they happened to be facing, until finally he stood on the outside of the hull looking “down” into the inside. But still, the bottoms of his feet tingled, and he wished he could wipe away the mist of sweat that sprang nervously from his forehead.

As promised, the eyes of the news cameras glittered at him like a wall, hundreds or possibly thousands of them hovering right at the limit of their invisible, three hundred-meter cordon around Her Majesty’s person.

He switched the control on his forearm to the PRESS/ PUBLIC ACCESS setting. “Hello?” he uttered tentatively.

Questions besieged him instantly, a hundred voices all yammering at once, with a sound like amplified static. He thought he heard the words “queen” and “house” and “collapsiter” in there a few times, but perhaps those were just his expectations, overlaid against the noise.

He held up a hand and shouted. “Please!” The noise quieted somewhat. “Oh, for goodness’ sake. Be silent! Silent!” Within a few seconds, the hubbub stilled. He lowered his hand. “Thank you. Good afternoon. I am de Towaji, summoned here as part of the Royal Committee for Investigation of, uh. Ring Collapsiter Anomalies. There is reason to believe this structure was damaged by a coherent energy burst called a ‘nasen beam,’ fired by a spaceship the police are still trying to locate. This ship may also have been involved in the most recent disruption of the Ring Collapsiter’s suspension mechanisms, although we have no direct proof at this time. Investigation is of course ongoing. I have no predictions as to when, uh, any resolution may come about. And now, if you require more specific information, I’m willing to answer a few questions.”

To avoid a tsunami of replies, he thought to point toward a specific region of the flattened swarm, a cluster of four or five cameras, and to say, “You, yes.”

The response was immediate. “Sir, have you resumed sexual relations with Her Majesty?”

Bruno sighed. “Is that all you people ever think about? The Queendom is in peril, you know. Are there any serious or technical questions?”

There almost certainly were , but something in his tone put them off, made the cameras worried or confused. Sykes Manor sat halfway between the orbits of Earth and Venus and was not, at this time of year, actually close to either of them. So the cameras were almost certainly autonomous, loaded with their owners’ instruction sets and stripped-down personality images and fired off on absurdly hasty trajectories to gather up what news they could. Given a few seconds to collect their miniature wits, or a few tens of seconds to confer with their distant owners, the cameras’ processors might well have come up with an intelligent question or two; surely some of them were from research or educational outfits, or other nontabloid press.

But Bruno, already bored with his role as spokesman, didn’t give them a few seconds. Instead, he waved a dismissive hand and said, “Bah, you have the gist of it already. The details, when we know them, will be released in some sort of interactive document. Meanwhile, Marlon Sykes and Deliah van Skeltering are coping with their misfortune, while their murderer is sought.”

“Declarant,” one brave camera finally asked, “will this report include your solution to the Ring Collapsiter’s fall?”