Wil McCarthy - The Collapsium

When diamond surrounds a core of degenerate matter, the effect is heightened further by the Compton scattering of photons off the neutron surface. The usual trite description— that neutronium looks like white fog inside a gem—misses the point entirely: it looks like nothing else in existence, more like a dream of fog made solid. Very solid. But that was merely the view beneath Bruno’s and Tamra’s feet. Above their heads, well…

Even di-clad neutronium is dull as cut glass next to the haunting light of collapsium, inside which a sundered light beam can circle for days or weeks, or until the end of time. Just as the speed of light is higher in air than in diamond, and higher still in the “vacuum” of empty space, so too is the speed of light higher—a trillion times higher—in the Casimir supervacuum of the collapsium lattice. “Cerenkov blue” is the radiation given off by swift particles that find themselves slamming into a denser material and briefly exceeding its speed of light, and it is this unearthly glow for which collapsium is best known.

So imagine an arch of it filling the sky. Imagine a universe of stars reaching up to infinity above you, pinpoint splashes of light filtering through and around the collapsium. Imagine Sol beneath your feet, swollen and huge but eclipsed by a disc of di-clad, invisible but for the effect of its light echoing through the arch rising high above you.

Like choir music through the rafters of heaven , Bruno de Towaji would later write, to be quoted out of context for tens of thousands of years. In truth the passage continues, It was grand, enormous, an absurdity of unprecedented scale and scope. A glimpse of heaven, yes, but as we dream it, beach monkeys fond of glitter. If it’s God we hope to impress, I daresay a tower of socks would serve as well .

This by itself is significant: that even Bruno de Towaji, upon seeing the Ring Collapsiter for the first time, reacted to it not as a work of engineering, but of art.

“Astonishing,” he conceded.

“Yes,” Her Majesty could only agree. Her two robots stepped through, assuming positions on either side of the fax gate.

After them came a man—short haired, short statured, neatly shaved and groomed and dressed—whom the robots examined only briefly. They seemed to know him, and he in turn carried himself as one accustomed to their dainty-hard robotic scrutiny, and to the dainty-hard company of the Queen herself. He seemed properly respectful without appearing awed or worshipful or afraid, and for this Bruno approved of him instantly, although he also sensed, almost as quickly, something cool and detached back behind the eyes somewhere. Mathematical, one might say.

Bruno’s people skills were a bit out of practice, though, and we may suspect he put little credence in his first impressions, pending further analysis.

“Majesty,” the man said, doffing his cap and bowing low, so that his hands nearly brushed the slick surface of the platform.

“Marlon,” the Queen acknowledged, inclining her head slightly. “Thank you for coming so quickly. I take it you loaded your pattern here ahead of time?”

The man bowed again, less deeply, then offered a courtly smile. “I stow copies of myself where they’re likely to be of use, Majesty. This one is a few days old, though I’ll happily send for a fresh one if you prefer.”

She shook her head. “Not necessary.” To Bruno she said, “Marlon Sykes is the father of the Ring Collapsiter project. Without his prolonged and dogged efforts, this—” She indicated the collapsium towering above them. “—would never have come about.”

Did she mean the structure, or the accident? Was there reproach in her tone? Bruno couldn’t tell, couldn’t detect her mood through the calm mask she projected. But surely the implication was clear enough: Marlon Sykes had convinced her the ring project was safe. And he’d been wrong. Bruno felt immediate kinship with the man—it was easy to be wrong. It was always so easy to make a mistake.

“Dr. Sykes,” he said, offering a greeting bow of his own.

The man smiled warmly. “ Declarant Sykes, actually. It’s nice to see you again, sir.”

“Bruno,” Tamra chided, “you know Marlon from your days at court.” Now there was clear warning in her tone; she was embarrassed, and he, Bruno, was the cause of it.

He thought for several seconds, trying to place the name, the face. There had been a Marlon Somebodyorother, but he was First Philander, more an afterimage than an actual presence at court. Ex-lover to the Queen, allegedly a gifted matter programmer of some sort… Marlon Sykes, yes. Gods of memory, had the details of his life faded so quickly?

“Declarant Sykes,” Bruno repeated, now bowing more deeply and assuming what he hoped was a tone of proper contrition. “ Declarant-Philander Sykes, yes, of course! I’ve been isolated of late, sir, but the lapse is, er—” with a glance and nod in Tamra’s direction “—inexcusable. I beg your indulgence.”

“Forget it,” Marlon said with a dismissive wave and smile. “It’s been years, and the acquaintance was never a strong one. This admirer is happy to be remembered at all.”

“Hrnm,” Bruno said, unconvinced. “Yes, well.”

He was expected to feel embarrassment at a time like this. In fact, he felt only a twinge; that he’d failed to remember Marlon Sykes was no surprise, and no real fault of his own. There’d been so many people. His childhood had been spent among tolerant adults. And at University he’d begun to encounter people who felt the same way he did about such things, enough people to persuade him that his laissez-faire attitude toward social interaction was simply a minority view, rather than a mental defect per se, a result of his having been orphaned or some repartitioning of his brain to make room for gardening or mathematics. So he’d spent several years of study in a sort of private resistance movement, asserting himself, presenting himself in precisely the forthright manner that everyone claimed to respect and admire.

It was the worst time of his life, bar none; this phantom “decorum” was no trifling matter, but actually some kind of genetically coded pecking order thing. Even he didn’t like tactless boors, though for a while they’d become his only company. So he’d decided to approach these foolishly subtle but socially compulsory responses as a kind of language, and with less effort than he would later spend learning Bad Tongan, had gone about memorizing their basic vocabulary and grammar.

The effort had proved, at best, a partial success, but it did give him some foundation to work from. And through his father’s alcohol recipes, he’d found both courage and a kind of unself-conscious ease that really helped, especially if other people were drinking as well. What happy drunks they’d made! Being good at darts and shuffleboard had also proven useful.

He’d still been prone to fits of distraction, but that was at least partially a consequence of his having to impress the scholarship committee or starve. This was before all the money had started. And the fame, yes. Tamra’s court had sharpened those social skills still further, in a careless, sink-or-swim kind of way. But by then, settling into life at Nuku‘ alofa, he’d found a kind of prison accreting around him: erstwhile colleagues tarring him with labels like “tycoon” and “politician,” while the media adopted him as a sort of Romeo Einstein. Increasingly, people seemed to “know” a de Towaji whom Bruno himself had never met.

Even at court—or perhaps especially there—no one seemed prepared to advise him, to take him under a friendly wing, to understand his life or his problems at all. Was he permitted to have problems? Even Tamra, wrestling incomprehensible demons of her own, had thrown her hands up at his grousing. That was when he’d begun to daydream—and eventually obsess—about the end of time, and the arc de fin that would someday show it to him.