Wil McCarthy - The Collapsium

Still, at the sight of Helen Beckart he felt a distinct knot of unease start tying itself up in his belly. Bruno was wearing black as well, in a band around his right biceps, but Beckart’s was the black of her official uniform, not of grieving. She stood there in the doorway of Marlon’s study like a legal document, waiting for Bruno to break her seal.

He cleared his throat and spoke more gruffly than he’d intended. “It isn’t another medal, I hope.”

Her smile was polite, devoid of any true joy. And who could blame her? “No, Declarant, I’m afraid it’s more serious than that.”

“Hmm? Yes? Well, do come in. Can I offer you refreshment?”

“No, thank you.” She strode into the room, followed by two gray-robed pages, a pair of faceless silver robots, and a sedately hovering squadron of courtroom cameras. He saw that she carried something in her hands, a black velvet bag or wrapping of some sort.

“Is that for me?”

She nodded once. “It is. Forgive me, Declarant; I’m only doing my job.”

In spite of everything, his heart quailed a bit at those words. Had he done something? Said something? But when Beckart opened the bag, what she withdrew was simply Tamra’s crown of monocrystalline diamond. A souvenir? An object willed to Bruno by the instruments of Tamra’s estate?

“I… don’t understand,” he said, shrugging.

Beckart reddened. “An election has been held, Declarant. Its results were as near unanimity as any election has ever been. I’m afraid… Sir, I’m afraid you’re the new monarch of Sol.”

Bruno blinked, unable to process that statement. “I beg your pardon?”

“As I say, sir. You are the new monarch.”

“Is this a joke?”

“It is not,” Beckart told him seriously. “I’ve spared you the formal ceremony, at least, but these cameras are recording for posterity. Kneel, please, that I might place this crown atop your head.”

Bruno gaped, then snorted. “Why, I refuse. I refuse! I, the monarch of Sol? A king? Me ? It’s the silliest thing I’ve ever heard.”

“It isn’t,” Beckart said to him, her eyes apologetic but certain. “I voted for you myself. It’s a cruel fate to practice upon you but… we are human, sir, we citizens of the Queendom. Our needs are valid.”

“I refuse,” Bruno said again, in a sterner voice.

But Beckart shook her head. “You’re a figurehead, sir. You haven’t the authority to refuse. Now I ask you, please, to kneel, else these bailiffs will be forced to make you do it.”

“You can’t be serious!” he protested.

But she was: the bailiff robots stepped forward, gripped him firmly and without pity, and pressed him to the ground, knees first. Some Latin and Tongan words were recited from a document, and twenty seconds later the crown was encircling his brow. The Queendom had its King at last.

Every child knows of the Winter Palace that de Towaji commanded to be built in high orbit around Earth. Every child knows of the year he spent there, shunning attention, appearing only for the wedding of Vivian and Cheng Shiao, and the funerals of the thousands upon thousands of True Dead the destruction of the Iscog and Ring Collapsiter had left behind.

Not that de Towaji was idle during the time of his seclusion; far from it. Following the trial and confession of Marlon Sykes—who had steadfastly refused treatment for megalomania and homocidia—Bruno’s first decree was that a cage de fin should be constructed, inside which time would not pass.

Sykes—hunted by every search engine in the Queendom and meticulously reconverged to a single copy—would be placed within it.

“There you will see the lights and darknesses of uncreation,” de Towaji is known to have said, “for the span of the universe will pass for you in a single instant.”

“Thank you, Sire,” Sykes is known to have replied. And together the two of them designed the thing, and built it, and it is rumored that they spent a final evening together, drinking alcohol and smoking from weed pipes, singing and dancing and weeping together, their enmity in brief abeyance. Despite all Marlon’s villainy and Bruno’s long reticence, the two did after all have more in common with one another than with any other person, living or dead. Perhaps this is the origin of the nursery rhyme:

A cigarette, a mandolin, a glass of wine, A trip to see the devil at the end of time.

In any case, the recordings clearly show both men dry eyed and somber at the execution, as Bruno closed his old friend and nemesis inside the cage defin and fired him on an inertialess trajectory out of the solar system, at very nearly the speed of light.

When this was done, and a sigh of relieved closure was heaved by all and sundry, de Towaji commenced to brood and agonize over the decision to restore the Iscog. The last words of Wenders Rodenbeck—in his nonspider form, at least— weren’t lost on Bruno at all. Collapsium was dangerous stuff to have around. In the end, though, he was swayed by the ruling opinion of the Queendom’s citizens themselves. The collapsium’s dangers meant little to them, it seemed, in comparison to its benefits.

“ Fire is dangerous, Your Highness,” they insisted, in billions upon billions of respectfully snitty letters. “Shall we ban that as well?”

It seemed to be a kind of slogan. Still, it was Bruno’s money they were talking about spending, and of course, in retrospect the old Iscog could be seen to suffer from all manner of unfortunate design errors and oversights. The Ring Collapsiter, for all its grievous faults, did indeed point the way to a new and better paradigm in material telecommunications. So Bruno began the slow, hard work of designing a new Iscog— a Nescog —from the neubles up.

But every child knows that he had barely begun this effort, barely scratched the surface of the new design, on the morning when his most famous visitor arrived.

There was a polite but rather urgent-sounding knock on his study wall, and he rose from his desk and walked over there and said, “Door.” And a door opened up, and he gasped , and some say he nearly fainted when he saw who it was.

“You,” he managed to say as he staggered back.

“Me,” the visitor agreed. She stepped inside, pursing her lips, surveying the room with a critical eye. She took in the desk, the chair, the chandelier and clutter-strewn floor. The hugeness of the place, the emptiness, the decoration all in crystal and alabaster and silver. Finally, she nodded. “About what one would expect, yes. This really is a hideous building, Bruno.”

Still reeling, he said, “My Taj Mahal. The tomb of my undying love.”

She laughed. “You’re not supposed to live in the tomb of your undying love.”

He came forward and touched her shoulder gently, lightly, afraid to confirm her solidity. “Am I dreaming? Are you real?”

She laughed again, but there were tears in her eyes. “ I feel real. They tell me I am. I’m out of date, though— years out of date.”

He gasped, backing away a step. “You’re not Marlon’s copy, surely?”

But she just shook her head. “It seems the Royal Registry finally earned its keep. They’ve been closed for years, I guess, but the way I hear it, there was this disc at the bottom of a closet…” Her eyes clouded. “Bruno, is it true, all these things I hear? Did I really cut my throat? Are you really the King?”

“No more,” he said at once, snatching the diamond crown off his head and placing it on hers.

She laughed, and the tears spilled down her face. “You can’t abdicate, Bruno; I’ve tried it. Lord, how I’ve tried it. They won’t even let you die …”