The Collapsium

by Wil McCarthy

  Finally, he asked, “How is she able to perform her duties at all? You thought my robot Hugo to be a cruel experiment, but it seems far crueler to ask a young girl to act with a lifetime of experience she never had.”

  “Oh, Bruno, it’s just not that simple. Vivian was always good about keeping mental notes, and after the accident she insisted on downloading all of them, all at once. The result is a very well trained, very confused little girl. In retrospect, it probably wasn’t a wise idea, but there you have it. She complains about her work now, yes, but she was miserable—I mean genuinely despondent—until I ordered her back to it. And since the Constabulary was clamoring for her anyway, it seemed the kindest course of action.”

  “Hmm,” Bruno said, unconvinced. Mental notes—essentially neuroelectrical snapshots of a particular moment of understanding—were something he’d always found to cause at least as many problems as they cured. What use to recapture the exact steps of a derivation or insight, when what you really wanted was to take the results of it and move forward, upward, to the next level of understanding? Notes could too easily set you in circles, working the same problems over and over to no clear purpose.

  Now he was willing to concede that his example might not be a typical one. Quite possibly, a profession like criminal investigation relied on memory and habit in a way that notetaking could complement. But it was quite a step from there to the idea that an eleven-year-old could be programmed to perform the job as well as a seasoned adult. And even if that were granted, the question of whether such a thing should be done …

  On the other hand, it had been done. Bruno’s approval wasn’t required, and his opinion was not an informed one. If Her Majesty and the Royal Constabulary wanted Vivian Rajmon back at work, well, perhaps they knew best after all.

  Vivian slowed; the knot of walking people drew closer together. Over her shoulder she asked, “So, do I meet with your approval, de Towaji?”

  He answered quickly, and with a fortunate evenness of tone. “You meet with Her Majesty’s approval, mademoiselle. My own opinion hardly matters. As you surmise, I’m here only to assess the sabotage of the Ring Collapsiter.”

  Vivian stopped so suddenly that Deliah van Skettering collided with her. But her voice was dignified enough in speaking this single word. “Sabotage?”

  “Indeed.”

  “We’ve worked it out,” Marlon Sykes cut in, his voice weary but hard edged. “The pattern simply isn’t consistent with a natural event. Someone deliberately destabilized the gravitational links, apparently for the express purpose of knocking the ring into the sun again.”

  “How long have you known this?” Vivian asked impatiently.

  Marlon shrugged. “Twenty minutes, maybe.”

  “Nearly coincident with the murder.”

  “Well, yes. I’d guess the two subjects are related.”

  Vivian sighed, and started twisting at the hem of her skirt again. “Were you going to tell me about this? Were you waiting for me to figure it out on my own?”

  “Er, you’ve only been here a minute.”

  “Indeed,” Tamra said, in mildly commanding tones. “Let’s not expect too much of the victims, dear. They’re distraught.”

  Vivian bowed her head momentarily. “Of course, yes. Excuse my error.” When she raised it again, her eyes were clear. “Are there other copies of you two around the Queendom?”

  “Yes,” Marlon and Deliah answered together. “Several,”

  “At all the grapple stations in the Capricorn arc,” Marlon added. “We’re attempting to tune them for operation at higher frequencies. I believe I’m on Mars right now as well, though I wouldn’t swear to it.”

  Nodding distractedly, Vivian took a little wellstone slate out of a pocket in her skirt, touched a lighted circle, and said into it, “Lieutenant Shiao, would you please have your people check all the grapple stations in the Capricorn arc? Let me know if you find anything unusual.”

  “Yes’m,” the slate said without delay. “Right away.”

  She touched the little circle again and put the slate away. “Where on Mars?”

  “I couldn’t say, exactly.”

  “Can you call yourself there?”

  Marlon shrugged. “Not easily. I can send a message, and reply when I get it.”

  Vivian nodded. “Good. Do that. Now I’m afraid we’re going to have to view the bodies. This may be unpleasant for you. If either one of you want to change your minds, now would be the time.”

  “I’m all right,” Marlon said, shaking his head grimly.

  “I’m saturated and therefore imperturbable,” Deliah answered, less confidently.

  “Well then, let’s proceed.”

  The instrument room was only a little farther on, surrounded by a knot of white-suited technicians. Cheng Shiao was here as well, presiding over the evidence collection, gazing into a slate of his own and nodding at something someone was saying. At the sight of Vivian, he jerked to attention.

  “Commandant-Inspector! A pleasure. You’re looking well.”

  “I’ve aged a month,” she replied, a little snottily.

  Marlon and Deliah crowded slowly forward, their curiosity battling a sense of reluctance and, to all appearances, defeating it. Police technicians parted solemnly for them.

  “Oh,” Marlon said, in flat tones.

  Deliah was less sanguine. “How completely rude! Look at this! Do I deserve this? Gods, the inconsideration. This must have hurt!”

  By craning his neck, Bruno was able to see around her, to see what she was looking at: herself and Marlon lying in heaps on the floor of the instrument room, with their toes pointing down and their faces pointing up. Someone had twisted their heads completely around, leaving wide, ugly, red-black bruises all around their necks, almost like burns. In the doorway, a lacquer-black robot sprawled, powerless and inert. It was small, probably not more than a meter and a half in height, though its arms and hands and especially its fingers were of disproportionate length. Its glossy exterior betrayed no dents or scratches or other signs of violence; it seemed to have just dropped there, perhaps while exiting the room.

  “That doesn’t belong here,” Tamra said unnecessarily. “That’s not government issue.”

  Vivian examined the scene for several seconds, pursing her lips and nodding. “Homicide, two counts, officers on the scene. Murder weapon is possibly a robot. Lieutenant, do we have a reconstruction yet?”

  Bruno was surprised to see a heaviness around the edges of her eyes, as if she were suddenly holding back tears. Her lip quivered a little, although her voice had been firm and clear. Perhaps dealing with this sort of carnage wasn’t as easy for her as Tamra might like to believe.

  “Yes’m,” Cheng Shiao said at once. He held up a wellstone slate. Vivian clicked her own, smaller one against it, and the two units chimed. An image appeared of the murder scene, exactly as it lay before them all but without the crowd, without the police and technicians and royal entourage complete with silver bodyguards. There was only Marlon, and Deliah, and the enigmatic little robot.

  “The time is twenty-eight minutes ago,” Shiao said. “Both victims are clinically dead, in the presence of an inactivated autronic device of roughly anthropoid design, as seen here.” On the displays, in three-dimensional miniature, the faces and bodies of the two prone figures began to twitch. The movements were slight, but the time scale was clearly compressed, so that the corpses seemed to take on a kind of manic quiver reminiscent of an AC electrical shock.

  “Death throes, approximately four minutes for the woman and three for the man, may be considered mercifully brief. Neural and circulatory connections between brain and body have been completely severed, and both brains have suffered additional, acceleration-related traumas, owing to the great violence of the event. Organized memories not related to smell or emotion should be considered irretrievable in both cases. Whether this damage was deliberate or incidental is a matter for speculation.

  “Continuing
backward in time, we find the autronic device, colloquially a ‘robot,’ showing its final signs of activity. Central processing shuts down last, following the termination of emergency and backup power. Here the memory is wiped and erased, and shortly before that, primary power shuts off, most likely under CPU command.”

  On screen, the robot twitched, then rose to its feet like a marionette. It stood still for a moment, then turned around suddenly and brought its hands out parallel in front of it, raised slightly above the level of its head. The body of Marlon Sykes, twitching more violently now, rose from the floor and placed its head between the robot’s hands. Its neck was still twisted, though there was now no sign of the burnlike discoloration. If it could be said that there was any facial expression at all, it was one of simple discomfort, of skin and muscle hanging crooked and rudely pressed, like the face of a sleeper propped awkwardly in a chair not meant for sleeping.

  That was only for a moment, though. In the next instant, the body’s head was rotated sharply, with such speed that Bruno didn’t see it happen, and afterward Marlon stood there, looking over his shoulder with what was now very clearly an expression of fear and startlement.

  Then, in quick succession, the body of Deliah van Skettering first hurled itself upward into the robot’s waiting hands, then twisted its head around similarly, then turned, intact, to face the information-rich wall of the instrument room. Bruno noted that the walls were not randomizing, as they had been when he himself had last seen them.

  “The second and first murders occur, to all appearances, a premeditated and in fact calculated attack. Here the robot enters and approaches.”

  The black machine leaped backward out of the room, landing lightly on its feet, and then commenced a stately—if accelerated—backward stroll along the grapple station’s main avenue. The viewpoint followed it all the way back to the fax gate, where it vanished.

  “Curiously,” Shiao said, “the fax has no record of this transaction. We deduce it purely from the age and placement of molecular traces left by the robot’s feet. From this point, the scene remains largely unchanged for sixteen minutes, forty seconds, at which point there is a record of passage for two persons—Her Majesty Queen Tamra Lutui and Declarant-Philander Bruno de Towaji—and their accompanying guards.”

  On the two slates, a little Bruno and Tamra walked backward out of the fax, led by one stocky little silver robot and followed by another. They continued backward at a brisk walk until arriving at the instrument room, at which point a conversation ensued between them and the figures of Marlon and Deliah, both alive. And this time, the walls were randomizing as Bruno had remembered.

  How did the police know to include that in their simulation? What storage devices or subtle electrical traces told them that? These reconstructions, corroborated now by his own observations, seemed all but perfect. He resolved to learn more about police procedures, and particularly the physics underlying them.

  The conversation was brief, and finally Marlon’s hand sucked a grease stain off Bruno’s jacket, and Marlon himself settled down onto his back on the floor and scooted headfirst into the recess where Bruno had first found him. Then Bruno and Tamra and the guards walked backward to the fax gate again, this time with Deliah van Skettering trailing behind. When they had gone, Deliah backed alone to the instrument room again.

  “A brief visit,” Shiao said, “preceded by another period of relative inactivity. We jump behind. Two hours, five minutes and thirty-six seconds earlier, the van Skettering woman arrives, and eleven minutes before that, Sykes does. Again, for some reason the fax does not maintain any record or receipt of this singular transaction, but shed skin cells and residual ghosting tell us almost precisely when it must have occurred. Prior to this arrival, the station appears to have sat unattended for a period of twenty-nine days, and shows no prior visits by either Sykes or van Skettering at any time. This completes the first draft of our reconstruction. A final, admissible draft will be completed within twenty-four hours.”

  Shiao clicked his heels together and waited.

  “Excellent work,” Vivian said, nodding. “I’ll note this in my report. Regarding a motive, we—”

  Along the avenue, another Shiao came sprinting toward them, shouting, “Commandant-Inspector! Commandant-Inspector! I’m reporting trouble at six other grapple stations!” He pulled up and stopped, puffing. “Murders, Commandant-Inspector, all almost exactly like this one. Two bodies, one robot, some of them fresher than those found here. And Commandant? One of me has failed to report back. It isn’t like me, if I may say so. If I may say so, I fear the worst.”

  Frowning, Vivian nodded. “Rightly so. Send a full armed detail and report back immediately. Try to capture the robot alive, if at all possible.”

  “Yes’m!” The new Shiao turned and sprinted back toward the fax again. He was passed on the way by still another Shiao, who, while less agitated, was if anything in an even grimmer mood.

  “Commandant-Inspector!”

  “Yes, Shiao?”

  “Commandant-Inspector, there’s been an accident of some sort. Cislunar traffic control just came through with a debris anomaly; the home of Declarant-Philander Marlon Sykes has apparently been damaged. My attempts to raise him there have been unsuccessful. House software does not appear to be responding. I fear the worst.”

  “Darn it!” Vivian squawked, suddenly eleven years old again. “That’s no accident. Darn, darn, darnit! This just isn’t how we do things in the Queendom. Somebody’s being systematically mean, and that just isn’t how we do things.”

  “No’m.”

  She relaxed a little, perhaps by force, then nodded to Her Majesty. “This situation is obviously volatile, Tam. With your permission, I’d like to remove you all to a safer location.”

  Tamra bowed her head. “I defer to your judgment, Commandant-Inspector.”

  “Good. Shiao, escort all these people to headquarters under maximum protection. Are you still guarding the fax gate?”

  “Yes’m. I’m there now.”

  “Good. On your way out, tell yourself to seal it behind us. Official access only. And while you’re at it, find out more about these unlogged fax transactions. There’s something very uncanny about that.”

  chapter eleven

  in which the rubble is sifted

  “So this unidentified ‘saboteur’ of yours—” Vivian sighed, looking out the headquarters window at a distant line of palm trees. “—either a person or an organization, is not only trying to push the Ring Collapsiter into the sun, but also to eradicate any persons able to stop it. I don’t get it. I don’t get a motive for this. I mean, we haven’t received any kind of threats or demands.”

  “Indeed,” Bruno said. “It’s difficult to imagine an outcome useful to anyone. And yet, the tricks being played here are extraordinarily clever. This is not the work of a madman.”

  “Madmen aren’t necessarily stupid,” Marlon pointed out sullenly. He had good cause to be sullen: as the investigation spread, it had quickly become apparent that no fax machine anywhere in the Queendom had record of him. He’d been erased, in the ninety minutes leading up to the destruction of his house. There was only one copy of him currently in existence, and if not for the discovery of the bodies on Station 117 and the timing of his visit there, no copy would exist. Even the Royal Registry, when asked to produce him, begged “a slight delay, owing to technical difficulties.”

  It seemed to horrify Tamra and Deliah at least as much as it horrified Marlon himself. Bruno, who’d been single-copy for most of his life, couldn’t easily grasp their mood. Marlon was still alive, right? But for those accustomed to multiplicity, that seemed little comfort. This much was apparent to all: that the greatest of rarities, a murder in the first degree, had been attempted, and had very nearly succeeded.

  No one seemed to notice that Bruno himself had nearly been obliterated in the same stroke. Had hunter-killer apps gone looking for his fax image in the collapsiter grid? Were the polic
e investigating that? Perhaps they assumed he’d left a live copy at home, as many people did while traveling.

  “Nor are stupid men invariably hapless,” Deliah added, with a sort of low anger. “The gravity projector was invented by a moron. Half the senate are fools, but see how they come alive when crossed!” She was standing at the window, looking out at coconut palms and bamboo and beach sand, and the distant breaking of ocean waves. She’d been quietly outraged, Bruno thought, to find that her murder was an afterthought, that she wasn’t the target, that she was merely standing next to Marlon Sykes at the wrong time. She, the Lead Componeer for the Ministry of Grapples, had not been seen as a threat to the Ring Collapsiter’s fall. The idyllic island of Tongatapu had done little to assuage her indignation; she stood guywire taut, hands clasped firmly behind her buttocks.

  “Boyle Schmenton was hardly a moron,” Bruno felt compelled to point out.

  “Oh, dry up.”

  “That’s enough, Laureate-Director,” Tamra said coolly.

  A collective sigh or yawn went through them all—all except the robot guards, who stood like anchored chrome statues, gleaming in the sunlight. Royal Constabulary Headquarters, on the northeast edge of the city of Nuku’alofa, was a pyramid of yellow-white glass, nearly as large as Bruno’s whole planet and really far too bright inside for an office building. But the temperature and humidity were just right, and the air smelled brilliantly of ocean and wood smoke and vanilla. Wild vanilla, probably—nobody really farmed anymore, or fished, or roasted pigs and turtles in pits on the beach.

  In some ways, Bruno had always felt he was more Tongan than the Tongans themselves. His father, Enzo de Towaji, had won a lot of money flying kites, and sunk it all—against every bit of advice—into a restaurant that served only “natural” foods and beverages. A stupid idea, yes, but it had not only caught on, but spawned a whole range of subindustries to support and complement it. Bruno had grown up in the retro-Girona of gentlemen farmers and butchers and vintners, and eventually even weaver women and chandlers to complete the ambience. Back-to-basics was always an easy sell in Catalonia—Enzo was no fool. Of course, the Sabadell-Andorra earthquake had ended that era rather decisively, but Bruno had never really shaken off its influence.