The Collapsium (17 page)

A loud noise, like a gong, echoed through the sphero-Athenian spaces of Sykes Manor. Marlon looked up sharply. “Yes?”

“A message,” the house said to him, in tones much louder and slower and flatter of affect than Bruno’s own house would dare employ.

“I’m holding a slate,” Marlon said, testily.

In his hands, an image appeared: a square-faced man of deeply serious expression, clad in the stiff uniform of the Royal Constabulary. That uniform had not changed one bit since Bruno had last seen one, thirty years before: a wellcloth coverall, programmed to act like beige smartcotton festooned with strips of white numerals. And of course, the obligatory monocle over the left eye.

“Yes?” Marlon demanded of the face.

“Declarant-Philander Sykes, is everything all right?”

“It is as far as
I
know. How can I help you?”

The policeman’s expression managed, somehow, to grow more serious. “Sir, there’s been an incident on Grapple Station 117. Two dead, apparently very recently, apparently by homicide. Are you sitting down, sir?”

“Why are you calling me?” Marlon asked, trying now to
disguise the annoyance in his voice. “Who was homicide, er, was murdered?”

“You were, sir. And a woman, one Deliah van Skettering.”

“Oh,” Marlon said, going paler then before. “Oh, shit.”

“Yes, sir. Exactly. I’m sorry to ask it, but I wonder if you could come to the site and answer a few questions.”

In some sense, the first ten thousand years of human history
could be described as a steady climb toward freedom. Not the doomed, hapless freedom of short-lived beach and savanna apes, but the enlightened democracy of a fit and educated humanity that recognized—and indeed, meticulously cataloged—the value of individual action. Society, it was thought, should work to maximize the power—and with it the accountability—of each of its members, so that success and failure and happiness and misery might be had in direct proportion to the effort invested.

Turns out this was a load of hooey all along; people
hated
that sort of self-responsibility. Always had. Only when it was inescapably universal, when there were no more corrupt or uncivilized “third worlds” to flee to, did it become clear that what people
really
wanted, in their secret hearts of hearts, was a charismatic monarch to admire and gossip about and blame all their problems on.

Unfortunately, over the millennia Earth’s monarchies had been deposed one by one, and since deposed monarchies had a habit of creeping back into power it had been necessary to
murder them all—not simply the monarchs and their heirs and assigns and spouses and bastard cousins, but also their friends, supporters, beloved pets, and the occasional bystander, leaving as little chance of a miraculous restoration as possible.

There were
de novo
monarchs here and there, micronational leaders who’d declared their kingship or queenship on a lark, or in dire earnest and questionable mental health, but by the twenty-fifth century the only real, legitimate, globally recognized monarch left, the only one whose lineage extended back into sufficient historical murk, was King Longo Lutui, of the tiny Polynesian nation of Tonga. And as luck would have it, shortly before the scheduled Interplanetary Referendum on Constitutional Reform, King Longo, sailing the shark-filled straits between the islands of Tongatapu and Eua, chased a wine bottle over the side of his boat and was neither seen nor heard from again. He had left behind a single heir: one Princess Tamra.

You know what happened from there: Her coronation became the talk of the solar system, the duly modified referendum was held, and Tamra was elected the Queen of Sol by a stunning 93% supermajority. And since everyone knew that power corrupted, they were careful not to give her any, and to install a special prosecutor to chase after what little she managed to accumulate. Much was made of her sexual purity as well, and it was thought good and proper that she be humanity’s Virgin Queen for all time thenceforward.

The only trouble was, nobody had particularly consulted Tamra about any of this. Really, they were just taking their own burdens of personal accountability and heaping them onto
her
, which hardly seemed fair, and this whole virginity business had more to do with her being fifteen than with any inherent chastity of spirit. She just hadn’t worked up the nerve yet, was all. And while the immortality thing hadn’t quite happened by that time, the writing on the wall was clearly legible, and the thought of retaining her supposed purity for literally “all time thenceforward” did not amuse Tamra in the least.

So, once installed as Queen, once crowned and throned and petitioned for the royal edicts everyone so craved, her first act had been to Censure everyone responsible for putting her there. Her second act was to compel her physicians to see that her physical purity could regenerate itself in the manner of a lizard’s tail or a starfish’s arm. And her third had been a deliciously shocking call for suitors—low achievers need not apply.

The rest, as they say, is history.

So understand that the officer in charge of the grapple station crime scene, one Lieutenant Cheng Shiao of the Royal Constabulary, did a commendable job of not acting flabbergasted or starstruck when the expected First Philander stepped through the fax gate with the quite unexpected Queen of Sol in tow, plus a pair of dainty metal bodyguards, plus an extra Philander who was quite famous in his own right. Shiao bowed to each of them in turn and explained with perfect professionalism that in light of the victims’ rank and occupation, a more senior investigator had been called and was expected on the scene shortly. In the meantime, if he could just ask a few questions …

Marlon Sykes, for his part, did a commendable job of answering without visible emotion. Had he had any reason to expect violence? No. Had any threats been made against him? No. Did he have any enemies? Certainly, yes. A man in his position could hardly avoid it. But
mortal
enemies? He’d have to think about that one. He
had
just uncovered evidence of—

Presently, the fax gate spat out a disheveled young woman Bruno took a moment to recognize as Deliah van Skettering. Dressed not in work shirt and trousers but in a rumpled saffron evening gown, she sported an arch of flowers above her off-kilter platinum braids and looked as if she’d been crying.

Her first words were, “This is a fine hello, isn’t it? Talk about going from bad to worse!”

“There there, miss,” Cheng Shiao consoled. His voice could
be, all at once, soothing and professional and yet loud enough to drown out the whine of machinery.

“Hi,” Marlon added, disspiritedly.

“When you’re ready, miss, a few questions?”

“Oh. Of course, yes. Hello, Your Highness. It’s very nice of you to be here.”

Tamra inclined her head in acknowledgment.

The fax gate, its entrance already crowded, hummed for a moment before expelling another figure, this time a young girl in what looked like a school uniform: beige blouse, dark gray necktie, beige pleated skirt, dark gray socks, black shoes. Her eyes—the left one half-hidden by a VR monocle—fixed immediately on Shiao, then swept the rest of the assembled persons coolly. She looked, to Bruno’s inexperienced eye, about ten or eleven years old, on the threshold of puberty but still girlishly proportioned. Her carriage and posture and gait were all wrong, though. Or partly wrong, anyway, as if she’d spent too much time around grown-ups and had forgotten how to move like a child.

“Commandant-Inspector,” Shiao said at once, throwing his shoulders back, his chin up, his chest forward. “Thank you for relieving me. It will please me to assist you on this case in any way I can.”

Astonished, Bruno looked at the little girl again, more closely this time, noting that Shiao had made no such display of obsequity to a pair of Declarant-Philanders, nor even to the Queen of Sol herself. Commandant-Inspector? He’d always assumed that was a rank for octogenarians, senior police officers with decades of crime-fighting experience.

He noted, too, Tamra’s and Marlon’s and Deliah’s lack of surprise at the policeman’s reaction. They knew this girl, or knew
of
her, if indeed the word “girl” applied in any but the most outward sense. Perhaps it was a disguise, an invitation to underestimate the person beneath?

“Thank you, Lieutenant,” the girl said. Then, curtseying to Tamra, “Good evening, Your Majesty. Sorry to meet you under
these circumstances; I hadn’t heard you were at the scene. Declarant Sykes, Laureate van Skettering, allow me to express my condolences.”

And this perplexed Bruno still further, because the voice was very much that of a young girl trying hard to act mature, and while she was speaking, her right foot twisted and dug at the floor’s metal decking, and her right hand grabbed a corner of her skirt and twisted it, then dropped it, smoothed it, and finally grabbed it again.

Bruno couldn’t help himself. “You’re the senior investigator?” he blurted.

The girl looked at him, again with that same sort of rapid, confident assessment that said she knew a thing or two about human beings. She didn’t appear overawed with what she saw. “Have we met, sir?”

“Er, I think not. I’m de Towaji.”

“De Towaji who?” Her voice was unimpressed.

Tamra came to the rescue then, stepping sideways to touch a hand to Bruno’s shoulder. “Declarant-Philander Bruno de Towaji, dear. He’s the inventor, among other things, of collapsium.” Then her voice dropped an octave, filled out with genial warning. “Bruno, this is Commandant Vivian Rajmon, a senior inspector of the Royal Constabulary and a personal friend of mine.”

“Senior?” he couldn’t keep from saying.

Commandant-Inspector Vivian Rajmon’s sigh was loud and short, an exclamation of impatience. “The worst part is always having to explain it. Can I
pleeease
take a leave of absence, Tamra?”

“Not a chance,” Her Majesty said, with stern amusement. “It would encourage the criminal element too much.”

“Explain what?” Bruno asked, still stuck on the girl’s appearance.

Inspector Rajmon sighed again, eyeing Bruno gloomily. “I’ve heard of you. You’re rich. You own your own private planet.”

“Er, a small one, yes.”

“What are you doing here? Wait! Let me guess: you were called in to consult on the fall of the Ring Collapsiter. You visited Marlon Sykes, and were with him when news of his murder arrived.”

Bruno thought to bow. “Your deductions are accurate, uh, mademoiselle.”

She pursed her lips, and looked him over as if weighing the intent of his words. Finally, she said, “I don’t care to explain myself to you. I don’t have to.” Then, to Shiao, she said, “Has the scene been fully documented?”

“Nearly complete, Commandant-Inspector,” Shiao said, stiffly. “We should have a reconstruction in a few minutes.”

Vivian nodded. “Good. Thank you.” Then her voice became amused. “At
ease
, Lieutenant.”

“Yes’m.” Shiao’s posture slumped just enough to show he was complying with the order.

“Declarant, Laureate,” Vivian said then to Marlon and Deliah, “do you feel up to viewing the bodies?”

Marlon Sykes nodded.

Deliah, for her part, straightened her back, pushed her hair into closer array, and said, “Why not? Nothing could make this evening much worse than it is already.”

“Let’s go, then,” Vivian said, then nodded to Shiao. “Will you keep the news cameras away, please?”

Shiao went rigid again. “Absolutely, Commandant-Inspector. I won’t budge from this spot.”

She nodded, apparently satisfied with that, and set off down the length of the grapple station with the rest of them trailing behind.

The place was
crawling
with figures in white spacesuits, dozens of them, some on rolling ladders, some on hands and knees, some dangling from roof beams on harnesses of optically superconducting cable so that they seemed to float unsupported in the air. All of them were sweeping every available surface with instruments of various design and purpose.

When Vivian’s entourage had gone far enough and spread out enough that the station’s hum would hide a discreet voice,
Bruno touched Tamra’s elbow and leaned in close to murmur, “She’s got that fellow well cowed, hasn’t she? It seems odd.”

“They
adore
her,” Her Majesty murmured back. “These constables, all of them, they have such a hard time letting go. Vivian’s situation is very sad, very unfortunate. She hasn’t always been so young.”

“A disguise, then?”

“Hardly. She died in an accident last year, and we’ve had a terrible time tracking down her fax patterns. She wasn’t
afraid
to fax herself, but she did prefer to travel in that little spaceship of hers. How she loved that ship! But it blew up one day and took her with it.”

“How perfectly horrid,” Bruno said, meaning it. “And this … young version was the most recent you could find? That’s peculiar; even if she rarely faxed, there should be buffer archives stored
somewhere
.”

“In theory,” Tamra whispered back. It was difficult to whisper here and still be heard, but Vivian had cast a suspicious glance backward. She knew, obviously, that they’d be talking about her, that Bruno required
some
explanation before taking her at rank value, but she just as clearly didn’t like the idea.

“The theory fails to model reality?”

“Uh, right. Even the Royal Registry for Indispensable Persons didn’t seem to have a copy, not that they’ve admitted to it yet. ‘Still searching, Your Majesty. We’re quite sure it’s around here somewhere.’ Even if that’s
true
, it only means their search algorithms are defective. This is what I get for awarding contracts to the lowest bidder.”

“Hmm,” Bruno said, digesting that. There’d been no “Royal Registry” during his time in civilization—at least none that he’d ever heard about—and he was certainly an infrequent traveler himself. Other than his home fax machine, did anyplace have recent copies of
him
? Did this station, or Marlon’s home? What might happen if he died suddenly? He tended not to pay attention to such concerns, but perhaps that was foolish of him. Things mightn’t always work out in his favor.