"The Collapsium" - читать интересную книгу автора (Mccarthy Wil)

look well, Tamra. I mean that."
"You look good yourself," she said, her voice betraying a hint of pique. "You
always look good."
Shrug. "Everyone does. But I've dressed up!"
She studied him for a few moments before replying, "Yes.
Actually, you look like you're playing yourself in a melodrama. The gray hair is
new. It suits you, I suppose."
Her tone, while sharp, was not unkind. Like her expression and her too-correct
posture, it bespoke a mingling of amusement and ire and haste, as well as a kind
of bruised dignity. He'd left her court without permission, after all. Without
even a proper good-bye, for he'd feared his resolve would crumble. It had been a
cowardly, disrespectful, unkind thing to do, and whatever business drew her here
nowЕ Well, he'd made her jump through hoops for it, hadn't he? What urgency
would permit a queen to beggar herself before such a determined expatriate?
"Something's happened," he prompted. "Something awful."
She shook her head, but her eyes looked nervous, uncertain. "Not awful, no.
Inconvenient. AЕ project of ours has gone somewhat awry. No one's been hurt, but
there's aЕ cleanup effort that isn't progressing well. I thought perhaps you'd
have some advice for us."
Bruno wasn't sure he understood, and said so. "My so-called expertise is in
collapsium engineering, Highness. Industrial accidents are hardlyЕ" He caught
her expression. "Oh, I see. It is a collapsium accident."
She nodded, pursing her lips, and for a moment Bruno felt paralyzed by her
beauty, unable to think, unworthy to speak. The human brain was said to be wired
for monarchy, for hierarchy, for the elevation and admiration of single
individuals, and now the truth of this hit Bruno like a heavy gilded pillow.
There wasn't any one thing about Tamra LutuiЧnot her long black hair or the tilt
of her head or the gentle swell of her hips and thighs and bosomЧthat should
affect him so. He knew her very well indeed, well enough that her pout shouldn't
fill him with this boyish, trembling awe. But she was Queen, and that made all
the difference in the worlds.
Her Majesty, being well familiar with this reaction, this social allergy, waited
politely for it to subside.
"Yes," she said finally. "A collapsium accident. You should be proud of us,
Bruno; we've finally attempted something big. Too big, evidently."
Bruno clucked and shook his head. "Ambition has to imply some willingness to
fail, Tam. It isn't a stretch, otherwise. You mustn't regret your mistakes."
"This one I regret, Declarant," she said coolly. "That we can hope for a
favorable outcome is immaterial. Some errors are inexcusable." With these words
she fixed a mild glare on him: Had he no regrets?
"Fair enough," he said, raising his palms in immediate surrender lest he be
forced, in some way, to explain or apologize for himself. He had good reasons
for all of it. Didn't he? "Er, perhaps you should tell me what you've been
doing. With the collapsium, I mean."
Her Majesty rapped the tabletop. "Sketch pad, please." Obligingly, the table
darkened, and where her finger traced, colored lines and dots and circles
appeared. "This is the sun, all right? I can't draw well, but these here are the
orbits of Venus, Earth, and Mars."
In fact, for hasty finger paintings her renditions were fairly accurate.
"Sol is big in the inner system, and if two planets are aligned with the sun