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

"The ring needs stiffening?" he guessed.
She shook her head. "Every analysis tells us the design is sound. Even the
environmentalists agree it's more than strong enough, even now, when it's only a
third complete, still held up by electromagnetic grapple stations."
"Hmm. So what's the problem?"
Her Majesty sighed, looking almost as if she might begin to fidget, embarrassed
by some personal inadequacy. Finally, she said, "We had a solar flare last
month. A big one, that hit the collapsiter dead center and burned out half the
grapples that were holding it up. We're moving new ones into place, butЕ"
"But meanwhile the structure is slipping," he said.
She nodded, then picked up her glass and drank deeply from it, as if the ice
water were something stronger to soothe her nerves. It was a gesture Bruno
hadn't seenЧor madeЧin a long time. Afterward she held onto the glass, kept it
close to her lips, until Bruno realized she was using it as an excuse to keep
from speaking further. When he'd waited long enough for her next words, she took
another sip, then another, until finally the silence had dragged on long enough
and Bruno was obliged to fill it himself.
It was uncharacteristically clumsy of her; another indication of her alarmingly
unQueenly distress.
"It's accelerating," he suggested. "You can't get enough grappling force in
place fast enough."
Again, she nodded.
"When a boulder first starts rolling downhill," he said, reaching for the sort
of analogy she preferred, "you can stop it with a well-placed pebble, but if
you're late on the scene it takes more, a stone, an iron chock. And if the
boulder rolls over thoseЕ"
She set down her glass. "You have the essence of it, yes. As the ring falls
closer, the sun's gravity increases, and we simply can't build new grapples fast
enough to stop it. I'm told we've got six months."
It was Bruno's turn to frown. "Six months before what? Before this 'Ring
Collapsiter' falls into the sun?"
Tamra nodded yet again.
Bruno felt the blood draining from his face. "Good Lord. Good Lord. An accident
indeed!"
"You'll help us," Tamra said. It wasn't a command; her tone hovered right at the
edge of asking. As if he had some right to refuse her. As if he had even the
ability to refuse her, else why would he ever have left her side in the first
place?
His glance took in her copper eyes, her almond skin, the elegance of her purple
dress, cinched at the waist with a chain of diamond-studded gold. With a start,
he realized it was precisely the outfit he'd last seen her in. Precisely the
haircut, precisely the cosmetic palette. Had she worn it deliberately, in some
coarse attempt to influence him? The idea was unsettling.
"Glass ceiling," he said to the house. Light flooded in. Looking left and
squinting, he pointed. "My sun warms exactly one subject, Tamra. Yours warms
billions. Even assuming a solar collapse were somehow survivable to those
nearby, which I doubt very much, the idea of there being no Sol to have a
Queendom ofЕ Tamra, do you think I'd refuse you? We've squabbled, all right, but
do you think so little of me? Why are you here? Your robots should have dragged
me to you."