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

Solar disturbances could begin sooner than that, as it passes through the
chromopause."
He tried to picture such an event. Collapsium was a "semisafe" material in that
it didn't consume matter the way a large black hole would; the component
hypermasses, being precisely the size of protons, couldn't swallow protons, any
more than a standard manhole could swallow its cover. But they could swallow
smaller particles, and slowly stretch in the process.[Footnote: See Appendix A:
Semisafe Black Holes]
Would coronal plasma densities be sufficient to trigger such a chain reaction?
The plasma nuclei would certainly cling to the collapsons as they fell past,
sliding into orbit around the lattice points like planets in newly formed,
rapidly growing star systems. Enough nuclei to make a difference? Enough to
alter the behavior of a star?
"There've been detailed simulations," Marlon Sykes said, after an apologetic
clearing of the throat. "From now, it's six months to the earliest symptoms.
After that, barely a week until the photosphere is penetrated. It was the first
thing we checked."
Well, now Bruno genuinely was embarrassed. Of course they'd check a thing like
that, long before they ever thought to send for him. Marlon Sykes clearly was
not stupid; the glittering arch above them was proof enough of that. Bruno
stepped away from the dome, absently wiping at it where his forehead had rested,
though no smear or smudge remained.
"Of course," he said, now with proper and unfeigned apology. "Of course you did.
Forgive me, Declarant."
Sykes smiled, indulgently if not quite warmly. "Stop it, Declarant. Am I to
forgive you every fifteen seconds? It seems a waste of our talents, this
officiousity. Call me Marlon, please. Speak to me as a friend, loosely and
without calculation, and we shall both be the happier for it."
Well, that seemed rather a courtly way of asking him not to be courtly. Was
there some cunning insult here, buried in subtexts and subtleties? Bruno grunted
noncommittally, then caught himself. What if there were? What did it matter? He
was here to help Tamra, to help the Queendom in general and Marlon Sykes in
particular. It wasn't difficult to imagine some rancor there, some resentment at
imagined usurpations of authority and respect, but did that change the physics
one iota? No. Here, at least, it was better simply to state his thoughts as they
actually were, with social filters disengaged.
Which of course was exactly what Sykes himselfЧwhat MarlonЧwas proposing.
"Damn me," Bruno said, with forced cheer. "I've been away too long. Marlon it
is, and you may call me Bruno, or 'fathead,' or anything you please. We've a sun
to save, yes? And not with our manners."
Marlon's grin widened. "Well spoken, fathead."
Despite Her Majesty's sharp intake of breath at this, the two men shared a
sudden laugh, and Bruno felt the easing of a mutual hostility he hadn't fully
realized was there.
He looked up at the sparkling arch of the Ring Collapsiter again, this time with
an eye for the details of its construction. Based on the spacing of its gently
pulsing Cerenkov pinpoints, he judged the structure's zenith to be some two
kilometers above the platform, its range increasing to perhaps millions of times
that much as it sloped away to the sides. A ring, yes, but one so enormous that
it looked flat, ruler-straight, until it had all but vanished in the distance,