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

deep in thought, realized the obligatory reply was his to make. "Um, yes," he
said, looking up and nodding, because he didn't disagree with that statement,
either.
He and Marlon were orbiting Tamra, he saw, striding slowly around her on the
platform as if she had some dangerous gravity of her own. Which of course, she
did, and his reticence clearly did not put him on the right side of it. A
not-so-subtle no-no in the grammar of decorum: ignoring the Queen of All Things.
"I do need time to think," he pointed out.
She nodded once, and her gravity seemed to drop a bit. Permission granted; his
orbit could slow and widen. God, how many times had scenes like this played out?
Tamra impatient for answersЧscientific or otherwiseЧand Bruno begging silence to
contemplate them? He hadn't missed the feeling, exactly, but now it had a kind
of deja vu effect, reminding him of a lot of things he had missed. He was back
in her world, yes. Nodding to himself, he pinched his chin again, and looked
down to examine the reflection of the collapsium in the di-clad whiteness of the
platform.
Time passed.
"Can I answer anything else for you, Bruno?" Marlon asked, with perfect
politeness, when ten minutes had gone by.
"Bruno?" he prompted diplomatically, after another sixty seconds. Finally he
snapped his fingers. "Hey you, fathead! Are we through here?"
Bruno looked up, blinking. "Hmm? Oh, yes, please, go on about your business. I
think I have all the information I need for the time being. The problem, as you
say, is an exceedingly simple one, even if its solution is not."
"You don't need anything more from me, then?" Marlon prompted.
"Er, not that I can think of," Bruno said, realizing that some more time had
passed. "I can reach you, yes? If further questions occur?" Then it dawned on
him that he was being rude again, perfunctory, exactly the sort of boor Marlon
had probably thought him in the first place. Peerless indeed, usurping this
other man's place, his project, his problems. To compensate, if belatedly, he
allowed his gaze to narrow, his face to grow shrewd. "If you must go, Declarant,
I implore you not to go far. This matter's been on my mind a fraction of the
time it's been on yours, but once we're on a more equal footing, I'll be more
ready to assist you."
Marlon Sykes was, it seemed, not impressed by such transparent flattery. Without
a word he doffed his cap, bowed deeply, replaced it again, and walked to the fax
gate; and if it's possible to disappear in a testy, irritable way, then be
assured Marlon Sykes did just that.
"Nicely handled," Tamra chided, emphasizing the remark with a not-so-playful
punch in the arm.
"Hmm?" he said, looking up. "What?"
She sighed, then removed the diamond crown and scratched the indented band it
left across her forehead. "Bruno, Bruno. I thought you'd changed. You seemed to
have grown at first, matured, but maybe that was just the gray hair. Maybe we're
just ourselves, irredeemably, until the end of time. A dreary thought. So are
you going to stand there all night? If I send for a chair, will you sit?"
He looked at her, his attention divided, struggling to understand what she
wanted here. Finally he just shrugged. "I'm comfortable enough, Tam. If I need
to sit, I'll sit. There's a fax machine, right? So really, I've got everything I
need."