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.
Finally, he asked, “How is she able to perform her duties at all? You thought my robot Hugo to be a cruel experiment, but it seems far crueler to ask a young girl to act with a lifetime of experience she never had.”
“Oh, Bruno, it’s just not that simple. Vivian was always good about keeping mental notes, and after the accident she insisted on downloading all of them, all at once. The result is a very well trained, very confused little girl. In retrospect, it probably wasn’t a wise idea, but there you have it. She complains about her work now, yes, but she was miserable—I mean genuinely despondent—until I ordered her back to it. And since the Constabulary was clamoring for her anyway, it seemed the kindest course of action.”
“Hmm,” Bruno said, unconvinced. Mental notes—essentially neuroelectrical snapshots of a particular moment of understanding—were something he’d always found to cause at least as many problems as they cured. What use to recapture the exact steps of a derivation or insight, when what you really wanted was to take the results of it and move forward, upward, to the next level of understanding? Notes could too easily set you in circles, working the same problems over and over to no clear purpose.
Now he was willing to concede that his example might not be a typical one. Quite possibly, a profession like criminal investigation relied on memory and habit in a way that note-taking could complement. But it was quite a step from there to the idea that an eleven-year-old could be programmed to perform the job as well as a seasoned adult. And even if that were granted, the question of whether such a thing should be done…
On the other hand, it had ‘t>een done. Bruno’s approval wasn’t required, and his opinion was not an informed one. If Her Majesty and the Royal Constabulary wanted Vivian Rajmon back at work, well, perhaps they knew best after all.
Vivian slowed; the knot of walking people drew closer together. Over her shoulder she asked, “So, do I meet with your approval, de Towaji?”
He answered quickly, and with a fortunate evenness of tone. “You meet with Her Majesty’s approval, mademoiselle. My own opinion hardly matters. As you surmise, I’m here only to assess the sabotage of the Ring Collapsiter.”
Vivian stopped so suddenly that Deliah van Skeltering collided with her. But her voice was dignified enough in speaking this single word. “Sabotage?”
“Indeed.”
“We’ve worked it out,” Marlon Sykes cut in, his voice weary but hard edged. “The pattern simply isn’t consistent with a natural event. Someone deliberately destabilized the gravitational links, apparently for the express purpose of knocking the ring into the sun again.”