The Collapsium Read Free Page B

Insanely selfish extravagances—theleading vice of the wealthy. But he couldn’t postpone the next purchase forever.
    Cursing once more, Bruno waved the floor and ceiling lights back up. Glass windows appeared in the walls, admitting the morning sun once again. His furniture reverted to wood—wellwood, anyway—its colored controls and displays vanishing, leaving smooth surfaces behind. A couple of murals appeared beneath the stenciled images of telescopes and rocket-ships on the walls. This was a plain room—small, uncluttered and maybe a little old-fashioned—exactly as Bruno felt a study should be.
    “I apologize for not detecting the vessel sooner,” the house said with quiet, reflexive contrition.
    “It’s all right,” Bruno grumbled, and surprised himself by meaning it. Nothing genuinely new had happened around here for a very long time. There’d been no reason to expect … anything, really.
    “The vessel is approaching much faster than a neutronium barge would do,” the house went on, as if feeling the need to explain itself. “Anticipating nothing of the kind, I’d set the detection radii much too close. The failure of your experiment was likely a direct result.”
    Bruno waved himself a door and exited into the living room, a mess of models and food containers and discarded clothing, which was exactly as
that
should be, but seeing it now he nodded, pursed his lips and said, “Stop apologizing and clean this up. If we’re to have company, we must be presentable, yes? What’s the ID on the ship?”
    “None available, sir. Our network gate is nonfunctional. For four years now.”
    “Oh. Right.”
    The robot servants were neither wholly autonomous nor wholly appendages of the house software, neither self-aware nor rigidly programmed. Creatures of silent intuition, they danced through their chores like dreams, like puppets in some tightly choreographed ballet. They knew just what paths to take, what joints to swivel or extend, their economy of motionperfect. They knew just where to put everything, too; most of the clutter was faxware and went back into the fax for recycling, but some objects were original or natural or otherwise sentimental, and each found a place on a shelf or table, or in his bedroom closet around the corner. Speaking of which …
    “Seal that,” he said, gesturing at the bedroom door. It slid closed at once, merged with the wall, sprouted bright mural paints—nonrepresentational.
    He grunted his approval, then asked, “ETA?”
    “Five minutes, twenty seconds.”
    He grunted again, less approving this time. The house had standing orders never to mark time in seconds—there were just too many of them, a whole eternity’s worth. But under the circumstances, he supposed it had little choice.
    Visitors.
    Visitors! Suddenly alarmed, he sniffed himself. “Damn, I probably stink. These clothes are probably ugly. Bathe and dress me, please. Quickly!”
    The robots were there so fast they might well have anticipated the request. Cap and vest and tunic and breeches were torn from Bruno’s body and hurled into the fax orifice for recycling. He forced himself to relax, to let his arms be lifted, his torso turned. The robots, with their faceless expressions of infinite gentleness, would rather die than cause him the slightest injury or discomfort, and any resistance on his part would only slow them down, make them gentler still. He let them work, and in another moment their metal hands were buffing him with sponges and damp, scented cloths. A wellstone grease magnet was stroked seven times through his hair, becoming a heated styling comb on the eighth stroke. The fax produced fresh clothing—suitable for company—that smoothed and buttoned itself around him as the robots fussed.
    He refused an application of blush.
    “Is it landing here? Nearby?” he asked.
    “Its course indicates a touchdown in the meadow, fortymeters to the east. It is recommended that you remain indoors until