Singularity by Bill DeSmedt

Author:Bill DeSmedt [DeSmedt, Bill]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-07-05T00:00:00+00:00

The dessert service had been cleared away, replaced by champagne and vodka, magnums of Louis Roedrer Cristal alternating with liter bottles of Stolichnaya XX. Galina was already on her third round of the latter, evidently intent on drowning old sorrows in liquefied good cheer.

Moving with what seemed exaggerated caution, the waiters brought in the solyen’ye—little salty snacks that served as indispensable accompaniment to any serious Russian drinking party. Intricately-engraved silver trays were set before the guests, five to a table. On each tray, three small silvery model ships, freighted with Beluga caviar, sailed round and round on a bed of mist.

Knox found the small portion-sizes a bit out of keeping—he would have expected Grishin to dole out roe by the tubful. He looked closer; the silver receptacles were miniatures of Rusalka, dainty as Faberge eggs, distorted laterally to increase their caviar-cargo capacity.

Further down the table a gaggle of geophysicists had begun whispering excitedly to one another. Something to do with the fish-egg carriers. Knox peered, blinked, rubbed his eyes—the little Rusalka’s were floating on, were floating on . . .

Were floating on nothing. He bent to bring his eyes level with the tabletop, looked again. There was half an inch of untroubled air between the keel of each mini-Rusalka and the mist rising off a bed of crusted ice. Knox straightened again to look into Galina’s slightly unfocused eyes. She giggled. The background whispering was rising to a general hubbub, spreading out to fill the room.

“You knew!” Knox accused Galya. “You knew this was coming, and you didn’t tell me!”

He couldn’t believe it. This was still years off, decades even. Wasn’t it? He reached across the table and gently nudged one of the Lilliputian Rusalka’s with an index finger. It felt cold, but no colder than the ice beneath it. It hobbled, then floated serenely away, unsupported.

Incredible! Room-temperature superconductivity!

“Is this it?” He raised his voice over the growing clamor. “What you’re working on, I mean?”

“No, Dzhon. This what I working with!” She laughed overloud at his puzzlement, and finished with a hiccup.

All around them people were beginning to clap their hands, to pound the tables, to clink silverware against crystal in unison. Then they were rising to their feet, stamping, whistling, shouting “Oo-rah,” calling for Arkady Grigoriyevich.

With a show of reluctance, Grishin stood and accepted the plaudits of the assembled multitude. Champagne corks exploded with the precision of a fusillade’, and he raised his glass.

“Dear friends and associates, it is my privilege to welcome you to the Rusalka Institute’s Summer Research Program. May this year’s efforts on behalf of science and all mankind be crowned with success.”

Grishin set his glass down. He had given his toast in English, but now he switched back to Russian. To his left Knox could hear Sasha translating for Marianna as the GEI chairman spoke.

“Some of you will have been wondering at the unusual solyeriye servers which adorn our tables this evening, courtesy of Grishin Enterprises’ Materials Sciences Division.” He paused to acknowledge scattered “Oo-rahs!” before going on.

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