The Revolution Trade (Merchant Princes Omnibus 3) (8 page)

‘Magic.’ The word hung in the air as Miriam poured milk into both mugs.

‘So.’ He chose his words carefully. ‘What do you think it means?’

‘Oh boy.’ Miriam stared at her coffee mug, then blew on it and took a first sip. ‘Where do you want me to start? If nothing else, it makes all the Clan’s defensive
structures obsolete overnight. One extra universe is useful, two is embarrassing, three extra universes implies . . . lots. Which means, assuming there are more, that doppelgängered houses
stop being effectively defended.’ Doppelgängering – the practice of building defenses in the other worlds, physically collocated with the space occupied by the defended structure,
in order to stop hostile world-walkers gaining access – was a key element in all the Clan families’ buildings. But you could build an earth berm or a safe house in one parallel universe
– how could you hope to do it if there were millions? ‘And then . . . well. I tried telling the Council their business model was broken, but I didn’t realize
how
broken it
was.’

‘Really?’

‘Really.’ She put her mug down. ‘The – hell, I’m doing it again. Distancing.
We
got rich in the Gruinmarkt by exploiting superior technology – being
able to move messages around fast, make markets, that kind of thing. And we got rich in
this
world’ – she glanced at the window, which opened out onto an unkempt yard –
‘by smuggling. But what they were
really
doing was exploiting a development imbalance. Making money through a monopoly on superior technology – okay, call it a family talent, and
it may be something you can selectively breed for, but if you’re right and it’s a technology, then
it’s not a monopoly anymore.’

‘Uh.’ Huw took a mouthful of coffee. ‘What’s your reasoning?’

‘Well, you’re the one who just told me you thought our ability was artificial? And we’ve established that someone else – let’s take your door into a vacuum realm as
a given – has a way of moving stuff between time lines – yes, I’m going to take the idea that we’re in a bunch of parallel universes that branch off each other as a given.
New Britain really rubs your nose in it – and I think if they can just
open a door
then we have to admit that – what the Clan can do? The postal corvée? Is a
joke.’

Miriam closed her eyes for a moment. ‘The Council are
so
not going to want to hear this. And it’s not the worst of it.’

‘What else do you figure we’re looking at?’ Huw stared at her, fascinated.
Have you figured out the other thing . . . ?

‘Okay, let’s speculate wildly. There are other people out there who can travel between parallel worlds. They’re better at it than us, and they know what they’re doing.
That’s really bad, right there, but not necessarily fatal. However . . . we’ve been pointedly ignoring, all along, the fact that what we do isn’t magical. It’s not unique.
It’s like, after 1945, the government pretended for a few years that making nuclear weapons was some kind of big secret. Then the Russians got the bomb, and the Brits, and the Chinese, and
before you can blink we’re worrying about the North Koreans, or the Iranians. What the Clan Council needs to worry about is the US government – who they’ve spent the past few
decades systematically provoking – and who now know we exist. What do
you
think they’ll do?’

‘But we don’t know how the world-walking mechanism works. It’s got to take them time – ’

Miriam took another mouthful of coffee. ‘They’ve had
seven or eight months
, Huw. That’s how long it’s been since Matthias went over the wall. And
there’s’ – she paused, as if considering her words – ‘stuff that’s happened, stuff that will turn hunting us down into a screaming crash priority, higher than
al-Qaeda, higher than the Iraq occupation. They’ve got to be throwing money at it like the Manhattan project . . .’ She trailed off.

‘I don’t think they’ll have got anywhere yet.’ Huw reached for the coffee pot again, emptying the dregs into their mugs. ‘It takes time to organize a research
project and they’ll be doing it under conditions of complete secrecy.’

‘Yes, but they’ve already got the big national laboratories. And if they’ve got captive Clan members, they’re
starting
from where the Clan stood, as of forty-eight
hours ago. And they could have started months ago! It all depends on whether the problem they’re trying to crack is a hard one or an easy one. If we’ve got some kind of mechanism that
lets us do this, then it’s designed to replicate, and there’s got to be some sort of control system wired into our brains – are you telling me nobody has put bits of a Clan member
under an electron microscope before to look for anomalies?’

‘You’ve met enough of your cousins by now. How many brain surgeons did you spot?’ Huw looked defensive. ‘It wasn’t a high priority.’

‘Well it is,
now
. Because if they can figure out what makes us world-walk, they’re probably halfway to mass-producing it. Given they’ve got scouts in the Gruinmarkt
– ’

‘They’ve got
what?’
Huw sat bolt upright.

‘Eh.’ Miriam cocked her head to one side. ‘Forget I said that?’

‘Sure . . . but can I finish your sentence for you before I forget?’

‘Um . . .’

‘Right now, any scouts they can send our way are going to be riding piggyback. Lightning Child knows how they’re making the couriers cooperate, but nothing would surprise me: The
current administration are so Machiavellian they make Prince Egon look like a White House intern. But what you’re speculating about is how long we’ve got until there’s a
large-scale incursion.’ Her expression made him look for other words. ‘
Invasion
. Is that what you’re thinking?’

Miriam nodded. ‘I – no,
we
– have got to talk to Angbard, and fast. Whatever the prince has been up to back, uh, home’ – he spotted the moment’s
deliberation before she chose the word – ‘it’s a sideshow compared to what’s coming. I don’t know how long we’ve got, but I’d guess it’s going to be
weeks to months, not months to years.’ She pushed her empty mug away. ‘Do you have Google on that laptop of yours?’

‘What are you thinking of trawling for?’

‘News items. Foreign stuff, not more shit about Paris Hilton’s funeral; I want to hear about anything that suggests that State is planning a hasty exit from Iraq. They’re not
going to try and occupy Iraq and Afghanistan
and
invade the Gruinmarkt simultaneously, are they?’ She slid off her bar stool, visibly jittery.
Iraq
had been a ghastly object
lesson in what the current administration could do to people they didn’t like: the increasingly desperate pleas of the coup plotters after they deposed Saddam, the cringing threats of gas
attacks in event of invasion – and in response, the huge B52 raids on Baghdad. All of it had been calculated to send a message:
This is what you get if you mess with us
.

‘Depends.’ Huw reached over and switched off the coffee maker. ‘Don’t they have some kind of doctrine about being able to fight two wars simultaneously, anywhere on the
planet? And the supply lines to the Gruinmarkt are
real
short, if they can build a world-walking machine. Much less some kind of gate.’

‘And mostly they’d be up against irregulars with muskets. They could roll over in their sleep and crush us, if – ’

A door slammed in the passage. Moments later, Brill darted into the kitchen. ‘Oh. There you are!’ Visibly agitated, she focused on the coffee pot. ‘Ah, you emptied it. Huw,
have you brought the e-mail service to life?’

‘Not yet, I was going to – ’

‘Scheisse.’
Brill glanced aside. ‘I’m sorry, milady. The news is bad. I
must
get in touch right away. Huw, if you would be so good – ’

‘What’s happened?’ demanded Miriam.

‘My pager ordered me to call in, in the clear – maximum urgency. It’s the duke, my lady. I’m afraid there’s been an accident.’

*

There was a room on one of the upper floors of the Hjalmar Palace with a huge canopied bed in it, and the bed stank of death and uncontrolled bowels. Lady Olga sat on the edge
of the bed and spoke to its occupant, as a medic cleaned him and a soldier stood by, waiting to replace the fouled sheets.

He’d been strong once, and clever and ruthless, a bulwark for his allies and a terror to his faction’s foes, during the years of madness when the Clan’s member families had
engaged in a bloody succession of mortal feuds. Then, as the madness receded, he’d helped broker a series of treaties – some on paper, others cemented by blood in marriage – to
disarm the worst of the remaining hostilities. He’d risen to dominate the Clan’s external security apparat, modernizing it and turning it into the glue that bound the new settlement
together. The hammer of the council, his combination of force and guile had cowed the hotheads and brought the wily to his table. But he was just one man – now paralyzed on one side and
barely conscious, lonely and adrift in what might be his deathbed.

‘We’re holding out,’ she said quietly, touching his immobile left hand, hoping against hope for a reaction. ‘Earl Fredryck’s observers report that the federal
presence at the doppelgänger site is continuing, but all our people made it across ahead of the siege. We have plenty of ammunition. The monarchists dropped the culvert from the river, and
attempted to poison the well, but the osmotic purifier is working. Earl Riordan reports that the pretender’s army is encamped athwart the valley just downriver of the bend, ’tween here
and Wergatsfurt. The scouts are already preparing a route for us through New Britain, once Riordan’s men have manufactured a sufficiency of knot-work badges.’

The duke made an odd noise in the back of his throat, something between a cluck and a gurgle. Olga leaned close, trying to discern words. His eyes rolled, agitated: ‘Guh-uh . .
.’

‘Fear not, we have prepared for you.’ A fireman’s carry and a hike in the dark – then, if he survived the one-kilometer haul, a stealthy transit back to the American
side, land of neurological wards and intensive care facilities, where a private ambulance would be waiting to whisk him to a hospital bed. ‘The body of the force will return, taking the
Pervert’s army in the rear if he’s still encamped. And should he occupy the palace, we have a warm welcome prepared for him.’

Olga was of the opinion that it was better to beg forgiveness than to ask permission; and in any event, the warm welcome in question was one with a short expiry date – shorter than ever,
now that she’d learned what that thrice-cursed bastard idiot Matthias had told the DEA, or whoever they were. And what Otto had been doing was the icing on a very unpalatable cake. To his
credit, he’d actually
volunteered
the information. ‘Baron Henryk never put his faith in intangibles,’ he’d explained. ‘He wanted to
see
these mythical
nuclear weapons. He wanted to
own
them. He argued about it with the duke, but then the duke changed his mind – one suspects Matthias forged his signature on the letter – and so
the baron set me to oversee Matthias on organizing the theft. It was meant to be a harmless shell game, and additional leverage in council. Nobody had looked at them for more than eight years! How
were we to know Matthias would sell his story to the outlanders?’

‘Guh. Uh. Pa. Pat. Uh.’ He was clearly trying to say something. Alerted, Olga leaned closer.

‘Please, I ask you, try to speak slowly. Is it a person?’

‘Uh!’

‘Patricia?’ It was the obvious name: his half sister, mother of Helge, the wayward wildcat orphan and loose cannon who called herself Miriam.

‘Yuh.’

‘Oh! Good. Do you want to see her?’
That could be difficult
. Like most of the Clan’s elders who were familiar with American culture, she’d vanished into a deep
cover identity when the shit hit the fan, and trying to bring her over could draw attention to her.

‘Nuh.’

‘All right.’ Olga racked her mind for options. ‘Do you have a message for her? Or about her? Hang on, if it’s a message for her, blink once? About her, twice?’

One blink.

Olga sat up, heart hammering.
He’s still inside there
. A hot flush of relief washed over her: The idea that Angbard, Duke Lofstrom, had lost his mind had been too terrible to voice,
or even think. Paralyzed, deathly sick, but still the will to control went on . . . ‘Can you spell it out? One for no, two for yes?’

Blink-blink.

‘Milady, he looks very weak to me – ’ The first-aider sounded worried.

‘He’s the best judge of his condition,’ she said sharply. ‘And if he has a message of such import, he must give it. Have you pen and paper?’

‘Uh, yes, milady.’

‘Then take a note.’

It took half an hour, but they extracted two sentences from the duke before the corpsman’s entreaties began to sway Olga. False starts and mistakes made it a frustrating process –
but his words dispelled any remaining fear she had for his mind. Finally, she sighed and stood up. ‘I’ll see it gets to her,’ she reassured the duke. ‘Tomorrow, we’ll
get you to a proper hospital bed. I must go now.’ She bowed and stepped back, then took the sheet of paper from the corpsman’s pad. ‘You heard nothing,’ she warned him.
‘This must go no further. And the duke needs to rest now.’

‘Milady.’ He bowed as she left the room and hurried towards the improvised communications center downstairs.

Carl, Earl of Wu by Hjorth – and the commander of the small army currently encamped in the castle – looked up as she entered. By a miracle, Oliver, Baron Hjorth, was absent.
‘What news?’

‘Nothing bad.’ She hurried to his side at the map table. ‘He’s sleeping now,’ she continued quietly, ‘but he’s very weak. The good news is, he has his
senses. He gave me a message to relay to Patricia Thorold-Hjorth by any means necessary.’

‘He’s talking . . . ?’ Carl’s fist clenched.

‘Do not hope for too much. It took much work to say this much.’ She passed him the note. ‘Please, send this by way of Earl Riordan. There is no way of knowing how long it will
take to reach her, and I fear it may be urgent. I’d advise keeping it from Baron Oliver.’