The Hidden Family tmp-2

by Charles Stross

  “England. See, Frederick was the crown prince, right? He got sent over here, to the colonies as a royal governor or something—“Prince of the Americas”—because his stepmother the queen really hated him. So when his father died he was over here in North America—and the French and Scottish simultaneously invaded England. Whose army, and previous king, had just been whacked. And they succeeded.”

  “Um, does this mean anything?” Paulette looked puzzled.

  “Don’t you see?” demanded Miriam. “Over on the far side, in world three, there is no United States of America: Instead there’s this thing called New Britain, with a king-emperor! And they’re at war with the French Empire—or cold war, or whatever. The French invaded and conquered the British Isles something like two hundred and fifty years ago, and have held it ever since, while the British royal family moved to North America. I’m still putting it all together. Like, where we had a constitutional congress and declared independence and fought a revolutionary war, they had something called the New Settlement and set up a continental parliament, with a king and a house of lords in charge.” She frowned. “And that’s as much as I understand.”

  “Huh.” Paulette reached out and took the book away from her. “I saw you look like that before, once,” she said. “It was when Bill Gates first began spouting about digital nervous systems and the net. Do you need to go lie down for a bit? Maybe it’ll make less sense in the morning.”

  “No, no,” Miriam said absently. “Look, I’m trying to figure out what isn’t there. Like, they’ve had a couple of world wars—but fought with wooden sailing ships and airships. There’s a passage at the end of the book about the ‘miracle of corpuscular transsubstantiation’—I think they mean atomic power but I’m not sure. They’ve got the germ theory of disease and steam cars, but I didn’t see any evidence of heavier-than-air flight or antibiotics or gasoline engines. The whole industrial revolution has been delayed—they’re up to about the 1930s in electronics. And the social thing is weird. I saw an opium pipe in that pawnbroker’s, and I passed a bar selling alcohol, but they’re all wearing hats and keeping their legs covered. It’s not like our 1920s, at least not more than skin-deep. And I can’t get a handle on it,” she added frustratedly. “I’ll just have to go over there again and try not to get myself arrested.”

  “Hmm.” Paulette pulled up a carrier bag and dumped it on the table.

  “I’ve been doing some thinking about that.”

  “You have? What’s about?”

  “Well,” Paulie began carefully, “first thing is, nobody can arrest you and hold you if you’ve got one of these lockets, huh? Or the design inside it. Brill—”

  “It’s the design,” Brilliana said suddenly. “It’s the family pattern.” She glanced at Paulette. “I didn’t understand the history either,” she said plaintively. “Some of the men…” she tailed off.

  “What about them?” Asked Miriam.

  “They had it tattooed on their arms,” she said shyly. “They said so, anyway. So they could get away if someone caught them. I remember my uncle talking about it once. They even shaved their scalp and tattooed it there in reverse, then grew their hair back—so that if they were imprisoned they could shave in a mirror and use it to escape.”

  Miriam stared at her in slack-jawed amazement. “That’s brilliant!” she said. “Hang on—” her hand instinctively went to her head. “Hmm.”

  “You won’t have to shave,” said Paulie, “I know exactly what to do. You know those henna temporary tattoos you can get? There’s this dot-com that takes images you upload and turns them into tattoos, then sends them to you by mail order. They’re supposed to last for a few days. I figure if you put one on the inside of each wrist, then wear something with sleeves that cover it—”

  “Wow.” Miriam instinctively glanced at the inside of her left wrist, smooth and hairless, unblemished except for a small scar she’d acquired as a child. “But you said you’d been thinking about something else.”

  “Yup.” Paulette upended her shopping bag on the table. “Behold: a pair of digital walkie-talkies, good for private conversations in a ten-mile radius! And lo, a hands-free kit.”

  “This is going to work,” Miriam said, a curious fixed smile creeping across her face. “I can feel it in my bones.” She looked up. “Okay. So tell me, Paulie, what do you know about the history of patent law?”

  It took Miriam another day to work up the nerve to phone Roland. Before she’d gone back to Niejwein, to the disastrous plot and counterplot introduction to court life that had culminated in two attempts to murder her on the same night, they’d exchanged anonymous mobile phones. If she went outside she could phone him, either his voice mail or his own real-life ear, and dump all the unwanted complexities of her new life on a sympathetic shoulder. He’d understand: That was half the attraction that had sparked their whirlwind affair. He probably grasped the headaches she was facing better than anyone else, Brill included. Brill was still not much more than a teenager with a sheltered upbringing. But Roland knew just how nasty things could get. If I trust him, she thought wistfully. Someone had murdered the watchman and installed the bomb in the warehouse. She’d told Roland about the place, and then…correlation does not imply causation, she told herself.

  In the end she compromised halfway, taking the T into town and finding a diner with a good range of exit options before switching on the phone and dialing. That way, even if someone had grabbed Roland and was actively tracing the call, they wouldn’t find her before she ended the call. It was raining, and she had a seat next to the window, watching the slug-trails of rain on the glass as her latte cooled while she tried to work up her nerve to call him.

  When she dialed, the phone rang five times before he picked it up, a near-eternity in which she changed her mind about the wisdom of calling him several times. But it was too late: She was committed now. “Hello?” he asked.

  “Roland. It’s me.”

  “Hello, you.” Concern roughened his voice: “I’ve been really worried about you. Where are—”

  “Wait.” She realized she was breathing too fast, shallow breaths that didn’t seem to be bringing in enough oxygen. “You’re on this side. Is anyone with you?”

  “No, I’m taking a day off work. Even your uncle gives his troops leave sometimes. He’s been asking about you, though. As if he knows I’ve got some kind of channel to you. When are you going to come in? What have you been doing? Olga had the craziest story—”

  “If it’s about the incident in her apartment, it’s true.” Miriam stopped, glanced obliquely at the window to check for reflections. There was nobody near her, just a barrista cleaning the coffee machine on the counter at the other side of the room. “Is Edsger around? He hasn’t gone missing or anything?”

  “Edsger?” Roland sounded uncertain. “What do you know about—”

  “Edsger. Courier on the Boston—New York run.” Quickly Miriam outlined her departure from the Clan’s holdings in the capital city Niejwein, her encounter with the courier on an Accela express. “Did he arrive alright?”

  “Yes. I think so.” Roland paused. “So you’re telling me somebody tried to kill you in the warehouse as well?” A note of anger crept into his voice. “When I find out who—”

  “You’ll do nothing,” Miriam interrupted. “And you’re not going to tell me you can provide security. There’s a mole in the organization, Roland, they’d work around you—and I’ve found out something more interesting. There’s a whole bunch of world-walkers you don’t know about, and they’re coming in from yet another world, where everything’s different. What we were talking about, the whole technology transfer thing, it can work there, too. In fact, that’s what I’m doing now, with Brill. The politics—do you know anything about Baroness Hildegarde’s interests? Olga said she’s going to try to get the Clan committee to declare me incompetent. Before that happens I want to be able to make her look like an idiot. I’m working on the other side, Roland, in the t
hird world, building a front company. So I’m going to stay out of touch for quite a bit longer.”

  “That makes sense. Can I see you?” he asked. A pause: “I really think we’ve got a lot to work out. I don’t know about you.” Another pause, “I was hoping we could…”

  This was the hardest part. “I don’t think so,” Miriam heard herself saying. “I’d love to spend some time with you, but I’ve got so much to do. And there isn’t enough time to do it. I can’t risk you being followed, or Angbard deciding to reel me in too soon. I want to, but—”

  “I get it.” He sounded distant.

  “I’m not dumping you! It’s just I, I need some time.” She was breathing too fast again. “Later. Give me a week to sort things out, then we’ll see.”

  “Oh. A week?” The distant tone vanished. “Okay, a week. I’ll wait, somehow. You’ll take care of yourself? You’re sure you’re safe where you are?”

  “For now,” Miriam affirmed, crossing her fingers. “And I’ll have a lot more to tell you then, I’ll need your advice.” And everything else. The urge to drop her resolve, grab any chance to see him, was so strong she had trouble resisting. Keep it businesslike, for now. “I love you,” she said impulsively.

  “Me too. I mean, I love you, too.” It came out in a tonguetied rush, followed by a silence pregnant with unspoken qualifications.

  “I’d better go,” she said at last.

  “Uh. Okay, then.”

  “Bye.” She ended the call and stared bleakly at the rain outside the window. Her coffee was growing cold. Now why did I really say that? She wondered, puzzled: Did I really mean it? She’d said those words before, to her husband—now ex-husband—and she’d meant them at the time. Why did this feel different?

  “Damn it, I’m a fool,” she told herself gloomily, muttering under her breath so that the waitress at the far end of the bar took pains to avoid looking at her. I’m a fool for love, and if I don’t handle this carefully, I could end up a dead fool. Damn it, why did I have to take that locket in the first place?

  The raindrops weren’t answering, so she finished her latte hurriedly and left.

  They spent the next three days exercising Miriam’s magic credit card discreetly. Angbard hadn’t put a stop on it. Evidently the message had gotten through: Don’t bug me, I’m busy staying alive. A garden shed, a deluxe shooting hide, and enough gas-powered tools to outfit a small farm vanished into the trunk of Miriam’s rental car in repeated runs between Home Depot and Costco and the new office near Cambridgeport. Miriam didn’t much like the office—it had a residual smell of stale tobacco and some strange coffee-colored stains on the carpet that not even an industrial carpet cleaner could get rid of—but she had to admit that it would do.

  They moved a couple of sofa beds into the rear office, and paid a locksmith to come around and beef up the door frame with deadbolts, and install an intruder alarm and closed-circuit TV cameras covering the yard and both entrances. A small fridge and microwave appeared in the kitchen, a television set and video in the front office. Paulette and Miriam groaned at each other about their aches and pains, and even Brill hesitantly joined in the bitching and moaning after they unloaded the flat-pack garden shed. “This had better be worth it,” Miriam said on day three as she swallowed a Tenolol tablet and a chaser of ibuprofen on the back of her lunchtime sub.

  “You’re going across this afternoon?” asked Paulie.

  “I’m going in half an hour,” Miriam corrected her. “First trip to see if it’s okay. Then as many short ones as I can manage, to ferry supplies over. I’ll take Brill through to help get the shed up and covered, then come back to plot expedition one. You happy with the shopping list?”

  “I think so.” Paulette sighed. “This isn’t what I was expecting when we got started.”

  “I know.” Miriam grinned. “But I think this is going to work out. Listen, you’ve been going crazy with the both of us living on top of you for the past week, but once we’re gone we’ll be out of your hair for at least five days. Why don’t you kick back and relax? Get in some of that partying you keep moaning about missing?”

  “Because it won’t be the same without you! I was planning on showing you some of the good life. Get you hitched up with a date, anyway.”

  Miriam sobered. “I don’t need a date right now,” she said, looking worried—and wistful.

  “You’re—” Paulette raised an eyebrow. “You still hooked on him?”

  Miriam nodded. “It hasn’t gone away. We spoke yesterday. I keep wanting to see him.”

  Paulette caught her arm. “Take it from me: don’t. I mean, really, don’t. If he’s for real, he’ll be waiting for you. If he isn’t, you’d be running such a huge risk—”

  Miriam nodded, wordlessly.

  “I figured that was what it was,” Paulie said softly. “You want him whether or not he’s messed up with the shits who’re trying to kill you or disinherit you, is that right?”

  “I think he’s probably got his reasons,” Miriam said reluctantly.

  “Whatever he’s doing. And I don’t think he’s working for them. But—”

  “Listen, no one is worth what those fuckers want to do to you. Understand?”

  “But if he isn’t—” it came out as more of a whine than Miriam intended. She shook her head.

  “Then it will all sort itself out, won’t it?” said Paulette. “Eventually.”

  “Maybe.”

  They broke off as the noise of the door opening downstairs reached them. Two pairs of eyes went to the camera. It was Brill, coming in from the cold: She’d been out shopping on foot, increasingly sure-footed in the social basics of day-to-day life in the twenty-first century. “I look at her, and I think she’ll be like you when she’s done some growing up,” Paulette commented quietly.

  “Maybe.” Miriam stood up. “What’ve you got?” she called down the stairwell.

  “Food for the trip.” Brill grinned. Then her smile turned thoughtful:

  “Do you have a spare gun?” she asked.

  “Huh? Why?”

  “There are wild animals in the hills near Hasleholm,” she said matter-of-factly.

  “Oops.” Miriam frowned. “Do you really think it’s a problem?”

  “Yes.” Brill nodded. “But I can shoot. He is very conservative, my father, and insisted I learn the feminine virtues—deportment, dancing, embroidery, and marksmanship. There are wolves, and I’d rather have a long gun for dealing with them.”

  Paulette rolled her eyes.

  “Okay. Then I guess we’ll have to look into getting you a hunting rifle as soon as possible. In the meantime, there’s the pistol I took from the courier. Where did you stash it?”

  “Back at Paulette’s home. But I really could use something bigger in case of wolves or bears,” Brill said seriously. She shoved her hair back out of the way and sniffed. “At least a pistol will protect me from human problems.”

  “Deep joy. Try not to shoot any Clan couriers, huh?”

  “I’m not stupid.” Brill sniffed again.

  “I know: I just don’t want you taking any risks,” Miriam added. “Okay, kids, it’s time to move. And I’m not taking you through just yet, Brill.” She reached for her heavy hiking jacket, pulled it on, and patted the right pocket to check her own gun was in place. “Wish me luck,” she said, as she walked toward the back door and the yard beyond.

  Cleaning The Air

  Miriam snapped into awareness teetering on the edge of an abyss. She flung herself sideways instinctively, grabbing for a tree branch—caught it, took two desperate strides as the ground under her feet crumbled, then felt her boots grip solid ground that didn’t crumble under her feet.

  “Shit.” She glanced to her left. A large patch of muddy soil lay exposed in the middle of the snowscape, exposed on the crest of a steep drop to a half-frozen streambed ten feet below and twenty feet beyond what would be the side of the yard. “Oh shit.” She gasped for breath, icy terror forcing her to
inhale the bitterly cold air. Horrified, she looked down into the stream. If we’d rented the next unit over, or if I’d carried Brill over—a ducking in this sort of weather could prove fatal. Or could I have come through at all? She glanced up. She’d been lucky with the tree, a young elm that grew straight and tall for the first six feet. The forest hereabouts was thin. I need to ask Brill what else she hasn’t thought to tell me about world-walking, she realized. Perhaps her mother was right about her being over-confident. A vague memory floated up from somewhere, something about much of Boston being built on landfill reclaimed from the bay. What if I’d tried this somewhere out at sea? she thought, and leaned against the tree for a minute or two to catch her breath. Suddenly, visions of coming through with her feet embedded in a wall or hovering ten feet above a lake didn’t seem comical at all.

  She closed her locket and carefully pocketed it, then looked around. “It’ll do,” she muttered to herself. “As long as I avoid that drop.” She stared at it carefully. “Hmm.” She’d gone through about a foot away from the left-hand wall of their yard: The drop-off was steepest under the wall. The yard was about twelve feet wide, which meant—

  “Right here.” She took out her knife and carved a blaze on the tree around head height. Then she dropped her backpack and turned around, slowly, trying to take in the landscape.

  The stream ran downhill toward the river a quarter of a mile away, but it was next to invisible through the woods, even with the barren winter branches blocking less of the view than the summer’s profusion of green. In the other direction trees stretched away as far as she could see. “I could walk for miles in this, going in circles,” Miriam told herself. “Hmm.”

  She carved another blaze on a tree, then began cautiously probing into the woods, marking trees as she went. After an hour she’d established that there was no sudden change in the landscape for a couple of hundred yards in two directions away from her little backyard. Sheer random chance had brought her through in nearly the worst possible place.