The Hidden Family

by Charles Stross

  Smith clapped his hands together briskly to warm them up.

  “You men, your job is to help me give our little lady an incentive to sing like a bird. We are going to run this by shifts and you are going to stick to her like glue. Two tailing if she goes out, two on the manor, four hours on, four off, but the off team ready to go in if I says so. We are going to keep this up until she makes contact with a known seditionist or otherwise slips up, or until we get word that more gold is coming. Then we’re going to get our hands on her and find out who her accomplices are. When that happens we are going to get them back here, make them talk, and cut out the disease that has infected Boston for the past few years. A lot of traitors to the crown are going to go for a long walk to Hudson Bay, a bunch more are going to climb the nevergreen tree, and you are going to be the toast of the town.” Smith grinned humor-lessly. “Now, sergeant. If you’d like to run through the work details, we can get started ...”

  A few hours later, a woman stepped out from behind a hedge, kicked the snow from her boots, and glanced around the dilapidated kitchen garden.

  “Hmm.” She looked at the slowly collapsing greenhouse, where holes in the white curtain revealed the glass panes that had fallen in. Then she saw the house, most of its windows dark and gloomy. “Hah!”

  She strode up the garden path boldly, a huge pack on her shoulders: When she came to the side door she banged on it with a confident fist. “Anyone at home?” she called out.

  “Just a minute there!” The door scraped ajar. “Who be you, and what d’you want, barging into our garden—”

  “That’s enough, Jane, she’s expected.” The door opened wide. “Olga, come in!”

  The maid retreated, looking suspiciously at the new arrival as she stepped inside and shut the door. Miriam called: “Wait!”

  “Yes’m?”

  “Jane, this is Olga, my young cousin. She’ll be staying here from time to time and you’re to treat her as a guest. Even if she has an, uh, unusual way of announcing her arrival. Is that understood?”

  “Yes’m.” The kitchen maid bobbed and cast a sullen glance at Olga. Olga didn’t react. She was used to servants.

  “Come on in and get out of the cold,” Miriam told her, retreating through the scullery and kitchen into a short corridor that led to the huge wooden entrance hall. “Did you have a good trip? Let’s get that pack stowed away. Come on, I’ll show you upstairs.” There was only one staircase in this house, with a huge window in front of it giving a panoramic view of the short drive and the front garden. Miriam climbed it confidently and gestured Olga toward a door beside the top step. “Take the main guest bedroom. Sorry if it looks a bit underfurnished right now—I’m still getting myself moved in.”

  The bedroom was huge, uncarpeted, and occupied by a single wardrobe and a high-canopied bed. It could have come straight out of House Hjorth, except for the gurgling brass radiators under the large-paned windows, and the dim electric candles glowing overhead. “This is wonderful,” Olga said with feeling. She smiled at Miriam. “You’re looking good.”

  “Huh.” Miriam shrugged. “I’m taking a day out from the office, slobbing around here to catch up on the patent paperwork.” She was in trousers and a baggy sweater. “I’m afraid I scandalized Jane. Had to tell her I was into dress reform.”

  “Well, what does the help’s opinion matter? I say you look fine.” Olga slid out from under her pack and began to unbutton her overcoat. “Do you have anything I can take for a headache?”

  “Sure, in the bathroom. I’ll show you.” Miriam paused. “How would you like a guided tour of the town?” she asked.

  “I’d love it, when the headache is sorted.” Olga rubbed her forehead. “This cargo had better be worth it,” she said as Miriam knelt and began to work on the pack. “I feel like a pack mule.”

  “It’s worth it, believe me.” Miriam worked the big, flattish box loose from the top of Olga’s pack. “A decent flat-panel monitor will make all the difference to running AutoCAD, believe me. And the medicine and clothes and, uh, other stuff.” Other stuff came in a velvet bag and was denser than lead, almost ten kilograms of gold in a block the size of a pint of milk. “Once I’ve stored this safely and changed, we can go out. We’ll need to buy you another set of clothes while you’re over here.”

  “It can wait.” Olga reached into her coat pocket and pulled out a pistol, held it out to Miriam. “I brought this along, by the way. Lady Brilliana is waiting on the other side.”

  “She is, is she?” Miriam pulled a mirthless smile. “Good. Did she bring that cannon of hers?”

  “Yes.” Olga nodded.

  “You’d better put that away,” Miriam warned. “People don’t go armed here, except the police. You don’t want to attract attention.”

  “Yes. I noticed that in your world, as well.” Olga found an inner pocket in her coat and slid the gun into it carefully. “Who’s to defend you?”

  “The thief-takers and constables, in theory. Ordinary thief-takers are mostly safe, but the police constabulary are somewhat different here—their job is to defend the state against its own subjects.” Miriam picked up the dense velvet bag with both hands and carried it to the doorway, glanced either way, then ducked through into the next room.

  “This is your bedroom?” asked Olga.

  “Yes.” Miriam grunted. “Here, help me move the bed.” There was a loose panel in the skirting board behind the bed. Miriam worried it loose, to reveal a small safe which she unlocked. The bag of bullion was a tight fit because the safe was already nearly full, but she worked it closed eventually and put the wooden slat back before shoving the bed up against it. “That’s about ten thousand pounds,” Miriam commented—”enough to buy this house nine times over.”

  Olga whistled appreciatively. “You’re doing it in style.”

  “Yeah, well, as soon as I can liquidate it, I’m going to invest it.” Miriam shrugged. “You’re sure Brill is alright?” she asked.

  “Brilliana is fine,” Olga said dismissively. “I don’t believe you have anything to worry about on her part.”

  “I don’t believe she’s a threat.” Miriam shook her head. “A snoop planted by Angbard is another matter.”

  “Hmm.” Olga looked skeptical. “I see.”

  “Give me ten minutes? I need to get decent.”

  “Certainly.” Olga retreated to the bathroom—opposite the guestroom—to play with the exotic fixtures. They weren’t as efficient as those in Miriam’s office or Fort Lofstrom, but they’d do.

  Miriam met her on the landing, dressed for a walk in public and wearing a ridiculous-looking bonnet. “Let’s head to the tram stop,” she suggested. “I’ll take you by the office and introduce you to people. Then there’s a friend I want you to meet.”

  Miriam couldn’t help but notice the way Olga kept turning her head like a yokel out in the big city for the first time. “Not like Boston, is it?” she said, as the tram whined around the corner of Broad Street and narrowly avoided a coster-monger’s cart with a screech of brakes and an exchange of curses.

  “It’s—” Olga took a deep breath: “smellier,” she declared. She glanced around. “Smaller. More people out and about. Colder. Everyone wears heavier clothing, like home, but well cut, machine-made. Dark fabrics.”

  “Yes,” Miriam agreed. “Clothing here costs much more than in world two because the whole industrial mass-production thing hasn’t taken off. People wear hand-me-downs, insist on thicker, darker fabrics that wear harder, and fashion changes much more slowly. It used to be like that back home; in 1900 a pair of trousers would have cost me about four hundred bucks in 2000 money, but clothing factories were already changing that. One of the things on my to-do list is introducing new types of cloth-handling machines and new types of fabric. Once I’ve got a toe-hold chiseled out. But don’t assume this place is wholly primitive—it isn’t. I got some nasty surprises when I arrived.”

  Something caught her eye. “Look.” She pointed up
into the air, where a distant lozenge shape bearing post from exotic Europe was maneuvering toward an airfield on the far side of town.

  “Wow. That must be huge! Why don’t your people have such things?”

  Miriam pulled a wry face. “We tried them, long ago. They’re slow and they don’t carry much, but what really killed them was politics. Over here they’ve developed them properly—if you want to compare airships here with airships back home, they’ve got the U.S. beat hands-down. They sure look impressive, don’t they?”

  “Yes.”

  Miriam stood up and pulled on the bell cord, and the tram slid to a halt. “Come on,” she urged. They stepped off the platform into shallow slush outside a street of warehouses with a few people bustling back and forth. “This way.”

  Olga followed Miriam—who waited for her to catch up—toward an open doorway. Miriam entered, and promptly turned right into a second doorway. “Behold, the office,” Miriam said. “Declan? This is Miss Hjorth. Olga, meet Declan McHugh.”

  “Pleased to meet you, ma’am.” Declan was a pale-faced draftsman somewhere in his late twenties, his face spotted badly by acne. He regarded Olga gravely from beside bis board: Olga smiled prettily and batted her eyelashes, hamming it up. Behind Declan two other youths kept focused on their blueprints. “Will you be in later, ma’am?” he asked Miriam. “Had a call from O’Reilly’s works regarding the wood cement.”

  “I’ll be in tomorrow,” Miriam replied thoughtfully. “I’m showing Olga around because she will be in and out over the next few months. She’s carrying documents for me and talking to people I need to see on my behalf. Is that clear?”

  “Er, yes.” Declan bobbed bis head. “You’ll be wanting the shoe-grip blueprints tomorrow?”

  “Yes. If you could run off two copies and see that one gets to Mr. Soames, that would be good. We’ll need the first castings by Friday.”

  “I will do that.” He turned back to his drawing board and Miriam withdrew.

  “That,” she explained quietly, “is the office. There is the lab, where Roger and Martin work: They’re the chemistry team. Around that corner is going to be the metal shop. Soames and Oswald are putting it together right now, and the carpenter’s busy on the kitchen. But it’ll be a while before everything is in shape. The floor above us is still half derelict, and I’m going to convert a couple of rooms into paper storage and more drafting offices before we move the office work to new premises. Currently I’ve got eight men working here full-time. We’d better introduce you to all of them.”

  She guided Olga into a variety of rooms, rooms full of furnaces, rows of glass jars, a lathe and drill press, gas burners. Men in suits, men in shirts and vests, red-faced or pale, whiskered or clean-shaven: men who stood when she entered, men who deferred to Miriam as if she was royalty or management or something of both.

  Olga shook her head as they came out of the building. “I wouldn’t have believed it,” she said quietly. “You’ve done it. All of them, followers, all doing your bidding respectfully. How did you manage it?”

  Miriam’s cheek twitched. “Money,” she murmured. “And being right, but mostly it was the money. As long as I can keep the money coming and seem to know what I’m talking about, they’re mine. I say, cab! Cab!” She waved an arm up and down and a cabbie reined his nag in and pulled over.

  “Greek Street, if you please,” Miriam said, settling into the cab beside Olga.

  Olga glanced at her, amused. “I remember the first time you met a carriage,” she said.

  “So do I.” Miriam pulled a face. “These have a better suspension. And there are trains for long journeys, and steam cars if you can afford the expense and put up with the unreliability and noise.”

  The cab dropped them off at Greek Street, busy with shoppers at this time of day. Miriam pulled her bonnet down on her head, hiding her hair. “Come on, my dear,” she said, in a higher voice than normal, tucking Olga’s hand under her arm. “Oh, cab! Cab, I say!” A second cab swooped in and picked them up. “To Holmes Alley, if you please.”

  Miriam checked over her shoulder along the way. “No sign of a tail,” she murmured as the cab pulled up. “Let’s go.” They were in the door of the pawn shop before Olga could blink, and Miriam whipped the bonnet off and shook her hair out. “Erasmus?”

  “Coming, coming—” A burst of loud wet coughing punctuated his complaint. “Excuse me, please. Ah, Miriam, my friend. How nice of you to visit. And who is this?”

  “Olga, meet Erasmus Burgeson.” Miriam indicated the back curtain, which billowed slightly as Erasmus tried to stifle his coughing before entering. “Erasmus, meet my friend Olga.”

  “Charmed, I’m sure,” he said, and stepped out from behind the curtain. “Yes, indeed I am charmed, I’m absolutely certain, my dear.” He bowed stifly. “To what do I owe the honor of this occasion?”

  Miriam turned around and flipped the sign in the door to 4, then shot the bolt. She moved deeper into the shop. “You got my letter?”

  “It was most welcome.” Burgeson nodded. “The fact of its existence, if not its content, I should say. But thank you, anyway.”

  “I don’t think we were observed,” Miriam stated, “but I think we’d better leave by the cellar.”

  “You trust her?” Burgeson raised an eyebrow.

  “Implicitly.” Miriam met his eyes. “Olga is one of my business associates. And my bodyguard. Show him, Olga.”

  Olga made her pistol appear. Burgeson’s other eyebrow rose. She made it disappear again. “Hmm,” said Burgeson. “A fine pair of Amazon women!” He smiled faintly. “Nevertheless, I hope you don’t need to use that. It’s my experience that however many guns you bring to a fight, the Crown can always bring more. The trick is to avoid needing them in the first place.”

  “This is your agent?” Olga asked Miriam, with interest.

  “Yes, exactly.” Miriam turned to Burgeson. “I brought her here because I think it may be impossible for me to visit in person in the future. In particular, I wanted to introduce her to you as an alternative contact against the time when we need to be publicly seen in different places at the same time. If you follow.”

  “I see.” Burgeson nodded. “Most prudent. Was there anything else?”

  “Yes. The consignment we discussed has arrived. If you let us know where and how you want it, I’ll see it gets to you.”

  “It’s rather, ah, large.” Burgeson looked grim. “You know we have a lot of use for it, but it’s hard to make the money flow so freely without being overseen.”

  “That would be bad,” Miriam agreed. Olga looked away, then drifted toward the other side of the shop and began rooting through the hanging clothes, keeping one ear on the conversation. “But I can give you a discount for bulk: say, another fifteen percent. Think of it as a contribution to the cause, if you want.”

  “If I want.” Burgeson chuckled humorlessly: It tailed off in a hoarse croak. “They hanged Oscar yesterday, did you hear?”

  “Oscar?”

  “The free librarian who fenced me the Marx you purchased. Two days before Inspector Smith searched my domicile.”

  “Oh dear.” Miriam was silent for a moment. Olga pulled an outfit out to examine it more closely.

  “It wouldn’t be so bad if Russell hadn’t shot Lord Dalgleish last year,” Burgeson mused. “You wouldn’t know about that. But the revolution, in that history book you gave me, the one in the Kingdom of Russ, the description all sounds exceedingly familiar, and most uncomfortably close to the bone. In particular, the minister named Stolypin, and the unfortunate end he came to.” He coughed damply.

  Olga cleared her throat. “Is there somewhere I can try this on?” she asked.

  “In the back,” said Burgeson. “Mind the stove on your way through.” He paused for breath as Olga squeezed past.

  “Is she serious?” he asked Miriam quietly.

  “Serious about me, and my faction.” Miriam frowned. “She’s not politicized, if that’s what
you’re asking about. Sheltered upbringing, too. But she’s loyal to her friends and she has nothing to gain from the Emergency here. And she knows how to shoot.”

  “Good.” Erasmus nodded gravely. “I wouldn’t want you to be placing your life in the hands of a dizzy child.”

  “Placing my—what?”

  “Two strangers. Not constabulary or plainclothes thief-takers, one of them looking like a Chinee-man. They’ve been drinking in the wrong establishments this past week, asking questions. Some idiots, the kind who work the wrong side of the law—not politicals—these idiots have taken their money. Someone has talked, I’m sure of it. A name, Blackstones, was mentioned, and something about tonight. I wrote to you but obviously it hasn’t arrived.” He stared at her. “It’s a very deep pond you’re swimming in.”

  “Erasmus.” She stared right back. “I am going to make this world fit to live in by every means at my disposal. Believe me, a couple of gangsters playing at cracksman won’t stop me.”

  The curtain rustled. Olga stepped out, wearing a green two-piece outfit. “How do I look?” she asked, doing a twirl.

  “Alright,” said Miriam. “I think. I’m not the right person to ask for fashion tips.”

  “You look marvelous, my dear,” Erasmus volunteered gallantly. “With just a little work, a seamstress will have the jacket fitting perfectly. And with some additional effort, the patching can be made invisible.”

  “That’s about what I thought.” Olga nodded. “I’d rather not, though.” She grinned impishly. “What do you say?”

  “It’s fine,” said Miriam. She turned back to Burgeson. “Who leaked the news?” she asked.