The Merchants’ War tmp-4

by Charles Stross

  In the end, the hole in the dome came as a surprise to Huw. He’d been expecting some sort of opening, low down on the slope: or perhaps a gatehouse of some sort. But one moment he was walking around the huge, curving flank of the thing, and the next moment the curved edge of the dome disappeared, as if a giant the size of the Goodyear blimp had taken a huge bite out of it. Huw stopped for a minute, inspecting the edge of the hole with his binoculars. “The opening starts at ground level and extends two thirds of the way to the top of the dome. Must be at least fifty meters wide. I’m going closer…the edge looks almost melted.” He looked down. The trees were thinner on the ground, shorter, and the ground itself fell away in front of the opening, forming a shallow bowl. Like a crater, he realized. Hey—a trickle of water emerged from the shadowy interior of the dome, feeding down a muddy, overgrown channel into a pond in the depression. The pond was almost circular. Something cracked the dome open. Something from—he walked away from the opening, trying to get a perspective on it—something firing downwards, from above.

  He shook his head, and suddenly the whole scene dropped into perspective. The dark shadows inside the dome, looming: piles of debris. The melted edges: either the dome is self-healing, or it’s made of something a whole lot more resilient than concrete. It hadn’t shattered like masonry—it had melted like wax. He keyed his walkie-talkie again: “The dome’s split open here. Something energetic, punching down out of the sky. A long time ago.” The way the crater had filled with water, the way the trees were so much shorter than their neighbors, almost as if—

  Huw fumbled with his telemetry belt, then slipped one hand free of its glove in order to pull out the Geiger tube. “Got you,” he muttered, holding it out in front of him. “Let’s see.” He flicked the switch on the counter pack, then advanced on the depression. The counter clicked a few times, then gave a warning crackle, like a loose connection. Huw paused, swinging around. It popped and crackled, then as he took a step forward it buzzed angrily. “Hmm.” He turned around and walked back towards the dome. The buzzing subsided, back down to a low crackle. He moved towards the edge of the dome. As he approached the melted-looking edges the counter began to buzz—then rose to an angry whine as he brought the tube to within a couple of centimeters of the edge. “Shit!” He jumped back. “Yul, Elena, listen up—the edge of the hole is radioactive. Lots of beta and maybe alpha activity, not much gamma. I don’t think—” he swallowed “—I don’t think we’re going to find anyone alive in here. And I don’t want you touching the edge of the dome, or walking through the stream running out of it.”

  He swallowed again. What am I going to tell the duke this time? He wondered.

  A hypothesis took root and refused to shake free: Imagine a nuclear installation or a missile command site or a magic wand factory. Or something. There’d been a war. It all happened a long time ago of course—hundreds of years ago. Everyone was dead, nobody lived here anymore. During the war, someone took a shot at the dome with a high energy weapon. Not an ordinary H-bomb, but something exotic—a shaped nuclear charge, perhaps, designed to punch almost all of its energy out into a beam of radiation going straight down. Or a gamma-ray laser powered by a couple of grams of isomeric hafnium. Maybe they used an intercontinental ballistic magic wand. Whatever it was, not much blast energy reached the ground—but the dome had been zapped by a stabbing knife of plasma like Lightning Child’s fiercest punch, followed by a storm of secondary radiation.

  Huw looked up at the underside of the dome. A gust of wind set up a sonorous droning whistle, ululating like the ghost of a dead whale. The dome was thick. He froze for a moment, staring, then raised his binoculars again. He raised his dictaphone, and began speaking. “The installation is covered by a dome, and back in the day it was probably guarded by active defenses. You’d need a nuke to crack it open because the stuff it’s made of is harder and more resilient than reinforced concrete, and it’s at least three, maybe four meters thick. Coming down from the zenith, perhaps eighty meters off-center, the shotgun-blast of lightning-hot plasma has sheared through almost fifteen meters of this—call it supercrete? Carbon-fiber reinforced concrete?—and dug an elliptical trench in the shallow hillside. It must have vaporized the segment of the dome it struck. How in Hell the rest of the dome held—must have a tensile strength like buckminsterfullerene nanotubes. That’s probably what killed the occupants, the shockwave would rattle around inside the dome…”

  The tree branches rustled overhead as the drone of the dead whale rose. Huw glanced up at the clouds, scudding past fast in the gray light. He sniffed. Smells like snow. Then he glanced over his shoulder, and turned, very deliberately, to raise a hand and wave.

  Elena was the first to catch up with him. “Crone’s teeth, Huw, what have you found?”

  “Stand away from there!” He snapped as she glanced curiously at the edge of the gaping hole in the dome. “It’s radioactive,” he added, as she looked round and frowned at him. “I think whatever happened a long time ago was…well, I don’t think the owners are home.”

  “Right.” She shook her head, looking up at the huge arch that opened the dome above them. “Wow. What are we going to do?”

  “Yo.” Yul trotted up, rifle cradled carefully in his arms. “What now—”

  Huw checked his watch. “We’ve got half an hour left until it’s time to head back to base camp. I don’t know about you guys, but I want to do some sightseeing before I go home. But first, I think we’d better make sure it doesn’t kill us in the process.” He held up his Geiger counter: “Get your tubes out.” A minute later he’d reset both their counters to click, rather than silently logging the radiation flux. “If this begins to crackle, stop moving. If it buzzes, back away from wherever the buzzing is highest-pitched. If it howls at you, run for your life. The higher the pitch, the more dangerous it is. And don’t touch anything without checking it out first. Never touch your counter to a surface, but hold it as close as you can—some types of radiation are stopped by an inch of air, but can kill you if you get close enough to actually touch the source. Got that? If in doubt, don’t touch.”

  “What are we looking for again, exactly?” Yul raised an eyebrow.

  “Magic wands. C’mon, let’s see what we’ve got.”

  The trouble with trains, in Miriam’s opinion, was that they weren’t airliners: you actually went through the landscape, instead of soaring over it, and you tended to get bogged down in those vast spaces. About the best thing that could be said about it was that in first class you could get a decent cooked meal in the dining car then retire to your bedroom for a night’s sleep, and wake up seven or eight hundred miles from where you went to bed. On the other hand, the gentle swaying, occasional front-to-back lurching of the coaches, and the perpetual clatter of wheels across track welds combined to give her a queasy feeling the like of which she hadn’t felt since many years ago she’d let her then-husband argue her into a boating holiday.

  I seem to be spending all my time throwing up these days. Miriam sat on the edge of her bed, the chamber pot clutched between her hands and knees in the pre-dawn light. What’s wrong with me? A sense of despondency washed over her. All I need right now is a stomach bug…she yawned experimentally, held her breath, and let her back relax infinitesimally as she realized that her stomach was played out. Damn. She put the pot back in its under-bunk drawer and swung her legs back under the sheets. She yawned again, exhausted, then glanced at the window in mild disgust. Might as well get started now, she told herself. There was no way she’d manage another hour’s sleep before it was time to get up anyway: the train was due to pause in Dunedin around ten o’clock, and she needed to get her letter written first. The only question was what to put in it…

  She glanced at the door to the lounge room. Erasmus insisted on sleeping in there—not that it was any great hardship, for the padded bench concealed a pullout bed—which would make it just about impossible for her to get the letter out without him noticing. Well, there’s n
o alternative, she decided. She was fresh out of cover stories: who else could she be writing to, when she was on the run? Sooner or later you’ve got to choose your allies and stick by them. So far, Erasmus had shown no sign of trying to bar her from pursuing her own objectives. I’ll just have to risk it.

  Sighing, she rummaged in the bedside cabinet for the writing-box. People here were big on writing letters—no computers or e-mail, and typewriters the size of a big old laser printer meant that everyone got lots of practice at their cursive handwriting. There was an inkwell, of course, and even a cheap pen—not a fountain pen, but a dipping pen with a nib—and a blotter, and fine paper with the railway corporation crest of arms, and envelopes. Envelopes. What she was about to attempt was the oldest trick in the book—but this was a world that had not been blessed by the presence of an Edgar Allan Poe.

  Biting her lip, Miriam hunched over the paper. Best to keep it brief: she scribbled six sentences in haste, then pulled out a clean sheet of paper and condensed them into four, as neatly as she could manage aboard a moving train.

  Dear Brill, I survived the massacre at the palace by fleeing into New Britain. I have vital information about a threat to us all. Can you arrange an interview with my uncle? If so, I will make contact on my return to Boston (not less than seven days from now).

  Folding it neatly, she slid the note into an envelope and addressed it, painstakingly carefully, in a language she was far from easy with.

  Next, she took another sheet of paper and jotted down instructions upon it. This she placed, along with a folded six-shilling note, inside another envelope with a different name and address upon it.

  Finally, she took the locket from under her pillow, and copied the design onto the envelope, making a neat sketch of it in place of a postage stamp—taking pains to cover each side of the knotwork as she drew the other half, so that she couldn’t accidentally visualize the whole.

  And then she waited.

  Dunedin was the best part of a thousand miles from New London, a good nine hundred from Boston—the nearest city in her own world to it was Joliet. In this world, with no Chicago, Dunedin had grown into a huge metropolis, the continental hub where railroad and canal freight met on the southern coast of the great lakes. There was a Clan post office in Joliet, and a small fort in the unmapped forests of the world the Clan came from—a no-man’s-land six hundred miles west of the territory claimed by the eastern marcher kingdoms—and now a post office in Dunedin too, a small house in the suburbs where respectable-looking men came and went erratically. Miriam had been there before, had even committed the address to memory for her courier runs: an anonymous villa in a leafy suburb. But the train would only pause for half an hour to change locomotives; she wouldn’t have time to deliver it herself.

  Eventually she heard shuffling and muttering from the other side of the door—and then a tentative knock. “Who is it?” she called.

  “Breakfast time.” It was Erasmus. “Are you decent?”

  “Sure.” She pulled on her shoes and stood up, opening the through door. The folding bunk was stowed: Erasmus looked to have been up for some time. He smiled, tentatively. “The steward will bring us our breakfast here, if you like. Did you sleep well?”

  Miriam yawned. “About as well as can be expected.” She steeled herself: “I need to post a letter when we get to Dunedin.”

  “You do?”

  She nodded. The chair opposite the bench seat was empty, so she sat in it. “It’s to, to one of my relatives who I have reason to trust, asking if it’s safe for me to make contact.”

  “Ah.” Erasmus nodded slowly. “You didn’t mention where you are or where you’re going?”

  “Do I look stupid?” She shrugged. “I told Brill to be somewhere in a week’s time, and I’d make contact. She wasn’t at the royal reception so she’s probably still alive, and if she gets the letter at all she’s in a position to act on it. In any event, I don’t expect the letter to reach her immediately, it’ll take at least a couple of days.”

  “That would be—ah.” He nodded. “Yes, I remember her. A very formidable young woman.”

  “Right.” Miriam managed a smile. “If she shows up in Boston in a week’s time, you’ll know what it means. If she tells me it’s safe to come in from the cold, then and only then I’ll be able to talk to my relatives. So. What do you think?”

  “I think you ought to send that letter.” Erasmus nodded again. “What will you do if a different relative shows up looking for you?”

  “That’s when I have to go to ground.” She twitched: “I’ve got to try. Otherwise I’ll end up spending the rest of my life looking over my shoulder, always keeping an eye open for assassins.”

  “Who doesn’t?” he said ironically, then reached up and pulled the bell rope. “The steward will post the letter for you. Now let’s get some breakfast…”

  Surprise Party

  Despite the summer heat, the grand dining hall in the castle harbored something of a damp chill. Perhaps it was the memory of all the spilled blood that had run like water down the years: despite the eighty-degree afternoon outside, the atmosphere in the hall made Eorl Riordan shiver.

  “Erik, Carl, Rudi. Your thoughts?”

  Carl cleared his throat. Unlike the other two, he was attired in local style, although his chain shirt would have won few plaudits at a Renaissance Faire on the other side. Machine-woven titanium links backing a Kevlar breastplate and U.S. Army–pattern helmet—the whole ensemble painted in something not unlike urban camo pattern—would send entirely the wrong, functional message. Even without the P90 submachine gun strapped to his chest, and the sword at his hip.

  “I think he’d be stupid to invest us. The fort’s built well, nobody’s ever taken it in the past three hundred years, and it has a commanding view of the river and land approaches. Even with cannon, it’ll take him a while to breach the outer curtains. I’ve inspected the outer works and Villem was right—we’ve got a clear field of beaten fire over the six hundred yards around the apron. If he had American artillery, maybe, or if we give him time to emplace bombards behind the ridge line—but a frontal investment would be a fruitless waste of lives. And the pretender may be many things, but I will not insult his victims by calling him stupid.”

  “What about treachery?” asked Erik. A younger ClanSec courtier of the goatee-and-dreadlocks variety, his dress was GAP-casual except for the Glock, the saber, and the bulky walkie-talkie hanging from his belt.

  Eorl Riordan looked disapproving. “That’s only one of the possibilities.” He held up a hand and began counting off fingers. “One, the pretender really is stupid, or has taken leave of his senses. Two, it’s a tactical diversion, planned to tie us up defending a strategic necessity while he does something else. Three, treachery. Four, weapons or tactics we haven’t anticipated. Five…two or more of the above. My assessment of the Pretender is the same as yours, Sieur Carl: He’s crazy like a rat. I forgot to bring a sixth finger, so kindly use your imaginations—but I think he is playing a game with the duke’s intelligence, and he wants us here for some reason that will not rebound to our benefit. So. Let’s set up a surprise, shall we? Rudi, how are the scouts doing?”

  “Nothing to report.” Rudi was another of the younger generation, wiry and gangling in hoodie and cutoffs. “They’re checking in regularly but we’ve only got twelve of them between here and Isjlemeer: he could march an army between them and we might never know. I can’t give you what you want unless you let me use Butterfly, whatever the duke thinks of it.” He grinned, knowingly.

  Riordan snorted. “You and your kite. You know about the duke’s…feelings?”

  “Yep.” Rudi just stood there, hands in pockets. Riordan, about to take him to task, noticed the oversized watch on Rudi’s skinny left arm and paused. “It’s too late to get started today but, weather permitting, I could give you what you want tomorrow.”

  It was a tempting offer. Riordan considered it. Normally he’d have been down on t
he ass of a junior officer who suggested such a thing like a mountain lion, but he’d been given a very specific job to get done, and Rudi wasn’t wrong. He made a quick executive decision. “You can do your thing tomorrow on my authority, if we haven’t made contact first. The duke will forget to be angry if you get results. But.” He shook a finger at Rudi: “There will be consequences if you make an exhibition of your craft. Do you understand?”

  “Uh, yes, sir. There won’t be any problems. Apart from the weather, and, worst case, we’ve still got the scouts.”

  “Go get it ready,” Riordan said tersely. Rudi nodded, almost bowing, and scurried out of the room in the direction of the stables. Riordan didn’t need telepathy to know what was going through his mind: the duke had almost hit the roof back when Rudi had first admitted to smuggling his obsession across, one component at a time, and it had been all Riordan and Roland had been able to do to talk Angbard out of burning the machine and giving the lad a severe flogging. It wasn’t Rudi’s fault that forty years ago a premature attempt to introduce aviation to the Gruinmarkt had triggered a witchcraft panic—superstitious peasants and “dragons” were a volatile combination—but his pigheaded persistence in trying to get his ultralight off the ground flew in the face of established security doctrine. Riordan glanced at Carl. “Yes, I know. But I don’t think it can make the situation any worse at this point, and it might do some good. Now, the defensive works. We’ve got a couple of hours to go until sunset. Think your men will be expecting a surprise inspection…?”