"The Revolution Business" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stross Charles)

9

It had been a busy three weeks for Mike Fleming. An enforced week of idleness at home-idleness that was curiously unrestful, punctuated by cold-sweat fear-awakenings at dead of night when something creaked or rattled in the elderly apartment-was followed by a week of presenteeism in the office, hobbling around with a lightweight cast on his foot and a walking stick in his hand, doing make-work to ease him back into the establishment. Then one morning they'd come for him: two unsmiling internal affairs officers with handcuff eyes, who told him that his security clearance was being revalidated and escorted him to an interview suite on the thirteenth floor of an FTO-rented office building.

The polygraph test itself was almost anticlimactic. It wasn't the first time that Mike had been through one; and I've done nothing to be ashamed of, he reminded himself as they hooked him up. He focused on the self-righteous truth: Unless the system was so corrupted that sharing honest concerns with his superior officer was now an offense, he was in the clear.

So the questions about his alcohol consumption, political leanings, and TV viewing habits came as something of an anticlimax.

They sent him home afterwards, but early the next day a courier dropped by with a priority letter and a new identity badge, clearing him to return to duty. So Mike hobbled out to his car again and drove to work, arriving late, to find he'd missed a scheduled meeting with Dr. James and that there was a secret memo-one he wouldn't have been allowed to set eyes on two days earlier-waiting for him to arrive at his desk.

"I'm supposed to give you access to the GREEN SKY files," Marilyn Shipman said, her lips pursed in prim disapproval. Mike couldn't tell whether it was him she disapproved of, or merely the general idea of giving someone, anyone, access to the files. "For transcription purposes only. Room 4117 is set up with a stand-alone PC for you to use, and I can bring the files to you there one at a time."

"Ah, right." Mike gestured at his desk. "I've got a lexicon and some other research materials. Can I bring them along?"

"Only if you don't mind leaving them there." Shipman paused. "Paper goes into the room but nothing comes out until it's been approved by the classification committee. Depending on their classification, I could make an authorized copy and have it added to the room's permanent inventory. But if they're another codeword project…"

"I don't think so, but I'll have to check." Mike suppressed a momentary smile at her expression of shock. Some of the spooks who'd ended up in FTO were halfway human, but others seemed to take the form of their procedures more seriously than the actual substance. Like Ms. Shipman, who-he had a mental bet going with his evil twin self-would probably be less offended if he exposed himself to her than by his momentary forgetfulness about the classification level of his own notebook.

An entire working day (and three meetings) later, Mike finally got the keys to Room 4117 and its contents, including his carefully photocopied lexicon and handwritten notes on hochsprache. There was other material, too: an intimidating row of nonclassified but obscure works on proto-Germanic and Norse linguistics. The room itself was sparsely furnished and windowless, half filled by the single desk. The PC, and an audio-typist's tape deck, were fastened to it by steel cables, and as if to drive home the point, a framed print on the wall behind the PC reproached him: SECURITY, IT'S MORE THAN YOUR JOB THAT'S AT STAKE.

Then Marilyn brought him the box of material he was supposed to be working with.

"You're kidding me. I've got to sign for a bunch of cassette tapes?"

"You got it. Here and here." She pointed to the relevant lines on the form.

"Some of these look like they've been chewed by a dog."

"You're working with primary source material now. You'd be amazed at some of the stuff we get coming in from Pakistan and the Middle East." She paused while he signed the clipboard. "These are originals, Mr. Fleming. They've been backed up-they're in the library if anything goes wrong-but most of our analysts work with primary recordings wherever possible. Just in case anything's missing from the backup copy. There shouldn't be any problems of that kind, but you can never be quite sure. As to why it's on cassette tape, I couldn't possibly say. Perhaps that's all the field officer had to hand. They're still common in some parts of the world." She smiled tightly and tapped the yellowing plastic lid on the secretarial recorder with a fingertip. "Do you remember how to use one of these?"

"I think I can cope." Mike looked at the headset doubtfully. "What's that?" He pointed at a hole that had been drilled through a red button on the machine's control panel.

"That was the record button. They disconnect the erase head, too, just in case; this one's strictly playback only."

"What, in case I slip and accidentally delete something?"

"No, it's in case you try to record a message for the accomplice you've got working down in library services to smuggle out of the establishment, Mr. Fleming. That should have been in your security briefing materials. We are very methodical here."

"I can see that." Mike picked up the first of the cassettes; a thin patina of dust grayed the hand-scribbled label. "Has this been in your archives for long?"

"I don't know and I couldn't say."

After Marilyn left, Mike sorted through the box. There were ten cassettes in all, and some of them were clearly years old. Most were identified only by a serial number scribbled on one side; a couple of them showed signs of the tape having been crumpled, as if they had unspooled and been painstakingly reassembled from a tangle of twisted Mylar. It had been years since Mike had last bothered with a cassette tape in everyday life; his last two automobiles had come with CD players. They were an obsolete technology, analog recordings on thin ribbons of Mylar tape. It seemed very strange to be working with them again, inside a windowless cell in a huge concrete office block in Maryland. But then again, a little voice reminded him: They're robust. The equipment's cheap, and doesn't have to look like a spy tool. And you can replace them easily. Why fix something if it isn't broken?

And so he slotted the first tape into the player, donned the headset, and pressed the PLAY button.

And it made very little sense whatsoever, even on the third replay.

By the third day, Mike had just about worked out what his problem was. It wasn't just his grasp of the language, poor as it was. It wasn't the clarity of the recordings, either-the microphone had been reasonably well placed, and it was of adequate sensitivity. The men (and occasional women) he heard discussing things in what sounded like an office suite-these were regular business meetings, as far as he could tell-were audible enough, and he could make out most of their words with a little effort. Many of their terms were unfamiliar, but as if to balance things out, the speakers used familiar English words quite often, albeit with an accent that gave Mike some trouble at first.

"It's the context," he told the security awareness poster. "Knowing what they're talking about is as important as knowing what they're saying." He waved his hands widely, taking in the expanse of his empire-the desk, the chair, the walls-and declaimed, "Half of what gets said in any committee meeting doesn't get expressed verbally, it's all body language and gestures and who's making eye contact with whom. Jesus." He looked at the box of tapes disgustedly. "Maybe these would be some use to a secretary who sat in on the meeting, fodder for the minutes…"

His eyes widened as he remembered lying on the floor in an empty office, Matthias-source GREENSLEEVES-standing over him with a gun: "If you'd gone after the Clan as a police operation, that would have given the thin white duke something more urgent to worry about than a missing secretary, no?"

Jesus. He stared at the tapes in surprise. Matthias was their boss man's-the thin white duke's-secretary, wasn't he? These are probably his transcripts. Not that he'd recognized the defector's voice-it had been months since he'd died, and Matt's voice wasn't distinctive enough to draw his attention, not on an elderly tape recording of a meeting-but the implications… GREENSLEEVES didn't bring any tapes with him when he defected, so how did these get here? So we have a spy in the Clan's security apparatus, high enough up to get us these tapes. I wonder who they are? And what else they've brought over?…

In a shack attached to the stables at the back of Helge's temporary palace, a man in combat fatigues sat on a swivel chair and contemplated failure.

"It's not working," he complained, and rubbed his aching forehead. "What am I doing wrong, bro?"

"Patience." Huw carried on typing notes on a laptop perched precariously on one knee.

This experiment was Helge's idea. "The first time I world-walked I was sitting down," she'd told him. "That's not supposed to be possible, is it? And then, later, I"-a shadow crossed her face-"I was brought across. In a wheelchair." Her frown deepened. "There's stuff we've been lied to about, Huw. I don't know whether it's from ignorance or deliberate, but we ought to find out, don't you think?"

Angbard had said get to the bottom of it, and while the duke was hors de combat, Huw was more than happy to keep on following the same line of inquiry for Helge. "Okay, that's test number four. Let's try out the next set of casters. You want to stand up while I fit them?"

"Yah." Yul stood, then picked up the chair, inverted it, and planted it on the workbench.

Huw put down the laptop then went to work on the upturned chair's wheels with a multi-tool, worrying them until they came loose. He pulled another set of feet from a box and began installing them. "This set should work better, if I'm right," he explained as he worked. "High density polyethylene is a very good insulator, and they're hard-reducing the contact area with the ground."

"What about the mat?" asked Yul.

"That, too. We'll try that first: you, me, then Elena. Then without the mat."

"You think the mat has something to do with it?"

"I'm not sure." Huw straightened up. "She world-walked in an office chair. We don't do that because it never occurred to anyone. They tried wheelbarrows, and on horseback, back in the day. Even a carriage plus four. All we know is that nobody world-walks in a vehicle, because when they tried to do it, it didn't work. But we do it on foot, wearing shoes or boots. So what's going on? What's different about boots and wheels?"

"Horses weigh a lot," Yul pointed out. "So do wooden barrows, or carriages."

"Yes, but." Huw reached for a mallet and a wooden dowel, lined them up carefully, and gave a recalcitrant caster a whack. "We don't know. There are other explanations, like: Most shoes are made to be waterproof, yes? Which makes them nonconductive. Whereas anyone who tried horses would have used one that was properly shod… I just want to try again, from first principles."

"Why not get Rudi to try it in midair?" asked Yul.

Huw snorted. "Would you like to give yourself a world-walker's head in midair, while trying to fly a plane? And what if it works but doesn't take the plane with the pilot?"

"Oh." Yul looked thoughtful. "Could he try it in a balloon? With a parachute, set up to unfold immediately if he fell? Or maybe a passenger to do the world-walking?"

Huw stopped dead. "That's a good idea. Hold this." He passed the chair to his brother while he opened up the laptop again and hastily tapped out a note. "You volunteering?"

"What, me? No! I can't skydive! I get dizzy wearing platform soles!"

"Just asking." Huw shut the laptop again. "Whoever does it, that intrepid adventurer, they'll get lots of attention from the ladies."

"You think?" Yul brightened slightly.

"Absolutely," Huw said blandly. Especially from her majesty, but best not to swell Yul's head. "Hand me that test meter then get the carpet protector…"

It was, he figured, a matter of getting the conditions right.

"There are a couple of possibilities," he'd told Helge earlier in the morning, when she'd appeared in the stables, unannounced and unexpected, just like any other country squire's wife making her daily rounds of the estate. "It could be the exclusion effect." It was well known that you couldn't world-walk if there was a solid object in the way in the destination world. "What if the ground pressure of feet or shoes doesn't set up a potential interpenetration, but wheels do? There's a smaller contact area, after all."

"Can women world-walk in stiletto heels?" Helge had thrown back at him, looking half-amused.

"What? Have you-"

"I've never tried. I'm not good in heels, and world-walking in them isn't something I'd do deliberately." She paused. "But it's one for your list, isn't it?"

"I'll do that," he agreed. "Would you like to sit in on the experiment today? You might spot something I wouldn't…"

"I wish I could." A pained expression crept across her face. "They're keeping me busy, Huw, lots of protocol crap and meetings with tedious fools I can't afford not to be nice to. In fact, I'd better be going now-otherwise I'll be late for this morning's first appointment. I think I've got an hour free before dinner, maybe you could fill me in on the day's progress then?"

He'd asked Lady d'Ost about the stiletto thing over lunch: The answer turned out to be "yes-but if you're drunk you'll likely twist an ankle, so you take your shoes off first."

As for the chair and the matters in hand… "I'm seeing no conductivity at all," Huw muttered. "Good insulators." Bare feet were insulators, too, of course, albeit not that good, and damp leather shoes were piss-poor, but dry rubber-soled boots or bare feet didn't seem to make any difference to world-walking. "Okay, you want to try these?"

"Alright." Yul sighed and tugged the chair onto the middle of the plastic carpet-protector mat. "I'm getting tired, though, bro." He sat down and glanced at the back of his left wrist.

Huw looked at the floor. "Hey, you're off the target-"

He stopped. Yul, and the chair, had disappeared.

"Shit." Elena will fucking kill me, he thought incoherently. He slid a foot forward, then stopped. Opening the laptop again, he tapped out a quick note. Then he stood on the correct spot-not a foot to one side, where Yul had been-and looked at the knotwork he carried on a laminated badge, ready to world-walk.

The headache was sudden and harsh, a classic interpenetration blast. "Ow." He's moving about. Huw swore a bit more, then went and stood precisely where Yul had put the chair, and tried again.

The walls of the shack vanished, replaced by trees and sunlight and a warm summer breeze. Huw staggered, jostling Yul, who spun round with pistol drawn. "Joker's bane, bro! Don't do that!"

"Sorry." Huw bent double, the headache and visual distortions coinciding with a huge wave of nausea. He barely noticed the chair, lying to its side. The grass around its wheels was almost knee-length. Should have surveyed more thoroughly, he thought, then lost his attention to the desperate problem of hanging onto his lunch.

After a minute, he got things under control. "You going to be alright?" Yul asked anxiously. "Because one of us needs to go back."

"Yes." Huw stayed bent over. "Not just yet."

"I fell over when I came across. I think I bruised my ass."

"I'm not surprised." He retched again, then wiped his mouth. "Ow." Shuffling round, he knelt, facing the tussock Yul had stood in. "We missed an angle."

"We did?"

"Yeah." Huw pointed. "You had a foot on the ground."

"So?"

"So you brought the chair over. And you were grounded. When you sat in it, you were fiddling with one armrest." Huw shuffled towards it. "Right. You had your fingers curled under it. Were you touching it?"

"I think so." Yul frowned.

"Show me." Huw was nearly dancing with impatience.

Hulius raised the chair and sat in it slowly. He lowered one foot to touch the ground, then shuffled for comfort, leaned forward with the fingers of his left hand curled under the armrest.

"Okay, hold that position." Huw contorted himself to look under the armrest. "I see. Were you fidgeting with the post?"

"Post?"

"The metal thing-yeah, that. The fabric on the armrest cover is stapled to the underside of the arm. And that in turn is connected to the frame of the chair by a metal post. Huh. Of course if you try to world-walk home, holding the chair up by the underside of those arms, it'll go with you, as long as the wheels aren't fouling anything."

"You think that's all there is to it?" Yul looked startled.

"No, but it's a start. We go across, we take ourselves obviously-and also the stuff we're carrying, the stuff we're physically connected to, but not the earth itself. The planet is a bit too big to carry. The question is, how far does the effect propagate? I've been thinking electrical or capacitive, but that's wrong. I should probably be thinking in terms of quantum state coherence. And the exclusion effect, as a separate spoiler, to make it more complicated. What is a coherent quantum state in a many-worlds Everett-Wheeler cosmology, anyway?"

Yul yawned elaborately. "Does it matter? Way I see it, the lords of the post won't be enthusiastic about folks realizing they're not needed for the corvée. It could be a power thing, bro, to bind us together by misleading us as to the true number of participants required to set up a splinter network. If it only takes two guys and a wheelbarrow to do the work of six… that might present a problem, yes? On top of which you're the only relative I know who's mad enough to try to disprove something that everyone knows is the way things work, just in case everyone else is wrong. Must be that fancy education of yours." He paused. "Not that I believe a word of it, but I wouldn't mention it to anyone except her majesty if I were you, bro. They might not understand…"

The next day, Miriam received the visitor she'd been half dreading and half waiting for. Rising that morning, she'd donned Helge like a dress even as her maids were helping her into more material garments. Then she'd started the day by formally swearing Brilliana and Sir Alasdair to her service, before witnesses, followed by such of her guards as Sir Alasdair recommended to her. Then she'd gone out into the garden, just to get out of the way of the teeming servants-Brill's self-kicking anthill was still settling down and finding itself various niches in the house-and partly to convince herself that she was free to do so. And that was where her mother found her, sitting on a bench in an ornamental gazebo. And proceeded to lecture her about her newfound status.

"You're going to have to be a queen widow for a while," the Duchess Patricia voh Hjorth d'Wu ab Thorold explained to her. Wearing a voluminous black silk dress that she had somehow squeezed into the seat of an electric wheelchair, which in turn must have taken two strapping couriers to carry across in pieces, she posed an incongruous sight. "Probably not forever, but you should plan on doing it for at least the next nine months. It'll give you a lot of leverage, but don't misunderstand-you won't be ruling the country. There's no tradition of rule by women in this culture. We-the junta-have agreed we're going to present ourselves in public as a council of regents. They'll be the ones who do the ruling-making policy decisions-but I've held out for you to have a seat on the council. You'll have title and nobility in your own right, and the power of high justice, the ability to arraign and try nobles. You'll sign laws agreed by the assembly of lords, as a member of the council of regents. Which in turn means the Clan council can't ignore you."

"Yes, Mom," Helge said obediently.

"Don't patronize me and I won't patronize you, kid. The quid pro quo is that there's a lot of ceremonial that goes with the job, a lot of face time. You're going to have to be Helge in public for ninety percent of that. Also, the Clan council will expect you to issue decrees and perform administrative chores to order. They say rabbit, you hop-at least at first. How much input you manage to acquire into their decisions is up to you, but my advice would be to do it very slowly and carefully. Don't risk overrunning your base, as you did last time. I'm going to be around to help. Our enemies won't be expecting that. And you'll have Brilliana. Olga and Riordan seem to like you, Sky Father only knows why, but that's another immense advantage because those two are holding two whole branches of Security together right now. I'd advise against trying to swear them to you-nothing's likely to scare the backwoods conservatives into doing something stupid like the fear that you're trying to take over Clan Security-but Riordan leans our way and Olga is one of us."

"Define us," Helge challenged.

"Us is you and me and everyone else who wants to drag the Clan kicking and screaming into the modern world." Her mother's cheek dimpled. "Next stupid question?"

"So you tell me you've fixed up this situation where I'll have a lot of leverage but I'm going to be a figurehead, and I have the power to basically try the nobility, even pass laws, but I can't go head-to-head with the council, and if I push the limits too hard the reactionaries might try to assassinate me, and by the way, I'm going to be on public display almost all the time. Is that the picture?" Helge stood up. "What else am I missing?"

"Your own power base," Patricia said crisply. She peered at Miriam. "Have you sworn Brilliana yet? Your head of security?"

"Yes-"

"That young whippersnapper Huw? Or his brother and his doxy?"

"Ma!-" She sat down again.

"You're not thinking ahead. You need them on your side, they're young and enthusiastic and willing-what's stopping you?"

"Urn. An opportunity?"

"Exactly! So manufacture one. Invite them to a party. Better still, invite all the progressives. Be visible."

"But I don't know who-"

"Brilliana does. Rely on her!"

"You think I can do that?" Helge asked disbelievingly.

"No." Her mother grinned wickedly. "I know you can. You just need to make up your mind to do it." The grin faded. "But. On to other matters. It's been a long time since we talked about the birds and the bees, hasn't it?"

"Oh, Ma." Helge kicked her skirts out. "I'm not a teenager anymore."

"Of course not." Patricia nodded. "But you didn't grow up here. Can I offer some blunt advice?"

"You're going to, whether I want it or not, right?"

"Oh M- Helge. You kill me. Very well, it's this: You're a grown woman and you've got needs. And if you wait until the bun's finished baking and are reasonably discreet, nobody will raise an eyebrow. Once you've been publicly acknowledged as the queen-widow, you're… in effect you're married, to a dead, absentee husband. Marriage is about property, and status, and rank, and if you're fool enough you can throw it all away. So don't do that, okay? Take a lover, but be discreet, use contraception. And whatever you do, don't mess with the help, especially don't mess with your sworn vassals. Pick a man who's respectably married and owes you no obligation, and what you get up to harms no one. But unmarried men, or vassals? They're trouble."

Helge gaped, speechless. After a moment she managed to shut her mouth. "Mother!"

Patricia sighed. "Kid, the rules are different here. What have I been trying to beat into that thick skull of yours?"

"But, but-"

"You're confusing love and marriage. That old song, love and marriage, horse and carriage? It's rubbish." She snorted dismissively. "At least, that's not how any self-respecting aristocracy comports itself. You marry for power and heirs and you take your fun where you find it." For a moment she looked wistful: "That's one of the things I'm really going to miss about not living in the United States anymore. But just because a society runs on arranged marriages, it doesn't mean people don't fall in love. Just as long as they're discreet in public."

"Oh god." Helge made to run a hand through her hair, stopped at the last moment as she touched the jeweled pins that held it in place. "That is just so screwed up…"

"I realize it must seem that way to you." The dowager grimaced. "The rules here are very different."

"Ick."

"It's not that bad, kid." Patricia's grimace relaxed into a smile. "You're a widow. You've graduated from the marriage market, summa cum laude."

"I don't need to hear this right now," said Helge. "I am so not interested in men right now-"

"But you will be, and you need to know this stuff now, before it happens. Unless you want to let being a victim define you for the rest of your life, you're going to look back on this one day and shrug and say, 'but I moved on.' "

Helge stared at her mother sharply. "What do you mean?"

Patricia looked her in the eye. "Your-my husband-was a real piece of work. But I didn't let that get between us, between you and me, kid."

Helge looked away. "I'm not-"

"You're my daughter. Mine, not his. That's all the revenge that's good for me."

After a moment, Helge looked back at her mother. Her eyes were dark, glistening with unshed tears. "I had no idea."

"I didn't want you to. I really didn't want to lay that on you." Patricia held out a hand. After a moment, her daughter took it. "But you wanted to know why I want to change the Clan."

"Oh, Mom." Helge rose, then knelt in front of the wheelchair. She laid her head on her mother's lap, hugging her. "I'm sorry."

"Hush. It's not your fault."

"But I thought you-"

"Yeah, I know what you thought. It's the usual Clan mother/daughter rivalry. But like I said, we're not going to play by their rules. Are you with me?"

"Yes," said Helge.

"Excellent." Her mother stroked the nape of her neck lightly. "You and me, kid. Together we'll make this thing work."

In the end, the coup came down to simple economics. The emergency government had neglected to pay their employees for three weeks; whereas Sir Adam's party had, if not put a chicken in every pot, at least put a loaf of bread and tripe in dripping on every table that was spread with yesterday's copy of The Leveler in lieu of a tablecloth. They didn't have money but they had plenty of guns, and so they'd sent the party militia to seize control of the dockside warehouses. Wherein they found plenty of bulk grain that had been stockpiled for export, and which they lost no time in distributing to the people. It was a short-term gambit, but it paid off: Nothing buys friends in a famine like a temporarily full belly.

The morning of the coup came three days after the Patriot Club withdrew from the emergency assembly. Patriot gangs had taken to the streets of New London, protesting the Levelers' presence in the debating chamber with paving stones and pry bars. They'd scoured the army barracks, recruiting the wrong kind of soldiers-angry, unpaid young men, their bellies full of looted beer, looking for someone to blame. "We can't allow this to continue," Sir Adam had said, his voice tinny over the crackling electrograph conference call. "They'll cause chaos, and the people will blame us for losing control of the situation. So they must be stopped. Tomorrow morning, I want to see every man we've got turned out and ready for action. The Freedom Riders will patrol the streets around Parliament and the government buildings on Grosvenor Street; those of you in charge of departments will go to your offices with your guards and secure them against intrusion."

"What about the New Party and the other opposition groups?" asked one of the delegates on the line.

"I don't think we're going to waste our time worrying about them," said Sir Adam. "They're either broadly for us and our program, in which case we will listen to their input before we act-once the emergency is over-or they're against us, in which case they are part of the problem. The Freedom Riders will bar access to the Commons while we debate and pass the Enabling Act; let them protest once we've saved their necks from the noose. I'm more concerned about the Patriot mob. As soon as they work out what's going on they'll attempt to storm the citadel, and I want us to be ready for them."

Which was why, at four o'clock in the morning, instead of being sound asleep in bed, Erasmus was sitting in the passenger cab of a steamer, facing backwards, knee to knee with two strapping militiamen and nose to nose with Supervisor Philips, as it screamed up the broad boulevard fronting the East River at the head of a column of loudly buzzing motorcycle combinations. They were heading for the Propaganda Ministry offices in Bronckborough, to catch them at the tail end of a quiet graveyard shift. For lack of any other distraction, he scrutinized Philips closely; in his long black coat and forage cap he resembled a hungry crow.

"Soon be over, eh, sir?"

Philips's eyes swiveled sideways, towards the serg- No, under-officer, Erasmus reminded himself-must keep the new ranks straight-underofficer who had spoken. "One expects so, Wolfe, unless anyone tipped a wink to the traitors."

"Not me, sir!"

Erasmus suppressed his momentary amusement at the man's discomfort. Someone might have done so, despite the Party's control over the Post Office and the central electrograph exchanges, and if that was the case they might be heading straight into a field of beaten fire between heavy machine guns. In which case we'll pay with our lives. But Philips's reference to the Patriots as traitors-that was interesting. So easily do our names twist and bite us, Erasmus mused cynically.

The ministry offices stood at the crest of a north-south ridge-line at the intersection of two broad boulevards lined with plane trees; with clear fields of fire in all directions and no windows below the third floor, it was a characteristic example of the governmental architectural style that had arrived in the wake of the Black Fist Freedom Guard's assassination of King George Frederick's father. The steps fronting the building were guarded, but the railway sidings and loading docks at the back, through which huge rolls of newsprint arrived every evening to print the next day's edition of the Parliamentary Gazette were another matter. By the time Burgeson's car drew up beside a gap-doored loading bay, there wasn't a red shirt in sight: All the guards on duty wore the black pea coats and helmets of the Freedom Riders.

"Ah, good." Erasmus unwound to his full height as Philips hurried into the warehouse and conferred with his junior officers. "Underofficer Wolfe."

"Sir?"

"As soon as it's safe, I intend to go to the minister's office. I need guards."

"Yes, sir. Allow me to petition Supervisor Philips?" Erasmus's cheek twitched. "Make it fast."

The second staff car arrived, disgorging a claque of radical journalists and sub-editors handpicked by Erasmus earlier in the week just as Philips strutted over. "Sir, the building appears to be in our hands for now. There was only a skeleton crew on duty, as the Patriots appear to have been shorting the staff to pay their thugs. I can't guarantee there isn't an assassin lurking in the minister's dining room until my men have searched the place top to bottom, but if you'll let me assign you a guard you can have the run of it." He grinned beakishly, as if claiming ownership of a particularly juicy piece of roadkill.

"Good." Erasmus nodded at his editorial staff. "Jonas, Eric, I want you to go to the speaking-room and see that the pulpit is ready for a morning broadcast. I'll be addressing the nation on Voice of England as soon as we have a program. Milo, get the emergency broadcast filler ready to run. Stephen, coordinate with Milo on developing a schedule of news announcements to run round the clock. I will be on hand to read proclamations and announce emergency decrees as we receive them from Freedom House through the day. Jack, the print floor is yours. Let's go to work!"

They stormed through the Ministry building like children in a sweet shop, capering around the huge printing presses and the broadcasting pulpits of the king's own mouthpiece; marveling at the stentorian voice of the state that fate, audacity, and Sir Adam's brash plan had put at their disposal. "'T's going ter be glorious, sorr," Stephen confided in Erasmus as they walked the editor's gallery overlooking the presses that had until recently spun the Gazette, official mouthpiece of John Frederick's despotic agenda. His eyes gleamed. "All them years hiding type-trays in us basement, an' it come to this!"

"Enjoy it while you can, Steve." Burgeson grinned like a skull. "Seize the front page!" They came to the door leading to the third floor landing, and the stairs up to the soundproofed broadcasting pulpits. "You'll have to excuse me: I've got a speech to record for the nine o'clock news, and then I'll be in the Minister's office, working up our schedule for the next week."

"A speech? What's in it?"

"Just some announcements Sir Adam charged me with making," Erasmus said blandly. Then he relaxed slightly: No point in not confiding in his new subordinate, after all! "We're taking the People's Palace"-the Houses of Parliament, renamed by raucous consensus earlier in the week-"this morning, to pass an Enabling Act. It'll give the Executive Council the power to rule by decree during the current emergency, and we'll use it to round up the Patriots as soon as they raise their heads and start belling for our blood. The sooner we can get the opposition to shut up for a while, the faster we'll be able to set up a rationing system and get food to the people again. And the faster we do that, the sooner we'll have their undivided support.

"By winter, we'll be building the new Jerusalem! And you, my friend, are going to tell the world that's what we're going to do."

Pomp, circumstance, and matters of state seemed inseparable; and the more tenuous the state, the more pomp and circumstance seemed to surround it, Miriam reflected. "I hope this is going to work," she murmured.

"Milady, it looks perfect!" Gerta, her recently acquired lady of the wardrobe, chirped, tugging at the laces of her left sleeve. "You are the, the model of a queen!" Her English was heavily accented and somewhat hesitant, but at least she had some; Brill had filtered the candidates ruthlessly to ensure that Miriam wasn't left floundering with her rudimentary hochsprache.

I don't feel like one, Miriam thought, but held her counsel. I feel more like a wedding cake decoration gone wrong. And this outfit weighs more than a suit of armor. She was still ambivalent about the whole mad scheme; only the certain knowledge of what could happen if this masquerade failed was holding her on course-on course for weeks of state audiences and banquets and balls, and seven months of sore feet, morning nausea, aching back, and medical worries. "Continue," she said tonelessly, as Gerta continued to wind a seemingly endless silver chain around her collar, while three other maids-more junior by far-fussed around her.

She'd lain awake for most of the previous night, listening to the wind drumming across the roof above her, and the calls of the sentries as they exchanged watch, and she'd worried at the plan like a dog with a mangy leg. If this was the right thing to do, if this was the right thing for her, if, if… if she was going to act a part in a perilous play, if she was going to have another baby-at her age-not with a man she loved, but by donor insemination, as a bargaining chip in a deadly political game, to lay claim to a toxic throne. Poor little bastard, she thought-and he would, indeed, be a bastard except for the elaborate lies of a dozen pre-briefed and pre-blackmailed witnesses who would swear blind to a secret wedding ceremony-doomed to be a figurehead for the throne. Damn, and I thought I had problems…

Miriam had no illusions about the fate awaiting anyone who aspired to sit on the throne of the Gruinmarkt. It would be an unstable and perilous perch, even without the imminent threat of invasion or attack by the US government. If I wanted the best for him I'd run away, very fast, very far, she'd decided. But the best for him would be the worst for everyone else: The Gruinmarkt would fall apart very fast if a strong settlement wasn't reestablished. It would trigger a civil war of succession, she realized. And her life, and her mother's, and-nearly everyone I care for-would be in danger. I can't do that, she thought hopelessly, punching the overstuffed bolster as she rolled over in the night. Where did I get this sense of loyalty from? What do I owe them, after what they did to me?

"My lady?" She blinked back to the present to see Gerta staring at her. "And now, your face?"

The women of the Clan, and their relatives in the outer families-recessive carriers of the gene that activated the world-walking ability-had discovered cosmetics, but not modernism or minimalism. Miriam, who'd never gone in for much more than lip gloss and eyeliner, forced herself to stand still while Gerta and a small army of assistants did their best to turn her into a porcelain doll, using so many layers of powder that she was afraid to smile lest her face crack and fall off. At least they're using imported cosmetics rather than white lead and belladonna, she consoled herself.

A seeming eternity of primping preparations passed before the door crashed open, startling her considerably. Miriam, unable to simply turn her head, maneuvered to look: "Yes? Oh-"

"My lady. Are you ready?" It was Brilliana, dressed to the nines and escorted by two young lords with swords and MP5Ks at their waists, and three more overdressed girls (one to hold the train of her gown, the others evidently for decoration).

Miriam sighed. "Gerta. Am I ready?"

Gerta squawked and dropped a curtsey before Brill. "My lady! Another half hour, please? Her grace is nearly-"

Brill looked Miriam up and down with professional speed. "No. Stick a crown on her and she's done," she announced, with something like satisfaction. "How do you feel, Helge?"

"I feel"-Miriam dropped into halting hochsprache-"I am, am ready. I am like a hot, blanket? No, sheet, urn, no, dress-"

Brill smiled and nodded-somehow she'd evaded the worst excesses of the cosmetological battalions-and produced a small crystal vial with a silver stopper from a fold in her sleeve, which she offered. "You'll need this," she suggested.

Miriam took it and held it before her face, where the flickering lamps in the chandelier could illuminate it. "Urn. What is it?"

"Crystal meth. In case you doze off." Brill winked.

"But I'm pregnant!" Miriam scolded indignantly.

"Hist. One or two won't hurt you, you know? I asked a good doctor." (Not, by her emphasis, Dr. yen Hjalmar, who Miriam had publicly speculated about disemboweling-especially if, as Gunnar had implied, he was still alive.) "The damage if this act of theater should go awry is far greater than the risk of a miscarriage."

"I thought you had an iron rule, don't dabble in the cargo…"

"This isn't dabbling, it is your doctor's prescription, Helge. You are going to have to sit on that chair looking alert for more than four hours without caffeine or a toilet break, and I am warning you, it is as hard as a board. How else are you going to manage it?"

Miriam shook one of the tablets into the palm of her hand and swallowed. "Uck. That was vile."

"Come now, your grace! Klaus"-Brill half-turned, and snapped her fingers-"Menger, attend! You will lead. Jeanne and you, you will follow me. Sabine, you take my train. We will practice our order on the way to the carriage. Her grace will walk ten paces behind you, and you-yes, Gerta-arrange her attendants. When we arrive at the palace, once we enter the hall, you will pass me and proceed to the throne, Helge, and be seated when the Green Staff is struck for the third time and Baron Reinstahl declares the session open. I'll lead you in, you just concentrate on looking as if I'm not there and not tripping on your hem. Then we will play it by ear…"

They walked along the passageway from the royal receiving room at a slow march. Brill paced ahead of her, wearing an ornate gown dripping with expensive jewelry. The walls were still pocked with the scars of musket balls. The knights Brilliana had brought to her dressing room paced to either side, and behind them came another squad of soldiers-outer family relatives, heavily armed and tense. It was all, Miriam thought, a masque, the principal actors wearing costumes that emphasized their power and wealth. Even the palace was a stage set-after the explosion at the Hjalmar Palace, none of the high Clan nobles would dare spend even a minute longer than absolutely necessary there. But you had to hold a coronation where people could see it. The whole thing, right down to the ending, was as scripted as a Broadway musical. Miriam concentrated on keeping her face fixed in what she hoped was a benevolent half-smile: In truth, her jaw ached and everything shone with a knife-edged crystal clarity that verged on hallucination.

Before them, a guard detail came to attention. A trumpet blatted, three rising notes; then with a grating squeal, the door to the great hall swung open. The hinges, Miriam thought distantly, they need to oil the hinges. (The thought gnawed at her despite its irrelevance-glued to the surface of her mind by the meth.)

"Her grace the Princess Royal Helge Thorold-Hjorth, widow of Creon yen Alexis du"-the majordomo's recitation of her name and rank rolled on and on, taxing Miriam's basic hochsprache with its allusions and genealogical connections, asserting an outrageous connection between her and the all-but-expired royal family. She swayed slightly, trying to maintain a dignified and expressionless poise, but was unable to stop her eyes flickering from side to side to take in the assembled audience.

It looked like half the surviving fathers of the Clan had come, bringing their sons and wives with them-and their bodyguards, for the rows of benches that rose beneath the windows (formerly full of stained glass; now open to the outside air, the glaziers not yet rounded up to repair them) were backed by a row of guards. Here and there she could pick out a familiar face amidst the sea of strangers, and they were all staring at her, as if they expected her to sprout a second head or start speaking in tongues at any moment. Her stomach clenched: Bile flooded into the back of her mouth. For an instant Miriam trembled on the edge of panic, close to bolting.

Brill began to move forward again. She followed, instinctively putting one foot in front of the other.

"The throne, milady," the girl behind her hissed, voice pitched for her ear only. "Step to your left, if you please."

There was another cantonment of benches, dead ahead, walled in with wooden screens-a ladies' screen, Miriam recognized-and within it, a different gaggle of nobles, their wrists weighted with iron fetters. And there was a raised platform, and a chair with a canopy over it, and other, confusing impressions-

Somehow she found herself on the raised chair, with one of her maids behind each shoulder and the lords Menger and Klaus standing before her. A priest she half recognized (he'd been wearing a pinstriped suit at the last Clan council meeting) was advancing on her, swathed in robes. A subordinate followed him, holding a dazzling lump of metal that might have been a crown in the fevered imaginings of a Gaudi; behind him came another six chanting subordinates and a white calf on a rope which looked at her with confused, long-lashed eyes.

The chanting stopped and the audience rose to their feet. The calf moaned as two of the acolytes shoved it in front of the dais and a third thrust a golden bowl under its throat. There was a moment of reverential silence as the bishop turned and pulled his gilt sickle through the beast's throat; then the bubbling blood overflowed the basin and splashed across the flagstones to a breaking roar of approval punctuated by stamping feet.

The bishop raised his sickle, then as the assembled nobles quieted their chant, he began to shout a prayer, his voice hoarse and cracked with hope. What's he saying-Miriam burped again, swallowing acid indigestion-something about sanctification-she was unprepared when he turned to her and, after dipping a hand into the bowl, he stepped towards her and daubed a sticky finger on her forehead. Then the second priest knelt beside him, and the bishop raised the crown above her head.

"It's the Summer Crown," he told her in English. "Try not to break it, we want it back after the ceremony."

When he lowered his arms his sleeves dangled in front of her. The hot smell of fresh blood filled her nostrils as the crowd in the bleachers roared their-approval? Amusement? Miriam closed her eyes. I'm not here. I'm not here. You can't make me be here. She wished the earth would open and swallow her; the expectations bearing down on her filled her with a hollow terror. Mom, I am so going to kill you.

Then the bishop-it's Julius, isn't it? she recalled, dizzily-receded. She opened her eyes.

"Milady!" hissed the lady-in-waiting at her left shoulder. "It's time to say your words."

Words? Miriam blinked fuzzily, the oppressive weight of the metal headgear threatening to unbalance her neck. I'm meant to say something, right? Brill had gone over it with her: She'd practiced with Gerta, she'd practiced with a mirror, she'd practiced until she was sure she'd be able to remember them…

"I, the Queen-Widow Helge, by virtue of the power vested in me by Sky Father, do declare this royal court open…" her memory began.

Oh, that, Miriam remembered. She opened her mouth and heard someone begin to recite formal phrases in an alien language. Her voice was steady and authoritative: She sounded like a powerful and dignified ruler. I wonder if they'll introduce me to her after the performance?

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT (Cockpit voice recorder):

(Rotor noise in background.)

"Climbing two five to flight level three zero, ground speed 150. GPS check."

"GPS check, uh, okay."

"TCAS clear. Ready to engage INS."

"INS ready, fifty-mile orbit at three zero."

"Okay. How's the datalink to that-that-"

"FLIR/DIMT is mapping fine."

"Right. INS engaged. Racetrack. You boys ready back there?"

"ARMBAND is ready."

"Ready."

"Coming up on way point yankee one in fifty seconds, boys. On my mark, activate translation black box."

"Arming translation circuit… okay, she's ready on your command."

"Mark."

"We have translation."

"Radar altimeter check, please. What's the state of ARMBAND?"

"Sir, we've got two translations left, three hours to bingo time-"

"Tower, mike-mike-papa-four, do you read."

"Two translations, three hours, check. You gentlemen will doubtless be pleased to know that as we've only got fuel for 140 minutes we'll be going home well before then."

"Inlet temperature four. External temperature ten and dropping, was fifteen. Cloud cover was six, now four. Holy shit, the ground-it's completely different-"

"FLIR/DIMT is mapping fine. Uh, INS shows six meter z-axis anomaly. INS red light. INS red light. Looks like he took us with him okay."

"Tower, mike-mike-papa-four, do you read."

"INS reset. INS breaker reset. Damn, we're back to dead reckoning. Speed check."

"Ground speed 146. Altitude three zero nine zero by radar altimeter. Lots of trees down there, whole lotta trees."

"Okay, let's do an INS restart."

"Captain, confirmed, tower does not respond."

"FLIR/DIMT lock on north ridge corresponds to INS map waypoint 195604. Restarting. Restarted. Returning to orbit."

"Tower on crest of ridge via FLIR. Got battlements!"

"Fuel, nine thousand. Throttle back on two, eighty percent. Okay, you've got an hour from my mark."

"Got any candidates on IDAS?"

"Not a whisper. It's dead down there. Not even cell phone traffic. Why am I getting this itchy feeling between my shoulder blades?"

"Time check: three hours twenty-nine minutes to dawn. Altitude four one hundred, ground speed 145, visibility zero, six on FLIR. Stop worrying about MANPADs, number two."

"Roger. Waypoint yankee two coming up, turning on zero two zero."

"I'm still getting nothing, sir. Trying FM."

"Use your judgment."

"Fuel eighty six hundred. Throttle on eighty, inlet temperature three."

"Quiet as the grave. Hey, some traffic on shortwave. Twenty megahertz band, low power. Voice traffic… not English."

"Waypoint yankee three coming up, turning on zero nine zero. Climb to flight level five zero."

"Okay, that's enough. We're in class E airspace on the other side, so let's get out of here. ARMBAND?"

"Ready to roll whenever you call, captain."

"Okay, we're going home. Prepare to translate on my mark-"

END TRANSCRIPT (Cockpit voice recorder)