The Trade of Queens

reservations; however, I consider myself to be released from his service by the occasion of his death. The family loyalists and the radicals are currently tearing each other apart. I come to you in the hope that you might better exercise the wisdom needed to guide and integrate a generation of new world-walkers.” He smiled tightly. “I do not have the list of host mothers on my person, and indeed it would be no use to you without a physician licensed to practice in the United States—which I happen to be. There will be expenses, and it will take some time to set up, but I believe my identity over there is still secure. And I have in any case taken steps—”

Elder Huan glanced sideways at the sour-faced old woman. “Aunt Mei?”

Aunt Mei sniffed. “Get to the point, boy. We don’t have all day!” Elder Huan produced a pocket watch from one sleeve of his robe and glanced at it. “You are trying to sell us something. Name your price.”

Sweat broke out on Griben’s hands. Not so Chinese, he realized. Either that, or the directness was a snub, unconscionable rudeness to someone of professional rank. “I can give you world-walking babies,” he finally admitted. “I will have to spend some time and considerable money in the United States, and it will take at least eighteen months to start—this can’t be hurried, not just the pregnancies but the appearance of legitimate medical practice—but once the operation is up and running, I can deliver up to fifty new world-walkers in the first two years, more later.” Lots more with harvested eggs and sperm and an IVF clinic; times had moved on since the first proposal to use AID and host mothers. “The money … I believe on the order of two million US dollars should cover start-up costs, and another hundred thousand per baby. That would be eight thousand pounds and eight hundred pounds. You’ll need to build a small shipping operation along similar lines to the Clan’s to raise the money—but you have the advantage of being utterly unknown to and unsuspected by the federal agencies. If you stay out of their exact line of business you should thrive.”

Aunt Mei’s eyes narrowed. “And your price?” she asked.

It was now or never. “I want somewhere to live,” he admitted. “My patron is dead, the Clan is in turmoil, and I doubt their ability to survive what is coming. I know the Americans—I’ve worked among them for years—the Gruinmarkt will not be safe. If the loyalist faction wins, they will try to continue as before, a big mistake. If the progressives win … they’ll want to live here.” He smiled, as ingratiatingly as he could. “We are distant cousins. Can we put past misunderstandings behind us and work together? Consider me a test case.”

“You ask of us accession to our family,” declared Aunt Mei. “Money and status besides, but principally refuge from your enemies.” She turned and nudged Elder Huan. “Is that all?” She sounded mildly scandalized.

Elder Huan stared at ven Hjalmar. “Is that all, indeed?” he echoed ironically. “You would betray your own family…?”

“They betrayed me!” Ven Hjalmar was beyond containment. “I was placed in an intolerable position! Obey the duke and earn the undying hatred of a woman who was to be married to the heir to the throne, or disobey the duke and—well!” He swallowed. “I gather there is a curse: May you come to the attention of important people. At first it looked like a simple problem to solve. The girl was an idiot, naive, and worse, was poking her nose into places it did not belong. But then the civil war started, the duke was incapacitated, and she … well. My household was destroyed in the war: My parents are dead, I have no brothers or sisters. What is a man at the end of his affairs to do?”

There it was, on the table. Spun as neatly as he could manage, admittedly, no hint that his own actions had been motivated by aught but the purest obedience to his elders and betters; but soon there would be no one alive to gainsay his account. (The duke was reliably dead, and as for the dowager Hildegarde, she had followed the most insane imaginable strategy of tension with the Americans, obviously lacking even the remotest idea of the magnitude of their inevitable response—she would follow him soon, and certainly long before she’d move to New Britain, of that he was certain.) Robard sweated some more, waiting for the elder Huan to give some indication of his thoughts. Then, after a moment, the elder inclined his head, and looked at Aunt Mei. “As you will.”

Aunt Mei looked at ven Hjalmar. “We shall consider your proposal,” she said slowly. “Such matters are best decided on after full discussion: You may enjoy our hospitality while we search for consensus. But I shall tell you this minute that if we agree with it, there will be another price you must pay.”

“Another…?” Ven Hjalmar was at a loss.

“Yes.” She smiled, a crinkling around the eyes that hinted at amusement. “If you are to stay with us, you will have to find a wife.” She clapped her hands. “Nephew.” James Lee bowed. “Take the doctor back to his room.”

*   *   *

Erasmus Burgeson strode through the portico of the People’s Palace as if he owned it, his brown leather duster swinging around him. His usual entourage followed him—a pair of guards in the black peacoats and helmets of Freedom Riders, a stenographer and a pair of messenger boys to race his orders to the nearest telautograph, three secretaries and assistants. It was impossible to fart without his entourage recording the event and issuing a press release to reassure the masses that the commissioner of state propaganda had eaten a healthy breakfast and his bowels were in perfect working order. Such is the price of being on the winning side, he reminded himself whenever it got a bit much; the alternative—a short walk off the end of a long rope—was far less attractive.

Just one month had wrought great changes. The pompous neoclassical building was crawling with Freedom Riders and guards from the newly formed Security Committee, checking passeportes and getting underfoot: but with some justification, for there had been three assassination attempts on members of the Radical government by Patriot renegades in the past week alone—one of them successful to the extent of having cost Commissioner of Industry Sutter half the fingers on one hand and the use of his left eye, not to mention a secretary and a bodyguard. Erasmus had made much of this shocking martyrdom, but it was hardly the most onerous fate the Patriot mob had in mind for any commissioner who fell into their hands, as the full gibbets in rebel-held Rio de Janeiro could attest.

But the guards didn’t impede Burgeson’s progress through the entrance and up the stairs to the Avenue of Ministries; they stood aside and saluted with alacrity, their faces expressionless. It was only at the door to the receiving room that he encountered a delay: Commissioner of Security Reynolds’s men, of course. “Citizen Burgeson! You are expected, but your colleagues must identify themselves. Your papers, please!”

Erasmus waited impatiently while the guards confirmed that his aides were indeed on the privileged list, then nodded amiably to the underofficer on door duty. “If you please?” he asked. The man practically jumped to open the door, avoiding eye contact: Erasmus was of the same rank as the head of his entire organization. Erasmus nodded and, not waiting for his entourage, walked through into the outer office. It was, as usual, crammed with junior people’s commissioners and bureaucrats awaiting instruction, cooling their heels in the antechamber to the doctor’s surgery. Not pausing for idle chatter, Burgeson walked towards the inner door.

A stout fellow who overtopped him by a good six inches stepped sideways into his path, blocking the doorway. “You can’t—” he began.

Erasmus stopped and looked up at him. “Don’t you recognize me?” It was genuinely curious, to be stopped by anyone—even a bruiser in the uniform of the Security Committee.

The bodyguard stared down at Erasmus. Then, after a second, he began to wilt. “No sir,” he admitted. “Is you expected by ’is citizenship this mornin’?”

“Yes.” Burgeson smiled, showing no teeth. “Why don’t you announce me?”

The ability to intimidate secret policemen didn’t come easily or lightly to Erasmus; he still found it a thing of wonder as he watched the big bodyguard turn and push the door ajar to announce his arrival. He’d spent years in the camps, then more years on the run as a Leveler underground organizer in Boston, periodically arrested and beaten by men of this selfsame type, the attack dogs of power. It was no surprise after all these years to see these people rising in the armed wing of the revolutionary democratic cadres, and leaders like Reynolds gaining a certain reputation—especially in view of the unfolding crisis that had first provoked an abdication and then enabled the party to hold its coup—but it was a disappointment. Meet the new boss, just like the old boss: Erasmus remembered the Beckstein woman’s cynical bon mot. Then he dismissed it from his mind as the thug threw the door wide open before him and stood aside.

“Hail, citizen.” Sir Adam Burroughs smiled wearily at him as the door closed at his back. “Have you been keeping well?”

“Well enough.” Erasmus lowered his creaking limbs into one of the ornate chairs that faced Sir Adam’s huge, gilt-tooled leather-topped barge of a desk. And indeed, it was true: With the tuberculosis that had threatened to kill