The Trade of Queens

“I don’t know. It depends on whether they tackle the economy, the war, or the constitutional problems—any or all of them.” She opened the wardrobe, sniffed. “I think something died in here. Where’s the flashlight?”

“Here.” Brill waited while Miriam shoved aside the dresses on the rail and shone the beam around the interior of the wardrobe. “What do you think?”

“I think they’ll have to execute the king, and a lot of his supporters, or the French would use him as an excuse to make mischief. And they won’t rest with a revolutionary superpower on the other side of the world—Sir Adam Burroughs’s Leveler ideology is an existential threat to any absolute monarchy, much like the Soviet Union was to the United States’ capitalist system. Which leaves the economy.” Miriam straightened up. “Lots of radical ministries jockeying for preeminence, a permanent emergency in foreign affairs, a big war effort. Central planning, maybe, lots of nationalization. They’re going to have to industrialize properly if they’re going to dig their way out of this mess. War spending is always a good way to boost an economy. And land reform, let’s not forget the land reform—they’ll probably expropriate the big slave plantations in South America, the duchies of the Midwest.”

“My—Miriam, you can’t sleep here: The bedding’s mildewed.”

“Wha—oh? Shit. There should be spare sheets in the laundry—” Miriam wound down. “Oh. No servants.”

“I could hire bodies easily enough, if you think it necessary?”

“No.” Miriam frowned. “Flashing around cash would be really dangerous right now. Huh. Need to know if the electricity’s working … listen, let’s go see if the office is intact and the power still works. If so, we ought to go look at the factory. Then I can electrograph Erasmus and tell him we’re ready to start work whenever he comes up with those passes he was talking about.”

*   *   *

In an office near the northern end of Manhattan, with a window overlooking the royal navy dockyard, Stephen Reynolds set aside the stack of death warrants at his left hand and stood, smiling warmly, as commissioners Jennings and Fowler walked in.

“Good morning, citizens.” He gestured at the seats beside his desk as he walked around it, placing himself on the same side of the table as his visitors: “Nice to see you. Are you both well? Edward, is your wife—”

“She’s fine,” Jennings said, a trifle brusquely, then cleared his throat. “Nothing to worry about, and the would-be assassin is already in custody.” As the citizen inquisitor supervising the Justice Directorate, Jennings (not to mention his family) had become accustomed to being the principal target of the regime’s enemies (not to mention their surviving relatives). “I gather your people have identified his conspirators already.”

“Ah, excellent.” Fowler cleared his throat. “Time is short, I’m afraid: Got a meeting of the Construction Subcommittee to chair in an hour. You have something that calls for extreme measures?”

“Yes.” Reynolds smiled again, concealing his minor irritation at being so preempted. “Alas, we have a minor problem. That fine fellow Mr. Burgeson is apparently trespassing on our turf. I’ve had a tipoff from certain sources”—not mentioning Elder Cheung and his magical powers, or his strange associate, the Dutch doctor—“that Erasmus is, not to put too fine a point on it, dealing with persons of interest. There’s some question as to what he is doing; I haven’t been able to get an informer into his organization. But the secrecy with which he is conducting his affairs is suggestive. Certainly it’s not any activity that falls within the portfolio of the commissioner for state truth. I believe he is in league with wreckers and subversives, and I would appreciate the cooperation of your departments in, ah, distinguishing the sheep from the goats.”

Jennings tilted his head on one side thoughtfully. “I’m sure we can work together on this matter— if Citizen Burgeson is acting against the best interests of the people.” A caveat from Justice was to be expected.

Reynolds nodded. It didn’t signify opposition as such, merely that Jennings knew exactly what was going on and had no intention of being strung up as a scapegoat for Reynolds’s move against the rival directorate. “Of course,” he said unctuously. “There must be proceedings with all due process to confirm or disprove guilt, absolutely! But I think it would be best if they were handled in the Star Court with all available speed, precision, and discretion”—in other words, secretly and hastily—“and the prisoners segregated. If there’s actual subversion within the party’s highest echelons, we will need to obtain absolute proof before we arrest a party commissioner. And if not—again, it would be best if it were handled quietly. The scope for embarrassment is enormous and it would reflect badly on the party as an institution.”

Fowler shrugged. “It can be done, but it’ll cost you,” he said bluntly. “There’s a new interrogation and processing block scheduled for development on Long Island. Or I could do you a prison hulk.”

“A prison hulk?” Reynolds’s eyes lit up: “Capital! That would be just the ticket!” After the initial shock, he’d paid close attention to Cheung’s sales pitch—and spent time in subsequent meetings attempting to deduce the limitations of the world-walkers’ abilities. A steam yacht with decent owner’s quarters and a train with sleeping car were already on his department’s budget—officially to make it easier for the commissioner for internal security to travel safely between offices, unofficially to insure his safety against world-walking killers. “Do you have anything offshore near the Massachusetts coastline? Preferably with an antimutiny plug?” (Explosive scuttling charges had proven a most effective tool in preventing prison mutinies under the ancien regime.)

“I think something along those lines can be provided.” Fowler pulled out a notebook. “How many berths do you need, and when and where will the arrests take place?”

“Number: unknown, but not more than a thousand at the absolute maximum. More likely under a hundred in the first instance, then a flow of stragglers for processing. Somewhere within a couple of hours of Boston. To be moored in deep water—not less than thirty feet beneath the keel—and not less than a mile offshore. If you could set it up within the next two days I would be eternally grateful…?”

“I’ll see what we can do.” Fowler put his notebook away. “I take it the detainees are, er, disposable?”

“If necessary.” Reynolds nodded.

“I didn’t hear that,” Jennings said fastidiously.

“Of course not.”

“Jolly good, then.” Jennings stood. “I’ll see that a circuit tribunal under Star Rules is at your men’s disposal in Boston two days hence. Now if you don’t mind, I have a dreadful pile of paperwork to catch up on…?” He sighed. “These wreckers and subversives! I swear we’re going to run out of rope before they’re all hanged.”

*   *   *

The fortified great house had seen better days: Its walls were fire-scorched, half the downstairs windows were bricked up, the hastily applied mortar still weeping salts across the stone blocks of its facade, and the stable doors had been crudely removed. But it was still inhabitable—which counted for something—and the ten-meter radio mast sprouting from the roofline made it clear who its inhabitants must be.

“You wanted to see me, sir.”

The office on the second floor had once been a squire’s wife’s boudoir; it still smelled faintly of rosewater and gunpowder. The bed had been broken up for firewood and scrap, used to reinforce the shutters during the brief siege, and today the room was dominated by a green folding aluminum map table.

“Yes. Come in, sit down, make yourself comfortable. I’ve got Pepsi if you need a drink.”

“That would be wonderful, sir.”

Rudi sat tensely on the narrow edge of the camp chair while Earl-Major Riordan poured him a mug of foaming brown cola with his own hands. The lack of a batman did not escape his notice, but if Riordan wanted to preserve the social niceties … It must be bad news, he decided, a hollowness below his ribs waiting to be filled by the exotic imported beverage.

“I want to pick your brains about aircraft,” Riordan said stiffly. “Think of this as an informal brainstorming session. Nothing we discuss is for ears beyond this room, by the way.”

Really? Rudi leaned forward. “Brainstorming, sir?”

Riordan sighed. “Her Majesty”—he paused, and poked at a paper on his desk—“has written me a letter, and you’re the man to answer it.” He looked slightly pained, as if his lunch had disagreed with his digestion.

“Sir.”

“You know about the British.” They spoke hochsprache. “She is talking to them. She wants an aircraft. Something that can be built for them within two years and that outstrips anything they can imagine. Something for war.”

“To be built there?” Rudi shook his head. “I thought they were stuck in the steam age?”

“They have aircraft. Two wings, spaced above each other like so”—Riordan gestured—“slow, lumbering