Charles Stross - The Revolution Business

"Uh." Huw took a mouthful of coffee. "What's your reasoning?"

"Well. You're the one who just told me you thought our ability was artificial? And we've established that someone else-let's take your door into a vacuum realm as a given-has a way of moving stuff between time lines-yes, I'm going to take the idea that we're in a bunch of parallel universes that branch off each other as a given. New Britain really rubs your nose in it-and I think if they can just open a door then we have to admit that what the Clan can do? The postal corvée? Is a joke."

Miriam closed her eyes for a moment. "The Council are so not going to want to hear this. And it's not the worst of it."

"There's more?" Huw stared at her, fascinated. Have you figured out the other thing?…

"Okay, let's speculate wildly. There are other people out there who can travel between parallel worlds. They're better at it than us, and they know what they're doing. That's really bad, right there, but not necessarily fatal. However… we've been pointedly ignoring, all along, the fact that what we do isn't magical. It's not unique. It's like, after 1945, the government pretended for a few years that making nuclear weapons was some kind of big secret. Then the Russians got the bomb, and the Brits, and the Chinese, and before you can blink we're worrying about the North Koreans, or the Iranians. What the Clan Council needs to worry about is the US government-who they've spent the past few decades systematically getting mad at them-and who now know we exist. What do you think?"

"But we don't know how the world-walking mechanism works. It's got to take them time-"

Miriam took another mouthful of coffee. "They've had seven or eight months, Huw. That's how long it's been since Matthias went over the wall. And there's"-she paused, as if considering her words-"stuff that's happened, stuff that will turn hunting us down into a screaming crash priority, higher than al Qaida, higher than the Iraq occupation. They've got to be throwing money at…" She trailed off.

"I don't think they'll have got anywhere yet." Huw reached for the coffee pot again, emptying the dregs into their mugs. "It takes time to organize a research project and they'll be doing it under conditions of complete secrecy."

"Yes, but they've already got the big national laboratories. And if they've got captive Clan members they're starting from where the Clan stood, as of forty-eight hours ago. And they could have started months ago! It all depends on whether the problem they're trying to crack is a hard one or an easy one. If we've got some kind of mechanism that lets us do this, then it's designed to replicate, and there's got to be some sort of control system wired into our brains-are you telling me nobody has put bits of a Clan member under an electron microscope before to look for anomalies?"

"You've met enough of your cousins by now. How many brain surgeons did you spot?" Huw looked defensive. "It wasn't a high priority."

"Well it is, now. Because if they can figure out what makes us world-walk, they're probably halfway to mass-producing it. Given they've got scouts in the Gruinmarkt-"

"They've got what?" Huw sat bolt-upright.

"Eh." Miriam cocked her head to one side. "Forget I said that?"

"Sure… can I finish your sentence?"

"Um…"

"Right now, any scouts they can send our way are going to be riding piggyback. Lightning Child knows how they're making the couriers cooperate, but nothing would surprise me: The current administration are so Machiavellian they make Prince Egon like a White House intern. But what you're speculating about is how long we've got until there's a large-scale incursion." Her expression made him look for other words. "Invasion. Is that what you're thinking?"

Miriam nodded. "I- No, we-have got to talk to Angbard, and fast. Whatever the prince has been up to back, uh, home"-he spotted the moment's deliberation before she chose the word-"it's a sideshow compared to what's coming. I don't know how long we've got, but I'd guess it's going to be weeks to months, not months to years." She pushed her empty mug away. "Do you have Google on that laptop of yours?"

"What are you thinking of trawling for?"

"News items. Foreign stuff, not more shit about Paris Hilton's funeral; I want to hear about anything that suggests that State is planning a hasty exit from Iraq. They're not going to try and occupy Iraq and Afghanistan and invade the Gruinmarkt simultaneously, are they?" She slid off her bar stool, visibly jittery. Iraq had been a ghastly object lesson in what the current administration could do to people they didn't like: the increasingly desperate pleas of the coup plotters after they deposed Saddam, the cringing threats of gas attacks in event of invasion-and in response, the huge B52 raids on Baghdad. All of it had been calculated to send a message, this is what you get if you mess with us.

"Depends." Huw reached over and switched off the coffee maker. "Don't they have some kind of doctrine about being able to fight two wars simultaneously, anywhere on the planet? And the supply lines to the Gruinmarkt are real short, if they can build a world-walking machine. Or gate."

"And mostly they'd be up against irregulars with muskets. They could roll over in their sleep and crush us, if-"

A door slammed in the passage. Moments later, Brill darted into the kitchen. "Oh. There you are!" Visibly agitated, she focused on the coffee pot. "Ah, you emptied it. Huw. Have you brought the e-mail service to life?"

"Not yet, I was going to-"

"Scheisse." Brill glanced aside. "I'm sorry, milady. The news is bad. I must get in touch right away. Huw, if you would be so good-"

"What's happened?" demanded Miriam.

"My pager ordered me to call in, in the clear-maximum urgency. It's the duke, my lady. I'm afraid there's been an accident."

There was a room on one of the upper floors of the Hjalmar Palace with a huge canopied bed in it, and the bed stank of death and uncontrolled bowels. Lady Olga sat on the edge of the bed and spoke to its occupant, as a medic cleaned him and a soldier stood by waiting to replace the fouled sheets.

He'd been strong once, and clever and ruthless, a bulwark for his allies and a terror to his faction's foes, during the years of madness when the Clan's member families had engaged in a bloody succession of mortal feuds. Then, as the madness receded, he'd helped broker a series of treaties-some on paper, others cemented by blood in marriage-to disarm the worst of the remaining hostilities. He'd risen to dominate the Clan's external security apparat, modernizing it and turning it into the glue that bound the new settlement together. The hammer of the council, his combination of force and guile had cowed the hotheads and brought the wily to his table. But he was just one man-now paralyzed on one side and barely conscious, lonely and adrift in what might be his deathbed.

"We're holding out," she said quietly, touching his immobile left hand, hoping against hope for a reaction. "Earl Fredryck's observers report that the federal presence at the doppelganger site is continuing, but all our people made it across ahead of the siege. We have plenty of ammunition. The monarchists dropped the culvert from the river, and attempted to poison the well, but the osmotic purifier is working. Earl Riordan reports that the pretender's army is encamped athwart the valley just downriver of the bend, `tween here and Wergatsfurt. The scouts are already preparing a route for us through New Britain, once Riordan's men have manufactured a sufficiency of knotwork badges."

The duke made an odd noise in the back of his throat, something between a cluck and a gurgle. Olga leaned close, trying to discern words. His eyes rolled, agitated: "Guh-uh…"