Charles Stross: The Hidden Family

“Someone needs to walk over and yell like hell,” Roland said slowly. Sullivan tensed. “But, I’m working on the assumption that this is deliberate. That bastard Matthias, I’ve been watching him.” It was easy to say this, now. “I sent the kid, what’s his name?”

“Poul,” Bill offered.

“I sent him over alone.” Roland’s eyes went wide. “Shit.”

“What are you thinking?” Sullivan leaned forward.

“My working assumption right now is that Matthias has betrayed the Clan. This is all preplanned. He rigged this raid to cover his escape. So he isn’t going to want any random courier walking into Fort Lofstrom and raising the alarm, is he?”

Sullivan’s eyes narrowed as Roland stood up. “You and I,” he announced, trying to keep his voice from shaking, “are going to cross over together. I know what you’ve been thinking. Listen, Matthias will have left some kind of surprise. It’s going to be a mess. Your job is to keep me alive long enough to get out of the fort. Then there’s a, a back route. One I can use to get word to the Clan, later today. It’ll take me about six or seven hours to get from Fort Lofstrom to Niejwein, and the same again to come back with a bunch of help—every damn courier I can round up. I’m assuming Matthias sent everyone away from the fort before pulling this stunt. Can you hold out for twenty-four hours? Go into the sub-basement storm shelter with all the merchandise and blow the supports, bring the building down on top of you?” He addressed the last question to Bill, the auditor.

“I think so,” Bill said dubiously.

“Right. Then you’re going to have to do that.” Roland met his eyes. “We can’t afford for the feds to lay hands on you. And whatever you think I’m thinking, I figure you’re too valuable to write off. Any family member, inner or outer, is not expendable in my book. Sullivan, think you can handle that?”

Sullivan grinned humorlessly at him. “I’ll do my best.” He nodded at the auditor: “He’ll be back. Trust me on this.”

The extraordinary meeting resumed with an argument. “The floor is open for motions,” quavered the ancient Julius. “Do I hear—”

“I have a motion!” Miriam raised her hand.

“Objection!” snapped Baron Hjorth.

“I think you’ll find she already has the floor,” Angbard bit out. “Let her speak first, then have your say.”

“Firstly, I’d like to move that my venture into New Britain be recognized as a Clan subsidiary,” Miriam said, carefully trying to keep a still face. It was bitterly disappointing to risk ceding control, but as Olga had pointed out, the Clan took a very dim view of members striking out on their own. “As part of this motion I’d like to resolve that the issue of this sixth family be dealt with by participants in this subsidiary, because clearly they’re the members most directly affected by the situation.”

“Objection!” Shouted someone at the back of the hall. “Clan feud takes precedence!”

“Are you saying the Clan can afford to lose more people?” asked Miriam.

“Damn the blood! What about our dead? This calls for revenge!” Ayes backed him up: Miriam forced herself to think fast, knowing that if she let the heckling gather pace she could very easily lose control of the meeting.

“It seems to me that the lost family is sorely depleted,” she began. “They had to send a child to supervise an adult’s job. You know, as I know, that the efficiency of a postal service like the one responsible for the Clan’s wealth is not just a function of how many world-walkers we have. It’s also a function of the number of routes we can send packages over. They’re small, and isolated, and they’re not as numerous as we are. However, rooting them out in the name of a feud will uncover old wounds and risk depleting our numbers for no gain. I’m going to stick my neck out and assert that the next few years are going to be far more dangerous for the Clan than most of you yet realize.”

“Point of order!” It was Baron Hjorth again. “This is rubbish. She’s trying to frighten us. Won’t you—”

“Shut up ,” grated Angbard. “Let her finish a sentence, damn your eyes.”

Miriam waited a moment. “Thank you,” she said. “Factors to think about. Firstly, a new world. This is going to be important because it opens up new opportunities for trade and development, as I’ve already demonstrated. Secondly, the state of the Clan’s current business. I don’t know how to approach this subtly so I won’t: You’re in big trouble.

“To be perfectly blunt, your current business model is obsolescent. You can keep it running for another two to five years, but then it’ll go into a nosedive. In ten years, it’ll be dead. And I’m not just talking about heroin and cocaine shipments. I mean everything.

“You’ll have noticed how hard it has become to launder the proceeds of narcotics traffic on the other side in the past few years. With the current anti-terrorist clampdown and the beefing up of police powers, life isn’t going to get any easier. Things are changing very fast indeed.

“The Clan used to be involved in different types of commerce: gold smuggling, gemstones, anything valuable and lightweight. But those businesses rely on anonymity, and like I said, the anti-terrorist clampdown is making anonymity much harder to sustain. Let me emphasize this, the traditional business models don’t work anymore because they all rely on the same underlying assumption—that you can be anonymous.

“Many of you probably aren’t aware of the importance of electronic commerce, or e-commerce. I’ve been working with specialists covering the development of the field. What you need to know is that goods and services are going to be sold, increasingly, online. This isn’t an attempt to sell you shares in some fly-by-night dot-com; it’s just a statement of fact—communications speed is more important than geographical location, and selling online lets small specialist outfits sell to anyone On the planet. But with the shift to online selling, you can expect cash money to become obsolete. High-denomination euro banknotes already come with a chip, to allow transactions to be traced. How long do you think it’ll be before the greenbacks you rely on stop being anonymous?

“The fat times will be over—and if you’ve spent all your resources pursuing a blood feud, you’re going to be screwed. No money on the other side means no imports. No imports mean no toys, antibiotics, digital watches, whatever to buy the compliance of the landowners. No guns to shoot them with, either. If you try to ignore reality you will be screwed by factors outside your control.

“But this isn’t inevitable. If you act now, you can open up new lines of revenue and new subsidiaries. Take ancient patents from my world, the world you’re used to using as a toy chest, and set up companies around them in the new world, in New Britain. Take the money you raise in New Britain and import books and tools here. Set up universities and schools. Build, using your power and your money to establish factories and towns and laboratories over here. In a couple of generations, you can pull Gruinmarkt out of the mire and start an industrial revolution that will make you a true world power, whether or not you depend on the family talent.

“You can change the world—if you choose to start now, by changing the way you think about your business.”

There was total silence in the hall. A puzzled silence, admittedly, but silence—and one or two nodding heads. Just let them keep listening, Miriam thought desperately. Then voices began to pipe up.

“I never heard such a—”