Charles Stross - The Merchant’s War

"You will talk, boy." Mrs. Beckstcin glared at him, and he recoiled at the anger in her expression. "You can take your chances with me, or you can make your excuses to my half-brother's men, but you are going to talk sooner or later." She glanced at Olga. "Sometimes I can't believe my luck," she said dryly. She turned back to Mike, her expression harsh: "What have you done with my daughter?"

"I- " Mike stopped. Time seemed to slow. My brother's men. Jesus, she's been one of them all along! How deep does this go? He shuddered, his guts churning. Until now he'd known, understood in the abstract, that Miriam was involved with these alien gangsters, narcoterrorists from Middle Earth: even meeting Miriam, dressed up for a medieval wedding in the middle of an exploding castle, hadn't really shaken what he'd thought he knew. But Miriam's mother was a different matter entirely, a disabled middle-aged woman living quietly in a small house in New England suburbia- they're everywhere! He swallowed, choking back hysterical laughter. "I don't know where she went. She said she had a, one of the lockets, got it from a friend. Said she'd be in touch later. There was a pcrp in black, tried to stab her so I shot him-"

"Why?"

"Orders." He cleared his throat. "They told me, talk to her. Offer her whatever she... well, anything."

Mrs. Beckstein glanced at the Russian princess: evidently her expression meant something because a moment later she turned back to him. "You're colluding with Egon."

"Who?" His bewilderment must have been obvious, because a moment later she nodded.

"All right. So how did you get over here?"

Mike stared at her.

Mrs. Beckstein took a deep breath. "Olga. If Mr. Fleming here doesn't answer my questions, you have my permission to shoot him in the kneecap. At will."

"Which one?" asked the Russian princess.

"Whichever you want." Mrs. Beckstein sniffed. "Now, Mike. I want you to understand one thing, and one thing only-I'm concerned for my daughter's well-being. I'm especially concerned when an ex-boyfriend of hers with a highly dubious employment record appears out of nowhere at a-"she coughed "-joyous occasion, and all hell breaks loose. And I am more concerned than you can possibly begin to imagine that she has vanished in the middle of the sound and the fury, because there is an official decree in force that says if she world-walks without the permission of the Clan committee, her life is forfeit. She is my daughter, and blood is thicker than water, and I am going to save her ass. Call it atonement for earlier mis-lakes, if you like: I've not always been a terribly good mother." She leaned closer. "Now, you may be able to help me save her ass. If I think you might be useful to me, I can protect you up, to a point. Or." She nodded at Olga. "Lady Olga is a friend of Miriam's. She's concerned for her welfare, too. Miriam has more friends than she realizes, you see. Thousands and thousands of them... So the question is: are we all agreed that we are friends of Miriam, and that we intend to save her ass'? Or-"she fixed Mike with a vulture stare"-were you stringing her along?"

"No!" he exclaimed. "Whoa. Ow." The weasels had graduated from carnivore school and were working on their diplomas in coyote impersonation. "What do you want to know?"

"Let's start with, how you got over here."

"Same way Matthias got over to our-my-world." He could almost see the lightbulbs going on over Olga's and Mrs. Beckstein's heads. "Family Trade captured a couple of world-walkers. Forced them to carry." He tried to shrug himself into a more comfortable position, half-upright.

"Forced? How?" Olga stared at him. "And what is Family Trade?"

"Collar... bombs. They carry a cargo and come back, Family Trade resets the timer. They don't come back, it blows their head off. When they're not world-walking, FTO keeps them in a high-rise jail."

Mrs. Beckstein interrupted. "Family Trade-this is some spook agency, isn't it?"

"Yes. I'm-seconded-to it. Not my idea. Matt walked into the Boston downtown office while Pete-my partner- and I were on the desk. That's all."

"Ah." Mrs. Beckstein nodded to herself. "And they sent you here because they worked out that Miriam was... okay. I think I get it. Am I right?" She raised an eyebrow.

"Yes, mostly," he said hastily: Olga was still glaring at him from her corner. "We don't have much intel on the ground. Colonel Smith figured she'd be able to develop a spy ring for us, in return for an exit opportunity. He wants informants. I told him it was half-assed and premature, but he ordered the insertion."

"He wants informants, does he?" Mrs. Beckstein grinned. "What do you make of that, Olga?"

Olga's expression of alarm surprised Mike in its intensity, cutting through the fog of drugs: "you can't be serious! That would be treason!"

"It's not treason if it's known to ClanSec in advance." Mrs. Beckstein waved a hand in dismissal. "One man's spy is another man's diplomatic back channel to the other side; it just depends who's playing the game and for what stakes." Her eyes narrowed as she looked at Mike. "Your colonel wants information? Well, he shall have it, and you shall take it to him. But in return, you're going to find my daughter." A brief sideways nod: "you and Lady Olga, that is."

The next day came too early for Erasmus. It was barely a quarter to eight when he checked out of the cheap traveler's hotel he'd stayed in overnight, and walked around to the rear entrance to Hogarth Villas. Lady Bishop's taciturn manservant Edward answered the door, then led him down a servants' passage and a staircase that led to a gloomy basement, illuminated by the dim light that filtered down to the bottom of an air shaft.

"Wait here," said Edward, disappearing round a corner. A moment later, he heard a rattle of keys, and low voices. Then:

"Erasmus!"

He smiled stiffly, embarrassed by his own reaction. "Miriam, it's good to see you again."

"I'd been hoping-" She took two steps towards him, and he found himself suddenly at arm's length; he'd advanced without noticing. "I'm not imagining things?"

"Everything will be alright." His voice sounded shaky in his own ears. "Come on, I'll explain as we go." He forced himself to look past her face, to make eye contact with Edward (who grimaced and shrugged, as if to say you're welcome to her): "Do you have any luggage?"

"It's here." Edward hefted a leather valise. Erasmus took it. "I'll be going now," said the servant, "you know the way out."

A moment later they were alone. He found himself staring at Miriam: she looked back at him with an odd expression, as if she'd never seen him before. Is this all a terrible mistake? He wondered: is she going to be angry with me for sending her here? "You came. For me?"

"As soon as I heard." He found it difficult to talk.

"Well, thank you. I was beginning to worry-" She shivered violently.

"My dear, this isn't the sort of establishment one drops in on unannounced." He noticed her clothing for the first lime; someone had found her a more suitable outfit than the gown she'd worn in Lady Bishop's spy-hole picture, but it would never do-probably a castoff from one of the girls upstairs, threadbare and patched. "Hmm. When I asked them to find you something to wear I was expecting something a little less likely to attract attention."

Her checks colored slightly. "I'm getting sick of hand-me-downs. You've got a plan?"

"Follow me." It was easier than confronting his emotions-predominantly relief, at the moment, a huge and fragile sense that something precious hadn't been shattered, the toppling vase caught at the last moment- and it was nonsense, of course, a distraction from the serious business at hand. He climbed the stairs easily, with none of the agonizing tightness in his chest and the crackling in his lungs that would have plagued him (wo months ago. The parlor was empty, the fireplace unlit. He placed the valise on the table. "Let's see what we've got."

Her shadow fell across the bag as he opened it. "Ah, papers." He opened the leather-bound passport and held the first page up to the light. "That's a good forgery." He felt a Hash of admiration for Margaret's facilities; if he hadn't known better he'd have been certain it was genuine. Below it was a bundle of other documents: birth certificate, residence permit for the eastern provinces, even a-his cheeks colored. "We appear to be married," he murmured.

"Let me see." She reached over and took the certificate. "Damn, I knew something had slipped my mind. Must have been all the champagne at the reception. Dated two days ago, too-what a way to spend a honeymoon." She sighed. "What is it about this month? Everyone seems to want to see me married."

"Lady Bishop probably thought it would be an excellent explanation for travel," he said, heart pounding and vision blurred. The sense of relief had gone, shattered: blown away by a sense of disquiet, the old ache like a pulled tooth that he'd lived with for far too long. The last time he'd seen Annie, alive or dead. "Or perhaps Ed wanted a little joke at our expense. If so, it's in very bad taste." He made to take it from her hand, but Miriam had other ideas.

"Wait up. She's right, if we're traveling together it's a good cover identity." She looked at him curiously. "We're supposed to travel together?"

Erasmus pulled himself together, with an effort. "I'm supposed to take you back to Boston and look after you. Find a way to make her-you-useful, Margaret told me. Personally, I don't know if that's possible or appropriate, but it gives her a respectable excuse to get you off her plate without sticking a knife in you first. What we do afterwards-"

"Okay, I get the idea." Miriam picked up the passport and stared at it, frowning. "Susan Burgeson. Right." She glanced at him. "I could be your long-lost sister or something if you've got trouble with the married couple idea."

He shrugged. Compartmentalize. "It's a cover identity. Nothing more."

She looked thoughtful. "Is Erasmus Burgeson a cover identity, too?"

God's wounds but she's sharp! "If it was, do you think I'd tell you?"

"You'd tell your wife," she said, teasingly-then immediately looked stricken. "Shit! I'm sorry, Erasmus! I'd-it completely slipped my mind. I'm sorry..."

"Don't be," he said tightly. "Not your fault."

"No, me and my-" She took his hand impulsively. "I tend to dig, by instinct. Listen, if you catch me doing it again and it's sensitive, just tell me to back off, all right?"

He took a deep breath. It's not your fault. "Certainly. I think I owe you that much."

"You owe- " She shook her head. "Enough of that. What else have we got?"

"Let's see." The bag turned out to contain a suit of clothes, not new but more respectable than those they'd already given Miriam. "If we're traveling together, you'd probably better change into these first. We'll look less conspicuous together."

"Okay." She paused. "Right here?"

"I'll wait outside."

He stood with his back to the parlor door for a few scant minutes that felt like hours. He spent some of those hours fantasizing about wringing Ed's neck-a necessary proxy, for the thought of challenging Lady Bishop over the matter was insupportable, but damn them! Why did they have to do that, of all things?

Miriam was a sharp knife, too sharp for her own good-sharp enough to cut both ways. Dealing with her as a contact and a supplier of contraband had been dicey, but not impossible. Living with her was an entirely different matter, but it wasn't exactly feasible to stick her in a tenement apartment and leave her to her own devices. She'll figure everything out, sooner rather than later. And then what? The precious vase was back teetering on the edge of the precipice, with no hand in place to catch it this time. And it was full of ashes.