The Family Trade tmp-1

by Charles Stross

  “You’re telling me.” She noticed her fingers turning white around the rim of her coffee cup. “So presumably Uncle Angbard will make life hard for me if I try to take off and he wants me to marry someone who’s a not-too-close family member.”

  “That’s an understatement.” Roland’s cheek twitched. “It’s not as if the council would give him any other options,” he muttered.

  “What else?” Miriam asked as the silence grew uncomfortable.

  “Well!” Roland shook himself and sat up. He began ticking off points on his fingers, his movements precise and economical and tense. “We are expected to abide by the rules. First, when you come over here, you stop by the post room in each direction and carry whatever’s waiting there. You get a free pass this time, but not in the future. Second, you check with Security before you go anywhere. They’ll probably want you to carry a mobile phone or a pager, or a bodyguard if the security condition is anything but blue-blue for cold. Oh, and third-” he reached into an inner pocket-“the duke anticipated that you might want to go shopping, so he asked me to give you this.” He passed her an envelope, the hint of a smile tugging at his lips.

  “Hmm.” Miriam opened it. There was an unsigned silvery-coloured Visa card inside with her name on it “Hey, what’s this?”

  “Sign it.” He offered her a pen, looking pleased with himself, then watched while she scribbled on the back. “Your estate is in escrow for now, but you should consider this an advance against your assets, which are reasonably large.” His grin widened. “There may be problems with the family, but spending money isn’t one of them.”

  “Oh.” She slid it into her purse. “Any other messages from the duke?”

  “Yes.” Roland managed a straight face. “He said, ‘Tell her she’s got a two-million-dollar credit limit and to try not to spend it all at once.’”

  Miriam swore in a distinctly unladylike manner.

  He laughed briefly. “It’s your money, Miriam-Countess Helge. The import/export trade your ancestors pioneered is lucrative, and you can certainly earn your keep through it. Now how about we visit the post room so I can do my business, and then maybe you can do whatever it is that you need to do?”

  The post room was a concrete-lined subbasement, with pigeonholes sized to accommodate the big wheeled aluminium suitcases that the family used for “mail.” Roland picked a clipboard from the wall and read through it. “Hmm. Just two cases to FedEx today and that’s it.”

  “Suitcases.” She looked at them dubiously, imagining all sorts of illegal contraband.

  “Yes. Help me. Take that one. Yes, the handle locks into place as the wheels come out.”

  Struggling slightly, Miriam tugged the big suitcase out of the post room and into the stark cargo elevator next to it. Roland hit the button for the basement, and they lurched upward.

  “What’s in these things?” she asked after a moment. “Tell me if it’s none of my business.” I’m not sure I want to know, she thought, unable to avoid a flashback to the meeting in Joe’s office, the threats on her phone.

  “Oh, it’s perfectly legal,” Roland assured her. “This is all stuff that is cheap enough in Gruinmarkt and Soffmarkt or the other kingdoms of the coast and wants shipping to the Outer Kingdom -that would be California and Oregon -on this side. On the other side, there are no railroads or airports and cargo has to go by mule train across the Great Plains and the Rocky Mountains. Which are full of nomad tribes, so it takes months and is pretty risky. We bring our goods across to this side, heavily padded, and ship them by FedEx. The most valuable items in here are the sealed letters sent by the family post-we charge several times their weight in gold in return for a postal service that crosses the continent in a week. We also move intelligence. Our western Clan members-the Wu family, formerly known as Arnesen, and braided with the eastern families-exchange information with us. By coordinating our efforts, we can protect our traditional shipping on the other side from large bandit tribes like the Apache. It also helps us exert political leverage beyond our numbers. For example, if the Emperor Outside dies and there is a succession struggle, we can loan the Wu family funds with which to ensure a favourable outcome and do so long before news would otherwise reach us across the continental divide.”

  Miriam’s eyes were nearly bulging as she tried to make sense of this. “You mean there’s no telegraph?” she asked.

  “We are the telegraph,” he told her. “As for the rest of what’s in these suitcases, it’s mostly stuff that only comes from the east and is expensive in the west. Like, for example, diamonds from India. They’re expensive enough in the Grainmarkt and almost impossible to get in the Outer Kingdom -it’s much cheaper to ship them across the Boreal Ocean by barque than the western ocean by junk, especially since the Mongols refuse to trade with the east. Or penicillin. The ability to guarantee that a prince’s wife will not die of childbed fever is worth more than any amount of precious stones.”

  “And going the other way…”

  “More messages. More diplomatic intelligence. Spices and garnets and rubies and gold from the Outer Kingdom ’s mines.”

  Miriam nodded. The elevator doors opened onto the underground garage, and she followed him out into the concrete maze.

  Several vehicles were parked there, including a long black Mercedes limousine-and her own slightly battered Saturn. Roland headed for the Merc. “Once we’ve fitted your car with some extras, you can use it-if you want,” he said. “But you can use any of the other cars here, too.”

  Miriam shook her head, taking in a sleek Jaguar coupe parked behind a concrete column. “I’m not sure about that,” she murmured. What would it do for my independence? she wondered, watching as Roland opened the Mercedes’s trunk and lifted the suitcases into it. The two-million-dollar card in her purse was much more intoxicating than the wine last night, but didn’t feel as real. I’ll have to try it, she realized. But what if I get addicted?

  The Mercedes was huge, black, and carried almost a ton of armour built into its smoothly gleaming bodywork. Miriam only realized this when she tried to open the passenger side door-it was heavy, and as it swung open she saw that the window was almost two inches thick and had a faint greenish tint. She sat down, pulled her seatbelt on, and tugged the door shut. It thudded into position as solidly as a bank vault.

  “You’re serious about being attacked,” she said soberly.

  “I don’t want to alarm you,” said Roland, “but the contents of those two suitcases are worth the equivalent of twenty million dollars each on the other side. And there are several hundred active family members that we know of-and possibly ones we don’t in hidden cells established by their family elders to gain a competitive edge over their rivals in the Clan. You’re unusual in that you’re a hidden one who was never intended to be hidden. The families in camera could raid us, and unless we took precautions we’d be sitting ducks. A young man like Vincenze-” he shrugged-“maybe a bit more mature. Waiting on a street corner. Can set off a bomb or walk up behind someone and shoot him, then just vanish into thin air. Unless there’s a doppelganger on the other side or maybe a hill where over here there’s a cleared area, there’s no way of stopping that.”

  “Twenty million.”

  “At a very approximate exchange rate,” Roland offered, starting the engine. Bright daylight appeared from an electrically operated door at the top of the exit ramp. He put the Mercedes in gear and gently slid forward. “We’re fairly safe, though. This car has been customized by the same people that made Eduard Shevardnadze’s car. The President of the Republic of Georgia.”

  “Should that mean something?” asked Miriam.

  “Two RPG-7s, an antitank mine, and eighty rounds from a heavy machine gun. The passengers survived.”

  “I hope we’re not going to encounter that sort of treatment,” she said with feeling, reaching sideways to squeeze his fingers.

  “We aren’t.” He squeezed back briefly, then accelerated up the ramp. “But there�
�s no harm in taking precautions.”

  They came up out of the ground near Belmont, and Roland chauffeured them smoothly onto the Cambridge turnpike and then 1-95 and the tunnel. They exited the highway near Logan International, and Roland drove toward the freight terminal. Miriam relaxed against the black leather and propped her feet up against the wooden dashboard. It smelled like a very expensive private club, redolent of the stink of money. She’d been in rooms with billionaires before and any number of sharkish venture capitalists, but somehow this was different. Most of the billionaires she knew were manipulative jerks or workaholics, obsessive and insecure about something or other. Roland, in contrast, was “old money”-old and unselfconscious, mature as a vintage wine. So old that he’d never known what it was like to be poor-or even upper-middle class. For a moment, she felt a flash of green-eyed envy-then remembered the two-million-dollar ballast in her purse.

  “Roland, how rich am I?” she asked nervously.

  “Oh, very,” he said casually. He swung the Mercedes into the entrance to a parking lot, where an automatic barrier lifted-also automatically-and then brought them to a halt in front of an anonymous-looking office with a FedEx sign above it. “I don’t know for sure,” he added, “but I think your share may run to almost one percent of the Clan’s net worth. Certainly many millions.”

  “Oh, how marvellous,” she said sarcastically. Then more thoughtfully, “I could pay all Iris’s medical bills out of the petty cash. Couldn’t I?”

  “Yes. Help me with the suitcases?”

  “If you help me sort out Iris’s medical bills. Seriously.”

  “‘Seriously’? Yes, I’ll do that.” She stood up and stretched, then waited while Roland lifted the heavy cases out of the trunk. She took one and followed him as he rolled the other up to the door, swiped a magnetic card, and entered under the watchful eye of a security camera.

  They came to a small office where a middle-aged man in a white shirt and black tie was waiting. ‘Today’s consignment,” said Roland. “I’d like to introduce you to Miriam. She might be making runs on her own in future-if things work out. Miriam, this is Jack. He handles dispatch and customs at this end.”

  “Thank you, sir,” said Jack, handing Roland a board with a three-part form ready to sign. “This is just a formality to confirm I’ve received everything,” he added for her benefit. Balding, overweight, and red-faced, Jack was about as homely as anyone she’d seen since she’d been pitched headfirst into this nightmare of aristocracy. Miriam smiled at him.

  “There, that’s it, then,” he said, taking the papers back from Roland. “Have a nice day, now!”

  “My best to your wife,” Roland replied. “Come on, Miriam. Time to go.”

  “Okay.” She followed him back to the car. He started the engine and eased them back out into the local traffic around the light industrial area. “Where next?”

  “Oh, we pick up the cases for the return leg, then we’re at liberty,” he said. “I thought you wanted to do some shopping? And some other things to see to? How about a couple of hours at Copley Place and messing around Back Bay, then lunch?”

  “Sounds good,” she agreed.

  “Okay.” He pulled over, into another parking lot. “Give me a hand again?”

  “Sure.”

  They got out and Miriam followed him into yet another office. The procedure was the same in reverse: Roland signed a couple of forms and this time collected two identical, ribbed aluminium suitcases, each so heavy that Miriam could barely carry hers. “Right, now into town,” he said after he lifted them both into the car’s trunk. “It’s almost ten o’clock. Think you’ve got time to hit the shops and be back by five?”

  “I’m sure I have.” She smiled at him. “There’s some stuff I could do with your help for, actually. Want to hang around?”

  “Delighted to oblige.”

  The Copley Place shops weren’t exactly ideal, but it was totally covered and had enough stuff in it to keep Miriam occupied for a couple of hours. The platinum card didn’t catch fire-it didn’t even show signs of overheating when she hit Niemann Marcus and some less obvious shops for a couple of evening outfits and an expensive piece of rolling luggage.

  After the first half hour, Roland did what many polite heterosexual men did: zoned out and smiled or nodded whenever she asked him for an opinion. Which was exactly what Miriam was hoping for, because her real goal wasn’t to fill her wardrobe with evening dresses and expensive lingerie (although that was an acceptable side effect) but to pull out a bundle of cash and use some of it to buy certain accessories. Such as a prepaid mobile phone and a very small Sony laptop with a bundle of software (“If I can’t go back home, I’ll need something to write my articles on,” she pointed out to Roland, hoping he wouldn’t figure out how big a loss-leader that would make it). She finished her spree in a sports shop, buying some outdoors tools, a pocket GPS compass, and a really neat folding solar panel, guaranteed to charge her laptop up-which she picked up while he was poking around a display of expensive hunting tackle.

  She wasn’t totally sure what she was going to do with this stuff, but she had some ideas. In particular, the CD-ROMs full of detailed maps of the continental United States and the other bits of software she’d slipped in under his nose ought to come in handy. Even if they didn’t, she figured that if Angbard expected her to shop like a dizzy teenager, then she ought to get him used to her shopping like a dizzy teenager. That way he ‘II have one less handle on me when I stop, she thought, a trifle smugly.

  Twelve thousand dollars went really fast when she was buying Sony notebooks, and even faster when she switched to Hermes and Escada and less well-known couture. But it felt unreal, like play money. Some of the clothes would have %› be altered to fit, and delivered: She took them anyway. ‘1 figure it can be altered on the other side,” she murmured to Roland by way of explanation. He nodded enthusiastically and she managed to park him for a few minutes in a bookshop next door to her real target, a second hand theatrical clothing shop for an old-fashioned long skirt and shirtwaist that could pass for one of the servants. Theatrical supplier, my ass, she thought. The escape committee is in!

  Around two o’clock she took mercy on Roland, who by this time was flagging, checking his watch every ten minutes and following her around like a slightly dejected dog. “It’s okay,” she said, “I’m about done. How about we catch that lunch you were talking about, then head back to the house? I’ve got to get some of these clothes altered, which means looking up Ma’am Rosein, and then I need to spend a couple of hours on the computer.”

  “That’s great,” Roland said with unconcealed sincerity. “How about some clam chowder for lunch?”

  Miriam really didn’t go for seafood, but if it kept him happy that was fine by her. “Okay,” she said, towing along her designer escape kit. “Let’s go eat!”

  They ate. Over lunch she watched Roland carefully. He’s about twenty-eight, she thought. Dartmouth. Harvard. Real Ivy League territory and then some. Classic profile. She sized him up carefully. Shaves well. Looks great. No visible bad habits, painfully good manners. If there wasn’t clearly something going on, I’d be drooling. Wouldn’t I? She thought. In fact, maybe there’s something in that? Maybe that’s why Angbard is shoving us together. Or not. I need to find out more about the skeletons in the Clan closet and the strange fruit rotting on the family tree. And there were worse ways of doing that than chatting with Roland over lunch.

  “Why is your uncle putting you on my case?” she finally asked over dessert, an exquisite crème Brule. “I mean, what’s your background? You said he was thinking one step ahead. Why you?”

  “Hrrm.” Roland stirred sugar into his coffee, then looked at her with frank blue eyes. “I think your guess is as good as mine.”

  “You’re unmarried.” She kicked herself immediately afterward. Very perceptive, Ms. Holmes.

  “As if that matters.” He smiled humourlessly. “I have an attitude problem.”

>   “Oh?” She leaned forward.

  “Let’s just say, Angbard wants me where he can keep an eye on me. They sent me to college when I was eighteen,” he said morosely. “It was-well, it was an eye-opener. I stayed for four years, then applied to Harvard immediately. Economics and history. I thought I might be able to change things back home. Then I decided I didn’t want to go back. After my first year or so, I’d figured out that I couldn’t stay over here just on the basis of my name-I’d have to work. So I did. I wasn’t much of one for the girls during that first degree-” he caught her speculative look-“or the boys.”

  “So?” Personal Memo: Find out what they think of sex, as opposed to marriage. The two are not always interchangeable. “What next?”

  “Well.” He shrugged uncomfortably. “I wanted to stay over here. I got into a postgrad research, program, studying the history of economic development in the Netherlands. Met a girl named Janice along the way. One thing led to another.”

  “You wanted to marry her?” asked Miriam.

  “Sky father, no!” He looked shocked. “The Clan council would never have stood for it! Even if it was just over here. But I could buy us both a house over here, make believe that-” He stopped, took a sip of coffee, then put his cup down again. All through the process, he avoided Miriam’s gaze.

  “You didn’t want to go back,” she stated.

  “You can cross over twice in a day, in an hour, if you take beta-blockers,” he said quietly. “Speaking of which.” He extracted a blisterpack of pills from his inner pocket and passed it across to her. “They do something about the headaches. You can discharge your duty to Clan and family that way, keep the post moving, and live nine-tenths of your life free of… of… of…”