The Ultimate Secret

by David Thomas Moore

  Ledgerwood stopped pacing and threw himself onto a chaise. “Heh. He is pretty smart.”

  “You’ve somehow satisfied those old priests that he’ll be innocent, but predisposed to obey Islamic law – and don’t bother trying to explain to me how you did that – and he can even make himself smarter.”

  “But he doesn’t actually know anything now, Hotston. Maybe a hundred words of English. Can’t even play chess, yet.”

  “So?” Hotston spread one hand out, with a flourish. “We make that a feature. His Highness never did let us know what he wants the machine to do. We’ll tell him we made a machine that he can teach, and guide. A child, to mould as he wishes, and to one day guide him.”

  “Hmm...” Ledgerwood scratched his chin idly. “Could work?”

  “We’ll even offer our services to stay here and teach it. Hell, we could get more money out of him.”

  “That’s not a half-bad idea, Hotston. We’ll get him to talk to the machine, show him how curious it is.”

  Hotston smiled broadly. “Perfect.” He raised his glass. “Here’s to another six months, and another six thousand pounds!”

  SUTTON, SURREY, MAGNA BRITANNIA, 1998

  MR SAHIN STOP PLEASED TO RECEIVE YOUR MESSAGE STOP MOST FLATTERED HIS HIGHNESS HAS EVEN HEARD OF ME STOP WILL GLADLY ACCEPT YOUR OFFER OF SIX MONTHS WORK STOP MONEY SOUNDS VERY GENEROUS STOP ON MY WAY BY SOONEST STOP TRAIN DUE TO ARRIVE AT ISTANBUL SIRKECI ON TWENTY EIGHTH OF MONTH AT THIRTEEN FORTY PLEASE ARRANGE TO COLLECT STOP JANE MATTHEWS

  ISTANBUL, THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE, 1998

  SIX THOUSAND POUNDS.

  Six thousand pounds, for six months’ worth.

  It hardly seemed believable.

  “So those are the terms, Mrs Matthews,” finished the Vizier, setting down the pot and passing her a delicate china cup. “What do you think? You can still turn around and go home now, if you wish; His Highness will gladly pay your travel costs regardless.”

  She fussed over her tea for a moment, adding a slice of lemon and a spoonful of sugar, giving herself a moment to gather her thoughts.

  The Sultan himself leaned back in his seat by the window, regarding her. She found him hard to read; he wore a full beard and one of those red felt hats everyone wore – fezzes? – even inside, which didn’t help, but to cap it all he hadn’t spoken more than half a dozen words in the whole interview, and only one word – “Hello” – in English. Mr Sahin had spoken throughout the meeting.

  “It’s Miss Matthews, if you please, Mr Sahin,” she corrected.

  The Vizier smiled placatingly and spread his hands. “My apologies, Miss Matthews. I will be sure and remember.”

  Jane straightened and sipped at her tea, reflecting. “It all seems very reasonable, to be honest, Mr Sahin. Although I am not sure it is appropriate for me to have a gentleman attendant. Besim has been nothing but proper, and seems a charming young man, but for appearances’ sake, I wonder if I might have a maid?”

  Mr Sahin looked momentarily confused, but nodded. “If you wish, Miss Matthews, but I can assure you there will be no reason to concern yourself on that front with Besim.”

  What a strange thing to say! “Well, I would appreciate it,” Jane insisted.

  “Of course.”

  She set her cup down again and shifted in her seat. The heat was stifling.

  “Now, as to my pupil, whose identity you’ve so carefully avoided divulging. I assume I’m to tutor one of the Sultan’s children?”

  The Vizier coughed, and looked briefly uncomfortable. “Not one of His Highness’s children, Miss Matthews. His machine.”

  “I’m sorry?” Jane had been adjusting her gloves and now froze, one hand caught in the act of tugging at the opposite wrist. “Teach a machine? Teach it what?”

  Mr Sahin smiled hugely and leaned back. “How to think, Miss Matthews! Osman is a truly remarkable machine, built by two countrymen of yours. He has such curiosity and such wonder! But he knows so little, and yearns to understand.”

  “But – But I don’t know the first thing about analytics. I’m a schoolmistress!” She looked from the Vizier’s face to the Sultan’s. Mehmet beamed and nodded.

  “You come highly recommended, Miss Matthews,” Mr Sahin said. “I have read your articles in the School Masters’ Review on the theory of learning and was very impressed. This is why we insisted on you. Osman does not need to be programmed; he needs to learn, to be guided through this world by an understanding master. And it is my belief – mine and His Highness’s – that you are the master, or mistress, for this task.”

  “Thank... thank you.” Jane let her hands fall into her lap and clasped them together. “In that case, I suppose... But teach it what? What exactly is it intended to do?”

  The Vizier paused for a moment, then steepled his hands and raised them to his lips. The sunlight glittered on his rings. He held that pose for a moment, hesitating, as though debating how to proceed.

  “Miss Matthews, what follows must be kept in confidence, at least for now.”

  “Of course, Mr Sahin.” Jane sat up straighter again, adopting her best professional mien.

  He nodded, once. “His Highness has many sons, Miss Matthews, but they have been... disappointing. Court life has spoiled them.”

  Jane frowned. “I’m sorry to hear that. But you said I’m not here to teach them.”

  “Not at all, Miss Matthews. They are all fully grown. No, Miss Matthews; it has occurred to His Highness that the strength of the Empire lies ultimately with its ruler, who must be loving father and stern shepherd to all his people. And if he wishes to leave behind him an Empire that will last forever, then perhaps what he needs is an Emperor who will last.

  “A wise Emperor, Miss Matthews, who sees and understands all of his people; an Emperor undistracted by worldly matters, created and reared by the brightest, most progressive nation in the world. An Emperor, Miss Matthews, for the future...”

  COMPANY MAN

  You must be the change you wish to see in the world.

  – Mahatma Ghandi (1869 – 1948)

  MUMBAI, THE BRITISH RAJ, 1999

  “SO, MISS...” THE man peered ostentatiously down at the sheet of paper on the desk in front of him, but his eyes skipped over it without focusing. An affectation, then. “...Sabharwal. Yes?” He looked over his glasses at her, smiling affably, a little absently.

  “Kumari. Kim. My... my mother calls me Kim.” Inwardly, Kim swore at herself. Why had she said that? Be professional. Speak when spoken to. Don’t waffle, don’t say any more than you have to. You need this. She stared straight ahead, just over his right shoulder, and tried not to look as nervous as she felt. The man – Call me Smith, he’d said, although he was at least as Indian as she was – regarded her mildly for a moment, then continued.

  “Kim? Very well. So, Kim. Why come to me? What brought you here?”

  Kim shifted her weight slightly, stopped herself from crossing her arms. “Work, sir. I need work. Mother’s ill, sir, and there’s no-one else. My brothers need to stay in school. I tried to get work on the new building sites, but they said I was too small. One of the men said to come here, to ask for you. Said you sometimes had work for people... for people like me.” She bit down on another sir. Damn! She was better than this. She focused on her breathing, strove to remember the little meditation her grandfather had taught her.

  Smith leaned back in his chair, which creaked beneath him. His belly – unusual in Mumbai, or for an Indian man in Mumbai, but then it was unusual to see an Indian man on that side of a desk at all – strained at his suit. An English suit, she thought; jacket and waistcoat.

  “People like you?” he asked, in the same gentle tone, although she thought the air grew a little more tense. “People with sick mothers? People with” – he glanced at the sheet in front of him – “excellent school results? Really very young women?” He laced his hands over his belly. It was hard to read him, behind his moustache and his round-lensed glasses. The room was gloomy, th
e blinds behind her pulled low to block out the afternoon sun, but stray beams of light struck his glasses when he moved, and his eyes – dark eyes, but bland, as if he had blinds behind them as well – came and went behind flashes of brilliant white. He allowed the question to hang in the air for a few seconds, and then continued. “Or do you mean half-castes?”

  Kim’s cheeks burned. She shrugged, then stopped herself and straightened her back again. “Yes, sir.”

  He nodded once, to himself, and looked down at her resume again. She followed his eyes. The desk was old; the dark wood battered and nicked, the green leather stained and ripped.

  “Why didn’t you try at the offices of the British East India Company?” he asked. “These results really are outstanding; even if you couldn’t afford to go to university, you could have found work as a clerk.” He looked back up at her.

  She hesitated. “Because–” She wasn’t sure how to proceed. Did he really not know how the East India Company operated? Was this a test? “Because you can’t. They only hire English people. Even half-castes only have a chance if they have someone to vouch for them. Everybody knows that.”

  “Indeed,” he said, shifting in his seat. “Well, if everyone knows it, it must be true. And your mother? She couldn’t help?”

  Kim shook her head. “No, sir. My mother... she left Britannia under a cloud. Didn’t get on with her family. The Dashwoods... she’d argued with her uncle.”

  “Ah, yes. Of course.” He fell silent and focused on her resume again. The smells of cooking – sauces, spices, grilling meat – wafted through the window from the market outside the building, and Kim’s stomach rumbled. She’d missed breakfast.

  “Beautiful woman, your mother,” he said at last. “Everyone loved her.”

  “Sir?” Kim stared at him.

  “Smith, Kim. I said, call me Smith.”

  “It’s not your name, though, is it, si – Mr Smith?”

  He looked up from the paper and stared at her, and his eyes were clear this time, piercing. “Do you know what I do here, Kim?”

  “Well...” Kim hesitated again. She wasn’t sure what would be politic, but had the feeling that Smith wanted her to be honest, no matter what. “The sign on the door says ‘imports and exports.’”

  “That’s right.” Smith nodded once, but continued to hold her in his gaze.

  “If I had to guess–”

  “I do not want you to guess, Kim,” said Smith. “You may observe and reason; from what I can tell, it is something at which you will excel.”

  “Yes, Mr Smith. In that case... I’d say you were a spy. Or a criminal.”

  “Indeed?” Smith smiled and leaned back in his seat again. “And how do you feel about being in here with a spy, or criminal?”

  Kim thought for a moment, looking at the walls. A cluster of framed certificates hung on the wall behind Smith, with a different name on each one. Kapur, Patel, Siriwardana. “Well... I’d say if you were that worried about people knowing what you do, you’d be a little more careful about how you presented yourself. I’d say you do business based on people realising you’re a spy or a criminal, but not saying anything about it. Like a polite lie. Because sometimes people need to work with a spy or a criminal, but have to be able to deny that they knew it.”

  Smith chuckled. “You’re a bright girl, Kim.” He looked down at the resume again for a moment, then said, “I am a little of both. And yes, I do have work, and I often take on people of your heritage. You belong to two worlds, Kim; you’re uniquely suited to certain lines of work. Like crime, for instance. Or espionage.”

  He fell silent again, and Kim wasn’t sure if an answer was required. “Mr Smith?” she ventured.

  “Hm? Most people just call me Smith, Kim.” He smiled.

  “Smith, then. How did you know my mother?”

  “Oh,” he said, looking distant for a moment. “I didn’t, really. I knew your father. We took a history class together in university. I met your mother through him, but I wouldn’t say I ever really knew her. She didn’t really approve of me.”

  “Why not?” Kim found herself moving towards the faded leather chair near her, stopped herself from sitting.

  “We had... dangerous ideas, I suppose. We used to talk of a free India. Our history professor – Dr Ghandi, he was called; Mohandas Ghandi – spoke of a peaceful uprising. He’d been involved in the disturbances back in the ’forties, seen what happens when we try to fight the East India Company and their automaton sepoys. Your father had disagreed, thought the Indian people could be strong, united. I could never decide, argued with both men.

  “Your mother thought it was all rot, and dangerous talk to boot. The Company has people everywhere, looking out for sedition, listening to every conversation.”

  “So what happened?”

  He shrugged. “We stopped. Graduated, went our separate ways. I haven’t spoken to your mother since around the time you were born.”

  “But what–”

  Smith held up his hand. “And we have gone on in this vein for too long, and my time is valuable. You came to me for work, and work I have.”

  “Yes, Smith.” Kim straightened, her head spinning. Her mother rarely spoke of her father, and when she did it was only to speak of how handsome he was, how devoted a husband and father he’d been. Her grandfather, Manvir, could only tell stories of his childhood, in the little village inland where he grew up.

  Smith reached for a manila folder on his desk, handed it to her. “Simple enough job. Collect two men from the docks, take them to an address. They have a job to do there. Then you’ll collect a package from the address and bring it back here. Be careful; you’ll very likely be followed. You must lose anyone following you and return.”

  Kim flipped through the file. Two pictures of Englishmen; engineers of some sort. A time, a ship name. An address, some basic instructions. She looked up, met his gaze. “And–”

  “You’ll be paid a thousand rupees for your trouble. If you perform this task to my satisfaction, there will be more work.”

  “But I–”

  “Another time, Kim,” said Smith, raising his hand. “Do this for me and we’ll talk about your father another time.”

  Wordlessly, Kim nodded and walked out. The Englishmen’s ship was due in an hour, and she needed to eat.

  “RUDDY INDIA,” SAID Ledgerwood, already sweating in his tweed suit as he emerged from the fan-cooled deck into the afternoon sun, heaving his trunk behind him. “Why can’t we be somewhere civilised, eh?”

  “I don’t understand why you’re even dressed that way,” said Hotston, coming up behind him with a small valise. His sleeves were held up with St Georges and his shirt open at the neck; his own jacket had been stowed away a week into the journey and not emerged since.

  “We’re meeting a new client, aren’t we?” Ledgerwood rumbled. “Best foot forward and all that.”

  “That’s not really how things are done here. People are sensible about the weather.”

  “How do you know that, then? And why am I dragging the ruddy trunk?” Ledgerwood dropped the offending luggage with a dramatic flourish and a startling bang. Several of the other passengers looked at him curiously.

  “You offered to, as I recall. I’m sure we can get a porter when we get to the dock. And I know it because my mother’s Indian, you pillock.”

  “I thought she lived in Berkshire.”

  “She does. She wasn’t born there.”

  “Hmph. Anyway, I didn’t mean the heat. Why’re we in India, of all places? The telegraphy’s rotten in the cities and nonexistent anywhere else. What are we supposed to achieve here? We’re analyticists. Even if we were in Calcutta, I’d understand it – we could work at the university – but bloody Mumbai?”

  Hotston took hold of the handle on the trunk, heaved it up and scanned the docks, looking for any sign they were expected. Between disembarking passengers, people meeting them, sailors, dock-workers and beggars, it was too much a melee to
tell. He shrugged and headed for the gangway.

  “Mumbai’s come a long way, Matthew. Everything’s on the up and up; they’re calling it the ‘city of cranes,’ now.” And the city that crowded the deep harbour was that, at least. Hotston counted a dozen new building sites at least before giving up, all for modern Britannian high-rises. Tent cities had sprung up around and between the sites; temporary slums to house the construction workers. “Anyway, it’s not an analytics job; it’s cryptography. We’re decoding some sort of message. That’s why we’ve got Rosie, here.” He hefted the trunk.

  “Hmph.” Ledgerwood had removed his jacket now and draped it over his left arm. He had succeeded in digging out his ticket and was fanning himself. “And that’s supposed to be reassuring, is it? Has it occurred to you, Stewart old boy, that this signal we are decoding will be arriving by telegraph? The very same telegraph, as I was just saying, that drops out completely half the time, and suffers a ten-to-twenty-per cent loss the rest? We’ll be four bloody days just getting a coherent signal before we can even warm your new toy up.”

  ‘Rosie’ was a gift from their new, mysterious employer, a Rosworth Mk IV Cryptological Decoder, a single-function portable analytical engine hardwired to decode encrypted signals. She was a limited thinker, compared with some of the devices they were used to working with, but good at what she was made for, and designed to reprogram herself, adding each code she cracked to her database, which she cross-referenced to find common elements whenever she encountered a new one. Ledgerwood hadn’t performed decryption since their undergraduate days, but he hadn’t forgotten the principles.