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"Any given knot, starting in any given world, seems to act as a binary switch: Focus on it and you can walk from your starting world into a single destination determined by the knot you use."
Someone had thoughtfully placed a wine goblet by her laptop. Miriam paused to take a sip.
"There's more. The conventional wisdom about how much we can carry, about the impossibility of moving goods using a carriage or a wheelbarrow? It's somewhat… wrong. It's true that you can't easily carry a larger payload, but with careful prior arrangement and some attention to insulators and reducing contact area you can move about a quarter of a ton. Possibly more, we haven't really pushed the limits yet. I suspect that this was known to the postal service but carefully kept quiet prior to the civil war; the number of world-walkers who'd have to cooperate to establish a rival corvée, independent of our Clan authorities, is much smaller than the conventional wisdom would have it. If this was widely known it would have made it harder to control the young and adventurous, and consequently harder to retain a breeding population. So the knowledge was actually suppressed, and experimentation discouraged, and during the chaos of the civil war everyone who actually knew the truth was murdered. Maybe it was a deliberate strategy-knowledge is power-or just coincidence, or accident. It doesn't matter; what I want to impress on you is that there are big gaps in our knowledge, and some of them appear to have been placed there deliberately. Only we've begun to piece things together, thanks to the recent destabilization. And the picture I'm building isn't pretty."
She hit the key for the next slide. "You heard-a year ago you heard-my views on the Clan's business and its long-term viability. Smuggling drugs only works as long as they stay expensive, and as long as the people you're smuggling them past don't know what's going on. We've seen evidence of a technology to build gates between worlds, and if there's one thing the US government is good at, it's throwing money at scientific research and making it stick. They know we're here, and I promise you that right now there is a national laboratory-hell, there are probably ten-trying to work out how world-walking works. Worst case, they've already cracked the problem; best case… we may have years rather than months. But once they crack it, we, here in the Gruinmarkt, we're finished. Those people can send two million tons of heavy metal halfway around the world to kick in doors in Baghdad, and we're right on their doorstep."
She paused to scan the room again. Forty pairs of eyes were staring at her as if she'd sprouted a second head. Her stomach knotted queasily. "I think we need to get used to the idea that it's over. We can't stay here indefinitely; we don't have the leverage. Even if we can negotiate some kind of peaceful settlement with them-and looking at the current administration I'm not optimistic-it'd be like sleeping with an elephant. If it rolls over in its sleep… well. We need some ideas about what we can do. New Britain is a first approximation of an answer: It's got vastly more resources than the Gruinmarkt, Nordmarkt coastline, and we've got contacts there. I propose that we should collectively go into the technology-transfer business. We've got access to American libraries and know-how, and if we put our muscle into it we can jump-start a technological revolution in New Britain. Operating under cover in the United States has brought very mixed results-it's encouraged us to act like criminals, like gangsters. I propose that our new venture should be conducted openly, at least in New Britain. We should contact their authorities and ask for asylum. We could do it quietly, trying to set up cover identities and sneak in-but it would be much harder now that they're in the middle of a war and a major political upheaval. If we were exposed by accident, the first response would likely be harsh, just as it has been in the United States.
"But anyway. That's why I invited you here today. Last year I told you that I thought the Clan's business was unsustainable in the long term. Today, I'm telling you that it has become a lethal liability in the present-and to explore an alternative model. I can't do this on my own. It's up to you to help make this work. But if it doesn't, if we don't pull ourselves together and rapidly start up a new operation, we're going to be crushed like bugs. Probably within a matter of months."
She took another sip from her wineglass. "Any questions?" A hand waved at the back, then another. The first, Huw, was one of her plants, but the other… "Earl Wu? You have something to say?"
"Yes," rumbled the Security heavy. "You are an optimist. You think we can change our ways, yes? We will either have to run from the Americans, or negotiate with them."
Miriam frowned. "Isn't that obvious? There's nothing else-"
"-They will want to strike back," Carl interrupted. "Our backwoods hotheads. They are used to power and they do not spend enough time in America to understand how large the dragon is that they think they have cornered." He tapped his forehead. "I got my education in the US Marine Corps. And I know these idiots, the ones who stayed home."
"But how can they strike back?" Miriam stared at him. Brooding and grim as a warrior out of a Viking saga, Carl exuded absolute certainty and bleakly pessimistic skepticism
"They can aim a sniper's rifle as well as anyone. And there are always the Clan's special weapons." A ripple of muttering spiraled the room, rapidly ascending in volume. "Whose principle military value lies in not using them, but the conservatives have never been good at subtle thinking."
"The Clan's-" Miriam bit her tongue. "You've got to be joking. They wouldn't dare use them. Would they?"
"You need to talk to Baron Riordan," said Carl. "I can say no more than that. But I'd speak to him soon, your majesty. For all I know, the orders might already have been signed."
It was early evening; the store had closed to the public two hours ago, and most of the employees had long since checked out and gone to do battle with the rush hour traffic or the crowds on the subway. The contract cleaners and stock fillers had moved in for the duration, wheeling their handcarts through the aisles and racks of clothing, polishing the display cases, vacuuming the back offices and storerooms. They had a long, patient night's work ahead of them, as did the two-man security team who walked the shop floor as infrequently as they could. "It creeps me out, man," Ricardo had explained once when Frank asked him. "You know about the broad who killed herself in the third floor john ten years ago? This is one creepy store."
"You been drinking too much, man," Frank told him, with a snort. "You been listenin' to too many ghost stories, they ain't none of your business. Burglars, that's your business."
"Not slipping and breaking my fool neck on all that marble, that's my business," Ricardo grumbled. But he tried to follow Frank's advice all the same. Which was why he wasn't looking at the walls as he slouched, face downturned, past the rest rooms on the third floor, just as the door to the men's room gaped silently open.
D.C. played host to a whole raft of police forces, from embassy guards to the Metro Police to the secret service, and all of them liked to play dress-up from time to time. If Ricardo had
noticed the ghost who glided from the rest room doorway on the balls of his feet, his first reaction might have been alarm-followed by a flood of adrenaline-driven weak-kneed shock as he registered the look: the black balaclava helmet concealing the face, the black fatigues, and the silenced pistol in a military holster.
But Ricardo did not notice the mall ninja stepping out into the gallery behind him. Nor did he notice the second man in SWAT-team black slide out of the toilet door, sca