Read Online Revolution Business by Charles Stross - Free Book Online
Authors: Charles Stross
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across the sofa in the living room, pulling an oiled cleaning cloth through the breech of her P90. "Find another channel, minion," she drawled without looking up. "I can't stand Friends."
"As you wish, my princess." Yul, hulking and fair-haired as any Viking warrior, carefully squeezed the remote. Advertisements and sitcoms strobed across the eviscerated guts of the machine pistol on the coffee table until he arrived at MTV. "Ah, that is better." Marilyn Manson strutted and howled through the last tour on earth; Elena pulled a face. "Manly music for martial-" an oily rag landed on his head.
"Children."
Elena glanced round, pulled a face. "He started it!"
"Sure." Huw stood in the doorway, trying not to smile. "Did you get the Internet working?"
"Something's wrong with it," Yul said apologetically.
"Ah, well." Huw shrugged and walked over to the armchair, where a laptop trailed bits of many-colored spaghetti towards the wall. "I'll sort it out. Got to report in." Expecting Yul or Elena to do anything technical had been a forlorn hope. Am I the only competent person around here? he wondered. Dumb question: While he'd been studying in schools and colleges in the United States under a false identity, Yul had been bringing joy to their backwoods father's heart, riding and hunting and being a traditional son on their country estate in the western marches of the Gruinmarkt; and Elena had been under the stifling constraints of a noble daughter, although she'd kicked up enough of a fuss that her parents had allowed her to escape into Clan Security, leaving them with one less dowry to worry about. Which left Huw as the guy who knew one end of an Internet router and a secure voice-over IP connection from another, and Yul and Elena as the armed muscle to watch over him when they weren't engaging in risky post-adolescent high-jinks-risky because the older generation weren't many years past fighting blood feuds over that sort of thing.
It took him a few minutes, some scrabbling with cables, and a reboot to get everything working properly, but Huw was setting up the encrypted link to the ClanSec e-mail hub and looking forward to checking in when he heard footsteps.
"Yes?" He glanced round. It was Miriam. She looked-not tired, exactly, but careworn. And something else.
"Brill tells me we need to talk," she said, then glanced across the room at the sofa.
"She said-"Huw's larynx froze for a few seconds as he stared at her. The first time he'd met her, gowned and bejeweled at a royal reception, she'd been turned out in the very mode of Gruinmarkt nobility; then earlier, when Lady Brilliana had so rudely yanked him (and Yul, and Elena) away from his survey, she'd been wearing an outlandish getup. Now she looked-at ease, he decided. This is her. She isn't acting a part. How interesting. "Ah. Well, she did, did she?"
"She said." Miriam leaned on the back of his chair. "You've been exploring. Whatever that means." She sounded bored, but there was a glint in her eye.
"Uh, yeah." Huw leaned forward and shut the laptop's lid. "Why don't we go fix something to drink?" He glanced sidelong at Yul and Elena, who were sitting on the sofa, bickering amiably over the gun, their heads leaning together. "Somewhere quieter." The TV howled mournfully, recycling the sound track of a guitar in torment.
The kitchen was bland, basic, and undersupplied-they'd traveled light and hadn't had time to buy much more than a bunch of frozen pizzas-but there was coffee, and a carton of half-and-half, and a coffee maker. Huw busied himself filling it while Miriam searched the cupboards for mugs. "How did you go about it?" she asked, finally.
Huw took a deep breath. "Systematically. We haven't started de-convoluting the knotwork"-the two worlds to which the Clan's members could walk were distinguished by the use of a different knot that the world-walker had to concentrate on-"but I'm pretty sure we'll start finding others once we do. The fourth world we found-it's
"As you wish, my princess." Yul, hulking and fair-haired as any Viking warrior, carefully squeezed the remote. Advertisements and sitcoms strobed across the eviscerated guts of the machine pistol on the coffee table until he arrived at MTV. "Ah, that is better." Marilyn Manson strutted and howled through the last tour on earth; Elena pulled a face. "Manly music for martial-" an oily rag landed on his head.
"Children."
Elena glanced round, pulled a face. "He started it!"
"Sure." Huw stood in the doorway, trying not to smile. "Did you get the Internet working?"
"Something's wrong with it," Yul said apologetically.
"Ah, well." Huw shrugged and walked over to the armchair, where a laptop trailed bits of many-colored spaghetti towards the wall. "I'll sort it out. Got to report in." Expecting Yul or Elena to do anything technical had been a forlorn hope. Am I the only competent person around here? he wondered. Dumb question: While he'd been studying in schools and colleges in the United States under a false identity, Yul had been bringing joy to their backwoods father's heart, riding and hunting and being a traditional son on their country estate in the western marches of the Gruinmarkt; and Elena had been under the stifling constraints of a noble daughter, although she'd kicked up enough of a fuss that her parents had allowed her to escape into Clan Security, leaving them with one less dowry to worry about. Which left Huw as the guy who knew one end of an Internet router and a secure voice-over IP connection from another, and Yul and Elena as the armed muscle to watch over him when they weren't engaging in risky post-adolescent high-jinks-risky because the older generation weren't many years past fighting blood feuds over that sort of thing.
It took him a few minutes, some scrabbling with cables, and a reboot to get everything working properly, but Huw was setting up the encrypted link to the ClanSec e-mail hub and looking forward to checking in when he heard footsteps.
"Yes?" He glanced round. It was Miriam. She looked-not tired, exactly, but careworn. And something else.
"Brill tells me we need to talk," she said, then glanced across the room at the sofa.
"She said-"Huw's larynx froze for a few seconds as he stared at her. The first time he'd met her, gowned and bejeweled at a royal reception, she'd been turned out in the very mode of Gruinmarkt nobility; then earlier, when Lady Brilliana had so rudely yanked him (and Yul, and Elena) away from his survey, she'd been wearing an outlandish getup. Now she looked-at ease, he decided. This is her. She isn't acting a part. How interesting. "Ah. Well, she did, did she?"
"She said." Miriam leaned on the back of his chair. "You've been exploring. Whatever that means." She sounded bored, but there was a glint in her eye.
"Uh, yeah." Huw leaned forward and shut the laptop's lid. "Why don't we go fix something to drink?" He glanced sidelong at Yul and Elena, who were sitting on the sofa, bickering amiably over the gun, their heads leaning together. "Somewhere quieter." The TV howled mournfully, recycling the sound track of a guitar in torment.
The kitchen was bland, basic, and undersupplied-they'd traveled light and hadn't had time to buy much more than a bunch of frozen pizzas-but there was coffee, and a carton of half-and-half, and a coffee maker. Huw busied himself filling it while Miriam searched the cupboards for mugs. "How did you go about it?" she asked, finally.
Huw took a deep breath. "Systematically. We haven't started de-convoluting the knotwork"-the two worlds to which the Clan's members could walk were distinguished by the use of a different knot that the world-walker had to concentrate on-"but I'm pretty sure we'll start finding others once we do. The fourth world we found-it's
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