Read Online The Hidden Family by Charles Stross - Free Book Online Page B

tube of sugar crystals and stirred them into her latte. “Look, if Baron Hjorth wants to declare me incompetent, he’s going to have to come up with some evidence. He might shove it through if I’m not there to defend myself, but I figure the strongest defense I can get is proof that there’s a conspiracy out there—a conspiracy that murdered my birth-mother and is trying to murder me, too, not just the petty shit he and my—grandmother—are shoveling at me. A second-strongest defense is evidence that I may be erratic, but I’ve come up with something valuable. Now, the assassin’s locket takes me to this other world—call it world three—and I’ve got to wonder. Does this mean they’re not part of the Clan or families? They’re working on the other side and in world three, while the Clan works on the other side and here, call here world two and Niejwein is part of world one. I’m, I guess, the first member of the Clan to actually become aware of world three and be able to get over there. That means that I can see about finding whoever’s sending the killers—see defense one, above—or see about opening up a whole new trade opportunity—see defense two, above. I’m going to tie the whole story up with a bow and hand it to them. And mess up Baron Hjorth’s game into the bargain.” She rolled up the empty sugar tube into a tight little wad and threw it at the back of the booth.
    “That sounds like my daughter,” Iris said thoughtfully. She grinned. “Don’t let the bastards realize you’ve got the drop on them until it’s too late for them to dodge.” She put the smile aside. “Morris would be proud of you.”
    “Um.” Miriam nodded, unable to trust her tongue. “How have you been? How did you get away from them tonight?”
    “Well, you know, I haven’t had much trouble with being under surveillance lately.” Iris sipped her coffee. “Funny how they don’t seem to be able to tell one old woman in a motorized blue wheelchair from another, isn’t it?”
    “Ma, you shouldn’t have!”
    “What, give some of my friends an opportunity for a little adventure?” Iris snorted and pushed her bifocals up her nose. Slyly: “Just because my daughter thinks she can go haring off to other worlds, running away from her problems—”
    “It’s the source of my goddamn problems, not the solution,” Miriam interrupted.
    “Well good, just as long as you understand that.” Iris met her eyes with a coolly unreadable expression that slowly moderated into one of affection. “You’re grown up now and there’s not a lot I can teach you. Just as well really, one day I won’t be around to do the teaching and it’d be kind of embarrassing if—”
    “—Mother!”
    “Don’t you ‘mother’ me! Listen, I raised you to face facts and deal with the world as it really is, not to pretend that if you stick your head in the sand problems will go away. I’m in late middle age and I’m damned if I’m not going to inflict my hard-earned wisdom on my only daughter.” She looked mildly disgusted. “Come to think of it, I wish someone had beaten it into me when I was a child. Pah. But anyway. You’re playing with fire, and I would really hate it if you got burned. You’re going to try and track down these assassins from another universe, aren’t you? What do you think they are?”
    “I think—” Miriam paused. “They’re like the Clan and the families,” she said finally. “Only they travel between world one and world three, while the Clan travel between world one and world two, our world. I figure they decided the Clan were a threat a long time ago and that’s probably something to do with, with why they tried to nail my mother. All those years ago. And they’re smaller and weaker than the Clan, that much seems obvious, so I can maybe set up in world three, their stronghold, before they notice me. I think.”
    “Ambitious.” Iris didn’t crack a smile. “What did I tell you when you were