Jennings tilted his head on one side thoughtfully. “I’m sure we can work together on this matter—if Citizen Burgeson is acting against the best interests of the people.” A caveat from Justice was to be expected.
Reynolds nodded. It didn’t signify opposition as such, merely that Jennings knew exactly what was going on and had no intention of being strung up as a scapegoat for Reynolds’s move against the rival directorate. “Of course,” he said unctuously. “There must be proceedings with all due process to confirm or disprove guilt, absolutely! But I think it would be best if they were handled in the Star Court with all available speed, precision, and discretion”—in other words, secretly and hastily—“and the prisoners segregated. If there’s actual subversion within the party’s highest echelons, we will need to obtain absolute proof before we arrest a party commissioner. And if not—again, it would be best if it were handled quietly. The scope for embarrassment is enormous and it would reflect badly on the party as an institution.”
Fowler shrugged. “It can be done, but it’ll cost you,” he said bluntly. “There’s a new interrogation and processing block scheduled for development on Long Island. Or I could do you a prison hulk.”
“A prison hulk?” Reynolds’s eyes lit up: “Capital! That would be just the ticket!” After the initial shock, he’d paid close attention to Cheung’s sales pitch—and spent time in subsequent meetings attempting to deduce the limitations of the world-walkers’ abilities. A steam yacht with decent owner’s quarters and a train with sleeping car were already on his department’s budget—officially to make it easier for the commissioner for internal security to travel safely between offices, unofficially to insure his safety against world-walking killers. “Do you have anything offshore near the Massachusetts coastline? Preferably with an antimutiny plug?” (Explosive scuttling charges had proven a most effective tool in preventing prison mutinies under the ancien régime.)
“I think something along those lines can be provided.” Fowler pulled out a notebook. “How many berths do you need, and when and where will the arrests take place?”
“Number: unknown, but not more than a thousand at the absolute maximum. More likely under a hundred in the first instance, then a flow of stragglers for processing. Somewhere within a couple of hours of Boston. To be moored in deep water—not less than thirty feet beneath the keel—and not less than a mile offshore. If you could set it up within the next two days I would be eternally grateful…?”
“I’ll see what we can do.” Fowler put his notebook away. “I take it the detainees are, er, disposable?”
“If necessary.” Reynolds nodded.
“I didn’t hear that,” Jennings said fastidiously.
“Of course not.”
“Jolly good, then.” Jennings stood. “I’ll see that a circuit tribunal under Star Rules is at your men’s disposal in Boston two days hence. Now if you don’t mind, I have a dreadful pile of paperwork to catch up on…?” He sighed. “These wreckers and subversives! I swear we’re going to run out of rope before they’re all hanged.”
* * *
The fortified great house had seen better days: Its walls were fire-scorched, half the downstairs windows were bricked up, the hastily applied mortar still weeping salts across the stone blocks of its facade, and the stable doors had been crudely removed. But it was still inhabitable—which counted for something—and the ten-meter radio mast sprouting from the roofline made it clear who its inhabitants must be.
“You wanted to see me, sir.”
The office on the second floor had once been a squire’s wife’s boudoir; it still smelled faintly of rosewater and gunpowder. The bed had been broken up for firewood and scrap, used to reinforce the shutters during the brief siege, and today the room was dominated by a green folding aluminum map table.
“Yes. Come in, sit down, make yourself comfortable. I’ve got Pepsi if you need a drink.”
“That would be wonderful, sir.”
Rudi sat tensely on the narrow edge of the camp chair while Earl-Major Riordan poured him a mug of foaming brown cola with his own hands. The lack of a batman did not escape his notice, but if Riordan wanted to preserve the social niceties … It must be bad news, he decided, a hollowness below his ribs waiting to be filled by the exotic imported beverage.
“I want to pick your brains about aircraft,” Riordan said stiffly. “Think of this as an informal brainstorming session. Nothing we discuss is for ears beyond this room, by the way.”
Really? Rudi leaned forward. “Brainstorming, sir?”
Riordan sighed. “Her Majesty”—he paused, and poked at a paper on his desk—“has written me a letter, and you’re the man to answer it.” He looked slightly pained, as if his lunch had disagreed with his digestion.
“Sir.”
“You know about the British.” They spoke hochsprache. “She is talking to them. She wants an aircraft. Something that can be built for them within two years and that outstrips anything they can imagine. Something for war.”
“To be built there?” Rudi shook his head. “I thought they were stuck in the steam age?”
“They have aircraft. Two wings, spaced above each other like so”—Riordan gestured—“slow, lumbering things. Made of wood and sailcloth.”
“Really?” Rudi perked up. “And Her Majesty wants to build something better? What for?”
“They’ve got a war on.” Riordan finally sat down in the chair opposite, and Rudi relaxed slightly. “The French are blockading them, there is a threat of bombardment from aerial tenders offshore. I told her to give the British something for their navy, one of those submarines—you’ve seen Das Boot? no?—but she says ships take too long. They understand not to expect too much of aircraft, so build something revolutionary.” He took a deep breath. “Give me an eagle’s view. What should I be asking?”
“Huh.” Rudi rubbed his chin. It was itching; he hadn’t had a chance to shave for three days, scurrying hither and yon trying to arrange bodies to haul across the ultralight parts he’d been buying. “What engines do they have? That’s going to limit us. And metallurgy. Electronics … I assume they’ve got vacuum tubes? It’ll have to be something from the nineteen-forties. A warbird. Two engines for range, if it’s going offshore, and it needs to be able to carry bombs or guns.” He paused. “You know a plane on its own isn’t going to do much? It needs tactical doctrine, pilot training, navigation tools and radar if they can build it, ideally an integrated air defense—”
Riordan waved an impatient hand. “Yes, that’s not the point. We need what Her Majesty calls a technology demonstrator.”
“Can they do aluminum engine blocks?” Rudi answered his own question: “Maybe not, but aluminum goes back to the nineteenth century—we can work on them. Hmm. Engines will be a bottleneck, but … P-38? No, it’s a pure fighter. Hard to fly, too. If they’re still doing wood—” He stopped.
“Wood?” Riordan frowned.