* * *
Peter got off at the Albert Park stop on the ana end of Fortress Road, a short walk from his destination.
The Summer Court headquarters was modelled after Blenheim Palace, its counterpart in the living world—a sprawling Baroque-style building with severe towering stone belvederes ornamenting the skyline. It housed thousands of spirits whose tasks ranged from agent-running, logistics and archiving to compiling and analysing signals intelligence, as well as providing secure communications for Her Majesty’s armed forces. Walking briskly towards it, Peter ran through the report in his mind one more time.
A Russian dissident wanting to take over the Spanish Republic. A source close to him. A likely aggressive response from the Soviets to the ectotank deployment. He could not escape the feeling that he had made a mistake, that C suspected something.
Peter ascended the broad stairs of the main entrance, and suddenly the distinctly Summerland character of the Summer Court became clear. It had too many walls and corners at impossible angles, and occasionally the entire building bent and wavered, mirage-like. The Court was a hypercube, with soul-stone walls protecting its secrets from all sides, even in ana and kata.
He signed the entrance book with an imprint of his luz and waited until an attendant spirit arrived to lead him to C’s office on the sixth ana floor. Even a Section head like Peter needed a guide. The building’s aethertecture was constantly changed to eliminate any fixed points that could be used for unauthorised thought-travel, resulting in a warren of corridors, passageways and mezzanines, hypermirrors and blind corners. It was like wandering through an optical illusion.
Peter’s anxiety grew as they approached C’s office. He tried to cling to the fact that none of the security measures were enough to protect the Court from within. But as he ascended the kaleidoscopic flights of stairs that occasionally took one sideways, kata-or ana-wards, his usual sense of superiority eluded him.
* * *
When Peter entered C’s office, at first he saw only the man’s silhouette, dominated by the jutting chin outlined against the blinding light of the Unseen from the window.
‘Bloom. Come in.’
Peter sat in the chair in front of the large desk. It took a few seconds to adjust to the light and he kept his face impassive. The Chief liked to have a moment to assess each visitor.
C turned and bent his round head with its thinning coppery hair over the paperwork on the desk and proceeded to ignore Peter for several minutes. Occasionally, his fine bow of a mouth twitched slightly, but whether in pleasure or displeasure, Peter could not tell. Soul-reading was only possible with the living or newly deceased spirits who had not yet mastered aether-weaving.
Finally, C leaned back in his chair and lifted a horn-rimmed monocle to his right eye, which was then magnified to ridiculous proportions. Yet the cyclopean stare was so piercing that an involuntary laugh died on Peter’s lips.
‘Well?’ C said.
‘Sir?’
C said nothing. Peter cleared his throat.
‘Sir, I thought you asked me here to discuss my report.’
‘No.’ C shook his head sharply and the monocle fell from his eye. Somehow, the pinched stare of his normal-sized eyes was even more intense.
‘No?’
‘No, I asked you here because I am going to need a new head of the Iberian Section.’ C’s mouth twitched again. ‘What do you have to say for yourself?’
Peter’s luz became a cold, dead lump in his chest. In the back of his mind, George’s voice whispered the litany for the moment of being exposed. Admit nothing. Deny everything. Make counter-allegations.
He straightened his back and looked at the Chief.
‘Sir, I am aware that the Section has faced some challenges recently and I take full responsibility. However, I do believe that the recruitment of CARRASCOS–’ the code name Peter had assigned to Inez ‘–was a breakthrough, and—’
‘Yes, I agree.’
‘You agree with what, sir?’
‘That it was a breakthrough. That is why I need your recommendation for a new Section head.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘My dear boy, it is very simple. Starting from now, you will be too busy to manage your Section. Your new job is in the recently formed Special Committee for the Iberian Problem. You are going to help me convince the prime minister that we need this Djugashvili chap to take over Spain.’
Convince the prime minister.
This time, Peter nearly lost control over his aetheric self. Suddenly, the hands resting on his pinstriped knees were a small boy’s, sticking out from oversized sleeves. He closed his eyes and tried to concentrate on his self-image. Something pressed painfully against his thigh in his pocket, and he remembered the toy soldier.
‘Bloom? Are you all right?’
He took a deep breath. ‘I’m quite all right, sir. Just … surprised.’
‘I can send for some vim if you want.’
Peter shook his head. C steepled his fingers and looked at him.
‘Bloom, I was expecting a slightly different reaction from you.’
‘Sir … I am honoured. Truly, I am. It’s just that … Sir, as you saw from my report, BRIAR moved too quickly with CARRASCOS, and it was through pure luck that I was able to find something that resonated with her. My recommendation would be to spend more time developing her before involving her in a major operation. And with all due respect, sir, right now I am best qualified to do that.’
Besides the overflowing paperwork, there were a number of small glass vials containing coloured liquids in a wooden rack on the edge of C’s desk. Supposedly, they were mementos of the invisible inks that the SIS had relied upon in the living world, in the days before the Summer Court. C picked one up and examined it carefully.
‘Do you know,’ he said, ‘that one of the best inks we had early on was semen?’ The Chief smiled wryly. ‘No, really. It worked quite well, and the operator had, ah, a reliable supply. One of our lads in Russia tried to store it up in advance, and his letters stank to high heaven. We had to tell him that a fresh supply was needed for each communication. You may laugh, but I always thought it was rather poetic. Our soldiers bleed, but how many times are we asked to give that particular bodily fluid for Her Majesty? You never served, did you, Bloom?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Then you may not fully understand the sacrifices we are sometimes asked to make.’
C leaned back and massaged his left leg absently. The Chief had passed over in a horrific car accident that also cost the life of his son—who hadn’t possessed a Ticket. C’s mangled leg had been stuck in the wreckage. He sawed it off with a penknife and crawled to the boy. Their bodies were found together, the father holding the son.
C had been back at work a month later.
‘I will be candid with you, Bloom. Your Section could have done its job more effectively, and we have a bloody mess on our hands. The Admiralty is baying for war. This is going to get worse before it gets better. The PM explicitly said he wants first-hand information, so your number’s up. We have some very difficult things to tell him. If hearing them from you makes it easier to stop a war, you will show up and talk until your face turns blue. BRIAR can handle your new source. Is that understood?’
Peter swallowed. ‘Yes, sir.’
C’s gruff voice was gentler this time. ‘You’ll do, Bloom,’ he said. ‘You’ll do.’
* * *
Peter left C’s office in a daze. His own office was on the fourth ana floor. He made his way through the Polish and Italian Sections and past the entrance to the Chimney—a luz tower that reached all the way to the aether of the living world and allowed you to make secure ectophone calls to Whitehall and Blenheim without leaving the confines of the Summer Court.