‘Why, Mr Bloom, that is very nice of you to say. I am going to be strictly professional, however, and tell you that both the physical and an aetherised version of your item of interest are in a Cresswell dual-deposit locker, the number of which I will read to you now.’
She recited a long Hinton code. Peter aether-shaped it into being as she spoke and pocketed the shimmering construct.
‘Thank you, Rachel. I really appreciate this.’
‘You can show your appreciation by giving me more to do. The last two days were the first in weeks when I was not bored to death.’
The cheer in her voice and the bright yellow thought-forms hid something, he could see that. Was he making a terrible mistake, trusting her? He remembered how she had touched his hand at the Blue Dog, how her voice had broken. When wearing a medium, it was easy to be fooled: everything was distant, as if every perception was filtered through thick cloth, compared to the raw sensorium of the aether.
‘Rachel? Is everything all right?’ he asked.
‘Oh, everything is fine. I may be a little drunk.’
‘Isn’t it a bit early for that?’
‘I took the day off sick. I had a very late night and I may have made a terrible mistake. So starting early felt like a good idea.’
Her thought-forms flared into ragged petals of deep purple and violet, into guilt and jealousy.
‘I’m sorry, I should not have said anything. It is nothing you need to worry about.’
‘We all make mistakes.’
‘I never used to. At least, I did not think so.’
‘Is there something I can do? Just let me know if I can help.’
‘Not unless you can reverse Parliament’s decision to send troops to Spain. My husband is shipping out on Wednesday. We had an argument. And I may just have made things much worse. Oh, Peter, I am such a fool…’ Her voice trailed away for a moment. ‘I just needed to feel something. In a way that meant nothing.’
‘If it meant nothing,’ Peter said slowly, ‘then maybe there is no need for your husband to know about it.’
‘We keep enough secrets in our work, Peter. I never wanted to keep secrets from the people I love.’
‘Sometimes carrying secrets makes you stronger. And I know you are very strong.’
‘I think that is just what we tell ourselves. But thank you, Peter. It helps that you care.’
‘We’ll go for a drink, sometime soon.’
‘Perhaps a walk instead,’ Rachel said. ‘My head hurts already, and I don’t want to end up on that side too soon.’
‘All right. I need to go. Take care of yourself, Mrs White.’
‘I will. Have a good day, Mr Bloom.’
The circuit blinked out of existence. He watched Rachel’s thoughts for a while. They were still a turmoil of purple and red, with a glimmer of white within. The soul-readers said white was the colour of hope.
Not unless you can reverse Parliament’s decision. He tried to dismiss the thought; what he needed was distance, objectivity.
He kept watching Rachel’s tiny thought-star as he dived back down into the Second Aether, towards the Summer City, until her soul was just one amongst thousands. Finally, it merged into the vast constellation of living London and disappeared into the aetheric firmament.
Peter sighed, visualised the Ticket for Albert Park and went back to work.
* * *
That evening, Peter picked up the file and took it home to study it. Rachel had given him an aetherised version, a set of aether images stuck to a luz core, produced with a Zöllner camera that changed photographs into aetheric orientations of magnetic particles that could be extracted and transported into Summerland. The file was thick; she must have spent hours aetherising the pages.
The deep kata images in the appendix leaped out at him. He could not interpret them, but they made him feel like he was on the right track.
Then he turned his attention to the ciphertext. His first assignment had been at GACCS and he was reasonably familiar with most of the standard codes used by both Courts. He quickly determined that this one was likely to be based on a one-time pad.
It was conceivable that the Presence would be able to decipher the file, given time—but even for a composite of millions of souls, the raw calculations needed could take years. No, it was essential he obtain the key as well as the encrypted documents. He wrestled with the problem for hours, littering his rooms with half-formed ideas shaped from aether. In the end, he threw the file into the air in frustration. As the pages fluttered around, he realised that he had simply been avoiding the inevitable, the obvious.
Surely the individuals who commissioned the project would have the means to read it.
And one of them was Herbert Blanco West.
* * *
Prime Minister West’s desk was covered with toy soldiers. They were impressively detailed: carefully painted tiny men in olive-drab uniforms, spiky helmets, even a spidery ectotank. They were littered across a huge sheet of paper with graph lines and terrain markers. He was bent double, leaning his round head sideways on his hands, level with the surface, carefully studying the angles.
At first, he didn’t appear to notice Peter, but then he looked up.
‘Come in,’ he said. ‘Please, sit down. My apologies, I just want to make a note of something.’
He scribbled a few words and figures on a sheet of paper with a fountain pen, leaned back in his chair and studied Peter, folding his hands in his lap.
Peter sat down. It was early Monday afternoon. With the war looming, it had been surprisingly easy to get the appointment set up. That morning, he had approached C and told him he wanted to make one more attempt to get the PM to favour the Summer Court after the Dzhugashvili blunder. Then he had woken up Pendlebury and spent the better part of a month’s salary in Savile Row on Pendlebury’s clothing in an attempt to buy confidence. Their connection had been deteriorating and the charter-body felt awkward and oversized, as if he was wearing a diving suit or old-fashioned spirit armour.
If the prime minister recalled their ectophone conversation after the Special Committee meeting, he did not show it. Without the giant soul-spark, he looked much smaller than Peter remembered.
‘It is you, Peter, isn’t it? It is so hard to tell with the mask.’
‘I will keep it on if you don’t mind, sir.’
‘Of course, of course. Whatever you prefer. Please call me HB. Everyone does.’
‘With all due respect, sir, I am not everyone.’
West looked at him. His eyes were still striking, a silvery colour that reminded Peter of a wolf or a wildcat, in an otherwise unremarkable old man’s rotund face with its thinning moustache. The faint honey smell he remembered was there, too.
‘So, you still play Small Wars,’ Peter said.
‘You remember! Well, it did all right in the shops, even better after I got this big job of mine. People are looking into it for guidance for strategy, would you believe it? There is nothing that deep to it, not really. Although these days I find it calming. Building little worlds with deliberate rules. Capturing definite aspects of reality in lines of force between pieces of metal. Rolling dice to determine outcomes. Sometimes I think it is the best thing I have ever done and the thing that will truly outlive me. Imagine millions of people playing Small Wars on some future aetheric machines!’ His voice took on a shrill note that made Peter jump.
West frowned. ‘My apologies. I am rambling a bit. I do that when I am nervous. I expected you to look different, but that is not your fault. We should really have a better way of seeing into the aether. The Baird boxes are no good. Maybe some kind of Zöllner device that captures hyperlight. You know, I may even have commissioned a project like that, once. That is the problem when you get to my age: it is hard to be certain if an idea is really new, or if you just forgot that you had it already.’