The Peripheral

24

The thylacine preceded Lev into the Mercedes, its claws ticking dryly on pale wood. It regarded Netherton beadily and yawned, dropping a jaw of quite noticeably undoglike length, like a small crocodile’s but opening in the opposite direction.

“Hyena,” Netherton greeted it unenthusiastically. He’d spent the night in the master cabin, which made the gold-veined desk seem austere.

Lev frowned, Ash behind him.

Ash wore what he’d come to think of as her sincerity suit, a long-sleeved one-piece cut from dull gray felt, an antique aluminum zip running from crotch to throat. It was covered with a multitude of patch pockets, some of them stapled on. Wearing it, he’d noted before, seemed to dampen her more florid gestural tendencies, as well as hiding her animals. It signified, he assumed, that she wished to be taken more seriously.

“So you’ve slept on it,” Lev said, absently bending to stroke Tyenna’s flanks.

“Have you brought coffee?”

“The bar will make you whatever you like.”

“It’s locked.”

“What would you like?”

“An Americano, black.”

Lev went to the bar, applied his thumb to the oval. It opened instantly. “An Americano, black,” he said. It produced one, almost silently. Lev brought it to him, steaming. “What did you make of her story?” Passing him the cup and saucer.

“Assuming she told me the truth,” Netherton said, watching as Tyenna closed her mouth and swallowed, “and if that was Aelita she saw. .” He caught Lev’s eye. “Not an abduction.” He sipped his coffee, which was painfully hot but quite good.

“We’d hoped to find out what her building says happened,” Lev said.

“I hadn’t,” Ash said, “rumor having it that it doesn’t.”

“Doesn’t what?” Netherton asked.

“Say,” said Ash. “Or know.”

“How could her building not know?” Netherton asked.

“In the sense that this house doesn’t know,” said Lev. “That can also be arranged on a temporary basis, but it requires. .” He made a small, quick, multifingered, pianist-like, iconically Russian gesture: klept, but of some degree not to be spoken of.

“I see,” said Netherton, who didn’t.

“We’re going to need capital, in the stub,” said Ash. “Ossian is reaching the end of what he can improvise. If you wish to maintain a presence-”

“Not a presence,” said Lev. “It’s mine.”

“Not exclusively,” said Ash. “Our visitors didn’t hesitate to book themselves an assassination, on coming through the door. If they outcapitalize us, we’ll be helpless. Your family’s quants, however. .” Netherton decided that she’d donned the felt suit before attempting to convince Lev to allow his family’s financial modules access to the stub. He looked at Lev. It was not, he decided, going to be easy.

“Ossian,” Lev said, “can optimize manipulation of virtual currencies in their online games. He’s working on it.”

“If our visitors were to buy a politician,” said Ash, “or the head of an American federal agency, we’d find ourselves playing catch-up. And possibly losing.”

“I’m not interested in creating a mess more baroque than the one they’re historically in,” said Lev. “That’s what happens, with too much interference. As it is, I’ve let Wilf talk me into letting someone use polts like some ludicrous form of artisanal AI.”

“Best get used to it, Lev.” Ash almost never used his name. “Someone else has access. It stands to reason that whoever it is is better connected than we are, since we’ve absolutely no idea how to get into anyone else’s stub.”

“Can’t you,” asked Netherton, “just jump forward and see what happens? Look in on them a year later, then correct for that?”

“No,” said Ash. “That’s time travel. This is real. When we sent our first e-mail to their Panama, we entered into a fixed ratio of duration with their continuum: one to one. A given interval in the stub is the same interval here, from first instant of contact. We can no more know their future than we can know our own, except to assume that it ultimately isn’t going to be history as we know it. And, no, we don’t know why. It’s simply the way the server works, as far as we know.”

“The idea of bringing in family resources,” said Lev, “is anathema.”

“My middle name,” Ash was unable to resist pointing out.

“I know that,” said Lev.

“I suppose,” Netherton said to Lev, putting his empty cup down on its saucer, “that it’s been one of a very few places in your life where there’ve been none. Family resources.”

“Exactly.”

“In that case,” Ash said, “plan B.”

“Which is?” Lev asked.

“We feed a combination of historical, social, and market data to freelance quants, plus information we obtain in the stub, and they game us a share of the economy there. They won’t grind as finely, as powerfully, as quickly, as your family’s finance operation, but it may be enough. And you’ll have to pay them. Here, with real money.”

“Do it,” said Lev.

“Formal notice, then,” she said, “that my first recommendation was use of your family’s quants. These children at the LSE are bright, but they aren’t that.”

“Children?” asked Netherton.

“If we find ourselves undercapitalized,” Ash said to Lev, “you won’t be able to blame me.”

Netherton decided then that really she’d wanted Lev to do what he’d just agreed to, which surprised him. He hadn’t thought of her as that effectively manipulative. Probably it had been Ossian’s idea. “Well, then,” he said, “this has been fascinating. I hope you’ll remember to keep me up-to-date. Delighted to have been able to help.”

They both stared at him.

“Sorry,” he said, “I have a lunch date.”

“Where?” asked Ash.

“Bermondsey.”

She raised an eyebrow. A drawing of a chameleon flicked its head up, out of her collar band of stiff gray felt, and withdrew as quickly, as if seeing them there.

“Wilf,” said Lev, “we need you here.”

“You can always reach me.”

“We need you,” said Lev, “because we’ve called the police.”

“The Met,” said Ash.

“On the basis of the polt’s sister’s story,” said Lev, “and given what we know of the situation here, we’d no choice but to alert legal.” That would be his family’s solicitors, whom Netherton assumed would constitute something of an industry unto themselves. “They’ve arranged a meeting. Of course you’ll have to be there.”

“Detective Inspector Lowbeer will be expecting you,” said Ash. “Very senior. You wouldn’t want to disappoint her.”

“If Anathema’s your middle name,” Netherton asked her, “is Ash your first?”

“That would be Maria,” she said. “Ash is my surname. There was a final e, but my mother had it amputated.”