“Yeah.” Miriam began collecting her scattered clothes. “But it doesn’t have to go that way. I figure with their social standing the Clan could push industrialization and development policies that would drag the whole Gruinmarkt into the nineteenth century within a couple of generations, and a little later it would be able to export stuff that people over here would actually want to buy. Land reform and tools to boost agricultural efficiency, set up schools, build steel mills, and start using the local oil reserves in Pennsylvania—it could work. The Gruinmarkt could bootstrap into the kind of maritime power the British Empire was, back in the Victorian period. As the only people able to travel back and forth freely, we’d be in an amazing position—a natural monopoly! The question is: How do we get there from here?”

Roland watched her pull her pants on. “That’s a lot to think about,” he said doubtfully. “Not that I’m saying it can’t be done, but it’s…it’s big.”

“Are you kidding?” She flashed him a smile. “It’s not just big, it’s enormous! It’s the biggest goddamned management problem anyone has ever seen. Drag an entire planet out of the middle ages in a single generation, get the families out of the drugs trade by giving them something productive and profitable to do instead, give ourselves so much leverage we can dictate terms to them from on high and make the likes of Angbard jump when we say ‘hop’—isn’t that something you could really get your teeth into?”

“Yeah.” He stood up and pulled open the wardrobe where he’d hung his suit the evening before. “What you’re talking about will take far more leverage than I ever thought…” Then he grinned boyishly. “Let’s do it.”

Miriam went on a shopping spree, strictly cash. She bought three prepaid mobile phones and programmed some numbers in. One of them she kept with Roland’s and Paulette’s numbers in it. Another she loaded with her number and Roland’s and mailed to Paulie. The third—she thought long and hard on it, then loaded her own number in, but not Paulette’s. Blood might be thicker than water, but she was responsible for Paulette’s safety. A tiny worm of suspicion still ate at her; she was pretty certain that Roland was telling the truth, straight down the line, but if not, it wouldn’t be the first time a man had lied to her, and—

What the hell is this? This is the guy you’re thinking about spending the rest of your life with—and you’re holding out on him because you don’t trust him completely? She confronted herself and answered: Yeah. If Angbard told him my life depended on him giving Paulie away, how would I feel then?