Iris glanced sidelong at Miriam. Was it worry? Miriam couldn’t decide. “That would never do,” she said apologetically. “I couldn’t—”

“Oh yes you can, Patricia,” Angbard said with a cold gleam in his eye.

“But if I go out there Mother will make a scene! And then—”

Miriam caught herself staring at Iris in exasperation, sensing an echo of a deeper family history she’d grown up shielded from. “The dowager will make a scene, will she?” Miriam asked, a dangerous note in her voice: “Why shouldn’t she? She hasn’t seen you for decades. Thought you were dead, probably. You didn’t get along with her when you were young, but so what? Maybe you’ll both find the anger doesn’t matter anymore. Why not try it?” She caught Angbard’s eye. Her uncle, normally stony-faced, looked positively anesthetized, as if to stifle an image-destroying outburst of laughter.

“You don’t know the old bat,” Iris warned grimly.

“She hasn’t changed,” Angbard commented. “If anything, she’s become even more set in her ways.” Harrumph. He hid his face in his handkerchief again.

“She’s been getting worse ever since she adopted that young whipper-snapper Oliver as her confidante,” Henryk mumbled vaguely. “Give me Alfredo any day, we’d have straightened him out in time—” He didn’t seem to notice Iris’s face tightening.

“Ma,” Miriam said warningly.

“Alright! That’s enough.” Iris pushed herself upright in her wheelchair, an expression of grim determination on her face. “Miriam, purely for the sake of family solidarity, you push. You, young lady, what’s your name—”

“Olga,” Miriam offered.

“—I know that, dammit! Olga, open the doors and keep the idiots from pushing me over and letting my darling daughter sneak away. Angbard—”

“I’ll start the session again in half an hour,” he said, shaking his head.

“Just remember.” He turned a cool eye on Miriam, all trace of levity gone: “It cost me a lot to set this up for you. Don’t make a mess of it.”

Going Postal

Down in the post office in the basement of Fort Lofstrom, two men waited nervously for their superior to arrive. Both of them were young—one was barely out of his teens—and they dressed like law firm clerks or trainee accountants. “Is this for real?” the younger one kept asking, nervously. “I mean, has it really happened? Why does nobody tell us anything? Shit, this sucks!”

“Shut up and wait,” said the elder, leaning against a wall furnished with industrial shelving racks, holding a range of brightly colored plastic boxes labeled by destination. “Haven’t you learned anything?”

“But the meeting! I mean, what’s going on? Have the old guys finally decided to stop us going over—”