The Trade of Queens Read Online Free PDF Page A

on the winning side, he reminded himself whenever it got a bit much; the alternative—a short walk off the end of a long rope—was far less attractive.
    Just one month had wrought great changes. The pompous neoclassical building was crawling with Freedom Riders and guards from the newly formed Security Committee, checking passeportes and getting underfoot: but with some justification, for there had been three assassination attempts on members of the Radical government by Patriot renegades in the past week alone—one of them successful to the extent of having cost Commissioner of Industry Sutter half the fingers on one hand and the use of his left eye, not to mention a secretary and a bodyguard. Erasmus had made much of this shocking martyrdom, but it was hardly the most onerous fate the Patriot mob had in mind for any commissioner who fell into their hands, as the full gibbets in rebel-held Rio de Janeiro could attest.
    But the guards didn’t impede Burgeson’s progress through the entrance and up the stairs to the Avenue of Ministries; they stood aside and saluted with alacrity, their faces expressionless. It was only at the door to the receiving room that he encountered a delay: Commissioner of Security Reynolds’s men, of course. “Citizen Burgeson! You are expected, but your colleagues must identify themselves. Your papers, please!”
    Erasmus waited impatiently while the guards confirmed that his aides were indeed on the privileged list, then nodded amiably to the underofficer on door duty. “If you please?” he asked. The man practically jumped to open the door, avoiding eye contact: Erasmus was of the same rank as the head of his entire organization. Erasmus nodded and, not waiting for his entourage, walked through into the outer office. It was, as usual, crammed with junior people’s commissioners and bureaucrats awaiting instruction, cooling their heels in the antechamber to the doctor’s surgery. Not pausing for idle chatter, Burgeson walked towards the inner door.
    A stout fellow who overtopped him by a good six inches stepped sideways into his path, blocking the doorway. “You can’t—” he began.
    Erasmus stopped and looked up at him. “Don’t you recognize me?” It was genuinely curious, to be stopped by anyone—even a bruiser in the uniform of the Security Committee.
    The bodyguard stared down at Erasmus. Then, after a second, he began to wilt. “No sir,” he admitted. “Is you expected by ’is citizenship this mornin’?”
    â€œYes.” Burgeson smiled, showing no teeth. “Why don’t you announce me?”
    The ability to intimidate secret policemen didn’t come easily or lightly to Erasmus; he still found it a thing of wonder as he watched the big bodyguard turn and push the door ajar to announce his arrival. He’d spent years in the camps, then more years on the run as a Leveler underground organizer in Boston, periodically arrested and beaten by men of this selfsame type, the attack dogs of power. It was no surprise after all these years to see these people rising in the armed wing of the revolutionary democratic cadres, and leaders like Reynolds gaining a certain reputation—especially in view of the unfolding crisis that had first provoked an abdication and then enabled the party to hold its coup—but it was a disappointment. Meet the new boss, just like the old boss : Erasmus remembered the Beckstein woman’s cynical bon mot. Then he dismissed it from his mind as the thug threw the door wide open before him and stood aside.
    â€œHail, citizen.” Sir Adam Burroughs smiled wearily at him as the door closed at his back. “Have you been keeping well?”
    â€œWell enough.” Erasmus lowered his creaking limbs into one of the ornate chairs that faced Sir Adam’s huge, gilt-tooled leather-topped barge of a desk. And indeed, it was true: With the tuberculosis