‘What is this?’
‘The location of a file. Peter Bloom was determined to get this information to you. I suggest you share it with your Presence.’
Shpiegelglass looked at her curiously. ‘You are full of surprises, Mrs White.’
‘Don’t get any ideas. The information will become public relatively soon anyway. But some details may be of use to you. And I feel that … Peter deserved it.’
The NKVD man folded the napkin neatly and put it in his pocket.
‘Thank you, Mrs White.’
‘Now, if you will excuse me, I have a flight to catch.’
‘Naturally.’
Rachel stood up. ‘I am curious,’ she said. ‘What is it like? Working for a being whose thoughts and insights you cannot begin to understand?’
Shpiegelglass smiled, without mockery this time.
‘Why, it is rather like being a child again, Mrs White. I highly recommend it.’
‘Read the file,’ Rachel said. ‘We may all have some growing up to do, very soon.’
* * *
Rachel reached the aerodrome in the nick of time, just as boarding started. Tethered to the iron needle of the Watkins Tower, the airship resembled a purple cloud against one of those rare clear wintry skies that looked entirely made of light.
Joe was waiting for her at the lifts with their luggage. He looked a little haggard, but there was a spark in his eyes.
‘I was starting to worry,’ he said.
‘I had to run an errand for a friend.’
They boarded the airship with fifty or so other passengers, a mixture of the living and the dead, and stood in the observation gondola as London disappeared into a haze and the steel-grey Atlantic emerged below.
‘I cannot believe you never took me flying before,’ Rachel said.
‘I suppose we never found the right destination.’
The sea was smooth as a sheet as the sun began to set, and it was easy to imagine that the world had turned upside down and below them was another sky.
The next morning, Rachel woke up early in their small cabin. She pulled a blanket over Joe’s sleeping form and hunched next to the small round window, waiting for dawn and the first glimpse of the land where it was always summer.
The first light appeared, turning the night sky from deep indigo into red and gold. It fell onto the birdcage.
The female woke up and made a tee-tee sound. Accompanied by a noise like a bouncing spring, filling the cabin with a flowing, whistling song, the male Gouldian began to dance.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This book would not have been possible without the help of many people who hover beneath its pages like spirits in the aether.
A big thank-you to Dean Carver and Mark Blacklock for their extremely helpful explanations of spy tradecraft and the history of the fourth dimension, respectively. Any factual errors—both intentional and unintentional—herein are, of course, my own.
Thanks to good friends Esa Hilli, Randy Lubin, Brian Pascal, Lenny Raymond and Robin Sloan for helpful comments on early drafts and ideas. I owe you many drinks! Special thanks to my writers’ group, Unruly Writers, for a merciless dissection of an early synopsis and chapter drafts.
Sincere thanks to the HelixNano team (Carina, Nikolai and Nikhil) for their patience, and a special thank-you to our friend and advisor Jose Trevejo for suggesting the ending. Thanks to Desmond and Maria for many wonderful discussions in Boston—they helped me keep going.
I am extremely grateful for all the work my agent, John Jarrold, my former editor Simon Spanton and the team at Gollancz—Rachel Winterbottom, Marcus Gipps and the world’s greatest copy editor, Lisa—did to make Summerland happen.
Finally, my love and gratitude to my wife, Zuzana, especially for marrying me while this book was being finalised.
NOVELS BY HANNU RAJANIEMI
The Quantum Thief
The Fractal Prince
The Causal Angel
Summerland
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
HANNU RAJANIEMI is an author and mathematical physicist from Finland. For more than a decade, he lived in Edinburgh; he currently resides in California. He holds several advanced degrees in mathematics and physics. Multilingual from an early age, he writes his science fiction in English. His novel The Quantum Thief (2010) was widely hailed as one of the best debuts of the decade. You can sign up for email updates here.
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CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
1. A Duel at the Langham Hotel, 29th October 1938
2. Wild Children, 29th October 1938
3. Small Wars, 8th November 1938
4. Natural Limitations, 30th October 1938
5. A Day at the Summer Court, 9th November 1938
6. How to Tame an Elephant, 5th November 1938
7. The Termin Procedure, 10th November 1938
8. An Evening at the Harrises’, 10th November 1938
9. Special Committee on the Iberian Problem, 11th November 1938
10. Soul-Reading, 11th November 1938—12th November 1938
11. An Affair in the Registry, 14th November 1938
12. The Night-Climbers of Cambridge, 14th November 1938
13. Asset Development, 16th November 1938
14. The Final Exam, 29th November 1938
15. At the Blue Dog Pub, 30th November 1938
16. Das Dasein, 30th November 1938
17. Quo Vadis, 30th November 1938
18. Chickenfeed, 1st December 1938
19. A Mind at the End of its Tether, 5th December 1938
20. The Shape of Things to Come, 5th December 1938
21. A Reunion at the Alba Club, 5th December 1938
22. Canary Trap, 6th December 1938
23. The Crime Hospital, 6th December 1938
24. The Last Dance, 3rd January 1939
Acknowledgements
Novels by Hannu Rajaniemi
About the Author
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
SUMMERLAND
Copyright © 2018 by Hannu Rajaniemi
All rights reserved.
Cover art by Jeffrey Alan Love
Cover design by Jamie Stafford-Hill
A Tor Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates
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Tor® is a registered trademark of Macmillan Publishing Group, LLC.
The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
ISBN 978-1-250-17892-3 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-250-17893-0 (ebook)
eISBN 9781250178930
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[email protected] Simultaneously published in Great Britain by Orion Publishing Group Limited, a Hachette UK company
First U.S. Edition: June 2018
Hannu Rajaniemi, Summerland
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