The Unnatural Inquirer Part 7

We walked a while in silence, chewing thoughtfully.

"I've never been to the Museum of Unnatural History," Bettie said finally. "I always meant to go and take a look at what they've got there. I understand they have some really interesting exhibits. But it's not really me. I don't do the educational thing."

"They've got a Tyrannosaurus rex," I said.

Bettie threw away her stick and looked at me. "What, the complete skeleton?"

"No, in a cage."

Her eyes widened. "Wow; a real T. rex! I wonder what they feed it..."

"People who litter, probably."

The Museum of Unnatural History is very modern-looking. The French may have a gla.s.s pyramid outside the Louvre, but we have a gla.s.s tesseract. An expanded cube that exists in four spatial dimensions. A bit hard on the eyes, but a small price to pay for style. The tesseract isn't merely the entrance to the Museum, it contains the whole thing inside its own very private and secure pocket dimension. The Museum needs a whole dimension to itself, to contain all the wonders and marvels it has acc.u.mulated down the years; from the Past, the Present, and any number of Future time-lines.

I walked steadily forward into the gla.s.s tesseract, Bettie clinging firmly to my arm again, and almost immediately we were standing in the Museum's entrance lobby. I say almost immediately; there was a brief sensation of falling, of alien voices howling all around, and a huge eye turning slowly to look in our direction...but you tend to take things like that in your stride in the Nightside. The lobby itself was quaintly and pleasantly old-fas.h.i.+oned. All polished oak and bra.s.s and Victorian fittings, marble floors with built-in mosaics, and any number of wire stands packed with books and pamphlets and learned volumes on sale, inspired by the many famous (or currently fas.h.i.+onable) exhibits. Once again the ticket barrier opened itself for me, and Bettie looked at me, impressed.

"This is even better than having an expense account. Did you do something important for the Museum, too?"

"No," I said. "I think they're just scared of me."

The uniformed staff were all Neanderthals-big and muscular, with hairy hands, low brows, and chinless jaws filled with large blocky teeth. The deep-set eyes were kind, but distant. Neanderthals performed all the menial work in the Museum, in return for not being exhibits. They were also in charge of basic security, and rumour had it they were allowed to eat anyone they caught. I asked one to take us to the Director of the Museum, and he hooted softly before beckoning us to follow him. He had a piercing in one ear, and a badge on his lapel saying UNIONISE NOW!

He led us deep into the Museum, and Bettie's head swung back and forth, trying to take in everything at once. I was almost as bad. The Museum really does have something for everyone. A miniature blue whale, presented in a match-box, to give it some scale. I wondered vaguely how it would taste on toast. More disturbingly, half of one wall was taken up with a Victorian display of stuffed and mounted wee winged fairies, pinned through the abdomen. Only a few inches tall, the fairies were perfectly formed, their stretched-out wings glued in place and showing off all the delicate colours of a soap bubble. They had many-faceted insect eyes, and vicious barbed stingers hung down between their toothpick legs. In the next room there were tall gla.s.s jars containing fire-flies and iceflies, mermaids with monkey faces, and a display of alien genitalia through the ages. Bettie got the giggles.

On a somewhat larger scale, one whole room was taken up with a single great diorama featuring the fabled last battle between Man and Elf. The dozens of full-sized figures were very impressive. The Men, in their spiked and greaved armour, looked brave and heroic, while the Fae looked twisted and evil. Which was pretty much the way it was, by all accounts. There was a lot of blood and gore and severed limbs, but I suppose you need that these days to bring in the tourists. Another huge diorama showed a pack of werewolves on the prowl, under a full moon. Each figure showed a different stage of the transformation, from man to wolf. They all looked unnervingly real; but up close there was a definite smell of sawdust and preservatives.

Another group of figures showed a pack of ghouls, teaching a human changeling child how to feed as they did. The Museum of Unnatural History presented such things without comment. History is what it is and not what we would have it be.

There were a fair number of people around, but the place wasn't what you'd call crowded, despite all the wonders and treasures on display. People don't tend to come to the Nightside for such intellectual pleasures. And tourism's been right down since the recent wars. The Museum is said to be heavily subsidised, but I couldn't tell you who by. Most of the exhibits are donated; the Museum certainly didn't have the budget to buy them.

The uniformed Neanderthal finally brought us to the Museum's current pride and joy, the Tyrannosaurus rex. The cage they'd made to hold it was huge, a good three hundred feet in diameter and a hundred feet high. The bars were reinforced steel, but the cage's interior had been made over into a reconstruction of the T. rex's time, to make it feel at home. The cage contained a primordial jungle, with vast trees and luxurious vegetation, under a blazing sun. The illusion was perfect. The terrible heat didn't pa.s.s beyond the bars, but a gusting breeze carried out the thick and heavy scents of crushed vegetation, rotting carrion, and even the damp smells of a nearby salt flat. I could even hear the buzzing of oversized flies and other insects. The trees were tall and dark, with drooping serrated leaves, and what ground I could see was mostly mud, stamped flat.

But it was all dominated by the tyrant king himself, Tyrannosaurus rex. It towered above us, almost as tall as the trees, much bigger than I'd expected. It stood very still, half-hidden amongst the shadows of rotting vegetation, watching us through the bars. There was a definite sense of weight and impact about it, as though the ground itself would shake and shudder when it moved. Its scales were a dull grey-green, splashed here and there with the dried blood of recent kills. It panted loudly through its open mouth, revealing jagged teeth like a shark's. The small gripping arms high up on the chest didn't seem ridiculous at all, when seen full size. I had no doubt they could tear me apart in a moment. But it was the eyes that troubled me the most; set far back in the ugly wedge-shaped head, they were sharp and knowing...and they hated. They looked right at me, and they knew me. This was no mere animal, no simple savage beast. It knew it was a prisoner, and it knew who was responsible; and it lived for the moment when it would inevitably break free and take a terrible revenge.

"How the h.e.l.l did they get hold of a T. rex?" said Bettie, her voice unconsciously hushed.

"You should read your own paper more often," I said. "There was a sudden invasion of dinosaurs through a Timeslip, earlier this year. Some fifty a.s.sorted beasts got through, before Walker sent in an emergency squad to shut down the Timeslip. Most of the creatures were killed pretty quickly; the members of the Nightside Gun Club couldn't believe their luck. They came running with every kind of gun you can think of, and the dinosaurs never stood a chance, poor b.a.s.t.a.r.ds. The only reason the T. rex survived was because the big-game hunters spent too long squabbling over who had the right to go first. Walker claimed it for the Museum before they started a shooting war over it."

"How did they get it here?" said Bettie, standing very close to me. "I mean, look at it; that is big. Seriously big. There can't be that many tranquilliser darts in the world."

"Walker had one of his pet sorcerers put the thing in stasis while the Museum got its accommodations ready. Then the sorcerer transported it right into its cage. The j.a.panese have been pouring in to have their photographs taken with it ever since."

While we were watching the T. rex, and it was watching us, the uniformed Neanderthal had gone off and found the Museum's Director. He turned out to be one Percival Smythe-Herriot, a tall spindly figure in a s.h.i.+ny suit, with some of his breakfast still staining his waistcoat. He stamped to a halt before me and gave both Bettie and me a brief, professional, and utterly meaningless smile. He didn't offer to shake hands. He had a lean and hungry look, as though he was always ready to add a new exhibit to his beloved Museum and was already wondering how I would look stuffed, mounted, and put on display.

"John Taylor," he said, in a voice like someone trying to decide whether snail or octopus would make the least distressing starter. "Oh, yes; I know you. Or of you. Trouble-maker. Or at the very least, someone trouble follows around like a devoted pet. Tell me what it is you want here, so I can help you find it, then escort you quickly to the nearest exit. Before something goes horribly and destructively wrong in my nice and carefully laid-out Museum."

"Are you going to let him talk to you like that?" said Bettie.

"Yes," I said. "I find his honesty and grasp of reality quite refres.h.i.+ng." I gave Percival my own professional smile and was quietly pleased to see him wince a little. "Walker sent me. I need to talk to the Collector."

"Oh, him. Yes...I'd never have let him in here, but Walker insisted. Part of the price tag for his help in acquiring the T. rex. Beware civil servants bearing gifts...I mean, giving the Collector free access to a museum is like letting a fox with a chain-saw into a hen-house. Thief! Grave-robber! Amateur! All the great historical treasures he's supposed to have, kept locked away so he can gloat over them in private, when by rights they should be on open display in my Museum! It doesn't bear thinking about. My doctor told me not to think about it; he said it was bad for my blood pressure. I have to take these little pink pills, and I'm always running out. I'd have the Collector thrown out...if I didn't think he'd kill me and all my staff and burn down the Museum as he left...So go ahead, talk to him. See if I care. I'm just the Director of this Museum. I can feel one of my heads coming on..."

"Where is the Collector?" I said patiently.

For the first time, Percival gave me a real smile. It wasn't at all a nice smile, but I had no doubt he meant it.

"Through there," he said, pointing at the T. rex's cage. "There's a door, right in the middle of our artificial jungle. You'll find the Collector in his lair, on the other side of the door."

"Oh, joy," I said.

"Deep joy," said Bettie, staring in horrified fascination at the jungle in the cage. "The Collector really doesn't want visitors, does he? Why couldn't he have settled for a BEWARE OF THE DOG sign like anyone else?"

I looked at Percival. "I don't suppose..."

"My position is purely administrative," he said, still smiling his nasty smile. "You're on your own, Mr. Taylor."

He turned his back on us and strode away, snapping his fingers for the Neanderthal to follow him. I gave the cage my full attention. I wasn't sure if I really needed to see the Collector that badly. I moved slowly forward, going right up to the bars of the cage for a better look. Bettie stuck really close beside me. With my face next to the bars, I could feel the savage heat of the jungle. My bare skin smarted just from the feel of it.

The T. rex surged forward, exploding out of its cover, throwing broken vegetation in all directions. It crossed the intervening s.p.a.ce in a few seconds, driven forward by its ma.s.sive legs, and its slavering mouth slammed against the other side of the bars while I was still reacting to its first movement. The bars held, and the T. rex smashed its great head against them again and again, determined to reach me. I stumbled back, Bettie clinging desperately to my arm. The T. rex howled, a deafening roar of hate and frustration. The smell of rotting meat from its mouth was almost overpowering. I backed away some more, and Bettie turned and buried her face in my chest. I put my arms around her and held her. Both of us were shaking.

The T. rex snorted once, threateningly, and then turned its great bulk around and stalked back into the jungle. The ground really did tremble when it moved.

I was still holding Bettie. We were both breathing hard. I could feel her heart beating fast, close to mine. She raised her face to look at me. Her eyes were very big. I could feel her breath on my face. Her scent filled my head. Our faces were very close. It had been a long time since I'd held a woman this close to me.

It felt good.

I pushed her away gently, and immediately we were both two professional people again. I looked at the jungle. I thought I could make out the silhouette of the T. rex, lurking silently, concealed amongst the tall trees.

"Big, isn't it?" I said. "Fast, too."

"It smells of meat and murder," said Bettie. "It smells of death."

"It's a killer," I said.

"How the h.e.l.l are we going to get past it?"

I looked at her. "You sure you want to try?"

"h.e.l.l yes! No oversized iguana is going to intimidate me! Besides, never let anything distract you from following the story. First thing they teach you at the Unnatural Inquirer. Right after how to fill out an expenses claim and next-of-kin forms." She looked at me consideringly. "You couldn't just kill it, could you?"

"I think an awful lot of very well-connected people would be exceedingly upset."

"That's never stopped you before."

"True. But a T. rex is too d.a.m.ned special to kill unless I absolutely have to."

"So what do we do? Call in some of your more dangerous friends and allies for backup? Shotgun Suzie? Razor Eddie? The Grey Eidolon?"

"No," I said. "I solve my own problems."

I studied the artificial jungle, hot and sweaty and stinking under its artificial sun. Flies buzzed hungrily, along with foot-long dragonflies and other less familiar insects. The jungle on its own would be hard enough to take, even without the T. rex. I could see it more clearly now, s.h.i.+fting its weight slowly from one great leg to the other, its long tail twitching restlessly. It stood there, huge and menacing, waiting for me to try something. Waiting for its chance. There was no sign of the Collector's door; but it couldn't be far. The cage wasn't that big...I smiled slowly. The T. rex would know where the door was. It would know it was important. So it would put itself between me and the door. Which meant...My smile widened as I looked at the T. rex's ma.s.sive legs, and then at the s.p.a.ce between them.

"That is a really unpleasant smile," said Bettie. "Whatever you're thinking, please stop it."

"I have a plan," I said.

"I'm really not going to like it, am I?"

"How fast can you run?" I said.

"Oh, no," she said. "You're not suggesting..."

"Oh, yes I am," I said.

I marched back to the cage bars, Bettie moving unhappily along with me. The T. rex stepped out into the open, grinning at me with its terrible jaws. The feeding arms high up on the barrel chest clutched spasmodically at the air. I reached into my coat-pocket and took out a flashbang. I gestured for Bettie to cover her eyes and ears, then tossed the flashbang into the cage. The T. rex started forward. I closed my eyes, covered my ears, and turned my head away, and the flashbang exploded, filling the world with a fierce incandescent glare. I could still see it through my clenched-shut eyes. The T. rex screamed like a steam whistle. I turned back, grabbed Bettie's hand, and we squeezed quickly between the steel bars. Designed to keep the T. rex in, not people out. The T. rex stamped its great feet up and down, swinging its wedge-shaped head back and forth, trying to shake off the pain in its dazzled eyes. And I ran straight at the creature, with Bettie pounding gamely along at my side.

The heat hit me like a blast furnace, and the stench was almost unbearable. The T. rex knew we were coming, but it was too confused to place us. It snapped at the empty air, the heavy jaws slamming together like a man-trap. I headed for the gap between its legs. I think it sensed how close we were, because the great head came sweeping down. Bettie and I ran straight between its wide-set legs and out the other side, hardly having to duck at all. The T. rex's head smashed into the ground as it missed us.

By the time the T. rex had shaken off its daze and its new headache, and got itself turned around, I'd already found the Collector's door and got it open. It wasn't even locked, the smug b.a.s.t.a.r.d. I pushed Bettie through and followed her in. I turned to shut the door, and there was the T. rex, shrieking with rage as it lurched towards the door. I blew a raspberry at it, and shut the door in its face.

Inside the Collector's lair, it was blessedly cool. I took a moment to get my breath back. I wasn't worried about the door. Any door the Collector trusted to guard his treasures could take care of itself. I looked around, while Bettie got her breathing back under control and cursed me with a whole series of baby swear-words. The Collector's new domain looked a lot like his old one. It stretched away in all directions, for as far as the eye could follow, and most of it was pretty d.a.m.ned hard on the eye. Walls, floor, and ceiling were all painted in bright primary Technicolor, with gaudy hanging silks to separate one area from another. The Collector's tastes had been formed in the psychedelic sixties, and he never really got over it.

But whereas his old collection up on the Moon had all been stored away in rows and rows of wooden crates, here they were all set out in the open, presented carefully on rows and rows of gla.s.s shelving. Jewels and weapons, books and doc.u.ments, machines and artifacts from all of recorded history. I recognised a few of the bigger items, like the wooden horse of Troy, and a half-burned giant Wicker Man with a dead policeman inside it, under carefully arranged spotlights; but I didn't have to know what the rest were to know they were important. They all but radiated glamour.

I looked round sharply as the Collector's security staff arrived, pattering across the bright blue floor towards us. Gleaming humanoid robots from some future Chinese civilisation, graceful and deadly with steel-clawed hands, and stylised cat faces complete with jutting metal whiskers. Their slit-pupilled eyes glowed green. A dozen of the robots moved swiftly to surround us, and I gestured quickly for Bettie to stand still. The robots hadn't been sent to kill us, or I'd never have heard them coming. Bettie stood firm, glaring about her.

"Call them off, Collector," I said, in a loud and carrying voice. "Or I'll turn them into sc.r.a.p metal."

"You never did have any respect for other people's property, Taylor."

The cat robots fell back silently, to allow the Collector to approach. A pudgy, middle-aged man with a flushed face and beady little eyes, wearing a wraparound Roman toga, white with purple tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs. There were knife holes and old blood stains on the toga's front. Lots of them.

"Do you like it?" he said, stopping a respectful distance away. "A new acquisition. The robe the Emperor Caligula was wearing when he was a.s.sa.s.sinated by his own security people. Partly because he was a monster, but mostly because he embarra.s.sed the h.e.l.l out of them." He looked at me, then at Bettie, who I now noticed was wearing a deep burgundy evening gown, with her long dark hair tumbling in ringlets to her shoulders. Her curved horns gleamed dully under the bright lights. The Collector smiled suddenly. "They've been feeding that T. rex too much; he's getting slow and sloppy. I shall have to have words with that little snot Percival. What do you want here, Taylor?"

I looked around, evading the subject for the moment. Some things you need to sneak up on, and ease into. Especially when you've known the Collector as long as I have.

"I like what you've done with the place," I said. "Up on the Moon, you had everything packed away in boxes. You thinking of opening up to the public?"

"They wish," said the Collector. "What's mine is mine, and not for other eyes. But I had something of an epiphany during the Lilith War; it reminded me of how short life can be, and the necessity for enjoying things while you still can. It's not enough just to own things, any more; I need to be able to walk amongst them, enjoy them, savour them. And I do. What do you want, Taylor?"

"I need a favour," I said. "And you do owe me, Mark."

He looked at me for a long moment, but in the end he looked away first. He seemed suddenly older, and tired.

"How much am I expected to pay for my sins against you?"

I could sense Bettie's ears p.r.i.c.king up, as she realised we were talking about secret, important things, but I didn't feel like enlightening her.

"Only you can answer that," I said. "Just tell me what I need to know, and I'll leave."

"I should kill you," he said, almost casually.

"You could try," I said, easily.

"This is about the Afterlife Recording, isn't it? I haven't got it. Heard about it, of course. The whole d.a.m.ned Nightside is buzzing with news of it, mostly inaccurate, and all the little collectors and speculators are driving themselves crazy running in circles, chasing down every rumour..."

"But not you?" I said.

"I want it. And when I'm good and ready, I'll go and get it. But right now I'm busy with something...something important. I have yet to be convinced that the Recording is the genuine article. But whether it's the real deal or not, I will have it, because it's a unique item, and it belongs here with me, as someone who will appreciate it...What is that woman doing?"

I looked around. Bettie had a small camera in her hands. I reached out and took it away from her.

"Give that back!" she said hotly. "It belongs to the paper! I had to sign for it!"

"Restrain yourself," I said. "We're guests here."

"Oh, but look at all the lovely things he's got," said Bettie, pouting in a very winning way. "The world deserves to know what's here!"

"No they don't," said the Collector. He gave me a thoughtful look. "Is she your latest?"

"No," I said. "I'm still with Suzie."

"Oh. Nice horns." He gave me a hard look. "You always were more trouble than you were worth, Taylor. You know how long it took me to regrow my leg after those insects gnawed it off? All because of you? Give me one good reason why I shouldn't have my lovely cat robots kill you, stuff you, and put you on display?"

"Because I'm my father's son."

"You always did fight dirty, John." He smiled briefly. "The sins of the father..."

"And the mother," I said. "And the man who put them together."

"Walker had sons," said the Collector. "Charles had you. And I...have my collection. Funny how things turn out. Get out of here, Taylor. I don't have the Afterlife Recording, and I don't know who has. Leave. And don't come looking for me again. I won't be here."

He turned and walked away, followed by his cat robots. Bettie looked at me.

"What was that all about?"

"The past," I said. "And how it always ends up haunting the present. Let's go."

"You're sure he doesn't have it, hidden away somewhere?"