End of the Century (53 page)

Alice and Stillman shucked out of their cloaks, carefully wrapping them up for the return trip, removing them to reduce the chance that they might get ripped unnecessarily. Alice's backpack was still back in the stairwell, hidden as best as they were able to manage, and so when the cloaks were wrapped, they set them down on the safe side of the steel door, ready for their eventual exit. Then they had a chance to look around them a bit, their vision unobstructed.

Stillman, a man who casually talked about communication with other universes and technology from the future, who lived in a secret underground
base and had a lifetime of memories of the dark corners of reality where most never tread, nodded, appreciatively. “Now
this
is impressive…”

It took them so long to find the Vanishing Gem that Alice began to worry it wasn't there after all. Stillman didn't seem much to mind, though. He kept lingering by displays that were obviously
not
the Vanishing Gem like a kid with a gift certificate bouncing around the aisles of a toy store, trying to decide what to buy.

“Oh, look at this!” Stillman pointed at what looked at first glance to be a fat robot snake, or a beetlelike sculpture. It was constructed of a stainless, glimmering silvery metal, segmented like an armadillo, and was one foot long and several inches in diameter, with four pinchers a few inches long on either end. “I've heard about this but never thought I'd see it.”

“What is it?”

“A Roman named Niveus that…well, that I've read about, said that he saw something just like it in fourth-century Britain. An Irish Celt was using it as a prosthetic arm, if you can believe it, though it was clearly repurposed. The Celt was an ancient old man, but talked about having come from somewhere else, some
when
else, when he was a younger man. He'd made a new life in his new home but still talked about his former existence, especially when in his cups. If not for the silver arm and certain details about future events in his stories, Niveus would have dismissed him as a madman, unhinged by drink. Niveus wanted to make off with the prosthetic, but the Celt's grandchildren caught wind of it and secreted the old man away. Niveus never saw him again.”

Alice shrugged and moved on.

She passed what looked
exactly
like the Ark of the Covenant from the Indiana Jones movie but which Alice was sure must have been a movie prop. Further along was a black stone, polished to a mirror sheen, held in a gold frame. Next to it was something Stillman called an astrolabe made of gold, covered in what Alice thought might be Persian writing. A few feet away stood a small model of the moon, carved of ivory, with the craters marked with Egyptian hieroglyphics.

“Ah, a functioning Antikythera computer,” Stillman said, pointing to a box of brass and teak with a pair of dials on the front, centered on concentric metal rings. “Didn't think any of those survived.”

Alice continued. Resting on a long display table was a sword in a sheath. It was white, almost translucent like porcelain, but looked blue when the light hit it at an angle, the scabbard and hilt made of the same material. The handle was a spiral, like a narwhale's tusk, like a unicorn's horn, coming to a blunted point. Only the faintest line was visible between hilt and scabbard.

“My god…” Stillman said in a whisper, coming to stand beside her. He reached out his hand, tentatively, his fingers stopping just inches from the handle. Alice knew, from everything Stillman had learned, that the objects on display in the gallery were not wired to sensors or detectors; still, it was as though Stillman was afraid to touch the sword. “I…I never thought to see…”

Stillman, holding his breath, wrapped one hand around the handle, put the other under the scabbard, and lifted the strange blue-white sword into the air.

Alice opened her mouth to speak, to ask him what was so important about a sword made of porcelain or whatever, but then she caught a glimpse, out of the corner of her eye, of an unprepossessing smooth gem sitting on fabric under glass atop a nearby plinth. She turned her head, looking directly at it.

It was
exactly
as she'd seen in her visions. This was the last piece of the puzzle.

“I
do
hope you'll be careful with that. Unbreakable the sword may be, but devilishly hard to keep the fingerprints off.”

Alice's heart leapt into her throat, and she spun around. Stillman, the sword still in one hand, was drawing his Hotspur from inside his jacket with the other.

There, behind them, stood a young man in a plain white T-shirt and black slacks, his feet bare, standing before the elevator, the doors just now sliding shut. He was bald, and Alice couldn't be sure, but she got the impression that his eyebrows were more pencil than brow. His eyes were hidden behind sunglasses, the frames small and round. He smiled at them, quizzically, his hands on his hips.

It was Iain Temple, naturally.

“Don't look now, love,” Stillman said, casually, “but I think we've been rumbled.”

Temple stepped forward, casually, making no threatening moves. If Alice hadn't known that he'd started releasing albums more than ten years before she was born, she'd have guessed he was only a few years her senior, at most. What was it with these British guys not aging, anyway?

“Interesting, isn't it?” Temple indicated the blue-white sword with a nod, then held his hand out to Stillman. “May I?”

Stillman narrowed his eyes, warily, and kept the barrel of his Hotspur trained on Temple's chest, but handed the sword over without objection.

“It appears to be topologically flat, if you can believe it.” Temple had both hands around the handle, holding the point of the scabbard up before him. “A single, impossibly large molecule. Or perhaps, some of my researchers theorize, two macromolecules cohered by intermolecular forces.” He pointed to the faint seam where the handle met the scabbard. “Magnetic resonance imagining can't penetrate, but our models suggest a ‘blade' within, a continuation of this spiraling grip. There's every possibility that, if there is such a blade within, and it is only a single molecule thick, that it would be capable of slicing through virtually any material. Only matter with incredibly strong bonds between the constituent molecules, whether covalent or intermolecular, would be proof against it. Like a monofilament, but rigid.” He shook his head, still smiling, and carefully placed the sword back on the display table. “But we've never been able to force the scabbard open, so we can't know for sure. Still, it's beyond the reach of any science
I've
every encountered, that's for certain. One of my teams unearthed it in Iceland years ago, and it's been a puzzle ever since.”

Stillman had slowly worked his way around, his fletchette pistol still trained on Temple, until he stood beside Alice. “You won't be able to get it open, either.”

Temple raised one of his drawn-on eyebrows, pursing his lips slightly. “Oh, really?”

Stillman nodded. “That sword used to belong to a friend of mine. John Delamere. He was the only one who could ever draw the blade. He said it was because it was genetically coded to its owner.”

Temple's brow remained raised, and he nodded, impressed. “I'll have to make a note of that. Perhaps it might open new avenues of exploration.”

“I thought you were supposed to be out of the country,” Stillman said.

Temple shook his head. “No, I've not left this building for years. I have doubles that travel, make personal appearances, such like. I conduct interviews via satellite from here, run my companies by telephone or telepresence, but I never leave the Glasshouse.”

Stillman scowled.

“Now
you
I recognize from our meeting years ago,” Temple said, pointing to Stillman. “And I've kept up with you, over the years. I have extensive intelligence on operations such as that which you used to head, Mr. Waters. But you?” He pointed to Alice. “I'm afraid I haven't had the pleasure.”

Alice was in no mood even to pretend to be polite. She could feel anger welling up inside, a rage that was all too familiar.

“Why'd you take it?!” Alice yelled, having to restrain herself from rushing the man. “What's this all about? What's this got to do with
me
?!”

“I'm sure I have no idea, my dear.” Temple smiled, unctuous.

“The gem!” Alice stabbed a finger at the jewel safely ensconced behind the glass case.

“Ah, the so-called Vanishing Gem?” He looked from Alice to Stillman and back again. “Is
that
what this is about?”

“What is it, anyway?” Stillman asked, his Hotspur unwavering.

Temple shrugged and drifted over to the glass display containing the gem. “Well, that's the real question, isn't it? It appears to be some sort of opaque gem, nothing remarkable about it, except that it seems to be growing smaller, without measurably dissipating any energy or mass. It's
vanishing
, as the British Museum would have it. But where is it going?”

He stopped and looked to Alice and Stillman, as if expecting an answer. When they remained unspeaking, he shrugged and went on.

“One of my researchers was extremely bothered by all this, let me tell you. Kept banging on about the information paradox and such like. There was even the suggestion that the excess mass was bleeding as energy into another universe or continua altogether. But I've had some personal experience
with such cross-continuum encounters—believe me—and this has none of the hallmarks. There is typically some residual Hawking radiation around such a fissure in space-time, particle-antiparticle pairs that are generated by vacuum fluctuations and then separated when one of the pair disappears into the fissure. There's no such radiation here. Nothing. So, again, what is it?”

“Why don't you tell us, smart guy?” Alice snarled.

Temple shrugged. “Very well.” He put his hands on his knees and leaned over to peer closely through the glass at the gem. “Our best guess, at this stage, is that the gem is an object from outside this universe entirely. It only appears to be shrinking because it is, in fact, moving backwards in time.”

“What?” Alice said.

“Which suggests, based on the current rate of decay,” Temple went on, as if she hadn't spoken, “that we'll be witnessing the initial ‘incursion' any time now.” He straightened and smiled at them. “Exciting, isn't it?”

Stillman had evidently had enough. He raised the Hotspur, thumbing the control for full automatic. “All right, this has been charming, but I don't think we've got anything to lose at this stage by abandoning subtlety. The young lady needs the gem, I believe, but for what reason I'm not sure. In for a penny, in for a pound. So open the case, give me the gem, and we'll be on our way.”

Temple just smiled at them, maddeningly.

“What if his guards are on their way?” Alice said, tugging Stillman's sleeve.

Stillman shook his head. “No, if they were coming, they'd be here already. I don't think our friend here called them before finding us here.”

Temple shook his head, apologetically. “Oh, no, I didn't find you here by chance. I received word from downstairs that there was a break-in and came here to check on my gallery.”

Alice glared at Stillman. “I thought you said this was going to
work
.”

Stillman was confused. “I don't understand. We shouldn't have tripped
any
alarm.”

“Oh, it wasn't you, I shouldn't expect.” Temple put his hands in his pockets, casually. “You were already in the gallery when the break-in occurred, if I'm not mistaken.”

Alice and Stillman exchanged glances.

“So who
was
it, then?” Alice said.

At that moment, the steel door through which they'd come, which now stood closed and locked again, suddenly tore in half, as a bright red line appeared, slicing from the top right to the bottom left, cleaving the door neatly in two.

As the two halves of the door fell apart from one another, clattering to the floor with a deafening din, Temple glanced back at Alice and Stillman.