The Other Tree (7 page)

“They call us beggars,” said Paul. “And, occasionally, public nuisances.”

“It’s performance art!” said Gruyere, a hand flying to his heart.

Luke glanced at Fernice, who was still staring blankly ahead from behind his dark spectacles, wearing a sombre expression.

“Can that guy see?” Luke whispered to Paul.

“Those sunnies are his only pair of prescription glasses,” said Paul. “But he likes to pretend to tourists he’s a blind seer. Anyway, if you need somewhere to sleep, this place is full at night, but there’s a boarded-up chemical warehouse a few blocks south, a run-down barn about five miles west of Fool’s Piazza, and an abandoned chapel just past Lyon’s Crossing.”

“Don’t sleep at the warehouse more than three nights in a row,” warned Gruyere. “That place changes you…”

“Thanks,” said Luke uncertainly. “You know, if you’re into performance art, maybe you could set up an amateur theatre grou—”

Luke caught the faint sound of raised voices echoing down the street, bouncing off the cobblestones. The distant tension stung through the air like a familiar scent, and he rose from his chair, moving warily to the door.

About two blocks down, a woman with limp red hair was arguing with two men dressed as Roman centurions. The men gestured aggressively, and the woman was edging away slowly.

As Luke trod carefully closer, he could see that the two men were actually dressed in stained red sweaters, with cardboard armour. And while one was wearing sandals, the other wore purple flip-flops with the name “Ivan” written on them in marker, and possibly the words “Left” and “Right,” respectively. There was nothing fake, though, about the long knife each man wore tucked into his cheap leather belt.

“Twenty-five US dollars a picture,” said the man wearing the sandals—the bulkier of the faux soldiers.

“I said I didn’t photograph you,” replied the red-haired woman calmly.

She clutched her side bag tightly behind her.

“Look,” said the one in purple flip-flops, presumably “Ivan.” “Just pay what you owe, and there’ll be no trouble.”

Ivan’s understanding of the Roman soldier scam was, like his costume, sketchy at best. For instance, it didn’t matter that he was wearing purple flip-flops, or that his “armour” had pizza logos on it. Nor was it relevant that they were miles away from anything remotely resembling a colosseum. What mattered was that Ivan and his buddy were here, and so were you. And you had money.

The woman stood very straight, and the scene reminded Luke of a stand-off he had once seen between a praying mantis and a cat. One of them had gotten eaten.

“I assure you, there will be no trouble,” said the red-haired woman, her hand sliding slowly into her bag.

“Hey!” called Luke, running towards the trio. “The tour bus is going to leave without us!”

Luke paused breathlessly beside the woman, grabbing her arm. She looked at him in surprise, her gaze sliding over him in rapid appraisal. Luke gave a hurried glance to the two dishevelled mock soldiers, and quickly slapped a fiver into Ivan’s hand.

“Sorry,” said Luke, jogging away with the woman in tow. “We’re going to be late for the churros museum!”

The bulkier man took a few steps after them, but Ivan gave a desisting wave, tucking the fiver into his pocket. Sometimes you had to balance the reward with the trouble, and there was something slightly odd about that guy…almost like an air of decay.

Several winding streets away, Luke and the red-haired woman slowed to a ragged walk.

“Churros museum?” wheezed the woman.

“I don’t lie well under pressure,” said Luke, breathing deeply. “Odd spot for a tourist.”

“I could say the same of you.”

“I’m a priest. I was ministering.”

“Is that why you smell of homeless people?”

Luke sighed with the weight of a thousand wasted sermons.

“Being nice isn’t as important as being good,” said Luke. “But it can still make—”

He paused, remembering why he hated giving sermons. All those faces staring up at him, but none of them really listening. None of them really caring. They had taken him off speaking duties after his flat expression of crushing disappointment had made the smaller children cry.

“Never mind,” said Luke.

“Thank you,” said the woman, a little more gently. “But I was fine.”

“Sure, a jet of Mace would have done the trick. And maybe next time they’d think twice. Then again, maybe next time they’d take it out on someone who didn’t have a can of Mace.”

The woman didn’t reply, but there was something slightly odd in her eyes as she glanced at Luke.

“So what were you going to pull out?” asked Luke.

“Yes, Mace.” The woman buttoned up her bag firmly.

For a moment, Luke thought he saw something move inside the bag. He subtly took note of the woman’s heavy boots beneath her summery dress.

“Thought it’d be fun to check out the slums?” asked Luke.

“I got lost.”

“I’ll walk you back to your hotel.”

“Thanks, but I’m fine.”

She gave Luke a quick smile before jogging away down a side street.

“I thought you said you were lost,” said Luke.

“I’m okay now.”

“What’s your name?” called Luke, as the woman retreated down the dim laneway.

Her voice carried back from the alley.

“Thena!”

5

Money wasn’t everything.

There was intelligence, stealth, brute force, and allegedly, feminine wiles. Chris was favouring the second option, and had decided there were insufficient resources for the third or fourth.

Chris slowly circled the halls of St Basilissa’s Museum for the umpteenth time, raking her gaze across the lighting rigs and security cameras, willing the receptionist to take an extended tea break, or perhaps to just spontaneously pass out.

Docker and his team had gone through the door behind the reception desk—the Sumerian tablet had to be somewhere through there.

Chris paused near the front desk to examine a display featuring a two-thousand-year-old piece of dental floss from South America. According to the information plaque, it had been painstakingly reconstructed from seventeen different pieces of fibre. Chris tried to look interested.

The receptionist, Fabian, was trying not to fidget. He adjusted his nametag again, then nervously clenched his hands on the desk. He quite liked his job, although he had aspired as a child to be a cameleer. However, he had discovered that camels disliked him marginally more than he disliked eye infections from flying sand, so museums it was. He liked the order of the museum and the wonder he occasionally saw in people when they viewed a particular display. There was a certain gratification to sharing marvellous things with the public.

Which was why it grated when
certain
parties swanned in, expecting rare items to be made available, demanding exclusive access to valuable pieces. This was a museum, not Rodeo Drive. Fabian remembered the time an advertising company had rented a rare Cambodian clay chalice for a beer ad, and it had come back chipped and smudged with lipstick stains. He had heard the Assistant Curator crying in her office for days.

The telephone on his desk rang, and Fabian scooped up the receiver.

Chris watched surreptitiously as Fabian spoke softly in Italian, his tone clipped and unhappy, in the manner of employees everywhere when being given instructions they were not disposed to follow, and which they would invariably recount in their exit interviews. Fabian replaced the receiver stiffly and strode over to the security door, pressing a short code into the control pad.

Chris held her breath, wrapping her fingers around a business card in her pocket. She watched closely as Fabian opened the door and disappeared through it.

As the door began to swing shut, Chris lunged past the desk and slipped the business card into the locking mechanism. She tried to look inconspicuous as she held the card tightly, listening as the footsteps died away. Glancing casually around the reception hall, she took a deep breath and slipped through the door.

Life is full of classic choices, many of them clear dichotomies. One or the other. Left or right. Right or wrong. And often, of such simple choices, great historic changes are made, or wonderful opportunities lost.

The corridor was carpeted in rich, verdant green, and the walls were panelled in polished teak. At the end of the short hallway lay a staircase curving upwards, and another leading down.

The world can be divided into two camps. The first consists of those who, when confronted with a giant beanstalk, will climb to the top, and most likely be bestowed with riches and fame. The second group consists of people like Chris, who will probably dig up the beanstalk, take it home, and try to find out how it managed to get so damned big. They would then try to apply the same principle to potatoes in the hope of ending world hunger. There is actually a third group, whose instinct is to sell the beanstalk for woodchips to make cheap, unstable furniture, but they are unlikely to have found the beanstalk in the first place.

Choices like these dictated the kind of life you led, and ultimately defined whether you viewed the world from above, or from within.

Chris trod softly to the staircase, and with a cautious glance upwards, began to descend the stairs. The staircase continued for some time. As it descended the carpet took on a dull, stained look, and some of the wooden panelling became bloated and speckled. Several of the blown light bulbs had not been replaced, leaving their frosted glass sconces brimming with shadow. Just as Chris began to suspect that the carpet was damp, the staircase ended at a blue metal door with a steel handle.

Seeing no suspicious wires, obvious cameras, or signs warning against the inappropriate use of fire escapes, Chris turned the door handle and pushed. She cringed and waited, but there was only silence. She pushed the door open wider, and saw a dim, concrete corridor stretching ahead. Plain blue doors studded the walls, and at the very end of the corridor was a heavy red door marked “Staff Only.”

When searching for forbidden artefacts, doors labelled “Keep Out” were often good places to start. Chris stepped carefully into the corridor, and covered her nose with a hand. There was an odd smell down here—not like must and millipedes, more like…something rotting, very reluctantly. Her shoes crunched on the gritty concrete as she approached the far door, and the odour grew much stronger.

Trying not to breathe too deeply, or at all, Chris stopped at the glistening red door, her hand hovering over the metal handle.

Well
, thought Chris,
it doesn’t say “Do Not Enter,” or “Radioactive.”

In the silence, she thought she could hear a faint squelching noise on the other side of the door.

Her hand closed on the handle.

“Oh my God, stop!” cried a voice.

Chris spun around, excuses already sorting themselves into order.

A woman with thick brown hair had emerged from a side door, and she was staring at Chris with an expression somewhere between horror and hysterical panic. She wore a name badge, reading “Rnynw: Assistant Curator of Uncategorised Objects,” but more striking was her choice of a harlequin blouse with a skirt patterned in skulls and crossbones. She also happened to be carrying a tumbleweed.

“I was looking for the bathroom,” said Chris.

Rnynw rushed over to Chris, inspecting the door urgently.

“What’s behind there?” asked Chris.

“Uh,” Rnynw looked suddenly wary. “Nothing.”

Squelch.

“You’re not from city council, are you?” asked Rnynw, a bead of sweat forming on her brow.

Chris glanced at the tumbleweed.

“Actually, I’m a Miscellaneous Academic from Varria University,” said Chris. “My office is a lot like this.”

Chris gestured around the basement, and she saw Rnynw relax slightly.

“You know, you can get rid of the mould on the walls by spraying it with a fifteen-percent tea tree oil solution,” said Chris. “No impact on millipedes, though.”

“I don’t know how they get down here,” muttered Rnynw, watching a trail of them scuttle across the floor.

Satisfied that the door hadn’t been breached, Rnynw walked back towards a side door. Chris squinted at Rnynw’s name tag.

“That’s a very unusual name,” said Chris delicately.

“My name’s Rochelle,” said Rnynw. “They messed up my nametag and couldn’t afford to reprint it.”

“You could tell people you’re Welsh.”

Rnynw smiled wryly as she pushed her way into a cluttered room. The interior was piled high with crates and trays, boxes and bags, and was lined with shelves heaving under countless unidentifiable objects made from minerals, metal, and possibly hair.

“I don’t spend enough time upstairs to talk to anyone.” Rnynw placed the tumbleweed on a desk half-submerged beneath a landslide of tiny wooden carvings. “I’m stuck down here classifying things that will never go on display.”

“Things?” Chris perked up. “Like Sumerian tablets?”

“Oh no! Things like that are kept in the prime vault in the secure sector, on the lockdown level near the roof under the guards’ unit.”

Somewhere, a cricket chirped.

“Oh.”

“I do things like pre-historic orthopaedics and alien carvings,” said Rnynw, holding up a rough soapstone statuette of a humanoid with antennae.

“Wow. That’s…”

“Weird, I know. And crazy. Which is why these things will never go on display. They won’t throw them out, just in case, but they’d never put their name to them.”

Chris picked up a clay urn depicting a weeping figure surrounded by middens of rubbish, a large stylised diamond floating above its head.

“Strange things can be fun,” said Chris. “They make people ask questions. Canals on Mars, chariots of the gods, who built the moon. Questions strengthen good theories and expose the flaws in bad ones. I think it’d be fun if the museum had an exhibition of all your strange artefacts. I bet it’d pull a crowd.”

Rnynw contemplated this, turning the tumbleweed in her hands.

“So, you’re interested in Sumerian tablets?” said Rnynw.

“Just one,” sighed Chris. “I don’t suppose you have any photos, or know anyone with a spare guard’s uniform?”