Relic

by Douglas Preston

  [207] “I had complete control over the collections?” Frock smiled, his composure returning. “So did I. But this new exhibition, and these killings, have aroused sentiments in people that I hadn’t suspected. Technically, Cuthbert outranks me. I’m not sure why he’s doing this. It would have to be something profoundly embarrassing, something that would delay or prevent his precious exhibition from opening.” He thought for a minute. “Perhaps he’s aware of this creature’s existence. After all, he was the one who moved the crates. Perhaps he found the hatched eggs, made the connection, hid them. And now he wants to deny me my right to study it!” He sat forward in the wheelchair and balled his fists.

  “Dr. Frock, I don’t think that’s a real possibility,” Margo warned. Any thoughts she’d had of telling Frock about Rickman’s removal of the Whittlesey journal evaporated.

  Frock relaxed. “You’re right, of course. This isn’t the end of it, though, you can be sure. Still, we don’t have time for that now, and I trust your observations of Mbwun. But, Margo, we must get in to see those crates.”

  “How?” said Margo.

  Frock slid open a drawer of his desk and fished around for a moment. Then he withdrew a form which Margo immediately recognized: a ‘10-14,’ Request for Access.

  “My mistake,” he went on, “was in asking.” He started to fill out the form longhand.

  “But doesn’t that need to be signed by Central Processing?” Margo asked.

  “Of course,” said Frock. “I will send the form to Central Processing via the usual procedure. And I’ll take the unsigned copy down to the Secure Area and bully my way in. No doubt the request form will be denied. But by the time that happens, I will have had time to examine the crates. And find the answers.”

  “But Dr. Frock, you can’t do that!” Margo replied in a shocked tone.

  “Why not?” Frock smiled wryly. “Frock, a pillar of [208] the Museum establishment, acting in an unorthodox manner? This is too important for such considerations.”

  “I didn’t mean that,” Margo continued. She let her gaze drop to the scientist’s wheelchair.

  Frock looked down. His face fell. “Ah, yes,” he said slowly. “I see what you mean.” Crestfallen, he started to return the paper to his desk.

  “Dr. Frock,” Margo said. “Give me the form. I’ll take it down to the Secure Area.”

  Frock’s hand froze. He looked at Margo appraisingly. “I asked you to be my eyes and ears, but I didn’t ask you to walk over coals for me,” he said. “I’m a tenured curator, a relatively important figure. They wouldn’t dare sack me. But you—” he drew a deep breath, raised his eyebrows. “They could make an example of you, expel you from the Ph.D. program. And I’d be powerless to prevent it.”

  Margo thought for a moment. “I have a friend who’s very clever at this kind of thing. I think he could talk his way into or out of any situation.”

  Frock remained motionless for a moment. Then he tore off the copy and gave it to her. “I’ll have the original delivered upstairs. I have to, if we’re going to maintain the charade. The guard may call Central Processing to verify receipt. You won’t have much time. As soon as it comes in they’ll be on the alert. You will have to be gone by then.”

  From a desk drawer, he withdrew a yellow paper and a key. He showed them to Margo.

  “This paper holds the combination to the Secure Area vaults,” he said. “And here’s the key to the vault itself. All directors have them. With luck, Cuthbert won’t have thought to change the combinations.” He handed them to Margo. “These will get you through the doors. It’s the guards you’ll have to deal with.” He was talking fast now, his eyes locked on Margo’s. “You know what to look for in the crates. Any evidence of eggs, living organisms, even cult objects associated with the creature. [209] Anything that can prove my theory. Check the smaller crate first, Whittlesey’s crate. That’s the one that contained the Mbwun figurine. Check the others if you have time, but, for Heaven’s sake, expose yourself to as little risk as possible. Go now, my dear, and Godspeed.”

  The last thing Margo saw as she left the office was Frock beneath the bow windows, his broad back turned away from her, drumming his fists repeatedly against the arms of his wheelchair. “Damn this thing!” he was saying. “Damn it to hell!”

  = 30 =

  Five minutes later, in her office several floors below, Margo picked up the phone and dialed. Smithback was in a rare mood. As Margo explained Moriarty’s discovery of the deleted accession record and—in somewhat less detail—the events in Frock’s office, his mood grew even more cheerful.

  She heard him chuckling. “Was I right about Rickman, or what? Concealing evidence. Now I’ll make her see the book my way, or—”

  “Smithback, don’t you dare,” Margo warned. “This isn’t for your personal gratification. We don’t know the story behind that journal, and we can’t worry about it, right now. We have to get into those crates, and we only have a few minutes to do it.”

  “All right, all right,” came the answer. “Meet me at the landing outside Entomology. I’m leaving now.”

  “I never thought Frock could be such a radical,” Smithback said. “My respect for the old feller has just gone [211] up two notches.” He was making his way down a long flight of iron stairs. They’d taken a back way in hopes of avoiding the police checkpoints set up at all elevator banks.

  “You’ve got the key and the combination, right?” he asked from the bottom of the stairs. Margo checked her carryall, then followed him.

  She glanced quickly up and down the corridor. “You know how the hall outside the Secure Area has lighted alcoves along it? You go ahead, I’ll follow a minute later. Talk to the guard, try to draw him into an alcove where the light is better, on the pretext of showing him this form. Get him to turn his back for a couple of minutes, and then I’ll unlock the door and go in. Just keep him occupied. You’re a good talker.”

  “That’s your plan?” Smithback scoffed. “All right.” He spun on his heels, continued down the corridor, and vanished around the corner.

  Margo waited, counting to sixty. Then she moved forward, pulling on a pair of latex gloves.

  Soon she could hear Smithback’s voice, already raised in righteous protest. “This paper is signed by the Chairman of the department himself! Are you trying to tell me that ...”

  She poked her head around the corner. About fifty feet down the hall was an intersection with another hallway that led to the police barricades. Further down was the door to the Secure Area itself, and, beyond that, Margo could see the guard. He had his back to her, and was holding her form in one hand.

  “I’m sorry, sir,” she could hear him say, “but this hasn’t gone through Processing ...”

  “You’re not looking in the right place,” Smithback responded. “Take it over here where you can read it, here in the light.”

  They moved down the hall away from Margo, into an illuminated alcove. As they disappeared from view, Margo came around the corner and walked briskly down [212] the hall. At the Secure Area door, she inserted the key and pushed gingerly. The door swung open on oiled hinges. She peered around the edge to make sure she was alone; the darkened room seemed empty, and she eased the door shut behind her.

  Her heart was already racing, the blood pounding in her ears. She caught her breath, fumbled for the light switch. The vaults stretched ahead of her in rows to the left and right. When she noticed the third door on the right had a yellow EVIDENCE sheet taped to it, she grasped its dial with one hand and took out Frock’s scrap of paper with the other. 56-77-23. She took a deep breath and began, remembering the locker she’d once used to store her oboe in high school music class. Right, left, right ...

  There was a loud click. Immediately, she grabbed the lever and pulled downward. The door opened.

  Inside, the crates were dim shapes against the far wall. She turned on the light and glanced at her watch. Three minutes had passed.

  She had to work very
quickly now. She could see the ragged marks where one of the larger crates had been torn and splintered apart. The marks sent shivers down her spine. Kneeling in front of the smaller crate, she removed its top and plunged her hands into the packing material, parting the stiff fibers to expose the artifacts.

  Her hand closed around something hard. Pulling it out, Margo saw a small stone, carved with odd designs. Not very promising. She exposed a collection of what looked like jade lip plugs, then flint arrowheads, some points, a blow gun tube with a set of darts, long and sharp, the tips blackened with some hardened substance. Don’t want to be pricked by those, she thought. Still nothing worth taking. She delved deeper. The next layer held a small plant press, screwed shut; a damaged shaman’s rattle covered in grotesque designs; and a beautiful manta made of woven cloth and feathers.

  On an impulse she stuffed the plant press, covered [213] with packing fibers, into her bag. The stone disc and rattle followed.

  On the bottom layer, she found several jars containing small reptiles. Colorful, but nothing out of the ordinary.

  Six minutes had passed. She sat up, listening, expecting any moment to hear the footsteps of the returning guard. But there was nothing.

  She hastily stuffed the rest of the artifacts back into the crate and surrounded them with packing material. She picked up the lid, noting its loose inner lining. As she pried the lining away curiously, a brittle, water-damaged envelope slipped out into her lap; hastily, she crammed it into her bag.

  Eight minutes. There was no time left.

  Back in the central room, she listened, trying to make out the muffled sounds outside. She eased the door open a crack.

  “What’s your badge number?” Smithback was saying loudly.

  Margo couldn’t make out the guard’s reply. She slipped out and shut the door behind her, quickly peeling off her gloves and stuffing them into her carryall. She straightened up, looked herself up and down, then started walking past the alcove where Smithback and the guard were standing.

  “Hey!”

  She turned. The guard, flushed, was looking at her.

  “Oh, there you are, Bill!” she said, thinking fast, hoping the guard hadn’t seen her come out the door. “Am I too late? Have you already been inside?”

  “This guy won’t let me in!” Smithback complained.

  “Listen, you,” the guard said, turning back to Smithback. “I’ve told you a thousand times, and I won’t tell you again. That form has to be properly processed before I can give you access. Understand?”

  They’d pulled it off.

  Margo looked back down the hall. In the distance, she saw a tall, lean figure approaching: Ian Cuthbert.

  [214] She grabbed Smithback’s arm. “We’ve got to go. Remember our appointment? We’ll have to look at the collections some other time.”

  “That’s right. Of course.” Smithback babbled heartily. “I’ll get this taken care of later,” he said to the guard.

  Near the far end of the hall, she pushed Smithback into an alcove.

  “Get behind those cabinets,” Margo whispered.

  They heard Cuthbert’s footsteps behind them as they concealed themselves. Then the footsteps stopped, and Cuthbert’s voice echoed loudly down the corridor.

  “Has anyone tried to gain access to the vaults?” he asked.

  “Yes, sir. There was a man trying to get in. They were just here.”

  “Who?” demanded Cuthbert. “Those people you were just speaking with?”

  “Yes, sir. He had a form but it hadn’t been properly processed, so I didn’t let him in.”

  “You did not let him in?”

  “That’s right, sir.”

  “Who issued the form? Frock?”

  “Yes, sir. Dr. Frock.”

  “And you didn’t get the name of this person?”

  “I think his name was Bill. I don’t know about the woman, but—”

  “Bill? Bill? Oh, that’s bloody brilliant. The first thing you should do is ask for identification.”

  “I’m sorry, sir. It was just that he insisted it was—”

  But Cuthbert was already striding back angrily. The footfalls faded down the corridor.

  At a nod from Smithback, Margo rose gingerly and dusted herself off. They stepped out into the hall.

  “Hey, you there!” shouted the guard. “Come here, I need to see your ID! Wait!”

  Smithback and Margo took off at a sprint. They raced [215] around a bend, then ducked into a stairwell and dashed up the wide concrete steps.

  “Where are we going?” Margo panted.

  “Damned if I know.”

  They reached the next landing, and Smithback stepped out gingerly into the hallway. He looked up and down the corridor, then wrenched open a door marked MAMMALOGY, PONGIDAE STORAGE.

  Inside, they stopped to catch their breath. The room was quiet and cool. As Margo’s eyes grew accustomed to the dim light, she noticed stuffed gorillas and chimpanzees standing in ranks like sentinels, and heaping piles of hairy skins on wooden racks. Against one wall were dozens of shelves lined with primate skulls.

  Smithback listened intently at the door for a moment. Then he turned to Margo. “Lets see what you found,” he said.

  “There wasn’t much,” Margo said, breathing heavily. “I took a couple of unimportant artifacts, that’s it. I did find this, though,” she said, reaching into her carryall.

  “It was wedged in the lid of the crate.”

  The unsealed envelope was addressed simply “H. C. Montague, NYMNH.”

  The yellowed writing paper was embossed with a curious double-arrow motif. As Smithback peered over her shoulder, Margo held the sheet carefully up to the light and began to read.

  Upper Xingú

  Sept. 17, 1987

  Montague,

  I’ve decided to send Carlos back with the last crate and go on alone in search of Crocker. Carlos is trustworthy, and I can’t risk losing the crate should anything happen to me. Take note of the shaman’s rattle and other ritual objects. They seem unique. But the figurine I’ve enclosed, which we [216] found in a deserted hut at this site, is the proof I’ve been looking for. Note the exaggerated claws, the reptilian attributes, the hints at bipedalia. The Kothoga exist, and the Mbwun legend is not mere fabrication.

  All my field notes are in this notebook. ...

  = 31 =

  Mrs. Lavinia Rickman sat in a wine-colored leather armchair in the Director’s office. The room was deathly silent. Not even traffic noises from the street three floors below penetrated the thick turret windows. Wright himself sat behind the desk, practically swallowed by the vast length of mahogany. A Reynolds portrait of Ridley A. Davis, the Museum’s founder, glared down from behind Wright.

  Dr. Ian Cuthbert occupied a sofa along a far wall of the room. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, his tweed suit loose on his spare frame. He was frowning. Normally humorless and irritable, he looked particularly austere on this afternoon.

  Finally, Wright broke the silence.

  “He’s called twice already this afternoon,” the Director snapped at Cuthbert. “I can’t avoid him forever. Sooner or later he’s going to raise a stink about being denied access to the crates. He may well drag this [218] Mbwun business into it. There’s going to be controversy.”

  Cuthbert nodded. “As long as it’s later rather than sooner. When the exhibition is open and running, with forty thousand visitors a day and favorable notices in all the periodicals, let him bloody well raise hell about whatever he likes.”

  There was another long silence.

  “I hate to play devil’s advocate,” Cuthbert continued at last, “but when the dust settles from all this, you, Winston, are going to have the necessary increase in attendance. These rumors of a curse may be annoying now, but when things are safe again, everyone’s going to want a vicarious shudder and some scandal. Everyone’s going to want to go inside the Museum and see for themselves. It’s good for business. I’m telling you, W
inston, we couldn’t have arranged it better ourselves.”

  Wright frowned at the Assistant Director. “Rumors of a curse. Maybe it’s true. Look at all the disasters that have followed that ugly little figurine halfway around the world.” He laughed mirthlessly.

  “You’re not serious,” said Cuthbert.

  “I’ll tell you what I’m serious about,” Wright snapped. “I don’t want to hear you talking like that again. Frock has important friends. If he starts complaining to them ... well, you know how stories grow and spread. They’ll think you’re withholding information. They’ll think you’re banking on these killings bringing people in to see the exhibition. How’s that for publicity, eh?”

  “Agreed,” Cuthbert said with a wintry smile. “But I don’t need to remind you that, if this exhibition doesn’t open on time, everything becomes academic. Frock must be kept on a short leash. Now, he’s sending hired help to do his dirty work. One of them tried to get into the Secure Vault less than an hour ago.”

  “Who?” Wright demanded.

  [219] “The security guard made a right hash of it,” Cuthbert replied. “But he got the fellow’s first name—Bill.”

  “Bill?” Rickman sat up.

  “Yes, I think that was it,” Cuthbert said, turning to the public relations director. “Isn’t that the name of the journalist who’s doing the book on my exhibition? He’s your man, isn’t he? Is he under control? I hear he’s been asking a lot of questions.”

  “Absolutely,” said Rickman, a bright smile on her face. “We’ve had our ups and downs with him, but he’s toeing the line now. Control the sources, and you’ve controlled the journalist, as I always say.”

  “Toeing the line, is he’?” Wright said. “Then why did you feel it necessary to send that mail message round to half the western world this morning, reminding them not to talk to strangers?”

  Mrs. Rickman quickly held up a lacquered hand. “He’s been taken care of.”

  “You’d damned well better make sure of that,” Cuthbert said. “You’ve been in on this little party from the beginning, Lavinia. I’m sure you don’t want this journalist of yours digging up any dirty knickers.”