by Kage Baker
The black earth and the bright stars reversed, not once but several times, and then it was all darkness as Lewis landed with a splash in the canal, though with great presence of mind kept his grip on the mummy case. Down they went, and then the buoyancy of the sealed case pulled them upward again, and Lewis gulped in a lungful of air and scanned frantically for crocodiles.
“Whew!” he said, finding none. He noted also that the tidal flow was taking them Nileward at a leisurely pace, and, settling himself firmly atop Princess Sit-Hathor-Yunet, he began to paddle energetically.
“Well, call me Ishmael! My apologies, Princess, but needs must and all that sort of thing. We’ll be out of this in no time, you’ll see. In the meantime, enjoy the new experience. I take it you’ve never been body-surfing before?” He began to giggle at the idea of body surfing and couldn’t control himself, laughing so hard that he nearly fell off. “Whoops! No, no, you headstrong girl! This way!” Leeches floated up eagerly from the black depths, sensing a meal; just as the mosquitoes had, they came into contact with the minute electromagnetic field surrounding Lewis’s skin and changed their minds in a hurry.
About the time that Lewis spotted the lights of Bani Suwayf in the distance, he also identified a pair of crocodiles a kilometer off. Crocodiles take rather more than an electromagnetic field to discourage and so, splashing hastily to the side of the canal, Lewis pushed the mummy case out and scrambled after it. He paused only a moment to let the water stream from his ballooning drawers before picking up the case and resuming his journey by land.
“We’re almost there, Princess, and we’re not even late!” he said happily, as he trudged along. “I’ll have a thing or two to say to Lady Kiu, though, won’t 1? Let’s see… Ahem! Madam, I feel I have no choice but to protest your… mmm. Lady Kiu, this is a painful thing for me to say, but… no. Kiu, old girl, I don’t think you quite… that is, I… I mean, you… right.”
He sighed, and marched on.
Bani Suwayf was a small town in 1914, but it had a railway station and a resident population of Europeans. One of them, M. Heurtebise, was a minor functionary in a minor bureau having to do with granting minor permits of various kinds to other Europeans, and he deeply resented the smallness of his place in the order of things. He took it out on his wife, his servants, his pets, and once a week he also took it out on a person whom he paid for the trouble and who was therefore philosophical about his nocturnal visits.
He was returning from one of these visits—it had not lasted long-in his motorcar, and was just rounding the corner of the main street as Lewis entered it from the little track leading from the canal. He looked up, aghast, when the bug-eyed lights caught and displayed him: a muddy and sweating figure wearing only striped drawers, balancing a mummy case on his head.
“Stop!” cried M. Heurtebise on impulse, hitting his chauffeur on the shoulder with his cane. “Thief!” he added, because it seemed like a good bet, and he pulled out a revolver and brandished it at Lewis. Lewis, who had used up a lot of energy on his flit from Professor Petrie, decided the hell with it and stopped. He set down the mummy case very carefully, held up his hands in a classic don’t-shoot gesture, and vanished.
“Where did he go?” exclaimed M. Heurtebise. When no answer was forthcoming from the night, he struck his chauffeur again and ordered, “Get out and look for him, Ahmed, you fool!” Ahmed gritted his teeth, but got out of the car and looked around. He looked up the street; he looked down the street. He looked everywhere but under the motorcar, where Lewis had insinuated himself into the undercarriage as cunningly as an alien monster.
“He is not to be found, sir,” Ahmed told M. Heurtebise.
“I can see that, you imbecile. But he has left an antiquity in the roadway!” Ahmed prodded Princess Sit-Hathor-Yunet with his foot. “So he has, sir.” Muttering to himself, M. Heurtebise got out of the motorcar. He strode over to the mummy case and his eyes widened as he noted the excellence of its condition and its obvious value.
“This has clearly been stolen,” he said. “It is our duty to confiscate it. We will notify the proper authorities in the morning. Put it into the car, Ahmed.”
Ahmed bent and attempted to lift it.
“It is too heavy, sir,” he said. “We must do it together.” Mr. Heurtebise considered striking him for his insolence, but then reflected that if the mummy case was heavy, it was possibly full of treasure, and therefore the issue of prime importance was to get it out of the street and into his possession. So between them, he and Ahmed lifted the case and set it on end in the back seat. They got back in the motorcar and drove on the short distance to M. Heurtebise’s villa. When they pulled into the courtyard and got out, Ahmed opened the door to the ground-floor office and they carried the mummy case inside. M. Heurtebise opened the Venetian blinds to admit light from the courtyard lantern, and he directed Ahmed to set Princess Sit-Hathor-Yunet on two cane chairs. The office was a comfortable room in the European style, with a banked fire in the hearth, leather overstuffed chairs with a small table and lamp between them, and a formidable desk with a row of pigeonholes above it. There was also a large cage in one corner, covered with canvas sacking. As Ahmed pushed the two chairs closer together, a hoarse metallic voice began to exclaim from beneath the cover. It said something very rude and then repeated it eighteen times.
“Silence!” hissed M. Heurtebise. “Bad parrot! BAD PARROT!” He took his cane and hammered on the side of the cage, creating such a racket Ahmed winced and put his hands over his ears. A stunned silence followed. M. Heurtebise nodded in satisfaction. “That’s the only way to teach him, by the devil.”
“May I go now, sir?”
“Go.” M. Heurtebise waved him away. They left the study, and Ahmed drove the motorcar into what had formerly been the stables. Here he got out, closed the great door and locked it, and went off to the servants’ quarters. M. Heurtebise paused only long enough to lock the office door, and then climbed the outer stair to his apartments on the second floor.
Alone in the darkness, Lewis uninsinuated himself from the under-chassis and fell groaning to the floor. He was now smeared with black grease in addition to being muddy and wet. He lay there a moment and finally crawled out from under the motorcar. He got to his feet, staggered to the door and rattled it. He was locked in. He shrugged and looked around for a suitable tool.
In the office, however, something else was just discovering that it was not locked in. In his enthusiasm, M. Heurtebise had beaten on the bars of the cage with such force that he had shaken the cage’s latchhook loose, though with the cover being in place he had not noticed this. However, the cage’s inhabitant noticed, once its little ears had stopped ringing. It cocked a bright eye and then slid down the bars to the cage door. Thrusting its beak through the bars, it levered the latch the rest of the way open. It pushed its head against the bars and the door opened partway. There was a rustle, a thump, and then a parrot dropped between the cage cover and the bars to the floor. It ruffled its feathers and looked around.
It was an African Grey, all silver-and-ashes except for its scarlet tail.
“Oh, my,” it said. “You bad boy, what do you think you’re doing?” It waddled across the tile floor like a clockwork toy, looking up at the long slanting bars of light coming in from the courtyard.
“Oh, la la! You bad boy bad boy!” it said, and beat its wings and flew to the top of the window-frame rail. Laughing evilly to itself, it reached down with its powerful little beak and snipped the topmost Venetian blind in half with one bite. The slat having parted with a pleasing crunch, the parrot then made its way along the rail to the cord and rappelled down it, stopping at each blind and methodically biting through, until the whole assembly hung in ruins.
The parrot swung from the end of the cord by its feet a moment, twirling happily, and then launched itself at the desk.
“Whee! Oh, stop that at once, you wicked creature! Stop that now! Do you hear? Do you hear?” It made straight for the neat stack o
f pencils and bit them each in half too; then pulled out the pens and did the same. As though tidying its work area, it threw the pieces over the edge of the desk, one after another, and for good measure plucked the inkwell out of its recess and pitched that over too. The inkwell hit the floor with a crash and the ink fountained out, spattering the tiles. The parrot watched this appreciatively, tilting its head.
“As God is my witness,” it commented, “if you don’t be quiet NOW I will wring your neck! I mean it! Stop that this instant!”
It turned and eyed the pigeonholes. Reaching into the nearest it pulled out M. Heurtebise’s morning correspondence, dragged it to the edge and, with a decisive toss of its head, chucked it over the side too. The envelopes smacked into the mess already there, and spread and drifted. The parrot peered into the other pigeonholes and poked through them, murmuring, “Wicked, wicked, wicked, wicked… tra la la.” Finding nothing else of interest on the desk, it backed out of the lastpigeonhole, gave a little fluttering hop and landed on the nearest of the armchairs. It strutted to and fro on the smooth leather surface a moment before lifting its tail grandly and liquidly.
“Allons, enfants de la patrie—eee—eee!” it sang. “La la la!” The parrot looked across the gulf of space at Princess Sit-Hathor-Yunet, but she presented no opportunities nor anything it might get hold of. It contented itself with worrying at an upholstered chair-button. Snip! That was the way to do it. The parrot noticed there were several other buttons within reach on the chair’s back, and crying “Ooooh! Ha ha ha,” it carefully removed every one in sight. Biting neat triangular holes in the upholstery with which to pull itself up, it scaled the chair’s arm and stepped out on the lamp table.
“You’re a naughty boy and you don’t get a treat,” it declared, looking speculatively up at the lamp, which had a number of jet beads pendent from its green glass shade. Straining on tiptoe, it caught one and gave it a good pull. The lamp tilted, tottered and fell to the floor, where it broke and rolled, pouring forth a long curved spill of kerosene. It came to rest in the hearth.
“Oh, my,” said the parrot. It looked at the broken lamp with one eye and then with the other. “Oh, what have you done now? Bad! Too bad!”
With a soft whoosh flames bloomed in the hearth. They leaped high as the lamp tinkled and shattered further, throwing bits out into the room. The parrot ducked and drew back, then stared again as the inevitable tongue of blue flame advanced over its kerosene road across the floor, right to M. Heurtebise’s scattered correspondence and the cane chairs whereon reposed Princess Sit-Hathor-Yunet.
“Oooh!” said the parrot brightly. “Oooh, la la la!”
Lewis had been carefully sliding the stable bolt out of its recess in tiny increments, nudging it along with an old putty knife he had slipped between the planking. He had only another inch to go when he heard the breaking glass, the roar of flames.
‘Tikes!” he said, and gave up on any effort to be polite. He punched his fist through the door, opened the bolt, dragged the door to one side and scrambled out. In horror he saw the flames dancing within the office, heard the mortals upstairs begin to shout.
He was across the courtyard in less than the blink of an eye, and yanked the office door off its hinges.
“Good evening,” said the parrot as it walked out and past him, its little claws going tick tick tick on the flagstones. Lewis gaped down at it before looking up to see the first flames rising around Princess Sit-Hathor-Yunet.
He was never certain afterward just what he did next, but what hewas doing immediately after that was running down the street with the mummy case once again balanced on his head, in some pain as his hair smoldered. He heard the rattle of a motorcar overtaking him, and Lady Kiu slammed on the brakes.
“You’re late,” she said. Lewis tossed Princess Sit-Hathor-Yunet into the back seat of the Vauxhall and dove in headfirst after her, not quite getting all the way in before Lady Kiu let out the clutch, downshifted, stepped on the gas again and they sped away.
“I’m sorry!” Lewis said, when he was right side up again. “All sorts of things went wrong—most unexpectedly—and—”
“You idiot, you’ve gotten grease on the seats,” snarled Lady Kiu.
“Well, I’m sorry it isn’t attar of roses, but I’ve had a slightly challenging time!” Lewis replied indignantly, clenching his fists.
“Don’t you dare to address an Executive Facilitator in that manner, you miserable little drone—”
“Oh, yeah? I’ve got pretty good programming for a drone, your Ladyship. I can perform all kinds of tasks a Facilitator is supposed to do herself!”
“Really? I can tell you one thing you won’t be doing—”
“Oh, as though I was ever going to get to do that anyway—”
They careened around a corner and pulled up at the waterfront, where Lady Kiu’s yacht was even now on the point of casting off. The Vauxhail’s headlights caught in long beams three burly security techs, waiting by the gangway. They ran forward and two of them seized the mummy case to muscle it aboard. The third, in the uniform of a chauffeur, came to attention and saluted. Lady Kiu flung open the door and stepped out on the running board, as the motor idled.
“Take that to the laboratory cabin immediately! We’re leaving at once. You, Galba, take the Vauxhall. Meet us in Alexandria. I want the slime cleaned off the upholstery by the time I see it again. That includes you, Lewis. Move!”
“Oh, bugger o—” said Lewis as he climbed from the back seat, his words interrupted as he found himself staring down a rifle barrel.
“Where’s the damned mummy case?” said Flinders Petrie.
“How’d you get here?” asked Lewis, too astonished to say anything else.
“Railway handcar,” said Flinders Petrie, grinning unpleasantly. “The fellaheen found one hidden away the other day and I thought to myself, I’ll just bet somebody’s planning to use this to get to the Nile with stolen loot. So I confiscated the thing. Threw a spanner into your plans, did it?” He had apparently traveled in his pink ballet ensemble, though he’d sensibly put on boots for the journey; his slippers hung around his neckby their ribbons, like a dancer in a painting by Degas. Nor had he come alone; behind him stood Ali and several of the other fellaheen, and they were carrying clubs.
“Look, I’m sorry, but you must have realized by now the sarcophagus was a fake!” said Lewis. “What in Jove’s name do you want?”
“It may be a fake, but it’s a three-thousand-year-old fake, and I want to know how it was done,” said Petrie imperturbably. “I’m still wearing my insanity defense; so you’d best start talking.”
“What is this?” Lady Kiu strode around the motorcar and stopped, looking at the scene in some amusement and much contempt. “Lewis, don’t tell me you’ve broken the heart of an elderly transvestite.” Petrie lifted his head to glare at her, and then his eyes widened.
“You’re the woman on the mummy case!” he said.
Lewis groaned.
“And it’s a smart monkey, too,” said Kiu coolly. She began to walk forward again, but slowly. “Too bad for it.”
Lewis scrambled to get in front of her.
“Now—let’s be civilized about this, can’t we?” he begged. “Professor, please, go home!” Even Petrie had backed up a step at the look on Kiu’s face, and Ali and the others were murmuring prayers and making signs to ward off evil. Then Petrie dug in his heels.
“No!” he said. “No, by God! I won’t stand for this! My life’s work has been deciphering the truth about the past. I’ve had to dig through layers of trash for it, I’ve had to fight the whole time against damned thieves; but if creatures like you have been meddling in history, planting lies—then how am I to know what the truth really is? How can I know that any of it means anything?”
“None of it means anything at all, mortal,” said Kiu. “Your life’s work is pointless. There’s not a wall you can uncover that hasn’t got a lie inscribed on it somewhere.”
; “Stop it, Kiu! Why should we be at odds, Professor?” Lewis said. “My masters could do a lot for you, you know, if you worked for them. Money. Hints about the best places to dig. All you’ll have to do is keep your mouth shut about this embarrassing little incident, you see? The Company could use a genius like you!”
“You’re trying to bribe the monkeys? That’s so foolish, Lewis,” said Kiu. “They’re never satisfied with the morsel they’re given. Better to silence them at the outset. Galba, kill the servants first.” Galba, watching in shock from the other side of the motorcar, licked his lips.
“Lady, I—”
“It’s forbidden, Galba. Kiu, you can’t kill them!” Lewis protested. “You know history can’t be changed!”
“It can’t be changed, but it can be forgotten,” said Kiu. “Fact efface-ment, we Facilitators call it.” She looked critically at Petrie. “Mortal brains are so fragile, Lewis. Especially all those tiny blood vessels… especially in an old man. If I were to provoke just the right hemorrhage in a critical spot, he might become… quite confused.”
She reached out her hand toward Petrie, smiling.
“No! Stop! God Apollo, Kiu, please don’t damage his mind!” Lewis cried. “Haven’t you scanned him yet? Can’t you see? He’s unique, he’s irreplaceable, you mustn’t do this!” Lady Kiu rolled her eyes.
“Lewis, darling,” she said in tones of barely-controlled exasperation, “How many ages will it take you to learn that not one of the wretched little creatures is irreplaceable? Or unique? Nothing is.”
“That’s a damned lie,” said Flinders Petrie, from the bottom of his soul, and took aim at her throat with the rifle, though his hands were trembling so badly it was doubtful he’d have hit her.