Children of a Dead Earth Book One Read online

  “Hey,” Devorah came alongside him. “Aren’t you supposed to be watching Kite so he doesn’t stuff my Rembrandt down his pants?”

  Benson rolled his eyes. “That was more than thirty years ago. How long are you going to hold that grudge?”

  “I’m Jewish, detective. We have long memories.”

  “Touché.” Benson looked back at the rover. “It’s beautiful, in its own way, don’t you think?”

  She nodded. “Ruggedness has its own beauty. Do you know how it got here?”

  He shrugged. “I know the Mars colony sent a ship to rendezvous with the Ark on its way out and transferred some artifacts.”

  Devorah put a thin hand on the railing surrounding the exhibit. “This little critter had a hard life. Back when it was launched, it was designed to last for three months. It lasted more than six years on Mars before the poor thing got stuck and froze to death. It sat for another fifty before the Mars colonists launched their first archeological expedition to go dig it out. They were too busy trying to get the colony running to do much more than dust it off and put it on display.

  “But when Nibiru turned up, Mars was cut off. All Earth’s resources were put to building the Ark. The Xanadu colony was barely self-sustaining, but they managed to strap enough ion drives onto one of their Earth return taxis and make it fast enough to match up with us and transfer cargo. Seventeen artifacts. The legacy of an entire world.”

  “And three people,” Benson added. “The ‘Children of Ares’.”

  Devorah snorted. “And where are they now? Their culture lost and their bloodlines diluted until all that’s left is a single surname. People die, society forgets. But these…” Her hands swept through the entire hall. “These artifacts, pieces of art, letters, remain frozen in time. They don’t forget, and they don’t lie.”

  A shrill alarm went out through the hall, followed by a flat, recorded voice announcing: “We regret to inform you that this is not an interactive exhibit. Please wait until a museum attendant arrives to answer any questions.”

  Benson and Devorah span around to see Sal standing next to the Brough Superior SS100 motorcycle Lawrence of Arabia was riding when he died.

  “And they don’t try to get their sticky fingers on everything!” Devorah stalked over to where Kite stood with his hands held up.

  “I just leaned over to look at it! What do you think I was going to do, tuck it under my shirt?”

  “He has a point, Devorah.” Benson sidled up next to her. “And I doubt he’s got any petrol to ride it out of here.”

  “He could be trying to take a souvenir.”

  “I don’t see a wrench in his hand.” Benson pointed a finger at the ex-con. “But you’re not making this any easier on me either, Sal. Behave, or the deal’s off and we walk out of here right now.”

  Kite shrugged his understanding, then looked back down at the incensed curator. “I thought this was going to be a private tour. Aren’t you going to teach me things?”

  “Like how to beat the security systems?” she quipped.

  “Indulge me.”

  Devorah did nothing to hide her annoyance as her wedges clomped against the granite floor, beckoning the two men to follow her. Once everyone was in position, she began the most exasperated and sarcastic guided tour ever given in the museum’s long history.

  The odd trio started in the central atrium where the largest displays sat, passing by David; the Spirit Rover; Armstrong’s boots from Apollo 11; a meter long section of the Eiffel Tower; a terracotta warrior from the tomb of Qin Shi Huang; Ramesses II in the flesh, or what remained of it; a Devatas relief taken from Angkor Wat; and what the Japanese-Korean Alignment assured the museum project to be the true Honjo Masamune katana.

  Political considerations heavily influenced the selection process for what constituted important historical artifacts. The United States, China, the Japanese-Korean Alignment, India, Brazil, and the European Union, the largest financial and technical contributors to the Ark project, had the greatest pull in the selection process, and each did their best to stack the deck of future history.

  What those centuries-dead politicos hadn’t realized was the very process of stuffing fifty thousand people onto a single ship and shooting it out among the stars meant that in a very short time, all their petty squabbles were forgotten. Within a generation, the people born on the Ark had much more in common with each other than with any race, religion, or government left behind on the dead Earth. Old grudges were set aside as basic survival took priority. By the time everyone found the right balance, it was two generations later and no one cared about their grandparents’ squabbles.

  Benson sympathized with Devorah’s love of history, but maybe some things were better left in the past.

  They moved on from the central atrium to the museum’s documents wing. Here, protected behind bullet-proof glass designed for guns that no longer existed, nestled inside gentle atmospheres of inert gasses, sat shelf after shelf of letters, journals, first edition books, poetry, and the founding documents of a dozen nations. The original US Constitution was here, although the Declaration of Independence had finally succumbed to the ravages of time. The Chinese Constitution of 2047 sat immediately next to it, printed on a traditional rolling scroll of silk nearly three meters long, and handwritten in stunning calligraphy.

  Sal pushed a button in the frame and watched the scroll wind slowly by as Devorah spoke of the populist uprisings that finally ended Communist rule. Not far from them was the Mars Compact, granting self-rule to the Xanadu colony and mineral resource rights to the asteroid miners based there, much to the chagrin of the Earth-based corporations that had sent them there.

  However the largest and most impressive display was reserved for the most important document aboard: the Ark Treaty itself. Written just five months after mapping the course of the black hole they'd named Nibiru, it defined the entire Ark program. It was the only pact in the history of the old world signed by each and every nation state. The leaders of every country on Earth were present at the signing ceremony, along with representatives from the Lunar Polar bases and Mars. It was the one time everyone agreed on anything, and certainly the fastest treaty ever ratified.

  They passed by floor to ceiling shelves of first editions from all of the greatest authors and the collected works of brilliant poets dating back centuries. Devorah stopped at a display and thumbed through a series of menus until she found what she wanted. From behind the protective glass, a robotic arm set on clever tracks built into the shelves ran down their length before shooting up three stories. It slowed, then very gingerly reached out and grabbed a book. Its target secured, the arm ran back down to where the trio stood and opened the book, holding it to the glass for everyone to see.

  Devorah leaned in and read from the page with a calm, even voice:

  * * *

  “Some say the world will end in fire,

  Some say in ice.

  From what I've tasted of desire

  I hold with those who favor fire.

  But if it had to perish twice,

  I think I know enough of hate

  To say that for destruction ice

  Is also great

  And would suffice.”

  * * *

  “Robert Frost,” Sal said. “‘Fire and Ice.’”

  “Very good, Mr Kite. Got it in one.”

  “Why that one?” Benson asked.

  “I always read that poem on the tour. Chalk it up to my dark sense of humor.”

  That was an understatement. As precise as the astrophysicists of old Earth had become, the gravitational interactions of a sun, a stellar-mass black hole, and eight planets proved too chaotic to model accurately. By the time the end came, the Ark was already many lightweeks away. All of its telescopes were pointed for Tau Ceti. After a contentious debate, the survivors voted to look forward, not back. To this day, no one knew if Earth had been devoured in the fires of Nibiru’s event horizon, or thrown clear of its orbit t
o forever roam the frozen spaces between the stars.

  After all this time, Robert Frost’s question remained unanswered. Benson struggled to see the humor in it, but it took all kinds. Devorah hit the return button on the display. The book shut, then sped back towards its home.

  The tour continued into the east wing, which held paintings and sculptures. There probably weren’t two people alive more intimately familiar with this part of the museum than Devorah and Salvador, albeit for very different reasons. Sal’s jovial demeanor melted away as soon as he stepped into the wing, replaced by something indistinguishable from reverence.

  The change didn’t go unnoticed. Devorah eyed him suspiciously for a long moment, but if he had any devious intent, she couldn’t spot it. Neither could Benson. If anything, his face had the conflicted look of a man who had stepped into a church he hadn’t seen in years, where he wasn’t even sure he was welcome.

  They walked through centuries of art, from the muted, two-dimensional iconography of the early religious painters, flowing into the expanded palette of the early Renaissance. Da Vinci was here, one of the few artists with multiple pieces in the collection. The Mona Lisa smirked back at them from behind glass.

  Baroque art with its sweeping sense of movement came next, while the Neoclassicists harkened back to the glories of the past. Romanticism reached out to the far corners of the Earth searching for the exotic, and then the Realists pulled right back to inspect what had been in front of them the whole time.

  Impressionism followed, trying to capture the essence of action, light, and life by rejecting a devotion to minute details. The Monet would soon find a home among them.

  They entered the age of cubists and surrealism, leaving the real world behind entirely. It was here that Sal really lit up, showing a command of the subjects that matched Devorah herself. She was less than enthused.

  “You should remember this piece, Mr Kite. Starry Night by Vincent van Gogh. I believe you were caught with it rolled into a backpack, if memory serves.”

  Sal nodded. “That and the Picasso.”

  “That you slashed out of its frame!” Devorah stamped her feet, her fury as fresh as the morning the Heist had been discovered. “We lost almost three centimeters reframing it. A common vandal would have taken more care.”

  “I didn’t cut it out, all right? I just carried it. I wanted to do it right and disassemble the frame, but Turner said it would take too much time. And you already got your revenge on him, sure enough.”

  “Is that supposed to exonerate you?”

  “I was a kid, lady! Just the mule for them, but I knew more about this stuff,” his arms swept to encompass the entire hall, “than any of them. They didn’t listen, OK? They recruited me because I could pick out the best stuff and run it around without drawing attention. That’s all they wanted me for.”

  “And you were only too eager to help them do it, Mr Kite.”

  Sal looked away, shame filling his voice. “I was naïve.”

  Benson stepped in. “Yes, you were. But he’s served his sentence, Devorah, and he’s here because he volunteered to help us. Now, may we finish?”

  “Fine, it’s way past my bedtime as it is.” Devorah moved on with the tour, explaining the significance of a print of a large can of soup before leaving the modernists behind and entering the new millennium.

  She spent a lot of time explaining an evening gown woven from old-fashioned magnetic data tapes by an American artist named Timothy Westbrook, the leader of the Reclamation Movement. After his death in 2059, his work rose to prominence as a rejection of consumerism and the entire corporate mentality of planned obsolescence, a message that held obvious appeal for the people of the Ark. For his part, Benson thought the dress would look rather fetching hanging on Theresa’s lithe frame.

  They wove their way through the rest of the twenty-first century before reaching the pièce de résistance: the Kilimanjaro collection. Kilimanjaro was the only name anyone had ever known her as. Some stories said she’d grown up in Johannesburg. Others that she was from the slums of Cairo. The only thing the legends agreed on was she was from Africa, and she was the last Master of Earth.

  Her work was simultaneously heart-wrenching and inspirational. They paused in front of Kilimanjaro’s seminal work, Last Launch, which was nothing more than a selfie of the artist standing among a sea of people, their faces lit in a bright yellow against the night by the fires of the last rocket launched to supply the Ark itself. Alone in their despair and rage, her face was lit with hope. A week earlier, she’d declined an invitation to join the ranks of survivors. “You have my work, the future has no need of my body. Give my seat to a scientist,” she’d said.

  The Ark launched two days later.

  With her well-rehearsed tour exhausted, Devorah turned and faced Sal, toe-to-toe.

  “That was my half of the bargain, Mr Kite. Now tell me where my missing pieces are!”

  To his credit, Sal had the sense to step back before answering the tiny crazy woman. “There’s one more thing I would like to see.”

  “What?” she demanded.

  Sal squared his shoulders. “I would like to see the Monet.”

  Like a steam train switching tracks at full speed, Devorah’s piercing gaze swept over to Benson and bored into him. “You told him about the Monet?”

  Benson put up his hands. “Honey for the flies, Devorah.”

  “No one’s seen it yet, and you want me to give this petty criminal the honor?”

  “Watch who you’re calling ‘petty’ lady,” Sal injected. Devorah looked like she might throw a punch, but Benson put a hand on her shoulder, arresting her momentum.

  “It’s just one more viewing. It’ll take five minutes. That’s worth it, isn’t it?”

  She threw his hand off her shoulder and crossed her arms. “No. It isn’t.”

  “Well, maybe I can sweeten the deal.” Sal reached into a pocket, but before he could pull back out again, Benson grabbed his wrist. Hard.

  “Drop it.” Benson’s other hand grabbed his stun-stick and trained it on Sal’s left eye to emphasize the point.

  “I can’t,” Sal winced. “It’s fragile.”

  “What is ‘it’?”

  “It’s not a weapon, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  Benson relaxed his grip, but kept the stun-stick in place. Devorah looked like an angry rabbit unsure about which way to jump.

  “Pull it out, slowly.”

  Sal gently removed his hand from the pocket, holding a small rectangular silver case not much bigger than a deck of playing cards. He presented it to Devorah.

  “I would like to make a donation to the museum, from my private collection.”

  Devorah eyed the case with suspicion, but curiosity won out as she donned a pair of white gloves that seemed to appear from thin air. She opened the lid with a tiny click. When no explosion or puff of poison gas followed, Benson finally relaxed.

  Inside was a small manila envelope. She opened it and dropped the contents into her palm. “It’s movie film.” Devorah ran over to the nearest light source and held one of the small strips up to it. “Thirty-five millimeters. The old-fashioned celluloid, but not the nitrate stuff.” She leaned in and brought the frames right up to her face, almost touching her eyeball. “I don’t recognize the film, and my plant isn’t showing any matches from the database.”

  Sal chuckled. “Nor could it. I had them deleted.”

  “You what?” Benson and Devorah said in unison. The admission got both of their attention.

  Sal leaned against a column. “We knew you had automated searches running, Madam Curator. You weren’t the first one to come up with that trick. The only way to keep some of these pieces out of your view was to create a blind spot.”

  “OK,” Benson said slowly. “But how did you delete them?”

  Sal shrugged. “Some of our customers had the permissions and figured they owed us some small favors. What you’re holding is forty-three frames fro
m Salvador Dali’s movie–”

  “Destino,” Devorah finished for him. She looked down at the frames as though she might faint. “Made in partnership with Walt Disney.”

  “Very good, Madam Curator. Got it in one.”

  “But… these should have turned to sludge centuries ago.”

  “Yes, they should’ve, but a very studious collector had them treated with stabilizers and kept them safe. For my part, I’ve kept them away from light and in a humidor chilled to five degrees.”

  “Where?” Benson asked incredulously. “Your apartment’s been searched a dozen times.”

  “You would be surprised what a ship this large can keep hidden, detective.”

  “But how did you get it?” Devorah asked.

  “Let’s just say ‘Salvador’ is a family name. Now, I’ve shown you a piece of art that no one else has seen in generations. Is that worth a ticket to the Monet?”

  “Yes.” Devorah slipped the filmstrip back into the case and snapped the lid closed, then stalked off towards a recess in the wall. “It most certainly is.” She waved a hand and a secret door sprang open. “Well, are you coming or what?”

  Chapter Thirteen

  “These are the archives,” Devorah said, as the trio walked down the stairs to the museum’s basement. “All our restoration, preservation, and long-term storage happens down here. Only around fifteen percent of the collection is on display at any given time. We rotate the exhibits to limit their light exposure and risk. That and…” They reached the landing at the bottom of the stairs. The overhead lights sensed their arrival and flickered to life, casting a gentle white glow onto row after row of shelves, stretching back far enough that the curvature of the habitat’s hull was apparent in the floor. “…We don’t have the display space.”