“I think an awful lot of very well-connected people would be exceedingly upset.”
“That’s never stopped you before.”
“True. But a T. rex is too damned special to kill unless I absolutely have to.”
“So what do we do? Call in some of your more dangerous friends and allies for backup? Shotgun Suzie? Razor Eddie? The Grey Eidolon?”
“No,” I said. “I solve my own problems.”
I studied the artificial jungle, hot and sweaty and stinking under its artificial sun. Flies buzzed hungrily, along with foot-long dragonflies and other less familiar insects. The jungle on its own would be hard enough to take, even without the T. rex. I could see it more clearly now, shifting its weight slowly from one great leg to the other, its long tail twitching restlessly. It stood there, huge and menacing, waiting for me to try something. Waiting for its chance. There was no sign of the Collector’s door; but it couldn’t be far. The cage wasn’t that big…I smiled slowly. The T. rex would know where the door was. It would know it was important. So it would put itself between me and the door. Which meant…My smile widened as I looked at the T. rex’s massive legs, and then at the space between them.
“That is a really unpleasant smile,” said Bettie. “Whatever you’re thinking, please stop it.”
“I have a plan,” I said.
“I’m really not going to like it, am I?”
“How fast can you run?” I said.
“Oh, no,” she said. “You’re not suggesting…”
“Oh, yes I am,” I said.
I marched back to the cage bars, Bettie moving unhappily along with me. The T. rex stepped out into the open, grinning at me with its terrible jaws. The feeding arms high up on the barrel chest clutched spasmodically at the air. I reached into my coat-pocket and took out a flashbang. I gestured for Bettie to cover her eyes and ears, then tossed the flashbang into the cage. The T. rex started forward. I closed my eyes, covered my ears, and turned my head away, and the flashbang exploded, filling the world with a fierce incandescent glare. I could still see it through my clenched-shut eyes. The T. rex screamed like a steam whistle. I turned back, grabbed Bettie’s hand, and we squeezed quickly between the steel bars. Designed to keep the T. rex in, not people out. The T. rex stamped its great feet up and down, swinging its wedge-shaped head back and forth, trying to shake off the pain in its dazzled eyes. And I ran straight at the creature, with Bettie pounding gamely along at my side.
The heat hit me like a blast furnace, and the stench was almost unbearable. The T. rex knew we were coming, but it was too confused to place us. It snapped at the empty air, the heavy jaws slamming together like a man-trap. I headed for the gap between its legs. I think it sensed how close we were, because the great head came sweeping down. Bettie and I ran straight between its wide-set legs and out the other side, hardly having to duck at all. The T. rex’s head smashed into the ground as it missed us.
By the time the T. rex had shaken off its daze and its new headache, and got itself turned around, I’d already found the Collector’s door and got it open. It wasn’t even locked, the smug bastard. I pushed Bettie through and followed her in. I turned to shut the door, and there was the T. rex, shrieking with rage as it lurched towards the door. I blew a raspberry at it, and shut the door in its face.
Inside the Collector’s lair, it was blessedly cool. I took a moment to get my breath back. I wasn’t worried about the door. Any door the Collector trusted to guard his treasures could take care of itself. I looked around, while Bettie got her breathing back under control and cursed me with a whole series of baby swear-words. The Collector’s new domain looked a lot like his old one. It stretched away in all directions, for as far as the eye could follow, and most of it was pretty damned hard on the eye. Walls, floor, and ceiling were all painted in bright primary Technicolor, with gaudy hanging silks to separate one area from another. The Collector’s tastes had been formed in the psychedelic sixties, and he never really got over it.
But whereas his old collection up on the Moon had all been stored away in rows and rows of wooden crates, here they were all set out in the open, presented carefully on rows and rows of glass shelving. Jewels and weapons, books and documents, machines and artifacts from all of recorded history. I recognised a few of the bigger items, like the wooden horse of Troy, and a half-burned giant Wicker Man with a dead policeman inside it, under carefully arranged spotlights; but I didn’t have to know what the rest were to know they were important. They all but radiated glamour.
I looked round sharply as the Collector’s security staff arrived, pattering across the bright blue floor towards us. Gleaming humanoid robots from some future Chinese civilisation, graceful and deadly with steel-clawed hands, and stylised cat faces complete with jutting metal whiskers. Their slit-pupilled eyes glowed green. A dozen of the robots moved swiftly to surround us, and I gestured quickly for Bettie to stand still. The robots hadn’t been sent to kill us, or I’d never have heard them coming. Bettie stood firm, glaring about her.
“Call them off, Collector,” I said, in a loud and carrying voice. “Or I’ll turn them into scrap metal.”
“You never did have any respect for other people’s property, Taylor.”
The cat robots fell back silently, to allow the Collector to approach. A pudgy, middle-aged man with a flushed face and beady little eyes, wearing a wraparound Roman toga, white with purple trimmings. There were knife holes and old blood stains on the toga’s front. Lots of them.
“Do you like it?” he said, stopping a respectful distance away. “A new acquisition. The robe the Emperor Caligula was wearing when he was assassinated by his own security people. Partly because he was a monster, but mostly because he embarrassed the hell out of them.” He looked at me, then at Bettie, who I now noticed was wearing a deep burgundy evening gown, with her long dark hair tumbling in ringlets to her shoulders. Her curved horns gleamed dully under the bright lights. The Collector smiled suddenly. “They’ve been feeding that T. rex too much; he’s getting slow and sloppy. I shall have to have words with that little snot Percival. What do you want here, Taylor?”
I looked around, evading the subject for the moment. Some things you need to sneak up on, and ease into. Especially when you’ve known the Collector as long as I have.
“I like what you’ve done with the place,” I said. “Up on the Moon, you had everything packed away in boxes. You thinking of opening up to the public?”
“They wish,” said the Collector. “What’s mine is mine, and not for other eyes. But I had something of an epiphany during the Lilith War; it reminded me of how short life can be, and the necessity for enjoying things while you still can. It’s not enough just to own things, any more; I need to be able to walk amongst them, enjoy them, savour them. And I do. What do you want, Taylor?”
“I need a favour,” I said. “And you do owe me, Mark.”
He looked at me for a long moment, but in the end he looked away first. He seemed suddenly older, and tired.
“How much am I expected to pay for my sins against you?”
I could sense Bettie’s ears pricking up, as she realised we were talking about secret, important things, but I didn’t feel like enlightening her.
“Only you can answer that,” I said. “Just tell me what I need to know, and I’ll leave.”
“I should kill you,” he said, almost casually.
“You could try,” I said, easily.
“This is about the Afterlife Recording, isn’t it? I haven’t got it. Heard about it, of course. The whole damned Nightside is buzzing with news of it, mostly inaccurate, and all the little collectors and speculators are driving themselves crazy running in circles, chasing down every rumour…”