The Quantum Curators and the Fabergé Egg Page 2

  Charlie continued to reveal ways in which he had saved the day, and Julius’ mind began to wander. Sipping on his beer, he wondered if he could cross-check the provenance with the auction catalogues held in the Courtauld Institute.

  ‘... but that wasn't the most interesting thing about it!’

  Julius quickly replayed the last few minutes: a grateful Cardinal, canoe trip in Borneo, malarial antidote, two sisters and some absinthe, a wooden codex, a child's toy. A child's toy? That was the last thing he mentioned. What had been interesting about that?

  ‘You don't say?’ Julius said, playing for time.

  ‘Inside was a note saying, 'The first doll has the egg'.’

  Julius was struggling to keep up. He couldn't remember what the toy was. ‘No, I'm sorry you've lost me.’ He tried to piece together everything that Charlie had been saying in the past few minutes. There was a Russian doll's house, maybe, something about a doll having an egg and a note in Russian. Julius was lost.

  Charlie banged his pint on the table. ‘What do you think, hey?’ Having made the announcement, he headed back to the bar for another round of drinks whilst Julius thought over what he had said.

  A note about an egg hidden in a Russian doll might mean anything. But it was impossible not to rush to the obvious conclusion. A Fabergé egg.

  ‘Well, what do you say to that?’ Charlie returned to the table and placed a second pint in front of Julius.

  ‘Tell me again about the toy.’

  ‘I was in Poland visiting the new exhibition on Lost Childhoods and I got chatting to this little babushka. She said she’d offered to sell an old matryona set to the museum but they weren’t interested. Well, you know me. I'm always one to have a look. And I’m a sucker for Russian nesting dolls.’

  Julius raised an eyebrow. Charlie was a well-known dealer in museum quality artefacts, but sometimes he sailed very close to the line regarding stolen antiquities and pillaged sites. Charlie was never one to turn down a back-alley deal or an interesting lead.

  He had caused an absolute stink in Iraq last year, when he was found to have a Mesopotamian vase on him that he was apparently in the process of returning to the Iraqi Embassy. The problem was that he was in the airport at the time, heading home to the UK. The British Museum vouched for him, saying they were preparing to authenticate and preserve it, but there were some very uncomfortable conversations on both sides.

  Julius took a swig of beer and motioned for Charlie to continue. The pub was beginning to fill as the office workers arrived for a quick drink before heading home.

  ‘Well, we went back to her flat, where she pulled out as fine a samovar as you’d be likely to see outside of a museum, and started to make tea. Her flat was a little cavern of treasures. Every sideboard was full of trinkets, every wall covered in paintings and mirrors and hangings. It was really quite marvellous. Anyway, she bustled off to another room and returned with a Russian doll set. I saw at once why she thought the museum might be interested. It was very old. At a glance I felt certain it was pre-war, but it was missing the largest doll. And whilst it rattled, I couldn't initially open the first doll up.’

  ‘So, how do you know there was a note in there?’

  Charlie drank deeply and smacked his lips. ‘Patience. Anyway, she told me how much she wanted for it, and I could see why the museum had baulked. I asked her if she wanted to sell anything else, and she said that this was the only thing she was interested in getting rid of. It had a sad history and she wanted it out of her house.’

  ‘Sad history?’

  ‘Well, yes, that certainly attracted my attention, but she refused to say any more. By now we were on to the vodka and I must have been mellowing, because lo-and-behold I went and paid her the full price! I wandered back to my hotel with the doll in a plastic bag, chiding myself as a fool for the little old lady routine. Anyway, I boxed it up and posted it home, and flew on to Baghdad.’

  ‘Baghdad. They let you in?’

  Charlie seemed peeved for a moment, and then remembered there was no point in acting indignant in front of Julius. They knew each other too well.

  ‘Yes, now then, you see, that was a misunderstanding,’ he said, and they both laughed. Julius was properly intrigued now.

  ‘So what happened when you got home?’ he asked.

  ‘Well, the central heating had done its standard job and had very gently dried the wood, and voila, it opened up. Inside were five more nested dolls. I opened each doll, lining up the whole set, and inside the final one, the size of a thumbnail, was a little folded note.’ Charlie paused. ‘Thirsty work, this.’

  Julius grinned and headed to the bar. He had to wait as a bunch of students debated over the various merits of ale or lager. One of the girls stepped aside to let him stand at the bar beside her. As she smiled at him, he remembered he needed some more toothpaste. Getting his drinks, he hurried back to his friend.

  ‘You are rubbish with girls, aren't you?’ Julius looked at Charlie, puzzled. What on earth was he on about? Sometimes that was a clear failing in Charlie. Always off on a tangent.

  ‘The note! What did the note say?’

  Charlie rolled his eyes. At school, the other boys had marvelled at Julius’ lack of self-awareness. A few subtle advances also ruled out his interest in boys as well. He just seemed utterly without desire. Unless it was an old book or a maths problem, he just didn't engage.

  ‘Charlie. The note.’

  ‘Now you're interested,’ he teased, gesturing his pint towards the bar. ‘Gorgeous girl, cracking figure? Nothing. Piece of paper in an old wooden toy? All ears. Okay,’ he said, and raised his hands as Julius glared at him, ‘so the note. On it, written in Cyrillic, was the following message; “The family egg is in the first doll”.’

  ‘It's probably nothing,’ said Julius.

  ‘There's more. I called up the old lady, Zofia, and asked if she remembered where the outer doll was. She said her brother-in-law had it. The brothers had fallen out and their grandfather had said families should stick together. He gave Filip the outer doll and Jan the inner set. He sealed both of them and said the boys should bring them together and heal their rift. I asked if that was typical of him, but she said she had never met the old man. She did say he’d been a soldier during the Russian revolution!’

  ‘Oh,’ Julius said, and leant back in his chair and crossed his arms. He looked up at the ceiling as he thought about it, a small, excited grin lighting up his face. It was simply impossible to not hear eggs, Russia and hidden clues without homing in like an Exocet on the inevitable conclusion.

  A Fabergé egg.

  Could it be that one of the famed missing imperial eggs was about to be found? Or at least that a genuine clue might have come to the surface. So many treasures of the Russian imperial court had been lost following the revolution. The jewelled Easter eggs made by Carl Fabergé for the Romanov royal family were the most sought out of them all.

  The two men talked excitedly, guessing what the purple one might refer to, if indeed it even was a Fabergé that the note was referring to.

  ‘So that's what I need from you,’ announced Charlie. ‘I don't know anyone better than you at research. Can you investigate our babushka’s husband's grandfather? Everything you can find. Also, I need you to find the brother. But, you know, don't mention this to anyone. Not even, what was her name, Rebecca?’

  Julius gulped. Rebecca! Checking his watch, he realised he was late. So much for not being distracted.

  #3 Neith – Alpha Earth

  Stepping through the Q Field was disconcerting. Until you became used to it, it usually resulted in vomiting or screaming or fluency in French or Mandarin. Some came through convinced they had tails which had failed to materialise. Others thought they were fish. Some never recovered and became gardeners. Some died. Although deaths were rare, the pre-vetting process was thorough. I liked to think of us as the best of the best. Others liked to think of us as unhinged psychopaths.

  As I st
epped onto the landing apron, Clio was standing to my left and we both stepped smartly away from the quantum field. A perfect transition. In the past, quantum curators would have been greeted with a round of applause, but these days that was considered showy. Personally, I liked showy. I looked up to the guys on the gantry, who flashed us a thumbs up. A couple of officers with guns stood at the other side of the room, and we smiled at them. It was always a good idea to let the people pointing guns at you know that all was well.

  Then the glass doors opened and medics walked in, giving us restorative jabs and broad-spectrum antibiotics. Excalibur may not have been the only thing we carried back with us. Finally, the archivists came forward and removed the sword.

  We headed to the changing rooms, where Clio had to drag me away from the gloriously hot shower, before we went upstairs and away from the Q Zone to give our report.

  The Q Zone consisted of the Q Field itself, which was, to all intents and purposes, a blank wall; the large empty room, or landing apron; and then the lower and upper gantry for the personnel, with changing rooms and an emergency triage station to the side. Due to the side effects of the Q Field, most other departments and offices were located further away. It used to be a lot smaller, but an accidental incursion by rhinos had changed that. They’d had to pretty much rebuild the entire room after a terrified rhino had gone on the rampage. Now the Q Field opened onto a large empty room with the technicians on overhead gantries.

  As soon as we stepped into the corridor I breathed a sigh of relief. I loved the warm, dry Alexandrian climate and I couldn't wait to get outside and bathe in the warm air, maybe even take a quick swim in the Mareotis. Proper clean water. In the meantime, we discussed how we would approach the report.

  ‘Which bit do you think we'll get bollocked the most for? Miscalculating the weight of the sword or not packing proper scuba gear?’

  Clio thought about it. ‘It's going to be the weight thing. The lack of full scuba gear didn't actually impact on the mission, and as it turned out we were able to successfully weave into one of the established Arthurian myths.’

  I frowned. Both of us should have spotted the weight problem, but it was just the sort of thing that I was expected to overlook, forget about or miscalculate. Therefore, the onus of responsibility would fall unfairly on Clio's shoulders.

  We headed into the chief's office, where the sword was already laid out on a preservation board. Once our report had been submitted, verified and approved, it would be attached to the board and then the two would be filed together in the vaults a few hundred metres beneath our feet, ready for further processing.

  The Library of Alexandria was one facet of our mouseion complex, and I might be biased, but our mouseion was the best in the world given that it was home to all the unique and lost items from Beta Earth. There isn’t a Beta comparison, as their museums are a pale shadow of the glories of a proper mouseion. Each branch was split into the nine muses, so we had the library department, the art department, the music department, the artefact deptart... Well, you get it. And all are currently being filled up with specimens from Beta Earth.

  ‘Morning ladies. Who wants to explain the cock-up then?’

  Captain Samuel Nymens was responsible for the quantum curators. He was our first port of call when things went wrong, and our first line of defence when the higher ups decided to chew us out for mistakes. He could tear into us, shout at us, kick our arses there and back again, but beyond this room he would defend us to the hilt. A good guy to have on your side. Even when he was screaming in your face. Today, he seemed to be in a forgiving mood. I took a risk.

  ‘My fault, Sir. Clio asked me to collate the item specifics. I forgot to get the weight.’

  Sam raised an eyebrow whilst Clio stood stock-still beside me. Stepping in now to contradict me would suggest a lack of team unity. Possibly a greater sin.

  ‘Is that correct, Clio?’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Did Neith fail to log the weight of the sword?’

  ‘Yes, Sir.’

  ‘That you asked her to do?’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Neith says you asked her to collate its dimensions.’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘You haven't asked me a question, Sir.’

  ‘Did you, or did you not, ask Neith to calibrate the item's measurements?’

  ‘Sir. Neith has already stated that to be the case.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘For me to suggest otherwise would suggest that Neith had lied.’

  A pause lingered between the three of us. A lie would suggest a reckless operative and an inharmonious team dynamic. The fact that the three of us knew I was notorious for not quite telling the whole truth was being happily ignored. So long as the job got done, who cared? That was my attitude. Besides, better a minor rebuke on my report than on Clio's.

  Sam's face twitched, causing his moustache to quiver, and then he sighed. ‘Sit down and report.’

  Clio gave her report as my eyes wandered around the room. Sam's office was lined with books, sporting memorabilia and musical instruments. Any spare wall space featured works of art by his children. Doodles by them mastering the art of crayons or paint. Where there weren't works of art, there were photos of his family beaming out at him. To be sure, they were a fine family. Sam was the very epitome of a good-looking man; tall and strong, with blue eyes and black hair. His skin was the colour of wet sand and his blue eyes sparkled. Even the crow’s feet around his eyes seemed to highlight just how attractive they were. Blue eyes weren’t uncommon here in northern Africa, but they were definitely in the minority. The rest of us just had to work our shades of brown. His children were all equally appealing, as was his wife. Sickeningly, they were all bloody lovely people as well.

  ‘Neith! I said report.’

  I jumped, then confirmed that Clio had given an accurate report, whatever she had just said. I went on to relate my side of the mission. Clio agreed that, as much as she was able to comment on that, it was an accurate assessment of the extraction.

  ‘Right. Well done ladies. A successful, if unusual retrieval.’

  King of the understatement. Normally we recovered priceless works of art, lost masterpieces; Leonardo's lost notebooks, Mozart's symphonies, Rembrandt’s sea paintings. All safely secured in our vaults. Every item was copied to the last detail in perfect holographic and 3D facsimile to be borrowed or studied by anyone on the planet. The original was safely cared for in the vaults, which again, anyone could visit. But why bother? We had made it as accessible as possible to the entire world.

  The sword of some quasi-mythical warlord was not our normal fare. Certainly, it was talked about reverentially on Beta Earth, but not here on Alpha Earth. We had long since moved away from concepts of religion and warfare.

  The theory was that our earth and their earth parted at the burning of the Library of Alexandria. At least that’s what the philosophers and scientists suggest. They also postulate that if we have one parallel universe, we can have a myriad. There could be earths where the dinosaurs were never wiped out; there could be earths where mankind never got going; there could be earths where mankind had already become extinct; there could even be earths where putting milk in your tea first was acceptable. Who knew? I tended to fall asleep during these lectures. All we knew for certain was that there was our earth, and there was Beta Earth.

  Back when the Romans had burnt the library, we responded differently to the Beta Earth. The lands of northern Africa and Persia had banded together and history had pivoted. That’s pretty simplistic but it will do for now. The Roman army was attacked continually until, starved of grain and undermined by politics, it collapsed. Augustus fell and drowned in the glorious Aegean after a rowdy party, and the Roman Empire failed to emerge.

  From there, the Conclave of Mali agreed that nation building was going to destroy us. Instead, we began to focus on sharing knowledge. Mouseions became the leading forces. Certainly, th
ere were skirmishes between ruling Deans and Chancellors, but gradually we grew into a political structure based on knowledge and discovery. Without constant warfare for territorial rights, we worked on hunger and disease and an equitable division of population and resources. It was all perfect. Although, if I were honest and I said this to myself in perfect silence, it was incredibly dull.

  I wasn't alone. On the Beta Earth, I'd have been a soldier or an adventurer. Words filled with concern or scorn over here. Instead, my sort became ground breakers. We would help tame the land for new colonies of people heading out onto new continents. Working alongside the indigenous residents, we would manipulate the migration routes of buffalos or take out the odd tiger.

  With Leonardo's discovery of the quantum field, my sort were the foolhardy idiots who threw themselves off into adventures unknown. Lack of warfare, famine or short life expectancies meant that scientific endeavours occurred quicker and worked better.

  Don't get me wrong, Beta Earth is not without random moments of scientific brilliance, but without the proper infrastructure they tended to explode and fizzle out. We’d had supersonic flight since the early 1800s. Beta Earth had it briefly and then it collapsed. Same with Portable Electricity Storage. They still haven’t progressed past a battery that can power a child's toy.

  Which is a roundabout way of me saying that we don't tend to value weapons of war, items that promised the resurrection of a nation's Golden Age or, worst of all, a religious artefact? Along with nation building, religion had been given a stern talking to. If people wanted to believe in gods, then all well and good, but if it couldn't be proved then it wasn't to leave the front door.

  As a culture no one complained about the lack of executions, tortures, persecutions or deprivations.

  Dismissed, the pair of us headed out, leaving Sam to ponder on why we were recovering swords. Clio punched me on the arm.

  ‘Wally, you could’ve ended up on desk duty for the entire weekend.’