Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
“The British Museum. London,” Solomon offered.
Avril shook her head. “All records we have say there is absolutely nothing left of London. It was one city that was bombarded very hard in the last days of the war.”
“Xi’an Museum in New Beijing in the Northern Federation,” Gunn snarled.
Avril considered for a second. “We’ll put it on the list, but it’s unlikely to yield anything interesting.” She looked at Nik. “Dr. Phoenix, I’d really appreciate your ideas.” She smiled. “May I call you Niklas?”
Not many people called him Niklas. Eos and his brothers, sometimes. But Nera always called him Niklas. “Nik’s fine.”
“Nik.” That earned him another wide smile. “Any ideas?”
“Most museums supposedly evacuated their prized pieces well before the final destruction of Earth. Anything of value was taken away on ships.” He tried to hide his smile. “And we know the legends and rumors of where those artifacts were stored. In places like Star’s End.”
“Lucky bastard,” Gunn muttered under his breath.
“My brothers and my sister-in-law—” he speared Nera with a look “—with some help, found the stash there.”
“It was a marvelous find,” Avril said. Her gaze turned inward. “Just a shame the final fragment of the Mona Lisa was missing.”
Nera raised a brow at Nik. “Yes, a shame.”
Nik knew exactly where the Mona Lisa was.
“You think all Earth’s treasures were shipped away?” Avril asked.
Nik shook his head. “Unlikely. My research indicates some countries were holding out, especially with their smaller or less-popular museums. They were hoping the war would end, preferably with a peaceful solution.”
Gunn snorted. “That didn’t work out so well for them.”
“No.” Nik was hating Gunn even more. “Billions of people perished. The Northern Federation and the United Countries of the Americas launched terrible attacks. They used new nuclear technology that mixed anti-matter bombs with nanotechnology.” He shook his head, thinking of the wanton destruction.
“It rendered most of the planet uninhabitable, and the radiation is still at very high levels, even now. Billions died. Men, women, children, gone.”
There was an uncomfortable silence.
Nik cleared his throat. “Those who hadn’t left the planet any way they could, and weren’t annihilated in the bombings, would have survived a little while longer.
Suffering from radiation sickness, they had to find a way to survive the shutdown of life as they knew it—no power, no manufacturing, no medical help.
And a nuclear winter would have set in. Most people wouldn’t have had the skills to grow their own food… and nothing would have grown, anyway.”
“Poor souls,” Avril said.
“The last record of anyone coming near Earth was a ship from the Australia II colony. They detected no signs of human life, but couldn’t land…the radiation was at a level they couldn’t withstand, and they didn’t have the tech back then to survive it. After that—”
“Humanity looked outward,” Nera said. “To the rest of the galaxy. They colonized new worlds, and over time created new languages, new religions, new ways of life, and carried out new atrocities.”
Nik studied her impassive face. So damned beautiful and so hard to read.
“So, Nik, what’s your recommendation on where we should look?” Avril asked.
“New York.”
“What?” She looked taken aback. “There are solid, confirmed records it was evacuated early. The main museums were emptied out, or artifacts were moved to other museums around the country or shipped off-planet.”
“The inner city, yes, but not in the suburbs. I’ve found snippets from records that say there were some, certainly smaller, but quality museums in the suburbs that never moved their collections.”
“Okay.” Avril nodded. “That does sound promising.”
“Come on.” Gunn shot to his feet. “I want to see a big payday here. I don’t want to dig around in the ruins of some family homes.” He threw his hands up. “I want gold, and silver, and gems. I don’t want damn shards of dinner plates or kids’ toys.”
“That kind of stuff is just as important historically,” Nik said. “There is still so much we don’t know about the final years on Earth.”
“Just can it, High-and-Mighty Phoenix. No one gives a fuck about history.” He made a scoffing noise. “The Institute, most of all.”
“You’re mean, sloppy, and lazy, Gunn,” Nik said. “I don’t really care what you have to say.”
The treasure hunter’s eyes bulged from the insult. He took a menacing step toward Niklas. “Why don’t I—”
Nera appeared in front of Nik, a tall, straight shadow. Damn, she could move fast.
Gunn’s gaze went to her, wavered for a second, then he made a phlegmy sound in his throat.
“I’m out of here. You astro-snobs can pontificate all you want.
Me, I’m going back to my cabin.” His lips stretched across his teeth.
“I have a lovely lady waiting for me.” He strode out, casting one more harsh glance at Nik. “Watch your back, Phoenix.”
“You just made an enemy,” Nera said quietly, so only Nik could hear. “Men like Gunn don’t take kindly to insults.”
“He’s a rather…unpleasant man.” Avril drew her shoulders up. “Okay, please spend the next day on your research and recommendations. And regardless of what Mr. Gunn says, the Institute does care about history. All of it.”
Solomon gave a nod. “Will do.” He exited with long strides.
Niklas stared at the lovely library shelves. They were glossy, beautiful, and made him want to believe the Institute did only care about the historical value of its finds.
He knew differently.
He turned to Avril. “I’d like to see the Hawass Documents.”
Avril smiled. “Oh, they are simply amazing. Come on.” She cast a quick glance at Nera, then ignored her. “They’re all in protective coverings.” She moved over to one wall that was lined with bookshelves at the top and long drawers on the bottom. She pressed a code into one drawer and it slid open.
Holy stars. Nik controlled his body’s visceral reaction. The papers were all encased in a thin layer of plas. Some of them looked like they were printed, the black ink slightly faded. Others were handwritten.
“They are gorgeous,” he said.
“Aren’t they?” Avril stroked a slim hand over the top sheets.
“And I can study them?”
“Yes. As long as you do it here in the library. If they leave the room, an alarm will sound.” Her gaze went back to the silent Nera.
“They have chips embedded in the plas. I’ll leave you to it.
” She touched Nik’s arm lightly. “I’m really glad you changed your mind about this hunt. I look forward to us working together.”
With a stiff nod at Nera, she left.
Nik leaned over the documents. He wasn’t sure where he wanted to start.
He looked up and saw Nera watching him.
“Why do you care?” she asked. “Why look at those bits of old paper with such reverence?”
“These are where we come from, Nera.”
She went very still. “The past is the past.”
He narrowed his gaze. He detected…something in her voice. Damn, he wanted to know more about her. “The past, for better or worse, has made us who we are.”
Her nebula eyes skewered him. “So a drunken father, deserter mother, and the crummy planet of Zerzura made you?”
He wasn’t surprised she knew his history. “Partly. Zerzura’s history inspired me to learn more about it. My parents inspired me to be better, to escape, and do something more with my life. And my brothers…”
“Yes?”
“They showed me that we all need someone. Someone who has your back, who loves you…even when you screw up.” He knew she didn’t have that, wondered if she even wanted it.
She ran a finger along one glossy shelf. “Trust is a risk. People can take what you give them and use it against you.”
Her words were a punch to his gut. Someone had hurt her, and dammit, he wanted to know who. “When you trust the right person, what you get back is beyond valuable.”
She eyed him. “Yet, you only let your brothers in.”
“No. I’ve got two sisters-in-law now. My cousin, Malin. And a certain teenager who somehow wormed her way into our lives.”
“Lastite Lala.” Nera’s tone was dubious.
“Yeah.” Bomb maker extraordinaire, opinionated teenager, and often a pain in his ass.
But she was theirs now. “She had a messed-up childhood.” He met Nera’s gaze.
“No one in her past showed her how to feel, how to give affection, yet she does. Generously. I think it’s built into us.
Humanity, through all the millennia, has always had a need to belong. ”
Nera pushed off the wall and kept wandering, this time touching the spines of the old books. He let himself drink her in. Her skin wasn’t pale or dark, but some fascinating shade in between. He looked at her long fingers, amazed that such elegant hands could steal, subdue, or kill with such ease.
“You think emotions for another person is just a biological imperative?” she asked.
Their eyes met. “I think the biological drive is there, but we don’t feel for everyone we meet. It can be more. Sometimes much more…a meeting of souls.” He’d seen it happen for both his brothers.
Nera’s lips quirked. Not quite a smile. He’d never seen her smile. “Poetic.”
“What made you, Nera?”
She stiffened. “A nightmare.” She strolled across the room with her lethal grace. “And how about your past at the Institute? Did that make you, too?”
He tensed. “That’s not up for discussion.”
“So, you just pick and choose which parts matter?”
His hands curled into fists. “I don’t want to discuss it.”
She inclined her head. “I’ll leave you to your work.”
He watched her leave the room, and pondered biological imperatives and the burning need to connect with someone who probably would never feel the same way.
With her spectrum camouflage on, Nera walked back into the library. She’d paid a lot of e-creds for the upgraded tech that rendered her virtually invisible. It made her job a lot easier.
She sank into a chair across the room and just watched Niklas Phoenix.