"Of course."
"There is a hall of relics-a museum-in the city, just beyond the Shadow line. It is called the Field, though I believe that is a person's name."
"Yeah. The natural history museum. I've heard of it."
"Have you ever visited it?"
"No."
"Then would you like to do so with me?"
"Now?"
"If you have no other obligations."
Mr. Patrise assured Doc that he was free for the day. "Render unto Caesar," Patrise said.
"Sorry, sir?"
"Have Lisa give you some honest American folding money from the safe. The World has its ways."
Cloudhunter proposed that they walk, but after consulting a map and guidebook they decided that the museum would be exercise enough. When Cloud stood by Doc's Triumph, it never seemed possible that the Ellyll could fit into the little car, but he folded himself in without apparent effort. Doc drove them south, over the river and into the World. The transition was barely visible in clear daylight, and Doc felt nothing; if Cloud did, he didn't show it. "I appreciate this," he said to Doc. "I have gone with Stagger Lee to the science museum, farther down the coast, bur he has never shown much interest in this one."
"I always figured Stagger was interested in everything,* 1 Doc said idly.
"Oh, he is by no means impolite. But one sees/'
Doc glanced at Cloudhunter. The silver elf eyes were hidden by the sunglasses.
The museum's columned, white marble front stretched for a block and a half. Broad stairs led up to the doorway. Doc reached for his wallet, but Cloudhunter waved a finger and paid both admissions. The ticket seller loudly and elaborately counted back the change, as if to a small child. Cloud jingled the coins in his hand as they walked past the booth; a few steps on, he showed them to Doc. "Nickel and tin," he said, vaguely smiling, and shoved them into a pouch.
They were in a high-ceilinged hall that ran from one side of the building to the other, display halls opening off to either side. "So," Doc said, "what shall we see first?"
Cloud examined a floor-plan brochure. "Upstairs, I think." He led the way up a massive staircase. The sign ahead of them read: DINOSAURS.
As they entered the hall, Cloudhunter's eyes blazed-not a twinkle, but a flash like close lightning. "Dragons," he said softly.
They were surrounded by the bones of giants. Doc knew Ty-rannosaurus and Stegosaurus by sight, but the variety of shapes and sizes on display here was a surprise. Some stood, some crawled, some ran; one dove on them from above, having apparently leapt from a tall glass case. They were all only bones, of course, except in the paintings that accompanied the displays, and a few surprisingly live-looking clay models. Looking at the skeletons, Doc was suddenly reminded of a fire he'd been to, in the hours before dawn: the sun came up on a blackened stick model of the buildings they'd tried and failed so save. He felt the same sense of Gone, won't come back.
Cloud was moving from display to display, case to case, quiet as a shadow. Across the hall, someone pointed at him. Doc tried to keep up with the tall elf.
Cloud said, "It isn't allowed to touch…?"
"This one says you can," Doc said. There was a brown bone, more than a yard long, set in sand-colored concrete. "I think it's real.
Cloud put his fingertips delicately on the surface. "It is genuine, Doc. Touch it."
Doc put a hand on the bone. It felt cold, smoothed by who knew how many hands before.
"Now take my other hand."
Abruptly the light was slanting and fierce, yellowed by dust in the air. Doc's vision was tilted to the right. His head hurt; so did his back and right hip. There was a heavy, sweetish, boggy stink. Just before his eyes was a clump of fat-stalked plants, bristling with fine green shoots: the fresh scent made his mouth water, and he pressed his head forward, but his body wouldn't follow. He stuck out his tongue, but it did no good. His… tail?… stirred heavily, making his hip hurt even more.
Beyond the plants, blurry in the distance and haze, a mottled tan shape moved. Teeth inches long flashed in an enormous mouth, and the shape stumbled closer. Alarms rang somewhere in Doc's consciousness, pulling at his muscles to move.
Doc knew what was about to happen, and that he couldn't do a thing to stop it. This is bad, he thought idiotically, but could not clearly identify just what was Bad about it, why it filled him with such urgency and rage. The one obvious and understandable thing in his mind was the sight and smell of those green shoots: if he could get a mouthful of those, things would be much better. Everything else would pass.
The allosaur stomped closer.
There was a pop inside Doc's head, and he was back in the museum hall, Cloudhunter's hand on his shoulder, Doc's fingers tingling against the dinosaur bone.
"I thought the sight would be interesting," Cloud said, his voice a soft, plaintive rumble. "I am very sorry if I displeased you."
"No… I…" He shook his head to clear it. "The dino died."
"Not then. Memory needs time to dwell in the bone. It never knows its death." Cloud took his hand away slowly. "] would never hazard you, Doc. Still…"
"Don't be sorry, please, Cloud. It was wonderful. I didn't have any idea you could do things like that."
"Oh," Cloudhunter said, and turned to the text panel next to the bone. "Seventy million years. The depth of it…"
"How old are you. Cloud?"
"'I?" Cloud seemed startled by the question, and Doc worried that he had violated some Trueblood rule. "I couldn't tell you in years. I was not there to see the gates closed. Some of the Ellyllon were, and all of the Urthas-the Highborn." He put his fingers on the dinosaur bone again. "Seventy" million years… I don't know if even Urthas live so long." He gave Doc a sidewise grin. "Though I shouldn't say such things. Come on, let's see more."
The next hall was lined with totem poles, painted headdresses of wood, pottery and spears.
"These are American native, I think?" Cloud said. "From nearby?"
Doc read the labels. "These are from the Pacific Northwest. Seattle-that's more than a thousand miles. Alaska's at least twice as far."
Cloud absorbed this, looked around again. "Are your people somewhere here. Doc?"
"Uh… I don't think so. Just a moment." He found a wall-mounted building plan, scanned the listings. What was he looking for, exactly? Midwestern Tribes of Uncertain European Ancestry?
When he turned back, Cloud was crouching by a little girl, showing her the silver bracelet on his left wrist. Doc had a sudden hollow feeling in his stomach. He looked around for worried parents. There they were, closing in quick. He'd never beat them to Cloudhunter unless he sprinted. Maybe that was the best idea, he thought: create a diversion. But he just walked as quickly as he felt he could, and tried to work out the soft answer that turneth away wrath.
"… and these are the names of my sisters. They are very long names in English, but we also call them First Star, and Lilac, and Cools as Rain."
"Those are pretty names," the child said.
The father said, "Does the blue stone have a meaning?"
"There are four like this, cut from the same large stone," Cloud said. "Each of us has one in a band like this. There is no meaning beyond that."
The girl said, "Momma, if I have a brother, could we have bracelets like that?"