Джек Макдевитт - Cryptic - The Best Short Fiction of Jack McDevitt

We found a golden war helmet with wings.

We found an enormous shield with multiple figures drawn on it.

We hadn’t brought enough bags.

Eventually we went back to the remaining tarp. It gave us a battle but we finally pulled it down. At first I thought it was covering a small yellow truck.

But when Hatch turned his flashlight on it, I caught my breath. The thing was a chariot . Except that it wasn’t because it was too big. The wheels were almost as high as Hatch’s head, and the rim of the car was only inches below the ceiling. It looked like gold, golden wheels and axles, golden shafts and rods, a golden platform for the driver protected by a blazing golden chassis.

We all stood and stared.

Toxie produced a knife and gouged out a piece. “Looks real,” he said. “Gold all the way down.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah. This ain’t plate.”

“It can’t be.” Hatch stood back and stared up. “Look at the size of this thing.”

Toxie grinned and laid his cheek against the bright metal in a clear display of affection. “There must be a couple of tons of it,” he whispered, awestruck. “But how the hell are we going to get it out of here?”

Hatch looked from the chariot to the elevator. To the stairway. No chance. Not in a thousand years.

“Even if we did get it downstairs,” I said, “there’s no door big enough.”

“We’re missing something,” said Hatch. “How’d they get it in here?”

I looked at the ceiling.

“Bingo,” said Hatch.

Two freight doors opened out onto the roof. “That’s how they did it,” he said. “They must have brought it in on a chopper. You believe that?”

“Hell of a big chopper,” said Toxie.

I couldn’t figure it out. Why would anybody want a golden chariot up here?

I looked out the window. The sky was hard and clear but washed out by the glare of Houston’s lights. “The guy must have been a collector,” said Hatch.

I’ve seen collectors before. Burgled some of the best in Texas. But nothing like this guy.

An eighteen-wheeler crossed Eddy Street and started up the ramp onto the interstate.

I looked back at the chariot and the harp. And the display cases. Wooden baskets and golden helmets and stone mallets and fabric chains. “What does he collect? What is this stuff?”

While we were thinking about it, Toxie found still more gold. It was in the form of a shaft that looked like something you might fly a flag from. One end was rounded, about the size of a softball. An eagle perched on it. It was about sixteen feet long, and when he tried to move it from its case, he poked the back end into the display with the flute, and almost brained Hatch with the eagle.

“That won’t fit in the elevator either.” Hatch pointed at me. “Cash,” he said, “we’ll need to take it down the staircase.” He produced a screw driver and a wrench, knelt down beside the chariot, and started trying to remove one of the wheels.

There were two cases left. One held a silver staff with two snakes wrapped around it. The thing you always see in drug stores. The other had a pair of sandals and an odd-looking silver hat shaped a bit like a soldier’s helmet. The sandals and the hat were equipped with little ornamental wings.

None of it looked worth anything and I was about to move on when the windows lit up, and we heard the not-too-distant roar of thunder. Odd. Only moments ago, the night had been clear. Toxie was still holding the golden shaft.

“That must be heavy. Why don’t you put it down?”

His eyes met mine. They were bright with an emotion I couldn’t figure. “It feels funny,” he said.

“What do you mean?”

As big as it was, he was balancing it pretty well, grasping it just below the eagle. It rested almost lightly in his grip. “Don’t know,” he said. But his eyes were luminous and he seemed happier than usual.

“Let’s get it downstairs.” I reached toward it, expecting to help him. But at that moment lightning ripped across the sky, throwing the room into relief, and thunder shook the building. A sudden wind beat against the windows. Rain began to fall.

Hatch was too busy to look up. He gave the chariot hub a good crack with his wrench and the wheel came off. The axle banged down and he grinned, grabbed the wheel, and rolled it onto the elevator.

“Damn,” laughed Toxie. “I feel like king of the world.” He held the staff toward the window.

“Hey,” I said. “Be careful.”

The sky was full of lightning.

Toxie never heard me.

I backed away. I’d never seen a storm come up that quickly before. The rain hammered against the skylight and the windows. A lightning bolt exploded over the roof.

“I think you should put it down,” I said.

He wasn’t listening.

Hatch seemed not to notice. He was starting to work on the other wheel.

Toxie held up a thumb, straight up, everything under control, and smiled like a man holding four aces. Then, without warning, he rammed the staff through the glass and seemed to challenge the storm.

The wind howled and beat against the side of the building. Hatch looked up and saw the danger and shouted for him to stop. But Toxie stayed with it, alternately jabbing at the rain and jerking the staff away. My imagination kicked in: The storm rolled and subsided and surged as if he were orchestrating it. Thunder danced across the rooftops.

Rain poured in and lightning fell all around us. Toxie stood in the middle of it, cautious, prudent, cagey, take-no-chances Toxie, drenched, wearing that god-awful grin, his face illuminated with flashing light, conducting thunderbolts.

It is the vision of him that I will take to my grave. That was how it was just before blue-white light caught the rod, danced its length, connected Toxie to the eagle, and held him, held them both. The window exploded, and Toxie still laughed, laughed over the roar of the storm. Then he was gone, and I was listening to the steady beat of the rain. What remained looked like an oversized charred sausage, steam pouring off blackened meat. The curtains were on fire and so was the carpet and a couple of cabinets. The golden shaft, still bright, still the color of the sun despite everything, lay where it had fallen.

Hatch let go the axle and staggered to his feet and backed away with a desperate look. He ripped one of the curtains down and tried to beat out the fire but it was spreading too fast.

“Let’s go,” I said, heading for the elevator. “The place is going to burn down.”

He tried a few more swings, gave up, and grabbed the Viking war helmet and the sundisk. “I can’t believe this is happening,” he gasped.

The fire spread fast. I kept my eyes off the place where Toxie had been. Later I felt sorry for him but at the moment it was hard to be too sympathetic to a guy who kept waving a metal pole at an electrical storm. The truth is, I couldn’t get my mind off all the gold that we were about to lose.

I grabbed our two bags and threw them on the elevator and punched the button for the first floor. Nothing happened. I looked at the power indicator lamp. It was off. The electric candles were also out. “We’ll have to use the stairs,” I said.

We rolled the wheel back out onto the floor, but it was slowing us up too much. “Let it go,” I told him.

“Are you crazy, Cash?” He was almost in tears. “Do you have any idea what this thing is worth?” At that moment the staff with the snakes caught his eye. But we had our hands full.

We navigated among the burning cases. At one point the wheel fell over and smashed the bellows. Hatch kicked the bellows out of the way and we righted the wheel again. By the time we got to the double doors, the rear of the building was an inferno.