"Hey you two! Are you asleep, or what?" Jirlib's voice jabbed at them. He and Brent were looking back from the entrance. The girls scrambled up the steps, and for once didn't have any smart reply.
Jirlib continued on, mumbling to himself about daydreaming twits. Brent dropped behind the other three, but followed close.
They passed into the shade of the entryway, and the sounds of the city faded behind. A ceremonial guard of two King's troopers perched silently in ambush niches on either side of the entrance. Up ahead was the real guardian—the ticket clerk. The ancient walls behind his stand were hung with announcements of the current exhibits. Jirlib was grumbling no more. He jittered around a twelve-color "artist's conception" of a Distort of Khelm. And now Viki could see how such foolishness had made it into the Royal Museum. It wasn't just the Distorts. This season's museum theme was "Crank Science in All Its Aspects." The posters advertised exhibits on deepness-witching, autocombustion, videomancy, and—ta-da!—the Distorts of Khelm. But Jirlib seemed oblivious of the company his hobby was keeping. It was enough for him that a museum finally honored it.
The current-theme exhibits were in the new wing. Here the ceilings were high, and mirrored pipes showered sunlight in misty cones upon the marble floors. The four of them were almost alone, and the place had an eerie quality of sound about it, not quite echoing, but magnifying. When they weren't talking, even the tick of their feet seemed loud. It worked better than any "Quiet Please" signs. Viki was awed by all the incredible quackery. Daddy thought such things were amusing—"like religion but not so deadly." Unfortunately, Jirlib had eyes only for his own quackery. Never mind that Gokna was engrossed by the autocombustion exhibit to the point of active scheming. Never mind that Viki wanted to see the glowing picture tubes in the videomancy hall. Jirlib was going straight to the Distorts exhibit, and he and Brent made sure their sisters stayed right with them.
Ah, well. In truth, Viki had always been intrigued by the Distorts. Jirlib had been stuck on them for as long as she could remember; here, finally, they would get to see the real thing.
The entrance to the hall was a floor-to-ceiling exhibit of diamond foraminifera. How many tons of fuel sludge had been sifted to find such perfect specimens? The different types were carefully labeled according to the best scientific theories, but the tiny crystal skeletons had been artfully positioned in their trays behind magnifying lenses: in the piped sunlight, the forams glittered in crystal constellations like jeweled tiaras and bracelets and backdrapes. It reduced Jirlib's collection to in significance. On a central table, a bank of microscopes gave the interested visitor a closer look. Viki stared through the lenses. She had seen this sort of thing often enough before, but these forams were undamaged and the variety was boggling. Most were six-way symmetric, yet there were many that had the little hooks and wands that the living creatures must have used to move around in their microscopic environment. Not a single diamond skeleton creature lived in the world anymore, and none had for more than fifty million years. But in some sedimentary rock, the diamond foram layer was hundreds of feet thick; out east, it was a cheaper fuel than coal. The largest of the critters was barely flea-sized, but there had been a time when they were the most common animal in the world. Then, about fifty million years ago—poof. All that was left was their skeletons. Uncle Hrunkner said that was something to think about when Daddy's ideas went over the top.
"C'mon, c'mon." Jirlib could spend hours at a time with his own foram collection. But today, he gave the ranked glitter of the King's Own Exhibit barely thirty seconds; the signs on the far doors proclaimed the Distorts of Khelm. The four of them ticktoed to the darkened entrance, scarcely whispering to one another now. In the hall beyond, a single cone of piped sunlight shone down on the central tables. The walls were drowned in shadow, lit here and there by lamps of the extreme colors.
The four eased quietly into the room. Gokna gave a little squeak of surprise. There were figures in the dark...and they were taller than the average adult was long. They wavered on three spindly legs and their forelegs and arms rose almost like the branches of a Reaching Frondeur. It was everything Chundra Khelm had ever claimed for his Distorts—and in the dark, it promised more detail to anyone who would come closer.
Viki read the words that glowed beneath the figures, and smiled to herself. "Hot stuff, huh?" she said to her sister.
"Yeah—I never imagined—" Then she read the description, too. "Oh, more crapping fakes."
