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She tried to make her smile as sincere as possible. Brisbane looked sleek and self-assured. His face was as cool, smooth, and pink as the inside of a conch—exquisitely shaved, patted, groomed, and eau-de-cologned. His wavy brown hair, thick and glossy with health, was worn slightly long.
“Dr. Kelly,” said Brisbane, exposing a rack of perfect orthodontry. “Make yourself at home.”
Nora dropped gingerly into a construction of chrome, leather, and wood that purported to be a chair. It was hideously uncomfortable and squeaked with every movement.
The young VP threw himself back in his chair with a rustle of worsted and put his hands behind his head. His shirtsleeves were rolled back in perfect creases, and the knot of his English silk tie formed an impeccably dimpled triangle. Was that, Nora thought, a bit of makeup on his face, under and around his eyes, hiding a few wrinkles? Good God, it was. She looked away, realizing she was staring too hard.
“How go things in the rag and bone shop?” Brisbane asked.
“Great. Fine. There’s just one small thing I wanted to talk to you about.”
“Good, good. I needed to talk to you, too.”
“Mr. Brisbane,” Nora began quickly, “I—”
But Brisbane stopped her with a raised hand. “Nora, I know why you’re here. You need money.”
“That’s right.”
Brisbane nodded, sympathetically. “You can’t complete your research with a frozen budget.”
“That’s right,” repeated Nora, surprised but wary. “It was a tremendous coup to get the Murchison Grant to do the Utah Anasazi survey, but there’s no way I can finish the work without a really good series of carbon-14 dates. Good dates are the foundation for everything else.” She tried to keep her voice pleasantly obedient, as if eager to play the ingenue.
Brisbane nodded again, his eyes half closed, swiveling slightly in his chair. Despite herself, Nora began to feel encouraged. She hadn’t expected as sympathetic a reaction. It seemed to be working.
“How much are we talking about?” Brisbane asked.
“With eighteen thousand dollars, I could get all sixty-six samples dated at the University of Michigan, which has the best mass spectrometer laboratory for carbon-14 dating in the world.”
“Eighteen thousand dollars. Sixty-six samples.”
“That’s right. I’m not asking for a permanent budget increase, just a one-time grant.”
“Eighteen thousand dollars,” Brisbane repeated slowly as if considering. “When you really think about it, Dr. Kelly, it doesn’t seem like much, does it?”
“No.”
“It’s very little money, actually.”
“Not compared to the scientific results it would bring.”
“Eighteen thousand. What a coincidence.”
“Coincidence?” Nora suddenly felt uneasy.
“It just happens to be exactly what you are going to need to cut out of your budget next year.”
“You’re cutting my budget?”
Brisbane nodded. “Ten percent cuts across the board. All scientific departments.”
Nora felt herself begin to tremble, and she gripped the chrome arms of the chair. She was about to say something, but, remembering her vow, turned it into a swallow.
“The cost of the new dinosaur halls turned out to be more than anticipated. That’s why I was glad to hear you say it wasn’t much money.”
Nora found her breath, modulated her voice. “Mr. Brisbane, I can’t complete the survey with a cut like that.”
“You’re going to have to. Scientific research is only a small part of the Museum, Dr. Kelly. We’ve an obligation to put on exhibitions, build new halls, and entertain the public.”
Nora spoke hotly. “But basic scientific research is the lifeblood of this Museum. Without science, all this is just empty show.”
Brisbane rose from his chair, strolled around his desk, and stood before the glass case. He punched a keypad, inserted a key. “Have you ever seen the Tev Mirabi emerald?”
“The what?”
Brisbane opened the case and stretched a slender hand toward a cabochon emerald the size of a robin’s egg. He plucked it from its velvet cradle and held it up between thumb and forefinger. “The Tev Mirabi emerald. It’s flawless. As a gemologist by avocation, I can tell you that emeralds of this size are never flawless. Except this one.”
He placed it before his eye, which popped into housefly-like magnification. He blinked once, then lowered the gem.
“Take a look.”
Nora again forced herself to swallow a rejoinder. She took the emerald.
“Careful. You wouldn’t want to drop it. Emeralds are brittle.”
Nora held it gingerly, turned it in her fingers.
“Go ahead. The world looks different through an emerald.”
She peered into its depths and saw a distorted world peering back, in which moved a bloated creature like a green jellyfish: Brisbane.
“Very interesting. But Mr. Brisbane—”
“Flawless.”
“No doubt. But we were talking about something else.”
“What do you think it’s worth? A million? Five? Ten? It’s unique. If we sold it, all our money worries would be over.” He chuckled, then placed it to his own eye again. The eye swiveled about behind the emerald, black, magnified, wet-looking. “But we can’t, of course.”
“I’m sorry, but I don’t get your point.”
Brisbane smiled thinly. “You and the rest of the scientific staff. You all forget one thing: it is about show. Take this emerald. Scientifically, there’s nothing in it that you couldn’t find in an emerald a hundredth its size. But people don’t want to see any old emerald: they want to see the biggest emerald. Show, Dr. Kelly, is the lifeblood of this Museum. How long do you think your precious scientific research would last if people stopped coming, stopped being interested, stopped giving money? You need collections: dazzling exhibitions, colossal meteorites, dinosaurs, planetariums, gold, dodo birds, and giant emeralds to keep people’s attention. Your work just doesn’t fall into that category.”
“But my work is interesting.”
Brisbane spread his hands. “My dear, everyone here thinks their research is the most interesting.”
It was the “my dear” that did it. Nora rose from her chair, white-lipped with anger. “I shouldn’t have to sit here justifying my work to you. The Utah survey will establish exactly when the Aztec influence came into the Southwest and transformed Anasazi culture. It will tell us—”
“If you were digging up dinosaurs, it would be different. That’s where the action is. And it happens that’s also where the money is. The fact is, Dr. Kelly, nobody seems terribly concerned with your little piles of potsherds except yourself.”
“The fact is,” said Nora hotly, “that you’re a miscarried scientist yourself. You’re only playing at being a bureaucrat, and, frankly, you’re overdoing the role.”
As soon as Nora spoke she realized she had said too much. Brisbane’s face seemed to freeze for a moment. Then he recovered, gave her a cool smile, and twitched his handkerchief out of his breast pocket. He began polishing the emerald, slowly and repetitively. Then he placed it back in the case, locked it, and then began polishing the case itself, first the top and then the sides, with deliberation. Finally he spoke.
“Do not excite yourself. It hardens the arteries and is altogether bad for your health.”
“I didn’t mean to say that, and I’m sorry, but I won’t stand for these cuts.”
Brisbane spoke pleasantly. “I’ve said what I have to say. For those curators who are unable or unwilling to find the cuts, there’s no problem—I will be happy to find the cuts for them.” When he said this, he did not smile.
Nora closed the door to the outer office and stood in the hallway, her mind in turmoil. She had sworn to herself not to leave without the extra money, and here she was, worse off than before she went in. Should she go to Collopy, the Museum’s director? But he was severe and unapproachable, and that would surely piss off Brisbane. She’d already shot her mouth off once. Going over Brisbane’s head might get her fired. And whatever else she did, she couldn’t lose this job. If that happened, she might as well find another line of work. Maybe she could find the money somewhere else, rustle up another grant somewhere. And there was another budget review in six months. One could always hope . . .