The Pharoah Contract

The laboratory was dimly lit by red glowstrips, in deference to the nocturnal being who worked there. The Gench took no notice of their approach. It sat motionless, except for its three tiny eyespots, which appeared to circulate over its skull in random patterns. In actuality, the hairlike sensors on the creature’s scalp were simply activating and deactivating in sequences that gave the illusion of movement.

Ruiz’s gorge rose. In the humid air of the laboratory, the rotting earthworm stink of the Gench was stifling. Tufts of frizzy umber fiber sprouted from its baggy, three-legged body. The tufts clenched into hard little buttons, and then relaxed, as the factor stood before the alien.

“Your customer, good Gench,” Miktyas said, patting Ruiz’s arm. “You have the specifications?”

The Gench shifted on its stool, and its eyespots collected into a clump at the front of its skull. A vertical neck slit drooped open, and it spoke in a whispery voice. “Of course.”

“Fine, fine,” Miktyas said, rubbing her wrists. “We should begin, then.”

The Gench shrugged, a motion that ran clockwise around its body, and rose to its footpads. “As you wish.” It nodded at a human-contoured chair, and Ruiz seated himself and leaned back.

The Gench made no preparations, used nothing like the elaborate technology Nacker used later to hobble the Gench’s work. It simply stood in front of Ruiz and extruded a glistening white filament from one of its mouths. The filament stretched out, until it was as thin as a hair; then it touched Ruiz at the right temple and sank through his skin. “I remember you again,” it said, and then Ruiz’s world turned black.

He woke, as always, sooner than expected, but he kept his eyes closed and so he heard the last words that passed between the factor and the Gench practitioner.

“The work went well?” Miktyas asked anxiously.

The Gench sighed. “Well enough. This one’s mindsea is always difficult to swim in. He protects himself well, almost like one of the Real Race.”

Miktyas sniggered. “The Real Race….”

“You should be merry, if you can. We Gencha were making ourselves into gods when humans were bits of slime floating in the sea. Do you think all are like me, a trained animal in your menagerie? Elsewhere, the Gencha still Become.” Nothing in the whispery voice betrayed anger, or any other emotion, but something touched Ruiz with chilly fingers.

“Never mind that. The net is anchored, the mission-imperative implanted?”

“Yes. Your rat will run its maze, and when it dies, you will learn what it has learned. This one will project a strong signal, at least,” the Gench said.

Ruiz allowed his eyes to flutter open. The factor rushed to help him sit up. “Citizen Aw! How do you feel?”

Ruiz passed a shaky hand over his face and glanced at the Gench. It had seated itself on its stool again, and its eyespots flickered over the far side of its head, only occasionally sliding into brief view. “Well enough,” Ruiz had answered.

* * *

Ruiz now set the brandy aside and rose to his feet. The walls of the lounge were a soft cool white, as were the furnishings. The only spot of bright color glowed from a niche set into the far wall. Ruiz went toward the niche, stopped before it. Each day, the Vigia placed in the lounge niche a different thing of beauty from Ruiz’s large collection; this day it was a spirit mask from Line, its humanoid features carved from a single blue moonstone, then inlaid with swirling bands of red jelly opal.

The boat chose at random, but somehow these choices had come to have superstitious meaning for Ruiz, as though the selection were an omen. He looked down at the mask and shuddered. The moonstone mask had come to him through stupidity and misplaced trust, a souvenir of betrayal. He kept it not only for its beauty, but also to remind him of the dangers of trust.

In the course of his bloody years on that harsh world, Ruiz had fallen in love, been delivered to his enemies by his beloved, and finally learned the cynicism that now served him for a conscience.

He found himself wishing that he could withdraw from the Pharaoh contract, but at the thought, the mission-imperative stirred in his mind, pushing the wish away. He could almost feel the death net in the depths of his mind, deep-rooted, a hair-trigger cancer, waiting to kill him. “Too late,” he said to the moonstone mask. It seemed to look back at him, laughing, its empty eyeholes full of formless certainty.

He turned away, no longer capable of relaxation.

“Time to go,” he said to the Vigia.

* * *