The Pharoah Contract

Ruiz advanced the recording past the local color segment, until he reached the beginning of the performance. He listened as the voice explained that the plays served both religious and judicial purposes, in that the gods were entertained and criminals were executed in the course of the entertainment. In the major performances, the criminal was called a phoenix and was encouraged to participate willingly in the play by the hope that a sufficiently magnificent performance would lead to a resurrection after the play’s conclusion — a hope encouraged by the League’s technicians, who sometimes resuscitated and released the victim.

He advanced it again. The screen showed an Expiation in progress, the conjurors acting out their parts with the extravagant, larger-than-life gestures characteristic of precinematic theater. They performed with a hot-eyed intensity that Ruiz found disturbing, and he moved the recording forward again, stopping it at a point where the point of view had moved within the stage, revealing the activities of those who labored in the sweaty darkness, managing the apparatus that made the illusions possible. Here was a different sort of intensity — but still painful to watch, Ruiz thought. None of these folk understood that they strove only to make themselves and their fellow Pharaohans attractive to the League’s customers. The Pharaohans had forgotten their pangalac origins, except for a few vague and discredited legends concerning people from the stars. For all they knew, the universe ended at the edge of their plateau, with only the demons below and the gods above to fear.

He switched off the screen.

* * *

The most demanding, yet most pleasant moments of the passage to Pharaoh were those Ruiz spent practicing small feats of sleight of hand. These skills would be necessary when he walked Pharaoh’s dusty roads in his chosen disguise as a snake oil peddler, one of a caste of itinerant drug peddlers who customarily performed such minor tricks in the course of hawking their wares. Pangalac technology could replace skill in most instances, but there were still elementary principles of misdirection and showmanship to be absorbed.

Ruiz found an odd sense of accomplishment in mastering his few tricks, and what time he found between recovery and the next bout of datasoak, he spent polishing his skills, until he could perform his repertoire without fumbling.

Chapter 4

When the Vigia reached orbit above Pharaoh, Ruiz’s head ached with the new knowledge it contained. He approached the Art League’s orbital platform with an emotion close to relief. Here would be people, several thousand of them: League employees, consultants, contractors, transshipping travelers. The possibilities for distraction seemed promising.

From below, the platform was a less intense darkness against the blackness of space, showing no lights that some upstart genius on Pharaoh might observe. A crude telescope was well within the technical abilities of the culture below, and although such a development would be suppressed by the League infrastructure whenever it seemed to verge upon realization, the League took no chances.

Ruiz guided the Vigia carefully into her assigned slot, and when the last clashing sounds of the lock-on faded away, he unhooked his acceleration webbing and sighed.

“To work,” he muttered.

He dressed in a black zipsuit — suitable garb for an enforcer — then debarked. In the lock area, a young woman waited for him. She was small and very slightly plump, with short, curly, blond hair and an apparently genuine smile.

“Citizen Aw?” she asked, stepping forward.

“Yes.”

“Welcome to Pharaoh Upstation,” she said, beaming. “I’m Auliss Moncipor. I’m to conduct you to Factor Prinfilic’s office. Will you follow me?”

“Gladly,” he answered, with somewhat more amiability than the situation called for. Auliss Moncipor appeared a pleasant and guileless person, for a League employee, but Ruiz wondered why he was even thinking such things. He walked behind her as she led the way through one of the access tubes that tied the platform’s modules together. He found himself admiring the flex of her buttocks through the thin material of the League-issue overalls she wore. What’s the matter with me? he wondered. Why was he feeling such a flush of heat at the proximity of a rather pretty, but otherwise unremarkable young woman? He shook his head violently, hoping to clear it. It had been a long, lonely trip from Dilvermoon, but ordinarily he postponed his romantic impulses to a time and place where his profession and reputation were unknown — as a matter of principle and of elementary safety.

They arrived at the factor’s office, which was guarded by a small killmech. The sight of the assassin device restored Ruiz’s sense of proportion, to some extent, and he was able to raise his gaze to the young woman’s face as she turned.