The Pharoah Contract

Ruiz took the technician’s tool belt and trotted back into the bay. At the vent, he discovered a tiny discolored pinhole where the technician had burned through the Vigia’s skin, disabling the sensor cable that serviced the tube. The Vigia would have been unable to report the invasion of her innards. He shinnied up the dorsal tube and found, emplaced into an injector nacelle, a rather large block of monocrystal explosive, enough to reduce the Vigia to a cloud of drifting molecules. He examined it with great care, found no booby traps or any evidence that it could be remotely detonated. Apparently the saboteur was relying on Ruiz to fire the tube on entry into Pharaoh’s atmosphere, which was a simple and foolproof plan. It would have succeeded nicely but for the attack of distaste Ruiz had suffered in The Little Friend.

Ruiz detached the block and shinnied down the tube. He carried the block into the storeroom and set it next to the corpse, then hotfooted it back to the Vigia, which he entered and buttoned up for departure.

He had an uneasy moment when he signaled the bay to evacuate and open a takeoff slot. Would the bay respond?

A field flashed down the bay, squeezing the exterior air into the far end; Ruiz felt the field’s passage as a tug at his viscera. The outer clamshell cracked open, and the stars blazed through.

Ruiz sat back. “Take us out,” he told the Vigia, and she answered with a sweet harmonious tone, the sound of her engines. The boat swooped through the opening clamshell into free space, and Ruiz felt a sudden lightening of his spirit.

He accelerated around the curve of the world, crossed the terminator into the sunlight, and slowed for descent.

Chapter 5

Ruiz dropped into the murky steams of the uninhabitable lowlands, a hundred kilometers from the edge of the great plateau on which the Pharaohan culture had survived. The Pharaohans called the lands beneath the mists Hell, and Ruiz could see why. The temperature in the depths was just under the boiling point of water, the atmosphere was unbreathable, and the animals that lived in Hell were tough, dangerous, and as hideous as the most vividly imagined demons.

He guided the Vigia through the corrosive mists, until he hovered five hundred meters below the lip of the plateau, safe from the eyes of the Pharaohan priesthood, which maintained observatories along the top of the escarpment.

Then he considered the recent events. An attempt had been made to expunge him before he could begin his mission. The poachers therefore conspired with persons on the League’s orbital platform. But who? The factor? The Dilvermooner was Ruiz’s first and obvious choice; but the obvious choice wasn’t always the right one. In an organization as far-flung as the League, interunit chicanery was an unfortunate constant. There could have been a half-dozen factions vying for advantage on the platform, which — like any other strategic outpost — boiled with intrigue. It might have been a one-man operation — just the tech, instructed to watch for League agents and then to take a run at arranging a fatal accident. Or… he suddenly wished he had not been so frank with Auliss Moncipor. Or it might indeed have been the factor, in which case Ruiz was still in considerable danger.

He devoted some thought to the matter, while the Vigia hovered in the steamy dark; then he issued orders and the boat began to move. As the Vigia passed around the perimeter of the plateau, she dropped radio repeaters at irregular intervals. The repeaters took up stations in the clouds.

Four hours later the Vigia had completed her circuit of the plateau. Ruiz touched the vidscreen, entered the factor’s personal code. The signal flashed around the repeater string, beamed upward when it reached a randomly selected point, then jumped to another. Prinfilic answered immediately. “Hello? Ruiz Aw? Is that you?” The factor looked slightly rumpled, as though the hours since Ruiz’s departure had been unpleasantly eventful.

Ruiz allowed the vid to transmit his image. “Yes, Ruiz Aw here.”

“Where’s here? I can’t seem to get a fix on your position.”

“Well. Just a precaution. Did you find the dead assassin?”

Prinfilic’s eyes wavered slightly. “Yes,” it said. “Assassin, you say?”

“Didn’t you find the block of crystal?”

Prinfilic’s odd smooth face went a shade paler. “Crystal? What crystal?”

Ruiz watched the herman closely. Either Prinfilic was a superb actor — not inconceivable — or the factor was not entirely in control of the situation on the platform.

“The crystal that I picked out of Vigia’s ass and left by the body. It was gone?”

Prinfilic drew a deep breath, and a muscle jumped in its jaw. “It was gone.”

Ruiz smiled. “Then you have a problem, too, I’d guess. At any rate, I’m forced to adopt a policy of compartmentalization. Apparently elements inimical to the League are operating in your organization. Would you agree?”