The Pharoah Contract

But there was some doubt that he was a League agent. The preservation of the phoenix was a deep enigma. That the unknown had acted in so quixotic a manner was very puzzling. Either the unknown was an arrogant blunderer, with no grasp of the gravity of his situation, or else he was no blunderer at all, just a being so supremely sure of himself that he could afford to flaunt the survival of the phoenix in his captors’ faces. In any case, it was disquieting in the extreme that the unknown had resisted the stunfield long enough to attach the med limpet to the phoenix. She would have thought such a feat impossible. Certainly she had paid enough for that technology, supposedly the very latest, proof against any known conditioning system. These uncertainties made Corean reluctant to act against him until she understood the situation better. So she had set her traps and now she watched, waiting for the unknown to announce his identity.

If it turned out that he was only a beautiful predator, then she wanted him. She could brainpeel him, and eventually make him safe. And then she would keep him forever in her collection of beautiful things.

* * *

Ruiz reached the shore. Looking down into the waters of the lake, he saw a mariphile’s vision of fairyland, a fantasy city under the water, glowing up through the green depths. The city was built to an eccentric plan, with a complexity of spires and balconies, constructed of some pale translucent stone bright with an inner light.

There was something infinitely enticing about the city, which Ruiz attributed to the harmonic generators. Ruiz felt a strong urge to join the revelry that swirled among the towers and courtyards and pavilions of the submerged city. Tiny human figures swam far below, flitting lazily from building to shining building.

Ruiz felt a touch of optimism. If appearances could be relied on, he had stumbled onto some wealthy being’s plaything, a permanent installation maintained on Sook for the diversion of the owner and his guests. Escape from here might be feasible, because of the greater volume of traffic in and out.

Ruiz examined the surface of the lake, which had a dense, viscous, unwatery look. He nodded, stood up, stretched, and allowed himself to fall face first into the lake.

As he had expected, he didn’t get wet; there wasn’t even a splash. The surface layer, a semiliving protein, flowed around him and bonded to his skin and clothing, preventing the penetration of the fluid, which was not water and carried a hypersolution of oxygen. Ruiz breathed in, and the bond layer passed oxygen through to him. The bond layer ensured survival, comfort, and even sartorial correctness; his cap remained tightly attached to his skull. The fluid provided Ruiz with a small negative buoyancy, so that Ruiz drifted gently downward toward the city. The fluid was just cool enough to be comfortable, though it took him some moments to grow used to the odd talcum-powder slipperiness of the fluid against his skin.

Through the fluid he could hear music. A dozen small orchestras played softly below, and the murmur of many voices carried oddly through the fluid. Ruiz floated toward a large pavilion, directing his descent with small flicks of his hands. The pavilion’s roof was formed to resemble a starfish, and each spiny projection on the roof was tipped by a tiny sparkling light. The lights pulsed and rippled to the music that played within.

Ruiz touched down just outside the railing that rimmed the dance floor of the pavilion, where a number of filigree booths gave a little privacy to tired dancers.

He rested for a bit by the railing, watching the dancers. They danced a complicated figure, swirling in slow grace. The men were uniformly dashing, the women as beautiful as they were haughty. All wore mannered expressions so uniform that the effect was unsettling, as if Ruiz watched one couple in a hall of mirrors instead of the dozens who filled the domed interior.

Ruiz recognized the touch of Cleve of Sook, a minor master in the art of the grown culture. This example of Cleve’s work, though probably not among his most original designs, would still fetch a pretty price in the Pit on Dilvermoon. Ruiz wondered if it was stolen, that being the only reason he could imagine for the culture’s presence here in an obscure slave pen. He shook his head. Grown cultures always made Ruiz Aw uneasy, for reasons that he had never been able to give a definite shape to. Perhaps it was due to the sense he had, when among the dwellers of such a culture, that the artificially instilled behavior that directed every thought and mood of the dwellers was dangerously brittle, so that the uncontrollable humanity of the dwellers might at any moment erupt in terrible acts.