The Pharoah Contract

The unknown was clever and resourceful, but all humans were fools in Marmo’s eyes, which was why he served a woman who in her own way was no more human than Marmo, who had managed to burn away most of his soft, fallible flesh in several centuries of pirating among the stars. Sometimes he wished he were still plying his former trade, which was cleaner in some ways than his present one. But age comes to all beings, and this was a useful and amusing form of retirement.

There were undignified aspects to his present employment, of course. He chafed, for example, under Corean’s instructions not to act against the unknown, who had demonstrated an amazing arrogance. It was, after all, Marmo’s expertise that the man had circumvented, not once, but several times. He had resisted the stunfield; he had attached a limpet to cargo that should have been spaced before the ship had left Pharaoh’s system; he had managed to get aboard in the first place. It all cast an uncomplimentary light on Marmo’s expertise. Corean had said little after her first outburst, but Marmo was sensitive regarding his handling of the ship, or any of the other mechanisms in his care. They were, after all, his brothers and sisters. So he watched carefully with one eye, and with the other he watched the progress of the endless game he played against his own coprocessors.

His interest quickened when he saw the unknown and his guide disappear into the vault of resurrection.

* * *

Ruiz and bolard sank through a deep pit faced with black granite, through a dim murky layer of brown-tinted fluid, and then into a vast spherical arena. Bright air-filled galleries lined the inner surface, and they were full of folk, both dwellers of Thera and visitors of many races. Held at the center of the arena by slender pylons, a roughly spherical, multifaceted form of pitted metal rotated sluggishly in the current that constantly flowed, around and around. Each facet held a narrow door, proportioned to pass a full-grown person. There were dozens of facets.

“Scion, you would honor me by sharing my personal box.” Bolard led him to a fluid lock, and from there into a corridor that spiraled through the skin of the arena.

Bolard’s box was rather smaller than the majority of those Ruiz had glimpsed, but it was comfortable enough, with a wide couch that looked out through a crystal band into the arena.

Bolard ushered Ruiz inside with much ceremony, but to Ruiz’s straining ears, there was a false note to Bolard’s subservience. No matter, Ruiz thought, he’d just have to keep a close eye on the factor until a way out presented itself.

“The entertainment begins now,” Bolard said, with a raspy grunt of anticipation.

A circular door at the bottom of the arena irised open, and the combatants floated up into sight. These were two of the handsome, haughty women of the drowned city. They wore iridium mirrors on their left forearms and carried energy projectors in their right hands. Otherwise they were naked, but for spiderweb skin designs in orange biolume. Ruiz watched their faces, but could detect no sign of fear.

They scissored their legs slowly, until they’d risen to the level of the equatorial viewing boxes, and faced each other across ten meters of fluid. At the sounding of a deep thrumming tone, the duel began.

It was ugly. The projectors fired a short-range heat beam. Each woman at first deflected the beams of her opponent with great skill, but before long, beams began to miss the mirrors and strike flesh. The meat cooked from their bones while they still lived and struggled. After a time the combatants concentrated only on protecting their eyes and the muscles that pointed the projectors and squeezed the triggers.

The current in the arena carried their twisting bodies around and around, past the galleries where the watchers pressed themselves against the glass. The exhibition ended when one woman was blinded, and the other beamed her into a bubbling mass, before expiring in apparent triumph.

Ruiz sat, impassive, conscious of the occasional sly glances that Bolard cast his way.

“Now watch,” said Bolard. “This is the amusing part.”

Attendants stroked swiftly into the arena and removed the remains. Then an expectant interval ensued, and Ruiz looked where Bolard pointed, where two facets on the central artifact glowed with a pale red light.

Soundlessly, the doors popped open, expelling two figures in a cloud of tiny bubbles. They tumbled forth, and Ruiz saw that they were clones of the two women who had just died. For a moment they both seemed confused, floundering weakly in the current. They saw each other, and now Ruiz did see anger. The two women struggled toward each other, and would have torn at each other with bare hands, had attendants not separated them and carried them away.