The Pharoah Contract

The platform dropped through the upper reaches of Lord Preall’s guest hangar, too slowly to suit Ruiz. He possessed no long-range weapon; if the Lord’s men attacked him now, it was all over. But Ruiz saw nothing to alarm him, beyond the line of curious faces that hung over the ramp, watching their descent. No one followed.

But a moment before the platform landed on the durcrete floor of the hangar, a distant alarm bell began to ring. A moment later it was joined by a cacophony of other bells, sirens, whistles, horns — and the approaching sound of feet running in military sync. Ruiz jerked Bolard from the bubble to a temporary shelter under the burnished wing of a Uriel Jumpshuttle parked close to the lower bubble ramp.

The hangar was divided into heavily hardened revetments, half-arches made from gigantic monomol pipe. At first Ruiz couldn’t imagine why the owner had provided his guests with parking spaces that would deflect the power of a small antimat grenade. Then he realized that the revetments were designed to contain destruction within their walls. Apparently Preall had enemies clever enough to use a guest’s spaceboat to smuggle a bomb into Preall’s playpen.

The craft of departing guests still moved swiftly along the taxiways, their immediate destination a great tunnel cut through the far wall of the hangar. Ruiz presumed that the tunnel led eventually to the surface outside the pens.

Bolard was staring at nothing, and Ruiz realized that he was losing the merchant to shock. He gave Bolard a shake, hard enough to make Bolard’s teeth click. “Where is it?”

Ruiz hissed. He shook the merchant again. “Where is your boat?”

Bolard was slow in answering. Ruiz considered breaking a finger, or otherwise stimulating the merchant, but then Bolard said, “The next row over, almost to the end.”

Too far, it might be too far, but Ruiz had little choice. There were few successful spaceboat thieves; so valuable an object as a spaceboat would be protected by extremely sophisticated devices. If Ruiz attempted to board one of the closer crafts, he would not only fail to get it moving, but in all likelihood he would be captured and held for disposal by the boat’s security systems. It came down to time; Ruiz might attempt to take a boat without the owner’s cooperation, had he enough time, but time was presently in short supply.

“Is anyone aboard?” Ruiz demanded.

“No, no one is aboard.” The question seemed to heighten Bolard’s anxiety.

“Come,” Ruiz said, and forced the merchant to his feet.

They ran along the edge of the revetments. At any moment, Ruiz expected to feel the hot touch of a particle beam, cooking through his body. Surely Preall must have automated security in the hangar, though Ruiz had seen nothing that looked like a weapons emplacement on the ride down.

Bolard began to gasp, shrill whistling sounds of distress, clutching at his chest. “Stop,” Bolard sobbed, “please, my heart bursts, please, stop.”

Ruiz dragged him along. “Die later. Run now.”

The sound of pursuing feet was louder now, and Ruiz glanced back over his shoulder. He saw a squad of security men spreading out behind him; all seemed to be armed only with nerve lashes. Ruiz mentally applauded the caution shown by the owner of this little entertainment complex. Presumably Preall was so concerned with the possibility of assassination that he permitted no heavy weapons within his preserves.

Miraculously, they appeared to have a chance of reaching Bolard’s Terratonic. And in the same moment Ruiz made that optimistic assessment, he spotted a boat of the right make three revetments up, a somewhat battered specimen recently recolored with a coat of garish red patina. “That the one?” Ruiz asked.

Bolard’s face was purple; the merchant was beyond speech, but he nodded weakly.

“Rest soon, rest soon. Hang on, friend Bolard, and all will be well,” Ruiz said, getting a fresh grip on the merchant and hauling with renewed vigor. They reached the revetment that sheltered Bolard’s craft, just as the pursuing security men got close enough to start throwing immobilizer-gas grenades. The first of these fell short, but the bursts of fast-dissipating green vapor were dire signals of what was shortly to come. Ruiz himself might resist the gas for seconds, but Bolard would go stiff the instant the vapors touched him. And Ruiz still needed the merchant.

There was a personnel gate set into the kinetic mesh that curtained both ends of the revetment. Ruiz snatched at Bolard’s wrist, jammed the merchant’s palm against the entry idplate there.

The gate cycled aside with infuriating languor, but as soon as it was open enough, Ruiz dragged Bolard in. The merchant got stuck briefly, then popped through as the gate widened and Ruiz yanked. Ruiz hit the closure and the gate reversed, almost in the face of the approaching security men. The kinetic mesh was fine enough to prevent the guards from throwing more immobilizer grenades, and Ruiz had a few moments respite.