The Pharoah Contract

Ruiz automatically diverted some of his failing store of energy to fighting the onslaught of the death net, and that slowed him even further. His vision was beginning to go gray.

“Wait.” The voice was the soft perfect voice of Corean. And miraculously, the Moc stopped.

Ruiz was in a dream world of fading contrasts, slipping away from life in the ocean of his mind. It took long dreadful moments for him to understand that the Moc was no longer pursuing him with the ice gun, that helpless capture was no longer imminent — and longer still before the death net stabilized and sank its anchors again. Ruiz lay as if already dead, drained of all purpose and much of his core body heat.

But his ears functioned for another few seconds, and he heard with drifting astonishment Corean’s instructions to the Moc. “Watch him, detain him here if he attempts to leave. Do not injure him. I’ll be there shortly.”

* * *

In the airboat, Marmo fumed. “What can you be thinking of, Corean? Granted, the man is not a League agent — he carries no death net. But you’ve said it yourself, over and over, he’s dangerous.”

For a minute, Corean did not bother to reply. She was concentrating on steering the boat through the occasional high-altitude snapfields that spiked the sky over the Blacktear Pens. But when they cleared the perimeter wall and were racing above the purple jungle, she set the pilot and turned to the cyborg, her brows drawn together in irritation.

“This discussion is overdue. In the first place, we’re in a dangerous business. He could be very useful to us. I shouldn’t have to remind you that we can make him utterly harmless.”

“But,” Marmo objected, “our next scheduled slot at the Enclave isn’t for almost a month. Would you leave a two-step viper loose in your bedroom for a month, knowing that you could pull his fangs thereafter?”

“I don’t plan to keep him in my bedroom.”

“Are you sure?” Marmo had rotated away, as if intent on observing the jungle’s canopy.

Corean was briefly charmed. The old pirate had never before shown any sign of resenting the diversity of Corean’s sexual amusements. Did Marmo now wish to share her bed? The possibility was difficult to credit. Corean doubted that such an erotic conjunction was even possible; her usually facile imagination failed her, and she smiled.

“I don’t want him yet,” she said, as if it were the truth. “I plan to restore him to the company of the phoenix. Flomel claims we can use him to gain her cooperation.”

“Ah,” Marmo said noncommittally.

“And, we’ll brainpeel him first, just to be sure.”

“That would be wise.”

They landed beside Preall’s launch ring, across the tarmac from the shattered ports of the control bunker. Corean walked swiftly, threading her way through the tattered lumps of carrion that had been Preall’s ring crew, before the Moc had annihilated them. Marmo floated silently behind, a pulse gun attached to his metal arm. As they approached the bunker, a hatch levered open, and she could see the Moc waiting inside, motionless.

Inside, the devastation wrought by the ice gun was impressive. The observation ports lay in crystalline drifts, knee-deep under every empty casement. The banks of monitoring instrumentation were heavily damaged. The ice gun was designed to capture living protoplasm without damage, but the less flexible innards of the machines were everywhere ruptured. At first she couldn’t see the unknown, and she felt a pang of disappointment. Was he crushed beneath that tier of collapsed flux gauges? But then she saw him, wedged partly under an intact plastic chassis.

“Is it safe?” she asked the Moc. The bondwarrior made a sign of assent. Corean picked her way through the debris, to the spot where the unknown lay. She knelt over him, a bit shocked by his appearance. It was difficult to reconcile this gray-faced, dull-eyed creature — who watched her with no hotter emotion than mild curiosity — with the demon who’d killed and destroyed with such fiery efficiency just minutes before. She reached out a tentative hand to his face. It was like touching chilled metal. Her eyes widened. He had been grazed by the ice gun at some point in the struggle. That the man had continued to resist, to resist a Moc, after that… it was in the nature of a minor miracle, and Corean felt a touch of awe.

She stood quickly. “Bring the autogurn from the boat. We’ve come near to killing him, after all.”

* * *

In the boat, Ruiz’s perceptions slowly returned to normal, under the stimulation of the autogurn’s heated cover and the perfusor cuff that cycled restoratives into his bloodstream. Shapes assumed meaning and color, and gradually he heard voices and caught Corean’s subtle perfume.

“In one respect, at least, this has worked out well.” Ruiz identified the mechanical inflections of the cyborged pirate.

“And what is that, Marmo? I’m eager to learn of your approval, since in every other respect you’ve found fault with my plans.”