The Pharoah Contract

But when he reached her, she must have seen something in his face, for she paled and jabbed at him with her scissors. He disarmed her easily. “Why?” she said in a broken voice.

“It wouldn’t have worked, Noble Person.”

“Shut up,” she whispered, and struggled to break away from him.

Ruiz was forced to take her wrist in a gentle come-along grip, before he could turn her back the way she had run. She said nothing more, but her eyes were opaque with hatred. Moments later the seekers arrived, snarling, to convoy them back to the paddock.

Chapter 24

At the portal Corean waited, her perfect face incandescent with rage. Behind her Marmo monitored the limpet that held Flomel’s guts together. Flomel lay on a floater, breathing with effort. Flomel’s eyes were open; they rolled toward Ruiz and Nisa, and then away. A pair of Pung guards waited silently by the portal.

Ruiz released Nisa, and she stumbled away from him, her eyes large with betrayal and shock. Ruiz could only stare impassively at her, though he wanted to explain, to say something to soften the accusation in her face. One of the Pung took her by the arm and snapped a monomol leash around her neck.

Banessa stood by, massive arms folded. Ruiz went to her, and proffered the bloody pair of scissors. The giantess took them, showed them to Corean, then folded them between her huge fingers into a harmless lump of metal. She toggled a switch on her harness, and the seekers slapped back into their holsters.

Corean stepped close to Ruiz, nostrils flaring, white showing all around the irises of her eyes. “You,” she said. “Somehow this is your fault, isn’t it? I should kill you now and be done with it. Marmo was right!”

Ruiz stood mute, sure that any response he could make would turn out to be the wrong one. Out of the corner of his eye he saw that on Nisa’s face concern had replaced some of the hate, and his heart lifted slightly.

Corean stood rigid for a moment; then she lashed her hand across Ruiz’s face. Ruiz had an instantaneous vision of Corean cutting the coercer’s throat with her finger knife, and he wondered what his eyes would see after his face fell off. But it was just a stinging blow.

Corean flicked her hand, as if shaking off some unpleasant substance. “No. I’ll get some use out of you yet.”

She turned to Marmo, who looked up and said, “We’ll be able to ship the magician in a day.”

“Good, it’s not a total disaster, then. The rehearsals we’ll put back until they return. I’d feel better about the trip, though, if the Moc weren’t locked in its molting cell.” She seemed to be speaking to herself, but Ruiz pricked up his ears at the implication of a journey.

She turned to the giantess. “Banessa, you’ll be in charge of security. See that nothing like this happens again. These will go: the girl, the three conjurors, the Guildmaster. And this one.” Corean gestured at Ruiz. “That is, he’ll go if he survives the peel. Take him back under and prepare him.”

Marmo made an approving sound. “A wise decision,” he said. “I’ll see that he’s properly wired.”

Banessa fastened a collar to Ruiz. As the giantess led him away, Corean said, “Leave the girl here, with Ayam to keep an eye on her. Ayam, see that nothing further happens to the magician.”

* * *

Corean watched the readouts as Marmo guided the probes into the unknown’s skull, using an injector prosthesis. The cyborg was extremely deft at this work, and Corean had little fear that her attractive enigma would be damaged during the procedure. She wished, however, that she had spent more credit on peel technology. Her tech wasn’t state-of-the-art anymore — but what was, in a galaxy so full of diversity that no one could possibly keep abreast of every new development?

The unknown’s tattoos had almost completely faded away, leaving only traces. The body seemed recovered from the icing; the burnished copper skin had regained its glow, and the nails on the strong hands were pink and shiny.

Marmo finished. “He’s yours,” the cyborg said, and floated away.

Corean set the analog helmet on her head, taking care not to muss her hair. She leaned back, closed her eyes, and squeezed the deadman switch.

She broke through the meniscus of his mind in a thrash of bubbles. She stabilized just under the silvery surface, observing the life that teemed there. Thoughts arrowed back and forth like shoals of agile fish. Below, in the blue depths, larger artifacts undulated, rich, dark, intriguing.

Corean floated for a long time, taking in the flavor of her unknown’s mind, a savory, complex soup. The pleasure she took in this reassured her that she had made the correct decision in preserving him. “Waste not, want not,” she whispered to herself, delighted.

She got down to business.

“Who are you?” The message went rippling out like a waveform in a pond, though this was an ocean-deep pond.

The answer came back. “Ruiz Aw.”

“Ruiz, who owns you?”

“I’m a free agent, chartered out of Lanxsh.”

“What is your business?”

“I deal in select humaniform stock.”