had been allowed to escape into hyperspace, some sort of punishment could be expected. His jaw tightened, the chariot overtook a column of orange-clad heavies, and the sun inched higher in the sky. The better part of three hours had passed by the time the fl?oating pyramids came into view, the road split into dozens of sand-drifted tracks, and a fl?ight of blue-liveried wings took up station overhead. The combat variant felt his stomach muscles tighten at the prospect of the confrontation to come. The Techno Society’s wooden tower appeared not long thereafter, soon followed by rest of Tepho’s encampment, which lay sprawled around it. The angens had begun to tire by that time, but picked up speed as familiar scents found their widely fl?ared nostrils, and food beckoned them home.
Unlike his peers, Tepho’s birth defects were such that it was diffi?cult for him to climb the stairs to the top of the wooden tower, which was why he typically held court in a large, airy tent. And, once the chariots came to a stop, that was where his guests were received. But the fi?rst thing that Shaz, Phan, and Dyson/Kane noticed as they entered the soaring tent was not their host, who sat cradled within a specially made chair, but the blue machine that crouched within a few feet of him. It was either the same raptor Shaz had been introduced to back on Anafa, now painted sky blue, or one just like it. And, in spite of the fact that the egg-shaped control pod was currently empty, the machine clearly possessed some intelligence of its own. Because servos whined as the group entered, and two side-mounted energy cannons tracked Tepho’s guests as they crossed the rug-covered fl?oor to stand in front of him. Shaz started to speak, but was forced to stop when Tepho raised a childlike hand and examined the newcomers with coal black eyes. Phan had never seen the man before, but even though the combat variant had described him in advance, she was startled by the full extent of his deformities. The bumpy head, uneven eye sockets, and protruding ears would certainly take some getting used to. The rest of Tepho’s body, including his misshapen spine, was concealed by generous folds of white fabric. The executive frowned, sniffed the air in much the same way that a dog might, and looked from face to face. “The rest of my body may be something less than perfect,” he allowed, “but my sight, hearing, and sense of smell are quite acute. One of you smells like rotting meat.”
“I guess that would be me,” Dyson/Kane said sheepishly, and pushed the white cowl back off his head. Tepho was shocked. The last time the technologist had seen the sensitive, he had been a good-looking if somewhat raggedly dressed man. Now large portions of hair were missing, the variant’s once-smooth countenance was marred by open sores, and it looked as though his nose was half–rotted away. Even though the malady was probably painful, or possibly terminal, Tepho’s fi?rst thought was for himself. “Is that condition contagious?” he inquired cautiously.
“No,” Shaz answered defi?nitively. “Kane enjoys occupying Dyson’s body so much that he decided to stay. But there’s something wrong with the fi?t—and that accounts for the decay.”
“Yes!” Dyson screamed in a place where no one could hear him. “Yes! Yes! Yes! Save me! Please save me!”
But Tepho was oblivious to what took place on other planes of existence, Kane was determined to squeeze what pleasure he could from the steadily decomposing body, and Shaz had his own outcomes to worry about. In fact, the only person who was the least bit interested in Dyson was Phan, who had a soft spot for the unassuming sensitive. But she, too, had her own goals to consider—and wasn’t about to stick her neck out for him.
Tepho wrinkled his nose in disgust. He and Kane had never been friends, and there was no particular reason to like the man now that he was dead. “Okay, have your fun,” the technologist said permissively. “But take it outside where the odor can dissipate. That goes for you, too, my dear. . . . Your boss and I need to talk.”
The combat variant waited for his subordinates to withdraw, made a note of the fact that there had been no invitation to sit down, and steeled himself against that was bound to come. “So,” Tepho said calmly. “What the hell happened?
My spies tell me that people identical to those you were supposed to follow suddenly materialized in front of King Kufu and have since been added to his household! I was about to send a local asset to investigate the matter when you and your scruffy band of misfi?ts arrived. Please explain.”
The question was reasonable, as was the tone, and the combat variant felt himself relax slightly as he related everything that had taken place since fi?rst contact on Thara. There wasn’t much of an opportunity to shade the truth, not with two alternative witnesses waiting right outside, but Shaz took advantage of what few opportunities there were before describing the manner in which Logos and his human handlers had departed from Derius. Not by ship, but by a means that couldn’t be anticipated, or stopped. At least thirty seconds of silence followed the report. During that time, Tepho hummed to himself and stared into space, as if viewing something mere mortals couldn’t see. Finally, his ruminations complete, the technologist shifted his gaze to the variant in front of him. “Tell me something, Shaz . . . Can you honestly say that you did a good job?”
The combat variant shimmered slightly as he made use of his peripheral vision to check on the raptor. Fast though his refl?exes were, he knew that the machine could beat him and swallowed the lump in his throat. “No.”
Tepho nodded. “You’re honest . . . I admire that. But incompetence cannot be tolerated. Lysander taught me that.
So, rather than drag the whole thing out, we might as well get this over with.”
The combat variant saw the technologist fl?ick his wrist, felt the small self-propelled disk fl?atten itself against his forehead, and reached up in an attempt to pry the device off. But the artifact refused to break contact, not until a preprogrammed dose of pain had been dispensed, or it was ordered to do so.
Phan was outside the tent, sitting on a wooden crate, and honing one of her knives when the long, undulating cry of pain was heard. The assassin looked at Dyson/Kane, who lowered the handheld mirror that he’d been staring into.
“What goes around, comes around,” the disincarnate commented philosophically. “Having suffered so much pain himself, Tepho likes to share some of it with others.” The second utterance was even worse than the fi?rst, but there was nothing Phan could do but test her blade with a thumb and wait for the noise to stop.
It wasn’t visible yet, but the sun had already announced its coming with a spectacular sunrise that continued to unfold as Rebo, Norr, and Hoggles fi?nished climbing a steep fl?ight of stairs. But, as the runner stepped out onto the neatly kept platform located at the very top of Kufu’s tower, it was the big red-and-white-striped hot-air balloon that claimed Rebo’s attention rather than the incredible display of color off to the east. The aircraft’s pilot fi?red the burner mounted over the basket and sent a volume of hot air up into the already infl?ated envelope above. The roaring sound lasted for no more than two seconds. But the additional lift was suffi?cient to send the balloon surging upward, and the device would have fl?oated away, had it not been for the combined weight of four heavies assigned to handle the ground ropes.
It was cold, very cold, but both the runner and the sensitive had chosen to dress lightly, knowing how hot it would be later on. Both of them were armed and wore backpackstyle water bags. They also carried coils of rope slung crosswise over their shoulders. Both because Hoggles was too heavy for the hot-air balloon, and because of the need to guard Logos, the variant had agreed to remain behind. He wasn’t especially happy about the
