‘There’s some clothing there for you to use if you like, and the shower. No problem with it cycling. There’s plenty of water here,’ he told her. Hirald nodded, placed her drink down on a glass-topped table, and headed back into the rooms Snow had come from. Snow watched her go.
She would shower and change and be little fresher than she already was. He had noted with some puzzlement how she never seemed to smell bad, never seemed dirty.
‘Whose clothing is this?’ Hirald asked from the room beyond.
‘My last wife’s,’ said Snow.
Hirald came to the door with clothing folded over one arm. She looked at him questioningly.
‘She killed herself about a century ago,’ he said in a flat voice. ‘Walked out into the desert and burnt a hole through her head. I found her before the crab-birds and sand sharks.’
‘Why?’
‘She grew old and I did not. She hated it.’
Hirald had no comment to make on this. She went to take her shower, and shortly returned wearing a skin- tight body suit of translucent blue material, which she did not expect to be wearing for long once Snow saw her in it. Snow was occupied though; sat in a swivel chair looking at a screen, he was back in his dust robes, his terrapin mask hanging open. She walked up behind him to see what he was looking at. She saw the hover transport on the sand and the two women pulling a sheet over it. The Merchant Baris she recognized, as she recognized the four hired killers.
‘It would seem Baris has found me,’ said Snow, his tone cold and flat.
‘What defences does this place have?’
‘None, I never felt the need for them.’
‘Are you sure they are coming here?’
‘It seems strange that he has chosen this particular rock field on the whole planet. I’ll have to go and settle this.’
‘I’ll change,’ said Hirald, and hurried back to get her suit. When she returned Snow was gone. When she tried to follow she found the elevator car locked at the bottom of the shaft.
‘Damn you Snow!’ she yelled, slamming her fist against a doorjamb, leaving a fist-shaped dent in the steel. She then walked back a few paces, turned, and ran and leapt into the shaft. The rails pinned to the edge were six metres away. She reached them easily, her hands locking on the polished metal with a thump. Laboriously she began to climb down.
Jharit smiled at his wife and nodded to Trock, who stood beyond her strapping on body armour.
This was the one. They would be rich after this. He looked at the narrow-beam laser he held. He would have preferred something with a little more power, but it was essential that the body not be too badly damaged. He turned to Baris as the Merchant sent his two women back to the transport.
‘We’ll go in spread out. He probably has scanning equipment in the rock field and if there’s an ambush we don’t want him to get too many of us at once.’
Baris smiled and thumbed bullets into his rifle, adjusted the scope. Jharit wondered about him, wondered how good he was. He gave the signal; they spread out and entered the rock field.
They were coming to kill him. There were no rules, no challenges offered. Snow braced the butt of his pistol against the rock and sighted along it.
‘Anything?’ asked Jharit over the com.
‘Pin cameras,’ Jharilla told him. ‘I burnt a couple out, but there has to be more. He knows we’re here.’
‘Me too,’ said Trock.
‘Remember, narrow beam. We burn too much and there’s no money. A clean kill. A head shot would be nice.’
There was a whooshing sound, a brief scream, static over the com. Jharit hit the ground and moved behind a rock.
‘What the hell was that?’
‘He’s got a fucking APW! Fucking body armour’s useless!’
Jharit felt a sinking sensation in his gut. They had expected projectile weapons, perhaps a laser.
‘Who. .?’
There was a pause.
‘Trock?’
‘Jharilla’s dead.’
Jharit swallowed drily and edged on into the rock field.
‘Position?’
‘Don’t know.’
‘Meek?’
‘Nothing here.’
‘Baris?’
