The Emperor of Everything

Начало книги

The stolen airboat followed its preprogrammed course, flying ten meters above the pink veldt of Sook, toward the distant blue mountains.

Ruiz Aw watched the control panel. All seemed to be well; the engines hummed, the compass was steady, the communit was blessedly silent. His Pharaohan passengers had fallen asleep, exhausted by the previous night’s violent events. He turned and regarded them. He took particular pleasure in watching Nisa, who slept with her head tipped to the side, a strand of black glossy hair caught in the corner of her rich mouth. Three Pharaohan men with tattooed faces slept in the other acceleration seats; a fourth sat chained in the hold below, still wearing his explosive slave collar and suffering from culture-shift psychosis.

Ruiz felt an odd mixture of cheerful lassitude and anticipatory terror.

On the one hand, he was putting distance between himself and the slaver Corean Heiclaro, which was very good. On the other hand, he expected her to call the boat presently — and that was very bad. She would be expecting to speak with her lieutenant, an ancient cyborged pirate named Marmo, whom Ruiz had disabled and dumped from the boat as they fled across the veldt, or to Banessa, her giant enforcer, whom Ruiz had killed in the course of capturing the boat.

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