The alien moved with the deadly grace of a lion, slipping through the crowd of celebrities and nobles with ease. He wore a human-style suit, dark fabric tailored to his inhuman build. It must have cost a fortune to alter it for his broad shoulders and muscular arms.
He didn’t look like any artist I’d met. If he’d been with someone, I might have taken him for a bodyguard. No, a bodyguard should blend in. That body, that face, those eyes…he’d steal attention from anyone he protected.
Which left him a mystery, and I don’t like mysteries. Not in my personal life, and certainly not in my professional life.I didmy research. I checked every rich bastard and famous artist in the sector. How did I miss this guy?
Then our eyes met, and it was like an asteroid slamming down straight between my eyes. He froze; I froze; for a moment, time seemed to stand still. I noticed a dozen details all at once: the flecks of black floating in his golden eyes, the way the light reflected from his skin, the sheerhungerin his posture.
My breath caught, blood rushing to my cheeks. Like prey caught in a predator’s stare, I froze, unable to move. But he wasn’t moving either, and I wondered if he was wrestling with the same problem I was.
God, all I want is a kiss from those firm, strong lips.Just the thought made my cheeks burn redder. I was lying to myself, though.
I wanted so much more.
His lips parted, baring a predator’s sharp teeth in a smile, and I realized he wanted to do more to me, too. I clenched my fists, nails digging into the palms of my hands, and tried to remember why it would be a terrible idea.
Confused whispers around me showed that no one else knew anything about the new arrival, either. Which made him as interesting to them as he was to me—one socialite literally fanned herself, and I fought down a bolt of red-hot jealousy that threatened to make me punch her in the face.
Ridiculous! I don’t have any claim on him.I forced the irrational anger away, trying to find something, anything, to distract me.
Fortunately, that wasn’t hard. Behind him, supported by antigravity drivers, the metal sarcophagus floated. At least ten feet tall, it looked like a cube of black iron. At first glance, I assumed it contained a giant, but then I saw the window. Behind it, in an internal chamber, was a human-sized body, dwarfed by the much larger sarcophagus.
No, not a body. A life-size ice sculpture. A woman, finely dressed and wearing a crown, with one hand raised above her head. Perhaps she looked back at us; perhaps she looked into the distance. It was impossible to tell.
Good work, but not great. Certainly not on the level of the other art displayed here, which surprised me. All around me, the crowd muttered in a confused murmur. It fell silent as the first Collector I’d seen in the flesh scuttled from a doorway.
‘Flesh’ was the wrong word—it was made of crystal, just like the Hive but colored a deep sapphire blue. It skittered forward on four long, insect-like legs, rubbing its forelimbs together with glee and peering through the window. It didn’t take its bulbous, multifaceted eyes off the ice sculpture when it spoke. “Varok Amzar, welcome, welcome. Oh, your gift to the Collection is exquisite.”
I’m no art critic, but I’ve been stealing artwork long enough to get a solid grip on the basics. ‘Exquisite’ isn’t the word I’d have used for Varok’s sculpture. It was a pedestrian piece, the kind you could get made for a party on any planet I’d visited. Competent, sure, but nothing special. The sarcophagus was far more interesting, but the Collector’s focus was entirely on the ice inside it.
I wondered what it saw that I didn’t. The Collectors engineered their strange eyes to see more than most species. Perhaps there was some subtle beauty a human couldn’t appreciate?
Around me, confused whispers from the crowd gave me some comfort. At least I wasn’t the only one who didn’t get it. Famous socialites exchanged glances with bloodthirsty warlords, then looked to the artist for an explanation.
Varok preened under the attention, milking the moment. I refused to give him the satisfaction of looking. My camera wassmart enough to record everything, and I’d review its footage later if I wanted to see him being smug.
Oddly, I found I did.It wasn’t easy to keep my eyes off him and the ridiculous suit that fit him far too well. I did my best to study the crystal structure we’d landed on and ignore the hot alien. Artfully deployed forcefields kept the heat in and the wind out, or we’d have frozen to death while we waited.
There were no visible security precautions, but I wasn’t naïve. That just meant they were well hidden. Any thief smuggling something out would face a formidable array of sensors, followed by deadly reprisals.
I had a plan for that. Careful to hide my smile, I completed my turn, just as the Collector finished fussing over the sarcophagus.
“Friends, you join us on a most auspicious day,” it said, voice a high-pitched whistle. “Today, the Collection gains a remarkable addition, donated by the esteemed sculptor Varok.”
Beside him, the silver-skinned giant nodded and preened again as a round of polite applause swept through the dock. It sounded more confused than delighted. No one in this crowd of art patrons had heard of Varok? It seemed impossible.
The smug bastard ate up the confusion, grinning broadly. “I see you are not familiar with my work. A pity, but after tonight, I think my name will spread. Mark it: I am Varok, sculptor of antimatter.”
I’d kept my eyes on the crowd, watching their reactions rather than listening to the artist talk. That last word, though, caught everyone’s attention. Every head snapped round to stare at the man, and silence fell.
Antimatter? That’s insane.Just manufacturing that much antimatter would be an enormous expense, let alone storing it and working with it. No wonder it needed that massive container—if it came into contact with normal matter, the explosionwould be devastating. Where the fuck had he worked on it? What planet allowed that much antimatter in private hands? The sculpture was a weapon of mass destruction masquerading as a work of art.
I did some quick math, guessing the weight of a human-sized ice sculpture at around half a ton. That much antimatter would produce close to tenthousandmegatons of explosive force. It would put a hole in the planet and vaporize the Hive. No matter how advanced their defensive tech was, nothing survived a blast that powerful.
No sane person would risk being on the same planet in case the container failed, so naturally the Collectors demanded it. The crowd seemed split—some crowded close and others cowered back. I understood the urge to hide, even though it wouldn’t help if the thing detonated. The artist knew how to make a splash, I’d give him that.
Varok kept the audience’s full attention as he talked through the difficulty of gathering the materials and working them. I tuned him out—he wouldn’t give enough details to be useful. My mind spun through the possibilities, trying to find one that made sense. An alien walked in with an artwork capable of devastating a planet. No one knew him, but he’d mastered an art form no one else dared even attempt. An amazing entrance to the art world, but how could it possibly be true?
Oh. It isn’t.My eyes snapped up to meet his as understanding dawned. His gaze locked with mine, and I saw a moment of realization mirroring my own.
