Perhaps it took a thief to catch a thief after all. I’d snuck in here under the radar, my carefully constructed cover as a journalist deflecting attention. Varok had chosen the opposite approach, going loud and telling a lie too big to doubt.
2
VAROK
An actual human was a rarity this far from their home system. Their artifacts, fashion based on their modes of dress, some of their foodstuffs even—those made it out here. But not the creatures themselves.
I’d never cared about them beyond adopting their uncomfortable ‘suit’ as an outrageous fashion statement to distract those looking at me. Now I cursed my shortsightedness. If this female was typical of her species, I should have visited their homeworld long ago.
Focus, Varok,I snarled at myself.I’m here to do my job and escape alive. This human is a distraction, however beautiful she is. I can pursue her another time. The Impossible Collection is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
Work first, play later.
Solid advice, but it didn’t help me take my eyes off the short, redheaded human. She wore a ‘suit,’ though the female style looked different from my own. And where I’d bought an expensive replica, hers looked authentic and cheap. It looked out of place among the impractical marvels the other guests wore.
The sleeves of her white blouse didn’t quite hide her athletic muscles, though the dark blue vest she wore over it drewattention away from them to her curves, a distraction I didn’t try hard to resist.
Her skirt, cut from the same dark cloth as her vest, was long enough to count as conservative by the standards of the dignitaries she stood beside. It left her legs bare from the knees down, showing her sensible black boots. While many of the females here wore heels, the human chose flats that offered a solid grip instead. Given the smooth crystal of the Hive, it made a more practical choice.
My gaze traveled up and down her body, assessing—her vest bore a pin showing the logo of Earth News Central, a human media agency with a poor reputation. An eyepiece gave her control of the camera drone hovering nearby, completing the look of a celebrity-chasing journalist.
But she wasn’t one. As soon as our eyes met, I was certain. A journalist snooping around would be trouble, but this human was worse.
She was arival.Another thief here to claim her own prize. Which was a problem. One attempted theft would alert the Collectors, raising security for the second one.
Perhaps if we combine our efforts?I couldn’t take that idea seriously for more than a second. How could I coordinate with an unknown partner? What if we planned to steal the same prize?
“Your Excellency,” a Collector servitor purred at me from behind her crystal mask, snapping me out of my thoughts. I bit back an instinctive urge to attack just in time. She’d approached far closer than I liked before I noticed her, moving with eerie silence even for a Prytheen. Ignoring my reaction, she extended a hand, pointing me toward a doorway into the spire. “If you will come this way, please? The masters have prepared a space for your addition to the Collection.”
I forced a grin, though I wanted to tell her to take my sculpture and install it herself. But I couldn’t stay here just to stare at the human female. I needed to cultivate the idea that I fussed over my creation. Getting me into the Collection was half the point of bringing it.
“You have prepared an appropriate display for it? And adequate power for the stasis field?” My grin widened. “An accident would be…unfortunate.”
That was enough to send a tiny shiver of fear through her otherwise well-controlled body. No wonder—if the antimatter statue were real, a flicker of the stasis field would kill everyone on this Void-struck world.
“All is in readiness, sir,” she said, and I admired the calm she projected. Enough to fool most, but I saw the fear beneath her mask. “Of course, you may inspect it yourself.”
Taking a glass of something fizzy and alcoholic from a passing tray, I nodded. “Lead on, then.”
She turned and walked away, with a captivating grace and sensual sway of her hips. No doubt the distraction was intentional, though whether our hosts meant to divert me from something or simply considered this part of entertaining a guest, I couldn’t say.
On any other day, it might have worked. Today, I found myself immune to her charms, though no less distracted. My thoughts kept returning to the human female, and I glanced back to find her attention focused on me.
Does she share my interest?I shook my head.Not likely. She’s either sizing up the opposition, or she’s a bounty hunter.My rational side insisted on that, but my brain wasn’t in charge here. Blood raced hot through my veins, my body demanding to have her, and I growled something incomprehensible even to me as I tore my eyes off her.
It got easier once my guide led me into the corridors of the Collectors’ hive. Crystal walls glowed in a soft light that cast no shadows, and the facets threw a thousand distorted reflections back at me. The building itself was an unsettling work of art.
My Prytheen guide led me through a maze of corridors with sublime confidence, my artwork floating along behind me. The gallery she guided me into exceeded my expectations.
A thousand pieces of art from each of a thousand worlds, all gathered to vanish into the Long Night between the stars. How long before the Impossible Collection returned to known space? I wouldn’t live to see it. All this art,gonefor centuries.
Not all of it,I reminded myself as I guided the stasis coffin into the position my guide pointed to. I didn’t have pride of place, but I was close.Veryclose.
“This is perfect,” I said, clapping my hands and beaming.
If my lackof interest offended or embarrassed the Prytheen servant, she showed no sign. Like all the Hive’s servitors, she hid her feelings with perfect control, leaving me wondering just how sapient they were. Up close, I noticed that her crystal ‘mask’ grew into her head. I doubted the changes were merely cosmetic—did my guide have control of her body, or did the Hive control her directly?
I pondered that as she led me out of the gallery and back to the other guests. The room she ushered me into was bizarre, even by the Hive’s standards, and defied easy description. The corridor led me out onto the narrow base of a hollow cylinder that rose high over my head.
