I should have predicted the explosion. I should have known that the Shrelac would never leave a two thousand year old religious artefact unguarded, not even one buried inside a palace that had not seen occupation for five hundred years. And those were five hundred Orne years, each of which lasted three times as long as a year back on Earth.
As I lay there with my ears ringing from the explosion and the exposed patches of my skin burning away, I told myself I was a fool and an idiot, but I was at least alive and I would heal. I made myself get up. I rubbed a hand over my face and checked my backpack and my pockets. I still had most of my equipment, and most would be enough. I kicked my heels. My boots were still active.
At that point I found myself able to breathe again, which was a relief to say the least. Even bitter, acrid air tastes sweet at that point. I began to pick my way through the rubble, deciding that the Shrelac had done me a favour. I wouldn't have to drill or drop charges. With a flick of my wrist, my search bots flew in and started to shift the stone. The Shrelac defences hadn't been built with modern technology in mind.
Chunks of rock flew over my head as the bots cleared the space. I scanned every piece that was uncovered. We were looking for an altar, which in the case of the Shrelac would be egg shaped and grown from Redolite Crystal. It should, in theory, be easy to spot.
One of my bots zipped over to me, squeaking frantically. It had found something. Good. I climbed over jagged pools of rock and slid into slimy pools of old water then swore when it oozed through my boot.
The bot stopped and swooped down to the ground. The artefact? My heart skipped a beat. I climbed faster.
And stopped when I saw what the droid had found.
'What the hell is that?'
The bot squeaked back at me, zooming around my head with its three arms waving. I knocked it away with the back of my hand. 'Stop that,' I told it. 'Be quiet.'
It did as it was told.
Lying on the ground, half in and half out of a pile of hand sized crystal shards, was a man. At least, I thought it was a man. He had the familiar human features. He was also extremely dirty, and from the look of him, extremely dead, which was why I was not too cautious about my approach.
But I was curious.
What was a human male doing here, on this planet, buried inside a landslide of rainbow crystal? I crouched down beside him. His legs were still hidden, but judging by the breadth of his shoulders and the size of his one exposed hand, he had been a fair sized creature. I dusted off the front of his shirt, and it was then that I got my second surprise.
It couldn't be. Could it?
I activated the scanner on my wrist and waved it over the front of his clothing, then checked the readout.
It was.
Or rather, he was. The man was the damn artefact.
I got hold of his arm and started to pull, but he was stuck fast. 'Help me,' I ordered the bots. They were well programmed and they did as they had been told immediately. Four of them worked together, freeing his legs in a matter of moments, and together we were able to pull him up onto a smooth piece of stone.
But there was no time to sit around and look at him, or to consider what to do now. In the distance I could hear the rumble of machinery. We were about to have company. 'Time to leave,' I told the bots, and they squeaked in agreement. They quickly linked themselves together, forming a transporter around the man, and floated him up into the air. I kicked my boots on and floated up with them. 'Lights off, minimal sound,' I told them. 'And let's not hang around.'
The good thing about bots is that they always follow instructions. We were a hundred metres up within a matter of seconds, and my ship, the Titan, was waiting for us. I risked a glance down, because I always like to know my competition, but it was a stupid move.
I flew up into my ship just before the beam hit me. 'Get us out of here!' I yelled as the hatch closed underneath me. Fortunately Titan is smart, and she didn't need telling twice. She was up and breaking through atmosphere within seconds. The whole ship shook and we were at serious risk of overheating before we were out into space. I got to my feet and wiped the sweat from my forehead, then I looked down at our cargo.
His body was flesh, but his legs and his right arm were not.
The metal was dull, the wires corroded, their plastic coatings split and in some places, missing altogether. I knew what he was, of course, though I had never seen one close up before. There were not many of them left. As I crouched next to him, I began to recalculate my fee. My client had not told me that the metal artefact was a cyborg, a machine so viciously dangerous that they had been outlawed a very, very long time ago, and the price for being caught with one was a one way trip to Zanda Prime, a penal colony where prisoners had an average lifespan of six weeks.
She had not offered me nearly enough.
One of the bots, folded back into its usual configuration, flew around the man, scanning various parts of him as it did so. An information feed popped up in front of me. I was all set to ignore it – I did not need or want to know his tissue type or the identification codes of his robotic parts – but then one thing came up which I could not ignore.
He wasn't dead.
