Donald Moffitt - Mechanical Sky 01 by Crescent in the Sky

Author:Crescent in the Sky
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2012-06-05T14:36:46+00:00

Something woke him in the middle of the night: a whisper of sound that might have been part of a dream, or a feathery touch at his throat that might have been the fringe of the blanket moving across his skin as he twisted in his sleep. He had been dreaming of tiny two-headed butterflies—a rush order for the Vizier—only they had all turned out with miniature raisin-size faces like the Chief Eunuch’s and little sharp teeth like the points of sewing needles, and one of them had fluttered to a landing on his throat.

He lay motionless in the darkness. An almost imperceptible square of ghostly light where the window ought to be told him that it was within an hour of dawn. The light was still too dim for him to see more than the humped silvery outlines of furniture. He listened and decided he had been mistaken about the sound. Sleep dragged at him once more, and he knew nothing until the salmon light of a Martian sunrise poured in from the outside mirrors.

Aziz was standing at the foot of the bed, making a queer choking sound. His eyes were fixed in horror on Hamid-Jones’s torso.

“What’s wrong?” Hamid-Jones said, and sat up. A piece of paper that had been lying on his chest fluttered to the floor. He twisted his head and saw a knife resting next to his pillow.

“Now you’ve done it!” Aziz wailed.

“Done what?” he said irritably. He sat up and put his hand down on something warm. He snatched his hand away, then saw that the thing was only a small, flat cake.

“The knife, the poem, the cake—it’s your death warrant, just as I tried to warn you.” Aziz wrung his hands.

“What are you talking about?” But he was afraid he already knew.

“The Assassins! This is their notification that a contract has been taken out on you.”

Hamid-Jones retrieved the piece of paper from the floor. It was a poem, written in an old-fashioned gliding Kufic script.

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