“Welcome to the Ruins” he said, standing proudly by the gate in his trim, yellow jacket, light blue shirt and bright, yellow pants. “My name is Gerhard Rothenberg, and I’ll be your guide and escort for today.”

  I stared at him. He was so…bright. From his clothing to his gleaming smile, he was enough to make my eyes hurt. He was not brilliant enough, though, for me to miss the sandstone and ochre uniforms of the security team members, or for me to fail to notice they carried the latest HammerLite Sonic-Pulse Combination guns. Not the usual kind of armament for Koolen’s Wildkats—their weapons were usually a lot less subtle.

  They were also one of the top firms in the security field. If they’d been operating in the same space as Odyssey, we’d have had to consider them rivals. As it was, I was glad to have them nearby.

  According to my briefing, one of those teams would go into the ruins with us, and the other would remain at the gates. No one had explained the need for the teams, just that we had to obey them in an emergency, and that they had our safety as their only priority.

  I wondered what they had to keep us safe from. The brochures didn’t mention anything about dangerous wildlife on Jehornak, not in this region, at least. Of course, the people that wrote the brochures also owned the planet, so it wasn’t like they had anything to hide, right?

  “If you’ll step this way, please,” Gerhard said, and opened the gate.

  They had found the ruins five years ago, and opened it up to tourists and archaeologists alike, running a lottery to see who’d be granted entry. It was the only fair way, they said, the only way to ensure that it wasn’t just the rich who got to see a new wonder of the galaxies. There were ways to get past that, of course, and I’d had reason to try. Last year, my sister, Alice, had won entry, and she hadn’t returned.

  This year, my employers had analyzed every single person on the tour list and found one we could bribe. I hadn’t been the only one to lose someone they loved. Research showed people disappeared in the ruins. We hadn’t been able to confirm exactly how many, but most of those who went didn’t return, and no one had worked it out yet. No one, until my sister had got a note out, and someone on an Odyssey cruise ship had jokingly told a friend who’d won the trip to make sure they didn’t suddenly decide to go adventuring.

  “Adventuring?” A crew member had overheard them.

  She was buxom, blonde and had the friendliest green eyes they had ever seen. Her badge had named her Emily Delight. She also blushed in the most attractive way.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pry.”

  But both guests had been happy to entertain her curiosity, explaining about the lottery, the ruins, and the longest archaeological dig in the universe. One of them had told her how his littlest sister had won that lottery, and then decided to go and explore the jungle world of Cathach, six galaxies away, straight after.

  “And she was the most stay-at-home person you could ever meet,” Braiden Bukoski had said. “I think she only went to the ruins because she knew one of the archaeologists there, and she’d been chasing him for years. He’s eminent, and a professor, and comes from a family with more money than sense. I told her he wasn’t natural, and she just went all dreamy on me and said ‘but his family’s chasing him for an heir, and I’d never have to worry about leaving home again’. And then, all of a sudden, it’s Cathach this, and ruins that, and have-to-see-the-universe-while-I’m-still-young, and not a mention of poor Tuds, anywhere. It’s a darn shame, really.”

  “Tuds?”

  “Tudor Amajadin Baker the Five Hundred and Ninety-Fourth. You’ll find him on the net easily enough.”

  This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  Hostess Delight had smiled sweetly at him, and then glanced quickly at the clock, her heart-shaped face crumbling in a comical mixture of horror and disappointment. She’d turned, pouting, to the fellow who’d received the warning, and stepped away.

  “Duty calls, and I’m going to be late. I’d love to hear about your plans. Another time?”

  “Any time,” he’d agreed, and they’d watched her hurry off.

  “She noticed you,” said the man, who’d lost his sister.

  “Yeah, I wonder if she’ll introduce me to that cook she likes so much.”

  “You are a disgrace, Otty.”

  “Yeah, but still…”

  And both of them had sighed, and not said anything else for quite some time.

  Miss Delight had that effect on most men, although it was a first for her fiancé, Jeremy. She didn’t have that effect on me. I knew what a piece of work she could be, and that was why I was standing in line, wondering who the hell had dressed the guide, and whether those ultra-modern, cutting-edge weapons the security team was carrying were everything they were cracked up to be.

  I watched the way they handled the guns as I walked through the gates, and noticed something else. The team that was following us weren’t turning their attention outwards, but they were watching the tour group with all the attention of cats at a mouse hole. For the tenth time that morning, I ran the file on Jehornak’s creatures and couldn’t identify a single one that would do us harm.

  It had struck me as wrong in the pre-ruin orientation, and it struck me as wrong, now. Why the security team if there was nothing that could harm us? Why the jarring colors for the guide? Why the sudden wanderlust that seemed to hit ninety per cent of those who took the tour, and of those, why did so many end up having fatal accidents on frontier worlds? And why hadn’t any of the archaeologists published, or even finished, their investigations in the five years since they were first allowed access? The lack of publishing was a red flag in and of itself.

  Something was going on in Jehornak’s ruins, and I hadn’t found a clue as to what it might be. And my sister… Miss Delight had laughed like a drain when she’d discovered I had a sister.

  “You?” she’d said. “You have family you actually care about?”

  I had glared at her, and Jeremy had laid a cautionary hand on her knee.

  “Well, you have a mother.” It was out before I could stop it, and we’d all frozen. There are some lines that even I should know better than to cross. For half a minute, neither Jeremy nor I spoke, and then Emily had ducked her head, and smiled.

  “I deserved that,” she said, and Jeremy had hugged her close.

  “Yes, you did.”

  “So, about your little Alice,” she’d said, and we’d gone from there.

  Getting the plan past Odyssey’s mission personnel had proved easier than expected, which only goes to prove that the company isn’t built on altruism, but we all knew that. The client, strangely enough, was the man who’d lost his sister… and then his best friend, Braiden Bukoski.

  “One, I might have believed,” he’d said. “One, but not two, and not the excuse I was sent. Found true love with an Andromerian, indeed. For one thing, Otty liked men. Men, I tell you, and I should know. And, for another, he had a fear of all things blue. You, of all people, should be aware of that.”

  Miss Delight had been sitting in on the interview. She did, indeed, know of Otmar Bauer’s phobia; she’d changed the décor on his stateroom often enough, and ensured there was something on the menu to balance out the ice tarts. Otmar had been a royal pain.

  “Well, Androms are as blue as you’ll get. Otty couldn’t have stayed in the same room as one, let alone…” Braiden had given a heartfelt sigh.

  “You have to find him,” he continued. “I can get someone on the next expedition, and I’ll pay. You just have to name the price. All I want is my Otty back.”

  He’d looked on the verge of tears.

  “And Irina?” The mission personnel weren’t slow on an opportunity to capitalize.

  “Who?”

  “Your sister.”

  “Oh, yes. Of course, her. My parents will help with the extra expense.”

  And so I had made it out to the hotel closest to the ruins, and onto the tour bus the next morning as one Hipolito, just-call-me-Hippy-don’t-you-know, Clay.

  “Mr. Clay.” the guide’s voice brought me back to the present. It reminded me of sparkles. “Mr. Clay, there’s no need to be afraid; the bridge is perfectly safe.”

  And then I remembered: I was supposed to be afraid of heights. My persona had been all “Heavens knew why I’d come, but I love finding new things in the old things and we were allowed to find our own souvenirs, weren’t we? I’d pay extra…”

  I don’t think there was anyone on the expedition that wanted to strangle Hipolito Clay more than me.

  I dithered a little longer at the edge of the chasm until, with a sigh, one of the security guards stomped over, picked me up, and threw me over his shoulder.

  “Hey!”

  “Shut up and hold on,” the man said, and I subsided.

  No one had mentioned this in the brochure! I wondered if Otmar had worked it out, and then forced myself to focus on the world at hand.