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There were three different ways he could swiftly flee once his task was completed, and four places where he could effectively hide himself in the unlikely event that all three exits were blocked. It had been a long time since he had had so many escape options.

Calmly, his two hearts beating slowly and regularly, Bin Nedrach examined his long, shiny energy rifle again. He had checked it thoroughly already, but the Melacron had learned it was always a good idea to double-and triple-check one’s equipment.

The trilanium barrel was unmarred, nor was there any debris inside it which might clog the passage of the energy beam. The red safety keypad glowed softly and invitingly.

Bin Nedrach pressed it with a long, sharp-nailed finger and it changed color to yellow, indicating that the safety was off. Then he fingered it again and the safety was restored.

Good, he told himself. Working perfectly.

Faint sounds of activity wafted up from the plaza below. It was very convenient for Bin Nedrach that the officials of Melacron V had clustered all their important buildings around the same square. Of course, once his assignment had been carried out, it was entirely possible that the government would rethink that policy.

Street vendors were setting up shop, their little tents creating a colorful parade of cloth. The sweet scent of roasting shu seeds, wafted up to Bin Nedrach’s single wide nostril and he inhaled deeply. The more pungent aromas of grilled trusk flesh and pastries filled with a variety of berries mingled with the heady smell of the shu seeds.

They made Bin Nedrach hungry. He could do with a hot stick of grilled trusk or a bag of roasted shu seeds, he told himself. But with the iron discipline that had gotten him to the top of a dark and dangerous profession, he put aside his body’s needs.

Time enough for food-good, exotic food-when his pockets bulged with latinum, he mused. For now, he had to concentrate all his faculties on the work at hand.

Little by little, the day grew brighter. There was more activity in the square below. Talk and laughter floated up to Nedrach’s small, furred ears and they pricked upward, listening for more significant sounds.

There was the patter of the scarf seller, as usual. But then, he was setting up for what promised to be a brisk business with the holiday of Inseeing just around the corner. And there was the laughter of the little girl, dancing for a few coins like a leaf borne on the wind while her father played tunes on an old, battered p’taarana.

Everything reeked of normalcy. Everything was just where it should have been. And that was very much to Bin Nedrach’s liking.

Abruptly, he heard the soft hum of an approaching hovertran. The sound made Bin Nedrach’s hearts race. His black tongue snaked out to moisten thick, dry lips.

The hovertran, an official vehicle that could transport up to eight people at a time, shuddered to a halt and floated while the passengers disembarked. They were right on time-punctual, as all Melacron, including Bin Nedrach himself, were punctual.

As a youth, he had not realized how predictable his people were. Then, at the age of twenty, he began to plan his first assignment and he saw how everything ran by the clock.

The revelation had caused him to change his habits … to scramble his own comfortable routines. It would make it harder for someone to do to him what he was about to do to someone else.

One by one, in the same order as the day before and the day before that, the various heads of the Melacronai government descended into the square. The G’aha of Medicine, an older but still attractive female, headed right for the dancing girl. No surprise there.

As part of his job, Bin Nedrach had researched all the G’ahas in detail. He knew that the G’aha of Medicine had made it past her childbearing years un-Companioned and without children of her own. As a result, her weakness was her fondness for children.

It would have been simplicity itself for Nedrach to capitalize on that tendency, that vulnerability. However, the G’aha of Medicine