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Book description

Ruiz Aw is an Art League enforcer sent to investigate the disappearance of several slaves from the planet Pharaoh prior to their being "harvested". They are the property of the Art League and their property has been stolen. Ruiz is an ex-slave now working for the League, doing its corporate slave trading dirty work. Pharoah is a planet of slave herds, castes and imagination. It is a planet without hope or freedom. It is a planet of slave poachers. Ruiz must go undercover to find these poachers for the league but he has a conflicting responsibility: he is also the Lone Emancipator, a man with an oath to bring down the slave trade and destroy the League. He alone is the galaxy's last chance. However, if Ruiz is caught or his plan uncovered, the Gencha death net anchored deep within his brain is programmed to kill him! Ray Aldridge was born in 1948. He has published a three-volume series, The Emancipator, featuring ex-slave investigator Ruiz Aw. The volume titles are The Pharaoh Contract, The Emperor of Everything and The Orpheus Machine. Short stories by Aldridge appeared in Full Spectrum 4 (1993) and The Best from Fantasy and Science Fiction: A 40th Anniversary Anthology. Among his shorter works are Steel Dogs (1989), Gate of Faces (1991), a Nebula Best Novelette nominee (1992) and The Beauty Addict (1993), a Nebula Best Novella nominee (1994).