The Sardonyx Net Part 34

She glided forward, and folded Rhani in her arms. Margarite Kyneth was standing in the doorway, flanked by several slaves. "Bath," said Aliza, "food, and sleep. Rhani, Margarite will escort you upstairs." She kissed Rhani on the cheek and pushed her toward Margarite, who grasped her hand as one might grasp the hand of a child. "Zed, I rejoice to see you whole. There is a room prepared for you next to Rhani's, in the family wing."

"Aliza -- " Zed began.

She lifted a hand, and stopped him. "Zed Yago, if you thank me I shall be very displeased. There are rooms ready in the slaves' quarter for your slave and for your employee, if this will not offend him." She looked at Corrios.

The big man muttered something incomprehensible, and shook his head.

Dana was very conscious that his clothes were torn and filthy. He wanted to thank the woman for letting him into the house.... Stars, he thought, I'm lightheaded. He leaned forward to catch his balance and found himself sitting on a step, stomach roiling. It's that d.a.m.n spray, he thought. I must have ingested some chemical.

Zed's hand on his neck shocked him into urgent sense. Blood pounded in his head. His legs trembled. "I'll see you later," said the commander. "Don't go to sleep." He went up the steps. Dana shut his eyes. He was tired. _Don't go to sleep_. Oh, G.o.d, he thought, not _now_. He forced himself to stand. One of the slaves helped him climb the steps. Inside the warm, fragrant house he sagged against a wall, hoping that Zed would forget, would collapse, would leave him alone. He had a lot to hide -- too much, he thought. The slave led him into a vaulted pa.s.sageway and then into a room. It was papered in white-and-green.

"This is yours," he said. He showed Dana the washroom and then mercifully left. Dana sat on the bed. I think I should wash, he thought. But now that he was sitting it was hard to move. He felt his eyelids tugging downward. No, he thought, don't. You don't want to be unconscious when Zed shows up. _If_ Zed shows up. d.a.m.n him. Looking with distaste at the grime which caked his arms and his clothing, he let the cloak fall and levered himself to his feet.

The room Margarite brought Rhani to was large and pink. Rhani thought, I hate pink. She heard water running for a bath. Slaves moved in and out of the chamber, bringing blankets, clothing, food. The food smell made her mouth water, but when she tried to eat, she couldn't. She took off her clothes, and a slave brought her a robe, pink, furry, too big.

Margarite stalked in. "Rhani, do you have the strength to speak to my father?" she said.

"Of course," Rhani said, rising from the chair she was sitting in. Imre entered the room. Even in the middle of the night he contrived to look dapper, though his cheeks were bristly. "Domni, thank you for receiving my household,"

she said.

Imre reached for her hands and held them. "Rhani, don't be ridiculous,"

he said. "Every house in Abanat is yours tonight." His worldliness deserted him.

He said, "My dear, I am -- we are -- we are all so terribly sorry!" She could appreciate the sentiment. But -- "No," she said. "We are sad.

The people who made this fire happen will be terribly sorry."

Imre's eyes grew startled for a moment; then he veiled the reaction with an expert's calm. Releasing her hands, he said, "Apropos of that, the Abanat police called. An Officer Tsurada. She asked me to tell you they are holding a runaway slave of yours, as well as some other people."

"Binkie." Rhani's whole frame tightened.

"That was the name," said Imre.

"Does Zed know?" Imre shook his head. "Good. Don't tell him. Instruct the Abanat Police to hold him until further notice from me." She heard herself, and flushed. "Imre, I'm sorry. It's unforgivable of me to give you orders as if you were my secretary."

He smiled at her. "It is eminently forgivable. I'll be glad to speak to the Abanat police for you, and I won't tell Zed anything. Is there anything else you need?"

"Thank you, no." A new house, she thought, a new world -- oh, Amri!

"Then we will leave you. You need not fear for your safety in this house.

The police have ringed it with a near-army, and there will be a member of my household guarding your door and Zed's door all night."

Rhani bit back a comment on the efficacy of police armies. "Does Zed know that? Better tell him, or that guard will be unpleasantly surprised if my brother decides to leave his room in the middle of the night."

Imre said gently, "My dear, it _is_ the middle of the night. But I will tell him."

He left, with Margarite half a step behind him. Rhani went to bathe. The bathroom was huge, almost as large as the bedroom; it had stained-gla.s.s windows and gold-leaved fixtures. She scrubbed until her skin hurt. When she emerged from the giant sunken tub, a slave was waiting with towels, scents, powder.

"Leave them," Rhani said. "I can do it."

"Yes, Domna."

Cleansed of the stench of fire and death, she climbed naked and unscented into the roseate bed. The pink sheets were cool, delicious. She recalled curtains crawling with flame. Don't think of it, she told herself. The door of the room slid open. "Rhani-ka?"

She lifted on an elbow. "Zed? Come in, I'm awake." Zed came in. He wore a dark green robe; his shoulders strained the seams. "Whose clothes are you wearing?" she asked him.

"Imre's. You?"

"I think these must be Margarite's. You're all clean." She lifted his hand to her cheek. He held it there. She could feel him trembling. He went to the washroom and she heard the water running.

"They like lavish washrooms in this house. My bathtub is big enough to dive in." He wandered back, carrying a gla.s.s half filled with water. "Here." He held both hands out to her. On his upturned left palm were two black-and-white capsules.

"What is it?" Rhani said.

"Sleep."

"I don't want it," she said, drawing back.

"Take it. You need it, we both do. Take one. The other one's for me."

She hesitated. Finally she took one, tossed it into her throat, and accepted the gla.s.s. Zed put the other capsule in his mouth. She swallowed, feeling the pill slide down her gullet: artificial oblivion she thought. How easy. She handed Zed the gla.s.s and watched his throat work. He put the gla.s.s on the mable table beside the bed. "Why don't you lie down?" he said.

She lay back against the pillow. "I'm not sleepy yet."

He smiled. "Don't worry. You will be."

A worry hit her. "I don't want to dream." "You won't." He sat on the edge of the bed.

Rea.s.sured, she let her muscles unkink. After a while, she felt herself becoming remote. Good, she thought. But as the night closed around her, infinitely long, she managed to say, "Zed-ka. Dana -- did he know?"

She felt him stir. "I think not," he said.

"I don't think so, either."

His fingers stroked her cheek. "Don't worry about it, Rhani-ka. Sleep now." The bed moved as he rose. "Good night, twin."

"Good night, Zed," she whispered.

In the hall, Zed nodded to the woman who stood, stun gun in hand, to the left of Rhani's door. She returned the greeting but her gaze did not move from watchful perusal of the hall and the shadowy treads of the stair. Zed tongued the unswallowed capsule from his mouth. He had one more thing to do before he could rest. He strode down the corridor and found a slave. "Show me where the people who came with us are."

He meant to move silently but his weariness betrayed him; his steps echoed down the slaves' hall. When he opened Dana's door, Dana was already awake. A lamp shone in one corner. The room was narrow, unadorned: it held a bed, a wardrobe, and little else. A shelf doubled as a desk. In a recess near the shelf stood a slat-backed chair. Zed pulled it close to the bed. Turning it around, he straddled it, and, crossing his arms, leaned his weight on the upright back.

Dana's hair was wet, and the room smelled soapy. One side of his face was puffed and bruised. Zed tapped his own cheek. "Does that hurt?"

Dana shook his head. "No, Zed-ka."

He sounded shaken, but not in shock. Good. "How did it happen?"

"A police officer hit me."

Both his hands were clenched on the sheet as if he feared its being taken. Zed leaned more obviously on the chair back. Dana's hands relaxed. Zed said, "This evening Rhani sent you on an errand."

Dana tensed again. "Yes," he said.

"To locate Loras U-Ellen."

The tension remained. "Yes."

"Did you?"

Dana swallowed. "I found someone who can, Zed-ka. I paid her eighty-five credits to deliver Rhani's message."

"And then?" Zed prompted.

"Then I left to return to the house. Binkie met me at the corner."

"In the street."

"Yes. He said -- " his shoulders lifted, "he said that you and Rhani had had a fight, and that you were very angry. He said Rhani sent him to find me, to warn me not to come back. He brought me a cloak." He glanced toward the wardrobe. "It's there."

Zed wondered if it was one of his. "Was that all he said?"

Dana nodded, and then said, "No -- he told me to stay away for six hours.

That's all."

"Did he say what Rhani and I were fighting about?"

Dana's eyelids flickered. "No," he said.

Zed stretched. Dana watched him move. Zed let his hands drop to his thighs. "Binkie set the fire," he said softly. "He sent you away so that you'd be blamed for it, after everyone but you and he was dead. He told us -- in such a way that we would believe him -- that you were planning to escape." Dana's eyes went wide. "I told the police to look for you. Then you called. Binkie heard Rhani tell me that you called. He went out the door. The alarms went off, and in the confusion, he triggered the fire, I don't know how, yet, and got away. He may have had help. They'll catch him, of course. Rhani, Corrios, and I got safely to the cellar. I suppose he didn't think of that. Amri was standing too near the source of the explosion. Her clothes flamed."

There was genuine shock in Dana's face. "That b.a.s.t.a.r.d," he said.

"Yes," Zed agreed, and rose, kicking the chair away. "Did you know it was going to happen, Dana? Did Binkie tell you, did you help plan it? Is that why you stayed away?"

It took a moment for the accusations to register. Dana's mouth opened.

"No," he said. "No!"

Zed walked to the bedside and leaned over him. Dana recoiled until his head touched the wall. Cupping his chin, Zed felt with careful fingers for the pulse beneath the jaw. It raced. He found the nerve and pressed inward, lightly, as Dana breathed in gasps. Then he waited until he felt the deep involuntary shaking begin to rack Dana's muscles. "If you lie to me," he said, very gently, forcing the frightened man to listen, "if you lie, I promise I'll rip you apart."

He let the words linger, and then dropped his hand. Dana did not move.

Sweat beaded his face. Zed said, "Let me hear it again."

Dana whispered, "I didn't know."

Zed watched the trembling fade. Before it could vanish completely, he reached out and ran a fingertip over the ugly bruise on Dana's jaw. "I believe you." Lightly he tipped Dana's chin. "But I'm tired, I've watched an innocent child die tonight, and my temper's very short. And I know you, Dana. You are lying to me, about something."

The muscles around Dana's eyes contracted, released. He said, "Yes, I am.

But it doesn't have anything to with Binkie, or with the fire -- none of that.

It isn't my lie, it's someone else's."

Zed nodded. "So," he said, "you want me to let you go on telling it."

"Please," Dana said.

Zed wondered what he should do. With a hand at Dana's throat, he searched the young face, looking for pride, for the telltale conceit of the manipulator.

He didn't find it. A strong part of him wanted to reject the plea, to force Dana to speak -- it would take ten minutes, no more -- but that, he knew, was anger talking. It had not been easy to sit in the hot, darkened cellar and wait for the fire to burn out, or to be put out, feeling Rhani's terror and knowing that he was frightened too, frightened, and impotent....

He lifted his hand. It was one of his rules: he played fair with his victims. Walking to the door, he slid it open, and turned around. Dana was staring at him, his pale face a study in disbelief. Zed said, "I owe it to you, I think. I told the police to treat you gently, and they didn't. Another time, and I might not leave -- but it's late, and we're both tired, and this isn't my house. I'll let you have one lie, Dana."

Rhani lifted her head from a pillow.

For a moment she couldn't remember where she was. The texture of the sheets was unfamiliar. Sunshine through pink (pink?) curtains suffused the room with rosy light. The light made her think of fire.... Her fingers curled in the sheets; she remembered flames, the curtains like a torch, and Amri screaming.

Her sinuses ached with the tears she hadn't cried. This was the Kyneth house, yes, and she had arrived here the night before in a police bus, with Zed and Corrios and Dana. But not with Binkie -- Binkie was in a cell, Binkie had killed Amri, Binkie had burned her house.

She scrambled from the bed. An embroidered bell-pull dangled down the wall; she pulled it. In a moment, someone knocked on her door. "Come in," she called. A slave entered with clothing in her arms.

"Dana," she said, trying to bow with the burden, "these are for you." She put them on a chair and trotted into the bathroom -- to run a bath, Rhani thought. Rhani looked through the pile of clothes. Her own filthy pants were nowhere in sight; Aliza must have taken them to give the computer a pattern, and then discarded them. There were four shirts, four pants, two tunics and a dress, all in fabrics and colors she liked, silky silvers, and blues, amber, and red- browns.

"What time is is?" she asked the slave.

"Domna, it's three hours past dawn."

Rhani hated such circ.u.mlocutions. She hunted through the room until she found the wall chronometer. It was in the headboard of the bed. Throwing on the pink robe, she strode into the washroom and splashed her face with cold water.

The bath was waiting for her. She bathed quickly. Kyneths evidently preferred baths to showers. When she emerged from the bath, her skin felt silky-smooth; the slave had poured some kind of scented depilatory oil into the water. When she returned to the bedroom, swathed in a towel bigger than she was, the bed was decorously rearranged and the slave had drawn back all but the inner curtains.

Through their gauze, Rhani saw the mathematical sprawl of Main Clinic, and, farther north, the brown, bald pate of the Barrens. Her mind jumped. She had to talk to Imre, and to Zed; she had to find a new secretary, she had to talk to Dana. She wondered if he had managed to locate Loras U-Ellen.

She dressed in blue-and-silver. She missed her room; it was hard to think in this alien place, where the pastel colors made the air seem fuzzy. She wanted the hard bright dimensions of her house. She had never cared for it, before.

And Binkie had burned it. Anger shook her like a benediction. The door opened wide; Zed came through it. He, too, was dressed in blue-and-silver, the Yago colors: she hugged him fiercely for a moment. Once more their responses had run alike. Twin! she thought.

"Did you sleep?" he questioned.

She smiled at him. "Always the medic. Yes, Senior, I slept very well."

"What shall you do this morning?"