The Sardonyx Net Part 45

The bedroom door, which was open a crack, slid open all the way. Dana jumped like a thief, and then froze. Zed stood there.

Rhani said quickly, "Dana, go to the terrace." Dana laid the Barracks report aside. Rising, he stepped away from the chair, trying to go noiselessly.

The terrace doors, swollen by heat, stuck. He jerked them open, back to the room, sweat coating his palms and rolling down his sides. As he stepped through them, he heard Rhani say, "Good morning, Zed-ka."

He watched them through the curtained gla.s.s. Zed's hair fell loose to his shoulders. He seemed younger, softer, as if something -- someone, Dana thought - - had peeled away time. Behind him, in the hall, stood Darien.

Zed said, "I don't need to come in. I just want to tell you that we're leaving. We're going to Abanat first; from Abanat, we'll locate Jo Leiakanawa and go up to the Net. From the Net we'll go to the moon, and from there take pa.s.sage to Nexus. There's a letter on my desk for you, the official notice that I'm resigning my command."

Rhani's back was to the terrace, and Dana could not see her face. He heard her say, "How will you go?"

"We'll take the Yago shuttle."

She nodded. A dragoncat loped in. Ignoring both Rhani and Zed, it stood on the rug, meowing plaintively. Rhani said, "Isis, go away, please." The cat went out. Rhani put her hands on her hips. Dana felt tremendous pity for her. In a steady voice, she said, "I can see you've got it all planned." "There is one thing," Zed said. He gestured toward the girl. "Darien must be freed."

"Of course," said Rhani. She went to the com-unit. Her fingers tapped the keys. In a few moments, a doc.u.ment emerged from the printer. She picked it up and held it toward her brother. "Do you want to see it?"

"No need," he said. His sudden smile was brilliant. "Would you be willing to take care of two trivialities?"

Rhani sat in the com-unit chair. "If I can," she said.

"I want to give my medical skeleton to Yianni Kyneth."

She said. "I'll see that he gets it."

"Thank you. And would you say farewell to Davi, the youngest Kyneth child, for me?"

"Yes," she said. Dana could hear the exhaustion in her voice. He waited for Zed to walk to her, to hug her, to touch her face in that dreadful ambivalent gesture.

He lifted a hand to her from the doorway of the room. "Good-bye," he said.

Head rigid, she watched him out the doorway. Then she put her hands over her ears and her head on her knees.

Dana wrenched the terrace doors apart and went to her. He pried her fingers from her ears. "Rhani," he said. Her amber eyes were lightless with shock and grief. She looked blind. He lifted her from the chair like a child and laid her on the bed. "Rhani." In the distance, he heard the flat drone of a bubble. Her gaze touched his face, and then went elsewhere, inward. He sat on the side of the bed, holding her hand, talking to her softly, telling her nonsense stories, tales about Pellin, lies about his adventures in the Hype, anything to make her hear him. Her chest rose and fell with her steady breathing. Her pulse beat swiftly. Her eyes stayed open, looking into nothing.

She didn't weep.

She brought herself out of it. Dana went to the cooler for a drink of cold water, and when he returned to the bed, her eyes had focused. She reached for him across the rumpled sheet. She licked her lips. He went swiftly to the remains of breakfast and brought her a gla.s.s of juice. She swallowed avidly.

"Dana," she whispered.

He stroked her face. The terrible pallor of her cheeks had lessened.

"Yes, Rhani-ka. I'm here."

She struggled. "I want to sit."

Putting his arms around her shoulders, he brought her gently upright. She leaned into his chest. "Zed's gone."

He nodded.

"It wasn't just a dream."

"No, Rhani-ka, I'm sorry."

Her eyes blazed anger with unexpected force. "How can you say that? You hated him."

Did she expect him to deny it? Dana wondered. "I do hate him," he said.

"I'm sorry for your pain."

She bowed her head to her lap, and he wondered if she were finally crying. He hoped so. But she lifted her head, and he saw that her eyes were dry.

"I want to get up," she said. He helped her to the washroom. She called to him from it, "Tell Immeld I want some soup. And some wine."

"Are you certain it's good for you?" he said.

She scowled at him. "Am I a child? Bring it." He went down to the kitchen himself. Cara and Immeld were holding hands across the table.

"Rhani wants soup and some wine," he said.

Immeld got up. "Soup," she grumbled. "It's hot for soup. When will Zed and that woman come back?" Never, I hope, Dana thought. "Ask Rhani," he said. He brought the tray upstairs. Rhani drank half a gla.s.s of wine, and sighed.

"I'm all right," she said.

He said, "Is there anything you want me to do?"

She gazed at him, and an odd smile flicked across her face. "Take me to bed," she said.

"You're in bed," he said.

"Fool." She reached for him and drew him to her. "Love me. I want you to love me." He shucked his clothes. It had been days since they'd been lovers. He slid beneath the covers with her. Her muscles were drumhead tight; he rubbed her back and shoulders until he felt the ridges melt. She sighed and fit herself to him, her body warm and pliant, and they paced each other into o.r.g.a.s.m's dizzying surge.

A shrilling sound woke them. Dana was all the way out of bed before he realized where it came from. It was night. He rubbed his eyes and glanced at the chronometer. It was an hour before midnight. Stars, we slept like the dead, he thought. The com-unit message light was blinking; he shambled to it, pressed the keys which would accept the call and silence the alarm. Brilliant green letters stabbed at his gaze. CALL FROM CHIEF PILOT ORION TO DOMNA RHANI YAGO.

From the bed, Rhani called, "What is it?"

Dry-mouthed, Dana watched the words glitter on the screen. He heard the rustle of the sheet as she scrambled from the bed. "It's for you, from Tam Orion."

"The Chief Pilot? What's he doing? Sweet mother, it must be the middle of the night!" She walked to his side.

"It must be important," he said.

"It better be." She pushed the Accept key impatiently. The display didn't clear; instead, it flashed VERIFICATION. Scowling, Rhani splayed her thumb on the screen.

The words marched across the unit. TWENTY MINUTES AGO LANDINGPORT STATION REPORTED DISTRESS CALL FROM THE SARDONYX NET RECEIVED IN NAVIGATOR'S CODE CUT.

OFF MID-TRANSMISSION LANDINGPORT STATION UNABLE TO CONTACT NET REQUEST FOR.

ADVICE Pa.s.sED THROUGH ME. It was signed, TAMERLANE ORION, CHIEF PILOT, ABANAT MAIN LANDINGPORT.

Rhani said, "Turn the light on."

Dana obeyed.

"Zed is on the Net," she said.

Dana shrugged. "So? He's there, you're here. Nothing you can do."

She gazed at him. "You don't care," she said.

"Rhani, I just woke up!" He cycled the message through again. Even if there was trouble on the Net, what difference did it make? They had said good- bye. "Rhani, he's gone. Let him go."

She ignored him. Striding to her closet, she began to put on clothes.

"I'm going to Abanat," she said.

Dana realized she was serious. He caught her arm. "What good will that do?"

"Something's wrong. I want to know what is it."

He said, "It could be something wrong with the com-link. Call Tam Orion and tell him to call LandingPort Station to send up a repair crew. Any Hyper engineer can fix it."

"It isn't that kind of wrong," she said.

"How do you know?"

She jerked her arm from his grasp. "Dana, use your mind! The Net's a starship, it's got every means of communication there is, radio, laser beam, com-link, message capsule, flare signals. Whatever's wrong isn't the kind of thing a repair crew can fix." She was right. Dana stuck his knuckles in his eyes to rouse his dullard brain. Rhani wriggled into a shirt. Her head popped through the stretch-fiber neck. "Call Jo, the Skellian," he suggested. "Get her to go look."

"She's on the Net, with Zed."

"Oh." He watched her comb her hair with her hands. His unease grew. The distress call had been sent, he recalled, in navigator's code. Jo Leiakanawa was a navigator. It took a very distressing event indeed to bother a Skellian. He looked for his pants. Rhani put on her boots. "Rhani. Do you understand that this could be dangerous?"

Her mouth thinned with contempt. "Of course."

He considered all the things that could go wrong with the Drive Core of a starship. "You'll just be in the way."

She looked at him. He stepped back. The hairs on the nape of his neck lifted. Her face was stony; her eyes burned. She looked like Zed. "I have to know," she said. Dana stayed very still. The dark glare died. She tilted her head; her gaze suddenly coldly speculative. "You could go."

Dana nearly tripped on his own pair of pants. "What?"

"You can go to the Net. I'll give you the blueprints. You can get in.

You're a Starcaptain: that means you're an engineer, too. You could help." She a.s.sessed him, the way an engineer might a.s.sess a tool. She was Domna Rhani Yago, who had once said to him: "You forget, _I own you_."

She was serious. She looked at him as if he had suddenly become a stranger. She would send him to the Net, to the a.s.sistance of a man he deeply feared and more deeply hated, to a place that reeked in memory of tears and humiliation. He wondered what she would do if he refused to go. Perhaps she would feed him dorazine....

She said, "You don't want to do it, do you." He shook his head. "I won't order you to." She walked to the com-unit. "I'll pay you to go." She pressed keys. The screen blinked. She thumbed the colored plastic. A sheet of paper glided from the slot to the shelf; she brought it to him. "Will this be a fair price, Starcaptain?"

He turned the flimsy piece of paper in his hands. It was his slave contract. At bottom, over the box with the Yago seal, the computer had printed in neat red letters, MANUMITTED. Beside it was the month and date. She had handed him his freedom.

He keyed the computer for a STATUS TRANSACTION: REPLACEMENT OF CREDIT DISC AND I-DISC. It requested his name: he punched DANA IKORO, STARCAPTAIN. It requested his I.D. code. He had to copy it from the abrogated contract. PELLIN NWC26R7P21-7669. He pressed his thumb to the cool sheet. The unit hummed loudly and spat one red and one black disc at him. He ran his fingertips across their surfaces, feeling the b.u.mps and indentations that identified him.

He tapped the forearm tattoo. "How do I get rid of this?"

"There's a gel which does it. You have to get it at the Clinic."

"There isn't time for that." His mouth was stale. He went down to the room in the slaves' hall to get his boots. Rhani had put the agreement into the computer. He found the boots beneath the bed. It said (she had had to translate the legal language) that for services to be rendered in the form of a.s.sistance to the Yago Net, he, Dana Ikoro, pilot/slave of Family Yago, was free. He could not quite believe it. He laced the boots with stiff fingers. He could fly the bubble to Abanat, ride a shuttle to the Net -- no, he couldn't. His tattoo would set off every alarm in the place, and as fast as he could drive the bubble, it would still take over an hour to get there. There had to be a solution. He couldn't think, and yet he felt that he was moving at top speed: the characteristic illusion of an interrupted sleep. He gazed out the window of the room. Moonlight made the lawn shimmer as brightly as a Flight Field under its bristle of lights. He struck himself lightly on the head. "Fool." Of course he didn't want a bubble or shuttle. What he needed was a starship. He thought of _Zipper_. He yearned for _Zipper_, but _Zipper_ was on the moon, and it would take as long to get there as to get to the Net. But he didn't need _Zipper_. He knew where he could get a ship. He went up the stairs swiftly.

Rhani was pacing, shoulders hunched, hands in her pockets. He went to the com- unit.

He called The Green Dancer. Amber's withered face wavered before him.

Tightly he said, "Listen, Amber. This is an emergency. I need to get in touch with Starcaptain Lamonica."

Amber shrugged. "She isn't here."

"I know. But you know where she is, you're her mail drop. If you can't tell me so that I can call her directly, then send someone to tell her to call me."

"It's nearly midnight -- "

"d.a.m.n it, I know what time it is! Tell her it's Starcaptain Dana Ikoro.

Give her this line number." He read it.

Amber's eyebrows lifted to her hair. "Clear, Starcaptain," she said, and switched off.

"What are you doing?" demanded Rhani.

"Getting a ride to the Net, fast."

Lamonica called. Her voice rasped through the speaker, though the screen stayed free of picture: "Dana, what's going on? I thought we had an agreement."

"Canceled. I want to make a new one. d.a.m.n it, will you come online so I can see you!" She glared at him abruptly from the screen, hair standing on end, face bare of glitterstick. Dana put his hands in his pockets and held up the two discs. "Credit. I-disc. I'm free. But before that freedom goes into effect, I need a ride to the Yago Net. It'll mean a thousand credits for you if you can give it to me."

Greed and suspicion contended on her face. She frowned. "I don't like being rushed into things."

"This is an emergency."

"Two thousand credits."

Dana looked at Rhani. She nodded. "Done," he said.

"When do you want this ride?"

"Right now. How fast can your bubble do one hundred kilometers?"

She grinned. "Ask me something hard."