The Sardonyx Net Part 51

Rhani said, "Ferris, it's spectacular. You ought to show everyone. Give a party, and let everyone see it."

"Oh, no," he said, alarmed. "No, I can't do that. Rhani, promise you won't tell anyone about it. It's private." "I promise," she said. "But I mean it, Ferris, it's lovely. You did this all yourself, by hand?" He nodded. "I'm impressed."

He said, "My mother used to say it was all I could do, play with toys.

I'm no good with real stuff, you see. People and money confuse me."

Rhani said, "I wish I were as good at dealing with people and money as you are at this." She watched as the movalongs moved and the fountain waters played. Bereft of people, the facsimile city appeared cleansed of the emotions that racked it in truth, cleansed of ambition and pain and l.u.s.t and fear.

"Ferris," she said, knowing that she had to tell him but hating to have to make it plain, "you know I'm not going to marry you after all, don't you?"

"Yes," he said.

"Did Christina Wu tell you that, too?"

He shook his head. "I guessed. Sometimes my guesses are right." For once, his agitated hands remained still.

"I'm sorry," she said. "You've been kind to me. But I can't marry you to be kind back."

"I understand." He pa.s.sed one hand across his face. "Now what are you going to do? You won't want to stay here."

"When Zed gets out of the Clinic I'll lease a house," she said.

He looked interested. "Really? Where?"

"I don't know yet." Rhani rubbed her chin. "Would you like to help me find a suitable home?"

"I'd be delighted,"

"Thank you. I have a favor to ask you, if I may."

"Anything," he said.

"I'd like," Rhani said, "to be able to come and visit this city from time to time; maybe even watch you work on it, if that wouldn't disturb you."

He swallowed. "I'd like that very much," he said. His hand touched the light plate and the room darkened. They walked toward the elevator. At its door, Rhani glanced back. The adumbral city shimmered beneath imaginary starlight.

Alone in her room, Rhani placed a call to Nialle Hamish on her newly installed com-unit.

When she came online and realized who the caller was, the secretary was scandalized. "Domna, you don't want me, you want Domni Imre. Let me get him -- "

"No," Rhani said quickly. "No, Nialle, I do want you. Give my love to Imre, if you will, and tell him that I will call him soon? Tell him I insisted on keeping the call short enough to obtain one small piece of information from you."

"Certainly, Dom -- Rhani-ka," Nialle said. She smiled, rather shyly. "You see, I didn't forget."

"No one would ever dare accuse you of something so mundane as a memory lapse, Nialle," Rhani said gravely. "Do you recall a request I left for you on the com-unit, before I left Abanat, to obtain all the information you could gather on Michel U-Anasi, an Enchantean? Did you put that query through the network?"

"Of course, Domna," Nialle said.

"What is the code on the file?"

"File R5574. I a.s.sumed you would want it restricted -- "

"I did. How did you guess that?" Nialle blushed. "You're remarkable.

Thank you, Nialle. When you speak to Imre, please give him my love and tell him that I am well and that Zed is healing but should not be disturbed." She terminated the call and punched the file code in eagerly.

Before reading the green lines, she went to the intercom and asked the kitchen slaves to bring her a dish of fruit. When the slave entered, she carried a gold-bordered dish, in which sat three small pears. Rhani said, "Put them down." The slave smiled a dorazine-entranced smile and went away. Rhani touched one of the pears with a finger, remembering. Finally she picked up a pear and bit into it. It was juicy and sweet. She wiped a runnel of juice from her chin, and looked at the file. It seemed scanty, until she remembered that Michel U- Anasi had changed his name when he turned eighteen.

He had been born in the town of Loge, on South Continent on Enchanter; his I.D. number was SC33L8Y32-9914. He had attended four schools. Rhani did not bother to read the names. At sixteen he entered the Yalow Clinic and began medic training; first course of study complete, he had applied for a position on the Yago Net. He was rejected for the job. Rhani bit hard on the pear. The reasons for the rejection had to do with the psychological evaluation made on all job applicants by the Net personnel. Could that have been it? she thought. But ridiculous -- no one blows up a starship because nine years back he was refused a job. She nibbled another bit of pear and entered a request for the details of the psychological examination. Lines flashed on the screen. "DISa.s.sOCIATIVE EROTIC REACTIONS TO OTHER-INFLICTED NEGATIVE STIMULI, TENDENCY TO NONCONSENSUAL.

VICTIMIZATION, REAGES TEST REACTION UNDER FOURTH PERCENTILE....".

"What the h.e.l.l is this?" she said.

But she had seen another such test result once, by accident. She laid the pear down. She had been scanning the psychological profiles of the high echelon Net staff when she had, unexpectedly, come upon her brother's. Some of the words were different, but the conclusions, she thought, the conclusions appeared to be the same....

She rose. Michel U-Anasi, eighteen, a trained orderly, had probably been drawn to the Net because it presented him with certain s.e.xual opportunities that he could find nowhere else. Cell interiors were monitored, but no one troubled to observe a medic on rounds. Most of the slaves he might choose for his particular attentions would probably be too drugged to feel very much. Certainly none of them would complain. But he had been rejected. Rhani could almost feel sorry for him. Had they told him why? He might not have believed it if they had.

She thrust her hands into her pockets. Nine years ago Juichi Heika had been commander of the Net, and Zed Yago had been the newly appointed second-in- command to the senior medic.

How widespread had the rumors gotten then? she wondered. She didn't know.

But it must have galled Michel U-Anasi beyond sanity when he heard, as he would, that Zed Yago, by all evidence, was a s.a.d.i.s.t, and of a particular unusual type.

And then the same Zed Yago had been promoted to be senior medic and commander of the Net.

It would have seemed -- it was -- horribly unfair. She admitted it to herself. If Zed had not been a Yago -- but it was silly to speculate on might- have-beens. She wondered if U-Anasi -- A-Rae, rather -- knew what he was. His moral pa.s.sions were an obvious screen. But she knew, because she had watched her brother, how hard it was to be a productive member of a society where your deepest erotic responses were judged to be violently antisocial. Of course A-Rae hated the Net. And his family, which owned a percentage of the illegal trade that supported the Net, he had to hate them, too. She swallowed. The taste of the pear was bitter in her throat. It made sense, now, that A-Rae had aimed his hatred at Zed. He wanted to be Zed, to have what Zed Yago had. Failing that, he would hate Zed. It was undoubtedly easier for him to despise Zed Yago than it was for him to despise himself.

Nevertheless -- she shook her head, angry. None of this excused him. She thought of Amri, dying in a burning house, of Jo Leiakanawa, of the wanton destruction of the Net. Even _she_, Darien Riis, did not deserve being manipulated into a criminal act. What would A-Rae do when he realized that he could not get out of the city? Suicide? She didn't think so. Throw himself on the mercy of the family he'd rejected? She was sure they would want nothing to do with him. As a Federation official, he would probably demand to be sent to Nexus for trial. She scowled. That wasn't fair. What he'd done, he'd done on Chabad. Why should Federation officials be exempt from penalties that other citizens were subject to? Striding to the com-unit, she erased the file from the screen. Then, taking pen and paper from the headboard of the bed, she sat at the desk Ferris Dur had made her and began to draft a letter to the Federation, describing the damage done to Chabad and Family Yago by A-Rae's acts. Copies of the draft would go to Ferris, Imre, Theo Levos, and Christina.

And, as part of the reparations, she decided, she would ask that Michel A-Rae be remanded for trial and -- a.s.suming conviction -- sentenced to the world whose inhabitants he had manipulated, lied to, and killed.

*Chapter Twenty-Two*

Dana Ikoro was drunk.

He could not remember the last time he'd been drunk, though he remembered, dimly, where -- he'd been in Liathera's, or Rin's, anyway, in some Hyper bar on Nexus. Now he was on Chabad, in The Green Dancer, and he wanted very badly to be on Nexus. The Dancer was jammed, sweating bodies pushed against each other, and Rose and Amber were working so fast that he could not see their hands as they poured -- but then, in his present state, everything seemed blurry to him. He wondered why his head hurt. It's the liquor, he thought, and giggled at the exquisitely crafted joke.

Two-thirds of the Hypers on Chabad were in the bar tonight, and another third roamed the streets outside, drinking, smoking, yelling to their friends, getting sick beneath the jeweled street lights. Tori Lamonica was sitting at the corner of the bar. She saw him watching her and raised her gla.s.s. Juno and Lyn were quarreling; Lyn's whispered comments could not be overheard, but Juno's bellows, few of them intelligible, echoed throughout the bar. You try talking, Dana told himself. I bet you're not so f.u.c.king intellelligible.

He had spent two days -- two entire days, it seemed to him now, though sober he knew that it had been about four hours each day -- talking to a machine in the Abanat Police Station. For another hour each day he had been permitted to talk to a human. He had described to the machine everything that had happened to him on Chabad that had involved Michel A-Rae. Some of it was embarra.s.sing, even humiliating. Some of it he had refused to talk about: he was not going to tell even a Chabadese computer that he had slept with Rhani Yago. The first night they had let him sleep in the police station and he had not been able to get drunk. But tonight he had insisted on leaving, though they'd made him promise to come back in the morning to answer whatever questions human or machine had managed to come up with during the night.

He was drunk because he wanted to leave Chabad so badly that if he were not drunk, he would be weeping. You don't have to weep, you're a f.u.c.king hero, he reminded himself. You saved Zed Yago's life -- tried to save Jo Leiakanawa's, but didn't get there in time. Nevertheless, for the attempt, the loaders from Abanat Landingport, many of whom were Skellians, had been buying him drinks by the score. He'd only downed a third of them and he still couldn't walk. He couldn't feel his ears, either. They seemed -- he decided it was the noise -- to have gone pleasantly numb.

Bare skin flashed beside him. He looked up: Rose, dressed in net pants and a glittering apton halter that looked as if it had been sewn of fish scales, held her tray in front of his nose.

"Do'wan'drink," he said.

"Look at the tray," she said. "You sot."

Stung at being called a sot, Dana stared at the tray. It steadied -- or his vision steadied -- enough for him to locate on it two small red pills.

"Wazzat?"

"Sobitrex." she said. "Clear your head. Better take them. They're from Tori."

Dana's stomach heaved at the a.s.sumption that he could put anything more - - even small red pills -- inside it. But after a long, long time, his brain told him that it might not be such a bad idea to get sober. He reached for the pills and, after a hazy minute, managed to scoop them into his right palm.

"Thanks," he said.

She laughed at him and went away. The room swayed. The parts of his body seemed to be flying off in all directions and he was afraid he was about to be sick.... Cramming the pills in his mouth, he gulped them down without water.

"Won't be sick," he muttered into his hands.

"Hey, man, how ya' doin'?" a voice boomed. At first he thought it was Juno come to feed him more drinks, but as he focused, more or less, on the face, he realized this was a stranger.

He said, trying to speak clearly, "Do I know you?"

"No," said the stranger. "Want a drink?"

"No."

"Want to take a walk? You look like you could use one."

Dana doubted he could stand. "Too cold," he objected.

"Hey, it's not cold at all out there," said the man. Somehow he had drawn his chair quite close to Dana's. Now he stood, and Dana felt an arm go around his shoulders and draw him irresistibly to his feet.

Blinking, he tried to see the man who was holding him, but all he could see was a swirling cloak, the kind that Zed Yago wore to parties.... The thought of Zed brought a rush of memories to his head -- twisted, blackened hands and the smell of burned flesh -- and with them a rush of blood. Dizzy, he leaned on his new friend's shoulders and was enveloped by the cloak. It smelled musty, as he tried to tell the man in the cloak how sick he was of Chabad, the heat, the smells, the people. He fumbled for a chair back to steady himself and found that he was holding a wall. Light puddled on the street beside him. His companion said, "Just a little bit more now."

Dana dug in his heels. The cold air burned his nostrils, but it also cleared his head -- or maybe that was the Sobitrex. "I don't want to go to bed with you," he warned.

The man laughed. "I don't think I asked you."

"Where the h.e.l.l are we going?" Dana said. He grabbed at the stranger's cloak. "Just stand still." The man stopped. Dana looked around. The Landingport, with its corona of light, was behind them. "This isn't where I'm staying," Dana said, though he had no idea where he was going to stay that night. He had hoped to sleep on some drinking companion's floor. But this sudden excursion was making him uneasy. He turned in a circle, trying to place himself. The street looked familiar. He thought perhaps the Abanat Police Station was nearby, two or three blocks to the north. "Are you a cop?" he said.

The man grinned. He wore a black pearl earring in his left ear. "You just said the pa.s.sword, Starcaptain." He clapped Dana on the side of the neck with one hand. It stung.

"Hey!" Dana took a step away from him. "You -- " The street reeled. His breath streamed away in front of him in a plume of smoke, infinitely long....

I'm falling, he thought. The stranger caught him and slung him over his back with contemptuous ease.

"Relax, man, and don't skop it, it'll wear off soon." His steps jolted Dana's belt against his stomach. He spoke to the air. "One fish, caught. No trouble. It'd be nice if someone could meet me at the corner and help me bring him in."

They carried Dana into a house and dumped him on a bed. They strapped him to it: he fought them, feeling the drug they had given him fading and the Sobitrex taking hold. He got in several effective strikes before the big man who'd carried him to the house punched him in the stomach. As he was struggling not to be sick, they pulled the straps tight, opened the window over his head, and left him alone. As he sobered, Dana realized that he did know the man who'd carried him in -- he had been wearing a black-and-silver uniform, and had been standing at Michel A-Rae's right shoulder the day of the Auction.

That told him where he was. A sour taste filled his throat; without volition, he leaned as far as he could over the side of the bed -- it was a cot, really -- and vomited. What the h.e.l.l did they want from him? he thought. That they had deliberately sought him out in the bar, he had no doubt. Information?

Revenge? He had saved Zed Yago's life; he wondered if they knew that he had killed Darien Riis. He had not, really -- Zed's hand had held the laser -- but it was his laser. The wind blew through the window, chilling him so that he shook, and the foul scent of the mess he'd made filled the little s.p.a.ce.

It was near dawn when they finally returned to the room. The wind had lessened, and though it was still cold, the night had paled to a deep, hard- edged blue. The door banged open and two men and a woman walked in. Dana knew the woman at once; he had kicked a broken bottle out of her hand. She was carrying a stun gun. The two men were the man who had tricked him in the bar and Michel A-Rae. The big man -- he was very dark, with hair that stood out from his head in great coiled springs -- yanked the straps loose and pulled Dana to his feet in one fluid motion. "Pig," he said.

"Pig yourself," Dana answered. The dark man hit him, a slap that reeled him off his feet. He landed in a heap against the opposite wall.

"Get that out of here," A-Rae said, pointing his chin toward the cot. The big man walked to it, folded the soiled mattress in two, and carried it through the door. When he returned he held a mop. He pointed the mop at the crusted vomit and turned it on: it coughed and then sucked the dried stuff up, leaving no trace except a stain. The big man held the mop in one hand and the cot frame in the other and edged out.

Michel A-Rae sauntered to Dana's corner. His black-and-silver uniform was soiled, and his eyes looked wild. Dana tensed. "Better not," the woman with the gun said tersely. Dana glanced at her; she was pointing the gun directly at him.

"It's set on lethal," she warned.

Dana opened his hands. Slowly he tried to ease himself to a more comfortable position on the floor.

"Look at me," said Michel A-Rae.

Startled, Dana looked. A-Rae took a step forward, swung his right foot, and kicked Dana hard in the side.

Dana gasped and bent over. "What the h.e.l.l was that for?" he said. He breathed shallowly. His ribs ached with each breath. He tried to gather his feet together.

"Better not," said the woman with the gun. She was watching him, lips parted, and there was no mercy in her eyes.

"Every move I made on this world," A-Rae said, "you've been in my way."

"Bulls.h.i.t," Dana said. And twisted, not soon enough. A-Rae's kick slammed into his ribs. He bent over, hugging himself. d.a.m.n it, he thought, that's the wrong answer, it's always the wrong answer, you fool.... He wondered if any answer was the right answer. He had the terrible feeling that what Michel A-Rae most wanted to do in the world was to kick him slowly to death.

Maybe not. If he does it again I'll go for him, gun or no gun, Dana thought. "Why do you say that?" he whispered, because his ribs ached too much for him speak normally.

"The bomb," said A-Rae. "You were there. The attack in the street, you were there. The house -- " he paused. "You had nothing to do with that," he said grudgingly. "But on the Net -- " his eyes gleamed hotly. "You killed Darien. I could kill you, just for that."

"Don't kill me," Dana whispered.

It was begging, of course. But honor no longer troubled him: if it seemed expedient, he would beg. He watched A-Rae's righteous fury increase, like fuel- fed fire. "You're disgusting," he said. Fine, Dana thought, lecture me. Don't kick me.

"Tell me what happened on the Net."

Dana said, "I didn't kill Darien Riis. I didn't know she was a cop until she told me, after I boarded the Net. Rhani Yago sent me there to find out what was wrong. When I arrived, Jo Leiakanawa was dead and Zed Yago was out cold.

Darien told me that the net was going to blow up. I thought she was going to kill me and I grappled with her. Zed Yago woke from stun and shot her with my cutting laser, which she had told me to throw to the floor."

"You carried him out of there," Michel A-Rae said.

"That's right."