The Sardonyx Net (67 page)

“Take your hands off me, you fucker!”
 

Zed strode to the front door. Cole Arajian peered through the wooden lattice of the wall. “Did you hear something?” he said.
 

Rhani stood, as Sid Arioca's fluted tenor answered, “Man, don't skop with me. You want to go in, fine, we take you in, otherwise you don't
get
in.”
 

“The hell,” said the first voice. Someone yelled. Zed opened the door. A woman in a maroon-and-gray jumpsuit walked through it. She had one green and one white eyebrow, and her hair was dirty gold. Sid loomed behind her, his hands spread apologetically.
 

“Sorry, Commander, Domna,” he said. “She just cut through. Hit Barbara a good crack; she's behind a bush, whoopin' her guts out.”
 

Tori Lamonica, hands on hips, advanced into the room without requesting entrance. “I don't like being questioned,” she said tightly. “By anyone.”
 

Zed said, “Never mind, Sid. You tried.” The big man shrugged and stepped back. Zed closed the door. “Good evening, Starcaptain,” he said.
 

Rhani rose. “Starcaptain Lamonica,” she said. “I'm sorry you had to fight your way to the door.”
 

Lamonica shrugged. Her pearl-gray jumpsuit shimmered like the mottled iridescent layering on a mollusk's shell. “I don't mind a good scrap,” she said. She nodded at Zed. “You look better than you did when I last saw you.” She turned in a circle. “How many houses you folks got?”
 

“Two,” Rhani said.
 

“Nice,” Lamonica said. She glanced at the carved walls, the woven straw rugs, the mirror sculpture Rhani had placed beside her chair; “Yeah, nice.” Her medallion shone on her chest. She stroked the chain with one hand. “I come to ask
you
a question.” She took a breath. “I'm lookin' for someone you know. Dana Ikoro. You seen him?”
 

Rhani said, “Not since the night you landed a bubblecraft on the Yago estate lawn.” She could not see her brother's face, but she watched his shoulders hunch.... He turned around. His hands were in his pockets, and his mouth was rigid as stone. “Why?”
 

“Because no one else has either, since four nights ago, when he walked out of The Dancer drunk out of his mind with some big stud wearing a cloak. Also wearing one black earring, you know, the kind with a remote?” She was talking to Zed. He nodded. “Dana's mostly hetero, so there's damn little reason I can think of for him to nest with some man for four days, and no one's seen
him
again, either.”
 

Zed said, “Are you Dana Ikoro's keeper, Starcaptain?”
 

She put her hands on her hips and glared at him. “No. But ten years I've been riding the red dust, and I've learned to listen to feeling. Something's wrong with him. He's a nice kid and he got a raw deal from you, Commander, and a hard deal from you, Domna. So if I'm right and he's in trouble somewhere in this damn town, I figure you owe him. Tell me I'm wrong.” Her eyes flickered from Zed to Rhani.
 

What kind of trouble could Dana be in? Rhani thought. “No,” she said to the angry Hyper, “You're not wrong.”
 

Suddenly, Tori Lamonica deflated, became a diffident woman in a gray suit. “Sorry to come blazing at you,” she said. “But I went to the A.P. Talked to the Hype cops. They don't care. Two days he spent yipping his throat hoarse to their damn computer.”
 

Merril appeared at an archway in the lattice. “Would you like something to drink, Domna?” she said.
 

“Starcaptain?” Rhani said. She reseated herself in the rocker.
 

“No, thanks,” Lamonica said. “I mean, nothing for me. I've been drinking all evening, how else do you think I worked up the snap to come here?”
 

Rhani grinned. She liked this woman, who could be rude and still disarm by her very rudeness. “Please sit, Starcaptain,” she said, pointing to the second hanging chair.
 

Lamonica shook her head. “I'm not going to stay.”
 

Zed said, “You've tried the usual ways to reach him?”
 

“I sent out a com-call, yes. Set it to key whenever he used his I-disc or his credit disc. No result. That was three days ago. Told folks to keep an eye out for him—told your crew, even. Nothin'. Checked the Clinic, even. He's not there; he wasn't there.”
 

“What do you expect me to do?” Rhani said.
 

Lamonica scowled. “Hell, I don't know. You're a Yago, they say you run this fucking planet. Tell me you can't find someone if you want him?”
 

Rhani thought: We haven't found Michel A-Rae. But then, he doesn't want us to find him.
 

Zed echoed the thought. “Maybe Dana doesn't want to be found.” He picked up the viewer and was switching it off and on.
 

“I'm no telepath,” Lamonica said. “I don't know. I'll shinny now, I've said what I came to say. I'm at NW724-07 if you want to reach me.” She opened the front door. A cold wind licked slowly in from the garden before she could close it.
 

Rhani said to Zed, “What do you think?”
 

He was still holding the viewer, but she did not think he saw either it or her.
 

He said, “I'm going to bed.” He walked through the arch in the lattice, and Rhani saw his shadowy form retreat down the hall. She heard the door close. Well, she thought, sleep is one way to handle a problem you can't solve. Instead of reading about ice climbing, I wish he'd
go
ice climbing.... But she knew it would be another two weeks at least before his hands would be strong enough. Meanwhile, he would withdraw, grow moody, walk around the house and the city like a kerit in a cage, and watch the PINsheets, with malignant intensity, for news of Michel A-Rae.
 

As she fell asleep that night, she thought about Dana, remembering their loving, and the tenderness with which he had touched her. He was decent, gentle—in a way that she was not—and it troubled her that he had dropped out of sight in such a way that it worried someone with experience, someone like Tori Lamonica. A black earring.... She snapped awake. How had Lamonica described Dana's companion?” ...
Some big stud wearing a cloak and one black earring
....” Rhani remembered—and her skin crawled at the memory—that Michel A-Rae liked to wear one black earring. He had worn it the afternoon of the Auction.
 

No, she told herself, really,
really
that's coincidence, you cannot build on it, it means nothing—but as she thought it she was out of the bed and hurrying through the darkened hall to the common room, to the com-unit. As she reached it, she thought—Rhani, don't do this, they'll laugh at you, they'll think you're crazy—but her hands, working without direction, had already made connection with the Abanat police. The wall clock told her that it was not even midnight, not late, and if she were wrong, it wouldn't matter whether it was day or night, she would still be wrong, and if she were right...."This is Domna Rhani Yago,” she said to the face on the screen. “Can you connect me with Captain Catriona Graeme of the Hyperspace Police?”
 

“One moment, Domna,” said the duty officer. The screen blanked, and lit again, with a different face.
 

“Domna, I'm Captain Graeme. What can I do for you?”
 

Rhani hesitated. She had not expected this conventional-seeming woman with a crooked nose whose face, on the display screen at least, appeared as homely as her PINsheet pictures. “Captain Graeme, I hope I haven't disturbed you.”
 

Cat Graeme smiled. She had a singularly pleasant smile. “You haven't, Domna. Tell me how I can help you.”
 

Rhani sat in the com-unit chair. Behind her, something creaked in the darkness, and then a light came on and a robe fell over her shoulders. She glanced up at her brother.
 

“Captain Graeme,” she said, “I'm worried about a friend. I think he may be in trouble, perhaps in danger, and I think Michel A-Rae has something to do with it.”
 

Nothing changed on Cat Graeme's face, but shadows moved behind her, and suddenly a board at her back winked into life. Beside her, Rhani heard Zed's breath hiss through his teeth. “Go on, Domna,” said Graeme.
 

Rhani took a breath. “Do you know who Dana Ikoro is, Captain?”
 

“Certainly,” said Graeme. “A very cooperative young man. He spent two days here, telling us everything he could remember about Michel A-Rae and his cohorts.”
 

“Starcaptain Tori Lamonica"—Graeme nodded—"came to my house tonight, a few hours ago, to inform that Dana Ikoro disappeared four days ago, accompanied by a total stranger, and hasn't been seen since.”
 

Graeme's face remained polite, but her voice was tinged with weariness as she said, “Dana Ikoro's a Hyper, Domna Rhani, and Hypers tend toward odd friendships and adventures. When he left here, as I recall, he expressed a strong ambition to be very drunk.”
 

“He was drunk, Lamonica said so. But she also said—” Rhani licked her lips. “Captain Graeme, this may not make much sense, but please try to take it seriously. Dana Ikoro went off with a man no one seems to know, a man wearing a black pearl earring, with, she said, ‘a remote.'”
 

“A transmitter-receiver unit, yes. They're quite common pieces of equipment, Domna, you can buy them anywhere.”
 

“Michel A-Rae wore a black pearl earring the day of the Abanat Auction,” Rhani said.
 

A thin line appeared between Cat Graeme's eyebrows. “Domna, that's one hell of a speculative jump. Do you think Dana Ikoro was kidnapped by Michel A-Rae? What for? As a hostage toward escape? Surely, we would have heard from him by now if that were his intention.”
 

Rhani said, “I don't know what his intention is. I do know that Dana Ikoro has vanished, that he is not in the Clinic or in jail, that he has not used his credit nor his I-disc in four days, and that—”
 

“Three days,” said Zed softly.
 

“—Three days,” Rhani said, “and that I don't believe he left with a lover.” Not a male lover, she thought.
 

“I'm sorry, Domna,” said Catriona Graeme, “but though these speculations are interesting, they aren't evidence. Starcaptain Lamonica proffered no suggestions as to what might have happened to Ikoro, but she did refer frequently to her intuition. He seems to have been rather a popular young man, as well as a cooperative one.”
 

For a moment, Rhani wondered if they were still speaking the same language. “I beg your pardon,” she said.
 

“I think you know what I mean well enough, Domna,” Cat Graeme said.
 

Not, Rhani thought, if you mean what you seem to be implying.... A wave of heat passed from her heart to her head and back down to the soles of her feet. She felt as if the nerves in her skin had begun to crackle, and that her hands might be letting off sparks. “Captain Graeme,” she said, in as measured a tone as she could achieve, “do you have pictures of Michel A-Rae's male cohorts?”
 

“Yes, we do,” said Graeme, clearly puzzled.
 

“Then I suggest you call Tori Lamonica at NW724-07, show them to her, and ask if she recognizes them. I also suggest you discuss with the Abanat police the best way to locate two people, both male, one large and wearing a cloak, one slender and drunk, who left The Green Dancer at whatever time they left it five nights ago. If you have any problems with cooperation, I hope you'll mention my name.”
 

Cat Graeme looked as if she had swallowed something which stung her. “Domna, you don't appreciate the—” she paused. “Might I submit that you don't entirely understand police work?”
 

“I don't care what you submit,” Rhani said. “Nor do I care, Captain Graeme, if you or the Abanat police get credit for Michel A-Rae's arrest. I can easily repeat this entire conversation with the Abanat Chief of Police and receive a more appropriate response. You are not dealing with a hostile force, Captain Graeme, you are dealing with an intelligent planetary community that needs to be neither manipulated nor subdued. No, let me amend that. You
were
not dealing with a hostile force.” She turned off the com-unit. She was no longer hot. She drew the robe around her shoulders, savoring the feel of the silk.
 

Beside and over her, Zed said, “What made you so angry, Rhani-ka? Her intimation that you and Dana Ikoro were lovers?”
 

“No!” Rhani said. She swung around in the chair. “No. But she assumed that my judgment would be less reliable because of it, and decided that she could, with impunity, be rude about it. I don't mind being told that I'm wrong, Zed-ka, but I
despise
being told I am wrong as if the teller's opinion itself was proof.” She gazed at the com-unit. Suddenly, it began to
beep-beep
with anxious regularity. She turned the alarm's audio off. A green light blinked. Pulling the two halves of the robe's front seam together, Rhani sealed them with her thumb, and stood. Light glowed through the lattice walls from the direction of the kitchen; Merril, too, was up. Rhani swallowed. Vehemence had parched her mouth, and she wished for some sweet lemonade or some fruit punch—Corrios' fruit punch. Or even, since it was night, some sweet chocolate, a taste from her childhood, remarkable because it was one of the few childhood memories for which she felt a true nostalgia....