The Sardonyx Net (7 page)

“You and she were close.”
 

“She was a wonderful woman.” Rhani moved restlessly. Zed dropped his hand. “Tough and strong. She teased me about being too soft. ‘
You have to be mean
,' she said. ‘
It's the only way you'll get along
.' I used to tell her the Durs could never be as mean as the Yagos. She laughed at that. This last year, she was—difficult. Calling me at strange times. I suppose she'd grown senile. But she never made scenes in public. She was a great lady.”
 

Zed said, “Ferris will find it hard to follow her.”
 

Rhani sniffed. “Ferris will learn. I did.”
 

Zed grinned at her. “Ferris Dur isn't you, Rhani-ka.”
 

Amri entered with a laden tray. Zed picked up a glass. He held it to the light as Amri poured. “Too bad we can't grow decent grapes on Chabad,” he said. “It's the one thing we lack.”
 

“The one thing?” Rhani took the second glass of wine. It was an import from Enchanter. She sipped. The ruby liquid was sweet. “I can think of something else we lack. Dorazine.” She sat in the wing chair. Brushing the printouts from the footstool, Zed sat, legs outstretched, dirty bootheels soiling the white fur rug. He scooped up a handful of chobi seeds.
 

“Yes,” he said. “I forgot about the dorazine.”
 

Rhani grinned. He was teasing her, of course. No Yago would ever forget dorazine. He had called her from the Net to tell her that he was back and that all was well, and had described to her the encounter with Michel A-Rae. She had at once sent a communication to all Family Yago associates throughout Sector Sardonyx, requesting information about the man. The noun “associate” meant, in the Yago lexicon, someone paid covertly by Family Yago for information or influence. “I've sent out a call for all information available on Michel A-Rae.”
 

Zed nodded. “Good. But I'm not worried about an Enchantean fanatic.”
 

“He could be dangerous,” Rhani said. “If, indeed, he is responsible for the dorazine shortage—”
 

“He may be,” Zed said. “If he is, I'm sure you can deal with him.”
 

“You don't think it's important?”
 

Zed frowned. “I'm concerned for
you
.”
 

Rhani could not think what he was talking about. “For me?”
 

“Yes. The Net crew would tell you how quickly we came home. We should still be in space. What did you do about that threatening letter from the Free Folk of Chabad?”
 

“Oh, them,” Rhani said, relieved. “I told Binkie to find out where they were coming from.”
 

“They?” Zed sat up. “There were more? You didn't tell me.”
 

Rhani smiled at him. “There are always letters like that, Zed-ka. Isobel kept them in a drawer. When I grew haughty about being heir to the Third Family of Chabad, she would sit me down beside it and make me read them.”
 

Zed's tone grew exasperated. “Rhani, those are threats against your life! The least you could do is take them seriously!”
 

“How should I take them seriously?” she demanded, irritated in turn. She bit down hard on a chobi seed. The shell cracked between her teeth. “I should never have bothered mentioning it to you. Do I stay in the house all the time? Hide inside like a craven with guards at every turn of the hall?”
 

“Did I say that?” he countered. “Did I?”
 

“You were thinking it!”
 

“You thought it too!” Brother and sister glared at each other, and then burst out laughing. Rhani laid a hand on Zed's arm. Under the light shirt he wore, she felt the ropy stretch of his muscles. When very small they had pretended to be twins, to make a reason, even a false one, for the likeness between them.
 

They still looked alike. But we are different, too, Rhani thought. We grew apart in the years we lived apart.
 

“It's good to have you home,” she said.
 

He grinned. “Absence makes the spice. I brought you a present.”
 

“A star to hang on my wall,” Rhani teased. Zed often brought her trinkets made on the other sector worlds.
 

“Not a star. A Starcaptain.”
 

Rhani rubbed her chin. She had no Starcaptain friends, but perhaps Zed had, a friendship formed during his pilot's training on Nexus: someone he'd liked, and met by chance, and invited home. But Zed never invited strangers to their home. “Who?”
 

“No one you know. He was on his way to Abanat to make contact with a drug smuggler. It's a complicated story; he's a smuggler himself, new to the dorazine market, and another smuggler got in ahead of him and jacked his cargo.”
 

“And with the Hype cops blanketing the sector, he chose to come to Abanat anyway?” Rhani said.
 

“Yes.” Zed stretched, arms reaching for the ceiling. “It was that—audacity—that drew him to my attention.”
 

Rhani scratched her chin. “He sounds interesting,” she said. “I don't suppose he knows the location of The Pharmacy.”
 

“No,” Zed said regretfully. “Runners don't know that.”
 

“Dealers don't. And we poor buyers don't.” She rose, pacing a little. “I thought Hypers didn't talk to strangers.”
 

Zed half-smiled. “We aren't precisely strangers.”
 

“Is he a friend of yours? Someone you knew on Nexus?” Rhani turned to face her brother. She was intrigued: the only Hyper Zed ever brought home—besides the Skellian, Jo Leiakanawa—was Tam Orion, chief pilot at Abanat's Main Landingport. But though she loved to hear discussion of other worlds, other systems, the Hype, she hadn't from him, because Tam Orion never talked. “I've never met a Starcaptain. What's his name?”
 

“Dana Ikoro.” Zed smiled oddly. “He's not a Starcaptain precisely, either, Rhani-ka, not now. He's a slave.”
 

“What?”
 

“I bought him for you.”
 

“Bought me a slave? Zed-ka, what am I going to do with him?” Rhani scowled at her brother. “There's nothing for him to do here, and Hyper slaves are more trouble then they're worth. You have to put them on dorazine, and I hate that.”
 

“You won't have to put this one on dorazine.”
 

“Then he'll always be trying to escape.”
 

Zed said, “This one won't.” He sounded certain. The drowsing dragoncat rolled over on the rug. Zed leaned to rub the soft snowy fur on its belly. Upside-down, it licked his hand. “Last time I was gone you complained when I came back because you had had to hire a pilot. He'll be your pilot. Or you can find him other work to do. He'll do what you tell him. He's a helpful man.”
 

Rhani looked down into her wine glass. For an instant she saw, framed within it, Binkie's whitened face.
 

Zed said, “What did you write to Ferris Dur?”
 

“Huh,” said Rhani. “I wrote nothing to Ferris Dur. He wrote again. I have the letter here. Why did you push all my papers on the floor?” She knelt on the rug, shuffling through the papers. The cat decided this was a game, and batted at her fingers. “Isis, stop that. Here.” She read the letter aloud. It was much like the first but with more imperatives. It finished with a second demand for a meeting. “It arrived this morning. I haven't answered it. In two weeks I'll be in Abanat. If Ferris Dur wants to talk with me, he can come to my house.”
 

“He has no manners,” said Zed, amused. Rhani crumpled the letter and threw it at him. He batted it away. The cat leaped after it, forepaws extended, pretending it was prey.
 

“Maybe he wants to buy into the kerit farm again.”
 

“It might be nice to know,” said Zed.
 

“You think I should go?” asked Rhani.
 

Zed shrugged. He ate a cracker. “I just think it might be nice to know what he thinks is so damned urgent.” He finished his wine. “Come downstairs with me, Rhani-ka. I'll introduce your new slave to you.”
 

Dana Ikoro sat in a chair against a wall, trying to stay awake.
 

Zed had said, “Sit here and don't sleep.” They had ridden together in a two-person bubble from a small landingport in Abanat to a place that Zed said was the Yago estate. Zed flew the craft around a lightning storm. He small-talked: about the weather, the city, the estate; things of no consequence. He was easy and light-handed on the controls. Dana thought it, and as he did Zed glanced at him and said, “Say what you're thinking.”
 

“I was thinking you're good at that.”
 

“I was trained on Nexus. Thank you. You're probably better.”
 

Dana's fingers went again to the plain blue letter “Y” tattooed on his left upper arm. It was the Yago crest: a badge of servitude. They'd put it on him after the trial, without hurting him. The ombudsman, a brisk woman, had talked to him about money, his legal status, and so on. He would be compensated, she told him, for time spent as a chattel. Money would be held in trust for him until his release. He could not be damaged, she said. This had made him smile. He could not, except in certain circumstances, be killed.
 

The words made sense but the information did not: it seemed irrelevant. When he walked from the room, the first thing he saw was Zed. They'd walked to a hangar and climbed into the bubble to come here. The house was white, with a flat roof covered with solar panels; he'd seen that from the air. The chair was wooden; its edge hurt the back of his knees. Zed had put him in it, and told him to stay awake, and then had drawn his finger along the line of Dana's jaw, saying, “Remember.” He had walked into the garden.
 

Dana sat and shook on the embroidered cushion of the chair.
 

Zed and Rhani Yago came downstairs side by side.
 

Dana had expected something else in Rhani Yago: someone very old or very young, a freak, a monster. Rhani was her brother's height, and looked in the dim hall so like him that Dana wondered if they were twins. At Zed's gesture he stood up, swaying with weakness, and put out a hand to buttress himself against the wall.
 

Zed said, “Rhani, this is Dana.” He put an arm around her shoulders. “I'm going upstairs; I'll see you in the morning.” They hugged; Zed went up the broad staircase without looking at Dana. His absence made it easier to breathe. Rhani Yago wore black pants and a red shirt; her eyes, like Zed's, were amber.
 

Dana bowed to her, awkwardly. He had never bowed before. She did not look monstrous. Wealth could buy longevity in the form of drugs; she could be any age, thirty or ninety or two hundred, but she looked ten years Dana's senior, no more.
 

“When did you eat last?” she said. She had a low voice, not unlike Zed's.
 

Dana tried to remember when he had last had a meal. “I don't know,” he said.
 

“Stay here,” she ordered, and vanished through a swinging door. Dana leaned on the wall, wondering how long he could stand before he fell over. All his bones hurt, and his knees wobbled.
 

Suddenly she was back with a tray: on it were a plate, a glass, and food. He smelled meat and cheese and the aroma of fresh bread. “Sit down, man!” she said. “Here.” He sat, and she laid the plate on his knees. His stomach rumbled. He took a piece of meat. “Eat slowly, or you'll get sick,” she warned him. He made himself take small bites. He ate two pieces of meat, a hunk of bread, a slab of cheese. Abruptly he could not eat any more.
 

She watched him eat, standing.
 

“Thank you,” he said, adding, “I don't know what to call you, I'm sorry.”
 

“You're welcome. My title is Domna. But the folk of the house call me Rhani-ka. You may, too.” She rubbed her chin. Her hair was longer and finer than her brother's, and she wore it pulled back from her face in a thick braid. He wondered if she were like her brother in other ways.
 

“How old are you?” she said.
 

“Twenty-four,” he answered.
 

Surprise crossed her face. “Young to be a Starcaptain. How long have you had your medallion?”
 

The phrase hurt. “Eight months Standard,” he said. And added, “I trained to be a pilot first.”
 

“How long is your contract for?”
 

“Ten years,” he said, What had Zed told her about him?
 

She glanced toward the swinging door. Dana looked, too. A shadowy figure stood there. “Amri—if Binkie's awake, ask him to come here.” The figure disappeared. Dana wondered who Binkie was, and if she/he were a slave, and if so, why Rhani Yago said “ask” of a slave. She had brought the food for him herself, too.
 

The door swung aside for a slender, fair-haired man. He looked curiously at Dana Ikoro.
 

“Binkie's my secretary. I couldn't do a thing without him. Bink, this is Dana. Zed brought him from the Net. Find him a bed and some clothes, and take some time tomorrow to show him the house.”
 

“Yes, Rhani-ka,” said Binkie. He beckoned to Dana. “Come with me.” Dana stood up. His legs felt leaden. He bowed to Rhani Yago again. They went through the swinging door, into a metal-and-wood kitchen, and into a hall flanked with paneled doors. Dana was reminded of the Net.