The Sardonyx Net Part 12

Heat slapped at them, bouncing off the streets and slideways. "This is a market district," said Rhani. The street was bordered on both sides by painted booths and shops sporting striped awnings. A musician played a flute; two naked acrobats balanced on their hands.

"What happens to the luggage we brought with us?" Dana asked. He glanced around. There were people all about them.

"The porters deliver it. Binkie -- " Rhani turned. "You and Amri go on ahead."

"Yes, Rhani-ka," said Binkie. The pallid secretary and the excited girl pushed into the crowd.

Zed said, "Rhani, I have one quick errand to run. Shall I meet you at the house?"

"Yes." They embraced. Zed looked hard at Dana before he strode off.

_Remember_, said the look. Dana's nerves s.h.i.+vered like a plucked wire. He was not likely to forget. Three nights before they were due to leave for Abanat, Zed had come to his room. He had informed Dana that he was to be Rhani's bodyguard.

"_In Abanat, Rhani's going to need a bodyguard. Someone with quick reflexes and a fighter's skills, to escort her down the Boulevard, or to the park, or shopping_."

_"Yes, Zed-ka."_ "Binkie will tell you everything we know about her attackers. There isn't much. They call themselves the Free Folk of Chabad."

_"Yes, Zed-ka."_ "_On the Net, you told me you've had training in the fighting arts. And every Hyper I know has been in a few brawls. You'll manage_." He had stepped to the bedside. "_You'll more than manage_."

He had reinforced this command brutally and clearly with his hands.

Rhani thrust her arm through his: he jumped. "Come on."

"Where are we going?" He had to shout to be heard. All about them were laughing, calling people wearing red and orange and yellow and white, and just as many more wearing nothing. They all had black eyes. Rhani dragged him to a booth. She lifted something to her face. Now she had blackened eyes.

"Everyone wears sunshades in Abanat." She took a pair. "You'll need some too."

Wondering if it would not be simpler just to buy contacts, Dana picked up a pair of the primitive shades. They were bright yellow, huge and hideous.

Tossing them back, he picked out a plain design that wrapped around his ears and covered his eyes. He stared at himself in a mirror. He, too, had grotesquely blackened eyes. "Ugh," he said. "_Where_ are we going?"

Rhani said, "I want to visit a friend of mine."

The woman at the booth would not take Rhani's credit disc. "A gift, Domna. Only come back, and bring your friends." Rhani thanked her. The proprietor giggled with delight.

As they walked away, Rhani said, "That happens all the time."

"People know you?"

"Yes. I don't know why. I come to Abanat twice a year. Yet they all know my face in the markets." A group of musicians sauntered by. Dana grimaced at the clash of sounds. "Hungry?" She beckoned to a vendor and bought some food; meat wrapped in greens stuck on a wooden skewer. She offered Dana a bite. It was strange and tasty; spicy, and cold.

"That's good. What is it?"

"I don't know what the meat is. The sh.e.l.l is seaweed."

"Do all these people live here?" Dana asked.

"No." Rhani explained. She did not seem to mind his questions. "Most of these -- " she gestured into the street -- "are tourists. Some are residents; they live in Abanat two or three years till the taxes drive them out. Some, a few, are Chabadese citizens."

"What do they do?"

"Cater to the tourists, work in the markets, make things, entertain. Many of them are ex-slaves." They arrived at another shop-strewn square. Rhani marched toward a shop. It glittered with a display of miniature birds, horses, trees, fish, animals of all kinds, colorful and lovely, all of gla.s.s. Rhani went inside. Dana followed her. He took off his sunshades. The store was carpeted, cool, silent.

A tall, slim woman with gray hair came around the counter. She and Rhani kissed. "Welcome back to Abanat, Rhani-ka." Her skin was Cara's shade, milk- chocolate brown. "You look well."

"I am well. How are you? How is the shop?" Rhani turned in a circle.

"It's bigger than the other. Who's managing it for you?"

"I do the ordering and keep the accounts for both. Erlin does the day-to- day managing when I'm not here." While the two women talked, Dana drifted around the shop, looking at the miniatures. A calligraphed sign proclaimed them to be all handblown out of the finest Chabadese sand. He found one of a dragoncat and stooped to admire it.

A voice said, "May I a.s.sist?"

Dana straightened up. On the other side of the gla.s.s counter, a young man with a red tattoo on his arm stood smiling. "No, thank you," Dana said.

The young man continued to smile, mechanical as a floodlamp. "Our prices are quite compet.i.tive with the other market shops," he said. "All our miniatures are handblown -- "

More loudly than he'd intended, Dana said, "I don't want anything!"

The woman speaking with Rhani looked up. "It's all right, Jaime, he isn't a client." Jaime smiled and nodded. His pupils were wide and fixed. He blinked, and blinked, and smiled, as the gatekeeper at the landingport had smiled.

Dana swallowed, feeling cold and a little sick. Rhani was buying something, he could not see what. She embraced the woman again, and beckoned for him to precede her from the shop. Outside, a woman was reading a newsheet. He could just make out the headline: "FOUR FAMILIES GATHER IN ABANAT," it said. He had to swallow again before he could speak. "Who is that woman?" he asked.

"That's Tuli. She was cook at the estate. When her contract expired, she took her money and bought a shop. This is actually her second store. She's doing well."

None of this was what Dana wanted to know. "Who's Jaime?"

"Jaime?" Rhani frowned, brow wrinkling. "Oh, you mean the slave. I think she bought him last year at the Auction."

Dana said carefully, "Is he r.e.t.a.r.ded?"

Rhani was surprised. "No, of course not. By definition, only a person of full intelligence can commit a criminal act. The Net wouldn't even consider taking him. Ah -- "she rubbed her chin -- "you don't know. He was on dorazine, Dana. How odd. You're a drug smuggler, and yet you've never met anyone on dorazine."

Dana said, "I know what it does. It's a euphoric/tranquilizer."

"That's only a name," Rhani said. "It doesn't tell you what it feels like to be addicted."

"Do _you_ know?"

She looked thoughtful. "I've tried it." She glanced at him. "I've never told anybody that. It makes you feel wonderful. Whatever you're told to do seems absolutely fascinating, the most interesting task in the world. You don't ever feel tired. Oh, and it helps you forget the past. I suppose, if you take it regularly, you even forget that you're a slave. It makes you smile a lot."

"You don't use it on your own slaves."

"We use it on the slaves at Sovka. Never on house slaves."

That's me, Dana thought. She was watching him, and he realized belatedly that she was carrying a boxed, wrapped package, and that he was supposed to be carrying it for her. That's what slaves are for, he thought, to carry bags, and open doors, and push b.u.t.tons. It did not matter how mind-deadening the work got; after all, that was what dorazine was for. He held his hand out for the package.

He could not meet her eyes. He tried to imagine living five years, ten years, in a soft, euphoric, drugged haze. He gazed at the shops; the goods in them seemed garish, the people buying them seemed equally garish, tasteless, _ugly_, tourists and slaves alike smiling the same wide, meaningless smiles.... Disgust cloaked guilt; irony burned a bitter taste on his tongue. For the first time, he felt justice in the turn of the wheel that had made him a slave.

He collected himself. He had stopped in the middle of the street, forcing people to eddy around him, keeping Rhani waiting. "I'm sorry," he managed to say. Rhani did not comment, and he wondered how much his face had given away.

They went swiftly now through a maze of streets till they arrived at what looked like a park: a lawn, fountains, green trees. It was barred from the street by an iron fence which was broken by a booth, a gate. "This," said Rhani, "is Founders' Green. This is the first park the Families made when the ice was towed from the poles." The smiling woman in the booth let them through the gate.

The trees here were old and huge, older than the trees on the Yago estate. But the land was flat, the gra.s.s trimmed, not wild, and the bushes silent: there were no birds. Dana remembered Pellin's sky, her rocky cliffs thick with birds.

In one section of the park, a small fountain poured water from ledge to ledge in controlled cataracts. People sat on benches, or strolled on the lawn.

"Domna Rhani!" A woman sitting on a bench leaped up. Dana tensed as she scurried toward them, blocking the way. She wore a flimsy, tentlike, sheer garment; she had a sharp face like a weasel's, and bright blue, bulbous eyes.

"How lovely to see you! I said to my household only this morning that it was certainly time for Cousin Yago to come to the city, but I didn't expect to see you walking in the park _today_. Is your brother with you? We are all looking forward to the Auction, oh, my, yes. Abanat is filled with tourists: they are ruder than usual, my dear, be careful where you go. I was jostled on the street just the other day. But I am sure they do not treat a _Yago_ that way. Shall you come to the parties? There is a party at Family Kyneth's in two days -- or is it three days -- and one at Family Dur's in three -- or is it four days? -- but why am I telling _you_ this when all the invitations are waiting for you in your house, oh, my, yes. I'm detaining you, look at me; you must be tired, flying all that way from your beautiful estate. Do commend me to Cousin Zed."

"Thank you, Charity," said Rhani. The woman beamed. As they pa.s.sed her, she stared at Dana, a look of such desperate, clinical interest that he blushed.

After a while, Rhani laughed.

"Who the h.e.l.l is she?" Dana demanded.

"Charity Diamos. She is a cousin of Family Yago, and a horrible old b.i.t.c.h. She waylays people in the park and at parties so she can talk to them.

Her household consists of five old women just like herself. In a few hours the news will be all over Abanat that Rhani Yago has bought herself a handsome young slave, 'Oh, my, yes!'" She imitated Charity Diamos' breathy gabble. "I suppose it's better for you to look like a wh.o.r.e than a bodyguard." She pointed ahead of them through the trees. "There's the house." Dana looked, expecting to see a house like the others that lined the Abanat streets, white or yellow or pale blue or rose, with upturned corners and ornate gates, but bigger. Instead, he saw a house like a block of stone, gray and huge. They had to negotiate a second gate to get to it.

A man stood on the front steps, in front of the open doorway. He had a white, full-moon face topping a fleshy frame. He had no hair. He wore sunshades.

He bowed to Rhani. "Corrios." Rhani stretched to her toes, and, to Dana's surprise, kissed the man's white cheek. "This is Dana. Zed bought him from the Net to be my pilot. Dana, this is Corrios Rull, steward of the Yago house in Abanat. He doesn't talk much but he knows everything. Is all in order?"

The huge albino nodded.

"Is Zed here? Not yet? But Amri and Binkie have arrived. Dana, Corrios will show you where you can sleep."

The house was cool. It smelled musty. The ceiling arches seemed set very high. Lamps hung from iron hooks screwed into dark, wooden beams. A faded tapestry lined one wall of the entranceway. Corrios' hand fell on Dana's shoulder. "Come." The way was familiar: through a kitchen to a corridor lined with doors. Dana realized that this house and the house on the estate had been planned the same, or rather, that this house was the original from which the house in the hills had been duplicated. "Yours," said the albino, motioning to a door. Dana looked in. The room had a tapestried wall and a kerit skin rug on the floor. He shrugged. He had nothing with him to mark it with. His clothing and the auditor with the box of tapes were packed amid the rest of the Yago belongings.

The upstairs, too, was cool. The stone walls of the old house kept individual rooms private and isolated. Rhani went to her bedroom. There was a pile of mail on her desk; Binkie sat at the computer console. She glanced through the papers. Most of them were social. She opened the one from Family Dur. It was an invitation to a gathering to be held -- untraditionally enough -- in the morning, lasting through noon, at Dur house one day prior to the Auction.

She would have to go to that, and to the party given by Family Kyneth, but she could, if she wanted, skip any others. After the Auction, Family Yago would host a gathering. "Binkie."

The secretary looked up.

"Accept the usual party invitations for us. You'll have to remind me of them. And you might as well begin to make arrangements for the Yago party. We'll hold it six days after the Auction. Hire a calligrapher to do the invitations."

Binkie nodded, unflurried. "Yes, Rhani-ka."

Rhani hid the package from Tuli's in the headboard of her bed. She had ordered it months ago on her last visit to the city. It was for Zed: a sculpture in gla.s.s, a special gift. She would give it to him next Founders' Day.

Amri brought in an immense tray, filled with cakes, candies, cheese, ice b.a.l.l.s, treats to tempt the most tired palate. "Rhani-ka," she puffed, "the bags are here. Corrios is bringing them upstairs now."

"Good." Rhani went into the bathroom. She was hot from the flight and dirty from the street; she wanted a shower. Amri brought her a robe. Unbraiding her hair, she stepped under the spray. She ran it hot, and then turned it to cold. The washroom mirrors were steamy. She turned on the fan. Pulling the robe around her, she went into the bedroom, letting her wet hair hang loose.

Zed was there. Binkie was not. Rhani sat on the bed to towel her hair.

She smiled at her brother. "Did you get your errands done?"

He did not immediately answer. He lifted a hand to touch her damp cheek.

"You should wear your hair down more often."

"It's too much trouble."

He held out a wrapped and ribboned box on the palm of one hand. "For you."

"Zed-ka, you shouldn't!" She took it from him. She debated giving him the sculpture now, and decided to wait. She shook it. Nothing rattled. Pulling apart the wrapping, she lifted up the lid. Nestled in cotton lay a small golden cylinder decorated with thin jade stripes. She picked it out of the box.

"Careful," said Zed. He took it from her. "It's not what you think it is."

"What is it?"

"I had a h.e.l.l of a time finding it. See this b.u.t.ton on one end?" He turned it to show her a small gold b.u.t.ton. "Press it firmly and a stun dart shoots out the other end, into whomever you point it at. Normal finger pressure won't trigger it. There's a matching chain in the box, so you can hang it around your neck." He lifted a gold chain from the box. Clipping the chain to the cylinder, he fastened it around her neck. It hung coldly between her b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

Somewhat repulsed, she went to the wall mirror and stared at it.

"It looks like a pendant." She touched it with cautious fingertips. "Is it legal?"

"No," Zed said calmly. "But if you have to use it, I doubt that'll make a difference."

"Where can you buy such things?"

"In the Hyper quarter." He glanced around the room. "Where's Dana?" Rhani shrugged. She rolled the cylinder between her fingers. The chain stretched. She pretended to take aim. "He's supposed to stay with you!"

"Not in the house, Zed-ka." "Even in the house." Zed swerved to the wall speaker and said Dana's name into it. Dana answered. "Come upstairs." Zed swung around. "Have you had a chance to talk to Corrios yet? He needs to know about the bombing. I want this house locked tight."

Rhani felt herself getting annoyed. "I haven't had time to talk to Corrios. I went to Tuli's shop, I bought some sunshades, and I met Charity Diamos crossing the park. I p.i.s.sed, and showered. That's all I've done."

Zed looked contrite. "I'm sorry. I don't mean to rush you, Rhani. But I'm not going to stop worrying about your safety, especially when you don't seem to want to worry about yourself." Dana appeared at the door. "I want _you_ where Rhani can reach you, even in the house. If that means sleeping on the floor outside her door, you do that. Understand?"

"Yes, Zed-ka," said Dana. He shrank back as Zed walked toward him.

Zed said, "I'll talk to Corrios. Then I'm going to the landingport. Those d.a.m.n moronic porters lost the bag with my ice climbing equipment in it. They did the same thing last year, and it took a week to find it."

He clattered down the stairs. Rhani looked at Dana; his face was white.

Her irritation with her brother spurted up again. What did he think he was doing, turning her slaves into zombies? Dana had proved his loyalty by saving her life. "Look at this." She touched the cylinder hanging over her heart. "Do you know what it is? If I press this b.u.t.ton, the other end shoots stun darts.

Zed was hunting for it in the Hyper quarter while you and I were listening to Charity Diamos." She stepped back, aimed, and pretended to press the b.u.t.ton.

"Pfft. No more Charity."

Dana's look lightened. "That would be no loss." He lifted the cylinder by the chain. "I've seen such things before." His fingers brushed her throat. She liked the touch. "I've never seen one of gold."

"Zed probably found the only gold one in Abanat."