The Sardonyx Net Part 41

She filled a second gla.s.s. She was still wearing green, but she had pulled her hair back. She patted the sawhorse, and, gingerly, he seated himself beside her. "What are you doing?" she asked.

"Fixing a flicker in the bubble's skin. Trying to fix it," he amended. He found his s.h.i.+rt and put it back on.

"I thought you were a medic and a pilot," she said.

"I am. But I've watched engineers. I used to think someday I'd go back to Nexus, maybe pick up engineer's training."

She said, "I've never been to Nexus. I've seen holos of it, though. I'd like to go someday."

"Do you like cities?" he asked.

"Not especially."

"Then you won't like Nexus. Except for the Flight Field, Nexus is all city, and the parts that aren't city are flat and covered with grain. No mountains. There's an ocean or two, but even the oceans have been turned into kelp and fish farms. Imagine a city covering half a continent -- that's Nexus.

And only a small portion of that is Port City."

"Nexus Compcenter, where the stars.h.i.+ps are," she said. "I'd like to see them."

"The Net's a stars.h.i.+p."

"That's not the same. Tell me about them?"

Pleased, he described Port City, the bubbles on their cables, the movalongs, the Bridge -- Nexus' aerial walkways for foot traffic -- casting shadows on the tree-lined streets. He described the Flight Field, which stretched for kilometers into the continent's interior. She sat with her hands in her lap and her head canted slightly to one side, listening. They finished the fruit drink. Leaving the hangar, they went outside and walked in the dusk. A dragoncat slinked to stroll beside them. "Thoth," said Zed. The great cat permitted Zed to scratch the ruff of his neck. But when Darien touched his flank, the cat sidled from her fingers.

"They all do that," she said. "They just don't seem to like me."

"Undiscriminating beasts," Zed said.

The dragoncat's tail twitched. He leaped away, offended.

The sweat on Zed's chest and clothes dried as they walked beneath the shadows of the trees. He took his s.h.i.+rt off again and left it, with a grin of mischief, hanging on a tree branch. Timithos would find it and bring it in. He reached behind for a middle-of-the-back itch. "I'll do it," said Darien, without subservience. "Hold still." They stood beside the bitter-pear as she scratched his back.

She laid her fingers on his left shoulder. "What's this?"

"The mark?" It was arrow-shaped, two centimeters wide. "I was born with it."

"On Enchanter," she murmured, "we get such imperfections fixed."

Her fingers were cool in his skin. Turning around, he reached for her hand, held it. "On Chabad," he said, "we are not so neat." They walked slowly along the slate paths, linked hands swaying between them. Darien was silent. He wondered: Was she waiting for him to speak? The silence might have been uncomfortable; it wasn't. He watched her, marveling at her composure. She didn't look nervously at him, or fidget, or pull away from his touch, or stride ahead of him, or pace.

In bed that night he pictured her lying in her room in the slaves' hall.

It would take no effort to call her through the intercom and summon her to him.

But -- that wasn't how he wanted it to happen. He kept seeing her in his imagination, laughing, smiling at him, touching him -- and running. He tossed.

He did not expect to get much sleep.

But in the morning, he awoke to morning sunlight and knew that he had slept, and slept well. He watched the sun pour over the skeleton's cranium. He felt lighthearted. It seemed almost disloyal. A clinking sound from the kitchens captured his attention, and he showered and dressed and hurried downstairs.

Darien was arranging egg tarts in a pattern on a tray.

"You don't have to do that," he said.

Immeld, fussing at a drawer, straightened and glared at Darien, a resentful, puzzled stare. Already, he realized, he had stopped thinking of the girl as a slave. It was bound to create friction in the household. He didn't care. Picking up four tarts, two in each hand, he said, "Forget the tray, I don't want to eat indoors anyway. Come outside."

Timithos had set the sprinklers going, but they found a dry place in the gra.s.s. The arcs of water surrounded them with rainbows. They ate. "These are good," Darien said.

"Have you never eaten egg tarts before?" he said, licking his fingers clean of the thick sweet filling. A dragoncat poked its head out of the bushes, more than willing to help. But when it scented Darien, it sniffed and glided away.

"No," she said, watching the cat vanish into the shrubbery. "Are they native to Chabad?"

"The cats? No. They're a product of the Enchanter labs." As he said it, he realized how stupid it was of him to mention her homeworld. Her face had gone stiff. He had not wanted to cause her pain. "I'm sorry," he said.

She shook her head. "Talk to me."

"About what?"

"Anything."

"All right." He talked about the Clinic. Remembering her profession, he described the surgical computers -- those marvelous machines which enabled the parameters of an injury to be mapped out even before the surgeons saw it -- and discovered that she had programmed clinical computers on Enchanter but had never seen the results of her work. "That's ridiculous," Zed said, indignant. "They should at least have invited you to attend an operation."

"I've seen holos."

"It's not the same," he said. "Would you like to fly with me to Abanat sometime, come to the surgery, as my guest?"

Her face lit with pleasure. "Yes. I would like that."

This time, when they rose to return to the house, she did not shy away from his touch when he offered to help her to her feet.

In the afternoon he took her for a ride in the defective bubble. As she drank in the terrible aridity of Chabad's hills, her eyes grew bright with wonder. He flew northward to show the nearest green spot, which was Family Levos' estate. The opaqueing mechanism's failure finally made the interior of the bubble too hot for the cooling unit to cope with, and they headed back. They ate dinner in the kitchen together. He wanted her to sit with him in the evening, but there did not seem to be a place -- he did not want her in his bedroom. Finally he told Cara to have Timithos remove the table and chairs from the dining alcove and fill it with cus.h.i.+ons and two big armchairs. He sat in one chair; Darien in the other. She read Nakamura's _History_.

Zed read a book he had forgotten he owned, about ice climbing -- the more traditional sort -- on Ley. Immeld left food and drink where they could get it, and she and Cara retired. Zed had no doubt they would spend the rest of the evening discussing him. He was getting a little tired of Immeld's sour faces.

Darien sat cross-legged in the big blue chair, soft red hair hiding her features as she read. Zed found himself looking up from the viewer to watch her. Every once in a while she asked a question about Nakamura's a.s.sertions. She kept checking the index.

"What are you looking for?" he asked.

She blushed. "I was reading the parts about your Family," she confessed.

Zed laughed. "Nakamura doesn't think much of us."

She said, "It's interesting -- what he says."

He was midway through an account of a Cla.s.s 5 climb on Ley's Karhide Glacier, when the intercom began to spout a regular _beep-beep-beep_. Cara came to the alcove. "That's the com-unit," she said. "Do you want me to answer it, Zed-ka?"

"No." Turning off the viewer, he rose, beckoning to Darien. "I'll go." He walked to the stairs. Darien followed him.

Timidly she said, "What do you think it is?"

He smiled at her. "Nothing too disturbing," he said. "It's almost certainly my sister. Now you can see how much you look like her."

At the half-open door he stopped, suddenly apprehensive. The shadowed empty room seemed terrible, redolent of mystery. Irritated with himself, he jerked the door aside and stepped in, flicking on the light. It was Rhani's room, it smelled of her, that was all.... And before that, it had been his mother's room. Darien turned in a circle, looking with admiration at the richly textured curtains, the thick kerit skin rug, the blue walls. Against one wall the com-unit beeped plaintively.

Zed went to it and touched the keys. The display screen glowed: CALL FROM RHANI YAGO TO COMMANDER ZED YAGO, it said.

Zed pressed the accept key. Rhani's face appeared on the screen. She was smiling. She looked very severe; her hair was tied so tightly that he could see strain lines about her eyes. "Good evening, Rhani-ka," he said.

"Good evening, Zed-ka," she answered. "How was your trip? Are you well?"

"My trip was fine," he said, "and I am very well."

"Is the estate intact?"

"It is," he said gravely. He saw Dana at her elbow, a dark blue shadow, and behind him a smaller figure whom he took to be Imre. He wondered if she could see Darien. He stole a quick look behind him. Darien had retreated several meters back, well away from the reach of the camera. She was staring at the screen.

"Are you well?" he asked.

"Fine. I will be coming home soon, I think. Within three or four days. I am still waiting to be contacted by our Enchantean visitor."

Loras U-Ellen, he thought. He wondered if Dana had indeed made the connection he claimed. But that was not what his lie had covered. Zed was sure of that. Uneasily he thought: Maybe I should have forced him to tell me.... "And how is Ferris Dur, Rhani-ka?" he said.

A frown skating across her face for a moment warned him that she did not want to talk about Ferris Dur, probably because Imre was present. "As far as I can tell, he is well," she said. "Zed, Imre has received some interesting news, which we both desired to share with you. It seems that Michel A-Rae's replacement has been chosen. She's on her way here from d.i.c.kson's World. Her name is Cat Graeme. Do you know anything about her?"

Zed drew a breath. "d.i.c.kson's World? You're sure?"

"That is what Imre's informant says." "d.i.c.kson's World," he said, "is a mercenary planet. Its citizens -- a high percentage of them anyway -- hire out to other worlds as bodyguards, police officials, and leaders of government forces. You remember the civil war on China III about a decade ago? The government hired a small group of folk from d.i.c.kson's World to put it down. They did, in six weeks. But I've never heard of one of them working for the Federation before."

Rhani was nodding. "And Cat Graeme?"

He shrugged. "I don't know her, but the Graeme clan is a powerful and respected one."

"Hmm. I see," she said. "Have you seen the PINsheets, Zed-ka?"

"No," he said. "Why, what's happened?"

"Referendum Momentum Diminished!" she declaimed. "The PINsheeters spread the news of A-Rae's criminal behavior all over the headlines, and now no one wants to sign the pet.i.tions."

"Then there may be no referendum at all," Zed said.

"Exactly. Perhaps a certain proposition which you and I have discussed -- " she paused, and he nodded, knowing she was talking about the possible legalization of dorazine traffic by the Federation, "will never have to be made."

He scowled, thinking of what he knew of the folk of d.i.c.kson's World.

"Rhani-ka," he said, "the mercenaries of d.i.c.kson's World are d.a.m.nably efficient.

If one of them has been named to head the drug detail, she won't do a halfway job. She may even finish what A-Rae, in his fanaticism, began."

"Another fanatic?" Rhani said.

"No. They aren't fanatics. But they do what they're hired for."

Rhani was scowling. "I see," she said. "Yes. That changes things."

Reluctantly, Zed said, "Rhani-ka, do you want me to come to Abanat?" He heard Darien move at his back. He glanced at her; she was shaking her head.

"No," Rhani said. Darien sighed. "You look rested. Stay there, and I will join you as soon as my business here is done. If Cat Graeme arrives, perhaps we can meet, and reach some kind of understanding." She smiled. "Good night, Zed- ka. I miss you."

"I will see you soon," he said. The screen blanked. Zed stared at it a moment. Darien glided to his side. He smelled the scent of her, unforgettable as the bitter-pear.... Reaching out, he rubbed the screen with one finger.

"What do you think?" he said.

Darien's shoulders hunched as she put her hands in her pockets. "Yes,"

she said. "I see what you mean."

They separated on the landing. Darien, without a word, went down the stairway to the slaves' hall. Zed went to his room. Seeing Rhani had brought the tension back. He stripped. The hanging skeleton cast a web of shadows across the room. He had left the city stupidly forgetting to replace his medikit; he would have to raid the supplies in the cellar storeroom if he needed a drug to help him sleep.

Someone tapped on the door. He called, "Come in."

He supposed it was Cara. But when the door slid back, he saw that it was Darien. Before he could stop her, she came inside the room and slid the door closed. She wore a long gold gown. Her hair crackled. She stepped toward the bed, one hand reaching toward him. "Please don't tell me to go away."

"What are you doing here?" he said.

She looked around for a chair, saw none, and sat delicately at the foot of the wide bed. She laced her hands together in her lap, unlaced them, smoothed her hair, touched her cheek with both hands as if testing to see if they were hot.... "Yesterday you said I might think of myself as a companion."

"Yes."

She leaned forward with that too-direct look again. "Then I would like to sleep with you," she said. His heart began to beat double-time. He felt flushed. He touched his cheek with his hand, her gesture. His mouth dried with the adrenalin rush.

Detachedly he wondered why his body perceived the request as a threat. "No."

He expected her to say, "Why not?" She didn't. She rested her open hands in her lap and looked at him. Then she said, "They're true: the stories they tell in the Barracks."

"I don't know which ones they told you."

"I expect they're all the same."

"They're true."

She bit her lip, and then her mouth relaxed. She said, "I don't believe it."

He said, "Then you're a fool."

"I'm not a fool. I've been with you for two days, long days. I haven't seen you do one cruel thing."

"You should talk to Cara."