The Sardonyx Net Part 6

"What world was that on?" she asked. "Pellin." He gazed at the rolling westward slope of hills. "This is beautiful."

"I think so. It was built by my Grandmother Orrin. Family Yago was the first Family to live away from Abanat. Now all the Families have private estates in the hills, but this is the oldest. I try to keep it green."

"I'd heard Chabad was a dry world."

"It is," said Rhani. She pointed at the trees. "This estate is tiny. It's a pocket of green on a hill. The water to keep it green is piped here from Abanat. The green ends at a wall. You can't see the wall through the trees, but it's there. Outside the wall, the land is waterless. The gate is that way." She jerked her thumb back toward the front of the house. "No one will stop you from walking through it, but if you do, you'll either return or die. The heat will kill you in half a day, and it's a three-day walk to Abanat."

"Has anyone tried it?"

Rhani said, "Everyone tries." It wasn't really true. But she hoped he believed her; she hoped he would not try it. Unhappily, she remembered the time two years back when Binkie _had_ tried it. She wanted to warn Dana. But if she said Zed's name aloud, his face would go tight. She was sure of it.

The mother dragoncat wandered onto the terrace. Scenting a stranger, it froze, growling its odd musical growl. The fur on its back and tail rose. "Stop that!" commanded Rhani. She held out a hand. "Come here, Isis." The cat glided to her. Dana stood very still. "Friend, Isis. Friend." She stroked the cat until its fluffed fur went down. "Hold out your hand." Dana held his hand out, palm up. The cat sniffed it. "This is Isis. She's the oldest. I let her stay in the house a lot; she's stiff, and partially blind. But she can still smell. She's mother to Thoth, Horus, and Typhon."

Isis's tail switched lazily back and forth. She rubbed her head on Dana's thigh. "What is she?" he said.

"A dragoncat. _Felis draco_; bred in the Enchanter labs. Dragoncats are twice as smart as the best guard dogs. Now that she knows you, she'll tell the other three how you smell so that when they meet you they won't tear you into little bits and pieces."

"How can she do that?"

"The labs breed them with rudimentary, species-selective telepathy.

They're expensive."

"I'll bet," he said, stroking Isis's triangular head.

Rhani said, "When my brother told me about you last night, he suggested you become my pilot. Can you do that?"

He said, "I was trained for it."

"Good. I don't spend my life in constant travel, though. I may ask you to do other things."

He smiled. He had a good smile. "I'll make a poor cook or secretary, Rhani-ka."

"I'll remember that," she promised.

A door slid open from the other bedroom. Zed stepped onto the terrace.

Rhani felt Dana stiffen beside her. The dragoncat stopped purring. Her tail twitched. Slowly she backed away from him, fur rising. "Isis, no," Rhani said.

He must smell of fear, she thought.

Zed said, "Did you get answers to your questions, Rhani-ka?" He looked at Dana. Rea.s.suringly, Rhani laid a hand on Dana's bare arm.

He started from her touch as if her hand were made of ice, or acid.

"Yes," she said. "Dana was very useful. I agree with you. He'll make a good pilot."

"I'm glad you think so," Zed said. "Go downstairs," he said to Dana.

With a constrained, almost clumsy bow, Dana left the terrace. Rhani heard the sound of the sliding bedroom door. She gazed at the lovely patterns of the cool falling water, hands bunched in her pockets, back to her brother. "Rhani-ka."

She would not turn.

"Rhani, I'm sorry." Now she turned. "I said he was yours, yours he shall be." He made a face, a small-boy look, rueful and contrite. She reached to take his hand.

She could not stay angry with him. She never could. Her anger hurt him too much. "Let me tell you what he said," she offered.

*Chapter Four*

It soon became apparent to Rhani that there was nothing about Dana Ikoro she could say that her brother did not already know. Nevertheless, he listened patiently to her summary of the conversation. At the end of it, he said, "What are you looking for, Rhani-ka?"

She paced slowly around the bedroom. "I'm not sure," she said. "Chabad has to have dorazine, Zed-ka. I can't believe that _nothing's_ coming in. If I could just reach Sherrix.... Maybe she's gone underground."

"Too bad you can't use a direct line," said Zed. The problem with direct- line calls, of course, was that the computer kept records of them. They could be traced; with the right equipment, they could be overheard. "She might have had to leave Chabad unexpectedly."

"Frightened off by the Hype cops!" Rhani said. She scowled. "I wish I could think of something that would frighten off Michel A-Rae."

Zed said, "I suspect he's well protected, Rhani. Do you know what district Sherrix works from?"

"Hyper district," Rhani said. "How about some nasty accident? A broken leg?"

"I might be able to help."

"What?" Rhani said. "Break Michel A-Rae's leg?"

Zed frowned. "Rhani-ka -- "

Quickly, she said, "I'm teasing you, Zed-ka. You can help me reach Sherrix?"

He nodded. "Or find out where she is. You need someone who can walk through the Hyper district and not be out of place, someone who can ask questions without seeming to, someone who knows Hyper custom -- "

"My Starcaptain!" Rhani said.

But Zed shook his head. "I think not, Rhani-ka. He's newly a slave; he's not used to it yet. If he met a runner or some Hyper he knew, he might try to escape."

"I wouldn't want that," Rhani said. I _should_ tell him what happened to Binkie, she thought. He needs the warning. "You can't do it, Zed-ka?"

"No." He perched on the arm of her chair. "I'm not an outsider, but I'm too well known to be of use. No runner or dealer would discuss drug business with the Net commander. But there's Jo Leiakanawa, my second. Remember the year the Net had a pilferage problem? Some crew member was stealing dorazine -- "

"From the Net supplies," Rhani said, "and bringing it back to Abanat, where it was sold to dealers who turned around and resold it to Gemit or to the city, making a double profit. I remember. You sent me a 'gram from Enchanter."

"That was it. We never found out the ident.i.ty of the thief. But Jo talked to the dealers, and the stealing stopped."

Rhani said, "I could write to her." She frowned. "But even if I call the mail service to send a special bubble for the letter, it will sit in Abanat a day before it's delivered."

Zed said, "Even if you wrote to her, she might say no."

Rhani raised her eyebrows. "If _I_ asked her?"

Zed spread his hands; his voice grew apologetic. "I know, you're her employer. But she and I have worked together for so long, I think she thinks she's working for me." "But you said she might help."

"If _I_ asked her. I could fly back to Abanat and find her, request her to find Sherrix."

Something in his voice warned her. She walked to him and touched his thigh. "If you don't want to do it, Zed-ka, then don't."

He looked up at her, and then rested his right hand lightly on hers. "No, I'll do it. Not today, though. I'd like two more days with you."

The simple words reverberated in both their minds. Rhani looked away from his face. _Give us two more days!_ he had pleaded with their mother, the afternoon that Isobel had realized how truly close they had become and decided to separate them, and send Zed to Nexus, and Rhani to Sovka. He had been fifteen; Rhani, seventeen. I should have told her no, Rhani thought, tormented by an ancient guilt. I was older. We _should_ have stayed together. I _could_ have said I wouldn't go.

But she had not, and now it was long past, and Isobel was dead. If we had not separated, Zed would not have gone to Nexus, studied medicine, become a pilot, be what he is. She remembered him as he had been; gentle, loving, focus of her heart, as she was of his. So what if they had -- as Isobel feared they might -- gone to bed together? Who would it have hurt? While now ... But Rhani did not want to think about now. Zed was no longer gentle, and no longer the focus of her love.

"Two more days," she agreed. "And hurry back."

He smiled. "I won't linger in Abanat." He rose. "And now I'll let you be.

Your work doesn't stop just because I come home, and I know it."

"I wish it could," she said.

He walked to the door and turned back. "I don't suppose you ever heard from The Pharmacy about your offer to buy the dorazine formula."

She shook her head. "I don't see why they would want to sell. As long as it keeps making money -- "

"What if it were legal to transport dorazine inter-sector?" he said.

"Perhaps it's time to approach the Federation with that proposal."

"Not if Michel A-Rae is typical of current Federation att.i.tudes," Rhani said.

Zed said, "Do you think he is?"

Rhani shrugged. "How can we tell? They appointed him to the job." She sat in the wing chair. "I'm sick of him, Zed-ka. Go away, let me read that report you spent the morning telling me about."

He laughed, and went. For a moment, she was tempted to call him back, tell him to wait a week, a month, before leaving. But she told herself not to be silly, that the errand had to be done, and that he would come home soon.

She curled into the big wing chair. It was true that she had to work: she wanted to read the Net report, to review the minutes of the last Council meeting, to review the Federation directives on drug trade. And the latest mail delivery had contained five pages of closely handwritten material from the Yago Family spy at Gemit. Her mother, she thought, would never have wasted half a morning talking to a good-looking slave. Thinking of her mother suddenly made her think about her long-dead grandmother, Orrin Yago. Isobel had been a strong but cold woman, unyielding as the Abanat ice. Orrin had been pa.s.sionate, about Chabad at least. Isobel used distance to threaten and protect as other folk use force, ruling the Yago interests from the haven of the estate.

But Orrin had built the estate to remind her daughter and her daughter's children that there were other places in the universe. She had seen them. Isobel had not.

Domna Orrin Yago had fought the Federation of Living Worlds and won.

Before the construction of the Net, s.h.i.+ps from Belle, Sabado, Ley, and Enchanter had brought their prison populations to the Chabad slave pens, where the Chabadese drugged them and readied them for Auction. Then, as now, off-world tourists came to watch, t.i.tillated by a condition that their own laws would not permit. Some of them even purchased slaves, and took them back to those home worlds. They were shocked to discover that, on their worlds, their slaves were slaves no more.

Cries of fraud and double-dealing rose all the way to Nexus Compcenter, seat of the a.s.sembly of the Federation. By its own rules, the a.s.sembly was bound not to interfere with local regulations. But export of slaves from Chabad was a non-local concern. A bill was proposed in the a.s.sembly to ban slavery on Chabad, and the Chabad Council was invited to send a representative. They sent Orrin Yago. Rhani imagined her as she must then have been: a lean, small woman, deep- voiced, amber-eyed, her thick, short hair prematurely white. She would not, then, have needed her cane. She rode a stars.h.i.+p to Nexus -- she had never been offplanet before -- to listen to the heated debate. Finally, she rose to address the gathered representatives of fifty-six inhabited worlds.

Outside, in the trees, the birds were singing. Orrin Yago had never heard live birds.

"I propose this," she said. "Sector Sardonyx will retain the practice of slavery. However, we will severely limit the partic.i.p.ation of non-Chabadese. Any non-Chabadese wis.h.i.+ng to own a slave must agree to remain on Chabad for the duration of any slave contracts held by her/him. Slave contracts shall be null and void off Chabad. No slave may be removed from Chabadese soil. Only beings arrested and convicted of criminal activities within Sardonyx Sector may be subject to slavery, and only the worlds of Sardonyx Sector may offer prisoners to the slave auction, understanding that when they do so, these criminals, whatever their crimes, talents, and places of origin, may serve out their sentences to become citizens of Chabad with all due rights, privileges, and responsibilities."

Children in Abanat schools learned that speech by heart. So had Rhani.

She heard it now in her head. The debate had broken out again, still hot.

Slavery itself was illegal, considered immoral on many Federation worlds.

But the Federation had bound itself not to interfere with local custom, and the other worlds in Sardonyx Sector supported Chabad. They looked for Orrin Yago to tell her that she had won, and found her sitting on a bench in a dusty park, listening to the birds.

I'm like my mother, Rhani thought. I hide here; I hate to travel. I even hate Abanat.

But she was like Orrin Yago, too. Domna Sam had said so. "You learned to be a Yago from your mother," she whispered, leaning up on one elbow to stare at the younger woman out of her huge silken bed. "But you're not like Isobel.

You're like your grandmother, you even look like her, small and tough. You're like the sh.e.l.l of a nut, and inside the sh.e.l.l there's fire. Don't stare at me, girl! I know it's there, even if you don't. Someday you'll know it, and when you do, Rhani Yago, you'll be twice as hard and twice as dangerous as your mother ever was. Twice as dangerous as you are now, and now you're very dangerous. But not as much as I am. You remember that: the Dur crest is the axe, lifted to strike, and if you oppose the axe, it cuts."

She had rambled on, mumbling threats and promises, and Rhani had ceased to listen. Poor Domna Sam, she thought. She stretched. I wonder if she was right. If Michel A-Rae continues in his hostilities, I shall need to have the toughness of Orrin Yago.

She pictured herself in the a.s.sembly of Living Worlds on Nexus, requesting that the Federation legalize the sale of dorazine. She did not think they would agree to do it. There were too many people in the eight sectors who agreed with Michel A-Rae.

She glanced toward the secretary. "Binkie?"

He turned to her, attentive as always. "Yes, Rhani-ka."

"Have any reports about Michel A-Rae come in yet?" "Not yet, Rhani-ka."

"Please tell me when they do. What have you done about tracing the Free Folk of Chabad?" She made a face at the name.

"I wrote a letter of inquiry about them to the Abanat police."

"Thank you." She smiled her grat.i.tude at him. "You know, Bink, I think Family Yago would fall apart without you here."

He bowed his head, coughed, stammered something, and looked away.

"Let me have the Gemit report," she said. He fished among the papers and brought it to her. "_To Domna Rhani Yago_...." The handwriting was abominable.

She scowled at it, wis.h.i.+ng the Gemit spy could have taped his report. But the Gemit security forces undoubtedly would have discovered any tape.

She sighed, and drew her legs up in the chair. "Tell Cara I'll want lunch here," she said.

"Yes, Rhani-ka," said Binkie.

Sweet mother, Rhani thought, he's written on the back as well! "Binkie!"

she said. "Dinner too, probably."